Not too many years ago, IFA was a hot-bed of new TVs from the big-name companies, though these days the massive trade show doesn’t feature as many TVs being freshly unveiled as it used to.
However, it does still have a steady flow of sets that appear, including often some interesting concept TVs that may never see the light of day as products battling to be in our list of the best TVs, but are very cool nevertheless.
And in addition to that, IFA has become a hotbed of projector launches, especially portable projectors and more user-friendly projectors designed for living rooms, rather than dedicated home theater rooms. The really high-end stuff appears at the CEDIA show instead, and you can read our Best of CEDIA 2024 awards for some cool stuff for high-end home theater fans.
The projectors at IFA want to replace your TV instead, so it only seemed right to include them in my round-up of my favorite stuff I saw at the show. I’m excluding anything from this list that I’ve seen before, so even though the extremely impressive Hisense ULED X and Panasonic Z95A were there, for example, they didn’t make the list because I already got my greedy eyes on them at CES.
So here’s what was new that stuck with me the most.
1. TCL X11H
The winner of Best TV at our ‘Best of IFA 2024 awards’ obviously has to lead this piece. This will be TCL‘s next flagship TV, and it’s said to be capable of hitting 6,500 nits of brightness (more than double what the next model down, the TCL C855, can manage) and up to 14,000 dimming zones to keep that contrast under control.
It delivers really beautiful colors thanks to that powerful brightness, but there was no sign of the light bleeding into the dark areas – it’s one of the most striking TVs I’ve seen this year. Alas, it only seems to be coming in 85-inch and 98-inch sizes, so will probably be for those with large homes and wallets only, but it’s still stunning – you can read more of my first impressions with the TCL X11H here.
2. Vestel Block TV
This is such a great idea: a TV designed so that the screen and stand (which contains all the connections and electronics) can be removed from each other and replaced with new versions over time, so you don’t need to get rid of perfectly good parts if you want a larger screen. You can just swap for a bigger display on the same stand and carry on.
This could make it more sustainable and repairable in the long-term, and could open up fun opportunities for other upgrades to be available as well, such as choosing an option with a better sound system. It’s only a concept right now, but you can read more about why I’d love to see the Block TV become reality.
3. Hisense Glasses Free 3D TV
This is technology demo rather than a product, but Hisense’s IFA booth included a giant 3D TV screen that offers some impressive depth without special glasses. Some of the demos are more effective than others, but the cityscape viewed from above really felt like you were looking down on a model town or something.
I had a fun time seeing what it could do, but unsurprisingly it has some issues. You still need to be very central for the effect, which kind of goes against the usefulness of a huge TV; and the image looks bitty, lacking the pin-sharp clarity and contrast we’re used to these days.
This is not the first time Hisense has pushed in this direction – here we are back in 2013 looking at a prototype that aims to do the exact same thing – but this is a new version of it. While I’d love a TV that gives me an excuse to get my 3D Blu-rays back out, I don’t see it heading to stores any time soon while it has such a drop in clarity, but it’s fun to imagine playing games on here especially.
4. Toshiba 24-inch battery-powered TV
I like the look of this boxy guy, and I’m also enjoying the current trend for battery-powered portable TVs of a decent size, following the LG StanbyMe Go. Toshiba hasn’t revealed plans to definitely make and release this, but I could definitely see the usefulness of having one of these in the house: the kids could take it temporarily into a fort, you can use it in bed, you can watch football outdoors, you can put it at the end of the bath… very carefully (I saw no claims that it would be waterproof).
It’s got a punchy little sound system to make sure it can be heard, and I hope that its blocky design means it can take a bit of a tumble. The design is reminiscent of old Braun appliances, which I love – Toshiba’s designers often do things in that style for their concept TVs, and it gets a thumbs up from me every time. Maybe this one will actually escape IFA halls and make it to the real world. We can hope.
5. Samsung The Premiere 9
My demo of this ultra short throw projector demonstrated some great-looking visuals, including strong brightness and great colors, but it was the Dolby Atmos sound system that impressed me most. Featuring dual forward-facing speaker drivers and dual upfiring speakers drivers, it provided a huge amount of width and height considering the box is smaller than most of the best soundbars.
