Last October, S&V’s man about town and all-around tech expert Ken Pohlmann wrote about a government-sponsored cybersecurity labeling program designed to give consumers peace of mind that TVs and other smart products they buy are essentially hack-proof. On March 14th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to approve the program.
AT A GLANCE Plus
Ultra bright picture for an OLED display
Wide natural color gamut coverage
Impressive matte anti-reflective screen
Low input lag and high refresh rate for gaming
Minus
No ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV tuner
Slight blooming from anti-glare technology
No Dolby Vision HDR
No Google Assistant voice support
THE VERDICT
This series greatly improves Quantum-OLED tech's brightness game. It has an excellent reflection-reducing screen that sets it apart from other Quantum OLEDs we've seen. It's worth the extra cost over a 2023 S95C close-out. But you will likely find a better deal if you wait for key sales events later in the year.
Samsung's 77-inch QN77S95D TV is the third version of its OLED TVs, which combine quantum dots and blue OLED light. This technology is called "Quantum-OLED" by Samsung Electronics and "QD-OLED" by Samsung Display, the company that makes the screens. It uses quantum dots to change blue OLED light to red and green light for its RGB pixels.
Long-time U.K. audio specialist Cambridge Audio has introduced wireless earbuds that support high-quality listening for up to 10 hours even when active noise cancellation is turned on.
Frank Zappa was a master at creating musical Venn diagrams. What do I mean by that? Well,
Zappa’s compositional talents stretched well beyond the rock music idiom, so many of his releases would offer a keen intersection of doo-wop, classical orchestration, avant-jazz, progressive jams, country funk, and pure pop sensibilities (for starters). Sometimes he would even incorporate all his artistic powers into all 20-plus minutes of an album side’s lone track.
SVS, the Ohio-based company best known for its subwoofers and ever-expanding line of high value home theater speakers and accessories, today announced the launch of the Ultra Evolution Series it previewed at CES 2024.
Q When I switch to the Netflix app on my Sony TV, the receiver doesn’t switch to ARC; it stays on HDMI and I get TV audio instead of Netflix. Sometimes, powering down everything works to restore the connection, but the issue soon returns. Any thoughts on this? — Larry Hochstetler
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is about a boy with a dream and an accordion who makes it big swapping his own hilarious lyrics into other people’s songs. It’s also an unapologetic parody of the celebrity biography and its many clichés.