Welcome to The Best where we find the best product in this category.
On this episode, we're looking for the best television you can buy.
I'm Iyaz Akhtar with our expert, David Katzmaier.
We're going to judge these TVs on five different factors, design, smart TV streaming, features, picture quality and, of course, value.
Here are four competitors,
[MUSIC]
Samsung Q70.
Series TCL 6 series, Vizio M8 series, and LG OLED B9 series.
There are lots and lots of TVs out there.
Why are we choosing from these four?
Well the first reason is as I reviewed these four TVs I chose them because they have very good picture quality for the money.
The price is a big factor but also how good I think they're gonna perform based on the features.
Okay.
So, our first round is design.
This ought to be thrilling.
Look four rectangles, [INAUDIBLE] what can you tell us beyond the rectangular nature of these televisions.
Well, they do look really similar, theyall have a really kind of all picture look with the really thin [INAUDIBLE] on the outside of the screen that brands are really hard to.
The see on all of these TVs, even the ones with Samsung style big brands.
From the sides there's a little bit of a difference, the LG LED is really thin along the top, that's it display technology, get a little bigger on the bottom where the inputs and everything are, otherwise these TVs look very similar some slight differences in materials and things like that.
Beyond that what else.
Sets them apart from each other.
So the stands are a big deal.
So these TVs actually three of the four you can see have these legs on either side that's the stands, they're spread pretty far apart.
That can limit the furniture that you put it on.
You want to make sure these are 65 inch TVs, that the TV furniturized enough the table or credenza, whatever you're gonna use.
One of these TVs has a central pedestal stand.
We couldn't put it up behind here but it Kind of sits right in the middle, so it actually you can put it on a pretty narrow piece of furniture.
So that makes the mounting of the LG OLED which has a central pedestal stand a little easier to fit to furniture.
So what if you don't want to put on a stand?
Can you wall mount any of these all of these?
Absolutely.
So these TVs are actually mounted on a sort of wall ,not right now.
They're kind of hanging here.
You can also hang them on the wall.
But yeah, when you wall mount it, you get a nice clean look and of course you can take off these legs to get that just pure rectangle on the wall.
So how did our competitors fair?
So the LG OLED with it's really thin design, really minimalist front is my favorite of the four.
I also like the Samsung, it's got a really sleek look, really modern looking.
So those are all one and two.
All right, so we've got the winner of this round is LG, with Samsung in at second.
And by the way, Mr.
Katzmaier's a humble guy, so we're gonna tell you why you should listen to him.
David Katzmaier, Senior Managing Editor.
He's been with CNET for a whopping 17 years.
He reviews media streamers, streaming services and of course televisions.
He's been reviewing TV since before the days of HDTV.
Curtis knows televisions outside and in.
He originated CNET's side by side testing regimen and designed the TV lab.
The man cannot look at a display without a critical eye.
In the spare time David Bruises own beer.
Looks like you know your TV's inside and out.
Yes, I do.
I has.
Let's go on to round two streaming.
There are plenty of streaming box options out there but these TVs don't necessarily need them.
Let's talk about smart TV streaming in round 2. So, streaming is super important on today's TVs.
All TVs have built in apps.
These are no exception, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, your basic apps but beyond that is a big difference.
The TCL Roku TV is my favorite.
It has more apps than any other TV on this comparison It also has a really simple layout, it's really easy to get to those apps, and the apps are front and center.
You can get to them, again, really quickly and easily.
nice quick response time and quick updates.
So Roku does a really good job of keeping those apps up to date.
So when it comes to Roku TVs and Roku boxes, are they exactly the same experience or is there any trade-offs?
Pretty much they're exactly the same experience.
In fact, with the Roku TVs you get an additional feature which is HDR Dolby Vision streaming.
We'll get to that in a little bit.
But this TV pretty much has all the bells and whistles of your standard Roku streamer, including voice search.
But are there any other interfaces like are they as easy as the Roku?
No.
So we'll start with my least favorite.
That's the Vizio interface.
Now it has a bunch of apps on the screen it shows some TV shows and movies, you can't really customize it very much, And it uses something called Chromecast built in so you can cast from your phone to the TV screen.
Pretty cool but it's a pretty slow interface and again, not that easy to use.
The LG and the Samsung are very similar they both pop up from the bottom of the screen.
They both have a decent selection of apps they both respond relatively quickly.
And some of the apps on those actually perform a little bit better as compared to the Roku version, but at the end of the day, the Roku is still my favorite overall for simplicity and easier The use.
So, the TCL is the winner of this round?
Yes.
Right, so the TCL gets the win.
Thanks to its Roku interface it has the most apps, has a simple UI and quick updates, it's just way ahead of the pack.
Onto our next round and that is features.
All the TVs we're looking at are more than just displays.
So tell me, what are the key features that set these TVs apart from each other?
So yeah, all these tv's are 4K HDR tv's.
They can all display the highest quality video, but there are some differences.
We'll start with the LG Oled, which is the most expensive tv.
And this is an Oled organic light emitting display technology, totally different from the other three.
This has discrete pixels that can produce their own illumination.
You get a bunch of pitch quality benefits.
We'll get into that in a little bit, but it's very different.
The others are LCD LED based televisions.
So beyond that major display difference these TVs all have different convenience features built in, one of them is voice So again LG leads the pack there.
It actually has Alexa and Google Assistant actually built into the TV, you can speak into the remote control and get both of those digital assistances.
The only TV or even product out there I've seen that has both of those built right in.
Another one with a built in voice assistant, as you might guess, is Samsung's Bixby.
It comes with actual Bixby?
Yes, real life Bixby packed into that thin television I don't think we need to say more than that about Bixby any other voice controls on the others.
Yes.
So the TCLTV does have a Roku, voice milton.
It's pretty basic systematized defined stuffed talking into the remote again with voice.
Vizio does not have any voice built in although like all the other teams in this comparison you connect a Google assistant or Lexus speaker to him if you have that device.
For all that voice control stuff, you're using your remote as the microphone.
What else can you tell me about the remote?
Well, I do have a few of them right here.
We'll start with the most simple, that is the Roku remote.
Very simple, very familiar.
This remote doesn't have a menu pad or anything like that.
It's just got some shortcuts on it, again it's got the voice.
A really simple, nice design, I like that layout a lot.
So next in simplicity is the Samsung remote.
We got it right here.
This guy again has the voice in it and a really nice few buttons on there a really nice modern design in terms of appearance, it's my favorite looking.
Then the other two are a little more complex.
The Vizio is a pretty standard remote here.
This guy's really old school.
They haven't changed it in like three or four years Again this clicker does just basic stuff and again you have to direct it directly to the TV.
It's an IR remote.
The other ones you can use without aiming at the TV.
That's good.
They're all Bluetooth yeah.
Finally this is the LG remote.
This is the most complicated, this is a real fly swatter here.
It actually has kinda, Nintendo Wii-style ability to follow the motion on the screen, which can be annoying, but it's another way to do it.
You can also click around, there's a scroll wheel on here.
They got buttons, they got a bunch of keys, they have Alexa and Google built in.
This remote is everything, but it can be a little overwhelming.
You know when you buy a TV, it's an investment for a long time.
Are there any features on these things about future-proofing?
So again, all these TVs will work with today's content, tomorrow's content.
None of them are AKTD, so not that far ahead, but a couple of them do have HDMI two dot one features.
That's the next generation of the HDMI connectivity interface.
The LG and Samsung both have select features for HDMI two dot one Namely auto game mode, which turns on game mode for the TVs automatically when they're connected to certain devices.
They also have variable refresh rate.
So again, you connect gaming consoles that can change the refresh rate make things smoother, these TVs can handle that the TCL and Vizio can't, Every time you attach a component to a television, the television is doing a bunch of image processing, which delays the signal between the box and the television.
So you turn this game mode on, that reduces the lag?
Yes, exactly.
So all these TVs have pretty good input lag when you turn them into game mode, some are a little bit better than others, but it's a matter of milliseconds.
So these guys have that ability to turn on automatically on the LG GM Samsung without having to manually switch game mode.
Are there any features that people might be like what is this?
So yeah, speaking of image processing, there is something called the soap opera effect on all of these TVs, so that basically puts the TVs in a mode where everything looks really smooth including 24 p video which is supposed to have a little bit of stutter and it took naps.
Now movies are usually shot at 24 peaks.
They have this Filmic look, that's what that looks like.
When you move into this soap opera package.
They're coming up with more frames of super smooth.
It makes it look like either somebody shot with a camcorder or one of those daily soap operas that I've watched every day.
Yeah, well, me too.
I can't get enough of my days.
But with these TVs, you can turn that off.
That's the main thing here.
And in the movie mode, it's off by the Fault.
Now some people actually like that effect, I don't know about URLs [UNKNOWN] So at the end of the day, you can adjust these and for most of them they are off in the most accurate mode, so that's good thing.
Who do you got is a winner?
So the winner here is the LG.
G OLED, it has the multiple voice assistance it has the OLED display technology, it has more features than any of the other TVs.
Samsung again is second and it's not really surprising cuz those two are one and two in terms of price.
The Vizio and the TCL, are third and fourth place for features.
So the winner of this round is LG, that means LG is in the lead but the rest are not far behind.
So let's keep going.
You know what's mildly important, we haven't talked about just too much yet, it's picture quality and before cats explains how he judges picture quality, we invited a few folks into our dark room.
With these four TVs lined up.
They let us know which one they thought had the best picture.
Let's see what they have to say.
I think that this TV number four seems to have The crispest quality, some of the colors seem to be a little bit brighter, and it seems to be a little bit more clear.
I really liked the Vizio.
This color is really, really nice.
It's not too over saturated, it's perfect.
Definitely this one over here with web design [UNKNOWN] in my opinion seems to have more sharper colors.
The LG is the crispest quality and it's got the most color contrast.
The other ones are a little bit dull in comparison.
I think the images are clear in the TCL.
I would say the LG.
Is more colorful.
This one is like telling me, look at me,look at me.>>So it's clear that different people have different ideas when it comes to picture quality when you're judging a TV, what kind of source are using?
Uncompressed video, streaming video, VCR footage
Yes, except for the VCR stuff.
I actually do like to use the best quality video I can when I'm doing these comparisons.
They're going to be a side-by-side comparison.
My TV lab, I line these TVs up side by side.
I do a little bit of calibration to make sure that they're at their best.
And I put on the best video that I have, for the most part.
So that's often 4k HDR blu ray we do some Netflix streaming Netflix looks really good in general with the highest quality format.
There's also other streaming video that I use, but in general not can use really low quality video in because you want to have these TVs look their best you want to be able to suss out the differences between them and not blame the video .You got to blame the TVs.
You just mentioned HDR there explain.
How these TVs handle that and also what that is.
So HDR is the best video quality available in home today stands for Hy Dynamic Range, similar to what yu see in a camera phone, but on the TV it gives you brighter whites and excellent dynamic range so great contrast, so that format itself is different from standard video and you actually have to have HDR content coming in.
So all these TVs handle HDR, some do it way better than others and that's really a big difference between them.
What other factors are you looking at when you're judging picture quality?
So contrast is the big one.
That's the pop of the picture, the difference between the brightest brights and the darkest darks.
That really creates a feeling of dimensionality that you can't really reproduce otherwise.
All of these TVs have really good contrast, The LCDs use something called full array local dimming to improve that contrast Again you can turn on and off the backlight on these TVs in different areas of the picture and that will improve the contrast.
It overcomes LCDs inherent issue of having blacks that aren't quite as dark as they need to be.
The other TV that doesn't need that is the LG OLED.
It has surprisingly perfect black levels, they're actually completely black, which means that they make the entire picture have that extra pop and contrast.
So when it comes to all that Each pixel turns on or off, correct?
Yeah.
So, that's when it's off, it's not emitting any light.
That's where you get the perfect black.
When you have these arrays behind the LCDs, we're talking about backlight coming through, correct?
Yes.
So, then you have blooming.
That's, I heard that term before.
Can you explain what that is?
So, imagine there's a moon on a black sky, and if you have blooming that means around the edge of the moon you see
slightly wider area around the edges that have complete blackness.
That's because there's this zone of backlight behind the moon.
That's not the exact size.
It's not the per pixel size so that can create you know, a loss of contrast a little bit of gray A less realistic appearance of the image.
All right, ther than the contrast, what else do you look for?
So I look for great color accuracy, and all these TVs can be very accurate with color.
One thing that sets HDR apart, again, is that it has a wider color gamut.
So if you have HDR video, you can get more realistic colors, more natural colors.
Think for example, an apple, very red.
With standard dynamic range, it can look a little orangish.
With HDR, it's that nice, really realistic red.
So all these LCD TVs has something called quantum dyes.
That's the technology that enhances the color.
The light shines through these quantum dots and they can actually increase the color gamut make it look a little bit more realistic.
So again, all these CDs are very similar in terms of.
The way that they track color.
The OLED can do that without needing quantum dots.
The display technology again gets a very wide color.
So do you have any tips for the viewers when it comes to judging picture quality for themselves?
So the biggest thing that affects picture quality on all these TVs is the Picture Mode.
In a store, the TV's are turned up to a thing called torch mode which is basically a dynamic or vivid mode.
That's the brightest picture that uses colors that are all out of whack, for example you would see a football field with neon instead of green.
That's not really how you want it to look in your house.
That's inaccurate.
What about viewing distance?
How far should you be from a 65-inch television?
That's a good point, I mean, most people are gonna put their TV where their couches are and not really worry about moving them around.
But if you have the choice and especially if you're choosing a TV size based on your seating distance, I would say 65-inch TVs like this you wanna be between 9 and 11 feet away from them.
All right, so which one of these TVs wins the picture quality.
The LG OLED, not a big surprise.
It uses the Best TV technology all that it's also found on some phones, it really does create this image that can just run circles around anything as LCD TVs can do.
Among the LCD TVs.
The TCL is my favorite has the best contrast of the three best black levels and also has less ballooning than the other two.
The Vizio and the Samsung are very close to the TCL.
Again, between these three TVs.
They're very, very similar and the Samsung is actually a little bit brighter, so better, A bright room and has a screen that can reduce those reflections a little bit better.
But all told the Best TV is the second place is the TCL.
So LG gets the nod for its picture quality and is the winner of this round.
That puts it side by side with a TCL.
Samsung and Vizio are not that far behind though.
Remember all of these televisions are great, but only one is the best.
Let's go to the final round and that is the value.
Now Kats, how are you judging value?
I look at the price tag.
So all these TVs have very good picture quality but they're not the same in price.
The LG OLED is a lot more expensive than any of the other TVs.
It's two or two and a half times more expensive than the TCL on the Vizio so the second most expensive TV is the Samsung.
That one is you know a lot less expensive than the OLED more expensive than the TC on the Vizio.
It has similar picture quality the last two it has better design than those however, and it also has Samsung's brand which of course I Some people really want.
The TCL and the VIZIO, very similar in price in fact the VIZIO is sometimes a little bit less expensive so it might be the cheapest of these four, picture quality is very similar between them.
but the TCL I think is the better value because it has that extra smart TV option and it's also again, very similar in terms of price to the VIZIO an excellent bargain for So what do you got as a winner on value?
The TCL 6.
The value King is the TCL.
So after five rounds of competition, The best television is-
[MUSIC]
The TCL 6 series.
Let's recap.
Here's what makes the TCM the best of the best.
Solid design and all the features you need.
Best in class smart TV streaming with ROKU.
Excellent overall picture quality with standard and HDR video with an exceedingly affordable price.
Thank you to Cats and you great viewers.
Let us know what you think of the results.
We love hearing from you.
Make sure to subscribe so you can see more in upcoming episodes.
We'll be talking about phones, smart speakers, earbuds and more.
Let us know in the comments what products you want us to check out.
From all of us here, we wish you the best.
