Why you shouldn't buy Hisense 2024 Models

Updated August 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

General/But Rtings said....:

• Hisense is known for poor QA (Quality Assurance)/QC (Quality Control). Rtings does not test for QA/QC.

  Multiple issues shown on reddit.

• Hisense has poor processing as reported by multiple redditor's experience, not just us.

  Rtings testing for Processing/Upscaling is flawed and does not match real world usage

• Hisense has poor motion handling as reported by multiple redditor's experience, not just us.

  Rtings testing for motion handling is flawed and does not match real world usage

• Then there is Rtings bullshit scoring system - no TV is below a 5.6 nothing higher then what a 9.8 or something similar so why use a scale of 10 if nothing will ever be below a 5?

• Couple that with the fact that they literally have paid shills to get people to buy their brand too!

• Simply put Hisense has the potential to be the next TCL but they aren't there yet. When they get there then they'll be recommended if they ever get there. But they are not ready yet. I said the same thing about Vizio (before their decline back to poorer QA/QC) & TCL if you remember.

Non US/Canada Users get the god awful Vidaa OS instead of GoogleTV. Even some US models also now use this garbage OS.

We wonder what else Hisense has changed on international models despite seemingly claims of a global launch this year.

In previous years Hisense has shafted international buyers including separate models in Canada that are far more expensive than their US Counterparts.

• Hisense U6N (U68N in Canada)

55, 65, & 85 Inch use VA panels. 75 inch uses garbage ADS panel.

In Canada, the TV is known as the Hisense U68N and performs the same. There are similarly named international models, like the U6NAU in Australia, but these models perform differently from the North American U6N, so our results aren't valid for them.

Full Rtings Review

Rtings: "The Hisense U6/U6N is a budget-friendly TV released in 2024 and replaces the Hisense U6/U6K. It's the entry-level model in Hisense's 2024 ULED lineup, sitting below the Hisense U7N and the Hisense U8/U8N."

The Bottom Line (htbuyingguides): Another cheap junk Chinese TV with poor build quality, and Hisense's classic bad processing, upscaling, & motion handling.

• Build Quality

"The Hisense U6N is pretty much identical to last year's Hisense U6/U6K. It has a simple design with thin bezels on the top and sides and a slightly thicker bezel on the bottom."

"The TV uses two feet that don't take up a lot of space. They lift the TV about 3.11 inches, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen."

"Besides the darker color, the back of the TV is identical to last year's Hisense U6/U6K. The top section is metallic, and the section that houses the inputs is made of plastic. Most of the inputs are side-facing and easy to access if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall. However, the HDMI 4, Ethernet, and digital audio out ports located on the back aren't easily accessible if you have it wall-mounted. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't come with any clips to help with cable management."

"The TV has alright build quality. It's mostly made of plastic that feels cheap, so it wobbles front to back in both feet positions when pushed, and there's quite a bit of flex on the back of the TV towards the middle and around the inputs. There are no major issues with quality control, but there's some debris behind the panel of our unit that's distracting with some content."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The TV has only decent blooming performance. Unfortunately, there's visible blooming around bright highlights or text when they're against a black background, making blacks look less deep."

"The TV has decent overall lighting zone transitions, but it struggles with fast-moving content. There's noticeable haloing, and the leading edge of bright, quick-moving objects is visibly dimmer."

"The Hisense U6N has just okay HDR brightness. Some highlights stand out a bit in darker scenes, but the TV's HDR brightness isn't good enough to display brighter highlights with impact."

"The TV has satisfactory PQ EOTF tracking. "

• Color Gamut/Volume

"very saturated colors are undersaturated and mostly off the mark."

"On the other hand, the TV can't display most colors at high luminance levels."

"The Hisense U6N has poor pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Its white balance is bad, with greens underrepresented and blues and reds overrepresented in most shades of gray. Gamma is close to our target of 2.2, but most scenes are displayed darker than intended. Its color accuracy is alright, but there are inaccuracies with all colors, and whites and lighter shades of most colors are noticeably inaccurate."

• Other

"The TV has just decent gray uniformity. There's some noticeable dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen, and the edges of the screen are noticeably darker than the center. On a very dark or near-black screen, its uniformity is great, but the left side is lighter than the rest of the screen."

"The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing. It does a fantastic job at preserving details, but unfortunately, it just doesn't smooth out artifacts in low-bitrate content."

"The TV has satisfactory HDR gradient handling. There's noticeable banding in dark greens, dark blues, and dark grays"

"The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this."

"The TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it."

"The TV supports every VRR technology to reduce screen-tearing. Unfortunately, VRR doesn't work in 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz. Its usefulness is also limited when gaming @ 60Hz since it doesn't support sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), so you get screen-tearing when your frame rate dips below 48 fps."

"The TV supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz. Unfortunately, 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz only work with VRR disabled. 1440p only works on PCs since it requires a forced resolution."

• Vs The Q750G

"The TCL Q7/Q750G QLED is better than the Hisense U6/U6N. The TCL has better SDR brightness, meaning it overcomes more glare in a bright room. The TCL also has better HDR brightness and PQ EOTF tracking, so it displays brighter highlights and stays closer to the content creator's intent with HDR content. The TCL has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, supports up to 4k @ 144Hz, and has a better VRR feature, so it's the better option for gamers looking to get the most out of their modern consoles or gaming PCs."

• Final Thoughts

Poor VRR & Poor PQ. No Thanks.

We would not recommend anyone purchase the Hisesne U6N unless you're throwing it outside and understand you'll be lucky to get 2 years out of it.

For those in the US/Canada - TCL Q750G or QM751G For Europe & Other Regions - TCL C745 or TCL C805

• Hisense U7N/U75N (U78N in Canada)

55 & 65 Inch use VA panels. 75 inch uses garbage ADS panel.

There are similarly named international models, like the U7NAU in Australia, but these models perform differently from the North American U7N, so our results aren't valid for them.

Full Rtings Review

Rtings: "The Hisense U7N is a lower mid-range TV released in 2024 and replaces the Hisense U7K."

The Bottom Line (htbuyingguides): Another cheap junk Chinese TV with poor build quality, and Hisense's classic bad processing, upscaling, & motion handling.

Rtings: "although there's an issue that affects the TV's response time when it hovers around 100Hz when using VRR."

• Build Quality

"The TV comes with a plastic center-mounted stand that doesn't require a large table to place the TV on. The stand lifts the TV about 3.23 inches, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen. The stand does stick out from the front quite a bit"

"The back is made of plastic and looks identical to last year's Hisense U7K. Most of the inputs are side-facing, but they're close enough to the edge of the TV that they're accessible when it's wall-mounted. A USB, ethernet, and optical port are located in a recessed cutout that faces the back. Unfortunately, these aren't accessible if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall."

"Although it's made entirely of plastic, it's sturdy enough and well-built overall. The TV wobbles a bit on the plastic center-mounted stand, but it doesn't cause any issues and provides good stability. There are no glaring issues with the TV's design, but our unit did have some debris behind the panel, although it's not noticeable from a normal viewing distance."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The TV has only decent blooming performance. Unfortunately, there's visible blooming around bright highlights or text when they're against a black background, making blacks look less deep."

"The TV has good overall lighting zone transitions, but it struggles with very fast-moving content. There's noticeable haloing, and the leading edge of bright, quick-moving objects is visibly dimmer."

• Color Gamut & Volume

"The Hisense U7N has unremarkable pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Its white balance is poor, with blues very overrepresented in all shades of gray and greens underrepresented in most grays. The color temperature is okay, but it's noticeably cooler than our target of 6500K. Gamma is close to our target of 2.2, but dark scenes are too bright, and most other scenes are too dark. Its color accuracy is good, but there are inaccuracies with whites, lighter yellows, and lighter cyans."

• Other

"The TV has satisfactory HDR gradient handling. There's noticeable banding in greens and darker grays"

"The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this."

"Unfortunately, like the Hisense U7K, the TV's response time behaves differently with VRR enabled. It's more aggressive with refresh rates above 100Hz, which leads to a faster response time but with more overshoot errors. When the TV hovers around 100Hz, the rapid changes in behavior when it goes above and below that threshold are distracting. There are no rapid changes in behavior when running at a fixed refresh rate."

• Final Thoughts

Poor VRR & Poor PQ. No Thanks.

We would not recommend anyone purchase the Hisesne U7N unless you're throwing it outside and understand you'll be lucky to get 2 years out of it.

For those in the US/Canada - TCL Q750G/QM751G For Europe & Other Regions - TCL C745

• Hisense U76N

Not that bright - only 800 nits for a QLED.

No miniLED vs the rest of Hisense's UxN lineup

Same VRR Issues as U7N

• Hisense U8N (U88N in Canada)

"There are similarly named international models, like the U8NAU in Australia, but these models perform a bit differently than the North American models, so our results aren't valid for them. "

55, 65, 85 & 100 Inch use VA panels. 75 inch uses garbage ADS panel.

Note that the 55-inch and 100-inch models use two feet instead of a central stand.

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings)

CONS: "Is a bit buggy at times."

"Unfortunately, the TV isn't the most accurate, and it favors brightness over accuracy in both SDR and HDR. A TV like the X93L displays an image that is much closer to the content creator's intent."

• Build Quality

"A USB, ethernet, and optical port are located in a recessed cutout that faces the back. Unfortunately, these aren't accessible if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall."

"Our unit did have some pixel level smudges, but these aren't noticeable from a normal viewing distance."

• Contrast & Brightness

"there's some noticeable blooming around bright objects and subtitles when displayed against a black background."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"Gamma is close to our target of 2.2, but most scenes are displayed a bit brighter than intended. The white balance is okay, but there is too much red and blue in brighter shades of gray. Color accuracy is great, but whites, lighter yellows, lighter cyans, and darker blues have minor inaccuracies. Fortunately, the color temperature is essentially perfect."

• Other

"The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this."

• Final Thoughts

OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides): VRR issues, Poor Prcessing, Upscaling, & Motion Handling. No Thanks.

There are better choices.

For the US - Sony X90L, X93L, Bravia 7. TCL QM850G/QM851G. Samsung QN85D & QN90D | For EU/Asia/Australia - Sony X90L & Bravia 7. TCL C805, C845, & C855. Samsung QN85D & QN90D

The Paradox of the Roku Pro Series QLED

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• Overview

The Roku Pro Series is an interesting model. It represents a decent attempt at something that isn't junk from Roku. It has an art mode to compete with Samsung's The Frame & a slim mount can be purchased separately.

It has a VA miniLED FALD panel w/ HDMI 2.1, 4K@120, & DV Support.

But why is it a paradox?

• The Paradox

First, The Price

Prices as of 7/8

The TCL QM751G is cheaper as is the clearance TCL Q750G. THe QM851G isn't much more either.

Second, the rtings review

Rtings: CONS - "Disappointing image processing."

The Local Dimming also isn't great.

It's not great for the price it commands.

Third, ROKU itself

Why we are NOT Recommending Roku going forward

• Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a FRAME TV Alternative for a bedroom in a TV that has an artwork mode but doesn't look as much like a piece of art, then this might be a good option.

Bare in mind the mount is another $99.99 on top of the TV price too.

Not a great TV, but for the right person its an option.

If Roku can get the price down further and fix the processing & dimming issues this could be a good TV next year but this year be aware its not the best option.

Why You Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S85D OLED

Updated July 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

Full Rtings Review

"Sub-Type: WOLED"

"Value for price beaten by: LG C3 OLED"

• Bottom Line (Rtings)

"The Samsung S85D OLED is Samsung's entry-level OLED for 2024. It sits below the Samsung S90D/S90DD OLED, and unlike that TV, all sizes use a traditional WOLED panel instead of a QD-OLED panel. "

• CONS (Rtings)

"No Dolby Vision or DTS audio support."

"Aggressive ABL can be distracting with large areas of brightness."

"Only decent HDR brightness limits the impact of HDR content."

• Versus the LG B4 (Rtings)

"It's most comparable to a TV like LG's entry-level LG B4 OLED, but it's not as bright in HDR, and it loses a lot of peak brightness in HDR while using Game Mode. On top of that, the B4 has much better pre-calibration accuracy, more effective low-quality content smoothing, better build quality, and it supports Dolby Vision HDR and DTS audio formats. Since both TVs are similarly priced, the LG B4 OLED is the better choice for almost anyone."

"The LG B4 OLED is better than the Samsung S85D OLED. The LG is brighter in HDR, and it maintains its brightness much better while using 'Game Mode,' leading to a more impactful HDR experience. The LG is also more accurate in HDR, and its SDR accuracy is significantly better without needing calibration. Additionally, the LG has the edge with low-quality content smoothing, and it supports Dolby Vision and DTS audio formats."

• Build Quality (Rtings)

"The Samsung S85D has a very basic design"

"The TV uses two plastic feet that can be adjusted to a wide position (pictured above) or a narrow position. The feet lift the TV about 3.35 inches, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen."

"The back of the TV is made entirely of plastic. It feels a bit loose against the panel, and the entire back of the TV flexes when pressed on. The inputs are located in two recessed cutouts on the bottom right of the TV when facing the front, which makes them hard to access if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall."

