Time for a new tv, suggestions?

  • Thread starter Jezza819
  • 21 comments
  • 1,249 views
Jezza819

Jezza819

4,690
United States
Alabamistan
Thanks to a little bonus I received from work, I've decided it's time to replace my 9 year old LCD tv with a new 4k tv. As this will be my first 4k tv I don't know really what to look for. I use it for gaming (100% racing games), hook it to a laptop for the occasional streaming race, and just regular tv viewing. Usually during the week I would say it would be on for about 8 hours a day but on weekends that goes up to about 14-18 hours a day.

I don't know the difference between OLED, QLED, etc. From what I've read OLED still could suffer burn in on the screen but that could be a few years away. What annoys me about my old tv is the high pixelation of things like explosions and police lights or any other strobe type lights. Plus when watching NFL and there is a pass play, the ball looks like it's vibrating going through the air. I also want very black blacks not looking gray or washed out. I need to be at 55" and no more. That's what my current LG is and the wall that it sits against is right at the same width so it fits perfectly.

I haven't seen it in person but I understand this LG has a high rating https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/b9-oled Plus there is a Samsung that also comes highly rated https://www.techradar.com/reviews/samsung-q90-qled-tv and it looks like it's supported by a center stand instead of two legs on the outer edge. That's also a plus since my current LG is also center stand supported and fits perfectly on my stand.

I'm going to Best Buy tonight after work to look at them in person.
 
Last edited:
Jezza819
What annoys me about my old tv is the high pixelation of things like explosions and police lights or any other strobe type lights. Plus when watching NFL and there is a pass play, the ball looks like it's vibrating going through the air.
Click to expand...

Probably not your TV. That's most likely a source problem. How are you getting these TV signals? Streaming sources, and even cable/satellite can be highly compressed and leave these sorts of image problems.
 
Maybe this will help on comparing the QLED and OLED https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/qled-vs-oled-tv/
For the Q90 review you can read also here https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q90-q90r-qled

As you suggested that Burn in can happen.
As it's quite possible that it wouldn't be a few years if it's done poorly (As in look at a few Google Pixel phones that were made with LG panels had burn in, in 4 days of normal use)

Now this may or may not be relevant to you but could help on the suggesting.
OLED
Now imagine you leave your TV on for days or weeks instead of hours, showing the same image the whole time. Then you might be in trouble. With image retention, usually just watching something else for a while will make the ghost image disappear. With burn-in, it's going to remain there for a while. Maybe not forever, but perhaps longer than you want to consider.

This is an extreme case, largely just to illustrate what happens. In reality, it's going to be far more subtle. Watch a lot of the same TV news station, like CNN in the example above? Not sure how your heart can handle that, but let's say you do. That station's identifying logo is a prime candidate for image retention and eventually burn-in. Ditto the horizontal borders of the "crawl" on the bottom of the screen.

If you play the same video game for hours and days on end, that game's persistent scoreboard or heads-up display might burn in. Basically, anything that stays on screen for a long time and doesn't change can cause image retention and perhaps, eventually, burn-in.
Click to expand...

As burn in suggest that it could happen around 9000 hours (5 years at 5 hours a day)
With you having it on average 68-76 hours a week the tv would last 2.25-2.5 years before burn in happens on oled
https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test

As not wanting to upgrade your TV, I'd suggest going with QLED.

So while both have good qualities and both have good 4k capabilities it just comes down to what you care for.
 
Danoff
Probably not your TV. That's most likely a source problem. How are you getting these TV signals? Streaming sources, and even cable/satellite can be highly compressed and leave these sorts of image problems.
Click to expand...

Cable tv and I just switched to Xfinity. However I did notice pixelation on explosions and fire while watching Netflix through the Xbox One X.
 
Jezza819
Cable tv and I just switched to Xfinity. However I did notice pixelation on explosions and fire while watching Netflix through the Xbox One X.
Click to expand...


Post 24 here and the surrounding posts describe my complains about Dish network compression for football recordings. This is a discussion of what I ultimately ended up doing about it.
 
Jezza819
I also want very black blacks not looking gray or washed out.
Click to expand...
Only OLED can do that.
Samsung QLED is very bright, no burn in(i also use mine as a monitor and for that I preferred it over OLED), very bright and beautiful colors but the black is not black. In a bright room the QLED is better than Oled because of its high brightness, in a dark room OLED blows away the QLED.
By the way, Panasonic makes the best OLED in my opinion.
 
I just last night picked up a Vizio 43 M-series 4K, with quantum color. Still setting it up, but one thing I like about the Vizios is they have many test patterns built in, in the menu under Picture --> Calibrate Color --> Color Tuner. It was obvious on unboxing that red was very oversaturated, and the red ramp test pattern showed that. It's a series of red blocks of increasing intensity, and the last three were identical out of the box rather than progressively brighter.

The V-series is less expensive but no quantum dots.

If you want BLACK blacks, OLED is your only choice, and OLED is expensive.
 
Last edited:
wfooshee
I just last night picked up a Vizio 43 M-series 4K, with quantum color. Still setting it up, but one thing I like about the Vizios is they have many test patterns built in, in the menu under Picture --> Calibrate Color --> Color Tuner. It was obvious on unboxing that red was very oversaturated, and the red ramp test pattern showed that. It's a series of red blocks of increasing intensity, and the last three were identical out of the box rather than progressively brighter.

The V-series is less expensive but no quantum dots.

If you want BLACK blacks, OLED is your only choice, and OLED is expensive.
Click to expand...

