55" 4K TV for $399, but does it suck?

digitalwanderer

digitalwanderer

wandering
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I know nothing of TVs anymore, but the wife was looking at 4K and ones larger than our current 42" plasma and I got a flyer from MicroCenter today that had Westinghouse WD55UH4530-M 55" 4K UHD LED Smart TV in it for $399 us and I was wondering if it sucked or not.

The price seems incredibly good, and I don't see how she could deny me $147 for a CPU/mobo upgrade since we're there....
 
Hard to tell.
It might be is an upgrade if your plasma is an old 1024x768 with non square pixels ; else a plasma should be pretty hard to beat. (even if it's old 1024x768)
Does the plasma give you unreasonable power bills and do you have hot summers? :)

Now the cheapo 55" monster is likely a rebrand from some unknown manufacturer and thus it's hard to tell if it's almost the same as a TV that's twice the price or if it gives you very grey blacks etc.

Does it support full HDMI 2.0 with 4K 60Hz, HDCP 2.2? If it does not (e.g. only accepts 24Hz 4K sources) then it might explain a big-ass 4K TV at fire sale price.
 
Why not just check it out in the store? If it has a built in media player (I'm guessing it does) you could take a usb stick with some of your own material so you can compare output with what you are used to.

You'd think that for that price you are probably not getting the best image (and build) quality in the world but if it looks good to you then why not?
 
hmm i got Rp 8000000 (550-600 USD) 49inch 4K HDR HDTV, discounted from original price Rp10000000, cheapest non-Chinese branded TV available in my country, and it have shitty picture quality. Super shitty. this shitty TV -> www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/uh6100

in amazon US -> https://smile.amazon.com/LG-Electro...TF8&qid=1486103353&sr=8-2&keywords=lg+uh+6100

if it as shitty as this, or heck, a bit better, i think its a bargain.

but personally, i think buying cheap and shitty TV is a mistake. TV usually last for 10 years or more! and you will use it to consume a lot of things!
 
There are many factors that make a good TV, and just like anything else, you get what you pay for. It depends on how much you care about the viewing experience vs how long you're willing to wait til you have more funds available.

My last TV I bought during black Friday for about $1500 when other TV'S the same size were going for half that from Walmart etc. It's one of the more high end Samsung and was worth every penny.

I don't know when I'll be buying my next one for 4k but when I do there will be the same considerations taken regarding motion resolution, color, black levels etc, but in addition the bandwidth available to it and it's HDR capabilites.
 
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Davros said:
How are they doing the white pixel ?
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On my LG TV it have white pixel jammed between the usual subpixel. The TV become hilariously low wattage. Like only 30 watts.

It does have weird yellows tho. At least compared to my 15 years old BenQ TN monitor, my multi years Samsung TV, my cheapo polytron TV, and my vaio tap 11.

Easily seen in the folder icon in Windows. The yellow looks weird.

Like.. They are too dead. Muted?
 
My 42" plasma is 1024x768 with rectangular pixels and doesn't even have an HDMI in, but I have it hooked up to a cheap 5.1 1000w sound system I picked up with it which has 4 hdmi inputs on it that I have somehow managed to work in 1080p mode on the TV. (Still not sure how the fuck I pulled that one off, but it really does look pretty damned nice through the HDMI)

Problem, we never use that TV. My wife has a 32" much newer IPS one that she uses exclusively with a FireStick and it suits her perfectly, almost no one else in the house even watches TV...we all watch our shit on our PCs. I just recently upgraded our internet speed and lowered our bill, but somehow we had to get at least basic cable back for the cheaper deal. It's only like $10/mos cheaper, but we doubled our internet up/down speeds+ and have unlimited useage, and we also now have basic cable and one free cable box that tunes in Netflix somehow at 1080 on our living room TV (the 42' plasma) beautifully so I'm just pleased as punch with that.

I'm even thinking of buying some new speaker wire so I can rerun one of the rear speaker wires. I run it between the carpet and the tile and it works insanely well, invisible and non-destructive to the house. Only problem was last time I didn't have enough speaker wire for a straight run so I had two or three splices in it which would stick up and a dog would always snag on it and pull the line out making it look all awful. I finally gave in and just pulled the line and went to a 3.1 setup, but I really want to rerun the wire now since I love the 5.1 effect and it's some cheap wire and then just a nail in the wall to mount the back speakers on. It's starting to turn the living room in to a more social place to hang and chat, and also making me shampoo the rug in there 3 times a day at least instead of two.

I was just trying to use this TV as an excuse to get my wife to go out to MicroCenter so I could upgrade my PC, which I shouldn't and I told her about it and apologized. A 4K TV would sort of be ridiculous overkill for us right now, the cable company charges just for HD (which we don't get under basic cable, cheap bastards!) and I don't want to know what 4K costs from them....rather just get a really long HDMI cable and run it out from my PC to it.

So my apologies, I was honestly curious if this was a decent TV or not but my reasons for my curiosity weren't very virtuous. I apologize if I wasted anyone's time and do appreciate all the input.
 
In the article [about the LG 49" TV] they said the color accuracy was decent, likely you would need it calibrated.
But it's got an interesting mix of crapiness and greatness : they say the input lag, scaling and motion are great (operating system is one of the few better ones as well), about the best features overall except you get an old school crappy, non uniform LCD.

I think that explains a lot - you can get an amazing high tech product but with something that sucks even though it's really high tech (second rate panel from a lousy batch, e.g.). Speakers need not be mentioned, you can always save a buck by putting inadequate ones in, so you would need external speakers anyway.
 
orangpelupa said:
On my LG TV it have white pixel jammed between the usual subpixel.
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yes but how is it done
is it a pixel that actually displays white
is the white created by the rgb subpixels of 3 surrounding pixels
is the pixel just a missing pixel letting the white backlight shine through
 
digitalwanderer said:
So my apologies, I was honestly curious if this was a decent TV or not but my reasons for my curiosity weren't very virtuous. I apologize if I wasted anyone's time and do appreciate all the input.
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So basically a digi ADHD moment :) MUST BUY PC PARTS

ps. Wait for Ryzen lol
 
Blazkowicz said:
In the article [about the LG 49" TV] they said the color accuracy was decent, likely you would need it calibrated.
But it's got an interesting mix of crapiness and greatness : they say the input lag, scaling and motion are great (operating system is one of the few better ones as well), about the best features overall except you get an old school crappy, non uniform LCD.

I think that explains a lot - you can get an amazing high tech product but with something that sucks even though it's really high tech (second rate panel from a lousy batch, e.g.). Speakers need not be mentioned, you can always save a buck by putting inadequate ones in, so you would need external speakers anyway.
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When I copied rtings calibration, my TV looks worse. So probably I need different calibration.

So currently I just use it in standard mode with calibrated color temperature (default is really blue).
 
Sxotty said:
As far as TVs go you need SUHD anyway. The HDR bit is way more important than the 4k bit IMO. Someday I will get one when they quit charging so much for them.
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Or buy SDR 1080P TV with high quality panel. It looks much better than 4k HDR with shitty panel.

Case in point, my old 1080p Samsung vs my new 4k LG.
 
I still have a 50" samsung plasma 1080p. It is ticking along fine still and looks lovely. You are definitely correct that many 4k displays still look worse.
 
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