4K TV Reviews

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Accurate color
Good contrast and shadow detail
Customizable Home Screen GUI
Decent price for a 65-inch UHDTV
Minus
Some picture noise

THE VERDICT
Panasonic’s 65-inch Ultra HDTV provides impressive performance and a huge array of Smart features.

Steep price declines have become the norm in the consumer electronics world, especially when it comes to TVs. Case in point: The last Ultra HDTV I reviewed, a Samsung 65-incher that arrived at the tail end of 2013, had an MSRP that was twice the $3,000 sticker price of Panasonic’s 65-inch TC-65AX800U Ultra HDTV. Now I hear that Vizio is selling sets with the same screen size and pixel count for $2,200. They might as well be giving them away.

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Impressive black depth and uniformity
Excellent color
Good set of streaming options
Low-glare screen

Minus
Picture processing adds edge-enhancement, noise
Poor handling of images with film grain
Washed-out-looking highlights

THE VERDICT
Vizio’s P-Series comes with a full-array LED backlight and 4K Netflix streaming, but its performance is marred by overly aggressive video processing.

Editor’s Note: This review has been updated following a recent firmware revision. Please see postscript at the end of the review.

Vizio is known for making TVs that consistently beat the competition on price—often by a significant margin. In some cases the performance of Vizio’s sets also ends up being equal to or better than the competition, though the company’s track record on that count isn’t as consistent. The last two Vizio HDTVs Sound&Vision tested, the 2014 entry-level E- and step-up M-series models, delivered very good performance at an affordable price. Now the company’s P Series, its first UHDTVs for 2014, have hit the street. It should come as no surprise that the price here is nice: the 65-inch P652ui-B2 model I tested lists for $2,200. But does Vizio’s budget bigscreen UHDTV continue the company’s streak of high performance/low cost? Let’s take a look.

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent color
Top-class detail—in both 4K and Full HD
Great blacks and shadow detail
Minus
Typical LCD image fade when viewed off-center

THE VERDICT
A superbly performing—and exceptionally inexpensive—Ultra HDTV that looks great with today’s 1080p content.

Ultra HD is still meandering toward its Happy Place. Yes, it offers four times as many pixels as Full HD does at 1080p (“Full HD” being the industry’s new go-to term for “standard HD”). But source material at this native resolution is still hard to come by in any quantity. Most material viewed on an Ultra HD set, for the foreseeable future, will still be upconverted from Full HD, typically by the set, to “4K” (in quotes, because Ultra HD’s 3840 x 2160 resolution falls just short of true 4K resolution as defined in the cinema world). Can this provide a visible improvement over 1080p displayed on a 1080p set?

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Extensive color control
Sparkling 3D
Minus
Black level could be better

THE VERDICT
A good overall performer and a solid first 4K effort from LG.

It’s rabbit season at the Sound & Vision ranch. The bunnies are reproducing at a torrid rate, and you can barely take aim at one before another dozen pop up.

We’re not talking cottontails here, but rather HDTVs. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when the new sets arrive en masse in anticipation of the upcoming end-of-year holiday season. The hot tickets this year are 4K (more precisely, 3840 x 2160) or, as it has been dubbed by the industry, Ultra HD, and OLED. On the 4K front, two new LG sets, at 55 and 65 inches, recently hopped into view to fill out a 4K lineup that began with the big 84LM9600—the latter our subject here.

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

With 4K-resolution Ultra HD the latest and greatest star in the consumer electronics galaxy, we ink- and pixel-stained wretches of the press were all champing at the bit to lay hands on one. But at a massive 84 inches diagonal, 216 pounds with its floor stand, priced high enough to put you in a nice new car as long as your tastes aren’t too posh, and still limited in availability, Sony’s new 4K flagship made the company understandably reluctant to ship review samples to all the usual suspects.

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
One of the brightest TVs you can buy
Deep gaming functionality
Relatively wide viewing angles
Mounts flat on a wall
Excellent cable management
Minus
65" model is pricey
Still no Dolby Vision
Quantum-dot OLED has its own charms

THE VERDICT
This sublime ultra-premium multi-use 4K TV has a modern minimalist design and delivers impressive imagery thanks to the use of mini-LED, quantum dots and advanced picture processing. Its premium performance comes at a price but it delivers the goods when it comes to image fidelity.

For the past ten years we've watched 4K LCD and OLED TVs compete in the wake of plasma's demise. There was the death of 3D. And for a while, we even had curved screens to contend with. At first OLED had a distinct picture quality advantage over LCDs, thanks to its use of emissive pixels that can fully shut off individually and deliver true blacks. However LED-lit LCD keeps evolving and keeping pace while offering a different set of benefits.

Samsung's name for mini-LED FALD LCD panels featuring quantum dots is Neo QLED. And the QN95C is king of the 4K Neo QLEDs.

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Wide Range of Features
Affordable Price
Impressive Picture Quality
Comprehensive Connectivity
High Refresh Rate for Gaming
Minus
Limited Off-Center Viewing Angles
Calibration and Ergonomic Challenges
Intrusive Pop-up Ads on Smart Platform

THE VERDICT
I wouldn't choose the U8K for a video mastering suite. But for the consumer looking for a TV that punches far above its price, the Hisense generated more OMG moments from me on the best source material than I can recall from any TV I've previously reviewed. The only thing keeping it from earning an even higher performance rating is its limited off-center viewing—an issue with most LCD-based televisions.