Smart TV. LED. OLED. 4K. HDR. The world of TVs is looking
better every day, but also more confusing. Today, there's a ridiculously wide
array of high-definition (HD) and 4K/Ultra HD sets in stores, from bargain big
screens to high-end displays that can cost as much as a car.
The paramount factors for most shoppers will be screen size
and price. The widest array of choices, from 30 inches to up to 110 inches, is
available in LED (light-emitting diode) LCD models. Prices tend to start at
$250 for 32-inch sets (which are great for the bedroom), but for bigger rooms
the sweet spot is a 50- or 55-incher for less than $600.
Manufacturers continue to shift to the Ultra HD, or 4K,
format, with four times the number of pixels of an HDTV. Prices start at about
$750 for a 50-inch set up to $1,800 for a 70-incher. Meanwhile, organic
light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs (most of them 4K) offer even richer pictures —
for far more money, of course.
Quick Tips
If you’re in a hurry, here are the most important things to
consider before you buy a television. We explain each of these points in
greater detail in the text below:
- Don’t buy a TV with less than 1080p resolution (i.e. avoid 720p sets).
- Don't buy a TV with less than a 120 Hz refresh rate.
- Consider a 4K TV if you want your TV to be acceptable five years from now.
- OLED TVs look much better than a typical LED/LCD, but they are very expensive.
- A wider color gamut is better, but don’t be too concerned about it.
- Ignore contrast ratio specs: manufacturers fudge the numbers. Trust your own eyes.
- Look for at least 4 HDMI ports; 4K shoppers should ask about HDCP compatibility.
- Curved TVs are a fashion statement. They don’t benefit image quality.
- Most TVs are “smart TVs” these days. Don’t be tricked into thinking this is a big deal.
- Plan to buy a soundbar. TV speakers are worse nowadays because the screens are thinner.
- Avoid extended warranties. Your credit card company may already provide purchase protection.
1. Screen Size: Finding the Sweet Spot
Whether you're looking for a basic or high-performance TV,
the biggest factor in your decision will probably be screen size. Consider how
many people in your family typically watch at once and where you're going to
put your new set. Then pick the largest screen size that will fit comfortably
into that space — and your budget. The sweet spot today, considering price,
performance and the typical living room, is between 55 and 65 inches.
Screen size also depends on how close you sit to the TV.
Basically, if you can see the individual pixels of the screen, you're too
close. A good rule of thumb is that you should sit at a distance from the TV
that is three times more than the height of the screen for HD and just 1.5
times the screen height for 4K Ultra HD. In other words, you can sit twice as
close to a 4K UHD TV.
If you have the opportunity, go to a store (and maybe bring
your family) and look at the TVs. Even though 4K content is rare, you may need
that higher-resolution technology if you plan to sit close to a very large
screen.
Bottom Line: Choose a screen size and resolution
appropriate for the distance you will sit from the screen.
2.Screen Resolution: 4K or HD?
Resolution describes the sharpness of the TV picture,
usually in terms of horizontal lines of pixels. A bargain HD set may support
only 720p, which means the set displays 720 lines scanned progressively (or in
a single pass). Most HDTVs today — and the ones you should consider — support
the 1080p HD format, also called Full HD, which has 1,080 lines of resolution.
Even in the smallest TV sizes, we recommend avoiding 720p models.
TV manufacturers are rapidly shifting over from HDTVs to
Ultra HD sets (also called 4K). These 4K models have four times the number of
pixels as current HDTV screens. The biggest benefit of 4K TVs is that small
objects on the screen have more detail, including sharper text. Overall, images
appear richer and more lifelike than on an HDTV, but the benefits can be
subtle.
Ultra HD video looks great, if you can find it — there are
no 4K broadcast or cable channels, and there's only a handful of streaming
options available so far (most notably, a few programs from Netflix, rentals
from Amazon and specialty services such as UltraFlix; Dish Network and DirecTV
are rolling out 4K download services). While Ultra HD sets can upscale existing
HD content, the results can be mixed and do not look as sharp as original 4K
programming.
For now, 4K TVs (with 2,160 horizontal lines, or 3840 x 2160
pixels) are best if you want to sit closer to your TV: You can get twice as
close as compared to an HDTV before you see the grid of pixels. But again,
there are very few movies and shows available in the 4K format, so you will
almost exclusively be watching upscaled HD content for some time to come.
With those provisos, Ultra HD TV models are supplanting
conventional HDTVs. Vizio, for example, has only one HDTV line left in its new
2015 model lineup. And prices are coming down: Vizio's 65-inch P-Series Ultra
HD is just $1,800 (See Review).
Bottom Line: Full HD 1080p is still the most common
screen resolution today, but 4K is a good idea if you want to futureproof your
investment.
