Looking for a 55" TV

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arijitmaniac

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Hello to all the esteemed members!
This is my first post on this forum, so please pardon (but do point out) any mistakes I make.
I'm looking for a 55" TV for my living room. I stay in Bangalore and my living room is L shaped and the TV would go in the smaller part of the L and there is a balcony to the right (see the image below). As you can see I wont have much of off-center viewing so I guess VA panels are good enough?

Room_Layout_TV.PNG


I started with a budget of 55K but now I'm willing to go upto 90K if there is good value.
We mainly watch OTT content with occasional sports (F1 racing, football, cricket). We dont watch regular TV using a STB (have an airtel xtreme box but used only when parents come to town). I would like to own a Xbox/Playstation in the near future however will only be doing casual gaming on it (I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means).

I was initially looking for a MI Q1 TV and found it pretty impressive (visited MI showroom) for the price but I'm unsure about the long term reliability of brands like MI or OnePlus. Also I'm given to understand that MI is a specs king but struggles in real like performance.
Then started looking at the Big 3 and thats where the confusion started.
I looked at the LG Nano 80 and while it felt really good initially but couldn't find much reviews on it.
Then in Croma I saw the LG Nano80 and OnePlus U1 side by side I found them both similar when playing the exact same content (see photo below of both the TVs playing the same scene from the a pen-drive). The LG Nano 80 is on the left and the OnePlus U1 is on the right.

IMG_20211128_180736_smaller.jpg

From this image we can see that the colours on the OnePlus are punchier and the LG are more natural looking.
But this made me think is the LG really worth for the picture quality? Is the Nano 85 better?

The other TVs that I looked at are the Samsung 55Q60 and 55Q70. Both are entry level QLED TVs and I was able to look at the Q70 in person.
Found it really good picture wise.
Also had a look at the Sony X80J but was frankly underwhelmed considering the price. Its good but the Samsung display felt far better. The Sony is also restricted to 50Hz which means it might be limited even for casual gaming or is it enough?

Also I was considering whether having a HDMI eARC is required?
What are the benefits of ARC and eARC. I've watched a couple of videos that explain but what I would like to know is if it really helps?
In the future I would like to expand my home setup with a AV Receiver and better quality speakers. Should eARC be kept in mind considering the future prospects?

If you have made it this far, I'd like to thank you for reading my post and I'm looking forward to your suggestions.

Thank you all for your consideration.
 
Hi,
The dark side of chinese tv are they are not reliable by a very large number
As fellow member suggested go for big three..recently my brother’s mi tv gone bad panel dead, he then only regret his previous purchase and now bought a sony oled
 
arijitmaniac said:
Hello to all the esteemed members!
This is my first post on this forum, so please pardon (but do point out) any mistakes I make.
I'm looking for a 55" TV for my living room. I stay in Bangalore and my living room is L shaped and the TV would go in the smaller part of the L and there is a balcony to the right (see the image below). As you can see I wont have much of off-center viewing so I guess VA panels are good enough?

View attachment 65485


I started with a budget of 55K but now I'm willing to go upto 90K if there is good value.
We mainly watch OTT content with occasional sports (F1 racing, football, cricket). We dont watch regular TV using a STB (have an airtel xtreme box but used only when parents come to town). I would like to own a Xbox/Playstation in the near future however will only be doing casual gaming on it (I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means).

I was initially looking for a MI Q1 TV and found it pretty impressive (visited MI showroom) for the price but I'm unsure about the long term reliability of brands like MI or OnePlus. Also I'm given to understand that MI is a specs king but struggles in real like performance.
Then started looking at the Big 3 and thats where the confusion started.
I looked at the LG Nano 80 and while it felt really good initially but couldn't find much reviews on it.
Then in Croma I saw the LG Nano80 and OnePlus U1 side by side I found them both similar when playing the exact same content (see photo below of both the TVs playing the same scene from the a pen-drive). The LG Nano 80 is on the left and the OnePlus U1 is on the right.

View attachment 65486

From this image we can see that the colours on the OnePlus are punchier and the LG are more natural looking.
But this made me think is the LG really worth for the picture quality? Is the Nano 85 better?

The other TVs that I looked at are the Samsung 55Q60 and 55Q70. Both are entry level QLED TVs and I was able to look at the Q70 in person.
Found it really good picture wise.
Also had a look at the Sony X80J but was frankly underwhelmed considering the price. Its good but the Samsung display felt far better. The Sony is also restricted to 50Hz which means it might be limited even for casual gaming or is it enough?

Also I was considering whether having a HDMI eARC is required?
What are the benefits of ARC and eARC. I've watched a couple of videos that explain but what I would like to know is if it really helps?
In the future I would like to expand my home setup with a AV Receiver and better quality speakers. Should eARC be kept in mind considering the future prospects?

If you have made it this far, I'd like to thank you for reading my post and I'm looking forward to your suggestions.

Thank you all for your consideration.
Click to expand...
Please don't buy LG nanocel television, I purchased 2 months before nono 86 # not a good quality television, I sold 10 day's before,,
 
Thank you all for your very valuable responses!
After looking at multiple options, I've decided to choose one among the Sony X80J and the LG Nano91.
Both come in the similar price points. Approx. 80k.