I read this review on it last night and it appears that this one would be close enough. But you're right OLED is more expensive.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q80-q80r-qled
 
I thought about the Samsung QLED, but it was 150 dollars more than the Vizio. Sure, it's a better TV, but this is a bedroom wall mount, only a 43," so 3-and-a-half Franklins was the limit.

I do have a 65 OLED for the living room... :D
 
wfooshee
I thought about the Samsung QLED, but it was 150 dollars more than the Vizio. Sure, it's a better TV, but this is a bedroom wall mount, only a 43," so 3-and-a-half Franklins was the limit.

I do have a 65 OLED for the living room... :D
Click to expand...

I understand that :)

If I didn't have this bonus from work I wouldn't be considering a new tv but I figured since I did have it, might as well jump now. My bedroom tv is a 2012 LG that is just going to have to go until it can't anymore, or at least until my next bonus.
 
I am not sure if it's a "quantum" but I have 65" vizio 4k, and a 55" vizio 1080p. Both have some of the worst blacks I have seen. The colors are good, which is what drew me in, at least for the 4k TV. But the blacks... man, the "gray gradient" is absolutely horrid. We will not be getting another Vizio TV.
 
Rallywagon
I am not sure if it's a "quantum" but I have 65" vizio 4k, and a 55" vizio 1080p. Both have some of the worst blacks I have seen. The colors are good, which is what drew me in, at least for the 4k TV. But the blacks... man, the "gray gradient" is absolutely horrid. We will not be getting another Vizio TV.
Click to expand...

Yeah as I was walking down the wall of tv's at the store I quickly went past the Vizio display. Now when the time comes to replace the smaller one in the bedroom I might give them a look as a lot of things won't be that important to me.
 
The blacks aren't any worse on my set than what I've seen on most others, but it's already developing a significant backlight bleed in one corner and along the top and left edges. It's worse now than it was the first day, so I'm hoping it's an individual set issue and I'm going to swap it for another one. Kind of a pain to have gone through setting up the apps, and now having to factory reset it before it goes back...
 
I ended up going with the Samsung Q80R. They are going to deliver it and set it up Feb. 10th. I had to co-ordinate delivery with one of my days I get to leave work early so that's why it's a little far off before I get it.
 
My new Samsung Q80R tv was delivered last night. Only had a relatively short time to fiddle with it last night. Right out of the box the picture setting default is what's called Standard. There are 4 presets Dynamic, Standard, Natural, and Movie. Standard, Natural and Movie all looked way too dark to me. It made the picture seem like I was looking at it through sunglasses. Dynamic made everything brighter but at times it almost seemed too bright. It's supposed to be for brighter viewing environments. I watched the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in 4k on Dynamic and it looked very good.

So I wanted to try out a game on it before I went to bed so I loaded up Project Cars 2 into the Xbox One X. In game mode, on Standard, again it looked like I was looked out tinted glass, just too dark. Ran that one race then switched to Dynamic. Much, much better. Race time of 1pm actually looked like midday. The difference between my old tv and this one is literally as the saying goes, night and day.

The rest of the night I kept switching between Standard and Dynamic all the time looking on the internet and Youtube for possible settings suggestions because it still didn't look quite right. I didn't know if there was an eco or energy saving mode that was turned on maybe making for a darker picture. Stumbled across a Youtube video where a guy was going through the settings for the Q90R but everything basically applied to lower Samsung models like mine. There is a function I had seen called "Intelligent" but I didn't really go into it but he recommended leaving it off. I turned it on just to see what it would do and WOW what a difference it made. It made the picture brighten up but not as much as Dynamic. So I think that's where the sweet spot is and tonight I really want to see how games look on that setting.

The one thing about this tv that shocked me was how good the sound is. You can definitely hear bass and lower ranges without canceling out highs. It's really well balanced right out of the box and I'm not touching it. Playing Project Cars 2, running over kerbs produced a great rumbling sound and when the cars shifted there was a definite "ka-thunk" from the gearbox. Really happy with the sound.

The one thing I'm not happy with for now is the apps interface. It's great being able to access Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Youtube straight from the tv and not have to turn on the Xbox and use that controller. HOWEVER as far as I can tell there's no way to fast forward or rewind in those apps which kind of makes them useless to me. If I start watching the Rolex 24 replay on Youtube and get 3 hours into it and leave it, how am I going to get back to where I was when I'm ready to watch again? Makes no sense to me.
 
Don't the apps remember where you were and have a resume?

I don't know what your remote looks like, but there ought to be cursor controls for the menus, and those ought to work the "transport" while playing video in the apps.
 
wfooshee
Don't the apps remember where you were and have a resume?

I don't know what your remote looks like, but there ought to be cursor controls for the menus, and those ought to work the "transport" while playing video in the apps.
Click to expand...

They might but I'm talking about actually fast forwarding or rewinding while watching something. Using the Xbox controller it's the triggers that are your fast forward and rewind. The only directional arrows on the tv controller itself is the one for going back one step like to the previous menu. I might take the controller back down to Best Buy and see if they have a universal remote that has FF and RW capabilities.
 
Looking at the user guide online, it says to press the play/pause button on the remote, and playback functions appear on screen.
 
wfooshee
Looking at the user guide online, it says to press the play/pause button on the remote, and playback functions appear on screen.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I had downloaded the user manuals for it but I've mainly been trying to get the picture and sound right for tv and games. I had planned on getting a little deeper on apps interface this weekend when I had more time.
 

Latest Posts

Back