Have you upgraded your TV to 4K yet? And how energy efficient do you think those ultra high resolution TVs are? 4K TVs are enjoying a growing popularity with a staggering resolution of 8.3 megapixels! Compare that to LCD TVs that took over the market from plasma TVs almost 10 years ago.
Their 2.1 megapixels impressed people with their sharp picture quality and brought watching movies at home to a whole new level. Technology is constantly changing and the new ultra high definition televisions have an impressively high picture quality — but how do 4K TVs compare when it comes to energy efficiency?
How does the higher number of pixels influence the energy consumption when screen size stays the same? The energy efficiency for TVs is calculated by dividing the screen size in square inches by the annual power consumption (based on an assumed 5 hours of usage per day). In order to compare the energy efficiency of a 4k TV and a non-4K TV, we chose two TVs that are very similar in most other aspects: The (4K) and the (non-4K). Both TVs compared here are Samsung LED TVs, they have a 65” screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and both TVs are 3D ready.
When calculating the energy efficiency, the non-4K TV is 45% more efficient than the TV with the higher resolution — its Enervee Score is 92 which puts it into the “highly energy efficient” category. The 4K TV only gets an Enervee Score of 52, “fairly energy efficient”. The non-4K TV seems to be the clear winner when it comes to energy efficiency.