Amazon’s experiment in developing new TVs isn’t over yet. At the Amazon event, the online retailer just announced that its Omni series of TVs will now come in a QLED variant with full array local dimming that will cost under $800.
Dubbed the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series, the new TVs will be available in two sizes — 65 and 75 inches — starting in October for $799 (around $1,230) and $1,099 (around AU$1,695), respectively.
At present, Amazon's Fire TV Omni QLED television has only been announced for the US. As for whether it will be released in other territories, we'll have to wait and see.
Not only are Amazon’s new TVs a good deal less than Samsung’s rival QLED TVs, but the Omni Series QLED will also take a key feature from Samsung’s QLED TVs with the Fire TV Ambient Experience that displays 1,500 gallery images without a subscription.
Like the previous Fire TV Omni, Amazon says the new QLED model will work hands-free with help from Alexa or can be disabled via a physical switch on the TV.
Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series: what’s new?
The big marquee addition this year is the quantum dot filter that makes this a QLED TV rather than the LED-LCD model released by Amazon in 2021.
Using QLED should give the Omni Series a wider color gamut and we might see a nice uptick in brightness and contrast as well thanks to the additional contrast control zones (up to 96 in the 75-inch model) with the full array local dimming lighting.
In terms of technical specs, Amazon says that the TV will be limited to 4K/60 but it uses up to 96 local dimming zones and will come with a built-in ambient light sensor that enables Dolby vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive.
In addition to the ambient light sensor, Amazon says the TVs use a new built-in presence sensor to detect when a person enters the room and switch to the new Ambient Experience that will show either photos of your family or the gallery images alongside Alexa widgets.
Should Samsung be worried?
Until we can get the TV in for testing, we can’t make any sort of buying advice about the new TV. However, at that price, it’s a lot less expensive than Samsung’s The Frame while offering a lot of the same technology.
The two main differentiating factors are that Samsung’s The Frame has a 120Hz native refresh rate instead of 60Hz, and has HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K/120Hz gaming. Amazon’s new TVs will be limited to 4K/60Hz – which is disappointing for gamers.
The Omni will also be using Amazon’s Fire TV smart platform… which is always a bit polarizing with TV watchers. That said, this year’s Tizen platform has issues of its own, as we noted in our review of the Samsung S95B OLED.
We’ll know more once we get the new Fire TV Omni QLED Series in for testing but, if it’s anything like the last model, expect decent performance at a great price.
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