Although they haven’t officially been announced for the Australian market — that’s still a few days away — you can already buy LG’s new Ultra HD WebOS TVs in JB Hi-Fi and other electronics stores across the country. The 55-inch 4K 55UB850T is surprisingly affordable, too.
LG’s big home entertainment unveiling is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday May 6th — and we’ll bring you all the info from that launch — but there’s really no reason to wait. According to the stock counters on JB Hi-Fi, VideoPro, The Good Guys and NZ’s Noel Leeming, the latest and greatest LG 65UB980T and 55UB850T LED TVs are available right now.
The $2996 55UB850T, according to JB Hi-Fi, is a 100Hz 55-inch LED TV with an Ultra HD — 3840×2160 pixels — LCD panel, and LG’s WebOS Smart TV interface. This is the first TV to hit the market running WebOS; LG bought the operating system from HP back in early 2013, and has had it slated to run its Smart TVs ever since.
The WebOS interface looks great — it’s using a similar idea to the cards of WebOS on the HP TouchPad from a few years ago, with simple gestural control and a ribbon at the bottom of the screen showcasing all the most-used apps (the screenshot above is of the US interface; there’ll be an Australian variant with local video-on-demand apps instead).
If 55 inches isn’t enough for your super-massive living room, there’s a larger model also on offer. The 65UB980T is a 65-inch super-premium model, with largely the same feature-set as the 55UB850T — Ultra HD, WebOS TV, built-in Wi-Fi and 3D — but with a 200Hz native refresh rate for smoother fast-motion video. JB has its price pegged at $5996, although other retailers should have similar prices as well.
There’ll no doubt be more Ultra HD and Full HD Smart TVs from LG announced at the Tuesday event, and most (if not all) of them should be running WebOS. We’ll let you know as soon as we find out — but if you’re looking for a new TV, you may as well buy one right now. [JB Hi-Fi]