Ultra HD TV Pricing Collapses to $499 for 40-inch TCL Model

High prices as of Tuesday became less of an excuse for consumers postponing an Ultra HD TV purchase, as No. 1 TV maker Samsung confirmed $999 pricing for its HU6950 40-inch UHD TV due to ship later this month (CED May 27 p1) and second-tier brand TCL announced a 40-inch UHD TV for $499.

TCL, which turned heads last summer when it entered the UHD TV market with a sub-$1,000 model, made another bold pricing move Tuesday with UE5700 series, which includes the sub-$500 40-inch model and a 49-inch UHD TV for $599. Both models have HDMI 2.0 inputs that will be able to display 60 frame-per-second content in full UHD resolution, TCL said. First-generation TCL models were called out in the consumer press last year for not having HDMI 2.0 inputs and not being able to display a 60Hz frame rate. The new TCL models are slated for Q4 release.

TCL attributed its pricing model to its manufacturing scale. “Because of our scale of worldwide business, we are able to leverage technologies and production methods that our competitors simply cannot match,” said Chris Larson, vice president-sales and marketing, TCL North America. The company can invest in upconversion and backlight technologies “that are just not practical at a smaller volume,” Larson said.

TCL’s step-up UH9500 series of smart TVs includes 55- ($799), 65- ($1,299) and 85-inch ($7,999) models that tout a wide color spectrum backlight, an integrated HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding) decoder and built-in dual-band Wi-Fi for streaming 4K content from providers including Netflix, the company said.

Samsung, meanwhile, added an 85-inch UHD TV in the flat HU8550 series and added two more Ultra HD TV series -- one curved and one flat -- bringing its number of Ultra HD series to six in screen sizes ranging from 40 to 110 inches. Samsung’s 85-inch HU8550, which offers Ultra HD dimming that’s said to boost picture quality by processing each block of the picture to provide deeper blacks and better contrast, will ship this month at $9,999, Samsung said. Additional models in the series include the 50- ($2,499), 55- ($2,999), 60- ($3,499), 65- ($3,999) and 75-inch ($5,999) models.

In its curved HU7250 series, Samsung launched 55- ($2,199) and 65-inch ($3,299) models due in August. The HU7250 series has a five-panel Smart Hub design powered by a quad-core processor, Samsung said.

In addition to the $999 40-inch set, the HU6950 series of flat TVs includes a $1,499 50-inch unit and a $1,999 55-inch model. All are due late this month and have a quad-screen multi-link feature that allows consumers to split the screen into four panels “and dive deeper into their content,” Samsung said.

All of Samsung’s 2014 Ultra HD TVs support current standards -- including HEVC, HDMI 2.0, MHL 3.0 and HDCP 2.2 -- and are future-standard-ready via Samsung’s UHD Evolution Kit, the company said.