Samsung has announced which of its latest 4K and 8K Neo QLED television models will be part of its 2023 New Zealand line-up, set to be available from next month.
The Korean tech giant also confirmed its latest flagship OLED model, the S95C, will be coming to Aotearoa after winning serious praise at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year.
TechRadar's Al Griffin declared it the best TV he'd ever seen at the annual event, adding that it'll be "a knockout battle" between it and Sony's A95L for "best OLED TV in 2023".
The Verge also named the S95C the best TV of CES this year and it featured on CNET's round up of the most noteworthy tech at the show as well.
In addition to Sony's latest, Samsung's S95C will be competing against impressive new OLED models from LG and Panasonic.
Those rival brands got a head start as Samsung arrived late to the OLED market, having launched its first in New Zealand last year after previously selling only the less expensive QLED format, despite much experience in making OLED screens for mobile phones.
"Samsung felt the OLED product previously on offer didn't suit the TV viewing experience," Ryan Jolly, Head of TV Sales at Samsung NZ, told Newshub.
"Most consumers are changing phones every two to three years with their mobile contract, but they want to use their TV for significantly longer, generally around seven to ten years. We've been working on a single layer OLED panel fit for that purpose.
"Now we have a Samsung OLED we're very confident about, because it's powered by our quantum dots."
Quantum dot or QD technology has been used on Samsung's QLED models and now the company is confident it will give its OLED range an edge.
"We're getting colour production up to 2000 nits in peak brightness, which is significantly brighter than any of our competitors," said Jolly.
In Aotearoa, the S95C will come in three sizes: 55-inch with an RRP of $7000, 65-inch with an RRP of $7500 and 77-inch with an RRP of $13,000.
Samsung is also releasing its lower-priced S90C OLED line in New Zealand this year, which isn't as bright as the S95C line and lacks some of its features, such as the 144Hz refresh rate.
The new QLED models coming to Aotearoa include the 8K QN900C and the 4K QN90C, QN85C, Q80C, Q70C and Q60C.
Among them is a new size - a whopping 98-inch option for the Q80C model, for rooms big enough to handle it, in homes that can afford to spend the $15,000 launch RRP it's asking.
The new Samsung TVs will also be able to sync with Philips Hue lighting without extra hardware and continue to offer support for cloud gaming without a console for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.
