The entertainment and smart phone technologies are advancing
at a very rapid pace. The electronic devices we bought two years ago already
feel outdated. Although the electronics
we own may function just fine and do what we expect them to do, it is also in
our nature and desire to own the latest and greatest electronic gadgets that
are available in the market today. That is no exception when it comes to 4K
Display televisions and PC monitors.If you are anxious and cannot wait to get
your hands on a 4K TV, then here are our 5 points for your consideration. But before you decide to buy one, think is it worth it?
- The Price - At TheTechDigit.com we purchased a 4K TV for our lab so we can test our 4K videos and
pictures that we take with Smart Phones and DSLR cameras for our reviews. The good news, however, is the
prices for 4K TVs are coming down. Don’t be surprised that you can buy one at
probably a half of the price in a few months. Samsung, Sony, and LG have already come up with 4K Tvs with UHD Up-scaling capabilities that coverts normal 1080p content to 2K quality.
- The Content – Currently there are not too many contents available in the market to watch in a 4K resolution. There are some short videos on YouTube and other online market places, but within a week or two you will run out of contents. Unless you have your own 4K content that you can share with your family and friends.
- Movie Streaming – Netflix and other online streaming providers have a very limited streaming content that is available in 4K resolution. The challenge we have encountered is the download speed. Often the streaming gets choppy and slow to the point it makes is unpleasant to even watch a TV series, and our ISP provides us with a 25mb/sec download speed. I guess this will depend on your ISP provider and bandwidth capacity. We can only assume that a normal family will have an average ISP bandwidth with over 10mb/sec or more download speed. One thing to remember is that a 4K resolution streaming consumes close to 4 times the bandwidth of a normal 1080p HD streaming. Most Internet Service Providers (IPS) has a monthly cap on your bandwidth (you can check with ISP about your monthly bandwidth cap) .
- HDMI 2.0- The new HDMI 2.0 has just gotten released, and some 4K Displays have had issues with not being able to provide a full 4K content with the previous generation of HDMI 1.4x cables. Although most 4K Display manufactures claim the HDMI 1.4x is not an issue for up-converting contents to 4K or supporting the bandwidth for 4K content, we have noticed some issues with up-converting contents to 4K. We recently purchased an HDIM 2.0 cables for our benchmarking and the results were stunning. We have yet to test Netflix and YouTube with our new cable.
- Competition -There are fierce competition in the race for 4K display by various manufactures which will drive the prices lower. Although, even today there are some affordable and cheap 4K Televisions and Monitors available in the market, we predict things will change rapidly in the next few months. For example Seiki just announced earlier this year the new series of their 4K displays flagship (The Pro models) which up-converts a normal 1080p HD content to a 4K capable content with the help of a special HDMI cable that they provide you with. You will be able to get one for less than $1500. We will test and review their product as soon as we get our hands on one.
In conclusion, although the 4K display monitors and
televisions provide us with a stunning resolution, very crisp display, and
noticeable details, we recommend that you wait a few more months and you can
own one for a much cheaper price than they are available today. Unless, you are
into video editing, or you really need one for your line of business. Sure we
get tempted and excited when we walk into an electronic retailing store, such
as BestBuy when we see one on the display, but we firmly believe consumers can
save a lot of money by waiting a few more months. Not to mention that
currently, there are not a lot of 4K contents available online or in the movie
industry. However, in the next few months/years more 4K contents should be
available and other supporting technology partners for 4K will mature-up as
well.
