New Mini-LED is impressive
Needed a new bedroom TV, went with the Vizio Mini-LED, which was $400 for the 65 inch. At that price it seemed too good to be true, but I didn’t really care because we rarely use the TV in our bedroom. With that being said here is my amateur review after spending a few weeks with it:
PROs: I was pleasantly surprised when the picture quality turned out to be shockingly good for a $400 TV. It’s an IPS panel so I was expecting some blooming, but they did a good job keeping it in check for the most part (what you see in these pics is about as bad as it gets). Viewing angle is great, as expected with an IPS panel TV. I’m also really happy with the color accuracy, especially in calibrated mode + local dimming set to standard. What really caught my eye was the brightness of HDR highlights — they gotta be approaching 1000 nits, because they truly do pop. Finally, motion handling seems to be pretty good to my eye. Transitions are clean and crisp, I haven’t noticed any smearing or stuttering in fast scenes, kind of expected with an IPS panel since they handle motion better in general vs VA.
CONs: It’s 4k @ 60hz, but can’t expect 120 Hz with a $400 TV, and it’s is not my gaming TV, so I didn’t care. (It does do 1080P @ 120hz, though I haven’t tried that yet). Another thing I didn’t like but the fact that you have to create a Walmart account or migrate your VIZIO account. That being said, I knew there would be trade-offs for a TV with picture quality this good at this price, and that trade-off is Walmart putting ads in your home. Plus, you can turn all that data tracking off in the extras menu anyway, not to mention I use an Apple TV so not really relevant to me. Another thing I didn’t like but the fact that’s the back of the TV looks cheap and industrial. Thankfully, the front looks good— bezel-less ok 3 sides and a matte metallic strip on the bottom. Finally, there are only three HDMI ports, which would suck for anyone using it as their main TV if they have a lot of connected devices. Anyone with more than three would have to buy an HDMI switch.
…
Overall, the PROs far outweigh the CONs in my opinion. To me, picture quality has always been my number one requirement in a TV, and this one definitely checks that box, and it does so at budget TV prices. A lot of those negative aspects I mentioned are almost certainly due to cost cutting, which is totally understandable, because again, this damn Mini-LED was $400, and it performs like a $1000+ panel.
I know half the comments will be “Yeah but it’s a Vizio and it will die in like 1 year bro.” I admit it definitely seemed like they were in a rough patch for a few years there, but personally, I’ve never had any problems with any of mine.
I’m starting to wonder if the Walmart acquisition might be a good thing for them. I’m sure those deep pockets will help with quality control, and it looks like Walmart is setting Vizio up to be their mid-premium brand, with ONN being their dirt cheap brand.
There’s no TV right now on the market that even comes close to this performance for this price, including Hisense and TCL— even their comparable are hundreds more. To me, that sounds a lot like the Vizio of old.