It's been a tumultous time for Loewe in the last year or so - the 91-year-old company was subject to some fairly heavyweight strictures under German financial law while it sought new investment and technology partnerships - but lately things have been definitely looking up.
There were plenty of new products announced at IFA back in September, and with the launch of the new Art TV range in the UK this week, Loewe becomes the only TV brand on the planet with an entirely 4K Ultra HD product range.
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Admittedly it's not all that extensive a range, but that's rather beside the point. New investment and upper management notwithstanding, the Loewe philosophy continues to focus on premium-quality products - "although not", as new CEO Mark Hüsges points out, "premium for the sake of it".
And with its new products Loewe is putting a much stronger emphasis on the quality of its user experience - the 40in, 48in and 55in Art TV range features 'super-fast' channel changing, a triple-tuner/dual-channel 'Assist Media 2015' operating system and GUI, Smart TV MediaNet portal and full RS232 comptability for integration into a smart-home environment.
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There's also remote streaming via the 'Smart tv2move' feature, which can stream whatever you're watching (or an alternative channel) to a tablet or smartphone. This is in addition to Loewe's rather more readily recognisable virtues of sleek, understated design, tactile materials and serious-minded approach to flatscreen audio (each Art TV is packing 80 watts of power to drive its four-driver speaker array).
All of which promises to make the Art TV range (£1300 for the 40in model, £1700 for the 48in and £2100 for the 55in) the company's most competitive yet while remaining, as Mark Hüsges says, "a European product for the European market".
There are three more Loewe TV ranges in the pipeline, with the Connect range set to go on sale later this year, to be followed in 2015 by the Reference range and the curved Masterpiece shown at IFA 2014.
