Well-known Japanese brand Sharp has taken the opportunity at the IFA 2018 Global Press Conference in Rome to launch the LV-70X500E - purportedly world's first 8K TV/ monitor - for the European market.

TV manufacturers these days have a choice of exploring different display technologies or an increase in resolution, and the company has decided to go for the latter, seeking to establish itself as a pioneer in 8K.

The Sharp LV70X500E will feature a 70-inch screen with true 8K Super Hi-Vision resolution of 7680x4320 pixels, the company's UV2A VA-type LCD panel, full-array local dimming (FALD) direct-lit LED backlight with 216 zones, peak brightness of 1000 nits, 79% (CIE1931 xy) or 86% (CIE1976 uv) BT.2020 coverage, as well as HDR support for both the PQ (perceptual quantisation) HDR10 and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) standards.

Eight HDMI inputs are available, all supporting HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. Four ports will be needed to display 8K footage on screen, each one responsible for one quadrant, since there's no true HDMI 2.1 chipset on the market at this time of writing. In 8K mode, motion-compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) cannot be enabled, and given that the Sharp X500E does not support 120Hz HFR (High Frame Rate) content, it'll be interesting to see how 50Hz/ 60Hz fast-action sports will look on the television.

Two USB 3.0 ports are provided which can display 8K stills. There's no inbuilt TV tuner so technically the X500E is more a monitor. Considering the generic dearth of 8K content, Sharp is emphasising the quality of its upscaling capabilities. Power consumption is understandably higher than most TVs due to the sheer amount of pixels that need to be drive, rated at 445w.

The Sharp LV-70X500E will be available to buy in Europe at the end of this month (April 2018), priced at €11,999.