3.Refresh Rate: Faster Is Better
The refresh rate, expressed in Hertz (Hz), describes how
many times per second a picture is refreshed on the screen. The standard
refresh rate is 60 times per second, or 60 Hz. However, in scenes with rapidly
moving objects, a 60 Hz refresh rate can make things look blurry or jittery,
particularly on LCD HDTVs. So, to create a more solid picture, manufacturers
doubled the refresh rate to 120 Hz (and in some cases up to 240 Hz).
Since there aren't that many per-second images in the
original video content, TVs handle the faster refresh rates in different ways.
One method is to simply insert black images between the original pictures,
tricking the viewer's eyes into seeing a less blurry, more solid picture.
Another technique is to generate and insert new images — showing a state of
movement in between the two adjacent pictures — to display more
realistic-looking motion. However, depending on how the video processing is
done, it can make a movie or sitcom look flat, or as if it were a poorly lit,
old-time soap opera.
A word of caution: beware of terms like "effective
refresh rate," which means the actual frame rate is half of the stated
rate (e.g., a "120 Hz effective refresh rate" is actually a 60 Hz
refresh rate).
Bottom line: Don't buy a TV with less than a 120 Hz
refresh rate.
4.Color Gamut: Go Wide
This describes the range of colors a TV can display. Since
the days of CRTs, the color standard used in the TV business has been a reduced
range of visible colors known as NTSC or Rec. 709 — even though for several
years modern TVs have been able to produce a wider color range. Vendors often
spec their color gamut as a percentage of NTSC, with the best TVs producing
more than 100 percent — a gamut similar to what you see in a digital movie
theater, with more saturated and realistic shades of deep reds and greens, for
example.
HDR, or high dynamic sets, will offer more realistic colors,
but it will be a few years before there is much content that takes advantage of
the wider gamut.
Bottom Line: A wider color gamut is better, but not a
concern until HDR becomes a reality.
5.Contrast Ratio: Unreliable Numbers
The contrast ratio describes the range of brightness levels
a set can display. Better contrast ratios display more subtle shadows and hues,
and thus better detail. However, the way manufacturers measure such ratios
varies widely. Indeed, the specification has been so thoroughly discredited
that if a sales person uses it as a selling point, you should shop somewhere
else.
We use the same method for examining contrast ratios in all
the TVs we test, so we can say roughly how well they compare to each other.
Nevertheless, it's still best to see for yourself how a TV displays shadow
detail by finding a movie with dark scenes and seeing how well it reveals
detail in the shadows of, say, a Harry Potter movie. Experiment with the TV's
brightness, sharpness and other picture settings before making a final
judgment.
Bottom line: You can ignore manufacturers' contrast
ratio specs, since they are not comparable across brands.
6.HDMI and Connections: Go for More
It may seem like an afterthought, but pay attention to the
number of HDMI inputs a set has. Manufacturers looking to shave costs may offer
fewer HDMI plugs on the back. These ports can get used up quickly: Add a sound
bar, a Blu-ray player and a game console, and you've used three ports already.
If you have decided to take the plunge and get an Ultra
HD/4K set, make sure the set's ports support HDMI 2.0 to accommodate future
Ultra HD/4K sources. Many sets on the market have only one port that supports
the 4K copy protection scheme known as HDCP 2.2 (High-bandwidth Digital Content
Protection).
Bottom Line: Look for at least 4 HDMI ports; 4K
shoppers should ask about HDCP compatibility.
7.TV Types and Jargon Explained: LCD, LED-LCD, OLED
Aside from projection sets, there are basically only two
types of TVs on the market: LCD and OLED. Unless you have a lot of disposable
income, you'll probably be buying an LCD TV.
-LED & LCD Sets
The lion's share of televisions today are LED-LCD sets.
These HD and Ultra HD sets use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the
LCD screen and can be extremely thin. Many of these sets can dynamically light
up specific portions of the screen and dim other parts to better represent a
mix of light and dark areas in a scene — a feature known as active dimming or
local dimming. No-frills LED LCD sets can be had for as little as $200 for a
32-inch screen, while a top-of-the-line 90-inch model can go for $8,000.
Most LCD sets use LEDs on the edge of the screen. The better
of these models support active dimming, but it takes some digital sorcery to do
this by merely manipulating lights along the edge.
Full-array LED sets have light-emitting diodes directly
behind the screen, in a grid of "zones" that can be lit up or
darkened individually. Such an arrangement makes the backlight more precise and
allows a more-detailed picture in terms of contrast. Full-array backlighting
was once reserved for top-tier models but with more Ultra HD sets appearing at
lower prices it is becoming more common on modestly priced sets.
- Pros: Wide array of prices, sizes and features; Some affordable Ultra HD 4K models; Bright screens visible even in a sunny room; Image quality steadily improving with full-array backlighting, HDR and wider color gamut.