There was impressive positioning of sounds in specs, and clear movement to match action on the screen. Lots of ultra short throw projectors want to double up as soundbars, but this one felt like it had the power and the positioning to feel like you wouldn’t be letting your home theater setup down by using it… except for its lack of serious bass power. I highlighted this when I wrote more in-depth about my time with the Premiere 9, so hopefully it’s a solvable problem with a bit of subwoofer action. Outside of that, this seems like a serious challenger for our list of the best 4K projectors.
6. Yaber K3 Pro
You know how I was just complaining about the Samsung Premiere 9 not having enough bass? Well, that opinion was formed in no small part because I saw it not too long after seeing and hearing the K3 Pro projector in action. You see, this is an affordable HD projector that comes with a small dedicated external subwoofer, and it has such a huge effect on the scale of its sound.
The Yaber K3 Pro has 30W of JBL-made stereo speaker power in the projector unit already, which is no slouch, but adding the subwoofer takes things to a whole new level. Action effects hit harder, dramatic music is more evocative, and overall sound just feels full like a home theater is supposed to. It’s no substitute for one of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars, but this is the only projector sound system I’ve heard so far that I wouldn’t be tempted to add any other speakers to.
On top of that, it projects an image of up to 200 inches and has streaming services on board, so it really is an all-in-one entertainment system. The image quality seems solid as well from my time with, if not spectacular. But it doesn’t have to be – it’s got a big pile of bass to deliver the spectacle.
7. Xgimi Mogo 3 Pro
This looks like a hot contender for our list of the best portable projectors, taking on Samsung’s The Freestyle Gen 2 projector with a very similar form factor. It has a great metal design, and is capable of relatively bright and crisp HD images in a good range of sizes (and even has a lens accessory you can add to decrease the throw distance). Xgimi demonstrated it being used in a mobile home to create a mid-size image in a small space, and also showed it off in a fake bedroom where having it near the head of the bed would create a large image on the opposite wall.
It has streaming services on board, and a battery accessory – and with a price that seriously undercuts its Samsung competitor, this could be a great option if you’ve been wanting some portable big-screen action.
8. Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE
I’m cheating a bit here, because while I did see this on the show floor, I’m also leaning on the opinion of our reviewer Cesci Angell, who had pre-IFA access to this portable 4K laser projector and wrote up some in-depth impressions of the Nebula Cosmos 4K SE.
This isn’t the smallest or cheapest portable projector, but it’s capable of some seriously impactful HDR images that seem like they can’t possible be coming from something you could just grab in one hand to take from room to room, or to carry outside.
It’s a fun and powerful projector, and if you’ve been thinking you’d like to dabble in the world of 4K laser projectors without having to pay high-end prices, definitely read Cesci’s thoughts having lived with it for a week.
9. TCL’s backlight-only TVs
Okay, I’m cheating here, because the whole point of these is that they aren’t products, they’re a demonstration of the tech going on inside the products. But they’re TVs, they’re at IFA, I saw them, and they’re cool, so the rules say that can be included in this guide.
Basically, TCL took the pixels off the front of some TVs and played the same video on them all, with a full TV (ie, with pixels still attached) above them, so you can see what it really means for a TV’s backlight to have a large number of dimming zones, and what improving the backlight is clearly doing for image quality.
The crucial demo is the comparison of TCL’s 2023 TVs to its 2024 TVs. The 2024 model is so much more nuance, showing levels of shading and contrast just in what the backlight is doing. You can often make out what’s supposed to be happening on-screen just looking at the LEDs of the new model, whereas the older backlight just shows vague shapes in the light.
10. CRT Amazon Fire TV
This was just a gimmicky bit of fun to promote Amazon’s Fire TV platform, but if you’re asking me about the coolest TV sets I saw at IFA and I didn’t include seeing a modern smart TV platform distorted and softened beautifully by a lovely old CRT set, then I’d be lying to us both. So here it is: please enjoy imagining that staticky feeling you get when you touch the glass.
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