Well, the 2023 models are out and supply chains have normalized so Bob asked us about what flat panel to buy. The main thing is that the 4K HDR television market has really stabilized and prices are pretty reasonable but if you want super high quality here are some choices
The best three TVs seem to come from LG, Sony, and now Samsung and for pure picture quality the OLEDS rule the roost. The LG Gs is in benchmarks just under The s95c ( and the Sony a95k. There are actually only two OLED factories in the world (LG is the leading one and Samsung just arrived), so most of this is the grading of panels. Sony for instance I think sourced from LG for many years but I think has switched to Samsung.
I find Rtings literally the last sight in the world actually still doing benchmarks rather than subjective reviews FYI, but I think right now if you have the bucks, then I would go for the Samsung S90C, but the LG C3 is a good choice:
- Samsung S90C. This shows you how much Samsung has come up, For years, the Sony OLED had the best color and the LG CX series were the best in regular quality, but this year, the new Samsung OLEDs look great. Note that last year’s S90B is very similar, so if you see a good price on those, they are good buys.
- Sony A95K. These things use the LG panels underneath, but they have better signal processing, so the HDR stuff looks way closer, but it’s super expensive.
- Samsung QN90C. These use a brighter IPS technology but work better in very bright rooms, Still, if you can control the light, these OLEDs are incredible.
- LG C2/C3 OLED. This is actually the TV I have three versions of and is probably the best tradeoff in terms of price. Note that this is last year’s model, the current one is the C3, but the differences are minor (see below, but technology has plateaued
- Hisense U8H. This is a good mid-range television that uses a VA panel, its perfect if you don’t care that much about the ultimate picture quality
Some other considerations
A big consideration is goes much light you get. The OLED panel in the LG/Samsung/Sony are terrific. But their peak brightness is less.
So if you have light in your room then a qled panel is going to be better and the Sony qn95 is great.
Also, the panels have really plateaued so check prices on the previous model (subtract one from the last character in general for model numbers)
If you don’t care about the very best but are okay with paying 1/3 less for 95% of the same then the C3 is good.
Finally, if you don’t really need the finest and are not going to be playing HDR and can’t see the difference anyway. Then hisense or frame is fine.
Finally, if you do care you aren’t going to see the incredible glow-in-the-dark HDR that comes from today’s iPhone or MacBook Pro. Those things out an incredible 1600 nits while the best of these panels put out maybe be 400 (there’s a lot of specmanship here because these panels can’t output 400 nits with 100% of the pixels turned on. It’s with 1%. I’ve been doing HDR video editing and the difference is incredible.
