Sony may have inadvertently given away the asking prices of its up and coming Sony A95K QD-OLED TVs.
TV makers typically like to tease their upcoming models on their websites months ahead of their launch, listing pre-order pages with their specs and features. That’s the case with Sony and its forthcoming OLED TVs for 2022, though it doesn’t reveal any prices at this time.
However, Sony may have dropped the ball because its product pages do make it very clear how many loyalty points buyers can expect to earn if they purchase one of the QD-OLED TVs. This is a big clue to the expected price tag, since a quick look around Sony’s website at other TV models shows us that there appears to be a universal correlation of one Sony Rewards point for each dollar spent.
So, for instance, last year’s 65-inch Sony A80J retails at $1,999 and earns 2,000 Sony Rewards. By extrapolating this information, we can see that the allotted 3,000 reward points for the 55-inch Sony A95K QD-OLED TV would translate into a price tag of $3,000. Meanwhile, the 4,000 reward points for the 65-inch version suggests a price tag of around $4,000 for that model. That’s notably a lot less than anticipated, with Korean media reporting last year that the first 65-inch QD-OLED TVs would cost around 10 million won, which translates to around $8,000.
For sure this is all speculative as Sony could introduce an entirely different reward multiplier for its 2022 TVs. That said, there’s another reason to believe the Sony A95K QD-OLED TV could well be more affordable than first expected.
This weekend, Dell subsidiary Alienware announced pricing for its first-ever QD-OLED monitor, the Alienware AW3423DW, which is a 34-inch curved 175Hz display featuring Nvidia G-Sync.
The Alienware AW3423DW gaming monitor will cost $1,299, which is quite reasonable by previous OLED monitor standards, even if it’s not exactly “cheap” in the great scheme of things.
There’s more evidence too. We can use the same extrapolation process to guess at the price of Sony’s other OLED TVs, and we see the price tags are consistent with last year’s pricing. For example the 48-inch version of the upcoming Sony A90K OLED TV (which uses a regular OLED panel) returns 1,500 Sony Rewards, translating to a price of around $1,500. Meanwhile the 55-inch Sony A80K returns 1,800 points, suggesting a price of $1,800 when it goes on sale.
So not only can we expect to see Sony’s first QD-OLED TV come at a cheaper than expected price tag, but U.S. buyers at least will benefit from a decent amount of rewards points to spend on PlayStation 5 games, perhaps.
The Sony A95K TV stole all of the headlines at the Consumer Electronics Show last month as it’s the first TV in the world to feature the new display technology. Developed by Samsung Display, QD-OLED uses panels with a blue self-emitting OLED pixel layer and quantum dots to enable improved colours, blacks and viewing angles.
Samsung Electronics is also expected to launch a QD-OLED TV at some point this year, though it remains to be seen exactly when. Recent reports in the South Korean tech press say Samsung Display may only have a limited number of QD-OLED panels to go around, as it’s struggling to boost production yields above 30%, meaning that seven out of 10 panels it makes aren’t up to scratch.
Samsung Display is keen to step up its investment to boost its manufacturing return, but will hold off on doing so until it sees the consumer reaction to the new tech. As such, it may well be that the future of QD-OLED is very much dependent on the success or failure of the Sony A95K TV.
