Smart TVs have made significant progress in recent years in terms of picture quality and functionality. They’re basically really big smartphones now, with systems like Android TV capable of running apps for streaming or gaming. Similarly, the move to 8K resolutions and newer OLED and QLED technologies represents a noticeable improvement in picture.
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However, all of this comes at a cost, and we’re not talking about what you pay when you bring the TV home, but what you pay when you use it. The energy consumption of new models can be much higher than that of old ones, and this has gained prominence in the new energy laws of the European Union.
Dimmer TVs as standard
Despite manufacturers’ complaints, the European Union has finally put in place new regulations that require them to reduce the amount of energy consumed by their televisions. The new rules come into effect from today, and not all brands have been able to adapt in time, in many cases due to technical limitations or simply because complying with the law has become much more difficult.
Samsung’s new televisions are affected by European regulations
For example, the new rules state that 8K resolution TVs must consume the same power as 4K TVs; In concrete terms, they must have the same IEE (energy efficiency index) and therefore receive the same “vignette” which indicates the efficiency of a device. This may seem a little strange, since it is obvious to everyone that a panel will consume more the higher its resolution; It’s not just because of the number of pixels on the screen, but because of the highest chip power needed to process the higher resolution image.
Anyway, manufacturers have failed to convince European regulators, which has forced them to make important decisions for their 2023 range. This is the case of Samsung which, as explained in Forbeshad to make some changes to its new 8K TVs, which may confuse users.
Samsung’s new 8K TVs will come with low brightness
For starters, Samsung TVs will now come standard with brightness set to a much lower level than usual. This means that right after installing our new TV, the picture will appear much less bright, which will seriously affect its quality. The worst is you can’t just increase the brightness. Samsung has created a new picture mode, called “Eco”, which is the default mode and locks the brightness level and does not allow changing it.
However, this does not mean that you will not be able to increase the brightness any further. All you gotta do is change picture mode to another that allows the brightness to be varied. So it’s just a nuisance if you know what’s going on; but if you don’t know, you might think the TV came with a factory error. We imagine Samsung will do something, like display a message, to teach users how to bypass this restriction; if not, at least we hope your help desk is ready for many calls from confused users.
The alternative was that the newer Samsung TVs weren’t reaching the European market, so having to switch picture modes is the least bad solution.
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