Credit:
Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
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Credit:
Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
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With its top-shelf performance and incredible array of future-facing features, the LG C1 is one of the best TVs of the year, period. Read More
The TCL 6-Series is one of the most value-packed TVs, offering a bright, colorful picture, a built-in smart platform, and a host of gaming-centric features. Read More
4.6
The Sony A90J OLED is one of the brightest, most accurate OLED TVs. If you can swallow the cost, it'll serve you well for years to come. Read More
This 77-inch screen offers incredible contrast, spectacular color, and a full suite of future-proof features. But the price point is considerable. Read More
The LG BX is one of the most affordable ways to secure incredible OLED performance as well as future-proof features like HDMI 2.1 ports and FreeSync support. Read More
Dolby Vision is widely considered to be the premium version of High Dynamic Range (HDR), a feature that allows for more brightness, richer colors, and a better overall picture. And while Dolby Vision isn't available on every TV, it is available in more of them than ever before. If you're here, you probably already know a little about Dolby's proprietary HDR format. It's less widely adopted than the open-source HDR10 format, but the tradeoff is that Dolby Vision content is mastered to a higher standard, allowing the content to remain relevant longer.
If price is no object, the best Dolby Vision TV around is the LG C1 (available at Amazon) . It's one of the best-looking TVs we've seen, so naturally, it rocks when it comes to Dolby Vision. If you're not looking for the best TV money can buy, fear not. While it's slightly harder to find Dolby Vision TVs, there are quite a few on the market—and you don't necessarily have to shell out a ton of cash to get a good one.
The LG C1 series combines the unbelievable performance of an OLED with an array of exciting features.
The 2020 TCL 6-Series offers a taste of quantum dot performance for a price most people can justify.
Our lab is outfitted with much of the same equipment you would find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates televisions.
Reviewed has been testing TVs since some of its current employees were in middle school. While many proud TV testers have come and gone through Reviewed's labs, the current Home Theater team consists of Michael Desjardin and Lee Neikirk. Michael is a senior staff writer and a six-year veteran of the Reviewed tech team. A film enthusiast and TV expert, he takes picture quality seriously but also understands that not every TV is a good fit for everyone.
As Reviewed's Home Theater Editor, Lee doesn't do as much testing these days. However, he designed the company's current TV testing methodology after receiving calibration certification from the Imaging Science Foundation.
We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue, and so on.
It'd be an understatement to say that we're serious about TV testing. The lab in our Cambridge location is outfitted with much of the same equipment you'd find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates television.
On the hardware side, we've got things like a Konica Minolta CS-200 tristimulus color meter, an LS-100 luminance meter, a Leo Bodnar input lag tester, a Murideo Seven 8K signal generator, and more Blu-rays than we can keep track of. For software, we use Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate color calibration software, the industry-standard in taking display measurements and calibrating screens to specifications.
Our testing process is equally complicated and has been honed over many years to gather data that is marginal enough to satisfy curious video engineers, but also relevant to the average person's viewing experience. We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue and saturation for primary and secondary digital colors, the accuracy of the TV's electro-optical transfer function—you get the idea, it's complicated.
Weighting for our performance tests is based on how the human eye prioritizes vision, which means we put "brightness" data (monochromatic eye based on light sensitivity) higher than colorimetry, which is also scaled by the eye's sensitivity, and so on.
Outside of the strictly technical tests, we also spend a lot of time just watching and using each TV, getting a feel for the at-home experience of doing things like dialing up streaming video service, connecting a Blu-ray player and watching movies, using the smart features, and checking out the TV's ports, remote, and on-set buttons—anything and everything that might be relevant.
While everyone has different eyes, generally, our vision all functions the same way: we prioritize dynamic information and bright, compelling colors over subtler hues and resolution (sharpness). Generally, a TV can be considered a good TV when we forget that we're watching a TV. We don't see pixels creating mixes of red, green, and blue to simulate colors; we see the real world, lit and colored as it is, in fluid motion.
In simpler terms, this means a TV that can get very bright and dark without obscuring details; produces accurate colors (compared to various color standards designated by the International Telecommunication Union); possesses proper bit-mapping and the right codecs and decoders for video processing; and can properly play the various types of content thrown at it without judder, blurring, and so on.
Note that specs alone (pixel count, measured brightness) aren't automatic indicators of quality, much like intense speed is not automatically an indicator of a good car.