"The TV is light, and the two plastic feet don't help much with weighing it down, so there's some wobble when the TV is pushed on. It's mostly made of cheap-feeling plastic"

"[There is] one dead pixel on the top left of our unit,"

• Contrast & Brightness (Rtings)

"The Samsung S85D has decent HDR brightness. In combination with its remarkable contrast, it gets bright enough for some highlights to stand out, but it's not bright enough to properly display very bright highlights. Unfortunately, large bright scenes are significantly dimmer than smaller specular highlights due to the TV's aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL)."

"The Samsung S85D is noticeably dimmer while in Game Mode compared to the TV's other picture modes. This leads to a less impactful HDR experience while gaming."

"The Samsung S85D has good SDR peak brightness and overcomes glare in bright rooms. Its Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) is aggressive when bright highlights take up most of the screen or if the entire image is bright, like when watching hockey. Outside of that, there isn't much variation in the TV's SDR peak brightness."

• Color Gamut/Volume (Rtings)

"The Samsung S85D has okay pre-calibration accuracy. Its white balance is disappointing, with greens very overrepresented in most grays, blues overrepresented in mid-grays, and reds underrepresented in brighter grays. The color temperature is excellent, but it's noticeably cooler than our target of 6500K. The color accuracy is very good, but whites lean towards cyans, and there are noticeable inaccuracies with yellows, lighter cyans, lighter blues, and lighter magentas. Gamma is close to our target of 2.2, but almost the entire image is brighter than intended."

"If you look closely, there are some very faint vertical lines on the panel"

• Other (Rtings)

"there is still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes."

"There's some noticeable banding in dark greens and dark blues"

"Unlike Samsung's OLEDs from 2023, the S85D doesn't support ATSC 3.0 for 4k over-the-air, as Samsung has dropped that feature on their 2024 4k models."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

The LG B4 is a better TV as Rtings have told you. We agree.

The LG C3 on clearance is also a better value right now while you can get one.

For Europe you may find a better deal on the C3; a clearance Panasonic OLED like the MZ980, MZ1500, or MZ2000; or a clearance Phillips OLED like the OLED 708, 808, or 908.

MSRP USD Pricing as of 7/8 w/ no sales

While the 55 & 77 S85D is $100 less its worth the price difference to buy the B4. The 65 B4 as of 7/8 was on sale for $1,999.99 which is a better deal.

So You Want to Buy a Small TV? 32-50 Inches

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• General Advice

32 Inch TV's are all of the low end variety. Even the most premium of 32 inch TV's, The Samsung Q60D, is low end.

If you require a 32 inch you should look into a computer monitor instead.

42-50 Inch TV's generally fall into two Categories - 1. Low End or 2. Premium

• Sizing

LED TV's below a 55 inch generally fall into the following sizes: 32, 43, or 50 Inch.

There are smaller TV's than a 32 inch but those are all 720p and not worth going over.

OLED TV's below a 55 inch generally fall into the following sizes: 42 or 48 Inch.

• United States/Canada

There are limited options in the US & Canada that are of quality

OLED

LED

There is also the Sony X85K, its a clearanced model form the 2022 & 2023 model years. It lacks Local Dimming. It has the older X1 Processor which halves vertical resolution in 4K@120. Its overpriced for its performance & falls in between the junk models & the premium models.

OTHERWISE the standard applies: 50 inch & Smaller tv's are inherently low pick whichever looks best to you in that size range

• Europe/Asia/Australia

The models listed in the US/Canada Section also are avlaible in Europe, Asia, & Australia.

In Addition the following models exist:

OLED

^1 - aka OLED769. These use the Titan OS and NOT Google TV. These use last year's Processor.

^2 - aka OLED819, OLED849, OLED859, & OLED889. | The 889 comes in ONLY a 55 & 65 inch and has a QWERTY keyboard remote.

LED

^1 - AKA W93A

^2 - PUS8909, PUS8919, PUS8939, PUS8949, PUS8959, PUS8989, PUS8999. 43 & 50 Inch ONLY. 55+ is IPS panel and NOT recommended.

The Phillips The One however we don't have a ton of information on right now other than 100/120hz & a VA panel with a decent processor.

Why You Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Phillips PUS7009, PUS7409, PUS7609, PUS8009, PUS8109, PUS8309, PUS8609, or The One (PUS8919)

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More information will be added as more data comes

• PUS7009

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

• PUS7409

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

• PUS7609

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

Junk TitanOS

• PUS8009/PUS8079

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

Junk TitanOS

• PUS8109

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

Junk TitanOS

• PUS8309/PUS8319/PUS8329/PUS8349/PUS8389

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

• PUS8609

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Poor Picture Precise processor.

Junk TitanOS

• The One (PUS8919/PUS8939/PUS8949/PUS8989/PUS8999)

IPS Panel for 55 Inch & Above Models

No G-SYNC

No DTS:X

Junk TitanOS

Why You Shouldn't Buy the LG M4 or T4 OLED

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• Zero Connect Box

This is why you buy the LG M4, its also the reason to avoid the M4. I believe we call this a paradox.

The Zero Connect box wirelessly connects to the M4 & houses all of the I/O Ports on it instead of the TV.

However it actually is IR and requires LINE OF SIGHT! You can't hide it!

LG has a history of poor Wi-Fi modules & harnesses. This has been seen on /r/TVRepair, /r/4kTV, & /r/OLED.

Also the bandwidth between the box & TV is only 30 Gbps not the full 48 Gbps of HDMI 2.1. LG is claiming - that the wireless signal uses visually lossless compression to deliver uncompromised video up to 4K 120Hz and audio up to Dolby Atmos. The latency between box and TV is said to be less than 5ms – the TV's panel processing will most likely add a little extra.

I would not trust LG on this.

The box also only has 3 HDMI ports not 4 like a traditional TV would.

LG T4 Specific

This is a niche use product in its 1st Year.

Never buy an something like this in its first year.

The big use is its transparent, it looks cool but that's about it.

Oh yeah this thing is going to cost and arm & a leg, not worth it.

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 LG UT70/UT73/UT75, UT80/UT81, QNED80T/, QNED85T/QNED86T, or QNED99T

Updated August 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More information will be added as more data comes

• UT7000/UT7300/UT7500

Full Rtings Review

50 Inch will use VA Panel all other sizes should be IPS

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The LG UT7570 is an entry-level TV released in 2024. It's a 60Hz option and doesn't have modern features like local dimming, VRR support, or HDMI 2.1 bandwidth"

"The LG UT7570 is just okay for mixed usage."

"Unfortunately, it has awful contrast and doesn't get bright enough for use in a well-lit room, so it doesn't look very good regardless of the lighting in your room."

"The TV's response time is only decent, so fast motion has noticeable blur behind it."

"If you're looking for a TV to pair with your modern gaming console or PC, it isn't a good option since it lacks HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR support; you're limited to 4k @ 60Hz."

"Slow smart interface."

• Bottom Line (/r/htbuyingguides):

Cheap & below the standarrds of minimum acceptable TV we recommend.

Not worth you're time.

• Build Quality

"The TV comes with two plastic feet. They're set wide apart and can't be adjusted, so they take up a lot of space, and you'll need a large cabinet for the larger sizes. The stand lifts the display about 2.91 inches above the table, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen."

"The inputs are housed in a much smaller box than the LG UQ7590, which gives the back of the TV a cleaner look. Since the inputs are located in the middle, they're hard to reach if you have the TV wall-mounted. Unfortunately, there are no clips or anything to help with cable management."

"The TV has decent build quality overall. It's mostly made of plastic, so it's light and feels a bit cheap, but the two feet hold the TV well enough that there are no major issues with stability. Unfortunately, our unit does have some uneven assembly near the top of the screen, so there's a small gap between the screen and the borders of the TV."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The LG UT75 has awful contrast. Blacks are raised and look gray when highlights are also on the screen, and the TV lacks a local dimming feature to improve its contrast."

"Switching to Game Optimizer doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance."

"The LG UT7570 has inadequate HDR brightness. It's not bright enough to display HDR content properly. Bright highlights don't stand out, and overall, this TV doesn't provide an impactful HDR experience."

"The TV has disappointing SDR brightness. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room, so it's best suited for dark or moderately lit rooms."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The LG UT7570 has an okay color gamut, but it's not wide enough to display saturated colors in HDR."

"all colors are undersaturated and very inaccurate."

"The TV's color volume is mediocre. It does a bad job at displaying dark colors due to its awful contrast, and the TV isn't nearly bright enough to display colors at high luminance levels."

• Other

"The LG UT75 has disappointing black uniformity, since the entire screen is blueish and cloudy."

"The TV's gradient handling is adequate. There's some noticeable banding in dark grays, dark reds, dark blues, and bright greens, and dark greens have significant banding."

"The TV's low-quality content smoothing is good. Details are preserved well, but there's still some noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes."

"The LG UT7570 does an okay job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details aren't overly soft, but finer details are very hard to make out."

"The TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. Unfortunately, it flickers at a slow 120Hz in all picture modes and at all brightness levels, so it can cause headaches and eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL Q750G or QM751G | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745 or C805

• UT8000/UT8100

IPS Panel (50 & 70 Inch are VA Panels)

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1

No Local Dimming

Awful/Slow Alpha 5-7 Processor.

Only 3 HDMI ports

No Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS Support

No Dolby Atmos Support

• LG QNED80T/QNED81T/QNED82T/QNED83T

IPS Panel (50 Inch is VA Panel)

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1

No Local Dimming

Edge Lit Panel

Awful/Slow Alpha 5-7 Processor.

Only 3 HDMI ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

No DTS Support

No Dolby Atmos Support

• LG QNED85T/QNED86T/QNED87T

IPS Panel (50 Inch is VA Panel)

Edge Lit

No G-SYNC

Better value TV's elsewhere

• LG QNED99T

First & Foremost - 8K is POINTLESS in 2024 Still

General Reasons Why -

1. Lack of Content - There barely is enough 4K Content available, let alone 8K Content. Upscaling 720p or 1080p to 2160p is hard enough for some tv's let alone upscaling to 4320p

2. Value - You get far better value out of a 4K TV

3. HDMI 2.1 is still in its infancy and most tv's only can do 40GBPs not the full 48 GBPs of HDMI 2.1. HDMI 2.0 is limited to 8K@30. HDMI 2.1 is limited to 8K@60 as well.

Secondly this TV is an IPS Panel

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 TCL S453R, S551G/P755, Q651G/C655, or Q681G/C655Pro

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More Information will be added as more data comes out.

• TCL EU vs US Model Comparables

FlatPanelsHD: "We have confirmed that TCL's European and North American TV line-ups in 2024 differ only in name for many models, except for minor details such as the regional tuner or speaker power."

• TCL S451R (S453R/S455R)

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1

No Local Dimming

No Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), FreeSync or G-SYNC

No Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)

4 Series TCL TV's have a bad reputation of QA/QC issues as seen in /r/TVRepair. Panel & Backlight failure is common place.

• TCL S551G/S551F/S571F/P755

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No Local Dimming

No Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), FreeSync or G-SYNC

• TCL Q651G/Q651F/C655

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate except 85 & 98 Inch has 120 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1 except 85 & 98 Inch

No Local Dimming including on 85 & 98 Inch

No Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), FreeSync or G-SYNC except 85 & 98 Inch has VRR & Free Sync but no G-SYNC

• TCL Q681G/C655 Pro (except 85 Inch which has HDMI 2.1 & LD)

50/60 Hertz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1 except 85 Inch

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No G-Sync

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Panasonic W60A, W70A, or W80A

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More information will be added as more data comes

• W60A (AKA W60, W63A, W63, W68, or W68A)

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HCX Processor

No HDMI 2.1

Only 2 HDMI Ports

TiVo OS

No Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), FreeSync or G-SYNC

• W70A (AKA W70)

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No Local Dimming

No HCX Processor

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

No FreeSync or G-SYNC

• W80A (AKA W83, W83A)

50/60 Hz Refresh Rate

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports

Other recommended TV's instead: TCL C745, C805, C845, or C855

Why you shouldn't buy the 2024 Sony Bravia 3 Series (S30)

Updated August 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings)

"The Sony BRAVIA 3 is an entry-level model in Sony's 2024 TV lineup. It's a pretty basic 60Hz TV and doesn't have features like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR, and local dimming"

"The Sony BRAVIA 3 is a decent TV, but it doesn't do anything that separates it from the crowd of other entry-level models. It doesn't have a local dimming feature, and its native contrast is terrible, so blacks are gray most of the time, and HDR content isn't very impactful. Its SDR brightness is good enough to overcome some glare in a room with the lights on. However, its handling of direct reflections, such as from lights placed in front of the screen, limits its usefulness in a bright room. It's also very limited with modern gaming features, so it's not a good option if you're looking for a TV to pair with your modern console or gaming PC. "

"It's not a very good option to pair with your modern gaming console or PC since it lacks modern gaming features; you're limited to 4k @ 60Hz without VRR."

"The TV's terrible contrast means blacks look gray when highlights are on screen, so it doesn't look good in a dark room whether you're watching SDR or HDR content."

• Build Quality

"The TV comes with two metal feet. They're set wide apart and can't be adjusted, so they take up a lot of space, and you'll need a large cabinet for the larger sizes. The feet lift the TV about 3.86 inches above the table, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen."

"The back of the TV is made entirely of plastic and has the familiar checkerboard pattern similar to many other Sony TVs. The inputs are on the far left side of the TV when facing the front, but they're in a recessed cutout, so they're a bit hard to reach if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall. Clips on the feet can be used to help with cable management."