- Cons: Exhibits imperfections when displaying rapid motion, as in sports; Loses some shadow detail because pixels can't go completely black (even with full-array backlighting); Images fade when viewing from the side (off-axis).
-OLED TVs
OLED TVs go one better than full-array LED-LCDs with a few
dozen lighting zones. In place of a backlight, OLEDs use a layer of organic LEDs,
controlled at the pixel level, to achieve absolute black and stunning levels of
contrast. (Footage of fireworks against a black sky is a favorite demonstration
of OLED technology.)
LG is now the only company actively
pursuing OLED technology. All new models have Ultra HD 4K resolution, but a few,
cheaper HD models are still around. Prices range from about $2,500 for a
55-inch HDTV to $25,000 for a 77-inch Ultra HD 4K model.
- Pros: Best TV picture, bar none; Colors truly pop, deeper black and better contrast and shadow detail than LCD TVs achieve; Retains image quality when viewed from the side.
- Cons: Stratospheric prices (such as $9,000 for a 65-inch screen); Uncertain how screens will fare over time, including whether they will retain "ghost" images (also known as burn-in) from displaying a static picture for too long.
8.Curved Screens: Not Needed
Another innovation intended to attract shoppers' attention
is curved screens — mostly used for OLED TVs and 4K LCDs. The idea, say
manufacturers, is to make the TV-watching experience more immersive.
However, not only do curved screens have no technical
advantage over the other sets, but they actually have some distinct
disadvantages. For one, the slightly curved aspect distorts the image and
reduces the available side-viewing angles, thus limiting the best view to a few
people sitting in a narrow, center sweet spot. LED models also are less likely
to produce uniform brightness across the screen. (Most TVs are LED models;
almost all other new models are the über-expensive OLEDs.) In addition, some
testers, such as Consumer Reports, have reported viewer fatigue caused by the
curvature. Conversely, other early owners have reported that after living with
a curved screen, they don't notice the difference or detect any distortion.
Curved models are more expensive: A
4K, 65-inch Samsung curved LCD model, for example, costs about $2,800 in
stores, versus $2,600 for Samsung's comparable flat model. LG is another
supporter of curved screens, but other companies have eschewed them.
Bottom line: Curved TVs are primarily an extra-cost
fashion statement, without delivering any appreciable benefit in image quality.
9.Smart TVs: Most Already Are
An increasing number of sets come with built-in Wi-Fi for
connecting Internet-based services like Netflix for streaming videos or to run
apps for watching special interest programs, downloading on-demand movies,
playing games or even posting to Facebook. The interfaces are generally getting
better. Vizio, LG and now Samsung use a handy bar of icons at the bottom of the
screen. Roku offers its famously intuitive interface in budget TVs from
Hisense, Insignia (Best Buy's brand) and TCL. Google provides its Android TV
platform to companies such as Sony. While most smart TVs include the major
services, such as Pandora, Hulu and Netflix, check to make sure the TV you buy
has the options you want.
In the past, you could have bought a
less expensive "dumb" TV and made it smart with a streaming device
like the $50 Roku Streaming Stick (see review). But nowadays, it's hard to get
a TV that isn't smart, even if you're going for a small bargain model.
Bottom line: Smart capability is becoming a standard
feature in TVs, so it's less and less of a factor in your buying decision.
10.Audio: Get a Soundbar
Even the finest, most expensive HDTVs have an Achilles'
heel: poor sound. It's a consequence of the svelte design of flat panels —
there's not enough room for large speakers that produce full, rich sound. So,
you have three choices: Use headphones (which can make you seem antisocial),
buy a surround-sound system (which can be a hassle to set up and produces
clutter), or get a soundbar.
Soundbars are popular because, for $300 or less, it can
significantly improve the cinematic experience and yet be installed in minutes.
Newer models are thin enough to fit under a TV stand without blocking the
bottom of the picture. Most can also mount under a wall-hanging TV. Several
companies are also introducing sound boxes or stands that can slide under a
set.
Bottom Line: Movies and sports benefit from the
addition of a soundbar.
11.Extended Warranties: Save Your Money
One of the biggest revenue generators for big-box
electronics stores is the extended warranty. Why? Because they are so rarely
needed, especially for a flat-panel LCD set. Most of the components in an HDTV
are remarkably resilient; even the LEDs used to light the picture are virtually
shockproof. So, if you do get a lemon, it's likely to be apparent immediately
or at least within the first 30 days of ownership — a time period usually
covered by a regular store return policy. Beyond that, most manufacturers offer
a one-year warranty. Credit card companies may offer additional automatic
coverage on purchases, so check with your provider.
Bottom Line: Save your money and contact your credit
card company to see if it has a price protection policy.
By John R. Quain
Best Smallest 4K TV
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