ELEMENT All Flat Panels

2D Performance 3D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $4,000 AT A GLANCE Plus Outstanding blacks and shadow detail Nearly flawless off-center viewing Attractive price (for OLED) Minus Still expensive THE VERDICT Yes, LG’s OLED UHDTVs do have shortcomings, including their inability to get as bright as the best LCD sets. But OLED’s significant advantages more than compensate and have made these TVs, including the superb OLED65E6P, the new golden goose in the Ultra HD landscape. I vividly remember plasma displays, and I mourned their passing. But even before 4K came along, LCD TVs—with their brighter images, lighter weight, lower energy consumption, and, toward the end, cheaper prices—were putting a full-court press on plasma technology.

Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $3,200 AT A GLANCE Plus Inexpensive (with discounting) for a 75-incher HDR compatible Accurate and extended color Minus Limited contrast Backlight artifacts Highlights in HDR programs lack detail THE VERDICT Sharp’s heavily discounted 75-inch TV offers accurate color and decent HDR performance, but its best feature is its big screen at an affordable price. The arrival of a hulking 75-inch Ultra HDTV on your doorstep would be something you’d ideally want to coincide with a worthy media spectacle—the Super Bowl, for instance. In my case, however, the delivery of the Sharp Aquos LC-75N8000U synced up perfectly with the broadcast of the first Presidential debate. Lucky me: I got to witness what perhaps were the two most unpopular candidates in history assail each other’s character at near-life-size.

2D Performance 3D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $1,700 AT A GLANCE Plus HDR10 plus Dolby Vision HDR Great color Wide viewing window Minus Middling black levels Backlight artifacts THE VERDICT LG’s midpriced 65UH8500 delivers good image quality with a super-wide viewing window, and it’s one of the few sets around that plays both predominant types of HDR content. A year ago, I tested the LG 65UF9500, an LCD Ultra HDTV that retailed for $2,999, and I criticized it for offering no future-readiness for soon-to-emerge high dynamic range (HDR) content. Since then, Ultra HD Blu-ray has come to market, bringing HDR along with it, and there’s a growing library of HDR movies available for streaming. To LG’s credit, their line of so-called Super UHD LCD TVs for this holiday season, including the midline 65-inch 65UH8500 tested here ($1,700), recognizes both predominant types of HDR—namely, HDR10 (used currently on Ultra HD Blu-rays) and Dolby Vision (still only available via web streams). LG is one of only two TV makers to support both formats on a single chassis (in both their LCD and OLED models), the other being Vizio, which updated their Dolby Vision sets for HDR10 in mid-2016. So how does this wellfeatured, attractively priced set perform? Let’s have a look.

Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $1,299 AT A GLANCE Plus Impressive contrast and shadow detail Handles both Dolby Vision and HDR10 Affordable price Minus Wi-Fi sync issue with included tablet remote No extended-color-gamut capability Some halo artifacts from local dimming backlight Only one HDMI 2.0a input THE VERDICT Vizio’s budget-minded display handles both flavors of HDR and, a few quirks aside, delivers impressive performance. When is a TV not a TV? When it’s an Ultra HD Home Theater Display. With the new M series, Vizio has chosen to shake up conventional expectations of what a TV should be and should do. One key change is that each M series set lacks a tuner to receive over-the-air digital TV broadcasts—hence, the company’s use of the term Home Theater Display. Another change is that Vizio has scrapped the typical full-featured IR remote control and replaced it with an Android tablet. Future-savvy or future shock? Read on and find out.

2D Performance 3D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $5,500 AT A GLANCE Plus State-of-the-art local dimming Class-leading HDR brightness Above average off-center viewing Minus Price THE VERDICT With the top manufacturers jostling for a view from the top of the Ultra HD pyramid, Sony has taken an express elevator and is racing fast for the checkered flag. But enough with the mixed metaphors. If this TV isn’t today’s best LCD UHD/HDR set (and perhaps the best of any type), it’s not for lack of trying. Sony has given us their best technology here, and it shows. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2016, Sony demonstrated a prototype of a future LCD TV design incorporating what the company called Backlight Master Drive. We found it dazzling, as did most of the show-goers with whom we spoke. Nevertheless, we all looked at it as a “show car”—something that might appear in a store near you in a couple of years, if ever.