"The TV has decent build quality overall. It's mostly made of plastic, so it's light and feels a bit cheap, but the two metal feet hold the TV well enough that there are no major issues with stability. The build quality is nothing special, but there's no issue with quality control, which is great."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The Sony BRAVIA 3 has terrible contrast. Blacks are raised and look gray when highlights are also on the screen, and the TV lacks a local dimming feature to improve its contrast."

"The Sony BRAVIA 3 has just okay HDR brightness. Some highlights stand out a bit in darker scenes, but the TV's HDR brightness isn't good enough to display brighter highlights with impact."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"but all colors are undersaturated and mostly off the mark. The TV has okay coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, but colors are inaccurate and undersaturated."

"The TV has satisfactory color volume, but it doesn't do a very good job of displaying dark saturated colors due to its terrible contrast. It also can't display most colors very brightly."

• Other

"The TV has decent black uniformity, but large areas of the screen are blueish and cloudy."

"There's noticeable banding in dark grays and bright greens, but all other colors have minimal banding."

"The Sony BRAVIA 3 supports almost all common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz, but it doesn't support 1440p. It displays chroma 4:4:4 properly with any signal as long as the TV is in Graphics Mode, which is important for reading clear text from a PC."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - IPS, No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid HDR Brightness = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL Q750G or QM751G | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745 or C805

The Confusion of the Samsung QN85D & QN90D

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• QN85D | aka QNX1D (Per Rtings)

Rtings says their 65 inch Test Model uses VA.

However Samsung has in the past used a panel lottery using different panels for different countries. We cannot guarantee that all sizes & all countries will all utilize a VA panel.

Hisense often uses ADS for their 75 inch TV's as an example.

The QN90B in some countries was ADS & VA in others in 2022 for example.

• QN90D

FlatPanelsHD: "QN90D is the successor to QN90C but this year it will seemingly use a mix of medium-contrast VA and low-contrast IPS LCD panels so beware."

Rtings: "Sub-Type: VA"

We can confirm the following models will all use VA only Panels: 43, 50, & 98 Inch. All 50 inch panels are VA. The 98 inch is made by CSOT and only comes in VA.

However Samsung has in the past used a panel lottery using different panels for different countries. We cannot guarantee that all sizes & all countries will all utilize a VA panel. ex Panel Lottery in Europe for QN90B but all in US were VA.

We will wait for more information, but buyer beware at this point.

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung DU6900, DU7200, DU8000, DU9000, Q60D, Q70D, & Q80D

Updated July 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More Information will be added as more data comes out.

• DU6900

60 Hertz

Edge Lit

No HDMI 2.1

Only 2 HDMI Ports/Only 1 USB Port. No Toslink Port

No VRR/Free Sync/G-Sync

"Crystal Processor" Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu

Horrible Tizen OS

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since 2016

Better Value Elsewhere

• DU7200

60 Hertz

Edge Lit

No HDMI 2.1

Only 3 HDMI Ports/Only 1 USB Port. No Toslink Port

No VRR/Free Sync/G-Sync

"Crystal Processor" Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu

Horrible Tizen OS

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since 2016

Better Value Elsewhere

• Samsung DU8000 | AKA DU8070, DU8090, DU8100, & DU8500 in Europe

Full Rtings Review

The Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Samsung DU8000 is an entry-level model in Samsung's 2024 lineup and replaces the Samsung CU8000. It sits above the Samsung DU7000 and below Samsung's QLED lineup. It uses Samsung's AirSlim design, which is meant to provide a slim design that blends into your wall, and this TV comes with Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS, which has been updated to version 8.0 in 2024. The TV has a 20W 2.0 channel speaker system built-in and is available in a wide variety of sizes: anything from a small 43-inch model to a large 85-inch model. It's a basic TV"

"The Samsung DU8000 is okay for mixed usage. It's best suited for watching movies or playing games in a dark room since it doesn't get bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room. HDR content lacks impact due to the TV's unremarkable contrast and inadequate HDR brightness, so blacks aren't deep at all when bright highlights are on screen, and highlights don't stand out the way they should. It also has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not a good option for watching shows or sports as a group, as anyone sitting to the side sees a degraded image."

"The Samsung DU8000 is just alright for watching sports. Its uniformity is decent, but there's some noticeable dirty screen effect when watching sports with large areas of uniform color, like hockey or soccer. Due to its narrow viewing angle, it's not a good choice for hosting game days since anyone sitting off to the sides sees a degraded image. The TV only has decent reflection handling and doesn't get bright enough to overcome glare, so it's not a good option for watching the game in a bright room."

"The Samsung DU8000 is an okay TV overall, but it's held back by its lack of local dimming, low peak brightness, narrow viewing angle, and lack of modern gaming features. You can do much better with your money by going with a TV like the TCL Q7/Q750G QLED"

/r/HTBuyingGuides:

The DU8000 is the replacement for the incredibly poor CU8000. Check /r/TVRepair, /r/4kTV, & /r/SamsungTV for the # of issues this tv had. We cannot in good conscious recommend the replacement of the CU8000.

It has a slow processor, horrible motion handling, & poor upscaling.

• Build Quality

"The height of the feet is adjustable, and you can set them to two different positions. The lower position, which you can see in the photo, puts the screen close to the table. The other position is high enough that most soundbars fit below the screen. The height of the lower position is 2.1", and the higher one is 3.07"."

"The back of the TV is identical to the Samsung CU8000. It's made entirely out of plastic and has etched horizontal lines. There are two ports that directly face the back and a cutout where you'll find the rest of the inputs, so these can be hard to reach if you have the TV wall mounted. "

"The Samsung DU8000 has mediocre build quality. It's made entirely of plastic, and there's some wobble from front to back, but the TV recovers quickly. There's also some flex on the back of the TV that increases near the VESA mounting points, but this doesn't cause any issues. However, there's a large gap between the area where the screen meets the border. We don't know if this is isolated to our unit, but it's concerning."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: TV is made cheaply as expected. HDMI 3 & Toslink port are in a pain in the ass position if mounted.

• Contrast & Brightness

Local Dimming? NO

Backlit: EDGE

"Its native contrast is good, but it lacks a local dimming feature, so blacks are deep in dim and dark scenes, but they become raised and washed out when bright highlights are on the screen."

"The Samsung DU8000 has inadequate HDR brightness. It's not bright enough to display HDR content properly. Bright highlights don't stand out, and overall, this TV doesn't provide an impactful HDR experience."

"The Samsung DU8000 has sub-par SDR brightness. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room, so it's best suited for dark or moderately lit rooms."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: TV has poor brightness and is not suitable for use outside of a bedroom TV

• Color Gamut/Volume

"Reds, yellows, greens, and cyans are undersaturated, and less saturated reds and blues are displayed inaccurately. "

"The TV's color volume is mediocre. It doesn't display darker colors well due to its unremarkable contrast, and it can't display most colors at high luminance levels."

"The Samsung DU8000 has decent pre-calibration accuracy. Reds, greens, and blues are underrepresented in darker shades of gray, color temperature is cooler than than our target of 6500K, and gamma is much darker than the 2.2 target. Color accuracy is decent overall, but there are noticeable inaccuracies with magentas, reds, and blues."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: Typical Samsung cool color temperature to fake/push brightness higher.

• Other

"The Samsung DU8000 has decent gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are darker than the center, and there's some noticeable dirty screen effect towards the middle of the screen with large areas of uniform color. On a very dark or near-black screen, its uniformity is good, but the sides are noticeably brighter than the center."

"The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing. Although it preserves details well, there's no noticeable smoothing done, and artifacts are still present. "

"The TV's gradient handling is alright. There's significant banding in greens and noticeable banding in dark grays and dark reds."

"The Samsung DU8000 uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it can impact text clarity."

"The TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using."

"Due to this TV's relatively slow response time, it does an alright job with stutter in 24 fps content like movies, but there's still noticeable stutter with slower camera movements. "

"The TV supports all common resolutions at 60Hz. Unfortunately, 1440p doesn't work in Game Mode. The TV displays a cropped window, even though 1440p works fine outside of Game Mode."

• Final Thoughts

Hard Facts - 60 hz, Edge Lit, No Local Dimming. Poor Brightness. No VRR/Free Sync/G-Sync.

Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling especially on their cheapest TV's.

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu.

Horrible Tizen OS.

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since ~2016.

Better Value Elsewhere.

We would not recommend anyone purchase the Samsung DU8000.

For those in the US/Canada - TCL Q750G. For Europe & Other Regions - TCL C745

• Samsung DU9000

98 Inch Version of DU8000.

Yes VA Panel & HDMI 2.1 (only 3 HDMI Ports though) but uses garbage tier Samsung Crystal Processor

• Samsung Q60D | AKA QE1D (Samsung.com Exclusive) & AKA Q64D/Q65D/Q67D in Europe

Full Rtings Review

The Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Samsung Q60D QLED is the lowest-end model in Samsung's QLED lineup. It replaces the Samsung Q60C QLED and sits below the Samsung Q70D QLED. Like its predecessor, it's a 60Hz TV and doesn't have modern features like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR support, or local dimming."

"The TV doesn't get bright enough in HDR for highlights to stand out, and it only has okay contrast, so HDR content isn't as impactful as it should be. Its viewing angle is narrow, so the image degrades when viewed from the sides, making it unsuitable for watching shows or sports with friends. Unfortunately, it also has a slow response time, so faster motion in sports or video games is blurry. Finally, the TV isn't a very good option for gaming on modern consoles or PCs since it lacks HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and VRR."

"The Samsung Q60D is a very basic TV that is decent overall. Unfortunately, it's substantially overpriced for a TV lacking modern features, and its picture quality is nothing special. "

/r/HTBuyingGuides: The Q60Dis the replacement for the incredibly poor Q60C. It has a slow processor, horrible motion handling, & poor upscaling. Simply put the TV provides poor value for its performance as evidenced by its specifications & rtings testing.

• Build Quality

"Unfortunately, the inputs are recessed into the TV, so they're hard to reach if you wall-mount it with a fixed bracket."

"There are no major flaws with build quality, but the TV feels cheap since it's made entirely of plastic."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: TV is made cheaply as expected. HDMI 3 & Toslink port are in a pain in the ass position if mounted.

• Contrast & Brightness

Local Dimming? NO

Backlit: EDGE

"The Samsung Q60D has okay contrast. Its native contrast is great, but it lacks a local dimming feature. This causes blacks to be deep in dim and dark scenes, but they become raised and washed out when bright highlights are on the screen."

"The Samsung Q60D has adequate HDR brightness. It gets bright enough for some dimmer highlights to stand out, but it's not enough for most highlights to pop. Combined with the TV's only okay contrast, it doesn't provide an impactful HDR experience."

"The TV has great PQ EOTF tracking, but it's not perfect. Blacks are displayed a bit brighter than intended, and mid-tones are displayed a bit darker than intended."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: TV has poor HDR brightness and is not suitable for any HDR usage.

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The TV has mediocre HDR gradient handling. There's very apparent banding in greens and some noticeable banding in grays and blues. Reds fare better and have minimal banding."

/r/HTBuyingGuides: Typical Samsung cool color temperature to fake/push brightness higher.

• Other

"The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing."

"there's almost no smoothing actually done to the image, so there's still significant macro-blocking in dark scenes."

"The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this."

"This TV doesn't support a variable refresh rate to reduce screen tearing."

• Final Thoughts

Hard Facts - 60 hz, Edge Lit, No Local Dimming. Poor HDR Brightness. No VRR/Free Sync/G-Sync.

Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling especially on their cheapest TV's.

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu.

Horrible Tizen OS.

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since ~2016.

Better Value Elsewhere.

We would not recommend anyone purchase the Samsung Q60D

For those in the US/Canada - TCL Q750G/QM751G. For Europe & Other Regions - TCL C745

• Samsung Q70D | AKA Q71D/Q72D/Q73D/Q74D/Q75D/Q77D in Europe

No Panel Type Given Assumption is ADS

Verified Edge Lit

Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu

Horrible Tizen OS

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since 2016

Better Value Elsewhere

EU Specific for QN70D & Variants -

43 & 50 models have NO HDMI 2.1. Only 3 HDMI 2.0 Ports

Are 50 hz

Use an even worse processor!

• Samsung Q80D | AKA Q81D/Q82D/Q83D/Q84D in Europe

No Panel Type Given Assumption is ADS

Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu

Horrible Tizen OS

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since 2016

Better Value Elsewhere

The Confusion of the Samsung QN85D & QN90D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung Frame TV

Updated May 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• Bottom Line

htbuyingguides: The Frame is a nice piece of ARTWORK. Its not a TV you want for a primary use. Its great for that nice sitting room or dining room you watch tv in 3-5 times a year.

The 43 & 50 Inch Versions are 60 Hz not 120.

The 32 inch Frame is the 2022 Model and is 1080P not 4K.

• The One Connect

The One Connect is something I have been preaching against for years.

Its wire is NOT RATED to be ran in a wall. You want to run it in the wall? You either need an electrician to run conduit for longer runs (provided this meets your jurisdiction's electrical code) AND a longer and expensive one connect cable (~ $300).

They do make an in wall rated One Connect cable but it was for 2019 models and caused issues with both 2021 & 2022 models so we caution against this.

