New TV advice

[NewtonHawk11]

Buying a new TV for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

For our living room area. Seeing a 55” Insignia Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR Fire TV Edition. About $350 through Best Buy.

Thoughts on that? We stream with Sling and Netflix mostly through a fire stick. Is 4K worth it and does that work through streaming?

I know a little bit about tech stuff, but still fairly new with streaming and how that works.

[colbond]

Had a TV fried by lightning a few months ago and picked up a 55" TCL 4k off Amazon. Little more expensive than the serious bargains, but the picture quality is outstanding for the price.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079N9HDNQ/

[colbond]

To answer your question, netflix and amazon prime video have some 4k content, but there isn't a ton out there yet. The newer fire stick can do 4k but not older ones. If you're buying a TV now, I'd get 4k since it'll only get more common over the next few years and if you don't do it now you'll end up wanting a new TV before long.

[NewtonHawk11]

Appreciate it Col!

Just trying to figure out how all that works.

[kubandalum]

Is the quality of non-4K programming just as good on a 4K screen as on a non-4K screen? I’ve only seen a 4K screen demoed in a store once and I was blown away by it.

[colbond]

Is the quality of non-4K programming just as good on a 4K screen as on a non-4K screen? I’ve only seen a 4K screen demoed in a store once and I was blown away by it.

Yeah should be. More than 4k vs HD it'll vary by the quality of the panel used. Even within the brand I linked you'll see Smart 4k 55" TVs range from about $300 to about $700. That's a pretty big range that's largely going toward the quality of the panel. Usually shows up in how dark a black area of the screen can get and how well the colors are represented. There are processors in the TV that handle scaling SD/HD up to 4k and there could be quality differences in that as well, but I haven't seen as big of differences. Stores are always going to try to demo the best looking content to make a sale, so if you're looking in a store I've always heard to change the channel/input to something that represents most of what you're going to watch.

[shindig]

I recently purchased a 50" Samsung 4K OLED for $500 from Costco...probably get it cheaper during Black Friday. Great TV so far. Make sure the processor is 120 MHz and not 60.

[NewtonHawk11]

Got it today. 55in. Priced dropped even more. $250. Pre-Black friday sale. Way too good to pass up. I’m pumped.