JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 12 September 2018 – The boardroom used to be filled to the brim with important-looking chairs, an imposing meeting table and most likely an expensive coffee station. It was where strategic decisions were made and highly intense meetings held. Today, most companies have moved away from this imposing structure to smaller, more collaborative areas which encourage good interaction and the free-flow of ideas. But, communication needs great tools and there’s a need now for screens that assist in getting ideas up, presented and discussed easily.

Technology is marching along at a pace that’s sometimes hard to keep up with. Does anyone even remember what it was like to use an overhead projector – fiddling with the transparency sheets to get them straight onto the screen? With wi-fi, blue-tooth and HDMI cables as an option, now anyone with a computer can ‘project’ information and presentations onto a television screen. In a world of rapid technological change, businesses need to ensure they choose a display that creates a collaborative and engrossing environment.

Reginald Nxumalo, Director: Consumer Electronics, Samsung South Africa says, “Intelligently connected is something that sums up Samsung’s offering and the new QLED TV is certainly smart. The new, intricately refined QLED TV offers up an unprecedented experience of complete immersion. With a sleek metal frame and myriad options for installation, from No Gap Wall-mount to an array of stylish stands, the QLED features a One Invisible Connection – this combines the AV and power lines along with the cables of peripheral devices, through the One Connect Box. The One Invisible Connection is an innovative first and comes in a standard length of five meters, that can be extended by a further 15 meters. The cable is transparent so the connections and cables simply disappear.”

But what about size? For smaller conference rooms, a 60-65-inch display is more than adequate. Most business meetings are attended by eight or less people. But, the size of the room also needs to be considered. The standard ceiling height in an office is about 2.8 metres. The average person, when seated, is eye level with 1.2 metres from the ground. The ideal height, then, for seated people is 1.25 metres from the floor. Working out the space available from the ceiling to the bottom of the screen means a 120-inch screen is really the largest that may be installed.[i]

“A great benefit of using a TV is they have a much longer lifespan than a projector and you don’t have to turn it off after every meeting. This means you can use them for digital displays, a business dash-board – showcasing company statistics – or videos on the latest news and products the company has to offer, it also include tutorials and useful information. The QLED quality will ensure everyone is fully appraised of each detail as well as fully engaged,” adds Nxumalo.

The office setting is changing on a daily basis, with more people working remotely. The boardroom will still play an integral part in all of this, but its fast becoming a much more connected and multi-purpose space than before.

^{[i] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-screen-size-suit-your-conference-venue-boardroom-robbertze/}

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 03 April 2018 – The advent of the technological revolution has been changing the face of the workplace for decades. While computer technology and automated systems have created different work spaces, modern communication technology has made way for even greater change, rendering physical offices non-essential for many businesses.

Craige Fleischer, Vice President of Integrated Mobility, Samsung South Africa, says, “More and more people are opting out of conventional office spaces – it’s a mobile world and to ensure customers can fully embrace true mobility, our products are all geared towards seamless transitions that fit perfectly into the unique needs and behaviours of our customers.”

The average amount of office space required for a person is 10-25 square metres and a one-person office will cost anything from R3,000 per month. While ‘hotdesking’ is becoming more popular, where office spaces and desks are offered up on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for entrepreneurs or freelancers who don’t have their own office space, this also comes at a cost. The average cost of a cup of coffee is just R30 and if you spent an entire day at a coffee shop working, buying a few cups of coffee and a small meal (which you’re likely to buy anyway, wherever you are based), you’re unlikely to spend more than R250. While that may be a little more expensive than the cheapest office space you can find, it does offer far more freedom and no monthly rental bill. That’s just the monthly rental. Start-up costs will also include all the funky or elegant furniture you’ll require to make that great impression.

Then there’s commuting – with no office, there’s no need to make the convoluted and frantic drive in to work, which according to a report released by KPMG, using TomTom Traffic Index in 2017, costs the average person a minimum of six days of production time a year.^[i]

But, if you’re spending all your time in a coffee shop or at home lugging a computer to a client’s office to present simply isn’t a great option. Smartphones have paved the way for mobility in business to be a highly viable option – not just for phone calls and e-mails, but also for any of the usual business tools required, from spreadsheets to presentations. When it comes to presenting the grand plan or strategy to a client, however, using a mobile screen, even if it is the S9 of S9+, simply won’t be big enough for a room full of people. Which is why Samsung have updated the DeX station to a DeX Pad.

Imagine the scenario – you’ve ditched the office idea and have found a great coffee shop that’s close by and has wi-fi. You can spend all day there working just on your smartphone, getting a lot of your work done. To fine-tune or present your work, simply pop home or to your client’s offices, place your smartphone in the DeX pad and you’re good to go. It’s a plug-and-play system that allows you to use the power of your phone to run a desktop environment. With the DeX Pad, your smartphone lies on top, which means you can use the phone as a tracking pad, so there’s no need for a mouse at all.

“When you dock your Samsung Galaxy S9 onto the DeX Pad, it will give you a desktop layout on the screen you’ve connected, which is arranged like a conventional Windows display, but still all Android. Samsung DeX lets you connect your Galaxy S9 and S9+ to a monitor and keyboard for a desktop experience powered by your phone. So, you can turn any place into a workplace,” concludes Fleisher.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ are laid flat on top of the Pad, where it’s tethered via the USB Type-C connection. There are additional ports consisting of an HDMI, two USB-A 2.0 ports and a USB-C charging port on the back of the pad. The new DeX Pad bumps up the desktop experience’s resolution up to 2560 x 1440 pixels, for and exceptional desktop experience. Ditching the office has never been so easy.