My mind is heavily tilted towards the LG just because it offers much more at a slight cost of picture quality.
For e.g. both the Sony and LG TVs have IPS panels with similar contrast (LG is slightly higher even without considering the local dimming).
The LG is also brighter and has an anti-reflective coating which should technically allow it to perform better in bright rooms (my room is bright).
But the main advantage I see with the LG is the prospect of being able to have a good gaming setup in the future considering the TV supports VRR and Freesync (LG has good gaming capabilities across its TVs and monitors).

So all this will come at a cost of picture quality as Sony does have better picture processing capabilities.

Would like to know what others feel? If anyone feels other way please help me out!

Mahi said:
Please don't buy LG nanocel television, I purchased 2 months before nono 86 # not a good quality television, I sold 10 day's before,,
Click to expand...

Please let us know why you felt so and why did you sell it?
 
Hi,
I was in the same dilemma last year, oscillating between the LG Nano series and Sony X90H, I ended up with the Sony X90H 55" as it offered better blacks and more contrast, but I feel you would need a darker room for either TV. If there are so many open spaces it's best to look at the Samsung QLED's, they offer more brightness, but they are expensive and I couldn't stretch my budget. The LG CX(never got to the demo any Sony OLED's) was my favorite, but the Samsung Q90T was no slouch either, but for more bright rooms, I personally feel the Samsung's would outshine.

Good luck with your purchase.
 
I have both Sony and LG TVs.

I prefer Sony , by quite a margin, for 2 reasons :
- the colours and picture quality of Sony TVs is much more realistic / natural
- I like the Android TV interface of Sony far more than the WebOS of LG

These are of course personal preferences.

Many may prefer the brighter colours of LG TVs.
And many do like the WebOS interface.

A final point - for WebOS updates and apps, there is complete dependency on LG.

Android TV however, is mainatined by Google, and regularly updated.
It also has a very large ecosystem of apps.
 
arijitmaniac said:
Thank you all for your very valuable responses!
After looking at multiple options, I've decided to choose one among the Sony X80J and the LG Nano91.
Both come in the similar price points. Approx. 80k.

My mind is heavily tilted towards the LG just because it offers much more at a slight cost of picture quality.
For e.g. both the Sony and LG TVs have IPS panels with similar contrast (LG is slightly higher even without considering the local dimming).
The LG is also brighter and has an anti-reflective coating which should technically allow it to perform better in bright rooms (my room is bright).
But the main advantage I see with the LG is the prospect of being able to have a good gaming setup in the future considering the TV supports VRR and Freesync (LG has good gaming capabilities across its TVs and monitors).

So all this will come at a cost of picture quality as Sony does have better picture processing capabilities.

Would like to know what others feel? If anyone feels other way please help me out!



Please let us know why you felt so and why did you sell it?
Click to expand...
Bleeding issues, # worst television, # iam a big fan of LG global company, # but this time in 2021 series television not toooooo good, # today also I used 5 year old LG television only,
 
arijitmaniac said:
Thank you all for your very valuable responses!
After looking at multiple options, I've decided to choose one among the Sony X80J and the LG Nano91.
Both come in the similar price points. Approx. 80k.

My mind is heavily tilted towards the LG just because it offers much more at a slight cost of picture quality.
For e.g. both the Sony and LG TVs have IPS panels with similar contrast (LG is slightly higher even without considering the local dimming).
The LG is also brighter and has an anti-reflective coating which should technically allow it to perform better in bright rooms (my room is bright).
But the main advantage I see with the LG is the prospect of being able to have a good gaming setup in the future considering the TV supports VRR and Freesync (LG has good gaming capabilities across its TVs and monitors).

So all this will come at a cost of picture quality as Sony does have better picture processing capabilities.

Would like to know what others feel? If anyone feels other way please help me out!



Please let us know why you felt so and why did you sell it?
Click to expand...
Why arnt you considering Samsung Frame tv?
 
Thank you everyone for your help!
I have purchased the Samsung Frame 55".
I got installed today.
Initial impressions seem very good. Will update more as I experience the TV more.
 
arijitmaniac said:
Thank you everyone for your help!
I have purchased the Samsung Frame 55".
I got installed today.
Initial impressions seem very good. Will update more as I experience the TV more.
Click to expand...
Congratulations on your new acquisition. Looking forward to your reviews on the same.
 
Dont think of LG for non OLED tvs.

Sony, get one of the FALD tvs and settle. x90+. Ideally if you can get one of the x95 from yesteryear, grab that. Avoid x80 and below if you want to keep the upgrade itch at bay. They are good but wont hold a candle to x90 and above.

X90 of yesteryear is better than x80 of current year. They almost come with same pricing if you are tight on budget.

Samsungs look better than sonys in showrooms due to high peak brightness. Once calibrated, sony almost always wins. Sony processors also tops the upscaling game especially this year.

Avoid chinese stuff at that budget.

X90 usually comes to 80-90k levels during festive season or shankranti times. Wait for a few days and get one or pay the premium. They are not bad with premium pricing too.

