Huawei wants to release the first 8K resolution television with 5G connectivity, and all I can think is this: why the hell are they doing it?



(Image credit: Samsung's QLED 8K TV. Credit: Tom's Guide)



People already have plenty of connectivity options at home — like cable or fiber — and every device can connect through Wi-Fi. Not only that but, unless you have a magic 5G unlimited data plan, that 8K stream of Avengers: Endgame is going to eat up all your available bandwidth an hour before [SPOILER].

Even if you get an unlimited plan, we are still far from a place in which 5G is ubiquitous. Only a few cities will have it in the US by the end of 2019, for example. The situation around the world is the same. And I bet it will not be a smooth ride at first.

Same with 8K content. It will come but we have to keep in mind that Netflix — which started 4K streaming of some of its content in 2014 — doesn’t have an 8K option yet, perhaps because there’s not much of a catalog at that resolution. It probably will be a very long time till the streaming giant, Amazon, Hulu, or HBO start rolling out 8K HDR films and series.

But, according to the Japanese tech financial rag Nikkei Asian Review, Huawei doesn’t care about the current realities of 5G and 8K implantation.

In fact, the company wants to turn this TV — which will be the company’s first ever TV after years of providing TV components to third party manufacturers — into a home hub, adding an always-on router to bridge the 5G gigabit connection via Wi-Fi.

The report — first spotted by TechRadar — claims that Huawei wants to make this TV as part of an effort to create a tightly integrated ecosystem that encompasses all aspects of your digital life from TV to phone to computer to wearable. And I guess it would be great for #vanlife movie theaters too.