Then on top of that the One Connect itself is larger then the size of a standard brick so hiding it behind the TV is not an option if you want it flush mounted unless you cut a media box into your wall which will be about $100 for the box, plus you'll need an electrician if you can't do electrical to wire and outlet into the box. This is assuming there is no stud, blocking, pipes, etc. in your way or that you have drywall.. Hiding it in an attic is not an option due to heat.

Lastly the One Connect adds more failure points in the cable, the one connect, & the board on the TV that accepts the one connect connection. One Connects also mysteriously are not available for replacement after 1-3 years. Also the whole one connect is no longer available you need to order pieces of it and rip it apart to fix it now.

Rtings:

Full Rtings Review

• Contrast & Brightness

"Unfortunately, the TV has mediocre contrast and only decent HDR brightness, so HDR content isn't very impactful."

"The Samsung The Frame 2024 has mediocre contrast. Its native contrast is good, but it lacks a local dimming feature. This causes blacks to be deep in dim and dark scenes, but they become raised and washed out when bright highlights are on the screen. The TV's contrast isn't as good as the Samsung The Frame 2022 QLED due to the light bleed in the corners of our unit that is causing black levels to rise, even in a dark room. "

"The Samsung The Frame 2024 has decent HDR brightness. It gets bright enough for some dimmer highlights to stand out, but it's not enough for bright highlights to pop. Combined with the TV's mediocre contrast, it doesn't provide an impactful HDR experience."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The TV's color volume is decent. It doesn't display darker colors well due to its unremarkable contrast and can't display vibrant colors very brightly."

"The Samsung The Frame 2024 has a mediocre viewing angle. There's significant gamma shifting and brightness loss as you move off-center, and colors look increasingly washed out as you move further away to the sides, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement. This also really affects the usefulness of the TV's 'Art Mode' since pieces of art look dim and washed-out when viewed from an angle."

• Other

"The TV's low-quality content smoothing is decent. It does a very good job of preserving detail, but there's still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes."

"The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts text clarity, although not everyone will notice this."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - Edge Lit, No Local Dimming, Horrid Brightness = No Thanks

If this isn't your primary TV and its for Artwork mode 95+% of the time and you plan to do a proper back box then the frame is fine. If not then stay far away from this TV.

UPDATED: Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung DU6900, DU7200, DU8000, DU9000, Q60D, Q70D, & Q80D

The Confusion of the Samsung QN85D & QN90D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung 8K TV's - QN800D, QN850D, or QN900D

Updated April 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

More Information will be added as more data comes out.

• Samsung QN800D, QN850D, & QN900D

First & Foremost - 8K is POINTLESS in 2024 Still

General Reasons Why -

1. Lack of Content - There barely is enough 4K Content available, let alone 8K Content. Upscaling 720p or 1080p to 2160p is hard enough for some tv's let alone upscaling to 4320p

2. Value - You get far better value out of a 4K TV

3. HDMI 2.1 is still in its infancy and most tv's only can do 40GBPs not the full 48 GBPs of HDMI 2.1. HDMI 2.0 is limited to 8K@30. HDMI 2.1 is limited to 8K@60 as well.

Samsung has had poor Processors for years with bad upscaling/processing/motion handling

Overly blue/Panel backlight setting locked behind service menu

Horrible Tizen OS

Massive Reduction in QA/QC for Samsung since 2016

Better Value Elsewhere

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung S95D

Updated April 2024

Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• The One Connect Box

Image courtesy of rtings

Rtings: "Like its predecessor, it uses Samsung's unique Slim One Connect Box to house its inputs."

htbuyingguides: Its wire is NOT RATED to be ran in a wall. You want to run it in the wall? You either need an electrician to run conduit for longer runs (provided this meets your jurisdiction's electrical code) OR you need a quite large in wall media box.

Then on top of that the One Connect itself is large so hiding it behind the TV is not an option if you want it flush mounted unless you cut a media box into your wall which will be about $100 for the box, plus you'll need an electrician if you can't do electrical to wire and outlet into the box. This is assuming there is no stud, blocking, pipes, etc. in your way or that you have drywall. Hiding it in an attic is not an option due to heat.

This One Connect is WIDER than the one the Frame Uses so it will take up most of the back box.

• The Anti-Glare Matte Finish

rtings (TV Shows): "TV's contrast greatly decreases, and blacks look gray in a room with the lights on. "

rtings (Sports): "although the matte coating does cause the image to look washed out when used in a room with the lights on."

rtings (Contrast): "Due to the TV's matte coating and the way it handles reflections, the TV's contrast ratio greatly decreases and blacks become gray in a bright room, which makes the image look washed out and reduces the impact an OLED typically has."

Adam Babcok (Rtings): "As for the matte coating, this is really difficult to capture in our scoring, as it affects more than just the reflectivity of the screen. We included extra pictures to try to show you how it looks, but it’s highly polarizing. Personally, I don’t like it and find it worse overall than the glossy coating, but I understand why a lot of people like it."

• Other

rtings (Cons): "Aggressive ABL can be distracting with large areas of brightness"

rtings (HDR Brightness): "Unfortunately, large bright scenes are significantly dimmer than smaller specular highlights due to the TV's aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL)."

rtings: (HDR Brightness) "After a few minutes with a sustained 10% window on screen, the TV gets very hot and starts thermal throttling, so it becomes drastically dimmer. Strangely enough, this doesn't happen with any other sustained windows. When displaying a 10% checkerboard pattern (the orange line in the graph), the TV only gets dimmer due to the TV's ASBL, but no thermal throttling occurs, which suggests that the TV detects a 10% window and displays it as bright as possible before overheating occurs. This behavior isn't noticeable with most real-world content since very bright highlights typically don't stay on screen for that long."

htbuyingguides: So Samsung trying to cheat when reviewers test the TV, typical Samsung. They've done it before, you would have thought they would have learned.

rtings (SDR Brightness): "Unfortunately, the panel's brightness is dimmed considerably by its Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL), so large bright scenes are significantly dimmed. It's the most distracting when watching sports like hockey with bright playing surfaces."

rtings (Low-Quality Content Smoothing): "The TV's low-quality content smoothing is decent. It does a very good job at preserving detail, but there's still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes."

Limited to 40 Gbps HDMI ports due to One Connect.

Why you Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S90D (Panel Lottery)

Date Updated: April 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

AKA the Samsung S92D, S93D, or S94D in Europe

• The Panel Lottery (55, 65, & 77 Inch Models)

The Elec (translation via FlatPanelsHD) is reporting that 2024 Samsung OLED TV's will Use a Panel Lottery mixing W-OLED & QD-OLED in the S90D lineup.

Rtings has confirmed this via their S90D Review: "It's important to note that Samsung's 2024 OLED lineup is confusing. They're releasing the same-sized models with both WOLED and QD-OLED panels, and there isn't a simple way to determine the panel type you're getting. A QD-OLED panel's performance and overall picture quality are typically better than those of a WOLED panel, so this decision will surely lead to some disappointed customers."

• 42, 48, & 83 Inch Specific

You are getting a LG Display W-OLED panel for sure. Why buy from Samsung and get worse motion handling, upscaling, & processing? Just buy the C4

• Other

Rtings (Cons):

"No Dolby Vision support."

"Aggressive ABL can be distracting with large areas of brightness."

"No DTS audio support."

Rtings (Build Quality): "What's more concerning is the misaligned HDMI ports on our unit that makes two of the HDMI ports unusable. Our panel is also slightly bent and bows outwards in the center, although it's hard to notice when watching the TV head-on. " IMAGE

Rtings (Low-Quality Content Smoothing): "The TV's low-quality content smoothing is decent. It does a very good job at preserving detail, but there is still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes."

Rtings (VRR): "Unfortunately, there is an issue when using NVIDIA graphics cards that effects frame rates above 120 fps. The TV essentially duplicates parts at the bottom of the screen."

Why we are NOT Recommending Roku going forward.

Updated April 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

• More Ads

Roku first announced of more ads [UGH!] in January of 2024. FlatPanelsHD Article

"Roku will "immerse advertisers in more parts of the home screen" via interactive and shoppable ad formats, according to Roku's VP of global ad sales and partnerships, Kristina Shepard, to industry publication Adexchanger this week.

These ads will not be limited to media entertainment services and content, but also include ads for cars, travel and restaurants, she said."

• Disabled TV's!

Roku then decided to disable your TV & Streamer until you agreed to new terms & conditions. Those T&C included a forced Arbitration clause. FlatPanelsHD Article Here

While yes these clauses are common, the fact that you cannot not agree to it is ridiculously anti-consumer. The option to not agree to it & not get updates would have been a nice alternative.

• Injectable Ads

Roku then filed a patent to inject ads into video feeds of external devices [ok go fuck yourself Roku]. FlatPanelsHD Article Here

While this is likely not something we will see that soon, its not something we want to ever see.

• Video Ads! (4/30 Update)

Roku is planning to introduce video ads to the home screen and is also testing other video ad formats, the company has confirmed. FlatPanelsHD Article Here

TCL has abandoned Roku in favor of Google & that looks like the right move. You should abandon Roku too.

Dedsec has given you the truth. Do what you will.

2024-2025 OLED TV Buying Guide for Europe/Australia/Asia

Updated September 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

This buying guide was designed w/ the 2024 lineup of Europe/Australia/Asia OLED TV’s in mind.

General OLED Buying Advice

• Is OLED For Me?

If you watch Fox News/CNN All Day? - NO

If you have direct sunlight on the screen? - NO

If you are in an extremely bright room - NO

If you want near perfect black levels? - YES

• Floor model? yay/nay?: NAY!

Unless you're getting a KILLER deal, they will be prone to burn in (permanent image retention). | You MIGHT (not will) get lucky and LG may offer you a one time courtesy replacement for Image Retention. However YMMV as this is a COURTESY REPLACEMENT that LG may stop offering at ANY TIME.

• Extended Warranties

In the UK the only Warranty that Covers Image Retention is John Lewis Protect Plus

HDTVTest - LG G1 Gets 5-Year Panel Warranty, But is OLED Burn-In Covered? We Ask LG!

LG Authorized Dealers List | Buying from a non-authorized seller will be YMMV on LG warrantying the TV or offering a one time courtesy replacement. | Refurbished TV's usually only have a 90 day warranty from the refurbisher.

Pricing: Rtings - TV Yearly Price Cycle | LG & Sony use UMRP (Unilateral Minimum Resale Price) the price SHOULD be the same everywhere. | You may find a better deal but they may be unauthorized, check the list before buying.

• 2024 Sony Offerings

Sony has not yet announced a single TV in their 2024 Lineup yet.

• Sony 2023 Offerings:

^1 - A75L is the same TV as the A80L w/ worse Acoustic Surface Audio, A more Basic Stand, & no Hey Google recognition.

^2 - AKA Sony A83L or A84L

• Panasonic 2024 Offerings

• Panasonic 2023 Models

• LG 2024 Offerings:

^1 - 55 & 65 inch Gallery OLED models have two sub models in EU

LW = NO STAND in Box | LS = has a Stand in the box

Ex. LG OLED55G4xLW or LG OLED55G4xLS where x = regional variant/identifier.

Any number after the 4 on OLED models represents a regional model that the only difference may include: Speaker Wattage, Color of Bezel/Back, or Single vs Twin Tuner.

HDTVTest - LG G4, C4 & B4 OLED TV First Look

• LG 2023 Offerings:

• Samsung 2024 Offerings

Why you Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S90D (Panel Lottery)

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung S95D

We recommend buying a MLA W-OLED panel like the LG G series or Panasonic Z95A instead or the Sony A95L QD-OLED

HDTVTest - Samsung 2024 TV Lineup Explained: QD-OLED vs WOLED

• Samsung 2023 Offerings:

S95C = S90C + a one connect. S95c is NOT recommended as one connect cable is NOT in wall rates. One Connect also has a high failure rate.

• Phillips 2024 Offerings

^1 - aka OLED769. These use the Titan OS and NOT Google TV. These use last year's Processor.

^2 - aka OLED819, OLED849, OLED859, & OLED889. | The 889 comes in ONLY a 55 & 65 inch and has a QWERTY keyboard remote.

HDTVTest - Move Aside LG G4… These Philips OLED TVs with MLA 2.0 Panel Could be The Brightest in 2024

• Phillips 2023 Offerings

How to buy an OLED TV in 2024-2025 for the EU/Australia/Asia Market

• Distance

The first thing we need to figure out is How Far Away you sit from the tv so we can determine what size TV you should have

• TV Sizes

OLED comes in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, 83, 88, & 97 Inch Panels.

88 is reserved for 8K only models which we don't recommend

ALL 42, 48, & 83 Inch OLED panels are W-OELD sourced from LG Display.

• BUDGET

The biggest limiting factor is budget

The LG B line or Phillips OLED7xx Line is typically the most budget OLED model available for 120 Hz

The Panasonic MZ700/MZ800 is only 60 Hz and would be their cheapest model.

Which OLED Should I Buy?

If you have a small budget - LG B3/Phillips OLED707

If your room is Brighter but not overly bright with no direct sunlight - Sony A95L, LG G3, LG G4, Panasonic Z95A, Panasonic MZ2000, Samsung S90C

If you are using this in a bedroom - LG A3, B3/Phillips OLED707

If older movies that require upscaling heavily avoid Samsung, buy a Sony or Panasonic same with those who only watch Cable/Streaming.

