CES: Samsung announces big TVs, 80-inch PDP model

Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday a range of big-screen, flat-panel televisions that make use of some of the latest advances in display panel technology.

The sets, which are scheduled to be shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week improve on previous models both in terms of screen size and also picture quality. All offer high-definition resolution and some take advantage of new backlight technologies that, the company says, produces a picture with richer, fuller colors than previous sets.

In terms of screen-size, Samsung launched what it said is the world's largest commercial Plasma Display Panel (PDP) television. The HPR8072 has an 80-inch PDP screen and will be available in the middle of the year.

Samsung and fellow South Korean-electronics maker LG Electronics have been locked in a 'mine is bigger than yours' PDP television competition for over a year and are regularly besting each other with bigger screens. LG has led Samsung since November, when it launched a 71-inch model in South Korea.

To be winning in this race is somewhat symbolic -- the sets end up costing so much money that few people can afford them. Samsung's provisional price for the set is $40,000 while the recently launched LG model, some parts of which are coated with 24-carat gold paint and which ships with a digital tuner and audio system, costs around $75,000.

Relatively more affordable, although still expensive, are several other televisions announced by Samsung.

In terms of screen size, two sets stand out:

The LNR570D has a 57-inch screen and that makes it, according to Samsung, the largest consumer LCD high-definition television in the market. It will be available in June and will cost around $16,000. The second set is the HLR5688W 67-inch projection TV. Samsung says it's the largest set available based on Texas Instruments' DLP projection screen and also the first DLP set to offer a 1,080 lines resolution progressive-scan display. It will go on sale in February and will cost around $5,000.

Several other models serve to highlight some recent advances in the flat-panel display space. In the early stages of the flat-panel market much attention was paid to screen size but now sets are available at sizes to satisfy almost everybody so more work is going into improving the picture quality.

One area where this work is going on is in the backlight. As its name suggests, a backlight sits behind an LCD panel and provides light, which is projected though the panel to make it easily visible to users. By improving the quality and uniformity of the light the displayed image can be improved.

Samsung's LNR460D 46-inch LCD set uses LEDs for its backlight and the result is a much richer picture. The set can produce colors equivalent to 105% of the NTSC standard compared to 72% for an average LCD panel, said Samsung. The set is scheduled to go on sale in May and will cost around $13,000.

The set is similar to a television announced in August last year by Sony. Its Qualia 005 TV uses a 46-inch panel from Samsung and also an LED backlight.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.