I have sony and LG OLEDs and prefer sony by a margin.
 
Hello All,

Finally getting around to writing this review.

So I've purchased the Samsung The Frame 55" 2021 model. Here is the TV in my room.
It looks very thin (2021 Frame is thinner) and the new wall mount (included) actually makes it sit very close to the wall. In fact there is hardly space to even put your fingers behind the TV when using the new mount. This new mount has two plates which attache on the wall instead of just one.

IMG_20220201_114953.jpg

As part of the ongoing promotions from Croma, we also got an extra set of of bezels free.
They were Teak coloured and there was no option to choose any other colour from Croma. But I felt the Teak one was not so bad and somewhat matches our decor and so left them attached. The bezels definitely could be designed to fit the TV a little better. We found that it was a little tricky to get a good fit with no gaps. That spoils the photo frame look somehwhat unless you can make them fit well. Its fine from a distance though. You really need to get close to find the gaps. Without the bezels the TV would look completely black.

The TV comes with the Samsung OneConnect box which handles all the I/O and power. There is only one cable from the OneConnect box to the TV (you can see coming down from TV at the center). Yes the single cable is that thin. If you manage to route it properly, you can completly hide it. I really like this approach as all cables can move away from the TV itself.

Now coming to the performance of the TV.
Display:
In one word, amazing!
It is really bright and brings out the highlights amazingly well. The colors are also really vibrant and punchy and skin tones also appear bright but nothing that makes it unnatural.
I found myself rewatching some series just to immerse myself in the details and see the scenes in their full glory. For e.g. the final episode of breaking bad has some daylight scenese that looked stunning in HDR! Here is a pic taken on my phone
IMG_20220201_154033.jpg
Even scenes with mixed lighting etc, the details were well preserved.
IMG_20220201_154103.jpg

Colours are also handled pretty good and the gradients dont have much banding (see the beverage image, blue gradient)
IMG_20220131_190718.jpgIMG_20220131_191038.jpg

We dont watch cable TV at all. So wont be able to comment on SDR and regular performance I guess it should be good enough.

Sound:
Sound from the TV is not great. It's not tinny but lacks depth and richness. I guess thats a given considering how thin the TV is. It begs for a sound bar or proper speakers. I have the TV hooked up to my old F&D F6000u via optical cable and a Optical to 5.1 decoder (you can see it in the first pic).
This way I get good sound. Content with good surround sound works well and the separation can really be felt. Without external speakers, the TV tries to replicate this using its OTS Lite feature which basically selectively chooses speakers based on scene. Could find much difference with it.
One thing I noticed is that if my speakers are connected to the TV, the sound comes from both the TV and the speakers. I'm not sure how surround sound is handled in this case. Need to explore more.

Art mode:
USP of the Frame TVs, the Art mode displays art from various places worldwide. You need to subscribe to it to be able to see the complete art collection (not worth in my opinion) but I got an offer from Samsung so I have access to the collection. You can also set your own photos using the SmartThings app on your phone but I could never get it to work. The app always crashes when you try to do this.
In the art mode, the TV changes the picture settings so that the art looks more natural. I found it working to an extent. You can still see that its a display but its quite close. You can play with the picture tone to make it look accurate as per your surroundings but the defaults are pretty good! Here is a pic of the art mode on my TV. The TV goes into art mode by default when you press the power button on the remote. To completly turn off the TV, you need to press and hold the power button.
IMG_20220201_154222.jpg

Ambient mode:
This is like art mode but instead of showing art pieces, it can display various other stuff and you can choose to show dynamic info here. For e.g. you can show the current time and weather info. Or you can make the TV display the surrounding wall pattern as if the TV is transparent. You need to use the SmartThings app to take a photo of the TV and it will try to use the surroundings to make a wallpaper for the TV.
It didnt work well though. I guess it will work better with simpler surroundings. In my case, it just picked some pattern and repeadted it. Here is what I could manage finally. See the repeating pic on the right. Unfortunately there is no way to control this via the app.
IMG_20220119_011333_small.jpg

Remote:
The TV comes with the new remote from Samsung. It looks like a small candy bar and has a solar cell at the bottom which is supposed to charge th remote using even ambient lighting present in your home. It also has a USB-C port to charge the remote quickly.
In my case the remote neever charged using the solar cell. It was losing charge. I'm not sure if it was because it was never charged any time.
I charged it up using the USB-C port and the remote has been maintaining 100% battery since then. So, I still dont understand it well.

UI:
The UI is easy enough to navigate and the settings are easy enough to change. However I have kept the TV in intelligent mode for now which does seem to work well. I'm yet to explore the settings fully.

SmartThings app:
The TV can be controlled by Samsungs SmartThings app. It allows, stuff like a on-screen remote (works, not fast but can do the job), setting up the art/ambient modes etc on your TV. Although the app is pretty unstable and crashes frequently (especially when trying to set up your own pics for art mode).

Overall impressions:
Overall I think this is a brilliant TV at the price and it offers excellent picture quality and awesome HDR. The sound could have been better but a sound bar/external speakers fixes this. I'm a happy buyer. I'll update the review as I find more things.
 
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