The biggest thing in TVs right now is "HDR," or High Dynamic Range. Movies that are HDR-compatible have been mastered to push TVs to their limit, with brighter highlights, deeper blacks, and a wider array of colors.
There are currently two HDR formats: the "open" (open-source) HDR standard, HDR10, and the "closed" (proprietary) Dolby Vision standard. Thus far, HDR10 is far more popular, but plenty of TVs support Dolby Vision as of 2020.
These two HDR formats have a few things in common:
Here’s what sets HDR10 and Dolby Vision apart:
Essentially, Dolby Vision is aiming to be a premium version of HDR10, so in theory, Dolby Vision is the superior format, promising better image quality across the board.
When it comes to knowing what you're paying for, almost no category is more rife with subterfuge and tomfoolery than TVs. While knowing the specs of the TV you're shopping for is only half the battle, it's the bigger half. Here are the key bits of jargon you'll want to know while browsing:
LED/LCD: This refers to Light Emitting Diode and Liquid Crystal Display. LEDs are the backlights used in LCD TVs, also sometimes called a LED TV for this reason. The LED backlight shines through a layer of a semi-solid substance called "liquid crystal," so named for its ability to morph in reaction to tiny electrical volts and allow light to pass through.
OLED: This means Organic Light Emitting Diode. This is an altogether different panel technology than LED/LCD, albeit on the surface they work similarly. Rather than an LED backlight element shining through an LCD panel element, OLED TVs essentially combine the backlight and crystal array, using sub-pixel strata that produce light and color individually.
4K/UHD: Usually 4K refers to resolution—specifically, 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. This is the current standard/mainstream resolution for most TVs. UHD means Ultra High Definition, and actually refers to a suite of picture improvements like 4K resolution, Wide Color Gamut, and High Dynamic Range.
60Hz/120Hz: These numbers refer to what is called a "refresh rate," with Hz (hertz) meaning "times per second." So if a TV's refresh rate is 60Hz, this means it re-scans and updates for picture information 60 times per second; with 120Hz, it's 120 times per second. Currently, TVs only come in 60 or 120Hz. A higher refresh rate is always better, but not always necessary.
Smart TV: The term "smart TV" has evolved a lot over the years, but all it really means is that the TV connects to the internet. Most smart TVs these days are just a way to watch streaming services like Amazon Prime Video on your TV. Some smart TVs have browsers, calendars, or even Roku or Android functions. All smart TVs have ethernet or WiFi built-in.
Quantum Dots: Quantum dots are used in LED/LCD TVs only. These are microscopic nanocrystals that produce intensely colored light when struck with light. Quantum dots can be used to vastly improve the red and green saturation of a TV, and are one way that LED/LCD TVs can match the color spectrum of OLED.
Local Dimming: OLED panels look great because each pixel can operate independently. LED/LCD TVs can imitate this functioning via a process called local dimming, where localized clusters of LEDs dim or boost depending on whether the screen needs to be darker or brighter, sometimes vastly improving their performance and worth.
You may notice the TVs listed in this roundup don't follow the traditional naming convention you might see in a store or online. That's because rather than nominating a single size of TV (such as the LG OLED65C8PUA, aka the 65-inch LG C8 series OLED), we nominate the entire range of sizes within a "series."
Typically these TVs are identical in performance but differ in price and size. We do this in order to offer you more flexibility in your decision, but also because it's the most accurate representation available.
Incredible contrast and color
HDMI 2.1-specified features
Zippy, flexible smart platform
Dim compared to LCD/LED TVs
Top-tier picture quality
Speedy processing
Beautiful design
Overkill for many shoppers
Perfect black levels
Voluminous color
Incredible design
Not quite as bright as other high-end TVs
Sensational contrast and color
HDMI 2.1 support
Great value
Doesn't get as bright as the competition
Smart platform lacks flexibility
Excellent contrast and color
HDMI 2.1 support
Ho-hum design
Frustrating smart platform
Michael Desjardin graduated from Emerson College after having studied media production and screenwriting. He specializes in tech for Reviewed, but also loves film criticism, weird ambient music, cooking, and food in general.
Lee was Reviewed's point person for most television and home theater products from 2012 until early 2022. Lee received Level II certification in TV calibration from the Imaging Science Foundation in 2013. As Editor of the Home Theater vertical, Lee oversaw reviews of TVs, monitors, soundbars, and Bluetooth speakers. He also reviewed headphones, and has a background in music performance.
Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.
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