What Drives Your TV Purchase Decision?
What motivates you to buy a television: picture quality, value, screen size, or brand loyalty?
These criteria often include terms like brightness in nits, dimming zones, and Delta-E color accuracy. I would hazard a guess and say “probably not.”
This isn’t to suggest these areas lack importance, but it’s likely most TV buyers aren’t familiar with them—some can’t tell their nits from their candelas, while others simply don’t care.
And that’s perfectly okay.
Yet, the TV market seems fixated on dimensions and numbers, prompting the question: to what end?
Playing the Numbers Game
In most cases, you likely won’t encounter these technical terms when shopping for a TV. Listings on sites like Currys, Amazon, and Richer Sounds bombard you with marketing jargon that resembles equations or formulas (NQ4 AI Gen3, a9 AI processor).
On our site, the reviewers’ site, we delve into these technical aspects. Naturally, we need to comprehend how they work, but I admit that some aspects are beyond my understanding, requiring education and inquiries.
As TVs advance, they become increasingly complex. AI has contributed to this intricacy. For some TV manufacturers, it’s simpler to integrate AI into their brand narrative than to explain the complete technology story, maintaining consumer interest and engagement.
Photo credit (trusted reviews)
AI has enabled TVs to achieve higher performance levels. However, it has also made TV a numbers game—my number is bigger than yours.
But what does it really mean? If I have a TV from Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, and TCL, and they all reach 3000 nits brightness, which one is superior? The one with more dimming zones, a broader color spectrum, or the best Delta E number?
Focusing on these areas turns it into a spec battle, and for most people, these measurements lack context in their living room. If the picture looks good, then it looks good. Metrics like Delta E, tone mapping, and color gamut may confuse buyers, complicating decisions rather than simplifying them.
Welcome to the Real World
The TV that sparked this discussion was the Hisense UR9.
On paper, this TV boasts impressive specs. It features RGB Mini-LED technology, offering purer colors and a wider range than traditional LCD TVs, with greater accuracy. It has nearly 1000 dimming zones and achieves peak brightness of 4000 nits. These specs suggest a formidable contender.
Why was I disappointed with the UR9’s image?
The colors weren’t as vibrant or bright. The sharpness and detail fell short compared to an LG OLED65G6 placed next to it. Dynamic mode, purportedly the brightest, appeared dull. Filmmaker mode, Cinema mode, and IMAX Enhanced mode all looked identical, making me suspect an issue with the TV.
Photo credit (trusted reviews)
Reasons? I suspect the anti-reflection/anti-glare screen hindered Hisense, affecting detail, sharpness, and contrast—similar to what I observed with Hisense’s Canvas TV. The highlights and overall brightness weren’t as high as measurements suggested, and black levels weren’t as deep or strong as anticipated.
Viewing angles were subpar due to the panel type, and colors were slightly off, despite reviews noting the UR9’s out-of-the-box accuracy.
Something seemed amiss with the TV’s picture quality.
Personally, I wonder if this stems from Hisense’s picture quality (PQ) philosophy or its perspective on colors. Every brand has a PQ philosophy; Sony aims to reflect the creator’s intent, as do LG and Panasonic, while Samsung strives to deliver the brightest, most colorful viewing experience with every available technology.
However, Hisense’s philosophy remains unclear to me. In the past, I’ve observed a reliance on Dolby Vision, which isn’t their PQ philosophy but Dolby’s.
Earlier this year, I witnessed a shootout among several TVs: OLED, Mini LED, RGB Mini LED, and SQD Mini LED. The Hisense model performed the worst, with all test samples and demos leading to issues.
One sample particularly highlighted Hisense’s lack of precision. The pattern was a white rectangle surrounded by green. Other TVs displayed the white rectangle accurately; the Hisense displayed it with a green tint.
The core of it? What is written on paper in the specifications cannot always be translated into reality.
Don’t be swayed by specs, charts, and statistics. Not everything is always as it seems.
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