Those with a XBSX or PC with HDMI 2.1 Graphics card may not be best served by Sony in this case unless you are more causal/mixed use.

2024-2025 TV Buying Guide for Europe/Australia/Asia

Updated August 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

This buying guide was designed w/ the 2024 lineup of Europe/Australia/Asia TV’s in mind.

LG Authorized Dealers List | Buying from a non-authorized seller will be YMMV on LG warrantying the TV or offering a one time courtesy replacement. | Refurbished TV's usually only have a 90 day warranty from the refurbisher.

Pricing: Rtings - TV Yearly Price Cycle | LG & Sony use UMRP (Unilateral Minimum Resale Price) the price SHOULD be the same everywhere. | You may find a better deal but they may be unauthorized, check the list before buying.

Why you shouldn't buy the 2024 Sony Bravia 3 Series (S30)

• 2024 Sony Offerings

^1 - X93L in EU is a different model than X93L in US. EU X93L = X90L.

^2 - ONLY UK gets the 55 Bravia 7, the rest of Europe does not.

^3 - 65 Inch Bravia 9 is North America exclusive.

X90L, A90K, & 83 inch Version of A80L carry over into 2024 Model Year.

• Sony 2023 Offerings:

^1 - X85L uses X1 Processor which suffers from Half Vertical Resolution in 4K@120

^2 - AKA Sony A83L or A84L

• Panasonic 2024 Offerings

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Panasonic W60A, W70A, or W80A

^1 - AKA W93A

• Panasonic 2023 Models

• LG 2024 Offerings:

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 LG UT70/UT73/UT75, UT80/UT81, QNED80T/, QNED85T/QNED86T, or QNED99T

Awaiting to see Panel lottery info on QNED90 2024 Models before recommending them.

^1 - 55 & 65 inch Gallery OLED models have two sub models in EU

LW = NO STAND in Box | LS = has a Stand in the box

Ex. LG OLED55G4xLW or LG OLED55G4xLS where x = regional variant/identifier.

Any number after the 4 on OLED models represents a regional model that the only difference may include: Speaker Wattage, Color of Bezel/Back, or Single vs Twin Tuner.

HDTVTest - LG G4, C4 & B4 OLED TV First Look

• LG 2023 Offerings:

• TCL 2024 Offerings

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 TCL S453R, S551G/P755, Q651G/C655, or Q681G/C655 Pro

^1 - AKA C89B, C859, & Q10B

^2 - US Equivalent - QM851G

^3 - US Equivalent - QM891G

• TCL 2022/2023 Offerings

• Samsung 2024 Offerings

The Confusion of the Samsung QN85D & QN90D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung DU6900, DU7200, DU8000, DU9000, Q60D, Q70D, & Q80D

Why you Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S90D (Panel Lottery)

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung S95D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung 8K TV's - QN800D, QN850D, or QN900D

We recommend buying a MLA W-OLED panel like the LG G series or Panasonic Z95A instead or the Sony A95L QD-OLED

HDTVTest - Samsung 2024 TV Lineup Explained: QD-OLED vs WOLED

• Samsung 2023 Offerings:

^1 - 43 & 50 Inch Qn90C uses a VA panel, 55+ uses ADS

S95C = S90C + a one connect. S95c is NOT recommended as one connect cable is NOT in wall rates. One Connect also has a high failure rate.

• Phillips 2024 Offerings

^1 - PUS8909, PUS8919, PUS8939, PUS8949, PUS8959, PUS8989, PUS8999. 43 & 50 Inch ONLY. 55+ is IPS panel and NOT recommended.

^2 - PML9009, PML9019, PML9049, PML9059

^3 - aka OLED769. These use the Titan OS and NOT Google TV. These use last year's Processor.

^4 - aka OLED819, OLED849, OLED859, & OLED889. | The 889 comes in ONLY a 55 & 65 inch and has a QWERTY keyboard remote.

Why You Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Phillips PUS7009, PUS7409, PUS7609, PUS8009, PUS8109, PUS8309, PUS8609, or The One (PUS8919)

HDTVTest - Move Aside LG G4… These Philips OLED TVs with MLA 2.0 Panel Could be The Brightest in 2024

• Phillips 2023 Offerings

How to buy an TV in 2024-2025 for the EU/Australia/Asia Market

• Distance

The first thing we need to figure out is How Far Away you sit from the tv so we can determine what size TV you should have

• TV Sizes

LED comes in 43, 50, 55, 65, 75, 85, & 98 Inch Panels typically.

Lower end junk models may use certain oddball sizes like 40, 58, 60, 70,. & 86 inches.

OLED comes in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, 83, 88, & 97 Inch Panels.

88 is reserved for 8K only models which we don't recommend

ALL 42, 48, & 83 Inch OLED panels are W-OELD sourced from LG Display.

• BUDGET

The biggest limiting factor is budget,

The TCL C745 is the cheapest TV we can recommend.

Which TV Should I Buy?

If you have a small budget - TCL C745

If your room is Brighter but not overly bright with no direct sunlight - Sony A95L, LG G3, LG G4, Panasonic Z95A, Panasonic MZ2000, Samsung S90C

If your room is overly bright or you have direct sunlight on the TV - Samsung QN95C, QN9D, Qn90C (43/50), QN90D (43/50/98), or Sony X95L

If you are using this in a bedroom - LG A3, B3/Phillips OLED707

If older movies that require upscaling heavily avoid Samsung, buy a Sony or Panasonic same with those who only watch Cable/Streaming.

Those with a XBSX or PC with HDMI 2.1 Graphics card may not be best served by Sony in this case unless you are more causal/mixed use.

2024-2025 OLED TV Buying Guide for US/Canada

Updated September 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

This buying guide was designed w/ the 2024 lineup of United States & Canada OLED TV’s in mind.

General OLED Buying Advice

• Is OLED For Me?

If you watch Fox News/CNN All Day? - NO

If you have direct sunlight on the screen? - NO

If you are in an extremely bright room - NO

If you want near perfect black levels? - YES

• Floor model? yay/nay?: NAY!

Unless you're getting a KILLER deal, they will be prone to burn in (permanent image retention). | You MIGHT (not will) get lucky and LG may offer you a one time courtesy replacement for Image Retention. However YMMV as this is a COURTESY REPLACEMENT that LG may stop offering at ANY TIME.

• Extended Warranties

In the US the only Warranty that Covers Image Retention is Best Buy's Geek Squad Protection.

HDTVTest - LG G1 Gets 5-Year Panel Warranty, But is OLED Burn-In Covered? We Ask LG!

LG Authorized Dealers List | Buying from a non-authorized seller will be YMMV on LG warrantying the TV or offering a one time courtesy replacement. | Refurbished TV's usually only have a 90 day warranty from the refurbisher.

Pricing: Rtings - TV Yearly Price Cycle | LG & Sony use UMRP (Unilateral Minimum Resale Price) the price SHOULD be the same everywhere. | You may find a better deal but they may be unauthorized, check the list before buying.

• 2024 Sony Offerings

• Sony 2022/2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

^1 - A75L is the same TV as the A80L w/ worse Acoustic Surface Audio, A more Basic Stand, & no Hey Google recognition.

• Panasonic 2024 Offerings

• LG 2024 Offerings

^1 - 55 & 65 inch Gallery OLED models include TV stand in 2024 in US/Canada

• LG 2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

• Samsung 2024 Offerings

Why you Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S90D (Panel Lottery)

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung S95D

Samsung will use a panel lottery for 2024

We recommend buying a MLA W-OLED panel like the LG G series or the Sony A95L QD-OLED at this time until more info is revealed.

S95D uses a One Connect box again. We cannot recommend One Conenct model TV's.

• Samsung 2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

S95C = S90C + a one connect. S95c is NOT recommended as one connect cable is NOT in wall rates. One Connect also has a high failure rate.

How to buy an OLED TV in 2024-2025 for the US/Canada Market

• Distance

The first thing we need to figure out is How Far Away you sit form the tv so we can determine what size TV you should have

• TV Sizes

OLED comes in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, 83, 88, & 97 Inch Panels.

ALL 42, 48, & 83 Inch OLED panels are W-OELD sourced from LG Display.

• BUDGET

The biggest limiting factor is budget

The LG B line is typically the most budget OLED model available in the US/Canada after the A series was discontinued.

Which OLED Should I Buy?

If you have a small budget - LG B3/B4

If your room is Brighter but not overly bright with no direct sunlight - Sony A95L, LG G3/G4, Samsung S89C/S90C

If you are using this in a bedroom - LG A2, B3/B4

If older movies that require upscaling heavily avoid Samsung, buy a Sony (A90K/A75L/A80L/A95L) same with those who only watch Cable/Streaming.

Those with a XBSX or PC with HDMI 2.1 Graphics card may not be best served by Sony in this case unless you are more causal/mixed use.

Mixed Use - Gaming & Movies - LG C3/C4, G3/G4

If you are doing NOTHING BUT GAMING consider the Samsung OLED's

2024-2025 US/Canada TV Buying Guide

Updated September 2024 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by /u/htmod

This buying guide was designed w/ the 2024 lineup of United States (& 95% of it will translate to Canada) TV’s in mind.

• Pricing & UMRP

Rtings - When To Buy A TV | Rtings' TV Yearly Price Cycle

Samsung, LG, & Sony utilize UMRP (Unilateral Minimum Resale Price) in which the manufacturer sets the price of the TV not the retailer. Avoid websites that are far below the UMRP price as they are typically scam websites.

A lot of the unauthorized dealers on this list are scam sites - LG Authorized Dealers List

• TV Release Cycles (Typically)

Samsung = March-April | LG = April-June | Sony = April-August | TCL = March to May |

• Brands

Avoid no name brands & super cheap 4K TV’s (brands like RCA, Sceptre, Element, Toshiba, Westinghouse, Amazon, Pioneer (Pioneer has licensed its name), Insignia, Onn, etc.)

Just because its a name brand does not make it a good tv either see below.

You should never fully trust any tv/demo in a retail store (due to the fact anyone can change the settings + the tv is in a demo mode & the lighting is completely wrong)

• A note on Rtings:

Rtings Motion Handling & Upscaling Tests are flawed and should be disregarded, Real world experience differs from rtings testing.

STOP looking at Rtings scoring, read the actual review! Their scoring system is on a massive curve their lowest scored tv is a 5.6 their highest a 9.8.

TV Models

• Sony 2024 Offerings

"No one ever got fired for buying Sony." - Vincent Teoh (HDTVTest)

X90L, A90K, & 83 inch Version of A80L carry over into 2024 Model Year.

Why you shouldn't buy the 2024 Sony Bravia 3 Series (S30)

• Sony 2023 Offerings

Why You Shouldn't buy the 2022/2023 Sony X80K or X85K

^1 - A75L is the same TV as the A80L w/ worse Acoustic Surface Audio, A more Basic Stand, & no Hey Google recognition. Panel & Processor ARE the same.

• Panasonic 2024 Offerings

• TCL 2024 Offerings

^1 - 55, 65, & 75 inch versions are 60 hz with no local dimming or HDMI 2.1 hence only recommending 85 inch variant.

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 TCL S453R, S551G/P755, Q651G/C655, or Q681G/C655 Pro

• TCL 2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 TCL S450G, S550G, Q550G, or Q650G

• LG 2024 Offerings

^1 - 86 inch uses worse IPS Panel

^2 - 55 & 65 inch Gallery OLED models include TV stand in 2024 in US/Canada

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 LG UT70/UT73/UT75, UT80/UT81, QNED80T/, QNED85T/QNED86T, or QNED99T

• LG 2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

Why You Shouldn't buy the 2023 LG UR7300, UR7500, UR8000, or UR9000O

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 LG QNED75/QNED76, QNED80/QNED81/QNED82, or QNED85/QNED86/QNED87

• Samsung 2024 Offerings

^1 - aka QNX1D (Per Rtings SOURCE)

The Confusion of the Samsung QN85D & QN90D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung DU6900, DU7200, DU8000, DU9000, Q60D, Q70D, & Q80D

Why you Shouldn't Buy The 2024 Samsung S90D (Panel Lottery)

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung S95D

Why You Shouldn't Buy 2024 Samsung 8K TV's - QN800D, QN850D, or QN900D

• Samsung 2023 Offerings (May Find Clearance - Your Mileage May Vary on Availability):

S95C = S90C + a one connect. S95c is NOT recommended as one connect cable is NOT in wall rates. One Connect also has a high failure rate.

^1 - 43 & 50 Inch Qn90C uses a VA panel, 55+ uses ADS

Why You Shouldn't buy the Samsung CU7000, CU8000, Q60C, Q70C, Q80C, QN85C or QN90C

Why You Shouldn't buy the Samsung Lifestyle TV's - NO TO The Frame, The Serif, or The Sero!

How to buy a TV in 2024-2025 for the US/Canada Market

Distance

The first thing we need to figure out is How Far Away you sit form the tv so we can determine what size TV you should have

TV Sizes

Traditional LED Screens come in 43, 50, 55, 65, 75, 85, 98, & 115 Inch panels.

There are some oddball sizes but all of these are lesser/lower end models and should be avoided: 40, 58, 60, 70, & 86 Inch Panels.

OLED comes in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, 83, 88, & 97 Inch Panels.

BUDGET

The biggest limiting factor is budget

$500 USD doesn't get you much of anything Quality short of a really good sale.

