As we announced a while ago, the new European regulation on energy consumption will enter into force on 1 March 2023. In this way, televisions that exceed the energy efficiency coefficient prescribed by the regulatory agency, They could not be sold on European soil. This particularly affected 8K and 4K HDR Smart TVs with high brightness.

This new arrangement has us wondering what manufacturers will do from this year to market their new 8K television models. Samsung will launch 3 new models in this resolution this yearand had to significantly change many features of their televisions to comply with this law.

A big change for high definition TVs

Since only a few days, any television marketed in Europe has to meet the energy efficiency index (EEIMAX). Do not exceed 0.90 On TVs up to 8K resolution and MicroLED. This is difficult for manufacturers as this is the same limit that applies to 4K and 1080p televisions, and therefore it would be complicated to comply with 8K televisions given the higher brightness distributions and pixel densities.

For this reason, many manufacturers jumped ship regarding 8K TV sales this year. Companies like TCL have stopped selling these TVs in Europe, and LG is only offering 8K OLED models in its product range for this year.

Samsung has managed to maintain its 8K commitment by changing various features of its televisions right out of the box. This is the user You will find features far below what you expected. When you buy a Samsung 8K TV this year.

A standard Eco mode that drastically reduces brightness and image quality

According to an interview for Forbes, the manufacturer says that European users an Eco mode that will significantly reduce the brightness of the panel. Just to give you an idea, there will only be models that default to 8 or 15 out of 50 brightness levels. Also, Samsung has locked the brightness setting to these maximum values ​​in Eco mode to comply with the regulation.

The image quality has also been changed in this mode and some aspects have been greatly reduced to comply with the new energy regulation. However, the good news is that user will be able to manually change the display modeso that both quality and brightness are not affected and the user can adjust the brightness levels as usual.

These settings come by default when you purchase an 8K or 4K television that exceeds the limit imposed by the new European energy regulation; you will need to change it in settings TV if you want to get the most out of your TV.

This new energy regulation has been approved by the European Commission. to encourage the development of more efficient panels It is not yet clear by manufacturers in the long run whether Samsung will continue to support 8K with its Neo QLEDs or abandon it as many companies do.