TV SPECIAL ......Your 80-inch window to the World Cup

Your 80-inch window to the World Cup

The new laser TV aims to dominate the competition with a large screen, 400 nits of brightness and an affordable price

Chinese multinational

Hisense has big plans for the World Cup this year — like, 80-inches big. To this end, the company is launching a new Hisense L5 Laser TV that will serve as an affordable sibling to the L8D, a laser TV that Hisense announced at CES this year.

Like the L8D, the L5 isn’t exactly a TV per se — it’s more of a short-throw projector with a lot of the modern conveniences of a TV — like smart functionality.

Key features

Hisense sells a projector screen with every one of its laser TVs to give it additional clarity and ease of use for people who might be used to traditional LEDLCD or OLED sets.

Priced at around $3,140, the L5’s main selling points are its price and its improved brightness of 400 nits. Now, 400 nits might not sound like a lot, but according to Hisense and some simple calculations (every nit of a projector’s brightness is equal to around 3 nits of a traditional TV’s brightness), the L5 should be capable of displaying clear images even in brightly lit rooms.

Projector vs TV

There’s no word yet if the L5 will be capable of HDR or if it will offer 4K. While there has always been contention between projectors and TVs in the heart of every AV enthusiast, the pull between the two has become even more intense during the past few years as more TV makers move into the short-throw projector space.

So why choose a short-throw projector over a TV or vice versa? TVs need less maintenance, as bulbs in projectors need to be replaced every few years and can be costly. On the other hand, short-throw projectors are usually designed in a way that they can be hidden or stored, allowing style-savvy entertainment enthusiasts the liberty to hide their equipment.

techradar.com