2D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $549 AT A GLANCE Plus Inexpensive HDR compatible Impressive contrast Minus Minor backlight artifacts No extended color-space option Flimsy stand THE VERDICT Hisense’s sensibly priced 50H8C does many things right, but buyers expecting an ultimate HDR experience will want to pass. There’s been plenty of what tech marketing types call “disruption” in the TV industry over the past decade, with big-name Japanese brands like Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Toshiba bowing out and Chinese companies like TCL and Hisense stepping in. While TCL has gained recognition as a maker of Roku TVs that span a range of screen sizes, it’s still a bit early in the game for us to get a sense of what Hisense is all about. What’s clear so far is that the company is producing sets with upscale features like 4K Ultra HD resolution and high dynamic range, at disruptively affordable prices. Case in point: the new 50H8C, an HDR-compatible 50-inch UHDTV that sells for a mere $549.

Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $4,500 AT A GLANCE Plus Excellent blacks and shadow detail First-rate resolution Compelling high dynamic range Minus HDR limited to HDR10 No 3D THE VERDICT In some important respects, Samsung’s new top-of-the-line TV improves upon the company’s previous flagship, and at a lower price. When we last reviewed one of Samsung’s so-called SUHD sets, Ultra HD with high dynamic range (HDR) was not yet available on Blu-ray. But the arrival of such discs—together with UHD Bluray players like Samsung’s own UBD-K8500—has changed the game. The 4K resolution of Ultra HD sets is all well and good, but HDR is the most eye-popping feature of UHD. Not all 4K sets, however, incorporate HDR, and those that do don’t necessarily perform at the same level. HDR still can’t be done well cheaply; at present, the displays that do it best are their respective makers’ premier offerings. The Samsung KS9800 series definitely belongs in that company—and among the three models within that family, the 65-incher we’re discussing here is the smallest.

2D Performance 3D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $3,000 AT A GLANCE Plus Impressive edge-lit local dimming Respectable off-axis viewing Bright, punchy HDR Minus Often redundant menus Tight remote control layout THE VERDICT Full-array local dimming remains the gold standard for LCD Ultra HDTVs, but Sony has now upped the ante with the best edge-lit set we’ve seen. The last time I reviewed one of Sony’s 4K sets, it had large speaker enclosures attached permanently to the sides of the screen, with a separate “subwoofer” firing out the back. This made for an inconveniently wide design, and with the introduction of Sony’s new 2016 models, those audio “wings” are now history.

2D Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $8,000 AT A GLANCE Plus Excellent HDR in both Dolby Vision and HDR10 Blacks to die for Solid off-center viewing Minus Expensive Careful setup critical for best results Menus tedious to navigate THE VERDICT Our brief time with LG’s flagship OLED for 2016 suggested it’s not perfect (what is?), but apart from the fact that LCD sets still go brighter than OLEDs, it’s unlikely that any other new HDR-equipped Ultra HDTV will be able to match or exceed the performance of this one. While this article is structured as a Test Report, in fact it’s a good bit short of a full-fledged evaluation. The combination of the cost of LG’s flagship OLED and the limited supply of review samples in early April prompted the company to set up a couple of displays at a venue in New York City, then shuttle in groups of A/V journalists to lay hands on the set—so to speak.

Performance Features Ergonomics Value PRICE $1,700 AT A GLANCE Plus Excellent color Great screen uniformity Artifact-free 1080p-to-UHD scaling Minus Poor black level and contrast Meager streaming platform THE VERDICT Though it delivers solid entry-level performance, Panasonic’s CX400 faces more fully featured competition at its price. Panasonic pulled big crowds at its CES booth in January with their CZ950 OLED, a 65-inch Ultra HD television that adds advanced processing to an LG-supplied OLED panel, with quite stunning results. Unfortunately, that set is only sold overseas for now (priced at €10,000 or about $11,000, no less), and it remains unclear when or if Panasonic will release it in the States.