Samsung’s New Gesture-Controlled Panel Hits Australia And It’s Bloody Enormous


Seventy. Five. Inches. That’s the size of the new Series 9 LED TV just announced from Samsung. It’s promising a clearer picture thanks to some maths, and it has some decent tech to go along with it, including a built-in Kinect-style camera and new catch-up features. Mighty shiny.

The 75-inch Series 9 is Samsung’s latest thin, large panel. It’s not got anything mad like OLED or 4k, but Samsung is promising deeper, more detailed blacks thanks to micro-dimming technology, which breaks the screen down into 576 individual boxes and processes it three times to make sure the picture is sharp and contrasted correctly.

It’s a native 200Hz panel which means no jaggy-looking upscale and it’s got a wafer-thin bezel which is always welcome.

Interestingly, though, the only break in the design is at the top where we find a pop-up camera normally concealed behind the bezel that’s used to track the gestures of those standing in front of it. It’s a blatant Kinect rip-off but it doesn’t actually work with Kinect. Instead you use it to control the TV’s Smart Hub interface and play games like Angry Birds. If you can think of something more useless on a television, you’re welcome to share it in the comments.

If the gesture stuff really isn’t your thing and you actually feel like using your TV, you can pick up the latest Smart Keyboard from Samsung that actually has the trackpad built in. Plenty nifty for getting about your Smart Hub interface.

At the launch of the television last night, Samsung announced some more goodies coming to its FOXTEL streaming service, including new channels and new packages, which will include entertainment, sports and movies. Yahoo7! catch-up content is also on its way exclusively to the Samsung Smart Hub.

The real kicker though is the price. This 75-inch smart monster will run you a dollar shy of $9500. Compare that to the LED TVs from Sharp we saw in July and you’re looking at almost double the price. Admittedly the Samsung does have smart and 3D functionality up its sleeve, but is it really worth that much?