The BARE MINIMUM Recommendation for 2024-2025 is the TCL Q750G (2023 Model) which the 55 inch starts at $600 USD unless on sale.

TCL tends to offer a decent value

The TCL Q750G is the most basic/entry level model from 2023 we recommend. it doesn't do anything particularly well. It also isn't the worst TV in any category.

We would recommend if possible stepping up and into the Sony X90L or LG B3 over the Q750G.

Bright/Dark TV's

• Room Brightness

If your room is a large open concept room with many windows then you need a bright TV to compensate.

If you are in a dark basement then you don't need to focus on very bright.

If you have DIRECT sunlight on the screen then you should AVOID OLED! Direct sunlight can damage the OLED screen.

TV's that are great in a bright room:

2024 Models: Samsung - QN90D (43/50/98 Inch ONLY), QN95D | TCL - QM851G, & QM891G

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony X95L, X93L, Samsung QN95C, & TCL QM850G

• Dark Room TV's

OLED will be excellent in darker rooms like bedrooms & basements.

Remember the MLA (G3/G4) & QD-OLED (A95L/S89C/S90C/S90D-non W-OLED Models) will get much brighter vs a regular W-OLED or W-OLED EX panel

2024 Models: LG - B4, C4, G4

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony - A75L, A80L, A95L | LG - A2 (2022), B3, C3, G3 | Samsung S89C, S90C

Content You Consume

• Sports

You want something that has good motion processing & Upscaling, this is Sony's game

Recommended Models:

2024 Models:

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony - A95L, X93L, X95L, A90K (2022), A75L, A80L or X90L

• Movies

OLED or a miniLED are your best bets here.

If older movies that require upscaling heavily avoid Samsung

Recommended Models:

2024 Models: LG - B4, C4, G4

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony - A95L, X93L, X95L, A90K (2022), A80L or X90L | LG - B3, C3, G3 | Samsung - QN90C (43 & 50 ONLY), QN95C, S89C, S90C

• Gaming

Both LED & OLED can be good options here depending on habits, room, & budget.

Those with a XBSX or PC with HDMI 2.1 Graphics card may not be best served by Sony in this case unless you are more causal/mixed use.

If you play hundreds of hours of the same game over with a static hub then you may not want to consider an OLED TV due to burn in. Yes Burn In protection has gotten better but as always YMMV.

Recommended Models:

2024 Models: LG - B4, C4, G4 | Samsung - QN90D (43/50/98 Inch ONLY), QN95D,

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony - A95L, X95L, X93L A90K, A75L, A80L or X90L | LG - B3, C3, G3 | Samsung - QN90C (43 & 50 ONLY), QN95C, S89C, S90C

• Just Cable/Streaming

Upscaling & Processing are very important here. This is also Sony's game. LG has gotten better.

Recommended Models:

2024 Models: LG - B4, C4, G4

2023 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony - A95L, X93L X95L, A90K, A75L, A80L or X90L | LG - B3, C3, G3

Why you Shouldn't buy the 2023 Toshiba C350 Series

Date Updated: November 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Toshiba C350 2023 is a mediocre TV overall. Its wide viewing angle makes it a good choice if you're mostly interested in watching shows or sports in a wide seating area. It has decent reflection handling, but it doesn't get very bright, so it can't fight glare from bright lights or windows in a living room or in an office. It has terrible contrast and lacks a wide color gamut, so watching movies or playing games in a dark room is disappointing. With its decent response time and extremely low input lag, it isn't bad for gaming, but it has no extra gaming features."

"The Toshiba C350 Series 2023 is a budget, entry-level TV that replaces the Toshiba C350 Series 2021. It sits between Toshiba's V35 Series and M550 Series TVs."

"We tested the Toshiba 65C350LU, and this review is also valid for the 43, 50, and 55-inch models. The 50" model of this TV has four HDMI 2.0 ports versus three ports for the other sizes. In Canada, the TV uses the C350LC model code and has three HDMI ports on all sizes, but is otherwise identical to the US model."

• Build Quality

"The TV has metal feet that support the TV well. There is some slight wobbling front to back, but it's not excessive. The feet raise the screen 2.8" from the table, so some soundbars fit fine, but thicker soundbars don't.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 46.8" x 11.8"."

"The back has a mostly flat metallic top part and a thicker plastic housing on the bottom half. The metallic portion is rigid, while there's some flex on the plastic housing, but it isn't excessive. Most of the inputs are side-facing, so they're easy to access unless the TV is mounted flush against the wall. There are clips built into the feet to help with cable management."

"The TV has decent build quality. The TV uses good materials, especially the metal portion on the back. There's a bit of flex in the plastic portion of the back of the TV, but this isn't uncommon and won't cause any issues. The metal feet are sturdy and support the TV well, but there's some wobble front to back."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The Toshiba C350 2023 has terrible contrast, so blacks look gray in a dark room, and there's no local dimming feature to help improve it further."

"This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image."

"Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance."

"Unfortunately, this TV has mediocre peak brightness in HDR. HDR content looks flat and dull overall, as the TV isn't bright enough to bring out specular highlights, and with the lack of a local dimming feature, bright spots don't pop at all."

"Switching to Game Mode causes a slight decrease in overall peak brightness."

"The PQ EOTF tracking of this TV is just alright. Almost all scenes are darker than the content creator intended, even in dim and moderately-lit scenes that aren't limited by the TV's low peak brightness. Near blacks and dark shadows are significantly raised due to the TV's lack of a local dimming feature."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The Toshiba 65C350LU has just an alright color gamut. It can't display a wide color gamut in HDR, with undersaturated greens, yellows, and reds. "

"Unfortunately, this TV has mediocre color volume due to its narrow color gamut and low HDR peak brightness. It can't display bright colors very well and struggles with dark, saturated colors."

"The TV's gray uniformity is okay. The sides of the screen are significantly darker than the center, which is noticeable when watching content with large sections of bright, uniform color, like sports. Uniformity is much better in near-black scenes."

"The Toshiba C350 2023 has disappointing black uniformity. The entire screen looks blue and cloudy because of the low contrast ratio and raised blacks, and there's noticeable backlight bleeding near the TV's bottom edge."

"The Toshiba C350 2023 has passable gradient handling in HDR. There's distracting banding in bright grays and blues and noticeable banding in most other color gradients. "

• Other

"Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is limited. It doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well at all."

"The Toshiba 65C350LU has okay upscaling capabilities. Upscaled images are a bit blurry, but overall details are preserved, and text is readable."

"Unfortunately, the backlight uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight, and there's a low flicker frequency at all backlight levels below the maximum. This low-frequency flicker causes duplications in motion and can cause eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker. However, the backlight is flicker-free at max backlight, and since the TV can't get very bright, if flicker bothers you, just make sure that the backlight is at maximum, and you won't have any issues. This backlight behavior is consistent across all picture modes."

"The Toshiba C350 2023 automatically removes 24p judder from 24Hz sources like Blu-ray or DVD players, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies. However, it can't remove 24p judder from native apps or from 60Hz sources."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - IPS, No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness & Contrast = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL S546, TCL R646, TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745

Why you Shouldn't buy the 2023 Roku Select or Plus Series

Date Updated: November 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

• Roku Select Series

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Roku Select Series is the lower-tier model in Roku's first-ever proprietary series of TVs. It sits below the Roku Plus Series QLED, but unlike that model, the Select doesn't use quantum dot technology to display a wider range of colors. As it's a cheap TV, it lacks some gaming features that more expensive models tend to have, like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, a 120Hz panel, local dimming, and variable refresh rate (VRR). Unlike the Roku Plus, the Select doesn't support Dolby Vision but still supports HDR10+. "

"The TV is at its best when watching high-quality 4k content from physical sources, as its image processing capabilities are disappointing when dealing with low-quality or low-bitrate content. "

"We tested the 65-inch Roku Select Series TV (65R4A5R), but it's also available in 24, 32, 40, 43, 50, 55, and 75-inch sizes. The 24 and 32-inch models have a 720p resolution, while the 40-inch model has a 1080p panel. Model sizes above 40 inches are all 4k TVs. The non-4k models also have three HDMI ports instead of four on the 4k models. The TV is exclusive to Best Buy in the United States, so it has no variants."

• Build Quality

"The Roku Select TV has a basic design, and it doesn't look very premium. It has thin bezels on three sides, with a much thicker bottom bezel."

"The feet are basic, but they support the TV well. They're wide-set, so you'll need a wide TV table if you're not planning on wall-mounting it.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 51.6" x 13.2". The feet raise the screen about 3.3" above the table, so pretty much any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen."

"The back is plain, mostly flat with raised lines, with a raised middle section on the bottom where the inputs are. As all inputs are near the center of the TV, they're hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted, although the side-facing ports are slightly easier to access than the bottom-facing ones. The TV has a tie wrap clip on the TV for the power cable but doesn't come with any other clips for cable management."

"The TV has mediocre build quality. It's not made of premium materials, but there are no noticeable issues. There's a bit of flex on the back panel around the inputs, but this is common and won't cause any problems."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The Roku Select Series TV has a great native contrast ratio, but as it lacks a local dimming feature, blacks appear gray and washed out when very bright highlights are on the screen."

"Unfortunately, the TV's peak brightness in HDR is middling. HDR content is generally dull and lifeless, and specular highlights don't stand out."

"The TV has excellent PQ EOTF tracking with Dynamic Tone Mapping set to 'On'. It tracks the curve very well, although not perfectly, as most scenes are a tad overbrightened, much more so in very dark scenes."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The TV has an okay color gamut, but it can't fully display the wide range of colors that HDR is intended for. It does a good job with the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, but the TV doesn't adequately cover the wider Rec. 2020 color space. The TV's tone mapping is also way off in both color spaces, so it doesn't accurately portray colors at different saturation levels."

"The color volume of this TV is mediocre. Without local dimming, it can't display dark saturated colors well, and its low peak brightness limits its ability to display bright and vibrant colors."

"The TV's gray uniformity is adequate. There are noticeable uniformity issues across the screen on large areas of bright, uniform color. There is obvious vignetting on all of its edges, and there's also a pink hue in the lower left of the screen, with dark bands in the middle. These uniformity issues are distracting when watching sports or browsing the web. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes, with minor backlight bleeding on both sides of the screen."

"There's some banding in dark grays and greens"

• Other

"Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is poor. It just doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well."

"The TV has disappointing upscaling capabilities. The Sharpness slider doesn't seem to affect the TV's sharpening much, making it hard to improve the TV's overall image quality in upscaled content."

"The TV uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout. For multimedia usage, this doesn't cause any issues, but it causes text clarity issues when you use this TV as a PC monitor"

"Unfortunately, the backlight flickers at a low frequency with anything below the max backlight setting. This flicker causes a noticeable image duplication, and it can cause headaches and eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker."

"The TV removes 24p judder from external sources, like DVD or Blu-ray players, but not from internal apps. It can't properly remove judder from any 60Hz source."

"The Roku Select TV supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz, although, unfortunately, it doesn't support 1440p."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts -

No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness, & poor Processing = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL S546, TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - N/A

• Roku Plus Series

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Roku Plus Series QLED is the top model in Roku's first-ever proprietary series of TVs. It sits above the Roku Select Series, and unlike that model, it uses quantum dot technology to display a wider range of colors than traditional TVs. As it's a budget TV, it lacks some gaming features that more expensive models tend to have, like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, a 120Hz panel, and variable refresh rate (VRR), although it does have local dimming."

"The TV is at its best when watching high-quality 4k content from physical sources, as its image processing capabilities are disappointing when dealing with low-quality or low-bitrate content."

"We tested the 65-inch Roku Plus Series TV (65R6A5R), but it's also available in 55 and 75-inch sizes. The TV is exclusive to Best Buy in the United States, so it doesn't have any variants. "

• Build Quality

"The feet are basic, but they support the TV well. They're wide-set, so you'll need a wide TV table if you're not planning on wall-mounting it.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 52.2" x 12.8". The feet raise the screen about 3.9" above the table, so pretty much any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen."

"The back is plain, most of it being flat with raised lines, with a raised middle section on the bottom where the inputs are. As all inputs are near the center of the TV, they're hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted, although the side-facing ports are slightly easier to access than the bottom-facing ones. The TV has a tie wrap clip on the TV for the power cable, and comes with an additional clip that you can set on either foot for further cable management."

"The Roku 65R6A5R has adequate build quality. It's not made of premium materials but feels well-built overall, with no noticeable issues. There's a bit of flex on the back panel around the inputs, but this is common and won't cause any issues."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The TV has mediocre blooming performance. There's some visible blooming around bright highlights or in dark areas when they're next to brighter ones."

"The TV has barely acceptable lighting zone transitions. The leading edge of bright moving objects is visibly dimmer, and fast-moving small objects are almost completely obscured due to how dim they get in the transition."

"The TV has okay HDR brightness. It gets bright enough to make some highlights stand out, but smaller highlights don't pop against a dark background. Still, it's enough for a fairly satisfying HDR experience."

""The TV has fantastic PQ EOTF tracking with Dynamic Tone Mapping set to 'On'. It tracks the curve very well, although not perfectly, as most scenes are slightly overbrightened. With Dynamic Tone Mapping set to 'Off', the TV is more noticeably overbrightened in brighter scenes

• Color Gamut/Volume

"It has fantastic coverage of the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, although most of its colors are undersaturated, and unfortunately, the TV's color accuracy is off with undersaturated colors. "

"Colors are bright and vibrant; however, they're limited by the TV's peak brightness in HDR."

