Vizio M-Series Quantum TV review: Lots of TV for less than you think

Vizio makes some of the best TVs for the money in this 2020 M series quantum is no exception. The real question is how does it compare against TCL and other value brand. I'm going to tell you right now. [MUSIC] I just finished reviewing this video and it is a really impressive TV for the money. First off, you get full array local dimming one of the least expensive televisions on the market with that great picture enhancing feature. It also has variable refresh rate, which allows you to unlock some of the potential of a PS five or Xbox series x. We'll get to all that in a little bit. But the main thing to know is this TV is really inexpensive. is the 65 inch model, very good price, way under $1000. There's also a 50 and a 55 inch size, again, really affordable and it undercuts the price of the TCL 6 series, one of my favorite TVs of the We'll start with a design as you'd expect from a TV in the mid price category, nothing special going on here. It's got a black frame around the edge nice and thin to bottom a little bit thicker. It's got a metallic finish on there. Those stand legs supporting the TV might look a little thin but it's really not that bad doesn't wobble too much. Go around the side you see a TV is thicker than a lot of TVs on the market again that full array local dimming does. Puff it out a little bit. But again, you're not gonna be watching from the side. So who cares. Vizio did revamp its remote a little bit this year, but I don't really like it as much as some of the other TVs out there including Roku. The remote has too many buttons. There are some shortcuts to some often used apps, but in general, it's really not one of the best clickers out there. I just like the remote. I wasn't a huge fan of the smart cast Smart TV system here. Let's. Take a look here. Now Vizio puts a whole bunch of TV shows and movies that you probably don't care about front and center on its homepage. You can kind of scroll down to get to the apps which you're actually gonna be using. Now this line of apps right here, it's good. It has everything you need all the major apps that you'd want. Pretty much no exceptions here. Maybe ESPN, HBO HBO Max, they're not on here. Still decent selection of apps, but it's kind of annoying. You just have to scroll along then there's no App Store. There's nowhere to, you know, actually go and search for apps. You just have to kind of keep going and until you find or not what you want. At the end of the day, I really think Vizio owners should be better served by connecting something like a Roku Who or another device to this television because, this built in App Store, really isn't great and relatively limited compared to the competition. One good thing about the Smart TV system it does support Dolby Vision 4k HDR on apps that work with it like Netflix and Disney plus. There's also integrated support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant if you have one of those speakers connected to your television. Now I mentioned variable refresh rate at the top. That's kinda the highlight of the Vizio is connectivity round back you'll find for HDMI. No, this TV does not accept 120 hertz, 4k input. That feature is reserved for the higher end models. But variable refresh rate will improve tearing, and make the image a little bit smoother compared to TVs that don't have it on games that support it. Now that feature is restricted to PS five, Xbox series x and a few high end video cards. So not everybody's gonna appreciate it but gamers who want to get that VR feature, this is one of the cheapest TVs you're going to find it in. So that brings us to picture quality. I compared the Vizio in my basement side by side with that TCL six series as well as a higher end high sense television. Both of which cost a couple hundred dollars more And you could tell. The Vizio's black levels, in contrast, not quite as good as those other televisions. They also got a lot brighter. That's one of the things you pay for in a higher end TV is image brightness, which really helps with HDR. That said, the Vizio M series had nice pop. The image actually did take advantage of HDR, which is something you're not gonna find on lower end TVs that lack full array local dimming or are dimmer. This TDs fewer local dimming zones and a lot of its competitors, you'd expect more blooming, but it's actually pretty good at controlling that stray illumination. Not a real issue there. Now is a 60 hertz TV, its motion performance wasn't quite as good as some of those 120 hertz models like the TCL you're gonna have to look pretty close to see the difference. [MUSIC] Now another thing in the videos favor was its color. Thanks to quantum dots. It has a nice wide color gamut. And the color is very balanced. It's not oversaturated like I saw in the high sense, color accuracy very good on this TV. So overall though, you gonna find a better picture quality for maybe a couple hundred dollars more than this. If you can't afford to step up the Vizio M series is an excellent TV for the money and again gives you the taste of those higher end features without breaking the bank. It's especially cool in the 50 inch size, which again, really inexpensive especially going into the holiday season. I'm David katzmaier for CNET, that's a look at the Vizio M series quantum for 2020.