8K is down to one manufacturer after LG's exit - so where does TV tech go next?

5 days ago 8

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ZDNET's key takeaways

LG has officially stopped making 8K TVs.
The technology was expensive, and there was little content.
You'll likely see a push now for image quality over resolution.

Is 8K TV finally dead? Maybe not officially, but the technology that never quite caught on certainly seems to be on the way out as another manufacturer has pulled the plug.

According to a report from flatpanelshd.com, LG is officially halting production on all 8K TVs. From what I can tell, this leaves Samsung as the only remaining manufacturer -- and its 2026 lineup announcement at CES a few weeks ago made no mention of 8K.

Speaking to flatpanelshd.com, the company framed the decision as a temporary hold and said it would be ready to resume if customer interest changed. I've reached out to LG for more details.

Now that LG is out, let's take a look at 8K. Where did it go wrong, and what's next?

Why 8K TV failed

8K faced several barriers that prevented consumers from adopting the tech.

One of the biggest was the lack of content. Even though the first 8K set hit the market a decade ago, there's still not a lot you can watch in 8K (even true 4K content is still tough to come by). There are some pretty YouTube demo videos, but a lot of those are just upscaled 4K. Hollywood studios, streaming services, and gaming companies never really showed an interest, and there's not even a broadcast or disc format for 8K.

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Additionally, 8K TVs were often significantly more expensive than their 4K counterparts of the same size. Browsing current offerings, I found that $2,500 seems to be the absolute lowest price, with the majority of sets in the $3,000 - $4,000 range. I found plenty of good quality 4K TVs for less than half that price.

On top of those reasons, there's a debate about whether or not people can really see a difference between 4K and 8K. A recent study from the University of Cambridge pointed out that for the average living room TV viewing distance (about 8 feet), the human eye can't detect a difference between 8K, or even 4K, over a lower resolution.

All of that combined led consumers to simply not care.

What's next?

With LG down, only Samsung is left. I've reached out to a company representative to inquire about future 8K plans, but it's hard to imagine production will continue if customers aren't interested. While it's clear the 8K living room isn't the future, I can still see 8K having a few uses in professional displays or perhaps some sort of VR or AR display since the screen is only inches from your face.

What's next for TV technology?

Also: We saw dozens of TVs at CES 2026: Keep these 5 models on your radar this year.

4K is the sweet spot as far as resolution. It's fairly affordable, it has wide support, and you can find plenty of content. Manufacturers seem to be prioritizing better picture technology over higher resolution. Instead of adding more pixels that we may or may not even be able to see, these changes do provide visible benefits -- like the deeper contrast and color of OLED and QD-OLED and the improved local dimming of Mini-LED.

You can't ignore AI either. AI upscaling and processing are also becoming standard features that can make lower-resolution content look even better, and it's almost certain we'll see companies invest more in this area.

I think you'll see a continued push to improve image quality and processing over the next several years rather than another resolution push. There's still lots of room for innovation, and those innovations won't push prices out of reach for the average consumer.

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