The Perfect 4k TV

Black Friday. The day we realize how much we are overcharged the other 364 days a year. This was my first Black Friday with some money to shop, with my new job and all, and I was in the market, for a nice, 55in, 4k LED TV, which I plan to use for gaming and Netflix/Youtube streaming. I wanted the price to be around 600-650 USD, and in general, align with my new, badass tagline - “To Cheat the System” ;)

Here are the TV’s I considered, and the reasons why I had to back out of buying one this time around.

1. TCL 55R617 (TCL 6 Series)
2. Samsung NU8000 or Q6FN
3. Vizio P Series
4. Sony X900F

TCL 55R617

Great TV. The one I liked the best out of the bunch. Insane picture quality, the Roku TV smart TV OS integration (the best TV OS, period) is handy (though it does tend to heat up because of this, I have heard), good blacks and all the tech, mumbo jumbo. Lots of pros. The price I could find was 650 USD, but it was retailing for 550 just a month back on Newegg, so I was put off by that. But the biggest con and the reason why I din’t go with it in the end was the panel lottery. So apparently, the TCL 6 series is an excellent TV, with good panel, but some (maybe even half based on the reviews I found off the internet) panels have vertical banding and dirty-screen issue. So it really depends on your luck if you will get one with the good panel or the bad panel. I know right? ¯\_(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)_/¯

Vertical Banding on the TCL 55R617.

Samsung NU8000 or Q6FN

Found some half decent deals on reddit and the likes, but I was never really in to this TV from the start. The picture quality is aweful, compared to the other 3, and I din’t wanna go for Samsung as they have a habit of overcharging, when I can get better features for the same price from a less premium brand right? In the end, I gave it a cursory, academic consideration at best and let it be. Though on hindsight, I should probably mention this, the OS is really great and thats something you dont notice if its there, but you start to really notice if absent - a deal breaker as shall be observed in the next two contenders.

Samsung. I guess there’s not much to say, other than - safe, boring.

Vizio P Series

I found this decent deal on Best Buy, that I could get it for 649$. On r4tings.com and the 4ktv subreddit, this TV has a rating of 8.2, more than the TCL 55R617. What’s to loose right? Well I went to the store to check it out, and TV is great. But hardware alone doesn’t make you a winner right. The software, Vizio uses a version of Google Chromecast, which is somehow, cluttered and laggy and in general, sucky. The software might get an update in the future, but it was too great of a risk to take, given that the OS was a crucial part of the day to day experience. And there where tons of other bugs and issues, that would have taken ages scouring over forums and the web dealing with.

The Vizio P Series with it’s buggy Smartcast.

Sony X900F

Just when I was starting to give up, I found this surreal deal on the Dell store. Sony 55” 4K Smart HDR Ultra HDTV - XBR55X900F, 1499.99 MSRP. -400$ OFF on Dell plus an additional $250 Dell Promo eGift Card and free shipping. Wait, it gets even better. And 200$ Slickdeals rebate. It that awesome or what? The deal is awesome, almost 1k off the MSRP. So awesome that I had trouble getting my skeptical roommate to believe me :P The next part really makes me sad. It was the best TV I could possibly get, the picture quality is excellent,god darks, vertical zones and all that, but the OS it uses is Android TV OS. And apparently, there are times when after pressing something, it takes 4-5 secs for the TV to do something. I mean, seriously Sony, whats with that? This was a DEAL BREAKER for me. Believe me, I couldn’t have greived about this one more :(

Sony X900F in all its glory. Too bad about the OS though.

In the end, I concluded that none of the TVs currently in the market are particularly any good, and that I had better wait for a year at least, lest this become like the time I bought my first (and sadly second) mobile phone (that’s a story for another time). I consoled myself saying that the main reason I was trying to get a TV was to game on it, and with the PS5 not in the market until next year (hopefully), I just gave the TV manufacturers some time to get their sh*t together. Hope you are listening, TCL, Vizio & Sony.

Update: Just today, I found a really great deal on the TCL 55R617 on Amazon and decided to go ahead and order it. Amazon guarantees a replacement, so I guess I’ll play the panel lottery after all :D