"The TV's gray uniformity is decent. There are noticeable uniformity issues across the screen on large areas of bright, uniform color, with the left side of the screen having a noticeable pink hue when compared to the right side. This is distracting when watching sports or browsing the web. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes, with minor backlight bleeding across the TV's bottom edge."

"There's some banding in dark grays and greens"

• Other

"Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is poor. It just doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well."

"The TV has disappointing upscaling capabilities. The Sharpness slider doesn't seem to affect the TV's sharpening much, making it hard to improve the TV's overall image quality in upscaled content."

"The TV uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout. For multimedia usage, this doesn't cause any issues, but it causes text clarity issues when you use this TV as a PC monitor."

"The TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight. It flickers at 480Hz in every picture mode, with regular cyclical pulses at 1920Hz. Either way, the TV's flicker frequency is high enough that it won't be distracting unless you're sensitive to flicker."

"The TV removes 24p judder from external sources, like DVD or Blu-ray players, but not from internal apps. It can't properly remove judder from any 60Hz source."

"The Roku Plus TV supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz, although, unfortunately, it doesn't support 1440p."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - Meh Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Meh Brightness, & Horrible Processing = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL R646, TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - N/A

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 Vizio Quantum QLED or Quantum Pro QLED

Date Updated: November 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

Vizio Quantum QLED

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Vizio Quantum is an alright TV overall."

"The Vizio Quantum QLED is an entry-level LED TV released in 2023. It's one of only two Vizio TVs released in 2023, at least at the time of publication, sitting below the Vizio Quantum Pro QLED."

"Unfortunately, it's still powered by Vizio's lackluster SmartCast smart interface."

" It doesn't look good in a dark room due to its terrible contrast and lack of a local dimming feature, so it's a disappointing choice for a home theater setup."

"On the other hand, its image processing features are very basic, and it can't smooth out or upscale low-quality or low-resolution content well. Its smart features are also limited, as you can't add new streaming channels, and only a few are available."

"The Vizio Quantum is a very basic TV with poor picture quality and a lackluster smart interface but a good selection of gaming features. It offers better gaming features than most comparably-priced TVs on the market but worse picture quality. You should only consider this TV if you're never in a dark room and plan on using it primarily for gaming."

• Build Quality

"The Vizio M65Q6-L4 has a surprisingly nice design for an entry-level model. The bezels are extremely thin on three sides, but there's some dead space between the bezels and the first pixels, which is a bit distracting."

"The flat feet are set near the ends of the TV, so you'll need a large cabinet if you're not planning on wall-mounting the TV. It supports the TV well, though, with just a bit of wobble. Unlike the step-up model, the Vizio Quantum Pro QLED, there's no raised Soundbar position, but the feet are a bit taller, so you can still place a soundbar in front of the TV without blocking the screen."

"The back of the TV is simple and looks cheaper than the rest of it. The inputs face the side and are easily accessible, even when the TV is wall-mounted. There's nothing to help with cable management, though."

"The build quality is decent overall, with no significant issues. There's some flex on the back panel, but this is common and won't cause any issues. There's some pinching along the top right side of the panel, and a small gap between the bottom bezel of the TV and the screen."

• Contrast & Brightness

"Unfortunately, the Vizio Quantum has a terrible contrast ratio, and there's no local dimming feature. Blacks are raised when any bright highlights are visible on the screen, causing shadow details to appear washed out."

"This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones."

"Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance, as shadows still look washed out."

"Unfortunately, this TV isn't bright enough in HDR to deliver an impactful HDR experience. Simple scenes in HDR are bright enough to stand out, but since it lacks a local dimming feature, bright specular highlights don't stand out at all. Although it supports it, HDR content looks dull and flat on this TV, with none of the punchiness you'd expect."

"Near-blacks are considerably brighter than they should be due to the low contrast and lack of a local dimming feature, so shadow details are always raised. "

" Of course, this TV can't get very bright, so it can't display bright details, and there's a sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness, causing a loss of fine bright details."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"this TV has just decent color volume. It can't display bright colors well due to its low peak brightness. It can't display dark saturated colors properly due to its terrible contrast ratio and lack of a local dimming feature."

"The gray uniformity on this TV is decent overall. There's a bit of dirty screen effect in the center, which is a bit distracting when watching sports, but it's not too bad. The sides of the screen are noticeably darker than the center, though, which is a far more distracting issue when using the TV as a PC monitor."

"Unfortunately, the black uniformity is poor on this TV. The entire screen is cloudy, and there's some pinching along the top edge of the screen that causes noticeable backlight bleed. There's no local dimming feature to improve dark-scene performance on this TV."

"There's significant banding in shades of gray and white, and dark shades of green are mediocre."

• Other

"The low-quality content smoothing on this TV is disappointing. The Contour Smoothing setting, which is supposed to help smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization in dark scenes, doesn't appear to do anything, as there's very little difference between setting it to 'High' and disabling it entirely."

"The sharpness processing on this TV is sub-par. Text and fine details aren't upscaled well and look soft. Some fine details are lost, and upscaled text is hard to read."

"Thanks to this TV's relatively slow response time, there's just a bit of stutter when watching movies or shows. It's still noticeable in some very slow panning shots, but otherwise, it looks good."

"The Vizio Quantum can only remove judder from the native apps and true 24p sources. This includes any DVD or Blu-ray player or streaming sticks with a 'Match Frame Rate' feature like an Apple TV."

"Surprisingly for a TV at this price point, the Vizio M65Q6-L4 supports VRR. Although its native refresh rate is only 60Hz, it supports a 120Hz maximum refresh rate with a 1080p resolution, delivering a nearly tear-free gaming experience."

"Vizio advertises this TV to support HDMI 2.1. The TV's EDID information in Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) shows that it supports some features of HDMI 2.1 but that it's still limited to 18Gbps. "

"The Vizio SmartCast platform doesn't have an app store. There's an okay selection of apps built-in to the TV, and you can cast content from your phone if your favorite streaming service isn't available."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Contract = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL S546, TCL R635, TCL R646, or TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - N/A

Vizio Quantum Pro QLED

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings): "The Vizio Quantum Pro QLED is a midrange LED TV released in 2023. One of only two Vizio TVs released in 2023, at least at the time of publication, it replaces the Vizio M Series Quantum X 2022. "

"Unfortunately, it's still powered by Vizio's lackluster SmartCast smart interface. It's only available in two sizes: 65-inch and 75-inch"

"The Vizio Quantum Pro is a basic mid-range TV with a good selection of gaming features but disappointing picture quality in a dark room. Its smart interface is buggy and limited, so an external streaming device like an Apple TV is a must-have with this TV. Overall, it's a bit disappointing for the price"

• Build Quality

"The flat feet are set near the ends of the TV, so you'll need a large cabinet if you're not planning on wall-mounting the TV, and there's no narrow position."

"The back of the Vizio Quantum Pro is small and looks cheaper than the rest of the TV."

"The TV has decent build quality. It's made of a mix of plastic and metal, and it feels solid overall. There's some flex in the back panel, but this is common and won't cause any issues. There are a few spots on our panel that look like dust or contaminants behind the panel screen. There's also a small scratch on the bottom of our panel."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The Vizio Quantum Pro has a very low native contrast ratio, so with local dimming disabled, blacks are raised and appear washed out in dimmer scenes. The local dimming feature does a decent job of improving contrast, but due to the large size of each zone, it's only effective in very dark scenes."

"Unfortunately, there's noticeable blooming around any bright highlights in darker scenes. In complicated scenes, the local dimming feature does almost nothing, and the entire backlight is on. In dark scenes with small highlights, like a starfield or street lamps in a dark alley, those lights create a large blooming zone around them, and it's very distracting."

"Unfortunately, the zone transitions are extremely noticeable and distracting. The algorithms can't keep up with fast-moving objects, so bright objects moving across a dark background aren't always lit up properly, with the bright zone turning on after the object has already moved to a different zone. With larger objects, there's significant blooming, as the algorithms take too long to turn off, leaving a long trail of blooming behind fast-moving objects."

"The peak brightness in HDR is decent. Very bright scenes are bright enough to stand out well, and it delivers an impactful HDR experience overall. Due to the limited effectiveness of the local dimming feature, though, small specular highlights don't stand out at all and, in fact, are often dimmed artificially by the TV."

"The PQ EOTF tracking on the Vizio Quantum Pro is good overall, but there are a few noticeable issues. Near-blacks and shadow details are raised due to the low contrast ratio and the large size of each local dimming zone. Shadow details are crushed a bit, and midtones are raised slightly. There's no tone mapping, though, as there's a very sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness. This allows the TV to deliver its full peak brightness with more content, but crushes bright details."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The Vizio Quantum Pro has an amazing color gamut. It displays nearly the entire DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, but the accuracy is a bit off, and most colors appear undersaturated. This is especially noticeable as the color accuracy is worse with undersaturated colors. It has decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, but again, the accuracy is poor, and saturated colors, especially greens and blues, are noticeably inaccurate."

"The Vizio Quantum Pro TV has great color volume. Colors are bright and vibrant for the most part, but it can't display dark saturated colors properly due to its low contrast ratio."

"Unfortunately, even after switching the TV to the most accurate mode out-of-the-box, the Vizio Quantum Pro has just okay accuracy in SDR. The white balance is bad, as almost all shades of gray are displayed incorrectly. Gamma isn't close to the 2.2 target at all, and bright scenes especially are significantly brighter than they should be. Most colors aren't noticeably off, but pale shades that are close to white are a bit off."

"The Vizio Quantum Pro has just okay gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are noticeable darker than the center, which is noticeable with any content. There's also noticeable dirty screen effect in the center of the screen, which is distracting for sports fans or if you're browsing the web."

"Unfortunately, the black uniformity on this TV is disappointing. The screen is very cloudy with local dimming disabled, with multiple bright spots across the screen. Enabling local dimming reduces the amount of cloudiness in dark areas of the screen, but there's significant blooming around bright spots on the screen due to the low number of dimming zones. On a PC, the local dimming feature doesn't work properly, and all zones remain lit."

"Overall, gradients in HDR are displayed well on this TV. It struggles a bit more with all shades of green and gray, which both show some banding, but it's not too bad."

• Other

"The low-quality content smoothing on this TV is disappointing. The Contour Smoothing setting, which is supposed to help smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization in dark scenes, doesn't appear to actually do anything, as there's very little difference between setting it to 'High' and disabling it entirely."

"The sharpness processing on this TV is sub-par. Text and fine details aren't upscaled well and look soft. Some fine details are lost, and upscaled text is hard to read."

"The Vizio SmartCast platform differs from other operating systems as the apps are web-based, and the interface feels slower. It's easy to learn, but there are a few bugs, as the SmartCast was unavailable when we first started the TV, and we had to reset it for it to work."

• Versus

"The TCL Q7/Q750G QLED is better than the Vizio Quantum Pro QLED. The TCL has a much higher native contrast ratio, so dark scenes look better, with deeper blacks and less blooming around bright highlights. The TCL also has much better smart features, with a significantly wider selection of streaming apps and a smoother user experience."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - Vizio has moved to an IPS panel, immediately no longer recommended.

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - N/A Vizio is US Only

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 Holiday Model Samsung TU690T (2020 Model Year TV)

Date Updated: November 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

Full Rtings Review

"The Samsung TU690T is an entry-level Samsung TV released in 2022. It's a variant of the Samsung TU7000, which was originally released in 2020. It's a very basic model with very few extra features."

"It uses Samsung's Crystal Processor 4K, first introduced in 2020 and designed to provide powerful 4K upscaling. It runs a simplified version of Samsung's 2021 Tizen OS interface, which offers most of the features of more advanced models. It's available in an incredibly wide range of sizes, from 43 to 85 inches, so there's something for everyone."

• Bottom Line (Rtings): " A variant of the Samsung TU7000, but released a year later, it's often available on sale for major events like Black Friday. It's a very basic TV with limited picture processing capabilities and no advanced gaming feature."

"even though it technically supports HDR, this adds nothing, as it's very dim in HDR and can't display a wide color gamut."

"It's not bright enough to use in a bright living room with lots of windows or bright lights"

• Build Quality

"The feet are very basic and sit close to the sides of the TV, so you'll need a large cabinet for the larger sizes if you're not planning to wall-mount it. The feet lift the screen about 3.1" above the cabinet, so most soundbars fit in front without blocking the screen. There's no alternate position for the stand."

"The back of the TV is plastic and has an etched horizontal texture. The inputs are side-facing, but they're set into the back of the TV, so they're tough to access when the TV is wall-mounted. There are tracks on the back of the TV that could be used for cable management, but they're not very useful, and it doesn't come with any clips for the feet."

"The Samsung TU690T is decently built. It's mostly made of plastic, but there are no significant issues. The back panel flexes easily, but this won't cause any issues and is fairly common. The feet are also pretty basic, and the TV wobbles easily. There's a slight quality issue with the front bottom bezel, as it doesn't seem to be properly attached to the display, and there's a slight gap."

• Contrast & Brightness

"This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image"

"Unfortunately, the peak brightness of this TV is bad in HDR. Almost all HDR content is too dark, and bright highlights don't stand out at all. Dark scenes look even worse, as the TV's global dimming (also known as CE dimming) feature artificially dims bright highlights in dark scenes, like a star field."

