Jay Peters
Hisense’s CES 2024 presentation starts soon.
It kicks off at 12PM ET, and you can watch the livestream on YouTube. Right now, it features some great muzak.
TVs
You can watch movies and shows from Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and other services on a smartphone or a tablet, but a dedicated TV will always be something special. It’s the centerpiece of your living room, and the only display that you can truly cozy up to on the couch for hours on end. If you want to get more out of your purchase, you can make it even better with a powerful sound system and by hooking up a few game consoles, like the Nintendo Switch, PS4, or Xbox One. The latest 4K (and soon, 8K) displays from Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, and more deliver enhanced visual quality, better value, and smart features that you can’t find on other screens outside of your local cinema. If you’re looking for the latest TV news, how-tos on optimizing your home theater setup, and reviews for OLED and LCD TVs, you’ve come to the right place.
Emma Roth
New LG TVs will come with Chromecast built in.
During the LG press conference at CES, Google VP of engineering Erik Kay took the stage to announce that LG TVs released in 2024 will now come with Chromecast. That means you’ll be able to cast videos, music, games, and more from your phone to your TV.
Wes Davis
Get ready to watch LG’s livestream at 11AM ET.
LG announced its CES 2024 lineup already, and it will be less about TVs and much more about AI this year. There will be TVs, though. Plenty of them.
Here’s the livestream, and of course you can keep up with the rest of our CES 2024 coverage right here.
Thomas Ricker
Samsung’s got its own transparent display.
Unlike LG’s transparent OLED TV, Sammy’s transparent MicroLED display is still just a prototype, but CES 2024 is the first time Samsung is showing it in public.
As a reminder, MicroLED — first seen in “The Wall” at CES several years ago — has many of the same benefits as OLED (like self-lit pixels) without the organic downsides or chance of burn-in. But MicroLED is still too expensive despite the seamless panels getting smaller and more TV-like in recent years.
The Signature OLED T is a 77-inch TV with a very unique gimmick. But it’s hard to imagine the pricey novelty wouldn’t wear off over time.
Chris Welch
Thomas Ricker
LG’s transparent TV is no longer just a prototype.
The Signature OLED T — T for transparent — is a new 77-inch 4K TV that’ll go on sale later this year. It’s not the best TV for the money, but this is something you’d buy just because you can.
Chris Welch, Allison Johnson and 5 more
Chris Welch
For the second year in a row, Sony won’t have new TVs at CES.
Sony is no longer abiding by the industry norm of announcing its latest and greatest TVs at CES each year.
The company skipped Vegas and waited until last March to introduce its 2023 lineup. And even then, the lauded A95 QD-OLED TV didn’t actually ship until the fall. Sony is clearly working on a much different timeline than other TV makers these days.
So it should come as no surprise that Digital Trends’ Caleb Denison is reporting that new TVs won’t be part of Sony’s CES 2024 presence. It sounds like the company has made some impressive Mini LED backlighting advancements that will appear in upcoming models — whenever they’re ready.
Sony is still holding a press conference on January 8th, so maybe we’ll get another look at Afeela at this year’s show.
Richard Lawler
LG’s bringing a 98-inch QNED Mini LED to CES 2024, and a promise for webOS upgrades.
We’ll have more news about LG’s 2024 TV lineup (including new OLEDs) once it’s all revealed in Las Vegas, but the most intriguing part of this pre-CES press release is a guarantee of future smart TV software updates, similar to what we’ve seen recently on phones like Google’s Pixel 8 series:
With the webOS Re:New program,* LG is offering an upgrade to the latest version of its webOS smart TV platform to give more smart TV owners the most up-to-date user experience for the next five years. This notable offer comes to LG QNED Mini LED 8K models launched in 2022 (QNED99 and QNED95 series) and will be extended to additional models in the QNED TV lineup worldwide in the future.
A footnote mentions, “...this upgrade does not cover the TV’s hardware performance, features or durability,” so we’ll have to find out what it does cover in a few days.
Correction December 28th, 12:30PM: An earlier version said Mini OLED, the TVs mentioned are Mini LED. We regret the error.
Nilay Patel
Lots of people are going to unwrap Frame TVs tomorrow, and lots of people will idly consider the auto-rotating wall mount.
We bought a 50-inch Frame for our bedroom since the middling picture quality isn’t an issue for a TV that will mostly be in Art Mode, but if we could have fit a 55 I would have been so tempted by the silly motorized mount that rotates it from landscape to portrait automatically. This wire wrapping and AC adapter situation is a little ridiculous, though?
Chris Welch
Vizio’s latest TV software update is all about speed, speed, speed.
Earlier this year, Vizio totally overhauled its TV software — yes, again. And now the company is rolling out a secondary update that’s meant to substantially speed up the reworked Vizio Home interface.
The company’s press release claims that powering on TVs should now be twice as fast. But these latest optimizations also extend to app load times, switching between your favorite streaming services, and search results. All of it should feel speedier and more responsive once your TV pulls down the new update.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Tis the season to turn off motion smoothing.
At a party this weekend, a friend lamented having to turn off the motion smoothing on his parents’ TV because everything looked like it had been soaked in Vaseline. The scourge of motion smoothing is still with us. Be prepared!
Thomas Ricker
OLED TV sales slump for (un)Lucky Goldstar.
No Olympics, no World Cup, and everyone that wanted a giant 4K TV bought one while suffering at home with covid. Little wonder LG Display has posted six straight quarterly losses.
Brandon Widder and Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Alex Cranz
There’s a new Fire TV Soundbar.
It’s got Bluetooth and should work with all Fire TV products, no set up required. That’s a leg up on many other soundbars, which require at least a little time and navigating a few menus in an app to get up and running.
It’s available today for $119.99.
After publishing Amazon reached out to confirm that yes, the Soundbar will work with any smart TV via HDMI.
Alex Cranz
The Fire TV search demo is really cool, but the TV has motion smoothing on.
Please no one tell Tom Cruise, or he might vault into the building from 300 feet in the air to turn the motion smoothing off.
Amazon’s fall hardware event is taking place this week, and the company will undoubtedly be searching for its next big hardware hit. But how about making its existing hardware (and software) better?
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy