For the past few weeks we've been putting TV manufacturers' feet to the fire. We're holding them accountable by grading them in key categories like design, performance, features and pricing — and now we're asking our readers to get involved.

We recently asked readers which brand they trusted most and one company was the clear winner. Now we're coming to you all directly with a short survey that will help us figure out what you love and hate about the six biggest TV makers: Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL and Vizio.

Fill it out at your leisure and let me know in the comments what your biggest gripes are.

Here's how I'd answer

Testing TVs for a living has left me with an embarrassing amount of screens in my home. In my home office I've got a 75-inch TCL QM9K. Downstairs in my living room is a Samsung S95D OLED. In my music listening room I've got the Hisense U8N.

In the above survey, I'd mark all three down.

How long have I owned those TVs? Not all that long.

The first TV I ever owned was a massive CRT model that I used to play N64 and PS1 games on growing up. My parents bought that TV for me and my brother in 1996 and I was still rocking it to play Halo 2 a decade later.

These days, however, I'm trading out TVs every two to three years. That's probably a bit excessive, honestly, but as someone who covers this stuff, I want to make sure that I have access to all the latest and greatest technology to provide the best analysis to you guys.

Would I buy these TVs again? I absolutely would. They're all great value options. Not everyone probably feels the same as I feel, though. For some of you I'm sure the answer is going to be a resounding no. If that's you, drop a comment below letting me know why that is.

If the answer is yes, also drop a comment below letting me know why you like your TV so much. By doing so, you could be directly helping someone find their new favorite TV.

Stay tuned for the results of these surveys and check out our guide to the best TV brands in 2026 if you haven't done so already. You'll be seeing the results used in more stories in the coming weeks as we continue to break down what's working — and what's not working — in the world of TVs.

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As Senior TV Editor, I see nearly every TV release year after year. It’s a special opportunity to share a ton of helpful context with folks shopping for a new TV, but it also means that I’m liable to lose sight of how the average person feels about the state of the industry.

This is why, for the last several weeks, we’ve been asking you — the readers — which major TV brand you consider to be the most trustworthy.

Between Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL and Vizio, one brand proved more trustworthy than the rest — and it wasn’t particularly close. Sony, makers of some of the best TVs you can buy, rose above the competition. Here’s how the rest of the pack stacked up.

Trusted TV brands: Full results

In just over two weeks, our poll compiled just over 3,200 votes. Here's a breakdown of the results at the time of publishing:

Among our readers, Sony-branded QLEDs, OLEDs and True RGB TVs are the most trusted. LG and Samsung are closely positioned in second and third place, while TCL, Hisense and Vizio received far fewer votes overall.

It's an interesting time to analyze these results. We recently conducted a week-long exercise in which we doled out report cards to these brands, grading each on performance, features, price and more. Sony received our highest grade for performance (A). However, Sony was also the recipient of the lowest grade we handed out for price (C-).

Our reasoning for these grades is simple: Sony's superb engineering and unparalleled picture processing amount to some of the best performance money can buy. Unfortunately, the cost of this consistency is often passed down to the viewer, as Sony TVs tend to be priced higher than rival TVs.

Sony TVs in 2026 and beyond

If Sony's 2026 Bravia TV lineup is any indication, the company is perfectly comfortable assuming the role of a trusted premium TV-maker — even if its mid-range and luxury models are priced higher than the competition.

Interestingly, our poll proves that viewers and TV-shoppers aren't necessarily fazed by this arrangement. Among our readers, Sony is more trustworthy than LG and Samsung (brands that specialize in high-end performance) and far more trustworthy than TCL and Hisense (brands commonly associated with value-forward, budget-friendly models).

Recently, Sony spun out its TV business, with rival brand TCL taking on a 51% stake in the operation. It's tough to say how this might affect Sony TVs, TCL TVs and the reputation of both brands.

We'll be continuing to run the poll, so if you haven't responded to our poll about TV-brand trustworthiness, we want to hear from you: Your input could help shape how these companies will build, tune, and market these TVs in 2027 and beyond.

More from Tom's Guide

• We just graded every TV brand on price, performance and more — here’s how their report cards stack up
• This RGB LED TV is the one to buy if the Sony Bravia 9 II is outside of your budget
• TCL and Sony are joining forces to sell more TVs — but is that bad news for shoppers?

This week, we handed out report cards to the biggest brands in the TV industry: Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL and Vizio.

The goal was simple: grade each TV-maker on pricing, design, features and performance. We also took a hard look at each of these brands' software.

Now that these familiar names have received their respective report cards, it's time to meet them in the classroom for a conference about how they're doing this year. If you're shopping for the best TV in 2026, this ought to give you a pretty clear picture about how to spend your money.

Pricing

Of the six names in the mix, Hisense, TCL and Vizio led the class in the all-important pricing category. If you’ve shopped for a TV lately, this probably won’t come as a surprise.

Vizio has focused almost entirely on ultra-affordable TVs in recent years. While the rest of the big-name brands tinker with high-end, cutting-edge technologies like RGB LED and QD-OLED, Vizio is focused on more cost-effective hardware.

Meanwhile, the most-popular entry-level sets in Hisense and TCL’s primary lineups tend to be more affordable than those of LG, Samsung and Sony. In addition, it’s often the case that, when comparing similarly priced models, Hisense and TCL TVs offer a bit more bang for your buck when it comes to features.

Winner: Tie (Hisense, TCL and Vizio)

Design

When it comes to design, Samsung and Sony lead the way. Sony’s top TVs often arrive with multiple stand configurations, and its most recent True RGB TVs feature a unique stand design that effectively hides cables by way of lenticular lensing.

Samsung consistently innovates at the higher end of its lineup, too, popularizing matte-style screens, external connectivity hubs and, most recently, eye-catching metallic frames. Affordable, entry-level Samsung QLEDs lean into the simplistic nature of their display hardware, often arriving with sleek, slim panels that play the part of a more-premium set.

LG’s most noteworthy TVs — its OLEDs — are handsomely engineered, too, but the worldwide leader in OLED TVs doesn’t seem too eager to move away from tried and true formulas.

TCL and Hisense are purveyors of TVs with safe, middle-of-the-road designs that don’t innovate as much as they respond to (and replicate) industry trends. Their higher-end TVs tend to carry their best design characteristics.

Winner: Tie (Samsung and Sony)

Features

Years ago, LG was among the first TV-makers to outfit its TVs with a full slate of HDMI 2.1 inputs. This aggressive approach to supplemental features has carried all the way into 2026, where the company narrowly leads TCL and Samsung when it comes to gaming- and streaming-related enhancements.

Although Samsung’s top-shelf TVs are jam-packed with extras, there are plenty of people shopping in this higher price tier expecting the full package. Without Dolby Vision support, LG’s top TVs are the most feature-complete.

Sony is the last of these brands to embrace full HDMI 2.1 support. Fortunately, that seems to be the new standard for the brand as the company looks to leverage newer chipsets in 2026 and beyond.

This year, Hisense and TCL are similar in how they approach feature availability across their respective lineups, but for the last couple of years, Hisense has traded a fourth HDMI input for a USB-C DisplayPort on its higher-end models — a move that might disappoint home theater enthusiasts looking to plug in every single one of their HDMI-equipped devices.

Being the brand most concerned with affordability above all else, it’s no surprise that Vizio is the brand least concerned with premium features.

Winner: LG

Performance

Although TCL and Hisense make exceptional TVs, LG, Samsung and Sony are the brands to consider if you’re looking for top-tier, best-in-the-business performance.

Of the six brands we graded, LG, Samsung and Sony are the only three that make OLED TVs. Despite the rapid ascension of RGB LED technology, OLED remains the best all-around option (provided you don’t need super-high full-field brightness to overcome a sun-soaked room). And, of the graded brands releasing RGB LED TVs in 2026, Samsung and Sony have impressed me the most with the Samsung R95H and Sony Bravia 9 II.

These brands also deliver better picture processing than Hisense, TCL and Vizio. On the whole, Sony TVs feature better processing than any other brand, but LG and Samsung aren’t far behind.

At the mid-range and entry level, ranking the brands’ performance isn’t as cut and dry. Hisense and TCL have fortified their position as the best bang-for-your-buck brands in these price tiers because they typically offer brighter pictures with better contrast control. In many cases, you could spend the same amount of money on an entry-level or mid-range LED TV from LG, Samsung or Sony and walk away with a less-impressive picture.

Vizio is… Well, Vizio. The Walmart-owned brand doesn’t make high-end flagships anymore, and the rest of its TVs are affordably made models engineered primarily to generate ad revenue by way of its web-based software. There’s nothing wrong with buying a Vizio TV as long as you’re shopping for affordability instead of sheer picture prowess.

Winner: Sony

Smart TV platform

Hisense, TCL and Sony offer the smoothest streaming experiences thanks to their built-in Google TV smart platform. It’s my second-favorite choice behind the Roku operating system on account of its relatively straightforward interface and vast library of downloadable apps.

LG and Samsung fall to a lower tier, primarily because their respective software suites aren’t as easy to navigate. Both LG’s webOS and Samsung’s Smart Hub also come with a unique set of annoyances, like unnecessary AI features and auto-playing content.

Vizio is to be avoided if you’re hoping to avoid buying an external streaming device, as its proprietary software lags behind the five other brands. The interface is inundated with more ads than its competitors (including auto-playing commercials) and its app selection is limited.

Winner: Hisense, TCL and Sony

Overall Brand Grades

So, you’re shopping for a TV this year and you want to put all of this information to proper use. Allow me to simplify things.

If you’re looking to splash out on a top-performing TV with an emphasis on design and features, LG and Samsung ought to be at the top of your list of options. At the highest price tier, Sony’s TVs offer similarly excellent performance and design, but some of these models don’t offer as many gaming-related features despite their steep cost.

If you’re looking for a mid-range TV in the Goldilocks Zone between affordability and high performance, consider Hisense and TCL. These two brands are especially suited for mid-range TV-shoppers on the hunt for the brightest possible picture, since Hisense and TCL specialize in budget-friendly Mini-LED TVs that don’t skimp on display hardware. (For what it’s worth, Hisense and TCL flagship models are usually quite good — just not as impressive as flagships from LG, Samsung and Sony.)

If you’re looking to spend as little as possible, I strongly recommend shopping for something from Hisense or TCL over anything from Insignia, Pioneer or Onn. I also recommend Hisense and TCL over Vizio, unless you’re comfortable with Vizio’s ad-heavy software experience.

Next year, we’ll grade all of these brands again. That means there’s plenty of time for them to study up.

Having covered flat-panel TVs from nearly their inception, I'm stunned that I can buy a good-looking 65-inch screen for under $400. But that is the world we live in now, and the Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Smart TV is a prime example of big-screen value on a shoestring budget.

Aside from its sometimes-infuriating OS and an atrocious default image mode (the latter is easy to remedy), I was generally pleased with the Dolby Vision-enabled Vizio TV, and I suspect most people would be, too.

If you can spend a bit more for the Hisense QD7, that’s something I’d suggest — but if your budget is a firm $400, this Vizio delivers rock-solid performance that won’t disappoint budget buyers.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Pricing and availability

The Vizio VQM65C-1004 is the 65-inch model of Vizio's new 2026 Mini LED Quantum lineup, priced at $398 at Walmart and Sam's Club. The line ranges from 43-inch to 85-inch options.

The VQM sits a tier above Vizio's standard Quantum (QLED-only) sets like the VQD65M-08 (around $378 at Walmart) and well below its older Quantum Pro line, like the VQP65C-84 (around $500).

At under $400 for a 65-inch Mini-LED, the VQM65C-1004 competes with some of the best TVs under $500. To get better performance at this size, you'd have to spend another $100-$200 (or more) for models such as the Hisense QD7 I recently reviewed and the TCL QM6K, which we reviewed last year.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Design

The VQM65C is a bit chunky at 2.91 inches thick. That's the reasonable tradeoff for the benefits of a full-array LED backlight (which we'll talk about later), although Vizio might have utilized that extra space for a beefier sound system, as the Hisense QD7 does.

The bezel is of negligible thickness and is adorned with just a tiny "VIZIO" at the bottom-right corner. Screwholes under the panel allow easy mounting of Vizio's QuickFit soundbars (on 55-inch and larger models).

Typical of a budget TV, the VQM65C stands on two plastic feet, one near each end of the set. You'll need a table that's at least about four feet wide, unless you wall mount it (using its 300 x 300 mm VESA standard mounting screw holes). One bonus: You can thread cables through a channel in each foot so they don't visibly dangle down from the screen.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Ports

When it's viewed from behind, the TV features a power-cable connector on the left and all input and output ports on the right. Those include three HDMI 2.1 ports, supporting 120Hz refresh for video sources; however, the panel's full-resolution refresh rate is just 60Hz. It can, however, show video games at 120fps at one-quarter the panel's resolution—1080p HD. With a relatively low input lag of 9.9 milliseconds, this TV has some gaming potential.

TVs of this size typically have four HDMI ports, so consider what you'll want to plug into the set to determine if this is enough. One of those HDMI ports supports eARC to output lossless Dolby Atmos audio to a soundbar (such as a QuickFit model) or home theater system. An optical digital audio SPDIF output is also provided.

There's a USB 2.0 port to load images from a USB stick or power a streaming stick if you don't care for the Vizio OS interface. (I do that at home with an older Vizio model and a Roku stick.) There's no LAN port, which has become rather vestigial by now, but the set has up-to-date dual-band Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax and Bluetooth headphone capability. An RF-in port connects to a built-in ATSC 1.0 tuner, which doesn't support the latest resolution and dynamic range broadcast standards (so it's limited to 1080i resolution and standard dynamic range).

How we test TVs at Tom’s Guide

We follow a standard testing protocol for every TV we review at Tom's Guide. Our benchmarks include a series of technical and subjective tests designed to rate the set's performance. For our technical tests, we set the TV to its most accurate out-of-the-box mode — for the Vizio VQM, that's Calibrated Dark mode, since the set doesn't offer a Filmmaker mode — and take measurements using a Jeti spectraval 1501-HiRes spectroradiometer, a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo 8K-SIX-G Metal pattern generator, and Portrait Displays's Calman TV-calibration software. We also use a Leo Bodnar 4K Video Signal Lag Tester for determining the TV's gaming prowess.

Subjective tests vary based on the reviewer but usually include anecdotes from a diverse selection of movies, TV shows, and other content reflecting the types of things you may actually want to watch on the TV. For a more detailed look at what we do and how we do it, check out our "How we test TVs" page.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Performance

My one liner-advice for this TV: Use Sports mode for most content, especially in a bright room, and Calibrated Dark mode for darker films viewed in a dark room.

Yes, Sports mode.

By chance, I started my testing with sports content: Amazon Prime's "NBA Nightcap 4/10: MIN v. HOU." I was mainly looking for how the screen handled rather-fast motion in HD. The TV's 60Hz refresh rate couldn't do much to help sharpen it. Turning on the set's Clear Action feature didn't have a noticeable effect, other than to darken images and add a slight, persistent flicker. (The Hisense QD7, also limited to 60Hz, has more effective motion smoothing.)

Switching to the Sports picture mode also had no effect on motion handling, but it made nearly all material look better — not just sports.

Take, for instance, Netflix's "Bridgerton." Season 1, Ep 3 (17:00-19:00 in) is a torture test, encompassing a full range of skintones and lighting condisions and a riot of colors. The VQM65C preserved detail and color in the light hair of a man standing in direct sunshine, as well as darker-toned women in shadow at an indoor reception. Dresses in pale summer shades of orange, blue, green, and pink appear vibrant without being oversaturated.

For darker films in a darker room, Calibrated Dark is often the right mode. It allowed the VQM65C to reproduce the dynamic range that's essential in “Dune” on Blu-ray. I could clearly see Duke Leto's face as he awakened in a dark bedroom. Afterwards, the screen retained detail in dark and bright areas as the night was pierced by brilliant orange and blue explosions of the Harkonnen invasion.

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" on Blu-ray looked equally good. Faces were clear in the firelight conversation between Peter Parker and Steven Strange, and the Doctor's fiery spell of forgetting glistened against the dark of a basement room.

Out of the box, the VQM65C defaults to Bright mode, which can appear remarkably over-saturated. I saw this in the normally gorgeous video for the Bruno Mars song "Risk It All" on YouTube. The creme-colored walls of the church interior turned orange, as did the face of his bride. This picture mode is rough on all skin tones, but anything darker than pale white really suffers. (I also saw motion stuttering regardless of mode: jerkiness in a scene in which the camera moves in towards Mars, and stuttering as it rotates 90 degrees to show him from the side.)

To get a better sense of color performance, I turned to material I know well — test photos I shot while reviewing cameras for Tom's Guide. Here the conclusion was clear: Sports mode generally provides the best color quality and detail for everyday viewing. In a sun-drenched photo of women by a fountain, Sports mode rendered pleasing skintones in both lighter and darker complexion.

In a softer-lit photo of a woman sitting on a bench, switching to Sports mode brought out detail in her face that had been washed out in Bright and Calibrated modes. Images in Bright mode looked overexposed and oversaturated (sometimes too orange, sometimes too blue). Calibrated mode continued to make things sallow.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Performance and test results

*As measured in Filmmaker mode ("Calibrated Dark" for the VQM65C)

Instrument tests back up much of what I saw, especially a measurement called Delta-E. It calculates how far off colors are from what they should be (based on the test signal we send to the TV). In Bright mode, the Vizio's Delta-E is 13.7, above (thus worse than) the average of 10.3 in the default mode for over 100 TVs we've tested going back to 2022. (They range from 5.52 — quite good — to 26.18.)

Delta-E is 4.6 in Calibrated Dark mode (the most accurate), well above the average of 2.48 for all TVs tested in their best mode — and at the point where even people who aren't color obsessed might notice. (The range for all models is 0.84 to 6.98; the Hisense QD7 comes in at 1.75.) We measured the simple Calibrated mode at 5. We do not usually test TVs in Sports mode, however, so we don’t have that data to report.

In terms of brightness, you’re looking at a mediocre peak HDR luminance of 781 nits in Calibrated Dark mode in our lab tests (based on the 10% window method). The average of comparable measures for other TVs we've tested is 1,472 nits, all-time, and 1,637 for models from 2025 and 2026. (It's not out of step for models in this price range, though. The rival Hisense QD7 is at 659 nits.) This performance is a sign that the full-array Mini-LED backlight with local dimming is doing its job, even with a modest 180 dimming zones for the 65-inch model.

The brightness deficit shows up in non-HDR content, such as the digital restoration of "8½," Fellini's 1963 black-and-white surrealist film. Details are hard to make out during an early scene (about four minutes in) set in a darkened bedroom. We measured just 219 nits standard dynamic range (SDR) brightness in Calibrated Dark mode, vs. an average 419 nits for all 2025 and 2026 65-inch LCD TVs reviewed.

However, a subsequent outdoor scene in "8½" displays well, including just a bit of expected warmth in the white tones of an old film. The TV also smoothes out a difficult long panning shot of a garden party well, using frame doubling to take the 24fps film rate up to 48Hz playback.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Audio

The Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K has the bare minimum audio power for a TV today: two 10-Watt speakers. It performs pretty well given those constraints. In "Risk It All," the bright trumpet notes and resonant plucking of the guitar came through clearly, as did Mars's soft singing. (I didn't discern a difference between the standard Surround sound and Virtual:X settings.)

As is usually the case, it's bass-heavy content that strains small sound systems. Audio sounded muffled and flat in the roar of sounds in the final season, final episode of Netflix's "Stranger Things." I got some improvement by pushing the volume from the standard 25 of 100 setting I usually test in up to 35, and by turning up bass from the neutral 0 level to +6, on a scale that ranges from -12 to +12. This didn't do much to improve clarity, though, especially in voices.

It's pretty standard advice to say that, if you care about audio (especially bass), you should consider adding one of the best soundbars or home theater speakers to your TV. That's certainly the case here.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Interface and remote

There's a reason I added a Roku stick to my own (older) Vizio TV. Vizio OS is rather busy, very anxious to sell you stuff, and includes some annoying "features." This model is carried by Walmart and Sam's Club, and you need to set up a Walmart account to get it working. The last thing I want is another online account collecting data on me. (Vizio is not unique in this respect, however. I had to disable a bunch of settings on the TCL QM8L TV with Google TV.)

My colleagues and I were driven batty by Scenic Mode. Leave the TV alone long enough and it slips a full-screen reel of nature footage and ambient music that, true to Vizio's ad-supported instincts, eventually pipes in commercials you can't disable — unless you turn off the whole feature, which is on by default.

On the positive side, settings were pretty easy to navigate via a mini-menu that pops up on the upper left of the screen. You can toggle directly through key settings like picture mode, or click into more-detailed menus. Vizio OS comes with over 300+ built-in apps and features WatchFree+, a free, ad-support platform with 300+ live channels (local news, sports, movies, gaming, music) plus over 30,000 on-demand titles.

The remote includes handy shortcut buttons to services including Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+, and WatchFree+ … which I kept accidentally launching when I meant to tap the select button in the center of the four-way navigational pad. It also supports voice input. Vizio also provides an intuitive smartphone app that largely mimics the physical remote, which is helpful if you ever misplace it.

Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K Review: Verdict

Vizio mostly got it right on this TV: big screen, low price, respectable image quality. Quirks aside (annoying OS, bizarre picture settings), it provides a good budget viewing experience.

For a step up, I recommend the Hisense QD7 over the Mini-LED Quantum 4K despite its slightly lower brightness in HDR. It delivers a better visual experience with more accurate colors. If you’re shopping for a room with lots of ambient light, you might have to splurge on one of TCL’s more mid-range Mini-LED models like the TCL QM7K that offers significantly higher brightness above 1,000 nits. (To get this quality at a comparable price though, you may have to drop down to a 55-inch screen.)

If you hunger for a big screen but don't have the stomach for a higher price, the 65-inch Vizio VQM65C is a solid choice. However, during sales events like Black Friday, the Vizio Mini-LED Quantum 4K is a prime candidate for big price drops and will become an even better value. Keep an eye on its sticker price as we head into the latter half of the year — your wallet will thank you for your patience.

When it comes to the biggest names in TVs, the brands you probably think of first are Samsung, Sony and LG, but there’s another name you don’t think of as often — Walmart’s Onn. — that could disrupt the regular hierarchy.

According to the latest TV sales report from Counterpoint Research, Walmart’s two brands, Onn. and Vizio, were responsible for roughly 5% of the global TV sales in November 2025 — up 2% from 2024 — and Walmart is “emerging as Samsung's strongest competitor in North America.”

Here’s what that could mean for you when shopping for your next big-screen TV.

Why are Onn. TVs so popular?

The reason Onn. doesn’t carry the same clout as Samsung and LG — or even TCL and Hisense — is because the brand focuses almost exclusively on impulse TV buyers.

TVs from Onn. only range in price from $74 for its 24-inch models to $600 on its 75-inch and 85-inch screens. Compared to Samsung or LG, both of which have high-end TVs that cost five-digit sums, Walmart’s TV brands feel downright cheap by comparison.

These are the TVs that folks line up for during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They're the door-busters that have ridiculously low prices that seem to have no bottom.

And that’s the whole point: Onn. and Vizio both built their brands on affordability, and that's what separates them from the competition.

Cheap TVs are good for everyone (yes, really)

While I may not typically recommend the Onn. TV brand to readers — there’s just a bit too much variability between sets to make them a reliable recommendation, in my opinion — they provide an important counterweight to the industry’s more expensive models.

If there were only high-end models from Sony, Samsung and LG, then we would be at their mercy when it comes to pricing. But cheap competitors from Onn., Hisense and TCL, have forced the bigger brands to come down in price. It’s also driven some TV makers out of business entirely — but that’s a story for a different article.

I’m a staunch believer that there’s a TV out there for everyone: For cinephiles, I’m always going to recommend one of the best OLED TVs or even one of the new Mini RGB TVs coming our way in 2026. However, folks who just want a big-screen TV and don’t necessarily need all the extras — or uniformity — that the more recognized brands bring will be better served buying a TV from Onn. or Insignia, Best Buy's house brand.

Not sure where to start when it comes to picking out a new TV? Check out our guide to the best TVs in 2026 for a full rundown of the top models.

More from Tom's Guide

• 5 hidden Roku features everyone needs to know
• 7 tips and tricks to make your LG TV even better
• Roku Streaming Stick Plus review

Updated 7/23/2025: Clarified Vizio will retain its name alongside onn TVs with exclusivity from Walmart.

Vizio TVs are in line to become a private-label brand on Walmart store shelves by year's end, which means they'll exclusively be sold out of the retailer's two mega storefronts, including Walmart and Sam's Club.

Bloomberg broke the news late last week after reviewing an internal company memo. Walmart will fold Vizio into its assortment of 90 other store brands, alongside onn, Walmart's already existing TV brand.

Vizio's move into the private-label sector is in accordance with Walmart's $2.3B acquisition of the TV maker, officially sealed in December of last year.

Cheap(er) Walmart TVs on the horizon

It's no secret that some of the best Vizio TVs are also some of the best budget TVs on the market, and they're bound to get even cheaper as a Walmart private-label brand. Bloomberg's reporting provides no indication of pricing or the expected rollout date, except for a late 2025 timeframe.

Various models, like the Vizio Quantum Pro and Vizio V-Series sets, are available to purchase at alternative retailers outside of Walmart, including Target and Amazon. But it's not just the physical TVs themselves that Walmart is after.

Where other TV makers, like Hisense, TCL, and Sony, rely on Google TV or Roku OS, Vizio is a unicorn. It makes and runs its own TV interface, called Smartcast, which Walmart bet $2.3B on in its push into the TV shopping experience.

So, while Walmart moves Vizio into a private-label brand, Vizio's Smartcast, which is already being integrated onto existing Walmart onn displays, will be the beating heart of the buyout's success. Increased advertising and shoppable TV experiences, wherein consumers purchase goods straight from their displays, will be the real breadwinners for Walmart.

More ads and in-your-face shopping experiences might not be the most exciting turn of events, but at least this will inevitably lead to the advent of cheaper TVs from Walmart. Onn TVs, while some of the worst displays on the market, can cost as much as $90 to $300. With Vizio's performance gains, they'll be worth considering.

More from Tom's Guide

• Samsung is giving its TVs a major AI upgrade — here’s what you can do now
• I test TVs for a living and the Switch 2 is a huge letdown when it comes to specs — here's why
• Forget OLED TVs — this ultra short throw projector can hit 4,000 lumens at 120 inches

Vizio TVs are some of the sleekest value picks on the market and are packed with tons of features for HDR movie nights and gaming. But even some of the best Vizio TVs can be made better using a variety of tips and tricks to improve the picture, controls, and so much more.

SmartCast, Vizio's user interface, is where all the magic happens. There's a lot you can do with SmartCast beyond simply searching up content and opening streaming apps. With the right settings enabled, you can easily turn on your TV when casting content and control your TV with your voice.

So, let's get into it. Follow these several settings to get the most out of SmartCast and streamline your Vizio TV experience.

Tailor SmartCast home screen to your liking

Your home screen is where all your favorite content lives. It's where you'll find all of the best streaming services, but it's not always set up to your liking right out of the gate. That's why I tend to recommend changing the home screen up to better suit the content you watch on a daily basis.

To customize the home screen on your Vizio TV, head to the App store and select Home screen apps. From here you can not only rearrange the order of the apps to your needs, or delete apps that you don't want on the home screen.

This should make it far easier for you to get to the platforms you enjoy the most and lets you limit all the extra apps that might clog up the starting carousel.

Turn off ACR

ACR, or automatic content recognition, is a new feature cropping on several smart TVs that's a huge privacy risk. It essentially reads and records the content you watch on a daily basis to better understand your viewing habits and serve up ads that aligns with your interests.

It's a nasty play to boost ad spend and target users for even more revenue by selling user data to third parties, main among them major advertisers. That's why it's a good idea to ensure you turn this setting off immediately after buying a new TV as it sets a terrible precedent for content privacy.

To turn it off, head to settings -> System -> Reset & Admin -> Viewing Data, then turn this off. It might be slightly different dependent on what specific Vizio TV or SmartCast software you're running, but you'll most often find it in "Data" or "Privacy" sections.

While this won't thoroughly protect you from all the ways Vizio and others can target you specific ads, it will limit their reach in understanding the type of content you enjoy. Just look at how LG TVs are about to show you ads based on your emotions to see even more ways companies are set to abuse targeted ads.

Turn on voice control

Your TV remote is disgusting, so why not switch it for simply using your voice instead? I've lost count of how many times I've lost the remote and simply resorted to using voice controls to do all the heavy lifting.

Luckily, it's super easy to enable on the Vizio SmartCast platform. Simply head to Settings --> Extras and look for "Smart Home Settings." This will let you set up all of the neat voice-enabled controls to make navigation and opening an apps an absolute breeze on your smart TV.

What's even better is that you can even use your Vizio TV to control all of your smart home products around the house. This will work primarily with SmartCast or Google Home supported devices, but gives your Vizio TV an extra leg up in the modern era.

Vizio SmartCast app

If you're not one to use voice controls but still want a second option to use your Vizio TV beyond its included remote, the SmartCast app is a worthy pick. It's similar to Samsung's SmartThings app, allowing you to control your TV in a variety of ways.

Do note that it has a different name for Android devices on the Google Play store, called Vizio WatchFree+. It's essentially the same thing on iOS, but also gives you access to free channels that you can watch anywhere on-the-go, which isn't bad to have if you're looking to kill some time.

If you have a supported soundbar, particularly a Vizio one, you could also control that device along with the TV through the SmartCast app. You'll even have some Chromecast functionality, making it far easier to cast content to the screen.

Gaming picture settings

Although Vizio models aren't often found among the best gaming TVs, that doesn't mean we can't tweak them to give them some better picture performance. If you head to the picture settings, you'll find an option dedicated to "Game," and from there we can make some minor adjustments.

For starters, you'll want to make sure ALLM and VRR are both set to on if not already. Some Vizio TVs will even come with an "HDMI 2.1 mode," which is adequate more for both modern consoles and some of the best gaming PCs.

You might even also have to enable "Game HDR" in the advanced picture settings, but some consoles (namely the PS5) might look slightly better without it. And, while the "Game" picture setting does often net you good-enough quality for gaming, I'd also recommend switching to "Vibrant" for slightly better colors. (Though, we often avoid this setting for shows and movies, as it tends to over-saturate the image).

Quick start and boot-up adjustments

No one likes waiting to enjoy they love to watch. If you're like me and a bit impatient when it comes to jumping right into that new episode or movie release, you'll want to enable Quick Start within the Power settings on your Vizio TV.

As the name implies, this essentially makes the TV boot up faster. You'll dive into the home screen quicker and you can even customize which HDMI port or menu to prioritize when the Vizio TV powers on.

Another awesome feature this enables is automatic power-on when costing content from a mobile device to the screen. This makes it so much easier and faster to enjoy the content you love and you don't even need a remote.

With a faster boot time, quicker access to your favorite apps and voice control through your choice of smart home device, you should be able to get to the content you want to watch faster than ever before.

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It’s finally official. After nearly a whole year of delays and federal inquiries, Walmart’s $2.3B buyout of Vizio is inked and completed. It’s a surprising turn of events, showing Walmart’s perception of the TV market and how it will leverage that market to ignite its ever-growing ads business.

And while ads are definitely an important facet to Walmart’s purchase of Vizio, it’s not the whole story. There’s a lot of different ways Vizio can help Walmart, main among them being the design of some of the best cheap TVs yet. Of course, we'll have to wait a bit before we see the full weight of its purchase of Vizio come to fruition.

But for those who might own a Vizio TV or one of Walmart's Onn TVs, what can you expect to see in the coming months? Or, maybe you're considering on buying a Vizio TV right now, how might Walmart’s new acquisition change your decision? Let's dive into what Walmart's new purchase of Vizio means for you.

A whole lotta ads

It’s no coincidence that Walmart’s US-based chief growth officer is Seth Dellaire, who previously ran Amazon’s global ad sales. It’s clear that advertising is a major part of Walmart’s business and its purchasing of Vizio will only strengthen its potential here, allowing Walmart to bridge its ads into far, far more households.

It's also not too unsurprising just how much ads make up Walmart's general business. Walmart Connect is this very arm, which saw a 30% increase in revenue year over year as of Q2 2024. Walmart Connect takes up a massive part of Walmart's business, and it wouldn't be surprising to see Vizio amplify this growth tremendously over the course of the next few years.

Walmart isn't alone. Other top-name TV brands are driving growth through ads sales, main among them being Roku. According to TVTech, Roku's platform revenue, corralling ad sales, rose by 11% in Q2 2024. Ads are so important to specific TV makers and OS leads that some are willing to take a loss on TV sales as ads are proving far more lucrative.

In addition, anyone who owns a Fire TV Stick or Fire TV will certainly have noticed that the Prime Video home screens for these devices have turned into billboards. You'll see ads for products you can buy on Amazon as well as for shows or movies you may want to watch.

And Walmart is eyeing that potential growth in excited glee, because Walmart and Roku weren't the only ones cashing in on the ads front. Vizio, too, is no stranger to making big on ads sales. Despite seeing double the gross loss on devices year over year in Q3 2024, Vizio still made bank primarily via its Platform+ business, which Walmart has its sights set on.

How best will Walmart push its ads business going into the future? Vizio's SmartCast platform, of course.

SmartCast adoption

The TV interface battle is heating up and there’s no question that Google TV is winning that race. Over the course of the last two years, Google TV has grown into one of the largest TV interfaces, with top manufacturers from TCL, Hisense, and Sony turning to Android 11 for their TV operating systems.

Not far behind Google TV is Roku, Amazon's Fire TV, and even Vizio's SmartCast. According to Statista, SmartCast had as many as 18 million users in 2023. You can assume that's grown significantly since, with Walmart Connect potentially seeing an instant major growth jump primarily through those users.

It wouldn't be too far fetched to see Walmart adopt SmartCast for its own Onn TVs, as well. Onn currently uses Google TV for its main interface, but with SmartCast Walmart could bolster its ads revenue tremendously through an additional user base, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more variety in terms of how those ads are served to users.

For reference, just look to what Roku's got cooking to see where Walmart's gaze is set. Earlier this year, we reported how Roku patented a way to show ads when content is paused. There's no doubt Walmart has similar plans for both Onn and Vizio sets, and potentially even more ways to sell you things — like shoppable ads.

SmartCast will not only make these integrations far easier (and cheaper) to deliver to customers, bypassing Google TV entirely, but also give them instant access to over 18 million households. That's a huge, huge win for Walmart's ads business, and lends credence to its $2.3B spend.

For that very reason, I might staying away from buying any of the best Vizio TVs right now — unless, of course, if you're a huge fan of ads. At least until we know how this deal is going to shake out.

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After years of faithful service, Vizio has moved to replace its vaunted M-series Quantum X models with a new lineup. Chief among that lineup is the new Quantum Pro. 

On paper, the Quantum Pro is almost identical to the previous QXM models, making it more of a refresh rather than a completely new TV. The key difference is a switch from a VA panel to an IPS one. While VA panels tend to have a better contrast ratio of the two, IPS displays have much wider viewing angles before colors are distorted.

The good news is that the Quantum Pro screens still have a 120Hz refresh and four HDMI 2.1 ports, so they still have smooth motion and plenty of connectivity for your home theater devices, as well as full array lighting with local dimming zones that’s used for improved HDR performance. 

As compelling as this all sounds, however, some of the best TVs — like the award-winning Hisense U7K — now use superior Mini-LED backlights for only a small increase in price. Is it worth sticking with a regular full array backlight TV with fewer dimming zones or instead opt for a better (if slightly more expensive) Mini-LED? Read our Vizio Quantum Pro review to find out.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Price and availability

Targeting a low price while including one or two "premium" features is typically a key ingredient in Vizio’s design methodology, and the Quantum Pro models continue that. Only two models, a 65- and 75-inch, are currently available and both are under $1,000. The larger 75-inch model has more local dimming zones, so HDR performance should be a little crisper, but otherwise the two have identical features and are only differentiated by size. Both are available through Amazon, Walmart, and many common retailers.

• Vizio VQP75C-84 (65-inch): $698
• Vizio VQP75C-84 (75-inch): $898

We recommend checking our guide on which TV size to buy if you’re not sure which size screen is right for your space.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Design

As with many Vizio TVs, the Quantum Pro doesn’t waste expense on unnecessary adornment: The front bezel is matte plastic with Vizio chrome branding on the bottom right corner. The back of the TV is likewise function-over-form with little in the way of decoration. 

A raised section in the middle houses the main control components. So while the TV itself is 2.94 inches thick front-to-back, it appears only half that from the side. A general-purpose button for power and input switching is near the bottom left corner on the underside. Altogether it's hardly an exotic-looking TV, but no one ever bought a Vizio TV because it looked fancy.

The VQ features a 400mm x 300mm VESA pattern for mounting on walls or stands and includes its own M8 screws for the task (likely unnecessary as nearly all mounting hardware includes its own screws). You can of course use the included feet instead of mounting to a wall or stand. The feet can be attached at two different heights, the higher setting giving just over 3 inches of clearance for a soundbar. The feet have only a single attachment point set toward the outer edge of the cabinet, so you'll need a wide surface to stand the TV on. For smaller entertainment stands, you'll need to buy a separate pedestal mount, or one of the best TV wall mounts.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Ports

In terms of connectivity options, the Quantum Pro offers four HDMI 2.1 ports. The HDMI1 port is labeled for eARC and HDMI3 is labeled for gaming to support the higher frame rates. Above the HDMI ports is a single USB 2.0 port capable of delivering a full Ampere of current, which can be used to power one of the best streaming devices if you want to use, say, Roku or Amazon’s smart platform instead of Vizio Smart Home. The USB port can also be configured in the settings to continue supplying power even when the TV is turned off. 

Though the TV supports eARC, a fiber optic SPDIF port is also on the back should you need that to connect your soundbar or speaker system. Below the coax antenna input is an Ethernet port, which complements the integrated Wi-Fi 6E for network connectivity, but Bluetooth 5.2 is also available for connecting headphones and other peripherals. The removable power cable attaches on the side opposite the A/V connectors on the back.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Performance

Vizio has built a reputation on delivering "good-enough" picture quality at a lower price, and the VQP model continues this. As one of Vizio’s top-end models, the Quantum Pro checks many of the premium feature boxes. The display has Vizio's Quantum Color, which is Vizio-speak for a QLED display with a full array LED backlight and local dimming zones. It uses the same IQ Ultra+ display processor as the previous MQX models, so overall picture clarity should be the same. 

Turning to older movies shows a limitation of Vizio's $700 price point, that of upscaling sub-4K video. The original Avatar, a great 1080p transfer to Blu-ray, is a tiny bit soft around the edges, but nothing problematic. The TV exaggerates the film grain on older 1080p movies, like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, making each scene appear much noisier than it should. It doesn't necessarily look bad or blocky, but it's not as nice as you'll see on more expensive TVs.

The biggest weakness of the VQP is the backlighting system. Again, as with the upscaler, it's not bad, it just has obvious limitations in some areas. The 65" model has fairly large dimming zones and they don't change from dark to light very quickly (the 75" display supposedly has more zones which are smaller). The larger dimming zones mean heavy contrast lines, particularly stark black to white edges or noir-style movies, will have some bloom and backlight bleed and don't look as sharp as they could be. The slower response makes ghosting a minor problem with moving high-contrast objects on the screen, especially in slower framerate content like movies.

The system menu has an Active Full Array option that can be set to Low, Medium, and High and changes how aggressively local dimming and higher contrast zones are used (setting it to Off disables local dimming altogether). In SDR content, the aforementioned issues with bloom and light bleed are quite obvious when using anything above a Low setting for the array. Using the Low setting eliminates most of the bloom, but noticeably raises blacks, so you have to pick which trade-off is less irritating to you.

Thankfully HDR content isn't nearly as temperamental, and in terms of HDR formats, not only are both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ high dynamic range standards still supported, but the VQP adds HLG as well. Setting the backlight array to Medium works well for most TV shows, movies, and games in HDR, with deep blacks, rich colors, strong highlights, all with plenty of separation between. Some content with particularly high contrast scenes will benefit from the High setting. However, the TV’s maximum brightness is significantly lower than 1000 nits once calibrated, and limits the separation it can deliver between brightest brights and darkest darks (more on this later).

Overall, whether watching movies or playing games, the picture looks sharp and robust. The 120Hz panel means judder isn't a factor. It won't dazzle you like a high-end OLED display, nor does it have the minute backlight control of the latest Mini-LED technology, but it's not pretending to be.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Test results

So how do these words on a marketing page translate to real-world performance? Pretty well, thankfully. As with many TVs, the VQP only meets its advertised claims of 1000 nits brightness and contrast ratio using the “Bright” and “Vivid” picture settings. While these modes are great at showing off the TV in bright retail store aisles, they’re not what you want to use at home as the picture is rather harsh on the eyes and color accuracy is abysmal.

Using the “Calibrated” preset provides a better experience for your living room. This does come at the cost of dropping maximum brightness from 1000 nits down to 862 nits, which limits how much separation you can get between highlights and shadows in HDR mode. While it’s still much brighter than most similarly priced TVs, keep in mind some of the brightness comes at the cost of detrimental bloom for SDR content.

Perhaps the most impressive measurement is the 1.47 Delta-E (a test that measures how accurate the color output is on the TV). This isn’t just good for the price range, this is good for any TV out-of-the-box. Along with that color accuracy is a respectably high coverage of the 709 gamut at 98.9%. This isn’t quite as good as competing displays from Hisense, TCL, and Samsung, though it’s far from shabby.

For HDR content, the VQP covers 96.8% of the UHDA-P3 gamut. Again, this is better than some models from TCL, LG, and Samsung, but not up to the level of the Hisense U7K or the more expensive U8K.  It’s much the same story with the larger Rec. 2020 gamut, though the difference there is more telling as that color gamut is so much bigger than all the others.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Audio

As with most TV, the speakers are limited due to the small, thin cabinet of the TV. Twin 10W speakers are all you get with the TV, which isn't much power even compared to other budget TVs. They're enough to get the job done and get loud enough to clearly hear spoken language in shows, movies, and games, but won't do much more than that.

As mentioned before, the VQP supports eARC on the HDMI 1 port, so connecting one of the best soundbars is simple as can be. Full CEC support is also onboard so using the TV remote to control your soundbar isn't a problem. However, in my testing it seemed to be slow at changing volume when connected to a soundbar. I had to wait about half a second between clicks on the remote instead of being able to register several clicks in quick succession. It’s a minor gripe, but many-a-parent has experienced the situation of turning on the TV at night while children are sleeping, only to find the TV volume is still cranked up from afternoon cartoons. Being unable to mash the volume down is not a downside I'd ever think to find on a TV.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Gaming

For gamers, the highlights here are the 120Hz refresh rate and support for variable refresh rate. The VQP steps up to FreeSync Premium Pro (the older MQX was limited to FreeSync Premium) meaning the variable refresh rate now works with HDR content as well.

As mentioned earlier, some HDR content sees benefits from using the High setting for the backlight array, most notably games with their otherworldly lighting effects. Though an older title, “Ori and the Will of the Wisps” remains one of the best implementations of HDR in gaming. Setting the array to Medium works well for most of the game. Go to Baur's Reach, with its strong snow highlights and plentiful god rays, and note how some of the whites and highlights get blown out, especially against Ori's pure white glow. Change the array setting to High and the highlight detail returns, but at the expense of darkening the rest of the scene and losing color vibrancy. Again, this demonstrates the VQP’s limited range against TV’s costing just a little more.

Like many TVs today, the VQP automatically switches to what it thinks is the best preset or picture mode for the connected device or signal. When the TV detects what it thinks is a "gaming" signal (which seems to be any VRR-capable device), it changes to the "Game" picture preset and engages various gaming features (like low latency mode, disabling film improvement features, etc). While this behavior may be intended to be helpful and convenient, I found it annoying more than not, especially since there's no way to disable it. Even switching off the TV's Game/PC Mode automatic toggle and disabling the Auto Low-Latency Mode option on the Xbox Series X made no difference. If you're someone that uses a HTPC or a gaming console to watch 4K Blu-rays, there doesn't seem to be a way around this auto-switch behavior.

The HDMI 3 port is intended for gaming use and will support not only 4K video at 120Hz and also 240Hz at 1080p resolution. Vizio claims the TV is capable of sub-7ms input lag, though our tests resulted in 14.3ms instead. This is still under our 20ms threshold for what we consider necessary for a good gaming experience, but it can't compete with the sub-10ms TVs that are truly great in that respect. Unlike competitors, the VQP doesn't have any on-screen gaming enhancements — i.e. no frame counter, no center crosshair, no special overlays or enhancements for screenshots.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Smart TV

The Vizio Quantum Pro uses Vizio’s proprietary Home Screen smart platform. Initial setup of the TV is easy and straightforward. You can go through the steps manually using the remote, or use Vizio's app on your Android or iOS device. This companion app can also serve as a secondary remote to control the TV. During this setup, you're asked to select your favorite or most commonly used streaming services and apps. This ensures those apps get installed on the TV right away, but nothing else. 

It would be nice if the setup also placed those app icons in a favorites bar or other quick access location on the home screen, but no dice. Instead you have to go through the list (all apps, not just those installed), and drag them one by one to the left to pin them in place. As Vizio supports all the main streaming services, and also dozens of smaller ones, sorting through this list can take a while.

Vizio also curates a collection of free content from various services, most of them account and subscription free. The content available on these services rotates quickly, most every week or so, and is a rather eclectic mix of shows and movies.

If you want to Cast from your phone or tablet, the VQP supports Chromecast, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay, and Apple Home.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Remote

A large navigational D-pad dominates the remote. Six dedicated hotkeys for specific streaming services are at the top, along with a larger button for Vizio’s collection of free streaming services. Though the remote does have an IR interface, it connects wirelessly to the TV for non-line-of-sight control and voice commands. 

The volume controls are on the right edge of the remote. While this can place them under your fingertips depending on how you hold the remote, it also makes them quite easy to accidentally press when picking up the remote.

The remote lacks a tenkey or channel up/down buttons, which only matters to those who regularly watch OTA broadcast stations. However the lack of dedicated media control buttons is a more significant letdown. Instead, the navigation D-pad pulls double duty for play/pause, next/previous track, etc… It depends on each given app, but most times you won't have quick access to fast-forward, next chapter, and next track/title without digging through some menus. It might be a minor complaint, but it means playback control isn’t as slick as it could be.

Vizio Quantum Pro review: Verdict

Despite having decent-to-good all-around performance, the best thing going for Vizio's Quantum Pro is still its price. A 65-inch TV with excellent color accuracy, full array backlighting, good viewing angles, 120Hz refresh rate, and VRR support is nothing new, but finding one available for $700 is a novel experience.

The downsides are that it doesn't have an ATSC 3.0 tuner. Brightness and overall contrast handling could stand to be better, especially across mixed content and adapting between SDR and HDR. Upscaling also is middling, so people with extensive 1080p libraries might be somewhat disappointed.

TVs like the Hisense U6K and its mini-LED backlight or the recent offerings from Roku might be less expensive, but they're also limited to 60Hz and much lower brightness. The U8K, newer Hisense U8N, and the TCL QM8 offer markedly better brightness and picture quality, but also run around $1000.

The Hisense U7K is probably the closest contender. Prices between the two are close, depending on sales and clearance events, though the U7K tends to be slightly higher. The VQP has higher effective brightness and better color accuracy, but the U7K has slightly better coverage of the three main color gamuts. The big difference between the two is the Mini-LED backlight system on the U7K, which has far more dimming zones with better response time, allowing for a cleaner overall picture. For many folks, this could make the U7K the better overall value, despite its higher price.

Despite some competition, for the non-cinephile who’s looking to stretch their entertainment budget as far as possible and are willing to give up on some "perfect" aspects of picture quality, or who simply don't notice their absence, the Vizio Quantum Pro makes a compelling option as one of the better TVs under $1,000.

For years, Vizio has been known as a value TV maker by offering large screen sizes for around half the cost of Samsung or Sony TVs. The latest addition to its 2024 lineup, an 86-inch version of its 4K TV series, is continuing that trend.

According to a press release sent to Tom's Guide from Vizio, the 86-inch variant will be available starting April 28 for $999 at select retailers. Undoubtedly that will include Walmart, as the retailer has already entered an agreement to acquire Vizio for the sum of $2.3 billion, but it will likely include other retailers as well. 

As far as what this 86-inch behemoth is bringing to the table besides an unbelievable sticker price, Vizio's aptly named 4K TV Series offers Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+ support as well as Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 connectivity compatibility alongside its eponymous 4K resolution. It can also play games at 120fps, but it needs to drop the resolution to 1080p to hit that frame rate.

Currently, the lineup of Vizio 4K TVs includes 43”, 50”, 55”, 65”, 70” and 75” models, but the upcoming 86-inch version will be the biggest of the bunch when it arrives in April.

Does affordability come at the cost of picture quality?

Given what it costs, we're not expecting the 86-inch Vizio 4K TV to land a spot on our list of the best TVs. It's possible, potentially, and we'll need to test it for ourselves before coming to any real conclusions on it, but typically cheaper TVs don't hold a candle to the more expensive QLED and OLED TVs from Samsung and LG. 

Where do manufacturers shave some cost? In the backlight technology is probably the most important area — the best OLED TVs are costly because OLED panels are more expensive to produce at larger sizes — but also in cheaper components like processors that handle the upscaling and motion processing.

That being said, we do have to hand it to Vizio on this price. An 86-inch TV for under $1,000 is really great. Our favorite value TV, the Hisense U8K, is available in a 65-inch screen size for $999, but the 85-inch model comes in at an eye-watering $2,199. 

We don't have a crystal ball, but our gut says that if this TV launches at $999 then it's going to drop down substantially come Black Friday 2024. 

Can't wait for the fall? Don't miss our round-up of the best TV deals going on now.

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Walmart is officially acquiring Vizio in a meteoric $2.3 billion acquisition that will see the retail giant leveraging SmartCast OS to bolster its advertisement arm, Walmart Connect. 

The news comes in a press release published Tuesday morning by Walmart itself, citing Vizio’s SmartCast as accounting “for the majority of the company’s growth in the last five years.”  

Walmart’s $2.3B purchase rides on the heels of several reports last week claiming the deal’s highly potential nature, seeing Walmart take on major rivals like Amazon Fire TV and Roku. The deal, however, seems more so focused on pushing Walmart Connect to far more engaging realms as opposed to strengthening Vizio’s underlying TV manufacturing potential. 

Injecting Walmart Connect into TVs everywhere 

Walmart is set to use its newfound $2.3B purchase of Vizio to better capitalize its Connect ads business, which reportedly took home just under $3B in 2022, according to Insider Intelligence. 

Through Vizio’s SmartCast OS, a platform that Walmart claims in its press release encompasses over 18 million users, the retail giant will be capable of peddling its shoppable advertisements to far more eyes worldwide. 

Walmart writes in its release that SmartCast will also be able to “create opportunities to help advertisers connect with customers, empowering brands with differentiated and compelling opportunities,” which probably refers to more advanced and interactive shoppable ads. 

In 2022, Walmart saddled up alongside Roku to deliver shoppable ads that allow users to buy products directly off the TV that are fulfilled by Walmart. The retail giant makes no mention of Roku in its release, despite the deal potentially still being in place. It also has partnered up with Innovid for similar personalized TV-based ads in 2023. 

Though the deal with Vizio is finalized on the TV manufacturer’s side, it will still go through typical regulatory clearance. Vizio also has a 45-day window to pull out of the deal per a potential “superior offer” presented via an alternate source.

Vizio has long made its SmartCast OS a place of continued innovation, with an update to its speed and Home Screen redesign being pushed last year. The TV manufacturer could also potentially leverage that $2.3B capital for innovative TVs, which Walmart does mention at the beginning of its press release, despite ads being its primary vehicle for the investment.

Walmart Connect has evolved significantly over the past several years, with the retail giant claiming it has seen a 30% growth for fiscal year 2024. The firm could potentially see massive gains by making Vizio a newfound ads home for its ever-thriving business.

Walmart also has its own TV business in Onn, which could see further growth via Vizio manufacturing. The retail giant will now take on major rivals in the budget TV space, including both Roku and Amazon Fire TV through the $2.3B purchase of Vizio. 

More from Tom's Guide

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• These are the best Vizio TVs you can get right now
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Update: Walmart announced in a press release Tuesday morning that it is officially purchasing Vizio for $2.3B. 

Walmart’s potential aggressive push into the TV industry made headlines earlier this week as reports suggested the massive retailer could be in talks of buying Vizio for $2B.

It’s not so farfetched as it might seem from the outside looking in. Walmart, no stranger to TV designs as witnessed in its relatively lackluster Onn brand, has quite the incentive to deliver TVs at an affordable price point as the market could prove lucrative if approached correctly.

On the other hand, while teaming up with Vizio is certainly a gamble — quite the expensive one at that — the optics seem more so focused on other areas where Walmart can leverage the Vizio branding for other purposes, most notable of all being advertising. Walmart’s ads business has ballooned over the past year, with Inside Intelligence claiming it saw over $3B in 2023 alone.

Is Vizio’s buyout a natural foil to Amazon Fire TV and Roku, or could it be just another way to bleed Walmart mindshare and its products into homes worldwide? There’s some good and some potentially bad aspects behind Walmart’s supposed $2B deal, so let’s break down how it could shake up the TV industry and if it will ultimately be rewarding for consumers — or a total nightmare.

Walmart’s $2B Vizio deal — the good 

Walmart’s Onn brand TVs, which typically retail for around $100 to $500, aren’t exactly the most ideal displays on the market. Although cheap, these TVs have arguably the lowest quality and performance baked in, with little to show for other necessities like audio and gaming enhancements.

Data sets provided in our own review of a 50-in 4K Roku Onn TV prove an incredibly lackluster narrative across its color volume (96.7% sRGB), gaming potential (32.1ms input lag), and contrast levels. At least its pricing matches with the value, but even then there’s better TVs out there to buy at its price point — Vizio TVs included.

While not quite at the level of either Hisense or TCL, Vizio still provides some remarkable sets at incredible price points. And the firm is continuously improving upon its underlying operating system (OS), as seen with the speed boost update it garnered this past December.

With a $2B cash injection, Vizio could leverage that capital for some serious gains. Vizio’s R&D could cook up major rival TV models against not just both Amazon Fire TV and Roku, as mentioned in the initial report published via the Wall Street Journal, but also maybe even Hisense and TCL as well.

Although there was only one series of it, Vizio’s OLED TV went relatively under the radar due in large part to its name. There's no guarantee we'd ever see another Vizio-branded OLED, however a potential $2B check could make it a reality.

Right now, there’s really no indication as to where Walmart might take the Vizio brand in terms of its display innovation, but hopefully Walmart uses the brand to prop up its own TV sales with some really interesting new models. 

Though, then again, maybe it’s not so sunshine and rainbows after all.

Walmart’s $2B Vizio deal — the bad

In the more negative camp, which to many seems to be the most prime reality, Walmart’s potential $2B investment into Vizio is just another commercial ploy, one to prop up its ever-thriving Connect ads business. This not only pertains to both shoppable ads as seen on the TV at home and in stores, but likewise for the potentially far more lucrative data corralled within Vizio’s consumer base.

Called Retail Media Networks (RMNs), retailer ads businesses have thrived over the past several years as seen in mega corporations like Google and Apple. Walmart’s Connect obviously can’t hit the same heights as presented by these two names, nor even that of Amazon’s incredible dominance in this sector either, but retail media is a potential goldmine for Walmart — a goldmine that Coresight Research claims could be a $60B opportunity in 2024.

Walmart’s ads business has been growing by the billions over the past few years, with 2023 raking in over $3B and 2024 looking to capture $4B and more, according to Statista. Through Vizio, Walmart could leverage the platform to sell even more ads across TV screens that could potentially even rival small sectors within its own conventional retail business.

That’s not even accounting for the other untapped goldmine in the equation: data monetization. Vizio currently wields an 18M strong user base, making it a platform ripe for monetization — a business sector that Coresight Research claims could net $1M-$5M per every $1B earned in revenue.

In other words, if Walmart were granted the keys to Vizio’s kingdom, it could mean a whole lot more ads served to its millions of users. And, on top of that, said users’ data will most assuredly be leveraged to service these ads and better process the kinds of products Walmart puts at the forefront of its retail business.

But, with all of that being said, who’s to say the deal even goes through?

Walmart’s $2B Vizio deal — it may not even happen

The purported $2B deal that sees Walmart eyeing Vizio might not even come to fruition. The deal — if it's ever publicly acknowledged by both companies — all comes down to Vizio CEO William Wang, an executive wielding majority voting rights within the business and also founded the TV manufacturer back in 2002.

If the deal is finalized with Walmart as its new owner, it’s unclear what his role would be going forward. Additionally, Walmart might not be the only shark out there battling the tides of the TV industry seas.

Best Buy, too, has its own TV brand, called Insignia. Similar to Walmart, these TVs aren’t exactly the most ideal displays on the market, but through Vizio, it could bring about some serious change with the right capital injection. Best Buy scooping up Vizio and rebranding its own internal TVs with even better internals might give it a sweet push for 2024, especially given Best Buy’s commitment to value offerings — not unlike Walmart itself.

It all remains to be seen, and who knows? Maybe Vizio doesn’t even sell and remains its own entity entirely. We’ll just have to wait and see where this TV industry is headed as 2024 blazes on.

More from Tom's Guide

• Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class 4K TV review
• Vizio TVs now double as digital photo frames — here’s how it works
• Vizio's first OLED TV is its most impressive set ever

Update: Walmart announced in a press release Tuesday morning that it is officially purchasing Vizio for $2.3B.

Walmart might be eyeing TV manufacturer Vizio as it aims to aggressively restructure its TV business and strengthen its ads potential, according to a new report.

The report, headed up by The Wall Street Journal, suggests that the potential $2B purchase could be an attempt on Walmart’s part to not only take on more affordable TV manufacturing giants, like Roku and Amazon Fire TV, but likewise strengthen its advertising business, which is intended to double by 2024.

Why is Walmart about to shell out the big bucks for Vizio? Although Walmart already has its own in-house TV brand, called Onn, through Vizio it could garner an instant foothold into the industry with arguably one of the most well-known affordable TV makers in the business. 

More importantly, this would also allow Walmart a veritable gold mine in the form of years’ worth of Vizio user data, in tandem with a platform ripe for advertising.

Can Vizio and Walmart take on Roku and Amazon?

According to the WSJ, which posted its initial report on Tuesday, Walmart is seeking to purchase budget TV manufacturer Vizio for $2B. If the deal goes through, it could give the mega retailer well over a fifth of the US TV industry and could allow it more leeway for its surging ads business, Walmart Connect.

Walmart has been headstrong over the past several years in strengthening its advertising arm, saddling up alongside Roku in 2022 for shoppable ads via the TV manufacturer’s interactive OS. Last year it even collaborated with Innovid and its so-called Dynamic Creative Optimization solution, which leverages AI to fuel both interactive connected TV (CTV) messages for improved and engaging adverts.

Through the ownership of Vizio, Walmart would have the potential to reach nearly 18 million users, a significant chunk of potential customers that could be used to sell a number of goods beyond Walmart shelves. As per Insider Intelligence (thanks Reuters), Vizio TVs account for nearly 70% of Walmart’s TV sales, which potentially gives the retailer extra incentive to buy into its ecosystem.

And, if that wasn’t enough, Walmart could leverage its new control over Vizio by plastering a variety of different ads within its stores, thus reaching a potential 37 million daily shoppers across its over 10,000 global stores, about half of which are US-based.

When asked via email about the validity of the $2B deal, Vizio PR said to Tom’s Guide, “No comment at this time.” The WSJ added that the deal is still ongoing and could potentially miss its mark, relaying information provided via those familiar with the potential buyout.

If the deal goes through, which relies solely on Vizio CEO William Wang, it will put Walmart in direct competition with alternative budget TV makers Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Interestingly, Walmart already has an ongoing exclusive deal with Roku, mentioned previously, which allows Walmart products to be sold via its Roku OS.

How a Walmart-owned Vizio brand will stack up against long-time rivals Roku and Amazon (both of whom make their own TVs and smart platforms) is anyone's guess, but if it results in cheaper, quality TVs on Walmart store shelves all over the country — as well as in Walmarts in the 19 other countries in which the company operates — then the two other major US players might be in trouble.

More from Tom's Guide

• Vizio smart TVs just got another massive speed boost — here’s what to know
• Walmart Plus — everything you need to know
• The best smart TVs for streaming in 2024

Significant improvements are heading your way if you own a Vizio Smart TV, as the company is rolling out some major performance enhancements starting today.

These changes come several months removed following Vizio’s Home screen redesign, which saw incredible speed gains and a complete refresh of its user interface.

Now, Vizio is making its Home Screen even more reliable with as much as 2x the speed and power when switching apps on select smart TVs, including its newest Vizio Quantum QLED Smart TV.

Home screen speed gains

So, how do these changes work exactly? Off the back of its cloud-based architecture, Vizio is streamlining its Home platform with exciting features and enhancements. These updates include smoother scrolling and responsiveness, in addition to better search functionality.

Seamless scrolling will ensure Vizio TV users can more freely access their content and apps using a new left-side navigation screen. Voice and text search has also seen a massive improvement through faster recommendation results.

The newest Home screen update is totally free and available to all Vizio Smart TV users. Vizio claims the update offers as much as 2x the speed and performance gains, allowing users to more freely and swiftly switch between their favorite TV applications. As an added bonus, they'll even turn on quicker now.

Vizio's software strategy

These updates arrive following a year of major software enhancements, with the full Vizio Home redesign making massive strides this past June, axing Vizio’s previous SmartCast branded interface. It was a welcome change and more are slated to come into the next year.

In February, several Vizio TVs were updated to include the new VIZIOgram feature, which takes inspiration from the likes of Samsung’s The Frame. The free upgrade lets Vizio TV users display art and assorted videos on their TV screen, gifting these models an additional level of use case.

Vizio is continuing its commitment to deliver the most optimal 4K TV experience on a budget. It’s latest Quantum QLED Smart TV is a testament to that commitment, delivering an exceptional feature set, like AMD FreeSync Premium, at an affordable price. 

See all the awesome new upgrades to the Home screen on one of the best Vizio TVs, the V-series, or better yet, on the premium Quantum X. 

More From Tom's Guide

• Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review
• Vizio smart TVs just got one of the world's most popular apps
• This awesome Vizio QLED TV just crashed to lowest price ever

Black Friday TV deals are really ramping up this week as we approach the starting line for the biggest shopping holiday of the year. Case in point? This Vizio TV deal that's going on right now at Walmart.

What's on offer is a Walmart-exclusive 75-inch Vizio V-Series 4K TV for $488. Considering that similar TVs sell for close to a grand, this is a solid deal if you're looking for a big-screen TV without a big-screen price tag.

So why this Vizio? Well, for one, the price is incredible. But it's also a new 2023 model loaded with a lot of great features for both gamers and movie lovers. 

For gamers, the V-Series offers AMD FreeSync, ultra-low input lag and VRR, which is why it uses HDMI 2.1 ports. Because the TV is limited to 60Hz, you won't be able to get 4K @ 120 frames-per-second gameplay, but these features are still going to be appreciated for any gamer in your house.

For movie lovers, this TV comes with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support as well as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio passthrough. That's great if you want to use it as an inexpensive home theater TV. 

Finally, for streamers, all Vizio TVs now use the Vizio Home Screen smart platform that has access to Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu and dozens of other apps. If you don't have any subscriptions, however, there's also WatchFree+, Vizio's free streaming platform that offers 250+ live streaming channels and over 5,000 titles on demand. There's ads of course, but it's great option if you're a cord-cutter.

For this price and size, the Vizio V-Series is tough to beat, but be sure to check out our guide to the best Black Friday TV deals for more options in different sizes.

Vizio TVs offer serious value thanks to their combination of performance and price. And now, they’re getting even better thanks to a complete redesign of the SmartCast user interface. In fact, it’s getting rid of the SmartCast interface altogether.

Starting today, Vizio is rolling out its new smart TV user interface called the Vizio Home Screen. This upgrade will gradually roll out to all SmartCast TVs, which means TVs as far back as 2016 could get this upgrade to Vizio's revamped smart platform.

And when I say upgrade, trust me — I mean it. While the older SmartCast user interface was by no means unusable, it wasn’t the most aesthetically modern user interface. Now, traditional poster graphics have been replaced with immersive backdrops, sometimes with video content rather than a static image. There are also clear call-to-action buttons to take you to a movie trailer, add something to your watchlist and more.

Vizio Home Screen: Side menus > Top menus 

The aesthetic changes are nice, but the biggest upgrade with the change to the home screen might just be the shift from a top menu navigation system to a left-side navigation menu. Search also is getting a shift to the left, with the user interface’s keyboard shifting from a central row to a left-side keypad so more relevant options are visible while you search. 

The new menu should be a bit easier to access than the SmartCast menu, thanks to requiring just a few clicks to the left rather than scrolling all the way back up to the top. And everything is cleanly laid out from Live TV to Search and more. The Settings menu is more readily accessible as well.  

Finally, the Browse section gives you a curated list of categories for TV shows and movies that allow you to more easily find what you’re looking to watch. This includes everything from rotating curated categories to family-friendly kids content. 

Curation is more integral to Vizio Home Screen

Speaking of categories, Vizio is heavily focused on curation with this redesign. Not only are there the classics like action movies, comedies, etc. but there are also seasonally curated categories around more narrow categories. These Collection pages aren’t entirely new to Vizio — they were a part of the SmartCast smart TV platform as well — but they’re now a more prominent focus, even getting their own tabs in the main left menu for quick access.

So if you have a Vizio TV with SmartCast, keep an eye out for the new Home Screen user interface in the coming months. And if you don’t have a Vizio TV, this redesign is a great time to consider getting one. If you can still find one, the Vizio OLED TV is a great option for getting a budget OLED TV that still looks great, and the Vizio M-Series Quantum X is a great option for gamers thanks to its 240Hz gaming mode. Both models will get upgraded to the new Vizio Home Screen in the coming months.  

More from Tom's Guide

• Vizio TVs now double as digital photo frames — here’s how it works
• Roku is getting into live sports — here's what you can watch for free
• Shopping for a smart TV? 3 to buy and 1 to skip

If you have a Vizio TV, you just got a great update for free that can turn the biggest screen in your house into a digital photo frame with no extra work.

Starting today (Feb. 9), Vizio is launching VIZIOgram, a new way to share photos and videos with your friends and family. Once the update hits, all 2022 Vizio TVs will be able to receive a VIZIOgram and all you need is a VIZIO account and a phone. 

You don’t even need a Vizio TV to use the feature — though you will need one in order to view your VIZIOgram photos and videos on the big screen.

 VIZIOgram: How it works 

To use VIZIOgram, you need just two things: A VIZIO account and a smartphone. Open the VIZIO app on your iPhone or Android phone and then at the bottom of the app you’ll see a menu bar with an option for “VIZIOgram.” 

Click that menu option and you will be able to add friends to VIZIOgram by sending an invite to your friends and family via text or email. Once they have accepted your request, just confirm the request and they’ll be added to your friends list.

Once you have some friends added to the app, you can create a VIZIOgram message by selecting photos or videos from your library. You can send up to 10 photos or 70 seconds of video in one VIZIOgram message. A notification will pop up on the receiver's Vizio TV and then they can view it. 

You can even send VIZIOgrams to your own TV, too, if you're out and about and want to share some photos with whomever is at home.

Vizio is obviously marketing this feature towards customers who already own a Vizio TV, but the good news is that even if you don’t have a Vizio TV: you can still send VIZIOgram messages to your friends and family that do. 

So if you have a relative that wants to see your latest vacation photos and they have a Vizio TV, you can get a VIZIO account and send them photos and videos to watch on their big screen without needing to spend a dime.

The other good news is that this feature isn’t just limited to the newest TVs, at least not for long. A VIZIO spokesperson said that this feature will eventually roll out to all TVs from 2021 or newer as well as select TVs from 2020 (we were not told which models these would be).

 Vizio 2023 free update: What else is coming 

VIZIOgram isn’t all that’s coming to Vizio TVs in this latest update. Vizio is also rolling out a few quality-of-life upgrades via new shortcuts to its SmartCast user interface.

First, users will now see a “recent apps” row in their SmartCast home. Simply select the “Recent apps” icon in the Apps and inputs row and it will pull up a selection of the apps you most recently visited.

Next, there is the new updated settings menu, which Vizio says is its cleanest settings menu yet. Simply hit the Menu button on your Vizio remote and it will appear, giving you an easy method for updating picture settings and more.

Finally, Vizio’s free ad-supported television (FAST) platform WatchFree+ is getting an upgrade. The FAST service offers Vizio owners 260+ channels of free content on their Vizio TVs and now it’s easier than ever to surf channels. While watching WatchFree+ just hit the left arrow of your Vizio remote and a mini guide appears, allowing you to still watch in full screen while seeing what other shows and movies are available. 

With all these changes, Vizio is definitely raising the bar for the competition and increasing the utility of many of its budget models. Not sure where to start when looking for a new Vizio TV? Check out our guide to the best Vizio TVs available now. 

Looking for an OLED TV on the cheap? Best Buy has a great Black Friday deal on the Vizio OLED TV that shaves $600 off the regular price. We just checked and this sale is still live.

Right now the Vizio OLED TV is down to $1,199 at Best Buy thanks to a clearance sale. Why is it on clearance? Well, it’s two years old at this point and Best Buy is trying to make way for newer models. 

Like other OLED TVs, Vizio’s OLED model has exceptional black levels and great color volume. It has some HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K/120Hz gaming on PS5 and Xbox Series X, and comes with Vizio’s SmartCast smart platform built-in.

In our Vizio OLED TV review, we said it “offers more for the money than all of its competitors” which continues to be true now that it’s down to just $1,199. 

We did, however, have a few minor issues with brightness and color accuracy that you wouldn’t have with a newer LG OLED — though the 65-inch models are currently a bit more expensive than what Best Buy has the Vizio OLED listed for on its website.

Looking for more great early Black Friday deals? We’ve got a Black Friday TV deals live blog going that has all the best offers in one spot.

In creating the Vizio M-Series Quantum X, Vizio was attempting to bring much of the same technology found in its popular — but expensive — Vizio P-Series Quantum X to a more affordable screen. By working in quantum dots with full array local dimming, a 120Hz native refresh rate and HDMI ports with the latest spec, the M-Series Quantum X checks all the boxes. That said, its bulky body and less-than-ideal peak brightness hold it back from beating other top-performing TVs at this price range.

But where does it stand against the competition? Similarly priced screens will be missing many of the M-Series Quantum X’s key gaming features: a native 120Hz refresh rate with HDMI 2.1 ports and support for Dolby Vision Gaming. On the flip side, though, other screens from TCL that cost around the same do have a bit better HDR performance and less bulky design, so there are trade-offs to be made here.

Ultimately you’ll want the M-Series Quantum X if you’re looking for great gaming performance on a budget and a decent smart platform, and you don’t mind the bulkiness of the screen or the lackluster peak brightness.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Pricing and availability

The Vizio M-Series Quantum X series comes in three sizes — a 50-inch (reviewed here), a 65-inch and a 75-inch model. Most specs carry over across the sizes, but it’s worth noting that there are some important differences between them that we’ll be pointing out throughout the review.

• M-Series QX 50-inch 4K Quantum Color Smart TV (M50QXM-K01): $629.99
• M-Series QX 65-inch 4K Quantum Color Smart TV (M65QXM-K03): $849.99
• M-Series QX 75-inch 4K Quantum Color Smart TV (M75QXM-K03): $1,199.99

In terms of a release date, the Vizio M-Series Quantum X became available starting in July 2022 for $629. That price is similar to what we’ve seen from other mid-range performance-focused TVs like the TCL 6-Series and the Samsung Q60A  that often sell for $699. We like the Vizio slightly less than the TCL 6-Series, but it does feel like a better TV than the Samsung Q60A that uses edge lighting instead of full array with local dimming.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Design

The Vizio M-Series Quantum X takes two steps forwards and one step back in the design department. It’s easy to love the incredibly thin bezel on the front of the TV and the solid metal strip along the bottom, but it’s a bit chunky compared to similarly sized TVs. 

At 26 pounds, it’s relatively light, but wall-mounting it higher than your shoulders is going to take a bit of effort given the bulkiness of the screen. Even then the TV will jut out over 3 inches from the wall, which is more than other QLED TVs. Its full measurements without a stand are 43.81 x 25.48 x 3.41 inches. Thankfully, the TV uses a standard 200mm x 200mm VESA mount so it should be compatible with most cheap mounts out there.

It’s a shame that this TV is so heavy for its size and bulky in the back. It’s going to look better on a shelf than on your wall, because from the front there’s nothing to complain about. 

The true saving grace for the TV’s design, however, is the integration of HDMI 2.1 ports with one that can hit 4K/120Hz gaming and up to 240Hz when paired with a PC. That said, the 240Hz mode is limited to the 50-inch model. If you choose something bigger, you’ll lose out there — but don’t worry, there are some benefits that we’ll cover in the next section. One port with 4K/120Hz support is better than none, but we wish there were more ports with that spec.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Performance

The design might be a bit of a letdown, but the performance is every bit of what we’d expect from a mid-range 4K HDR TV and then some. We tested the set using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman calibration software and encountered some strong results for a TV in this price range.

In Bright SDR mode, basically what you’d see out of the box if you didn’t change any of the other settings besides the picture mode, you’ll get around 500 nits of peak brightness. That’s perfect for your basic cable TV. Upscaling is decent thanks to Vizio’s IQ Ultra+ Processor and motion really wasn’t an issue. In terms of color coverage, we measured its Rec.709 Gamut Coverage at 99.9194% but a Delta-E — which measures how the source color differs from the displayed color (with lower numbers being better) — at a 9.09, which was a bit high.

Instead of watching in Bright mode, we tend to recommend the Calibrated mode instead. It’s darker and less colorful, unfortunately, but you’ll get more accurate colors. In Calibrated mode, we measured peak brightness at 428 nits, Rec.709 Gamut Coverage at 97.8749% but a much better Delta-E of 1.7444. Those numbers, for a mid-range TV, are terrific.

Our HDR test results, while still good in their own right, didn’t impress us as much.

In Bright mode with HDR content we measured a peak luminance of 495 nits in a 10% window. That’s around what you’d get with some older OLED TVs, but it’s not great for a QLED TV like this one. If you switch it to Calibrated mode where the color gamut coverage is better and more accurate, you’re looking at a peak brightness of only 426 nits. Considering a 55-inch Sony A80J OLED can hit over 700 nits, these numbers aren’t exactly wonderful.

Numbers are just numbers, however. In practice, shows and movies looked generally good on the M-Series Quantum X. It may not be in the top echelon with the likes of Samsung’s new QLED or the Sony QD-OLED, but it has a workman-like performance. Re-watching Game of Thrones in 4K Dolby Vision was nice and crisp, with great motion in Calibrated mode. The colors weren’t vivid and the shining city of King’s Landing wasn’t as bright as we believe they could have been, but the picture performance was consistently good.

Watching Lightyear on Disney Plus in Dolby Vision, the TV put out convincing black levels that were only occasionally marred by blooming when a bright object crossed an all dark background. Still, though the picture looked better than any TV under $700 had any right to be — minus the few issues we’ve already mentioned. 

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Audio

The M-Series Quantum X’s audio isn’t anything to write home about — its two 10W speakers do create a wide soundstage, but they lack clarity when you use the DTS Virtual: X audio mode. Adversely, if you turn it off, you gain some clarity but lose the wide soundstage.

Sound effects, largely, aren’t impactful because of the limitations of the speakers. What that means is that, at some point, you’ll want to upgrade to a soundbar. 

The good news is that out-of-the-box sound is passable, especially mid-range dialogue, which can be heard especially well if you just disable the DTS Virtual:X sound.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Gaming

As far as gaming performance goes, the Vizio M-Series Quantum X performs as good or better than some of the best TVs this year. With 13.2ms of lag in game mode, the TV is well-under the 20ms we typically recommend for fast, responsive gameplay and with support for Dolby Vision, certain games in your collection are going to look brighter and more colorful than you’ve ever seen them.

Of course, why you’re really buying the M-Series Quantum X for is its HDMI 2.1 port that supports 4K/120Hz out of the box. We can confirm it works as advertised without any additional messing around with the settings. That said, we could only get it to work on HDMI 3 — thankfully a separate port from the eARC port in HDMI 1. 

If you have a gaming PC up to the task, you can even take things one step further by playing games at 1080p /240Hz. Without a powerful enough PC near to our TV testing station, we weren’t able to test it for this review, but we were able to watch some clips of this in action and the results — from what our ageing eyes could make out — looked even smoother.

No matter how neat 1080p/240Hz gameplay is, the issues that we talked about above with performance impact how games are going to look, obviously — i.e. capping the brightness at around 500 nits. It’s not a game-ruiner, especially at this price, but it’s a small drawback.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Smart features

As far as smart platforms are concerned, Vizio’s SmartCast is holding its own as one of the better — if not quite the best — smart TV platform. 

One of the reasons for that is because SmartCast has an interesting — and useful — layout. On the very top is a row of categories that include recommended movies and shows as well as free content (always with ads)  and Live TV provided by Vizio’s WatchFree+ service. Below that top row are the curated shows and movies, a recommended row of content and then, finally, a fixed number of apps in the center row that can be re-arranged depending on your preference. It’s clean and efficient.

The other unique aspect of SmartCast is its deep integration with Google’s Cast function that allows you to send content from your phone to the TV. Other TV manufacturers have some implementation of this, but Vizio TVs come with Chromecast Built-in essentially.

Big this year for SmartCast is the integration of Wi-Fi 6 into the TV for faster streaming with compatible routers, Bluetooth headphone support and a voice search remote with every TV in the lineup, all the way down to the value-focused D-Series. We’ll cover the remote down below, but the speed boost from a Wi-Fi 6 antenna won’t go unnoticed in your home.

In terms of app support, all the major players are here: Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Peacock, Sling TV and YouTube TV. The only problem with apps being pre-loaded onto the TV for you is that you don’t have a say what apps are installed versus not installed. It’s not a major detractor from SmartCast’s overall solid usability, however, you might notice a bit of lag when moving around the UI which could be a sign of potential issues down the road — but we’ll be watching this area closely.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Remote

The 2023 Vizio Voice Remote isn’t all that different from previous iterations. There are six shortcut buttons near the top that give you direct access to the most popular streaming services as well as a circular directional pad and volume controls. 

If you press and hold the microphone button on the remote, you’ll activate SmartCast’s built-in assistant that can help you find a show or movie. It’s not as smart as the mainstream smart assistants from Google or Amazon — it can’t answer questions like ‘what time is it?’, for example — but it does a good job of searching across all services.

There’s not really as much innovation happening with Vizio’s remotes as, say, Samsung’s that can now charge off of both sunlight and RF energy from your Wi-Fi router, but Vizio’s clicker at least nails the basics.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X 50-inch Class review: Verdict

For gamers, the Vizio M-Series Quantum X at a 50-inch size is going to be incredibly tempting, but it falls short of universal appeal for the most ardent of AV enthusiasts. Its HDR test results, while good, aren’t mind-boggling and have some real soft spots. The good news is that movies and shows still look nice on the Quantum X.

There’s a fundamental difference in light output between the 50-inch version we reviewed here and the larger 65- and 75-inch variations, so don’t let this review put you off from those — however, we ultimately found that the Vizio M-Series Quantum X brings the best of Vizio’s top-performing TV to a budget price point … with a few compromises. 

Heading back to college soon? Vizio's 2023 TV lineup includes one of the most appealing 4K TVs for college students — and, well, anyone looking for one of the best budget TVs with limited space.

The answer to our budget TV prayers is the 50-inch version of the Vizio M-Series Quantum X that lumps together some of the best picture technologies that gamers will care about at a price that won’t blow your textbook budget.

For $650, the 50-inch Vizio M-Series Quantum X delivers a full array local dimming panel with a 120Hz native refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, which is perfect for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ HDR formats (both of which it supports). 

For gamers, the M-Series Quantum X can hit 240fps with stutter-free AMD FreeSync Premium and rocks HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K/120Hz playback and latency under 8ms on the latest game consoles. Even better, if your home (or dorm, or apartment) supports Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band/802.11ax, the Vizio M-Series Quantum X will as well, allowing you to get better load times from your favorite streaming services.

It's available beginning online on July 19 at most retailers and should be hitting store shelves in the near future.

This could be the best budget TV of 2022 

For years we’ve been recommending the TCL 6-Series as the go-to TV for folks on a budget. But the new Vizio M-Series Quantum X has all the specs to rival — and even surpass — our three-year-strong recommendation.

While the 50-inch version is the first to arrive — and the one that will offer the best mix of features for gamers — it’ll also be available in larger sizes as well.

Having seen the TV briefly during a hands-on demo, we can safely say that it is delivering on the promise of a top-notch 4K TV at a cut-rate price and we’re looking forward to getting it into our testing labs to see how it compares with other TVs in its price range.

Looking for more recommendations on the top tech products for college? Check out Tom's Guide's Ultimate Back to School 2022 guide.

Vizio has just unveiled its 2022/2023 TV lineup and, like most years, it’s all about value. To wit, the budget-friendly Vizio D-Series starts at just $159 and can pair with a $199 2.1-channel all-in-one soundbar for a complete AV setup. 

So far, there’s four series of TVs announced — the D-Series, V-Series, MQ6-Series and all-new Vizio M-Series Quantum X that pulls a few tricks from the brand’s more expensive P-Series Quantum X playbook. There’s also a Dolby Atmos soundbar for $799.

All models in the lineup are smart TVs that use Vizio’s proprietary SmartCast TV platform, support Wi-Fi 6E and will come with a voice remote — a handy upgrade on the standard remote that has come with Vizio TVs in years past.

Here’s a complete look at the entire lineup including availability and pricing for the new TVs.

Vizio D-Series: the budget-friendly Full HD TV for 2022 and beyond

According to Vizio, its D-Series is one of the top-selling TVs on any given day. They’re so affordable that they can be picked up at a surprising discount compared to other manufacturers’ budget models.

You'll find the D-Series in a variety of sizes (24-, 32-, 40- and 43-inches). For gamers there’s AMD FreeSync VRR and low input lag, but it’s only Full HD and can only support HDR via HDMI, and not through any of its on-board apps. 

Pricing starts at $159, and the latest D-Series models will be available starting today (July 19).

Vizio V-Series: a 4K/60Hz TV series that covers all screen sizes

The big upgrade for the V-Series over the D-Series is that you’re getting a 4K resolution and support for HDR including Dolby Vision HDR, HDR10 and HDR10+ formats. The V-Series is available in the largest selection of screen sizes — 43-, 50-, 55-, 58-, 65-, 70- and 75-inches — and starts off at $299 for the smallest screen size. 

The downside here is that motion handling is limited by the 60Hz native refresh rate of the panel and the V-Series doesn’t have a quantum dot filter. 

Vizio MQ6-Series: a cheaper alternative to more expensive quantum dot TVs

The MQ6 is where we start seeing the meshing of modern features at cheaper prices. The MQ6 offers quantum dot color and 4K HDR performance starting at $349. 

The MQ6 has a Full Array LED lighting system for better contrast and the Vizio IQ Active processor that enables faster load times in the UI. On the audio side of things, the MQ6 can handle Dolby Audio and DTS:X coupled with DTS Virtual:X audio, plus Dolby Atmos pass-through via eARC. 

It’s available in five sizes — 43, 55, 65, 70 and 75 inches — starting July 19.

Vizio M-Series Quantum X: the new king of budget TVs?

The biggest surprise of the lineup — and the TV we’re most excited about — is the new M-Series Quantum X. We’ve already said it should be the de facto TV for college dormers this semester because the 50-inch model can hook up to a PC for 240fps gameplay in 1080p. Other top specs here include an Active Full Array backlight system with up to 32 local-dimming zones that tops out around 1,000 nits and a native refresh rate of 120Hz. 

The Vizio M-Series Quantum X uses the higher-end IQ Ultra Plus processor and, for gamers, it supports AMD FreeSync Premium VRR and Dolby Vision Gaming. There are four HDMI 2.1 ports on every model in the lineup, one of which is eARC compatible for Dolby Atmos pass-through. 

The series also launches on July 19 with a $629 50-inch model and will later be joined by 65- and 75-inch screen sizes.

M-Series All-In-One Soundbar: full-range sound in a single soundbar 

On the audio side, Vizio is keeping things relatively simple with just two new products. The cheaper of the two is the new Vizio M-Series All-In-One Soundbar that will run you just $199. Inside, the M-Series AIO has high-fidelity tweeters and woofers that deliver 98dB of audio output and dual subwoofers that go as low as 50Hz. This soundbar Dolby Vision passthrough via HDMI and built-in Bluetooth if you want to connect a mobile device. 

It’s available starting in July with the TVs at most retailers.

M-Series Elevate: Dolby Atmos sound without in-ceiling speakers

Finally, there’s the M-Series Elevate, Vizio’s new budget-focused Dolby Atmos soundbar. Similar to the Vizio Elevate Soundbar from 2021, the M-Series Elevate offers a 5.1.2-channel experience through a whopping 13 high-performance speakers and wireless subwoofer. The adaptive height channel speakers are hidden inside the soundbar and will automatically rotate up when Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio sources are detected. It’s still not the cheapest Dolby Atmos soundbar in Vizio’s collection, but it should be one of the loudest and a real conversation starter with its rotating height channel speakers.

We’ll be excited to test the whole lineup in the coming weeks after launch, starting with the new Vizio M-Series Quantum X. Looking for the best Vizio TV from 2021? Check out the massive 85-inch Vizio P-Series Quantum X.

The Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) is a high-end 4K TV that combines the best of Vizio’s display technologies in one towering 85-inch package—and delivers the goods. With blinding brightness, strong color, and a few other key refinements from earlier P-Series Quantum sets, it doesn’t offer much to complain about.

Provided, that is, you can afford it, you have a room big enough to let it work the full extent of its magic, and you think you can live without 8K support for the foreseeable future. Priced at $3,299.99, it’s not cheap, and even if it’s one of the best TVs of its kind, there’s a decent chance it might not be the best TV for you.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Pricing and availability

As the largest set in the P-Series Quantum family, the P85QX-J01 is also the most expensive, priced at $3,299.99. The full line of TVs in the P-Series include:

• P-Series Quantum 65" Class (P65Q9-J01): $1,149.99
• P-Series Quantum 75" Class (P75Q9-J01): $1,499.99
• P-Series Quantum X 85" Class (P85QX-J01): $3,299.99

It’s worth pointing out that the P85QX-J01 is substantially less expensive than other top-tier 85-inch TVs out there, and that its price is partially justified (on paper, at any rate) by Vizio’s claims about its superior performance. This is not a case where you may automatically expect the only substantive difference between models within a series to be the screen size.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Design

To get the obvious out of the way immediately: As an 85-inch TV, the P85QX-J01 is big. It measures 74.5x42.6x3.3 inches and weighs just over 100 pounds without the stand attached. (Adding that contributes 2.7 inches more to the width and 10.5 inches more to the depth.) Because of this, you will need a lot of space available not just on your wall or entertainment center but on your floor or table for setup, and a minimum of two people just to move it around.

With bezels measuring only one-eighth inch on all four sides, the screen is almost an unrelieved rectangle of black when off. There’s a tiny Vizio logo in the lower-right corner and the trapezoidal Power light in the lower left, but otherwise, there’s just a lot of glass to look at.

The sides of the TV are textured metal, and with the exception of some vents, the rear panel is almost all textured plastic (again in black), with the 400x400mm VESA mounting ports in the middle (below a large Vizio logo) the prime feature. If you’d prefer to use the stand, it’s a traditional, two-piece, black-metal affair that matches well with the set’s aesthetics.

The power cable is on the left of the rear panel and the Power button is on the right, below the alcove containing the ports. Of those, two 4K 120Hz HDMI ports, three composite inputs, and a charging USB port are positioned outward for easy access.

The remainder, comprising an Ethernet jack, the coaxial cable connector, outputs for both composite and optical audio, and two additional HDMI ports (one supporting eARC), face downward.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Test results

Vizio heavily touts the P85QX-J01’s picture quality, in particular citing its use of Quantum Color (the company’s marketing term for its use of quantum dot technology) and use of 792 local dimming zones to improve brightness, blacks, and contrast along the set. So we put the set through our testing paces, using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman calibration software, to determine how well reality matched Vizio’s claims.

By and large, it does. This is most true with respect to brightness, which—in the brighter picture modes—does hit Vizio’s advertised 3,000 nits. Granted, you are unlikely to see the set get this bright with most content you watch, especially if you stick to the darker modes (which I would advise), but even the lower bounds peg full-screen brightness for the P85QX-J01 in the range of 760–800 nits, which is substantially above what we saw with the Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) last year. The P85QX-J01 easily delivers on Vizio’s promise of room-filling brightness.

Color is solid, too, with the set’s Delta-E (the difference between the color at the source and the color the TV displays, with lower numbers being better) ringing in at 3.46 for both Calibrated and Calibrated Dark modes. That’s a trifle higher than we see from other flagship sets, but thoroughly acceptable, if not exceptional. The P85QX-J01 also covered upwards of 99.99% of the Rec.709 color gamut for SDR content; with the wider UHDA-P3 color gamut for HDR content (very similar to DCI-P3), the set covered 98.15% and 98.09% in Calibrate and Calibrated Dark respectively. In all cases, these are superb results.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Performance

The real-world performance of the P85QX-J01, however, is inextricably tied to its size. Simply put: Whereas you can get away with watching a 55- or 65-inch TV from fairly close, no picture on this 85-inch set looks if you’re positioned too close to the screen—the pixels are just far too noticeable.

This was most evident with movies like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which from four or five feet away looked grainier than the deserts of Arrakis, but from several steps farther back was sharp and clear, with well-defined contrasts between the dark and suffocating interior scenes and the parched, beige-choked exteriors.

For this set, you’ll want to sit a minimum of 11 or 12 feet away, and I had better luck still at 15, but your mileage (and living room) may vary. I had a similar experience watching the darker and grittier The Batman, where Gotham went from foggy, flat, and unappealing at a few feet to eye-popping at the other end of the room.

Video upscaled from 1080p tends to look fuzzy for the same reason, so I’d suggest avoiding lower-resolution video if you can; the 1080p version of Mission: Impossible—Fallout looked blurry, blotchy, and unappealing compared with the 4K one. I’d also recommend staying near the center of the screen, as the P85QX-J01’s off-angle viewing isn’t so hot, with colors and finer details graying and washing out once you get much past the corners.

Aside from these caveats, and a tinge of judder visible during a couple of films’ faster-moving action scenes, the P85QX-J01 produces an attractive picture with all types of content, even if that’s accompanied by a veritable wall of light on par with what you’ll get from the sun (at least at certain times of day). For me, this made the Calibrated Dark picture mode ideal for almost every application, and I found myself sticking to it whether I was immersing myself in the sparkling Colombian colors of the Disney-Pixar film Encanto, the Web-slinging fantasia of Spider-Man: No Way Home, or just watching lower-key YouTube videos. That said, the Bright mode (this TV’s version of Standard) was a suitable alternative for some things (such as Encanto), but under most circumstances, you won’t need or want this set to be any brighter than it already is.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Audio

Unfortunately, the P85QX-J01’s audio performance does not live up to its visuals. The sound produced by the dual 15-watt speakers doesn’t sound bad, but it has a slightly tinny, one-dimensional quality that doesn’t quite ignite the imagination. Straight dialogue came off the best, though everything sounded okay at lower volume levels.

Don’t raise the volume too high, though. Whereas the heavy bass foundation of The Knife’s “Silent Shout” sounds balanced and focused when quieter, distortion and ragged edges are detectable almost immediately once you go above 50. The P85QX-J01 handles treble a bit better, with above-the-staff soprano singing not clipping but also not sounding as shimmering and full as it ought to. Listening at lower levels is definitely the way to go, or you may want to consider picking up one of Tom’s Guide’s best soundbars.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Gaming

Vizio calls the P85QX-J01 its “best TV for next-gen console gaming,” and it is, indeed, pretty good. Measured using a 4K Leo Bodnar tester, the TV’s input lag registered 14.4ms in Game mode—hardly the lowest we’ve seen, but well below our 20ms threshold for satisfying gaming. Support for gamer-targeted features like 4K 120Hz and Variable Refresh Rate (which we verified by plugging in our Xbox Series X console), and AMD’s FreeSync further sweetens the deal.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla looked gorgeous when played on the P85QX-J01, with the wintry landscapes and the HDR-kissed sunrises all but glowing on the screen. Fast running and action scenes rendered smoothly, never piercing the illusion that I was marathoning through Medieval Norway and England.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Smart features

As with Vizio’s other TVs, SmartCast drives the P85QX-J01. It’s a clean and simple-to-navigate operating system, looking like a no-frills Google TV, and it’s good at serving you up a lot of things to watch in various categories both static (Trending Now, on-demand video) and fluid (there were Father’s Day and Pride groupings to be found in early June). A menu bar at the top of the screen takes you to dedicated screens for Live TV, Free, Movies, Shows, Apps, and Extras (where you can set up features like Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay and HomeKit, and Google Assistant).

The default app selection has improved a lot since last year, and you can tweak the app bar to highlight the services you’re most interested in. But finding new apps remains a chore — you can’t just search for them, you have to flip through pages of possibilities — and there aren’t a lot of other customization choices to tailor the home screen to your personal preferences.

For that reason, you may prefer to use the remote’s voice-control function, which you activate by holding down the remote’s Microphone button while speaking what you want. In our tests, it was quite good, understanding a range of both general and specific commands. It was fast, too, never taking more than a second or two to process requests.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Remote

The P85QX-J01’s remote control has been streamlined from what we’ve seen with previous Vizio TVs. The primary absences this time around are the number pad and the channel rocker. The Volume rocker and Mute button have been moved to the down-center area those other buttons used to occupy, and the Microphone button has been added below the control wheel (where the Home button used to be), but just about everything else is nearly the same.

Seven shortcut buttons at the top provide instant access to Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, PlutoTV, iHeart Radio, Tubi, and Vizio’s own Watch Free content service. That’s also where you can find the Home and Settings buttons. It’s a fine, intuitive layout that makes sense given the remote’s short stature (it’s just over 6 inches in length), and it’s easy to use regardless of your hand size. The remote still doesn’t have a backlight, however, which may make the keys easy to mistake in a dark room. (Then again, considering how bright the TV gets, this may well never be a problem.)

Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) review: Verdict

The Vizio P-Series Quantum X 85-inch (P85QX-J01) checks all the boxes, and if you need its power (particularly at room brightening), it would be a no-brainer for everyone—if it were available in a different size. But its 85-inch class complicates things, and not just those who want arresting picture quality but lack the room to take full advantage of it.

Though we are only at the threshold of the 8K era, it is still staring us in the face—and as we’ve already seen with sets like the LG QNED MiniLED 99 Series and the TCL Roku TV 6-Series, 8K bursts into its own on larger screens. If you don’t have to stand 15 feet away for all the details to fully resolve themselves into the picture you’re craving, why would you want to?

There’s a ton to love about the P85QX-J01, and there may be no better way right now of transforming one side of your living room into an all-purpose entertainment wall. But if $3,299 is affordable by 85-inch TV standards, it’s still a lot of money, not least with a TV that may soon be obsolete (if it isn’t technically already). Vizio deserves real credit for bringing all the pieces together with the P85QX-J01, but you may be better off taking a wait-and-see approach or going with a smaller set altogether and probably sacrificing some of the brightness. We suspect 85-inch TVs are going to prove considerably more important in the years to come, but this 4K TV, at this point, likely falls just short for most people.

Influencers get ready, Vizio has announced that the large format version of TikTok is now available on its SmartCast TVs from this year and earlier. 

Because there’s no real app store on Vizio SmartCast TVs, Vizio says that users can discover videos from their favorite TikTok creators and topics directly from the Vizio home screen — no downloads required.

TikTok users with an account can use it to log in to see their Following and For You personal feeds, while non-users can browse TikTok TV for a variety of different 60-second videos.

According to the Vizio, a curated selection of TikTok TV content will be shown on the home screen in a dedicated carousel that showcases popular trending genres, so the content will be right in front of you as soon as you turn on the TV.

TikTok TV on the big-screen TV 

As to how you’ll watch TikTok moving forward, Vizio says it really won’t be difficult:

“To get started, Vizio users can check out the TikTok TV app with a few clicks on the home screen or sign in with their existing account details. TikTok’s big-screen software is optimized for a TV home-viewing experience, making it easy to watch content on the big screen. Enjoy TikTok 'For You' and “'Following' feeds or check out the 'Discover' page and find more of your favorite content, creators, and categories on TikTok. The best part, the TV app offers AutoPlay, which serves a continuous content feed without interruptions between TikTok videos.”

Basically, find it on the home screen, log in and get watching.

We’re also fairly confident that the process won’t be all that complicated — Vizio isn’t the first smart platform with TikTok. Both Samsung and LG got a large-screen version of the app back in November of last year, and users haven’t found the app problematic. 

The only people who need to worry about it are folks like us who find ourselves getting sucked in for hours on end — darn you, TikTok algorithms!

Need one of the best TVs to watch TikTok on? Here’s the best Vizio TV to check out.

The Vizio D-Series TV offers cheap access to a small-screen with more smarts than you’d expect. Does that mean it’s worth buying? 

It’s not going to match the picture quality of the best 4K TVs. Maxing out at 1080p, Full HD performance with no HDR support, the Vizio D-Series isn’t the TV for anyone looking to build the ultimate home theater. Instead, it’s a solid option for those who care more about saving space and money while still streaming their favorite shows.

Perhaps we’d call it one of the best cheap TVs, but read this Vizio D-Series TV review to decide whether the trade-offs for value matter to you. 

Vizio D-Series TV review: Price and configurations

The 40-inch Vizio D-Series TV we reviewed costs $249 at full retail. It comes in a 43-inch model for $299, too. There’s also a 32-inch ($179) model and of the Vizio D-Series, but it doesn’t provide Full HD — just regular HD with 720p resolution. That means our anecdotal viewing and test results likely won’t reflect the experience of using the smallest version of this set.

• 32-inch Vizio D32h-J09: $179
• 40-inch Vizio D40f-J09: $249
• 43-inch Vizio D43f-J09: $299

All three sizes have Vizio’s SmartCast smart TV platform and two HDMI ports, as well as gaming features like Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and AMD free sync. If you’re not sure which configuration is right for you, check out our guide to what size TV you should buy.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Design

The Vizio D-Series design isn’t special. Assembly is a breeze and the included V-shaped feet keep the set sturdy. Like most other low-cost LED TVs, the back compartment juts out, making for a bulky wall-mount. But if that’s your preferred placement, the D-Series can hang on the wall with any of the best TV mounts measuring 200mm x 100mm.  

I don’t love the look of the plastic chassis adding a raised bezel to the TV with obvious Vizio branding, either. But you’re probably not buying this set for aesthetics.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Ports

If this were a pricier TV, I’d complain more about the limited port selection. But for the price, this is probably the set you’d buy when you only have one peripheral or two you’re looking to hook up, anyway. It has one USB-A port and just two HDMI ports, one of which supports HDMI ARC. 

Still, the TCL 3-Series Roku TV (32S335) is one of a few similarly-affordable sets that provide better port selections. The 40-inch TCL 3-Series version has three HDMI ports for about the same price as the Vizio D-Series.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Performance

Without HDR, I had low expectations for the Vizio D-Series performance. But this 40-inch screen surprised me. It didn’t blow me away, especially compared to the Samsung Q80T QLED TV I normally use, but it held its own for an LED TV.

Sure, the high-contrast strobe effects in the opening scene of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker gave the Vizio D-Series trouble, making it difficult to see a severe-looking Emperor Palpatine in Exegol’s shadows. But the set redeemed itself in the following sequence when Rey speeds through a Jedi jungle obstacle course. Though the greenery lacked a bit of color definition (no HDR is likely to blame,) the details of Rey’s draped getup held up well as she moved. BB-8’s spinning base didn’t blur much, either

Well-lit content with motion like daytime action scenes or sports is a Vizio D-Series performance highlight. The full-array backlighting offers solid contrast for a set this price, creating deep blacks as long as there aren’t too many shades of darkness to differentiate.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Test results

The Tom’s Guide TV testing also revealed the Vizio D-Series strengths and weaknesses. In most categories, the Vizio D-Series attained average scores for an LED set at this price. It reached a max brightness of 214 nits. We usually see closer to 600 nits from higher-end sets, for comparison, but this result is familiar for bargain sets. The Insignia F20 Fire TV Edition NS-32DF310NA19 we tested produced 236 nits of brightness, while the Toshiba C350 Fire TV 43C350 produced 227 nits.

We measure TV accuracy with a Delta-E rating. A smaller score is ideal (0 is perfect), and the Vizio D-Series TV earned an impressive 1.9. It beats out the TCL 3-Series Roku TV (2.2) and Insignia F20 Fire TV (7.6), though not the Toshiba C350 Fire TV (1.8).

When it comes to color reproduction, which we measure using a X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer and SpectraCal CalMAN Ultimate calibration software. The Vizio D-Series TV was able to reproduce 96.66% of the Rec 709 color space. The best TVs reproduce near 100% (or beyond, for the best OLED TVs specifically.) 

With a lag time of just 14.9 seconds, you can expect a responsive gaming experience from the Vizio D-Series TV. It even supports a dedicated Game Mode with low latency settings unlike the low-cost Samsung TU7000 TV, making the D-Series one of the best gaming TVs under $300.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Audio

The Vizio D-Series’s dual 10-watt speakers don’t impress. For watching cable or enjoying a game soundtrack, the sound is balanced enough that it won’t distract from the content. If you want any semblance of shaking bass or crisper vocals, you’ll want to consider one of the best soundbars or best cheap soundbars as an add-on. Larger, pricier TVs can better hold their own in terms of audio quality, but we usually recommend soundbars to anyone looking to elevate their entertainment experience. 

Vizio D-Series TV review: Smart features

The Vizio D-Series runs on Vizio’s SmartCast platform. Most affordable TV brands use a third-party platform like Roku or Google TV, though Vizio sticks to its native software. This year SmartCast added more local app support, so you’ll find popular services like Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock and Apple TV. You get the best Netflix shows and best HBO Max shows, too. 

SmartCast also has Google Chromecast and Apple AirPlay built-in, so you can easily cast content from your smartphone to the TV. If you can enjoy it on your handset, you can get it on your Vizio TV through Chromecast and AirPlay. The set is also compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit. You can’t control the D-Series hands-free through the set or remote, but if you have one of the best smart speakers in the same room, you can ask your assistant for voice-activated controls.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Remote

The Vizio D-Series IR remote has more dedicated launch buttons than any remote I’ve seen in a while. There are buttons for Peacock, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, Crackle, Tubi and Vizio’s own WatchFree channel.

The remote’s curved back makes it easy to hold, while the soft-touch buttons offer all the controls you need — not too few and not too many. That said, you can use the Vizio SmartCast smartphone app as a remote, if you wish.

Vizio D-Series TV review: Verdict

The Vizio D-Series is a rather basic TV, but for the price it’s a solid find. Vizio is among a limited group of TV brands that make premium-feeling sets for a more accessible cost, as well as low-end, small-sized sets like the D-Series. In other words, Vizio knows how to cut the right corners. You don’t get stunning picture performance, but you get great gaming features. You don’t get impressive sound, but the smart platform will satisfy all your streaming needs. 

As long as you care more about the savings, size options and smarts, the Vizio D-Series TV is easy to recommend. It’s one of the best smallest smart TVs in terms of lag time, picture accuracy and, of course, price. 

Vizio is known as a value TV brand, and the Vizio V-Series is its least expensive line of 4K TVs. As you'll see in this Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review, the latest model adds a bit more value. In addition to 4K resolution, the TV sports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, as well as support for the latest gaming tech, such as variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low-latency mode (ALLM). This year Vizio even added a voice remote to use your voice to control the TV. All that in a 55-inch TV that usually costs under $500. 

To achieve that price with those features, something has to give. In this case it’s brightness, color and interface performance. Whether those downsides turn you off depends on what you value. If price and features are a priority for you, the V-Series is a solid TV — and a good value. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model): Price and availability

The latest V-Series was released in August 2021. Vizio is calling this model the 2022 version, even though it was released in 2021. 

The 55-inch V555-J01 that we reviewed lists for $529.99, but can be found for less than that. As of this writing, it is selling for $429.99 on Amazon and Walmart.

The V-Series comes in a wide array of sizes — from 43 inches to 75 inches — so you’ll find one that fits your space.

• 43 inches (Model V435-J01) — $339.99
• 50 inches (Model V505-J09) — $391.00
• 55 inches (Model V555-J01) — $429.99
• 58 inches (Model V585-J01) — $529.99
• 65 inches (Model V655-J09) — $599.99
• 70 inches (Model V705-J03) — $699.99
• 75 inches (Model V756-J03) — $899.99

The specs are similar across the entire lineup, with only the speaker wattage varying, so we expect each TV to have the same strengths and weaknesses as the 55-inch model we tested. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Design

As the cheapest 4K TV that Vizio offers, the V-Series features little in the way of design innovation. The 49.06 x 28.47 x 3.40-inch unit is encased in dark gray plastic and has a half-inch bezel around the entire screen. In other words, it looks like pretty much every LCD TV from the past few years.  

The V-Series comes with standard boomerang style plastic feet or you can use a VESA compliant mount. The 55-inch model in our review works with any 300mm x 200mm bracket, which makes it a good match for any of the best TV mounts.

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Ports

On the right side, you’ll find three HDMI 2.1 ports, with one that supports audio-return channel (ARC). The ports are conveniently located and easy to access. More expensive TVs will usually offer four HDMI ports, but three will probably be enough. 

The TV also has a composite video input for older equipment, along with a coaxial TV tuner and USB port. You can connect to your network via Wi-fi or wired Ethernet.

On the back of the TV, there is an optical digital audio output and stereo analog audio output. The V-Series also supports Bluetooth, along with Chromecast and AirPlay 2. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Performance

When you’re watching something on the V-Series, you will neither be awed nor terribly disappointed. The picture has some flaws, but none that detract too much from the viewing experience. If you’re willing to tweak the picture settings, you should be able to find a happy medium overall. 

The TV comes with Bright mode set by default. In this setting, some colors can look a little oversaturated. The Squid Game guards’ uniforms were a bit too red, and the fires when the Harkonnens bomb the Atreides in Dune were too yellow. But switching to Calibrated mode made both those colors too muted. The best solution for me was Calibrated with tone mapping increased. You can easily adjust brightness, contrast, color and other settings to achieve the best mix for you — one of the best features of the TV, and not something many value TVs offer. 

Even with the adjustments, the color seemed a little flat overall and washed out, while images lacked sharpness. For example, when Thor arrives in Wakanda, the lightning coming off Stormbreaker wasn’t as detailed as on a higher end TV, like the Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1). 

The V-Series features a full array backlight, but doesn’t have local dimming or quantum dot technology, which you’d find on more expensive TVs. And while the V-Series supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, I found that details were lost in dark scenes, like when Joe stands in front of the Joi ad in the 4K Blu-ray version of Blade Runner 2049 or the Weathertop scene in the 4K Blu-ray of Fellowship of the Ring.

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Test results

The poor HDR performance is likely because this V-Series TV doesn’t get very bright. Based on our lab tests, the unit managed a max brightness of 243.4 nits. That’s far below the Hisense U7G Android TV (621.3nits) and TCL 5-Series Roku TV S535 (466.2 nits), and even the Vizio M-Series Quantum MQ6 (299.7 nits). 

The V-Series also didn’t score well on color reproduction, which may have caused the overall flat colors I experienced. It produced 97.8 percent of the Rec. 709 color space; all the other TVs we compared it with had at least 99.8 percent. 

But the V-Series had a Delta-E of 1.46, which measures color accuracy, with lower scores indicating better color accuracy, and 0 indicating a perfect score. That bested the Hisense U7G (1.91) and the Vizio M-Series (1.68). The TCL 5-Series was better by a nose at 1.35.

The V-Series was also impressive when it came to lag, registering 13.7 milliseconds; only the TCL 5-Series was better at 11.8 ms. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Gaming

With that low lag time and it’s support for the latest gaming features — VRR and ALLM — we hoped the V-Series would impress while playing games on a Xbox Series X. And for the money, it performs well. 

When I launched Forza 4, the TV’s V-Gaming Engine logo appeared, indicating that auto game mode and VRR had engaged. While the V-Series only offers 4K at 60Hz, I didn’t notice any blurring as I raced through the streets. Details in the background were slightly fuzzy, but better than many inexpensive TVs. Colors were more vibrant in Apex Legends than when watching shows and movies. Overall, it was a solid display for gaming. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Audio

The V-Series delivers surprisingly big sound for an inexpensive TV. That’s due to support for DTS Virtual:X, which creates a wide soundstage. Voices are fairly clear, though they can get lost in the virtual surround sound mix. You can choose Surround or Stereo sound modes if you don’t find Virtual:X to your liking. While the sound is big, there’s no low-end behind it — if you like the floor to rumble with your special effects, add a soundbar. It’s also worth noting that the V-Series doesn’t support Dolby Atmos, which may limit you if you have a soundbar that can play the surround sound technology. 

The 10-watt speakers will get loud enough for most rooms — it measured about 85 decibels at max volume — though if you like to listen loud, you’d benefit from adding one of the best  soundbars to your home theater.

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Smart features

Vizio’s SmartCast operating system has come a long way over the past few years and it's getting closer to catching up with Roku, Fire TV and Google TV. The implementation of SmartCast on the V-Series is a little slow, though. You have to wait a moment or two after switching menu items for anything to appear on screen. Apps also take a few seconds to load.  

SmartCast is organized similar to FireTV or Google TV. You can scroll down the long Home screen, browsing suggested shows and movies. You can’t edit the Home screen except to reorder this list of apps. The interface also has menu items for Kids & Family, WatchFree+, Movies, Shows, Apps and Extras. Vizio emphasizes free content — whether on the Home screen or the WatchFree+ tab.

SmartCast has almost every major app you want — beyond the usual Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, SmartCast also has Paramount+, Disney+, HBOMax and more. However, I couldn’t find ESPN+, FubuTV or MLB.tv, which may concern sports fans. For apps that aren’t included, you can use AirPlay 2 or Chomecast to send the content from your phone to the big screen. Finding apps can be a challenge, since you can’t search the App tab, but you can use the voice assistant to make it easier. 

Vizio introduced its own voice assistant this year, and it does a pretty good job — most of the time. You use the microphone on the remote to activate it. The voice assistant can launch apps, find shows and movies and control the TV. When you search for a show or movie, it shows you the services that it is available on and how much it costs — similar to Roku. It usually understood what I was asking for, although a few times nothing happened when I pushed the button and said my request. 

The voice assistant doesn’t connect with any smart home devices, but the V-Series can tie into your existing smart speaker system, whether it’s an Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit compatible unit.

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Remote control

The remote control that comes with the V-Series is streamlined. It has a scroll wheel in the middle that you use for navigation and an OK button that you use to select items. The scroll wheel also acts to forward and rewind content in apps, and the OK button can play or pause content. Above the scroll wheel are buttons for Home, WatchFree+ and Settings. Below the wheel are the Back, Voice Control and caption buttons. A large volume control and mute button take up the bottom portion of the remote. 

At the top are buttons for power and switching inputs. There are also six quick launch buttons, for Peacock, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Crackle and Tubi. Coupled with the WatchFree+ button, Vizio again shows its emphasis on free content. 

Vizio V-Series (2021 Model) review: Verdict

You get a lot for your money with the Vizio V-Series. For less than $500, you get a 55-inch TV with built-in apps and some of the latest tech. What you don’t get is a crisp, perfect picture and the interface is a little slow. 

But few TVs in this price range are going to be better. The Toshiba C350 Fire TV is a little less expensive and offers Fire TV — a more mature smart OS — but it’s picture quality is about the same as the V-Series and it lacks HDMI 2.1.

To get a better picture and performance, you’ll need to spend more. The Hisense U7G Android TV is very bright and responsive, but costs $200 more. The TCL 5-Series Roku TV (S535) has better color, but will run about $100 extra. 

If you’re looking for a balance of features and performance and have a budget that demands one of the best TVs under $500, the Vizio V-Series could be the right value for you.

Vizio’s reputation for producing top-notch TVs at surprisingly low prices is not dimmed by its belated entrance into the OLED space. If anything, it’s supercharged. The company’s new Vizio OLED TV (OLED55-H1) is an OLED-technology 4K set loaded with abundant smart features and, for its price—hundreds of dollars lower than you’ll see from competitors LG and Sony—delivering a delicious viewing experience that matches some of the best TVs out there, not to mention the best Vizio TV right now.

The OLED55-H1 may be one of the best OLED TVs based on price alone – enough that it won a 2021 Tom's Guide Award for the best TV value – but it is not flawless. The images aren’t as perfectly pristine as you’ll find from a pricier panel, its gaming capabilities just miss the mark, and a design flub can make dealing with initial setup a pain if you’re not planning on hanging the set on the wall. But our Vizio OLED TV review shows that those are small prices to pay when the actual price you pay is so small—and the list of what you get for that money is so long.

Editor's Note: Since this review was written, Vizio TVs have been updated with support for HBO Max. However, our initial recommendations from the original review remain unchanged from when it first ran in December of 2020.

Vizio OLED TV review: Price and availability

For our review, we assessed the 55-inch version of the Vizio H1 OLED, the OLED55-H1. Because the 65-inch model (the OLED65-H1) shares all of the same core features and underlying technologies, we expect the performance of both versions to be comparable, and our recommendations for the OLED55-H1 may also apply to the larger set.

• 55 inches: Vizio OLED55-H1 - $1,299.99
• 65 inches: Vizio OLED65-H1 - $1,999.99

It's also worth noting that the Vizio OLED TV has seen some steep discounts during major sales events. While the regular price of the 55-inch model puts it just a tad too high to be on our list of the best TVs under $1000, it's not uncommon for the set to sell for less than a grand during big sales, so keep an eye out if you want an OLED at a real bargain.

As we head into the end of the year, we expect to see significant discounts to both sizes of the Vizio OLED, so keep an eye on the best Black Friday TV deals to know when you can save big.

Vizio OLED TV review: Design

In several key ways, thin is the name of the game with the Vizio OLED55-H1. Yes, the screen itself is markedly slender (just under three-eighths of an inch), as is typical from an OLED TV. And the dark metal bezel surrounding that screen is so thin (less than one-eighth of an inch) that it all but disappears into the jet-black display when the set is off.

The back isn’t quite as svelte. Though the bare screen is still visible on the top and sides, the large plastic enclosure housing the TV’s components consumes the bottom two-thirds and juts out nearly two inches.

Aside from some raised horizontal lines and four screw holes for securing a 300mm x 200mm VESA wall mount, a Vizio logo is the only ornamentation visible on the enclosure. Two cover panels may be removed to reveal the ports (see below) and channels for cable routing.

There’s one thing not to like about the design: the stand. Measuring more than 21 inches in length and extending out more than 4 inches in front of and behind the OLED55-H1 when attached, it’s a surprisingly bulky three-piece unit intended to cradle a soundbar. Even if you approve of its attention-grabbing shape (which I, for the record, do not), it won’t exactly seamlessly blend into most entertainment centers and doesn’t comfortably support the set’s otherwise slim profile. As it’s also a bit tricky to install, using it might lead to some first-time frustration Vizio could have obviated with a simpler design.

Vizio OLED TV review: Ports

With the exception of the power connector, which is located on the left, all of the OLED55-H1’s ports are on the right side of the rear panel. In the first and largest port bay are jacks for Ethernet, antenna, audio out (including optical), and three HDMI ports. 

Though the labels for these all face outward, you plug in cables up into the plastic enclosure, which can be hard to get right especially if you have limited light and room to move. (The combination of the thin screen and the heavy stand makes moving the TV too much a dicey proposition, so you’ll want to leave it in one place as much as possible.) A fourth HDMI port, composite video outputs, and a USB 2.0 port are considerably more accessible on the edge of the panel.

Vizio OLED TV review: Performance

Almost regardless of picture mode, image quality on the OLED55-H1 looks excellent. Although there are noticeable differences, for example, between the Bright, Calibrated, and Calibrated Dark modes in the Pasaana festival in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, each is valid and highly attractive, rendering the scene’s juxtaposition of Technicolor-vivid costumes and craggly aliens against the planet’s oppressive desert backdrop in a unique but satisfying way. Onward, the palette-bursting Disney-Pixar fantasy-themed animated film from earlier this year, Marvel’s fast-moving action romp Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the comic-book-animated compromise candidate between them, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, fare just as well in these areas.

OLED technology gives TVs functionally infinite contrast levels, for the purest blacks you’ll find anywhere. On that score, the Vizio OLED55-H1 does not disappoint, and renders detailed spacescapes and even the Netflix splash screen with impressive fidelity. To get this dazzling effect, however, you have to sacrifice some brightness compared with non-OLED TVs. It was particularly evident up against the TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635), which boosts both that and color via QLED technology, and we saw it in both SDR and HDR mode. This should never be a deal-breaker with an OLED set, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

The aggressive contrast you see with OLED greatly elevates scenes where the relationship between light and dark is crucial, such as the major battles and Rey and Palpatine’s final confrontation in The Rise of Skywalker. And it brings a realistic edge to the cartoony provenance of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special.

You’ll appreciate the picture’s clarity, too, no matter where you’re sitting. Even when you’re viewing from extreme off angles, only the slightest distortion of color (and hardly a distracting one) gives away that you’re not viewing the set from straight on. The grayish cast that can so often be visible on TVs when you’re in the wrong position is nowhere to be found here.

The OLED55-H1 supports three different HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG. One of these will activate automatically when you play content that supports it, and each of the picture modes has a special HDR version that will also engage—you can’t turn HDR or support on or off in any other way. Because the HDR-enhanced modes retained the same basic qualities as the originals, the picture in each was just as good with that function on as with it off.

Flaws in image quality are minor and, for this price, thoroughly forgivable. The most significant is color. In Calibrated and Calibrated Dark modes, the OLED55-H1’s Delta-E rating, which relates the difference between colors input and displayed, registered as about 4.3. This is substantially worse than we saw from either LG (2.9 for the LG BX OLED (2.9) and 2.0 for the LG CX OLED), the Sony Bravia A8H OLED (1.5), or the TCL (2.2). Similarly, the OLED55-H1 covers only 97.8% and 98.9% of the Rec. 709 color space in the same modes; all of our comparison TVs managed upwards of 99%. (All of our performance tests are conducted using an X-Rite i1 Pro 2 spectrophotometer, AccuPel 5000-DVG and SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generators, and Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate calibration software.)

In addition, when upscaled from 1080p, Mission: Impossible—Fallout became a little muddy and soft around the edges. And applying our 4K test pattern revealed a touch of overscan, with isolated portions of the bezel-hugging circles not completely visible on the screen.

Vizio touts its ProGaming Engine as a way to better game on consoles, and the OLED55-H1’s 120Hz maximum refresh rate should aid with that. Our evaluation of the TV in Game Mode with a Leo Bodnar Lag Tester showed an input lag of 21 milliseconds, just barely above the 20-millisecond threshold we prefer in the best gaming TVs, and more than you’ll see from the Sony Bravia A8H OLED (18ms), or the LG BX OLED (14.5ms) or LG CX OLED (13.1ms). Even so, in most situations, your gameplay probably won’t be affected that much.

Vizio OLED TV review: Audio

Hardcore audiophiles will undoubtedly want to add a soundbar to the OLED55-H1 to maximize their listening enjoyment with the set. But no one else will need to bother—the TV sounds quite good. Besides its fine trebles and mids, its bass presence is notably above average; it falls short of collapsing your chest in The Knife’s bass-heavy track “Silent Shout,” but it’s solid and consistent, even at lower volumes, and adds reasonable oomph to music and movies alike.

Although minute distortion is detectable upwards of 90% of the TV’s volume range, the set’s output is clear and powerful at lower levels. In our testing, we had no trouble filling a living room with movie and music sound at volume 35 and below—the walls weren’t shaking, but if you don’t demand that, the OLED55-H1’s sound will not disappoint you.

(And if you are one of those hardcore audiophiles who won’t accept the walls not rattling, check out our roundup of the best soundbars.)

Vizio OLED TV review: Smart TV features

Vizio’s SmartCast platform has improved tremendously since its launch, and it offers myriad options for accessing a wide range of content. A dynamic, constantly moving carousel near the top of the page and a static line below it surface plenty of movies, TV shows, music videos, news, and other things you might not find on your own if you’re drowning in providers. Below that is a customizable row of apps for major services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV, Disney+, YouTube, Vudu, HBO Max and more. Farther down are a series of free channels and personalized recommendations. A navigation bar provides a handy place to fire up movies, series, free content, and tutorials and market-oriented, Vizio-specific productions.

In case that’s still not enough, the set makes it easy to stream video from other devices via Google Cast (for Android and Chrome) and AirPlay 2 (for iOS and macOS). This is especially handy if you want to catch something on a service that Vizio does not support natively via its integrated apps.

You have still more options. You can pair the TV with a product supporting Amazon Alexa or Google Home to enable voice controls. And if your phone uses iOS rather than Android, Apple HomeKit makes it possible for you to control your smart home devices with Siri.

Vizio OLED TV review: Remote control

With the OLED55-H1’s numerous smart features, the remote can be dedicated to just the basics you need for everyday operation. Measuring about 6.8x1.8 inches, and with a gently rounded back that makes it comfortable to hold for longer periods, it has a clean design that puts just the right number of basic controls at your (literal) fingertips. The Home button is dead center, with the round navigational pad and Menu, Info, Back, CC, and Volume and Channel buttons all within close proximity. Dedicated buttons at the top of the remote instantly open Vudu, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Xumo, Hulu, and Redbox.

If you don’t care for the remote, or if you just want to consolidate your devices, you can download the Vizio SmartCast Mobile app and turn your phone into a remote capable of completely controlling the OLED55-H1 and other Vizio products. Though I like the physical remote, SmartCast Mobile provides an excellent alternative with every bit as much functionality (and maybe a little more convenience).

Vizio OLED TV review: Verdict

With the Vizio OLED TV (OLED55-H1), Vizio has smashed open the lower end of the OLED market, and if I were LG or Sony, I’d be worried right now. This set may not quite match their lower-priced models in terms of picture quality or depth of features, but the entry-level LG BX OLED and more premium LG CX OLED are priced at $1,599 and $1,799 respectively, and the Sony Bravia A8H OLED rings in at $1,899. Paying just $1,299 for all you get with the OLED55-H1 is a no-brainer, and the microscopic sacrifices you have to make to get that price are a cinch to justify.

Sure, for sheer value, you still can’t beat the TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635), which boasts amazing visuals and costs almost half as much—but it’s not an OLED. Vizio’s TV is as impressive in its class as the 6-Series is in its own, and one of the best 4K TVs around. If you’ve been slavering over the pictures you see on OLED panels, but have been put off by the prices, the Vizio OLED TV (OLED55-H1) is the TV you’ve been waiting for.

The Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) sits squarely in the middle of QLED TV options when it comes to cost — at $1,199.99 for the 65-inch model, it’s neither the cheapest nor the priciest. But it stands out for providing a premium picture at that price. It’s loaded with features to generate its very sharp image, including a full-array backlight, HDMI 2.1 ports, 120Hz refresh rate and support for every type of HDR.

Its faults are mainly inherent to all Vizio TVs — its SmartCast operating system. SmartCast doesn’t keep up with smart OSes from the best TVs from LG and Samsung, or TVs that have Android TV or Roku OS driving them. But if you can’t afford a big name TV and picture quality matters most to you, the Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review will entice you. 

Editor's Note: Since this review was written, Vizio TVs have been updated with support for HBO Max. We've updated the language in this review to reflect this change, but the general recommendations and rating of the review are unchanged since it was initially published in May 2021.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Pricing and availability

Among quantum-dot LCD TVs, the Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) can be considered affordable, though it isn’t the cheapest. The 65-inch model that I reviewed sells for $1,199.99 from Vizio and Amazon. Vizio also sells a 75-inch version of the P-Series, but those are the only two options for this model — many competing TVs also come in smaller and larger sizes. See how it compares to the best Vizio TVs.

• 65-inch P65Q9-H1 — $1,199.99
• 75-inch P75Q9-H1 — $1,499.99

Since both models have the same features and specs — such as full-array backlight, HDR support and HDMI 2.1 ports — we expect the 75-inch model to perform similarly to the 65-inch model we tested. 

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Design

The P65Q9-H1 doesn’t look like a cheap TV, especially from the front with its slim, aluminum bezel, but more expensive TVs look more sleek. The 57.0  x 32.7 x 2.7 inch unit isn’t quite as thin as some premium LCD TVs, for example. 

Its boomerang style feet are made from metal, instead of plastic like many budget TVs, giving it a firm foundation as well as classing up the look of the TV.

However, as with most TVs with this style of stand, you don’t have a lot of clearance for a soundbar in front of it. You can also use a wall mount that supports 400 mm x 400 mm VESA patterns.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Ports

The P65Q9-H1 has four HDMI ports: two on the back and two on the side. The two on the side of the P65Q9-H1 support HDMI 2.1, and can handle 4K at 120Hz . One the back of the P65Q9-H1, one HDMI offers audio return channel (ARC); neither of the ports on the back can do 120Hz. 

In addition, there’s a composite video connection and USB port on the side. Audio ports on the back include optical digital audio and stereo analog audio — but it lacks Bluetooth, so it can’t send audio wirelessly to headphones.

There’s also an RF antenna input as well as an Ethernet connection for wired network access, if you prefer that over the included Wi-fi.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Performance

The P65Q9-H1 delivers an impressively detailed and color-rich picture — on par with TVs that cost hundreds more. 

The first thing to catch my eye was the sharpness of the picture. Closeups of icebergs in the 4K Blu-ray version of Blue Planet II revealed bubbles in the ice and the tiny tube feet of starfish were each distinct. The picture’s crispness also translated well to action sequences — the Falcon zipped through the canyon without any blurring in the opening sequence of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

But the colors seemed slightly off in the default Bright mode. They lacked warmth and were oversaturated — too green, too blue and too red. I switched to Calibrated mode and the colors got much warmer. Skin tones appeared more natural. Showing off both the sharpness and color range, when Thor arrives in Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War, the rainbow colors of the bifrost were distinct and Thor’s lightning was very detailed.

Calibrated mode also allowed the P65Q9-H1 to demonstrate its excellent contrast. With support for all sorts of HDR — Dolby Vision and HDR10+, especially — the screen handles dark scenes very well. In Without Remorse, Michael B. Jordan finds himself in a lot of dark rooms and locations at night. In all those scenes, the P65Q9-H1 made it possible to keep track of the action despite the low light. In the 4K Blu-ray version of Blade Runner 2049, as Joe walks through the city and encounters the Joi ad, I could see details in the background, even as the intense colors of the hologram popped. While watching the Weathertop scene in the 4K Blu-ray version of Fellowship of the Ring, facets of the rocks were evident in the moonlight.

The P65Q9-H1 features a full-array backlight, which gives a uniformity to the display and helps it achieve its pleasing picture. However, the image appears washed out on the side if you stray too far from center while watching. The P65Q9-H1 was easy to watch in daylight, with what I perceived to be a bright panel — though our lab test results disagreed.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Test results

In our lab testing, the P65Q9-H1 produced a max brightness of 471.2 nits. That is well below the Samsung Q80T QLED TV (681.6), Hisense Quantum 55H9G (668.03) and TCL 6-Series Roku TV R635 (583.1), though better than the Samsung Q60T QLED TV (414.9). However, I never thought the screen looked dim or lacked enough brightness.

In other tests, the P65Q9-H1 performed in the middle of the pack as well. It’s reproduced 99.90% of the Rec 709 color space, showing its color reproduction was on par with the TCL 6-Series (99.92), but below the Hisense 55H9G (99.76%), Samsung Q60T (99.72%) and Samsung Q80T (99.93%). It’s Delta-E score, which measures color accuracy, of 2.2 placed it in the middle of this group, with only the Hisense 55H9G beating it (an impressive 0.9). 

But sometimes the numbers don’t tell the whole story. In combination, the P65Q9-H1’s sharp image, color and brightness created an overall enjoyable picture. 

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Gaming

For gamers, a big improvement in the P65Q9-H1 over last year’s Vizio PX65-G1 are the two HDMI 2.1 ports, which allow the TV to take advantage of the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5’s most advanced features. When connected to those two side HDMI ports, the P65Q9-H1 supports 120Hz at 4K resolution, as well as variable refresh rate (VRR) and AMD FreeSync. However, when I connected an Xbox Series X, I had to manually switch the settings to HDMI 2.1 to get those features — the Auto setting didn’t detect the Xbox’s abilities. 

The P65Q9-H1’s lag time of 26.8 milliseconds means it’s a good, but not great, TV for gamers, despite its support of 120Hz at 4K. Again, it sits in the middle of the pack against the competition, with both the TCL 6-Series Roku TV 2020, at 21.5 ms, and the Hisense 55H9G, at 16.1, beating it out.

While playing Forza Horizon 4, I didn’t experience any blurring even while racing at top speeds down the highway, and the details in the background remained sharp throughout. Similarly, the details in the foreground and background while playing Apex Legends were impressive.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Audio

For a midrange TV, the P65Q9-H1 produces average sound — but that doesn’t mean it sounds good or that the audio comes anywhere near to matching the picture quality. Through its two 15-watt speakers, dialogue is easy to hear and its Virtual:X surround sound mode creates a very wide soundfield (again, for a TV of this type). But bass was lacking in every scene I watched. If you buy this TV, a soundbar should also be in your budget.

There aren’t many tweaks you can make to the sound. In addition to Virtual:X sound mode, you can also pick regular surround sound or turn surround sound off. You can also switch on volume leveling and dialog enhancer, but there are no other sound modes to choose from. 

The P65Q9-H1 supports Dolby Audio, but not Dolby Atmos, which may limit your sound options in the future. 

The TV gets very loud — about 89 decibels at 100 — but it’s very uncomfortable to listen at that level, especially with the lack of bass. 

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Smart features

The P65Q9-H1 runs Vizio’s SmartCast operating system, which — while improved — still falls way behind the field in terms of features and apps. 

Setup is intuitive and the system takes you step-by-step through what you need to do. I was up and running in a few minutes.

The home screen is dominated by suggestions of what to watch, and there’s no way to customize what you see there. You can adjust the featured apps on the third row to show your favorites in the Extras menu. Other menu options include Movies, Shows, Free Channels and Apps.

You’ll find some popular apps in the app store, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Hulu, and it has YouTube TV for live TV streaming. But it doesn’t have Sling TV or HBO Max. Even with the limited app selection, finding an app is frustrating. The TV’s search doesn’t include apps in the results, so you have to scroll through what’s available. You can use Chromecast or AirPlay to push content from your phone, tablet or computer to the bigger screen — or just add a Roku stick and bypass SmartCast entirely.

The P65Q9-H1 lacks a built-in voice assistant, but you can link it to your Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit device to go hands-free. I used Alexa to turn the TV on and off and launch Prime Video. But it’s not as fast as having an integrated voice assistant and the commands didn’t always result in an action.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Remote control

Vizio’s remote feels solid and comfortable in your hand. It has quite a few buttons, including power, input, menu, info, home, back and closed captions. You can control the volume and channels, muted the audio and there’s even a 0-9 number pad. The scroll wheel in the middle allows you to navigate menus and apps. All buttons were responsive. However, it lacks a backlight so it can be hard to see in a dark room. 

The remote also has seven quick launch buttons — more than most remotes and including some unique choices. In addition to Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu, there are quick launch buttons for Vudu, Kumo (a free content service), Redbox (another free content service) and Watch Free (Vizio’s free content service). Based on what I saw showing on those free content services — how many reruns of 21 Jump Street do you want to watch? — you likely don’t need a quick launch button for all of them.

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) review: Verdict

Vizio P-Series Quantum (P65Q9-H1) is an excellent TV if you prize picture quality and don’t care about the smart OS that comes with it. With its sharp 4K image and contrast that reveals details in dark scenes, the P65Q9-H1 sets itself apart from cheaper QLED alternatives. It’s a mid-priced model that registers moderate scores in our lab test and lacks a few nice-to-have features, such as an integrated voice assistant and Dolby Atmos support, but the picture quality outweighs its downsides. 

If you have several hundred more dollars to spend, Samsung’s Q80T has a beautiful picture and top-of-the-line features, including Samsung’s excellent Tizen OS. And if you’re looking to spend less, the TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) and Hisense H9G Quantum Android TV are more affordable and still produce a very good picture. Plus, they both come with much more robust smart operating systems. But for a balance of price and picture, the Vizio P-Series hits a sweet spot. 

The Vizio M-Series MQ6 is a budget-friendly 4K smart TV that drives home how much value you can get for your money when you aren't paying for some of the premium features that are so prominent in the best TVs we review. By embracing technologies like QLED and voice control, the M-Series delivers decent performance for the whole family to enjoy, but skips out on the giant app selections and more technical smart features that pricier competitors might offer.

But the M-Series also demonstrates some of the limitations that come with a low price, missing things like local dimming and extra ports that are easily found on TVs that don't cost a lot more. Our Vizio M-Series M55Q6-J01 review makes it clear that the MQ6 is a good TV at a decent price — it's on our list of the best Vizio TVs — but shows how budget shoppers often need to be ready to make some trade offs in the name of price.

Editor's Note: Since this review was written, Vizio TVs have been updated with support for HBO Max. We've updated the language in this review to reflect this change, but the general recommendations and rating of the review are unchanged since it was initially published in July 2021.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Pricing and availability

At the time of this writing the Vizio M-Series MQ6 is only being sold in two sizes, the 55-inch model reviewed here and a 65-inch version. However, within the coming weeks Vizio will launch additional sizes, ranging from as small as 43 inches up to a giant 75-inch screen size. Finally, a 70-inch model is also slated for this summer, but won't hit stores until August.

• 55-inch (Model M55Q6-J01) - $579.99
• 65-inch (Model M65Q6-J09) - $679.99

The Vizio M-Series consists of two separate model lines, the MQ6 highlighted in this review, and a more expensive MQ7 model. Both are 4K smart TVs that offer quantum-dot displays and Vizio SmartCast smart TV functions, complete with the new voice search capabilities. 

Though the overall design looks similar, the two models have some important distinguishing features. Namely, the more premium MQ7 boasts dimmable backlighting zones and advanced motion processing that aren't available for the MQ6, not to mention an extra HDMI port. 

As a result of these differences, our recommendations only apply to the MQ6 models in the Vizio M-Series, not the MQ7 models. We'll review the MQ7 separately to provide a closer look at that smart TV's features and capabilities.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Design

The Vizio M-Series M55Q6-J01 is new for 2021, and Vizio has updated the TV in several respects, including a few slight refinements to the physical design. The entire TV has a sleek (if not svelte) look, with tapered edges all around, and some unexpected curvilinear stylings on the back of the chassis, all done in standard black plastic.

The stand is a pair of feet that attach on either end of the TV, and set up is relatively simple without any complicated assembly or involved software setup. With the 55-inch model measuring 48.3 x 28.1 x 3.2 inches and weighing 29.4 pounds before attaching the stand, it's possible to set up the MQ6 with one person, but we'd still recommend getting a hand with it.

If you don't want to use the included feet for tabletop use, the MQ6 is also wall mountable, using a 300 x 200 millimeter mount. (Check out the best TV mounts for some of our favorite wall mounting hardware.)

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Ports

On the back of the MQ6 you'll find the connector panel, which has a smaller selection of ports than we'd like. The TV has only three HDMI ports, but all three are HDMI 2.1, with one offering eARC for connecting a soundbar or speaker set. Even better, the audio output supports uncompressed Dolby Atmos sound, so pairing the TV with an Atmos-ready soundbar will offer a huge upgrade to the quality and realism the TV can offer.

There's a single USB port, composite video input and a coaxial connection for antenna or cable. The set also has digital audio output for older sound systems and an Ethernet port for wired connectivity. And you may want to use it, since the TV itself is equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi rather than the more current 802.11AC or the newer Wi-Fi 6. That Wi-Fi standard is sufficient for most streaming uses, but you might notice slower performance when streaming 4K video. It's odd to see a modern 4K smart TV opt for an older, slower wireless standard.

Aside from the Wi-Fi, the TV is also outfitted with Bluetooth 5LE, which will let you wirelessly connect headphones or speakers, and also handles connection to the voice-enabled remote control.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Performance

The Vizio MQ6 boasts a 4K panel with quantum dots for better color and a 60Hz refresh rate, all in line with what we consider to be the better end of affordable TVs. 

The set uses full array backlight but none of the local dimming control that you would see on competitors like the TCL 5-Series Roku TV (S535). While that's a common cost-cutting move by manufacturers on TVs in this price range, it means that overall contrast won't be as impressive, and high dynamic range (HDR) performance is muted considerably. 

That's a bit of a double-edged sword, because it means that black darker images may come out looking a bit more grey, thanks to the backlight, it also means that you get fewer of the distinct halos around bright on-screen objects that so many high-end sets struggle to eliminate. But the HDR limitations are especially disappointing on the Vizio M-Series, since it's one of the few TVs on the market to offer support for both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats.

That said, watching movies and video samples on the MQ6 did let us quickly see what the TV did well, and the few areas where it needs to improve. Despite the undifferentiated backlight, the Vizio made things look good in the opening scenes of Blade Runner 2049, with crisp detail, even in shadowy scenes. As Ryan Gosling and Dave Bautista squared off in the cramped confines of a dimly-lit farmhouse, the dark shadows weren't quite as dark as we've seen on other sets, and the bright highlights of light through the windows or glowing elements on K's eye-scanner weren't quite as vivid as we've seen on the competition.

And it's not to say that the contrast is bad or that HDR is entirely absent. Watching the opera scene in Tenet, the black on black of special ops soldiers' uniforms could easily have turned into an ambiguous black blob, losing the details of object edges and clothing seams, but everything seemed pretty clear. And you still saw some benefit from HDR support, with the glow of highlights like windows and lighting offered decent brightness that stood out in the scene.

The Vizio had far better performance with color, thankfully. When watching 4K samples of nature footage, both the color and detail looked very good. A bright green tree frog looked vibrantly verdant, and a pink-hued tree snake looked surprisingly realistic. Whether it was the tiny textures on the back of a spider or the scales on a snake, the 4K resolution delivered all of the detail you would expect. Colors did looka little oversaturated when displaying yellows and greens, but not glaringly so.

A sunset scene gave the TV an excellent test of its color reproduction and it passed with flying colors. Brilliant pastels and bright hues looked just as gorgeous as a tropical sunset should look, and the subtle color transitions that we would expect to see some mild banding in came through reasonably well, without the harsh posterization that is sometimes seen on less expensive models.

The TV's full array direct backlighting was consistent, with none of the shadows at the edges of the panel that we expected to encounter, and no variance when showing broad blocks of color like a blue sky.

The MQ6 also has decent viewing angles, though there is some perceptible color shifting once you're out at a 45-degree angle. But this isn't drastic color shifting, merely a subtle shift in tone when seen from too steep an angle.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Test results

Our lab testing highlighted how well the MQ6 did in terms of raw performance, offering excellent color and accuracy, but without the brightness we're used to seeing from QLED displays.

Color gamut was very good, thanks to the use of quantum dot enhancement. The Vizio reproduced 99.96% of the Rec 709 color space, putting it right up in the almost-100% range we expect from a good TV. That's a hair better than the Hisense U8G Android TV (99.95), while giving the MQ6 a solid lead over both the TCL 5-Series Roku TV (99.85) and last year's Samsung Q60T QLED TV (99.72). You can find TVs that will actually exceed the Rec 709 specification with higher than 100%, but those are exclusively OLED models with much higher prices.

Color accuracy was also excellent, with the MQ6 scoring a Delta-E average of 1.47 (lower scores are better) in calibrated dark mode. We used to consider anything that scored lower than 2.0 to be excellent, but recent scores show improving accuracy across the industry, so 2.0 is sort of a low bar to clear. Nonetheless, that makes the MQ6 a hair more accurate than both the TCL 5-Series (1.76) and the Hisense U8G (1.57), and noticeably better than the Samsung Q60T (2.7).

One area where we expected the Vizio to do better was brightness. Even with the addition of brightness boosting quantum dots, the M-Series MQ6 registered a top brightness of 299.6 nits. While 300 nits isn't terrible for a budget-friendly TV, it's not a great showing compared to all of the other QLED competitors out there, like the TCL 5-Series (391.9), the Hisense U8G (722.7) and even last year's Samsung Q60T (414.8501).

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Gaming

When we tested the MQ6  with our Leo Bodnar lag tester, the TV registered a pretty speedy response time of 13.7 milliseconds, one of the best times in recent testing. Where anything under 20 milliseconds is considered adequate for gaming, the shorter lag time offered by the MQ6 makes it an especially good gaming TV, but the TV's lack of local dimming and 60Hz refresh rate mean that some of the best features of modern gaming are out of reach.

The biggest limitations come from the display itself. Without local dimming, the HDR performance is lackluster, and that will be true in gaming as well, even as HDR becomes more prominent in current games. The bigger issue is the refresh rate of the set, which has a 60 Hz panel. If you're using a newer console like the Xbox Series X or the PS5, that means you won't be able to enjoy the potential 120 Hz refresh rates that current generation hardware supports. But for most games, and for pretty much all older consoles, that 60 Hz refresh rate will be fine.

The TV also uses what Vizio calls V-Gaming Engine, an umbrella term for gaming features like AMD freesync, variable refresh rates, and auto game mode, which is Vizio's term for auto low latency mode. With VRR and a LLM features that are built into HDMI 2.1, it's not anything unusual, but having that support and the necessary connectivity is still important to have.

One unexpected quirk we ran into during testing was that the default automatic HDMI setting failed to register our Xbox connecting over HDMI 2.1, despite using the appropriate cable and the Vizio having full HDMI 2.1 on all three of its ports. Until we went into the settings and manually enabled HDMI 2.1, the TV failed to even recognize the Xbox Series X as a 4K-capable device. Once this setting adjustment was made, however, the TV supported 4K gaming at up to 60Hz, with 10-bit color and full HDR support.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Audio

One area where corners get cut on even premium TVs is the audio system. It's expensive and difficult to produce great sound from the narrow confines of modern TVs, so we can be pretty forgiving of TV audio at times. But we were still a little disappointed by the M-Series, with its pair of 10-watt speakers.

That's not a lot of power, and the volume the TV provides might be fine for hearing dialogue in TV shows, but it won't give you any low-end and won't fully deliver the rich sound effects and audioscapes that modern movies offer. We would definitely suggest picking up one of the best soundbars to go with this TV, and it would be worth paying a little extra to get one with Dolby Atmos.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Smart Features

One area where the M-Series MQ6 is significantly improved over past Vizio TVs is the smart TV functions. Vizio's SmartCast doesn't have the same ecosystem of apps you'd get on an Android or Roku-powered smart TV, but the Vizio's 77 apps offer a lot more than past Vizio sets did, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV, Disney Plus, YouTube and YouTube TV, Peacock, Tubi and Crackle. Vizio's WatchFree service gives you plenty of free content to browse as soon as you turn on the TV, and it seems to have most of the bases covered for popular streaming apps.

Not every popular app can be installed on the TV, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the service on the TV. The Vizio has both Google Cast and Apple Airplay 2 built in, so it's easy to fill in any gaps in app selection by casting your favorite content and apps to the TV from your phone or tablet.

But the biggest improvement to the SmartCast platform is the addition of voice control through the mic-equipped remote. The voice feature lets you search for content and control simple features like volume and input selection with voice commands — it's quite similar to what you'd get on a Roku TV. You may not be able to call up sports stats or check the weather with voice search, but it's enough to make navigating to your favorite shows easier than it's ever been.

The voice feature isn't perfect though. When the TV registers voice input, it displays text on screen to show you what the TV heard – a handy touch that helps eliminate confusion when it mishears tricky words – but the way the text is displayed overlaps with other text on the home screen menu, making things difficult to read at times. That's a small issue, and one that will likely be cleared up with an automatic software update, but it's still an irritant in an otherwise welcome new feature.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Remote control

With the move to include voice interaction comes a redesigned remote control that adds a built-in microphone and Bluetooth connectivity rather than the IR-based remotes of years past. The new Vizio Voice remote is a simple rectangular black plastic wand with a prominent circular navigation pad. Power, Input, Home, Settings are at the top, while a volume rocker, mute button, and microphone button sit below the navigation pad. It's a far more minimalist look than past Vizio designs, ditching the number buttons and switching away from the distinctive oval-shaped profile for last year's model.

Just above the navigation pad is a cluster of dedicated app buttons. That's not a huge surprise, since we've seen the same thing from every other TV manufacturer. But where most TV makers have four app buttons, Vizio has six. On our remote were buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Crackle, Disney Plus, Netflix, Peacock, Tubi, and Vizio’s own WatchFree free streaming TV aggregation app.

Given that apps like Netflix, Disney Plus and and Amazon Prime are included as something of a paid placement as much as providing a convenience to users, I was surprised to see buttons for free services like Crackle and Tubi. Whether the inclusion of these apps is also part of a paid deal or a way to highlight some of the free content options Vizio heavily promotes isn't clear, but it's the only remote I've seen to offer these services in the app buttons on the remote. If you're a big fan of free shows and movies, that's something of a plus.

Vizio M-Series MQ6 review: Verdict

Budget-friendly TVs always walk a line between providing all of the capability users want and trimming superfluous features to keep costs down. Vizio's TVs have gotten better at this balancing act in recent years, but the Vizio M-Series MQ6 shows how precarious a balance it is, with great additions, like voice control and broader HDR format support on the positive side and blunted brightness and contrast performance on the other. All in all, the Vizio M-Series MQ6 offers a decent amount of capability for budget shoppers, but it has some real limitations if you're looking for more advanced gaming features or a deep bench of smart capabilities.

That said, the M-Series MQ6 delivers most of what is most important in a TV – great color reproduction and picture quality, a good app selection, and enough smarts to satisfy TV shoppers that aren't picky about their smart TVs. For a competing set with similar features and price, the TCL 5-Series Roku TV S535 is a slightly better option, thanks to larger port selection and superior HDR performance, but it's a close match. If you have access to the Vizio but not the TCL, it's still a safe buy, and gives a solid 4K smart TV that will fit within all but the tightest budgets.

To say the market for bargain-priced 4K TVs is crowded is an understatement, indeed. There are literally hundreds of models to choose from, but two of the most popular brands continue to be TCL and Vizio. And the most affordable 4K smart TVs from those brands can be seen in our TCL 4-Series Roku TV (S435) review and Vizio V-Series (2020 model) review, which look at each budget champ individually. Both find a place on our list of the best TVs under $500, but which is better? To answer that question, we decided to breakdown how the TCL 4-Series and Vizio V-Series line up to see which of these budget-friendly smart TVs is really the best.

On paper at least the Vizio V-Series would seem to come out ahead. It supports two significant features –Dolby Vision and active local dimming – that the TCL 4-Series does not, for example. But specifications aren't everything, as a comparison of these two value-priced sets reveals.

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Specs

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Price and Size Options

Both TCL and Vizio offer these 4K LCD sets in a wide range of sizes with the smallest set coming from Vizio at 40 inches and the largest offering coming from TCL at 85 inches. So whether you are looking to outfit a dorm room or a home theater, there's a model to suit your wall space from the assortment here.

TCL 4-Series Roku TV (S435)

• 43-inch (model 43S435) - $349.99
• 50-inch (model 50S435) - $449.99
• 55-inch (model 55S435) - $499.99
• 65-inch (model 65S435) - $699.99
• 75-inch (model 75S435) - $999.99
• 85-inch (model 85S435) - $1,799.99

Vizio V-Series (2020 model)

• 40-inch (model V405-H19) - $229.99
• 43-inch (model V435-H11) - $319.99
• 50-inch (model V505-H19) - $329.99
• 55-inch (model V555-H11) - $439.99
• 58-inch (model V585-H11) - $459.99
• 65-inch (model V655-H9) - $519.99
• 70-inch (model V705-H3) - $649.99
• 75-inch (model V755-H4) - $799.99

These models are shown with the manufacturer's suggested price, but actual sales prices are much closer. The price wars continue in TVs and are especially acute in this group of entry-level 4K sets. 

Availability varies quite a bit, but comparing a couple of popular sizes shows that Vizio has been cutting prices more aggressively. The 43-inch Vizio V-Series at roughly $319 is a little less expensive than the average $349 price for the 43-inch TCL 4-Series set. The price difference becomes more pronounced with larger screens, though, with the 65-inch Vizio V-Series coming in at $519 while the 65-inch TCL 4-Series is roughly $700.

Winner: Vizio V-Series

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Performance

In terms of 4K features and display specifications, the Vizio V-Series would seem to be the better choice over the TCL 4-Series. The Vizio line includes full-array local dimming backlighting, to improve contrast, and support for the Dolby Vision 4K formats, for example, which the TCL line lacks. However, in hours of subjective viewing tests including 4K and upscaled HD content we found the TCL 4-Series display to be preferable. Much of the reason for that comes down to a slight edge it has in terms of color reproduction and brightness.

Although benchmark test results will vary depending on the screen size, one can see some of the subjective criticisms borne out in our numbers comparing the 43-inch TCL 4-Series and the 50-inch Vizio V-Series. The TCL 4-Series was able to produce 99.55 percent of the standard full color gamut, for example, while the Vizio V-Series reproduced just 97.6 percent of the color gamut. That difference meant that the Vizio set didn't offer quite as rich a picture as the TCL set, although some viewers may not notice the difference.

As for brightness, with a 10 percent pattern, the TCL 4-Series hit roughly 292 nits. That's considerably less bright than many more expensive sets, which typically top over 600 nits. However, it was still brighter than what we found with the Vizio V-Series model we tested, which produced just 272 nits in the same benchmark.

Winner: TCL 4-Series

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Design

If you didn't know better, you would think these sets rolled out of the same design studio. Both the TCL and Vizio model lines are wrapped in black, mostly plastic, chassises. And both designs rely on a pair of splayed legs on either end of the set to support it on a tabletop. The V-shaped legs are steady enough and suitable for a variety of setups, so it's not surprising the companies have settled on similar designs.

The same goes for situations where a wall mount is preferred. Neither line offers special features–like a super flat screen or hidden wires–for such installations. But both will work with a standard VESA 200 by 200 bracket, which can cost anywhere from $25 to $80. Check out the best TV mounts for some of our favorite wall-hanging options.

Winner: Tie

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Smart TV features

One area where the TCL 4-Series holds a distinct advantage is in its smart TV interface. The company offers all but the 85-inch model in either Roku TV or Android TV flavors (sold as the 4-Series S434 line) – the 85-incher is a Roku only set. We find that both versions offer a lot of streaming entertainment options. However, the simplicity of Roku's more mature interface with its thousands of online channels will appeal to a broader audience.

Vizio, on the other hand, uses its own proprietary smart TV interface, which in its latest iteration looks more and more like Android TV. And that's a good thing; it means the interface is familiar and easy to follow. Vizio's software is dubbed SmartCast, and it includes apps for most of the popular services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney +, Spotify and Pandora. However, it cannot match the sheer number of channels offered by the TCL Roku set and misses at least one important movie offering, the Criterion Channel.

Winner: TCL 4-Series

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Gaming

Gamers may want to consider a budget model as a second TV dedicated to their favorite pursuit. In this the Vizio V-Series has a slight edge. The 50-inch model we tested produced one of the lowest lag times we've seen with a time of 13.1 ms. That was quicker than the smaller 43-inch TCL 4-Series which came in at 14 ms, and well ahead of other bargain sets like the 43-inch Insignia Amazon Fire TV, which turned in a very tardy lag time of 38.8 ms.

Gamers should note, however, that the TCL 4-Series and Vizio V-Series use 60 Hz displays so they can't take full advantage of the higher 120 Hz refresh rates of the latest PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. If higher frame rates and advanced features are a must-have, check out our recommendations in the best 4K gaming TVs.

Winner: Vizio V-Series

TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series: Verdict

Choosing an overall winner between the TCL 4-Series and Vizio V-Series comes down to whether you prioritize performance or price. TCL's entry level 4-Series offers the most popular smart TV features via Roku (or Android TV) and a slightly better picture for movie buffs. Vizio's value V-Series, on the other hand, wins with lower prices on many models and gamers looking for an inexpensive second set may be swayed in its direction.

Bargain big screen TVs involve making compromises for the price. Vizio's the-V-is-for-value 50-inch V-Series 4K TV follows the trend, sacrificing some brightness in this particular display. On the other hand, considering all the features it does include, it's definitely competitively priced.

The Vizio V-Series, for example, includes full-array local dimming backlighting, to improve contrast, and support for 4K formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10 (high dynamic range), HDR10+, and HLG (hybrid log-gamma, essentially HDR for broadcasts). It does not deliver dazzling performance, but the Vizio V-Series does well enough against other bargain sets in this tight and highly contested price range and size. 

For example, Best Buy's 50-in Insignia F30 Series LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV arguably doesn't perform as well as the Vizio V-Series and is $10 more. Conversely, TCL's 4-Series Roku TV sets look better and are easier to use for about $20 more. This is one of the best Vizio TVs in terms of value.

Vizio V-Series review: Pricing and availability

Available now, the V-Series is Vizio's 4K line for budget conscious buyers. There is a lower priced Vizio D-Series but those sets don't support 4K and should only be considered for kitchen TVs that aren't going to get much serious attention. The V-Series comes in 8 different sizes, starting at 40-inches and going all the way up to a 75-inch mode. The sweet spot, price-wise, is the 50-inch V-Series we tested for $329.99.

• 40 inches (Model V405-H19) - $229.99
• 43 inches (Model V435-H11) - $299.99
• 50 inches (Model V505-H19) - $329.99
• 55 inches (Model V555-H11) - $370.99
• 58 inches (Model V585-H11) - $459.99
• 65 inches (Model V655-H9) - $519.99
• 70 inches (Model V705-H3) - $649.99
• 75 inches (Model V755-H4) - $799.99

With this sort of affordable pricing, it's no surprise that the V-Series makes our list of the best TVs under $500 and best TVs under $1,000, with even the largest screen sizes selling for relatively low prices.

The next series up, Vizio's M-Series, represents a significant price escalation, along with some better performance. The 50-inch Vizio M-Series Quantum (M658-G1), for example, is more expensive than the same sized V-Series. However, in our testing, the M-Series model did better in producing the full color gamut and kicked out a much brighter picture.

The Vizio V-Series shares most characteristics across all of the screen sizes, with the same full-array backlighting and the same port selections and features. We also expect performance to be fairly similar, regardless of which size model you're looking at, so our recommendations apply across the entire V-Series model line.

Vizio V-Series review: Design

Wrapped in a black plastic chassis, the Vizio V-Series looks similar to other sets in this class. It uses a pair of V-shaped legs, for example, positioned near each end of the set to support it on a tabletop. If you'd prefer a wall mount for this set, you should purchase a standard VESA 200 x 200 millimeter bracket, which can cost anywhere from $25 to $80. (Check out the best TV mounts to see what options we recommend.)

However you choose to set up the Vizio V-Series, you'll have a relatively easy time of it. It only weighs 21.16 pounds and is relatively thin, measuring 44.13 x 25.6 x 2.42 inches.

Vizio V-Series review: Ports

Vizio has equipped the 50-inch V-Series with enough connectivity to make it suitable for a living room setup or dorm room.

There are three HDMI 2.1 ports, including one that supports eARC (enhanced audio return channel). Using the eARC port with a compatible sound bar or A/V receiver means the TV will automatically recognize the device and send sound its way.

In addition, there is a USB port, Ethernet connection, headphone jack, RF connection for an antenna, and digital audio output. There's even a set of composite video inputs for ancient video sources like a VCR. For more up-to-date entertainment sources, the V-Series has support for Apple's Airplay and Google's Chromecast built in, so you can stream media from compatible devices. And, of course, to set everything up and get online, the TV has built-in Wi-Fi 802.11ac with dual band support.

Vizio V-Series review: Performance

We noticed immediately that the low brightness of the Vizio V-Series made a difference in what video mode we judged was best for everyday viewing. Almost without exception, the calibrated or movie mode on most TVs delivers the most accurate colors and contrast. However, the 50-inch V-Series looked dim and unable to render details in images in Calibrated mode. (There is no Filmmaker mode for this set.)

Switching the set to Bright mode, we expected it to oversaturate bright colors like red and make night scenes look like they were shot in bright sunlight. However, Bright mode on the Vizio V-Series did not blow out colors or make all the actors on screen look like they had sunburns.

Looking at the picture settings for each mode was also intriguing. In Calibrated mode, Vizio sets the V-Series backlight at 100 percent versus Bright mode where it's 95 percent. Consider that in Calibrated mode on Vizio P-Series, the backlight is set at 60 percent (and even at that it often looks too bright). The other significant difference between the two modes on the V-Series is that the local contrast (which should adjust the full-array backlight) is off in Calibrated mode but set for low in Bright mode. Bottom line: Bright mode produces a better picture than Calibrated mode on the 50-inch V-Series.

Given that change, 4K material looked quite solid on Vizio's V-Series. Watching Lucifer produced well-defined highlights and clearly visible details that are the hallmarks of 4K. Every fly-away strand of hair was clearly defined and colors from the sky blue of a chair to aquamarine lights and a burgundy shirt looked accurate. It even produced enough detail to reveal that the actor playing the son of God wears contact lenses.

Our favorite 4K test movie, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, also demonstrated that the Vizio V-Series could hold its own with high resolution content. The lighting and laser highlights were crisp, right down to the fire reflected in Kylo Ren's eyes. The set did struggle to show dark objects in shadowy scenes, such as the serpent cave, but there was no banding across subtle color transitions.

And the Vizio V-Series did very well upscaling typical HD content to 4K. In an HD version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the image looked quite good, with no glaring picture artifacts or distracting pixelation. Bright mode continued to be better here, as well. In Calibrated mode, the threatening animals in the playground at night just disappeared into the darkness.

Vizio V-Series review: Test results

The Vizio V-Series did strike some positive notes in our tests. It delivered perfectly acceptable color accuracy results, for example, with a Delta-E score of 2.4. A lower number here indicates better performance, but we think of anything around 2.2 to be acceptable. It's certainly better than the numbers we've seen from other budget-range TVs, like the TCL 4-Series Roku TV (2.8) and the 2020 Toshiba 4K Fire TV Edition 50LF621U21 (3.3).

This Vizio also looked good for gamers searching for an inexpensive big screen to do double duty. It produced one of the lowest lag times we've tested with a time of 13.1 ms. That was quicker than the smaller 43-inch TCL 4-Series (S435) we recently tested at 14 ms, and well ahead of the 43-inch Insignia Amazon Fire TV, which turned in an abysmal lag time of 38.8 ms. Just remember that all of those sets, including the Vizio V-Series, use 60 Hz displays so they can't accommodate the higher 120 Hz refresh rates of the latest Sony and Xbox consoles. If you don't need the higher refresh rates, the budget-friendly V-Series becomes one of the better affordable options of the best gaming TVs.

On the negative side, the Vizio V-Series wasn't able to display as much of the standard Rec 709 spectrum as we would have liked to see. Most 4K sets reproduce approximately 100 percent (or beyond) of the specification. The Vizio V-Series reproduced just 97.6 percent of the color gamut. What this means is that the picture may not look quite as rich as it could, particularly when compared to sets that can go beyond the traditional spec.

Furthermore, brightness was decidedly underwhelming on the Vizio V-Series. Brightness performance with a 10 percent image turned out just 272 nits. We usually see something on the order of 600 nits from higher-end sets. And even the bargain priced Insignia Amazon Fire TV (NS-43DF710NA19) we recently tested produced over 300 nits of brightness. The Vizio V-Series' lack of brightness wasn't onerous, but it did entail making some unusual settings on this set, as noted in the previous section.

Vizio V-Series review: Audio

Sound performance was not a highlight of the Vizio V-Series TV. There are only a couple of basic preset audio modes: Surround on/off and Virtual:X.

On the V-Series, with surround off, there's virtually no soundstage, and all of the audio seems to emanate from underneath the center of the TV. Turning on the Surround mode certainly helps with music. With Virtual: X engaged Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill was all lead vocals, hi-hat, and maracas with an attenuated bass line. The Surround sound preset improved fidelity and re-centered the audio so that it sounded like it was coming from the screen directly.

Conversely, for movie fans, the best audio mode proved to be Virtual:X. Where it had a negative affect on most music, it enlivened film soundtracks significantly. It did a better job, for example, creating the illusion that sounds were coming from off-screen, like a ringing phone that seemed to come from a nearby but unseen office desk.

The V-Series Virtual:X mode also did better with more boisterous material and action movies, albeit at disappointing sound levels. It's not often that we can drive a TV all the way to 100 percent volume levels without deafening results, but we could easily do it with this 50-inch V-Series. If you enjoy roaring road races and stentorian soundtracks, add one of the best soundbars. The decibel levels of the V-Series are not going to do it for you. Fortunately, the Vizio V-Series set includes the eARC (enhanced audio return channel) feature on one of the HDMI outputs to easily sync up a soundbar to the set.

Vizio V-Series review: Smart TV

Eschewing the standard smart TV systems from the likes of Roku and Google, Vizio uses its own proprietary smart TV interface, which as the years go by looks more and more like others such as Android TV and the revamped webOS from LG. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; it means the interface is familiar and easy to follow.

Dubbed SmartCast, Vizio presents you with a slew of streaming options such as Magellan TV and IFC movie picks you can watch for free. Along the bottom of the screen there are large icons for popular apps including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV, Disney +, and Peacock. Additional streaming services can be added via Vizio's App Catalog. It includes most of the mainstream services, including music from the likes of Spotify, Pandora, and Tidal. However, Vizio doesn't have the breadth or depth of options like Roku TV and Android TV. One app in particular that is missing from Vizio's SmartCast is the Criterion Channel, which is popular with movie fanatics.

Vizio V-Series review: Remote control

One item Vizio hasn't cut back on for the V-Series is the set's remote control. It's the same version used for the company's top P-Series Quantum X sets.

The remote control is significantly better than the older model. It is slimmer, ergonomically curved, and more logically laid out. There's still a familiar four-way thumb pad and center "Ok" button to help you navigate menus. And there's also a numeric keypad (often ignored on other remotes) and several dedicated buttons for services including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Appropriate for a budget priced TV, there's also a "Watch Free" button that takes you to streaming content Vizio has aggregated for viewers. One of the dedicated buttons that proved surprisingly useful was a CC button to turn closed captioning on and off. We found it perfect for those muddled soundtracks that sometimes make it impossible to hear critical dialogue.

It's worth noting, however, that this being a 2020 model of Vizio TV, you won't get the microphone-equipped remote control that comes with newer 2021 Vizio TVs.

Vizio V-Series review: Verdict

The Vizio V-Series (2020 model) is a tough sell in a competitive segment of the market catering to price-conscious buyers looking for a modestly sized set. In terms of performance, its two major weaknesses are its lack of brightness and modest audio abilities. Yet it is a better choice than some other bargain sets, which don't perform as well. With decent color accuracy and great response times for gaming, there's plenty to love about this budget-friendly TV.

Still, before you settle on the Vizio V-Series, we recommend taking a look at the TCL 4-Series Roku TV (S435), which offers a subtler picture and that easy-to-use Roku interface. In fact, to help you make your choice we've pitched them head-to-head in this TCL 4-Series vs. Vizio V-Series face-off.

Vizio's entire line is getting a revamp for 2021, from the compact D-Series to the premium P-Series Quantum X, with big updates to software and functionality that offer a real improvement over last year's models. From expanded features like variable refresh rates and a voice-enabled remote, the entire lineup of new Vizio TVs will look and feel better, with better app support, more capable smart functions and the same budget-conscious sensibilities that keep Vizio in competition among the best TVs you can buy.

The only TV that hasn't had an upgrade announced is the Vizio OLED TV, but it remains one of the best deals in the TV world, so Vizio is probably safe letting it ride without more than a software update.

Editor's Note: June 2, 2021 Vizio has reached out to clarify that, while these new TVs are being announced and launched in 2021, they are officially known as the Vizio 2022 line.

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Vizio P-Series Quantum and P-Series Quantum X

Vizio's premium P-Series Quantum and Quantum X TV's are getting a number of updates. With the P-Series Quantum coming in the 65- and 75-inch screen sizes and the P-Series Quantum X available exclusively in an 85-inch model the QLED-enhanced smart TVs offer a lot of features you'll definitely want.

With up to 1200 nits of brightness and as many as 210 discrete dimming zones, picture quality has been enhanced with better contrast and tighter backlight control, for improved HDR performance as well as a more vibrant picture overall. Vizio claims that the new P-Series models offer up to 85% of the Rec 2020 color range, which significantly exceeds both the P3 wide color gamut and the more standard Rec 709 color space that we use in the majority of our TV testing.

Gaming enhancements abound, with HDMI 2.1 support and features like variable refresh rates (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM), as well as AMD FreeSync Premium, an adaptive sync technology that goes above and beyond variable refresh rates to include HDR support and wider color gamut while still delivering higher frame rates. And even with all that going on, Vizio promises the P-Series can deliver TVs with lag time as low as 7 milliseconds, making them ideal gaming TVs.

Other enhancements to the P-Series line include an anti-glare screen that should cut down reflectivity from ambient light, as well as an IPS panel on the 75-in model that offers wider viewing angles. This is all on top of Vizio's latest IQ Ultra processor, the latest updates to Vizio SmartCast software, and the addition of the new Vizio voice remote.

The Vizio P-Series QUantum offers a 65-inch model for $1,399 and a 75-inch model for $2,199. The Vizio P-Series Quantum X is limited to the 85-inch model, but pricing and availability have not been announced yet.

Vizio M-Series

Many of the enhancements offered on Vizio's premium P-Series models are included in the more affordable M-Series as well. The Vizio M-Series includes quantum dot technology for better color and brightness, as well as Vizio's latest IQ Active processor. Available in sizes ranging from 50-inches up to 75-inches, the MQ6 and MQ7 models offer up to 700 nits of brightness, with as many as 32 dimming zones for excellent HDR performance.

Gaming also gets a boost with AMD FreeSync along with HDMI 2.1 features such as variable refresh rates and auto low latency mode.

Finally, the Vizio M-Series includes a height adjustable stand that can accommodate a soundbar underneath the TV, and that stand also doubles as a mounting bracket for a soundbar when the TV is wall mounted.

The Vizio M-Series is available in two separate model lines, the MQ6 series and the MQ7 line. The MQ7 can deliver up to 700 nits of peak brightness from a full array backlight, with as many as 32 dimming zones. While that's nowhere near what more premium TVs offer, it's a big step up from TVs in the same budget range that only have undifferentiated backlight – like the less expensive MQ6 uses.

The more affordable MQ6 models start at $399 for a 43-inch screen size, and top out at a 75-inch model that sells for $999. The MQ7 is slightly more expensive, starting at $749 for the 55-inch model and scaling up to $1,399 for the 75-inch version.

Vizio V-Series

The value-focused Vizio V-Series may not have all the bells and whistles, but there's still lots of love in this affordable category. With screen sizes ranging from 43 inches up to 75 inches, the Vizio V-Series offers a 4K smart TV with a decent feature set given the low price. Dolby Vision HDR support is included, with a full array backlight offering decent brightness, but no localized dimming. HDMI 2.1 features such as variable refresh rates are joined by AMD FreeSync support, making it a good choice for an affordable gaming TV.

The V-Series is also getting a brushed aluminum finish, which updates the basic plastic construction used on older models. Finally, the V-Series will also have Vizio's new voice remote, complete with a push to talk button on the remote that prevents false positives and unwanted recording.

The Vizio V-Series offers the most budget-friendly line of 4K smart TVs in the 2022 lineup, starting at just $339 for the 43-inch model.

Vizio D-Series

Vizio's most budget-friendly line of smart TVs is the Vizio d series, which comes in 24, 32, 40, and 43-inch sizes in 720 and 1080p resolutions. These compact TVs may not have full 4K resolution, but they do include Vizio's smart cast software, complete with the full app lineup, as well as Vizio's latest IQ processor.

The Vizio D3 makes up the bulk of the new D-Series models, but the Vizio D4 boasts a bezel-less design available in 24 and 32-inch sizes, making it perfect for those smallest corners of the house.

Finally, the D-Series also offers VRR and AMD FreeSync, making them great gaming TVs when 4K resolution is not a must-have.

The compact Vizio D-Series models start at 24 inches, selling for $139, up to a 43-inch model that sells for $249. The result makes for some of the smallest smart TVs on the market, as well as the most affordable TVs you can buy – provided you don't need 4K resolution.

Vizio SmartCast

The latest version of Vizio's SmartCast Smart TV software is the best version yet to grace Vizio TVs. It offers more local app support, especially popular apps such as Netflix, Amazon prime video, and newer apps like Disney Plus and Apple TV.

New apps recently added to SmartCast include Fox Now, the CW, and Peacock. Vizio also boasts that SmartCast includes some of the best free content available, with free channels available from Pluto TV, Hallmark, Newsie, Tastemade, and other content providers.

SmartCast also has Google Chromecast built in, as well as Apple AirPlay support. These options make it easy to cast content from your phone to the TV, and offer expanded app support for those services not already supported on the TV. If you can enjoy it on your phone, you can get it on your Vizio TV through Chromecast and AirPlay.

Vizio Voice Remote

Perhaps the biggest change coming to Vizio TVs in the 2022 line is the move to the new Vizio voice remote on the V, M and P-Series TVs. 

The new remote has a sleeker, less cluttered look. Number buttons have been removed, the directional pad has been shifted to a more comfortable position, and navigation through the SmartCast system should be far more intuitive. The biggest enhancement however, is the addition of voice interaction, with a microphone built into the remote for content search and command of basic functions.

If you're not interested in speaking into the remote like an old CB microphone, you can also pair your Vizio TV with any current Amazon or Google smart speaker setup, giving you the same content search and voice control options hands-free.

The Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 is the next evolution in Vizio’s affordable Dolby Atmos soundbar line, and it adds a crucial feature: upfiring speakers, bringing the important height element of Atmos. In addition to separate surround speakers and a wireless subwoofer, that makes the M512a-H6 a true Atmos surround sound system — all for a relatively cheap $449. 

The M512a-H6 comes with lots of ways to adjust the sound, which is a blessing and a curse — too many options can take the simplicity out of a soundbar, but it also allows you to create the sound you like best. And you’ll likely need to make adjustments, especially to the bass, which can be overpowering. Some of the best soundbars do a better job of creating an immersive experience, but as our Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review will explain, this still gets you an awful lot for the money. 

Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review: Price and availability 

• Cost $449
• Launched May 2021

The Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 is available to buy at Vizio as well as online retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. 

At $449, this 5.1.2 model follows the $149 AIO (All-In-One) and $349 5.1 models as the most advanced of the current M-Series. Even so, the whole kit is a lot cheaper than some standalone Atmos soundbars, like the Sonos Arc. 

Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review: Design 

• Has upfiring drivers, but not ideal placement 
• HDMI ARC and Bluetooth connectivity 

The M512a-H6 resembles its sibling soundbar, the Vizio M-Series M51a-H6, but it’s larger to make room for the addition of two upfiring speakers on the top of the unit. At about 40 x 4.0 x 2.8 inches, it’s also longer, wider and taller. The wireless subwoofer measures about 11.7 x 9.9 x 8.3 inches and has a 6-inch woofer inside. The sub includes wired outputs for the left and right satellites, each about 5.8 x 3.5 x 2.3 inches. 

The placement of the upfiring drivers isn’t ideal — they are toward the center of the soundbar. Dolby recommends you put your upfiring speaker over your left and right channels. The placement may be a reason why the height effect isn’t quite as immersive as some other Atmos soundbars.  

On the back-left of the main soundbar you’ll find an HDMI ARC port and one HDMI input to connect a set top box or game console. There’s also an optical digital audio connection and a USB port. On the back right, there’s a standard 3.5mm input as well as an Aux VA input, which is for connecting a voice-enabled speaker. The Aux VA connection stays active even when you’re using another input, so you can have always-on access to your voice assistant. You can also connect wirelessly via Bluetooth.

The front is filled with drivers except for the far left, which has a vertical band of lights that shows the volume level and flash in various combinations when you change the sound mode or input. The speaker also says the input or sound mode when you change it. 

On top of the unit there are just a few buttons: power, input, Bluetooth and volume. The remote control is the command center for the many settings and features you can adjust. The remote features a small backlit screen at the top that displays options. For example, if you push Level, you can use the scroll wheel to select Bass, Treble, Dialog and many other levels you can change. It may not be as intuitive as an on-screen menu or an app, but the remote screen is easy to read and gets the job done.

Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review: Setup

• Physical setup is easy 
• Choosing the best settings take more time 

Connecting the M512a-H6 to your TV is easy — just use the included HDMI cable to connect to an HDMI port that supports ARC and you’re up and running. The wireless sub comes paired with the soundbar, though you have to connect the surround speakers to the back of the sub with included wires. 

Vizio recommends you place the sub near where you will sit, but I found that the bass was too dominant in the mix that way, even after I turned the subwoofer level all the way down. I preferred putting the sub near the TV and running the wires for the surrounds across the room.

Once you’ve got the speakers in place, the real work begins. The M512a-H6 allows a lot of adjustments to make the sound most pleasing to your ears. Unfortunately it lacks auto calibration, something that the JBL Bar 5.0 Multibeam and Sonos Arc offer, so you have to adjust the driver levels manually. You can change the settings for the center channel, subwoofer, surround speakers and height channels (but not the left and right channels). When you change the surround level, it affects both the left and right surround speakers. If you want more from the left than the right, for example, you would change the surround balance. That’s a lot of adjusting, but if you put in the effort you’ll get a balance of channels that works best for your ears. 

You can select from sound modes (listed under the EQ button) including Movie, Music, Game and Direct to further tweak the audio. But wait, there’s more: the Effect button on the remote lets you turn off the height speakers, surround speakers, Virtual:X effect, TruVolume and Night mode. 

With all these options (and there’s more I didn’t list) you’re likely to find a combination that you like. 

Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review: Sound quality

• Strong performance on a budget
• Atmos height effect could be better 

 The M512a-H6 produces very good sound for the price, and the full battery of speakers definitely improves the overall sound compared to the M51a-H6. Atmos soundbars that don’t have separate surrounds can’t match the 360-degree experience that the M512a-H6 delivers; however, a speaker with auto calibration, such as the JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam, does a better job with the height aspect of Atmos. The big bass that comes from the subwoofer rounds out the package — though at times there was too much low end. 

During Dolby’s Atmos demo videos, the separate surrounds made it sound like a leaf was moving behind me as it moved offscreen to the left and re-emerged on the right. Rain sounds benefited from the height channel, giving the sense of falling from the ceiling; however the effect was less pronounced than on the Bar 5.0 MultiBeam.

As Sam zipped through the canyon in the opening scene of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the sound emphasized the movement as missiles crossed the screen and the explosions rumbled thanks to the strong bass. That bass added resonance to the dialog on Mare of Easttown, making Kate Winslet’s dour accent easy to understand. But the pulsing soundtrack to Tenet taxed the subwoofer and showed its lack of detail — it was muddy and distorted. 

The M512a-H6 handles music well, too, though its bass-forward nature overwhelmed the rest of the mix at times. The kick drum and deep bass on the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” rattled my teeth a bit too much, but the vocals and keys sounded bright and clear — an improvement over the M12a-H6’s rather lifeless music reproduction. The guitar on Billie Eilish’s “Your Power” was crisp and her singing was resonant as well, but the throbbing bass was muddy and too prominent. 

The M512a-H6 reached over 96 decibels at full volume — plenty for a big room — and did so without distorting, which is a rare feat. 

Vizio M-Series M512a-H6 review: Verdict

It’s hard to get more for your money than you will from the Vizio M-Series M512a-H6. With the speakers you need to get the most out of Atmos, the M512a-H6 delivers room-filling sound for a very agreeable price. It’s definitely worth choosing the M512a-H6 over the M51a-H6, which lacks the upfiring speakers.  

If you want an easier (and cheaper) solution for Atmos, JBL’s Bar 5.0 MultiBeam does a great job creating an immersive sound thanks to auto calibration, but you have to sacrifice the separate surround speakers and subwoofer. The MultiBeam also lacks ways to adjust the sound manually. 

While you need to work to get the best sound for your room out of the M512a-H6, the effort pays off.

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Vizio’s M-Series 5.1 Home Theater with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X M51a-H6 is a soundbar system with a long name and an even longer list of features. The M51a-H6 features a subwoofer and satellite speakers, so you get true 5.1 surround sound; supports Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual:X for the latest in immersive sound; and comes with many, many ways to adjust the audio you hear. Even so, its best feature may be the price: just $250 for the whole package.

But while this system challenges the very best soundbars on sheer value, it needed some significant experimentation with the options before it realized its potential. As our Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-H6 will explain, if you’re looking for a “set it and forget it” soundbar, this may not be the right one for you. 

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Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6

The Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6 is one of the cheapest soundbar/subwoofer/satellite combos we’ve tested, at $250. This is down significantly on the $350 list price, but even that would be pretty good value considering how much you get.

You can pick up the M51a-V6 from CostCo or direct from Vizio.

Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6 review: Design

The M51a-H6 looks like it costs more than it does; it has an elegant design with rounded edges and a charcoal color that doesn’t attract too much attention.

The 36 x 3.5 x 2 inch main soundbar features 6 drivers, all forward facing — unusually for an Atmos soundbar, there are no upfiring drivers on top for height.

The wireless subwoofer measures about 11.8 x 9 x 8.4 inches and has a 6-inch woofer inside. The sub includes wired outputs for the left and right satellites, each about 5.8 x 3.5 x 2.3 inches.

The top of the soundbar has power, input, Bluetooth pairing and volume controls, while LEDs on the front-left show you the volume level. Different combinations of the lights also flash when you change inputs or sound modes. A green light shows when Dolby Atmos is engaged. 

On the back you’ll find an HDMI Out to connect to your TV, as well as one HDMI In for external devices such as a streaming box or a game console. There’s also an optical digital audio input, USB input and two 3.5mm auxiliary inputs. One aux input is for connecting a TV and another, labeled Aux VA, for a voice assistant speaker — a feature shared with the similarly affordable Vizio V21-H8 soundbar.

The Aux VA input stays active even when you switch to other inputs, allowing always-on access to your voice assistant. It’s a handy addition and clever way to make use of your existing voice-enabled speaker. 

The Vizio remote does a lot of heavy lifting, especially since there’s no app for the system. It has a small display at the top that shows options as you select them. For example, if you select Input, you can scroll through HDMI eARC, HDMI in, Bluetooth, and others.

The speaker also says the input or sound mode selection when you change it. That’s a lot to ask of a little remote, but I found the screen easy to read and the options fairly intuitive to navigate. You may want to check the manual to see which options are under each menu. 

Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6 review: Performance

No matter how good virtual surround sound gets, it has yet to beat the real thing. Having satellite speakers on the M51a-H6 improves the immersive experience of watching a movie or playing a game. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support makes the effect even more precise, too. When Thor throws his axe in Avengers: Infinity War, you can practically feel it move through space thanks to the surround speakers. It’s hard to fake that. However, the M51a-H6 lacks upfiring speakers, so you miss the height effect when Thor brings the lightning down. 

The M51a-H6 is a bass-forward soundbar, which can be great for a tactile listening experience. But depending on how you set up the speaker (see the Setup section below), the low end can completely overwhelm everything else. In 2004’s Man on Fire, when Denzel Washington started blowing up cars, the floor shook so much that my windows rattled. But the sound from the subwoofer lacked any definition — it was just a muddy roar. I was able to improve the effect by moving the subwoofer and lowering the level, but that didn’t change the detail coming out of the sub. 

When the subwoofer is under control, voices sound full and resonant. Lady Whistledown’s voiceovers in Bridgerton were easy to understand, as were the conversations between Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown in One Night in Miami. 

Music sounds full and bright, if you don’t mind listening to your music in surround sound. In Music mode, The Weeknd’s vocals on “Bright Lights” were full and warm while the bass resonated nicely; the acoustic guitar on Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again” was sharp and realistic. But using Direct mode — which plays stereo instead of surround, as the music was recorded — the vocals and instruments were flat, with only the bass remaining impressive..

The M51a-V6 is one of the loudest soundbars I’ve tested, pushing over 100 decibels at full volume. The sound distorted at that level, but sounded relatively clean even at 90 decibels. You won’t have to worry about whether this system can fill your room. 

Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6 review: Setup

The M51a-V6 offers a couple of different ways to arrange the soundbar, satellites and subwoofer. Vizio’s recommended placement has the soundbar under the TV, the satellites behind you and the sub next to where you sit. This may be because you connect the satellites to the sub via wires, and this arrangement keeps the cables out of your way. You can also put the satellites in front with the soundbar, and put the sub next to the TV — if you do this, be sure to switch the satellite arrangement in the remote’s Setup menu. 

Having the sub next to me made the low end way too dominant in the sound mix, even if I turned the sub volume down. Having the satellites in front also eliminated the benefit of having rear speakers — the sound didn’t move around me. I settled on having the sub in front, near the TV, and placing the satellites behind me with the wires running across the room. This might not be Vizio’s recommendation, but to my ears it provided the best balance of bass and surround sound. The right arrangement for your room may vary; but at least you have plenty of options to make it sound as good as it can. 

I used an HDMI cable to connect the M51a-V6’s HDMI Out to my TV’s eARC HDMI port and was quickly listening. That connection allowed me to use my TV’s remote to control the volume. However, the M51a-H6 didn’t turn on when I powered on the TV — I had to use the Vizio remote. 

After finding the best placement of the speakers for your room, there are a ton of additional tweaks you can make to the audio. Equalizer options include Movie, Music, Direct and Game; you can also separately boost Dialog, Bass and Treble levels. You can also manually change the level of the Center, Subwoofer and Satellite channels. The Satellite level doesn’t differentiate between the right and left, but you can adjust the balance between the two. 

The Setup menu has even more settings to fiddle with, too. That’s a lot of potential ways to make the sound the way you like it, especially for an inexpensive soundbar. 

Vizio M-Series 5.1 M51a-V6 review: Verdict

The M51a-H6 delivers true 5.1 surround sound and it costs about the same as — or less than — soundbars that have to use virtual surround to try to achieve the effect. It has a lot of flexibility, whether that’s in the way you arrange the speakers, connection options or audio adjustments. And it sounds pretty good, too. 

But it takes effort to make it sound its best, and soundbars are supposed to be simple to use. In this price range, you’ll find some excellent soundbars that are easier to set up, such as the Yamaha YAS-209 or, for a little more, the Sonos Beam. 

But, neither of those come with satellite speakers, or offer Atmos support. If you’re looking for true 5.1 surround sound with Atmos and want to spend less than $400, the M51a-H6 is the one to buy.

• More: Read our Vizio V-Series V21-H8 review as well

We may be in between holiday sales but that doesn’t mean that retailers aren’t still offering some fantastic discounts, and Walmart is really impressing with this saving on a 50-inch OLED display. 

Right now you can get a VIZIO 50-inch 4K QLED Smart TV for $298. That’s $50 off its usual price of $350, which by our math adds up to make this an epic saving. 

With 4K resolution output and Dolby Vision HDR support whether you’re watching the latest episode of an addictive streaming series or playing a blockbuster video game, you’ll be wowed by the picture quality. 

VIZIO’s next-generation Quantum Color technology will deliver "cinematic color volume and over a billion hues of vibrant color," plus the TV automatically optimizes its display settings in order to help you get the most out of your PlayStation or Xbox. 

This display definitely puts the smart in Smart TV as well, not only does it give you access to just about every streaming service you could think of, it also supports Apple AirPlay and has a Google Chromecast built-in. 

If you’ve been on the fence for a while about upgrading to a 4K TV then this deal is the nudge you need - all this for less than $300 is hard to beat after all. We don't expect it to stick around for long as jump on this saving while you can. 

If you want to see what other discounts on out there, we’ve got a round-up of the best cheap TV deals that are running right now to help make sure you get the display that is right for you. 

Editor's Note: The Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) is no longer being sold, but it has been replaced by the newer Vizio P-Series Quantum P65Q9-H1, which we will be reviewing in the near future. We have updated this review to reflect this change. The original rating and recommendations remain from the original review in February of 2020.

It may not be stunningly svelte. And it may not deliver earsplitting explosions from movie soundtracks. But for the money, the 65-inch Vizio P-Series Quantum X ($1,198) delivers solid color performance in a crisp 4K TV. It also includes some intelligent upscaling to keep the picture clear when you're watching standard HD material (which you will be, most of the time).

Vizio packs a lot into this top-of-the-line model, including a full-array LED backlight with multiple active zones. The set supports the major high dynamic range (HDR) formats for boosting color intensity. And its picture skills place it above lower-priced 4K models from Hisense and TCL — and in contention against models that cost thousands more from LG, Samsung and Sony.

Does it have flaws? Certainly gamers and music lovers will think so, but the trade-off results in a very respectable 4K picture at a very competitive price, making it one of the best TVs available in terms of value for the dollar.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) specs

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) price and availability

The Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) is no longer being sold.

For the latest model in the new series, consider the newer Vizio P-Series Quantum P65Q9-H1. We'll be reviewing this new model in the coming weeks.

And check out our current favorite Vizio set in our Vizio OLED TV (OLED55-H1) review, which names the new OLED one of the best values on the market.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) design

Sitting on a credenza, the 65-inch Vizio P-Series Quantum X rests on two silver arched legs located at either end of the panel.

That gives it enough height for a thin sound bar, Blu-ray player or set-top box to fit under its profile. The set's black plastic chassis has an even, narrow bezel and the simple V logo is discretely set over to the far right of the bottom border of the display.

For those looking to do a wall placement, the P-Series Quantum X works with VESA-compliant 400 x 400-millimeter brackets. The set weighs just over 54 pounds without the stand. Not that we're body shaming, but that's a bit on the heavy side, so you should get a sturdy mounting system.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) ports

The P-Series Quantum X has a typical array of inputs and outputs. For HDMI connections, there are five ports (two mounted to the side and three more along the bottom). The HDMI connections are 2.0a, with one 120-Hz 1.4 input intended for gaming. There is also a component video input and a single USB port. Another USB port would have been helpful, considering the number of devices — such as powered antennas and media storage devices — that could use a USB connection.

Analog and digital audio outputs are also on the back, as well as a coaxial connection for cable or an antenna. For networking, there's an Ethernet port and built-in 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi. Bluetooth — for, say, a pair of headphones — is not built in.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) performance

There's no doubt that Vizio has included some features in the P-Series Quantum X set that have a direct payoff when it comes to picture quality. The quantum dot film, which adds color depth, and the full-array LED backlight with 384 active dimming zones deliver significant benefits. There's minimal flaring around bright objects on the screen, for example, and almost no halo effects around highlights in the picture. The active dimming zones also enable some nifty picture processing tricks, such as automatically detecting when you're watching a letterboxed movie and then making the top and bottom bars even darker. The result: some of the deepest blacks we've seen outside of an OLED TV.

Of course, we're basing most of our judgments on the assumption that you put the Vizio P-Series Quantum X in its best calibrated picture mode. In calibrated mode, most of the image settings are automatically adjusted to 50%, and motion-control video processing is turned off to reduce potential artifacts and noise.

One annoying and awkward picture adjustment on the Quantum X is the HDR setting. Rather than being grouped with other picture settings, you'll find it under the main menu, then you have to dig through several submenus (settings, input settings, and then the specific input) to locate "Full UHD Color." A simple on/off toggle under picture settings would be more logical.

In tests comparing the P-Series Quantum X with some of the leading high-end TVs in the market, the set did very well. It delivered 99.95% of the Rec. 709 color gamut, for example — a certainly respectable result, which reflects the fact that quantum dot films can enhance color performance.

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Color-accuracy tests (according to our measurements with an X-Rite colorimeter and CalMan calibration software) turned in a Delta-E number of 2.5 (the closer to 0, the better). That may sound about average, but there are more nuances to these results. Consider that the LG B8 OLED posted a 1.7 in our tests, which is one of our best scores, but the very highly regarded Sony A9G OLED came in at 2.7, ostensibly worse than the Vizio P-Series Quantum X, but in practice, one of the best sets we've ever reviewed. Right in between was the less expensive Hisense H9F with a Delta E score of 2.3, even though overall, its picture is not as consistently accurate as any of the aforementioned sets.

Of course, the proof is in the movie viewing. Watching the Blu-ray 4K HDR version of Arrival, subtle oranges and yellows looked spot-on, and there was minimal picture noise. The active dimming also helped with the scene of the helicopter ascending from Louise Banks' home, allowing us to clearly see the car parked in the shadows. Occasionally, the video processing in calibrated mode still looked a little heavy-handed: It made the actors seem as if they were standing in front of a flat backdrop. There was also some minimal banding in color gradients, like gray skies or the opening fog scene in Blade Runner 2049, but nothing viewers would find distracting.

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Details jumped out in most of what we watched, demonstrating that the P-Series Quantum X did a great job with 4K material. In Avengers: Endgame, the 4K disc yielded excellent image details, such as Robert Downey Jr.'s worry lines as his spaceship drifts directionless out in space. Such details will motivate you to get a 4K TV, although it can reveal too much, such as the fact that Chris Evans as Captain America is wearing too much makeup in some scenes.

Everyday viewing will doubtless comprise a lot of standard HD programming. Fortunately, the P-Series does a good job upscaling such material. An old standby Skyfall Blu-ray disc with challenging action sequences was handled easily without adding any artifacts or creating any dropouts. Colors remained true and details in shadows were still visible. A test with an HD version of Gravity also showed how well Vizio has improved its upscaling; as Sandra Bullock spun out into the darkness of space, there was no halo effect and stars twinkling in the distance still looked sharp.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) gaming performance

For 4K gamers (and don't we all want to be 4K gamers?), the Vizio P-Series Quantum X is a bit of a disappointment. On a 4K HDMI port with the special game mode enabled to reduce latency, we measured a lag time of 35.1 milliseconds. In general, anyone shooting it out in a multiplayer game like Halo isn't going to notice a lag time of 20 ms or less, but above that, you'll find you're at a distinct disadvantage against the competition.

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However, to address this issue, Vizio has essentially added an extra, fifth HDMI port specifically for gamers — but it only supports 1080p. The benefit is that it strips away all the video processing that adds to lag, turning in a much more respectable 23.8-ms time in game mode. That's better, but still not a stellar result.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) audio

The other obvious vulnerability of the Quantum X was its sound quality. Using a pair of 10-watt speakers, the sound settings of the P-Series Quantum X don't include any preset sound modes. Other TVs include modes for music, movies, sports and other programming. This P-Series includes a DTS surround-sound mode and volume leveling, but no presets. There's also no equalizer for tweaking the audio, which is a shame, because it sure could use it.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) smart TV features

Vizio has received a fair amount of criticism for its SmartCast interface, but it has been steadily improving it. Version 3.5 here is quicker and less clunky, but it still offers a lot less than Roku- or Android TV-based models from the likes of Sony or TCL. We like Vizio's WatchFree section, which aggregates hundreds of free streaming sources, and there are apps for major services, from Sesame Street to Tidal. However, most people will find SmartCast overlooks one or another of their favorite services, such as Disney+. (Though Vizio assures us that both Disney+ and Apple TV+ will be coming to SmartCast TVs sometime this spring.)

If you want more apps, you'll have to use the built-in Chromecast support to stream them from a mobile device. Chromecast supports many, many more apps — including HBO, Disney+ and Showtime — than Vizio's SmartCast. However, some people will be annoyed at the idea of having to use their smartphone or Android tablet as a remote control. If SmartCast's limited app selection leaves you feeling underwhelmed, there's always the option of getting a Roku Premiere ($29.99) or Roku Streaming Stick ($49.99) and skipping Vizio's SmartCast entirely in favor of Roku's rich app selection and easy-to-follow interface.

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There is an Alexa option (as well as support for Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant) if you want to use voice commands. However, you have to use it via your own existing smart speaker, like the Amazon Echo. It is not built into the set.

Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1) remote control

The supplied remote control for the P-Series could use an update. It's thin enough and curved to rest comfortably in the hand, but it lacks backlit keys, making it difficult to find buttons in the dark.

There are dedicated buttons for services like Vudu, Netflix, Amazon, iHeartRadio and Crackle. But there's no guide button, which can lead to some nonintuitive navigation. On WatchFree, for example, you have to hit OK on the remote, which tells you the channel, and then select OK again (within a few seconds) to get a guide. One button would be easier.

Bottom line

To get this level of picture performance at this price, you have to give up something. With the Vizio P-Series Quantum X (PX65-G1), the company has cut corners in sound quality and some other minor niceties to achieve its relatively affordable price tag. There are cheaper 65-inch 4K models out there, such as the Hisense H9F, which is more than $300 less, but they can't match the picture quality of the P-Series. More expensive sets like the Sony A9G OLED still best the Quantum X in sharpness and image fidelity, but they can cost upward of a $1,000 more.

The latest Vizio 4K TVs have started rolling out to retailers, with some impressively low prices and feature sets that gamers should take notice of. There's even more to look forward to after that with the brand's first OLED TV and the Elevate Sound Bar due to arrive later in the fall. 

The entire Vizio 2020 TV lineup (which the company is calling their 2021 family) promises 4K resolution, HDR support for multiple formats (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG) and HDMI 2.1 ports. The latter feature makes Vizio's new TVs a great choice for gaming with the next generation PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles coming this fall. 

The Vizio 4K TVs that are now available include the affordable entry level V-Series, which gets you the aforementioned features starting at just $230 for the 40-inch V405. There's also the mid-range M-Series and the high-end P-Series 4K TVs, which include larger sizes and more advanced feature sets. The new sets, as well as the the redesigned V-Series soundbars, can be purchased at Amazon and Best Buy. 

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And there's more to come in a few months. Vizio's first OLED TV, its most impressive set yet, will be very competitively priced — the 65-inch will cost $2,000 and the 55-inch will cost $1,300. It's likely to earn a spot on our list of the best TVs. The fall will also see the debuts of a P-Series Quantum X 85-inch model and the Elevate Sound Bar.

In addition to releasing the new 4K TVs, Vizio updated its SmartCast platform to improve its speed and performance. Older model TVs (2016 and after) will also get the upgrade. The SmartCast mobile app has gotten a slick redesign. And more apps will be available, including Apple TV, Movies Anywhere and (later this summer) the Peacock streaming service.

What to expect from the new Vizio 4K TVs

The new Vizio TVs will have IQ Ultra and IQ Active processors, as well as a new ProGaming Engine that will improve graphics for gamers with support for 4K resolution at up to a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Vizio offers TVs in three series at different price points. The budget-tier V-Series has screen sizes ranging from 40 to 75 inches, that cost $229.99 to $799.99. 

The mid-range M-Series adds features, like twice as many dimming zones as the previous models, creating excellent contrast and deep blacks. The Amazon-exclusive MQ8 Quantum models boast 90 local dimming zones and 800 nits of peak brightness and cost $550 for the 55-inch and $750 for the 65-inch.

The flagship, high-end P-Series Quantum X sets have up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness. The 65-inch costs $1,499.99, the 75-inch is $1,999.99 and the 85-inch is priced at $2,999. Meanwhile, the standard P-Series Quantum sets have a peak brightness of 1200 nits with up to 240 local dimming zones. The 65-inch set costs $1,199.99 and the 75-inch is $1,699.99.

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Everyone is thirsty in the desert. From phones with cameras that disappear to robots that bring you spare rolls of toilet paper to concept cars that breathe, there absolutely is no shortage of products at CES 2020 fighting for even just a brief glimpse of attention.

Walk into VIZIO's showroom in the Vdara Hotel and Spa in Las Vegas' CityCenter, however, and you get the sense that — well, everything seems the same on the surface. That's not to say that VIZIO's newest televisions aren't worth a look. They most certainly are. And that's not to say that there's nothing noteworthy about its 2020 lineup. There most certainly is.

But you also get the sense that it's very much business as usual for VIZIO. That in this futuristic world of 8K televisions and modular displays, VIZIO is content to just do its thing. To make great televisions for normal folks at price points normal folks can afford.

Probably. We don't yet have pricing information on this year's V-, M- and P-Series sets. We don't yet have any sort of pricing on the gorgeous new OLED television VIZIO has rolled out. We don't have any idea how much its new selection of soundbars will run us.

But spend even just a few minutes with any of VIZIO's new kit and you'll come away thinking "I want this." So with the caveat of not knowing just how expensive the top end of things will run, here's a breakdown of where things stand going into 2020 — and what a steady march of improvement can do in a world in which everyone else is trying to make a bigger splash.

The 2020 line of VIZIO televisions

Let's start at the low end. The V-Series TV has been (and remains) the least expensive 4K UHD series. It lacks the advanced picture quality features of the higher tiers. The series doesn’t have local dimming—a contrast-enhancing feature-- but still utilizes a full array backlight, for a smooth, consistent image. The V-series enjoys plenty of other bells and whistles, like support for Chromecast, AirPlay 2, Siri, and Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa enabled devices. It’s also packing a new IQ Active processor and V-Gaming engine.

Considering that the 2019 V-Series tops out at about $850 for a 75-incher (and bottoms out at 40 inches for about $240), expect that trend to continue this year.

The M-Series is where I'd start looking, though. Televisions are long-term purchases. They're big and kind of a pain to swap out. So I'd spend a little extra and get a little more for my money.

First is that the industrial design of the M-Series Quantum TVs is better. You've got a couple of flavors of the new M-Series from which to choose, with the M8 offering 90 local dimming zones. (More dimming zones means parts of the screen can be darker while other parts are lighter. Having more dimming zones is better.) The M8 also has a high peak brightness, hitting 800 nits.

And don't expect the price to break the bank here, either.

If you're really looking to step things up, though, the P-Series is still where it's at. And there's a sizable shift in the P-Series itself. The P9 is still a hell of a TV. It's available in 65 inches or 75 inches, with up to 240 local dimming zones (depending on whether you get the larger of the two models) and peak brightness of up to 1200 nits. The P-Series also ups the processor to the new IQ Ultra scheme.

And VIZIO is going one further. The P-Series Quantum X is available in 65-, 75- and 85-inch models. It has 792 local dimming zones on the large end and takes the peak brightness up to 3,000 nits. It's nuts. It's gorgeous. It also removes the bezels and does away with the "VIZIO" badge and opts, instead, for just the logo on the bottom right. This is, in all likelihood (again, we don't have pricing) the upgrade TV to have if you want the upgraded option from VIZIO.

VIZIO's first OLED

But it's still not OLED. And that's the biggest splash VIZIO has up its sleeves this CES — its first Organic Light Emitting Diode display.

Remember all those local dimming zones we were talking about before? OLED turns off the individual pixels. Black spaces are truly black. That sort of contrast makes the colors pop that much more.

If you can afford an OLED TV, you want an OLED TV. And VIZIO's will come in either 55 or 65 inches. It really is beautiful.

The inside baseball is that this OLED TV — it doesn't have a snazzy series name or anything — lets VIZIO more directly compete with the manufacturers that already have been on the OLED train for some time, and it gives it a slight leg up on the less-expensive MicroLED panels you'll find elsewhere. It fills a hole atop the VIZIO lineup and should give it a consistent contender in all the best-of lists this year.

But the question remains: How much is it going to cost?

Fun, but not actual products yet

VIZIO had a couple other sets on display that were a sign of what it's at least playing with, if not actually something it plans to bring to market in the future.

First is an 8K-resolution panel. Companies are always working on everything, and there's no way VIZIO hasn't been working on 8K. But there's also absolutely no reason for a normal consumer to purchase an 8K television, so it's a nice change of pace to see someone say "Yeah, it's a thing. But it's also not a thing, ya know?"

Another thing VIZIO is toying with is a television that's meant for outdoor spaces. Again, to reiterate, it's nowhere near a finished product. It has nothing to announce. But what at least sparked a brief moment of excitement was the possibility of a television meant for the outdoors that doesn't look like was built 15 years ago — bulky and unsightly and something that makes you want to buy a $250 TV and sacrifice it to the Weather Gods every couple of years instead. Which, for what it's worth, is exactly what I do on my covered porch. So the prospect of something bright enough for outdoors and hardened for the outdoors without possibly — again, that "not-a-thing-yet" caveat — looking like a piece of 1990s military surplus would be a very good thing.

VIZIO's new voice remote

Nothing ruins a good television experience like a bad remote control. And it's not that VIZIO's remotes have been bad — they've just looked the same for quite some time.

That's changing in 2020 with the new VIZIO voice remote. As the name implies, it's also adding voice control via the remote, which is something that's been missing. (Support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant enabled devices is still there, too.) It was nice to see it employ the sort of contextual computation you'd expect to see in 2020, so that you don't have to explicitly state a question or command one at a time. So you can say "Show me James Bond movies" and it'll show you James Bond movies. And then you can say "Just the ones with Sean Connery" and it'll show you the ones with just Sean Connery." That's the way things should work.

The remote itself has been greatly simplified, too. No more number buttons, which makes sense for the streaming era. There are a half-dozen branded shortcuts up top, and VIZIO's own "WatchFree" channel gets prime placement. And after that everything's where it should be.

SmartCast 4.0

Along with the new hardware for 2020, the other biggest announcement was the next generation of VIZIO's SmartCast operating system. It's long been a pain point for VIZIO's TVs.

Previous iterations of SmartCast have just been too slow.

I can't quite tell yet if the new SmartCast 4.0 has done enough to change my mind on that. Our demo was decidedly pre-production, and there were occasional hiccups. But the improvements also were pretty obvious, and VIZIO needs kudos for speeding up its top-level home screen experience. Questions remain, though. How will the third-party apps behave? And will SmartCast have all of the services you want to watch? It's getting close to having all of the majors, and so maybe 2020 will be the year in which we see VIZIO start to take on Roku in the arena of all-in-one TVs. We'll just have to see.

But it's also very much worth noting that VIZIO says to expect the SmartCast update on TVs dating all the way back to 2016. Obviously newer hardware should speed things up that much more, but it's tough to find any company outside of Apple that keeps its software up to date that long.

VIZIO's soundbars in 2020

I've long been a fan of VIZIO's soundbars, too. You can greatly improve the quality (and experience) of your TV viewing with just a few hundred dollars of kit — and having rear speakers and a subwoofer connect wirelessly to a soundbar means your living room doesn't need to be rewired.

The biggest change for 2020 is a continued improvement in industrial design. There's less cloth and more plastic. And everything just looks more sophisticated. The soundbars also have gained better branding, joining the M-Series and V-Series schemes, making it easier to have a general idea of what tier audio equipment you're looking at. (And it makes keeping track of this sort of thing so much easier.)

And then there's the new high-end VIZIO Elevate Sound Bar. It's got Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. And it has speakers that rotate depending on the sound profile. It's a really cool thing to hear, and sort of space-age to see in practice. And the sound? Spectacular.

Expect VIZIO to also heavily push the Elevate in conjunction with its new OLED TV. So much so, in fact, that should you mount the OLED TV on a wall, the attached stand becomes a mounting point for the Elevate Sound Bar.

VIZIO also has redesigned its audio remote controls, too — casting off another legacy pain point.

We don't have any pricing here, either, but figure it to be in the affordable-to-wow range again.

The bottom line

There is a fair amount of commonality here that I've left out. All of the new displays come with 4K resolution and Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG. All of them feature HDMI 2.1 ports, so latency should be lower and the overall experience should be better. Apple's AirPlay and Homekit are now standard. Same for Alexa enabled devices, Google Assistant integration and Chromecast.

And the M-Series TVs on up feature a ProGraming Engine that allow for a killer experience with an Xbox One X or PlayStation 4. (Or, eventually, the PlayStation 5, we'd gather.) Combine that with VIZIO's soundbars and you get its take on surround sound that really does take you into the game.

That's all standard now. It's table stakes for the VIZIO experience.

And between the new televisions in 2020, and the new soundbars, and the new software, and the new remote controls, this much is clear:

VIZIO is going to keep making cutting-edge picture quality and a best-in-class smart TV user experience affordable across all kinds of price points.

Vizio is shaking things up with a new offering: The Vizio OLED TV. We're in Vegas for CES, and got an early look at the company's impressive new OLED model, the simply named Vizio 65-inch OLED. Announced the day before the press-conference-filled Media Day before the show starts, this may be one of the TVs we're talking most about during the show. One thing is absolutely clear; Vizio has definitely stepped up its game for 2020.

Vizio has been a strong presence in the value-priced and mid-range TV categories for some time, winning over customers with a combination of low prices, high-quality displays and a streamlined smart TV experience that leverages free content and a built-in Google Chromecast to offer full-featured support without the complexity or expense of other smart TVs. And in the last couple of years, the company has pushed forward on the quality front with quantum dot-enhanced displays that offer more vibrant color and brightness.

Pairing Vizio's SmartCast smart TV platform with an OLED panel from LG Display -- the manufacturer behind LG and Sony OLED TVs -- the Vizio OLED is the most impressive Vizio TV yet.

During my time with the new OLED set, I was impressed with the noticeable difference in contrast and black levels offered between the OLED and even the top-of-the-line P-Series Quantum X, which was set side-by-side with the new model. While the P-Series X delivered bright and vibrant colors, the Vizio OLED had deep black levels that lent a sharpness to the 4K picture that even the best LCD-based TVs struggle to match. It's one of the defining differentiators between OLED and everything else, and it's undoubtedly part of why Vizio has chosen to embrace the technology as part of its premium TV lineup.

The OLED display is powered by Vizio's proprietary IQ Ultra processor, which provides the computing muscle for seamless content upscaling, HDR support and SmartCast 4.0 (the latest iteration of Vizio's smart TV platform). More importantly, the new processor provides support for 4K resolution at frame rates up to 120Hz, letting the OLED surpass the average 60Hz TVs with superior smoothness.

The OLED should boast impressive color and superb contrast, since OLED's per-pixel lighting allows for dramatically improved contrast and sharpness compared to backlit LCD displays. But Vizio also uses several video enhancements on the processing side, boosting the color and sharpness of the picture, and upscaling lower resolution content for the 4K display.

The new OLED model will also come with HDMI 2.1 support, with at least one HDMI 2.1 port offering support for 4K at 120Hz, better support for HDR content and uncompressed audio formats. It also provides for a handful of new gaming features -- which Vizio calls Pro Gaming Engine -- which includes variable frame rate support and auto game mode, which detects when a game console is connected and switches to low-latency game modes without having to fumble with the remote.

And speaking of the remote, Vizio's 2020 TVs will get a new remote control design. After a couple of years with a lackluster remote control, the new 2020 models will feature a more streamlined design, more in line with the smart TV controls offered on Samsung and Roku TVs, which center around navigation with a 4-way directional control, and less of an emphasis on numbered buttons. The remote also boasts Bluetooth connectivity, and a built-in microphone for voice search and other verbal interactions.

The OLED TV's stand is also designed to support Vizio's accessory soundbars, as well. The stand doubles as a mounting bracket, and lets you attach the soundbar to the TV even when wall mounted, with no shelf or table required.

The Vizio OLED -- Vizio isn't giving the new sets a regular series moniker other than "OLED" -- will be available in 55- and 65-inch sizes.

Specifics on pricing and availability have not been announced, but Vizio says that pricing will balance the quality of OLED with the value-conscious pricing that shoppers expect from Vizio. The Vizio OLED sets will arrive in 2020, but specifics have not been announced.

Be sure to check out our CES 2020 hub for the latest news and hands-on impressions out of Las Vegas.