No-one wants to watch Game of Thrones' bloody fantasy battles on a tiny tablet screen, which is just one reason why cheaper, bigger, higher-definition televisions are the stars of this year's IFA electronics fair in Berlin. Rather than just fantasise when they gather in front of an imposing 77-inch (195-centimetre) home cinema-style display, gawkers eagerly ask salespeople about the price and when they will be available.
With Ultra-High Definition (UHD) broadcasts set to become more common, "standards and norms are beginning to become established," said Paul Gray of consultancy IHS. "For the first time as a consumer, you can be reasonably sure that a set purchased this year will be usable when broadcasts start in earnest."
Growing confidence about technical standards and intense price competition between manufacturers "is creating a 'must-have' phenomenon" among consumers, said Hans-Joachim Kamp, president of the GFU federation which co-organises IFA. Increasingly tech-savvy buyers are less interested in the size of the screen and more in its resolution, Gray added.
In Germany, households own televisions for five years on average, with consumers spending around 600 euros ($710) out of a budget of 800-900 euros on new purchases. That remains well short of asking prices for the top-of-the-range sets on display at this year's IFA, which start at between 1,500 and 2,000 euros and almost all boast OLED screens.
With individually illuminated pixels, OLED offers a high-contrast image with deep blacks and unprecedented sharpness in moving images. Only Samsung dismisses OLED as a gimmick, preferring its own invention of traditional LCD screens enriched with extra crystals, known as QLED.
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