^{[i] https://businesstech.co.za/news/motoring/170661/how-much-time-south-africans-lose-to-traffic-every-day/}

1. Colour Volume

What it is: A standard for evaluating a TV’s ability to produce accurate colors at all luminance levels. The higher the color volume, the better the TV will be at expressing vivid, accurate colors.

Why it matters: Manufacturers in the fiercely competitive TV industry are constantly exploring ways to deliver standout picture quality. The color volume measurement emerged as a way to evaluate a UHD (or 4K) TV’s ability to produce immersive viewing experiences, focusing on how the TV performs under various lighting conditions. Color volume matters because if a depicted image exceeds a TV’s peak luminance, it may appear washed out or faded, and the quality of the viewing experience suffers.

How Samsung’s innovating with it: Samsung’s QLED TVs, which feature a peak brightness of 1,500 to 2,000 nits, are the first displays to reaches 100 percent color volume. This means that in typical viewing environments, the TVs produce brighter and deeper colors that allow content to be displayed in the manner that producers intended. In addition, QLED TV’s screen-coating technology reduces reflection by 98.5 percent, providing a more comfortable viewing experience even under strong sunlight or lighting.

2. HDR

What it is: HDR, or “high dynamic range” technology adds more color, brightness and contrast to content displayed on standard HD or UHD TVs.

Why it matters: HDR was introduced to provide whiter whites, blacker blacks, and colors that are more detailed and true-to-life. The difference between HDR and the preceding SDR (standard dynamic range) standard is night and day, as HDR allows details that might be lost in shadows or glare when depicted on an SDR TV to truly stand out.

How Samsung’s innovating with it: QLED TVs come with support for the new open standard for HDR video, HDR10+. HDR10+ adds more dynamic range (the ratio of light and dark) to images to deliver greater contrast and more vibrant colors, and allows images to be enhanced on a scene-by-scene basis. The results are lifelike visuals that portray content precisely as the producer intended.

3. Refresh Rate

What it is: A TV’s refresh rate, expressed in hertz (Hz), is the number of times that an image on the screen is refreshed per second. The higher the hertz, the smoother the picture.

Why it matters: The standard refresh rate for TVs today is 60Hz, or 60 times per second, with 120Hz and 144Hz representing the higher end of the spectrum. TVs with high refresh rates generally provide more seamless visuals with minimal motion blur, creating more immersive viewing experiences. If you’re a gamer, or you watch a lot of fast-paced action films, a TV with a high refresh rate may be just what you need to take your experience to the next level.

How Samsung’s innovating with it: In addition to boasting a wide range of game-optimizing features including a short input lag (20-millisecond), three types of QLED TVs with the Q7, Q8 and Q9 models feature a 120Hz refresh rate that ensures seamless and fluid in-game visuals. 

4. HDMI and Connections

What HDMI is: HDMI, short for “high definition multimedia interface”, is an industry-standard, all-digital interface that transmits visual and audio data between devices such as TVs, streaming media and Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, and more.

Why it matters: Higher-quality HDMI cables generally support higher data transfer speeds (measured in gigabytes per second), providing more bandwidth to enjoy 4K UHD and HDR content. The manner in which a TV handles its HDMI and other connections can directly influence its setup, and the ease with which the device integrates into a living environment.

How Samsung’s innovating with it: All QLED TVs are optimized to deliver 4K UHD content thanks to their support for HDMI 2.0. HDMI 2.0 makes it possible to increase frame rates and maximum bandwidth (to 18Gbps), and deliver high-resolution visuals, allowing for the transmission of 4K video at 60Hz with 32 audio channels (up from eight).

In addition to HDMI 2.0, QLED TVs feature a practically invisible optical cable that seamlessly connects to external devices via the HDMI, USB 3.0 and coaxial port-housing One Connect box. The result is a TV setup that’s free of messy wires and truly designed for living.

5. Smart TV

What it is: A “smart” TV is capable of connecting to the internet to allow users to stream video content, browse the web, and run compatible apps.

Why it matters: Streaming shows and movies through over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix has quickly become the new normal, with more and more people enjoying a wide range of dynamic entertainment via convenient apps. Smart TVs typically incorporate support for these services, offering users more freedom to enjoy their favorite content.

How Samsung’s innovating with it: Samsung has equipped its QLED TVs with a range of smart apps, services and features that make it easy to enjoy high-quality UHD and HDR content. Particularly handy features include the TV PLUS app, which neatly organizes on-demand content in an interface that mirrors the channel menus of traditional cable or TV providers, and the One Remote, which allows you to manage your smart TV and other connected devices via a single, intuitive control.

6. Durability

What you should expect: No TV will last forever, but these days you should typically expect anywhere from 7 to 10 years of reliable service from your new TV. The expected lifespan for a premium TV may be even longer.

What Samsung’s TVs deliver: There are many factors that can ultimately prove detrimental to a TV’s longevity, and burn-in may be chief among them. Burn-in is a form of permanent damage that’s caused by leaving a static image on a screen for a long period of time. While image retention refers to any image that stays on a screen temporarily, burn-in lasts permanently, seriously affecting the lifespan of a television.

Samsung’s QLED TVs are certified to be burn-in-free, thanks to their utilization of inorganic quantum dots. In fact, each is backed by a 10-year warranty against burn-in* – a quality guarantee that recently expanded to global markets, and demonstrates Samsung’s commitment to delivering premium performance with its premium TVs.

*Details of the burn-in guarantee for QLED TVs vary by country.