Which buyers guide televisions

These new 8K televisions are very expensive, too. But this year, we are seeing more 8K sets from more brands, in screen sizes starting at 65 inches. While all those millions of extra pixels promise sharper, more detailed images than what you can currently get with 4K UHD TVs, that doesn't mean an 8K set makes sense for most people. Over-the-air TV is advancing, too. This refers to a standard for broadcasting signals over the air. Next-Gen TV is still available in just a few areas of the country, but more are coming.

The standard lets TV signals carry a lot more data, so broadcasters can start offering 4K programs and movies with HDR that get beamed to ordinary television antennas. With Next-Gen TV, you may eventually be able to get TV shows and other content on smartphones, tablets, and even in moving vehicles. Broadcasters are also promising improvements in emergency and weather alert systems. Only a few sets come with one. However, you probably don't need to worry about that if you're television shopping.

Though TV shoppers are seeing new technology in , a lot of the basic information you need to choose a TV has remained the same. Below is what you need to understand about screen size and other factors to make an informed decision. Remember when a inch TV seemed gigantic? Well, TVs with and inch screens are now commonplace. In , the popularity of bigger sets is continuing. Paul Gagnon, a senior research director at market research firm Omdia, says he expects to inch TVs—mainly inch sets—to account for 18 percent of U.

And even bigger TVs, 70 inches and larger, should account for 10 percent of sales. There are no hard-and-fast rules for determining the right size TV—personal preference, the field of view, and even visual acuity come into play. However, if you'd like some guidance, you can try one of the many free online calculators available, or apply the following equation.

You can simply reverse the arithmetic if you want to start out with the viewing distance. Measure the distance from your couch to the TV in feet, divide that number by 1. You can make the math even simpler if you just measure everything in inches. These days, just about all larger sets are 4K UHD models. Because these TVs have more densely packed pixels, you can go larger, and your seating distance can be as close as the screen diagonal itself.

Just remember that the goal is to create a comfortable, immersive viewing experience. One unusual development this year is that TV prices actually rose across the board, for reasons ranging from component shortages to higher shipping costs. Below are rough price ranges for several screen sizes.

In general, the bigger the screen, the more expensive the set. Of course, performance matters, too—for a given price you can often get a smaller screen with better performance or a larger screen with less performance. As you can see, for the biggest sets the range is enormous, from just a few hundred dollars up into the thousands. A regular high-definition HD set is also called a p model because its screen resolution is x That means it has 1, pixels horizontally and 1, pixels vertically, so it contains roughly 2 million pixels in all.

The more densely packed array of pixels in UHD sets makes them capable of greater picture detail. We're now also starting to see the first so-called 8K TVs, which have screen resolutions of x, with more than 33 million pixels. You will still find p and p TVs in the smaller screen sizes—say, 32 inches and smaller. There is now a decent amount of 4K content to watch, especially from streaming services such as Amazon and Netflix.

We expect more to come on the market in the future. Another benefit of 4K TVs: Most now support high dynamic range HDR and a wider palette of colors, for more vibrant, natural-looking images. To find out more about high dynamic range, see our HDR section below. And right now, it's hard to find a UHD TV smaller than 39 inches, although we do have one inch 4K set in our ratings. Just remember that resolution is only one of a number of attributes that a TV has to get right to produce excellent overall picture quality.

Regular HD TVs remain a great choice for many consumers when you factor in price, especially in screen sizes smaller than 65 inches. Thanks to its higher-resolution x screen, a 4K TV can display greater detail than a p set when presented with high-quality UHD content. New 8K TVs, with x screens, are capable of even greater fine detail. Images on these sets appear sharper, with smoother lines on the edges of objects, depending on your viewing distance.

Many UHD sets attempt to enhance the image in other ways. For example, many better TVs now have sophisticated video processing and use artificial intelligence to upscale lower-resolution content to the TV's 4K or 8K screens.

And most 4K sets now support HDR, which provides a higher level of contrast between the lightest and darkest images. More content that has been encoded with HDR is available every year.

As we previously noted, one of the most exciting recent TV developments is high dynamic range, or HDR. When done right, HDR boosts a TV's brightness, contrast, and color, making the pictures on the screen look more like real life. The dramatized image below shows that when HDR is at work, you'll see details that might not otherwise be obvious, from the texture of the brick on a shady walkway to nuances in the white clouds in a daytime sky.

You'll also see brighter, more realistic "specular highlights," which are glints of light, such as the sun's reflection off a car's chrome bumper or an airplane wing.

HDR does all that by increasing the contrast between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks a TV can produce. But you won't see all that fantastic contrast and color every time you turn on the TV. Find out where you can watch 4K content with HDR. First, your TV should automatically detect the type of HDR being used in the content and choose the right way to play it. Second, the type of HDR doesn't seem to be too important right now.

Please try a different postcode or suburb. If yes and you know your wall can handle the weight , make sure you add a wall-mounting bracket to your TV purchase. Remember, TV measurements are taken diagonally across the screen i. Luckily, technology advances mean that whilst screen sizes are now much bigger, televisions can be just an inch thin — saving considerable space. The resolution of your TV screen determines how sharp the picture quality will be. If you watch a lot of sport, action movies or play fast-paced games on your TV, a screen with a high resolution will give you better picture clarity.

These days there are two main types of TV screen technology:. So what is OLED? An 8K resolution gives you outstandingly crisp detail thanks to 33 million pixels — four times as many as 4K UHD. You see perfect picture definition close up on an 8K TV — from just 2m away on a 65 inch, 2. What is Ultra HD? What is UHD Premium? Some TVs can auto record your favourite shows, some have hands free voice control, and some suggest new content you might like based on what you already watch.

What is a smart TV? A smart TV has built-in internet connectivity. Read Post a comment. Characters Remaining: Continue without login. Login from existing account Facebook Google Email. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter.

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