"The peak brightness in the 'Game' Picture Mode is about the same as out of it. With test slides, the brightness is a bit lower overall, but with real content, it's about the same. Bright highlights in games still don't stand out at all, and bright scenes are dull."

"The peak brightness of this TV is sub-par in SDR. It's bright enough to see clearly in a moderately lit room, but it's not bright enough to overcome glare from windows or bright lights opposite the TV. Unlike in HDR, there's no global dimming in SDR, so small highlights in dark scenes aren't dimmed artificially."

"The PQ EOTF tracking on this TV is just alright. Near blacks are raised a bit by the TV's relatively low contrast ratio, but everything else is darker than it should be. The brightness cuts off sharply at the TV's peak brightness, causing a loss of bright details."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The color gamut on this TV is just okay. It can't display a wide range of colors with HDR content, so most content looks dull and lifeless. The tone mapping is good for the most part, with content mastered in the DCI-P3 color space, but dimmer shades are a bit off. In the wider Rec. 2020 color space, it's much worse, and the tone mapping is noticeable off with just about everything, but especially with any highly saturated color."

"Unfortunately, this TV has poor color volume. It's limited by just about everything, as it can't display a wide color gamut. Bright colors are limited by the TV's low peak brightness."

"The Samsung TU690T has decent gray uniformity. The center of the screen is fairly even, which is great for watching sports, but the sides are noticeably darker."

"The gradient handling on this TV is alright. There's noticeable banding in all darker shades, but it's worse in dark shades of gray and shadow details."

• Other

"Unfortunately, this TV has poor low-quality content smoothing. Even with all processing settings enabled, macro-blocking and pixelization are still very noticeable. On the other hand, fine details are still preserved well."

"The Samsung TU690T has okay upscaling and sharpness processing. Fine details in low-resolution content are a bit blurry, and text isn't very sharp."

"This TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. It doesn't cause any issues for video content, but if you're planning on using this TV as a PC monitor, it impacts text clarity, and some text will look blurry. You can read more about this here. Blue subpixels are dithered, with part of the subpixel brighter than the rest, but this doesn't cause any noticeable issues with regular content."

"Unfortunately, this TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight. The backlight flickers at 480Hz in the 'Movie' and 'FILMMAKER' modes, but it flickers at a much lower 120Hz frequency in the 'Standard', 'Natural', and 'Game' modes."

"Unfortunately, all sizes of this TV are limited to a 60Hz fixed refresh rate."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - Edge Lit, No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness = No Thanks

Also take a look around /r/TVRepair for issues with the TUxxx series including a high number of panel (screen) failures.

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL Q750G, TCL R646 | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745

How to buy a TV in 2023-2024 for the US/Canada Market

Date Updated: September 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

• Distance

The first thing we need to figure out is How Far Away you sit form the tv so we can determine what size TV you should have

• TV Sizes

Traditional LED Screens come in 43, 50, 55 65, 75, 85, & 98 Inch panels.

There are some oddball sizes but all of these are lesser/lower end models and should be avoided: 40, 58, 60, 70, & 86 Inch Panels.

OLED comes in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, 83, 88, & 97 Inch Panels.

• Budget

The biggest limiting factor is budget

TCL just ruined the Sub $500 Market

$500 USD doesn't get you much of anything Quality short of a really good sale.

The BARE MINIMUM Recommendation for 2023-2024 is the TCL Q750G which the 55 inch starts at $600 USD unless on sale.

• Room Brightness

If your room is a large open concept room with many windows then you need a bright TV to compensate.

If you are in a dark basement then you don't need to focus on very bright.

If you have DIRECT sunlight on the screen then you should AVOID OLED! Direct sunlight can damage the OLED screen.

TV's that are great in a bright room:

2023 Models: Sony X95L, X93L, Samsung QN95C, & TCL QM850G

2022 Models (May Find Clearance): Sony X95K & Samsung QN90B

OLED will be excellent in darker rooms like bedrooms & basements.

• Content You Consume

Sports - You want something that has good motion processing, this is Sony's game

Recommended Models:

Sony A95L, A90K, A80L, A75L, X93L, or X90L

Movies - OLED or a miniLED are your best bets here.

Recommended Models:

Sony A95L, A90K, A80L, A75L, X93L, or X90L

LG B3, C3, or G3

Samsung QN95C or S90C

Gaming - Both LED & OLED can be good options here depending on habits, room, & budget.

Those with a XBSX or PC with HDMI 2.1 Graphics card may not be best served by Sony in this case unless you are more causal/mixed use.

If you play hundreds of hours of the same game over with a static hub then you may not want to consider an OLED TV due to burn in. Yes Burn In protection ahs gotten better but as always YMMV.

Recommended Models:

Sony A95L, A90K, A80L, A75L, X93L, or X90L

LG B3, C3, or G3

Samsung QN95C or S90C

TCL Q750G, QM850G

Just Cable/Streaming - Upscaling & Processing are very important here. This is also Sony's game. LG has gotten better & TCL has dropped off a bit this year in this category

Recommended Models:

Sony A95L, A90K, A80L, A75L, X93L, or X90L

LG B3, C3, or G3

Samsung QN95C or S90C

For More Technical Details on the tv's listed above & further information: Home Theater 101: 2023-2024 US & Canada Television Buying Guide

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 LG QNED75/QNED76, QNED80/QNED81/QNED82, or QNED85/QNED86/QNED87

Date Updated: September 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

• QNED75 (QNED76 in Europe)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Hard Facts - IPS, 50/60 hz, Edge Lit, & HDMI 2.0. Zero reason to consider it.

QNED80 (QNED81/QNED82 in Europe)

Full Rtings Review

"We bought and tested the 65-inch LG QNED80 2023, and the results are also valid for the 55 and 75-inch models. The 50-inch version uses a VA-type panel, which has much better contrast but a worse viewing angle, and the 86-inch model is direct-lit and has better speakers. The exact model code varies between regions and retailers, but unlike the LG QNED80 2022, Costco carries the same version as other retailers.

In Europe, it's known as the LG QNED81 2023, which offers the same performance overall but with a center-mounted stand."

• Bottom Line (Rtings)

"Sadly, it's not a good choice for watching movies or gaming in a dark room, as it has a very low contrast ratio, and the local dimming feature is terrible."

• Build Quality

"The back of the TV features consists of a single large plastic panel. The inputs face to the left of the TV and are set into the TV, so they're hard to reach with the TV wall-mounted. "

"The LG QNED80 2023 has decent build quality. The feet are sturdy and support the TV well, allowing for just a bit of wobble. The back is all plastic, and there's noticeable flex throughout, but this is common and won't cause any issues. Overall, the materials used are a bit cheap, and there's more plastic than the LG QNED80 2022, but there are no obvious issues or problems with quality control."

• Contrast & Brightness

"The LG QNED80 2023 has terrible contrast. Blacks look gray and washed out, and dim scenes lack shadow detail. There's a local dimming feature that's designed to improve contrast, but it's terrible, and we recommend you turn it off."

"The LG QNED80 2023 has just okay peak brightness in HDR. Bright specular highlights in HDR content don't stand out, and HDR generally looks flat and dull."

"The PQ EOTF tracking on the LG QNED80 2023 is decent overall. Shadow details are raised significantly and look washed out; this has more to do with its low contrast ratio than its HDR processing. Midtones are slightly dimmer than they should be."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"Unfortunately, the tone mapping is bad when sent a 75% stimulus, which corresponds to content mastered at 1,000 nits, so most HDR content is inaccurate."

"The color volume is just okay. It's mainly limited by its low contrast, as it can't display dark saturated colors well."

"The black uniformity of this TV is just okay. There's noticeable clouding throughout the screen and a few bright spots along the bottom edge. Enabling the local dimming feature makes the black uniformity significantly worse, as the very limited number of zones can't effectively dim the screen around bright highlights."

• Other

"The reflection handling is decent. There's no sign of rainbow smearing when bright lights are opposite the TV, which is great, but the coating does little to reduce glare."

"The TV has mediocre HDR gradient handling. There's a lot of banding in bright greens and some minor banding in darker shades."

"unfortunately, it struggles with preserving details."

"This TV's upscaling and sharpness processing is okay overall. Fine details are upscaled well for the most part, but hardcoded text is a bit hard to make out."

• Versus

"The TCL Q7/Q750G QLED is significantly better than the LG QNED80 2023. The TCL has a much higher native contrast ratio, and it looks much better in dark rooms, with deeper blacks and very little blooming around bright areas of the screen. The TCL is also a lot brighter, and HDR content looks better."

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - IPS, Edge Lit, Poor Local Dimming, & Poor Contrast = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745

QNED85 (QNED86/QNED87 in Europe)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Hard Facts - IPS with better choice TV's out there.

Why You Shouldn't Buy the 2023 Sony X77L/X77CL aka W75L (Europe)

Date Updated: September 2023 | Written by: /u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: /u/htmod

Full Rtings Review

• Bottom Line (Rtings)

"The Sony X77L is an entry-level 4k model in Sony's 2023 lineup. It sits above the Sony X75K and below the Sony X80L, which aren't widely available [htbuyingguides note: not coming to the US]. As an entry-level model, it offers very few extra features, but it's powered by Sony's 4k Processor X1, which is designed to deliver the same great Sony picture processing you've come to expect from a Sony TV. It uses an ADS panel and lacks local dimming,"

"The Sony X77L TV is a mediocre TV overall."

"Unfortunately, it can handle some glare, but it's not well-suited for a bright room. It's okay for gaming overall, with low input lag and an alright response time, but it doesn't look good in a dark room due to its low contrast ratio. This also makes it a poor choice for watching movies, as dark scenes look horrible and blacks are washed out. It supports HDR, but this adds almost nothing, as it can't get bright enough to bring out bright highlights, and it can't display a wide color gamut."

"The Sony X77L is a poor choice for watching movies in a dark room. It's accurate even without calibration and tracks the content creator's intent well, but that's all it has going for it. The TV's contrast ratio is very low, so blacks appear raised and washed out, and there's no local dimming to improve dark scene performance. It also can't remove judder from any source nor smooth out artifacts from low-quality content very well."

"The Sony X77L is a disappointing TV with poor picture quality, and you shouldn't buy it. Despite Sony's excellent picture processing, it doesn't look very good, and multiple strange quirks about this TV make it unusable for many users. There are much better options available"

• Build Quality

"The feet are very basic, and are set close to the sides of the TV, so you'll need a large table for the TV if you're not planning on wall-mounting it. They support the TV fairly well, but there's still some wobble from front to back. Sadly, there's no alternative position for the feet to accommodate a smaller table."

"The back of the TV is plain and looks a bit cheap. The inputs are inset into the back of the TV, so they're hard to access when the TV is wall-mounted. The TV comes with clips that you can attach to the back of the feet to help with cable management."

"The Sony X77L has decent build quality overall. It's entirely made of plastic, but the plastic is decent overall, and the build has no serious issues. As the back panel is mostly one large piece, there's a fair bit of flex to it, but again, this isn't uncommon and won't cause any long-term issues."

• Contrast & Brightness

"Unfortunately, the contrast ratio of this TV is terrible. Blacks are raised and washed out even in dim scenes, and the entire screen looks washed out when very bright highlights are visible in otherwise dark scenes"

"Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance; it's still horrible."

"Unfortunately, this TV can't get very bright in HDR. Combined with its lack of a local dimming feature, HDR content looks dull overall, as bright highlights don't stand out."

"The peak brightness of this TV in SDR is okay. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a really bright room. On the other hand, there's no noticeable difference in brightness between different scenes."

• Color Gamut/Volume

"The Sony X77L has an okay color gamut, but it can't display the wide range of colors that HDR is intended for.

Unfortunately, like the Hisense A65K, the tone mapping is poor with content mastered at a high brightness level, so some colors appear off. The results here are with a 75% stimulus corresponding to 1,000 cd/m² content. With dimmer content, the tone mapping is significantly better, as shown with this color gamut measured with a 50% stimulus instead, which corresponds to roughly 92.2 cd/m².

Ultimately, colors are displayed accurately in most HDR content. Bright scenes, however, look worse, as the TV sacrifices color accuracy in favor of brighter highlights instead."

"The Sony X77L has mediocre color volume. It's limited in pretty much every way, as it has low contrast, low peak brightness, and a narrow color gamut, so vivid color details don't pop at all."

"Unfortunately, the black uniformity is just okay. Blacks are raised across the entire screen due to the low contrast ratio, and there are a few warm spots. Overall, it doesn't look good in dark scenes."

"The HDR gradient handling of this TV is mediocre. There's significant banding in dark shades."

• Other

"Unfortunately, this TV has very limited processing capabilities when displaying low-quality content. It doesn't smooth out macro-blocking or pixelization well, but on the flip side, fine details are preserved well."

"The Sony X77L's response time is alright. There's some motion blur behind fast-moving objects, but it's especially noticeable in shadow details."

"The Sony X77L supports most common formats, but only at 60Hz. Chroma 4:4:4 or RGB signals are only displayed properly in the 'Graphics' Picture Mode"

• OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):

Hard Facts - IPS/ADS, No Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness = No Thanks

There are better choices.

For the US - TCL S546, TCL S555, TCL Q750G | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745, LG A3 (dark room use)