Televisions used to cost nearly 10,000
today bucks and you'd get a tiny little screen in a giant cabinet. But today you
can get a perfectly chromulent TV for just $30. Okay, it's not exactly a
cinema in your home, but we bought this from Best Buy for $35.
So why would you spend more? Well, if you pony up $300, you'll get something
larger, sleeker, and high definitioner.
Is this the sweet spot? If you're not a cinnophile, probably. But if you spend
$3,000 of dollars like we used to on
TVs, you could get a state-of-the-art OLED panel that makes everything we've
looked at so far look like it was designed for Linusized humans with very
poor eyesight. But what if you could spend three tens, thousands of dollars?
How much more TV do you really get when you spend car money on a television set?
Is it worth it? Or is this little guy good enough? After all, even this is
practically science fiction technology compared to what your parents grew up
with. I mean, look how clear the picture is. Hey, I can even make out this segue
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Let's kick things off with the best deals that I've gotten in a long time.
This openbox 32in Insignia NS-32F 201
NA23. Okay, sure. It's only in fair
condition and it sports just a 1280 x 720p resolution, but it comes with a
short open box warranty. The display itself actually looks pretty good. And
come on guys, 35 bucks is 35 bucks. Who needs the full high definition when the
screen is this small? You probably even
at just 32 in guess the PPI. It's like 45 PPI.
>> 45 pixels. >> That is small pi.
And the worst part is that because this
was an open box deal, normally you would pay a lot more for this thing. On Black
Friday promo, it was more like $70, which is about twice what we paid for
it. And the value proposition gets
pretty questionable at that point. Let's give it a shot. You know, the remote,
>> it's fine. >> It feels okay. >> Yeah, it's better than the Samsung
remote we'll try later. >> Wow. You can really see those dark areas
in the corners. >> I don't think that's a defect, sir. I
think that's just the TV. >> For being a 720p display, the text looks
crisper than I expected, though. >> Smaller than I expected.
>> It's It's tiny. But growing up, I would have been stoked for a TV like this.
>> We've already run into a problem. What button am I supposed to press?
>> Okay, I actually can't tell from here. >> Oh, it is. It's the home button.
>> Why does it have to do this? We turned the TV on with it. This is a Fire TV.
>> Yeah, you're getting Fire TV builtin. >> It's not the worst smart TV platform.
And 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Show me anything else for $35 that has 5 GHz support. My eyes
are starting to dry out just looking at this for this long. Full. Uh, yeah.
Let's go with just not installing any of your is not an option.
>> All of the ads it works. Okay, but what's this show called?
>> Okay. No, from the thumbnail. I know that it is only because I recognize
>> as much fun as we're having making fun of the Fire TV experience, though. We
want consistency as we're evaluating all our different TV sets. So, we're going
to switch over to an NVIDIA Shield really quick here. It's got three
inputs, though, which all things considered, not that bad. And does have
an optical jack, which if I was running a TV like this, I would 100% want a
soundbar, and that would be extremely handy. >> Well, I had even thought of the speaker
quality. >> Uh oh, input. I forgot about this. Yeah,
there's no input button. Ridiculous. >> I expect that on a Samsung TV.
Frustrated with seeing the same ads on repeat. Well, that's how their TV is.
$35 open box. >> Let's go to that spot we like to watch.
>> These are better than I expected. >> Harsh, but clear.
>> If you had a child and sat them in front of this TV and turned the speakers on,
they would be stoked. >> They would not care. >> Is it TN? It doesn't seem like it.
>> No, I'm pretty sure this is VA. >> So it is. So it is. Like, dude, it's
kind of fine. >> That's not terrible viewing angles. >> No, I'm downright impressed.
>> And for only $35, open box fair. It's
normally 70 bucks on sale. >> And the distance.
>> It is funny how almost the exact same size it is.
>> And your speakers are probably better. >> Plus, this is OLED. You know, just
because it doesn't get over like 300 nits of brightness, that doesn't mean
it's not bright enough. >> Oh, it's very usable. >> Do you want to know what the color
accuracy is? I'm gonna guess delta E
average of 13 >> in standard mode. Yes. But it has a film
mode. >> No. >> Yeah. It's got a film mode. >> Shut up. >> Yeah. And in the film mode, it gets an
average of six with a max of like 12. >> That's not bad. >> That's not bad. Like it's not amazing.
The only real downside to this TV, aside from like size and pixel density, the
latency, even with game mode on, it's still bad. It measures at like 7
milliseconds over the theoretical perfect. Even that's not that bad
compared to Okay, it's not not that long ago. I could game with an extra 7
milliseconds of latency. In summary, no, it's not amazing, but it's amazingly
better than I expected, even at the non-open box price, making it perfect
for something like a dentist office or a guest or a kids' room. Who I would say
it's not for though, is someone who is struggling with affordability and
looking for a primary display. For those folks, I really do think you'd be better
off just holding the phone that you probably already have until something
pops up on a local buy nothing group or
if you could pick up something like a used monitor. Full HD units tend to go
for about this price or in some cases
even cheaper if you pick one up secondhand. And they're not that much
smaller. They are smaller. Okay, they are smaller. But this is a classic like
boots theory of economics situation where spending money on lowquality crap
is going to cost you more in the long run. And even though this thing looks
fine today, I have serious doubts about how long it'll last. Yeah. Any of our
TVs, we're not going to be doing long-term testing. So, nothing is
necessarily a recommendation. >> Did you lift it?
>> Oh, yeah. It weighs like nothing at all. Nothing at all.
>> You're sure this is 720p, right? Like it's not bad. That's what it's
advertised as. >> Now, let's see what happens when we decouple our budget and pick up the 55
R4C5. This is nuts. I mean, if you told
teenage me that he could buy a 55 in 4K
TV for $300, he would have immediately
dropped his discman, shattered his hybrid Theory CD, and sprinted to the
local Future Shop. I mean, sure, it's a pretty basic LCD panel, so don't expect
a great HDR experience, but we have not
only tripled our total screen area, we
have also jumped to a whopping 80 pixels per inch, which is going to result in a
much sharper image. We're also getting one of the better smart TV
implementations with Roku builtin, which
is a bit of a hot take now that it's clear how much of your data they're
stealing. >> Yeah, but everyone's stealing your data. >> Yes. And unlike Tyizen OS, which also
advertises to on top of stealing your data, at least Roku is somewhat pleasant
to navigate. Hold for 5 seconds. Now that is clear instructions.
>> Yeah. TV much bigger. Is it doing >> pairing process?
>> Now this is a TV that I could get behind spending $300 on. Oh, did we just give
Roku a pass for being like kind of awful? I forgot about this part. You
cannot use this TV without an account. Roku, go yourself. Also doesn't
have a source button. >> Is there a home button, though? >> No input button.
>> Yeah, that is annoying. No, we can't seem to reach you at Roku. Sucks.
>> Please activate in the next 30 minutes. Wait. Oh,
>> what? >> I have to select stupid apps on my phone.
>> Oh, CBC gem. Let's go.
>> Setup complete. >> Was there a minimum amount that you had to select as well? No. Could select
zero. Okay. maximizing fun factor.
>> Okay, this is just joking around. >> Oh, I thought you were pointing at how many apps are on it. That's why they
didn't have to have me select any. They preloaded 44 on my behalf. Back didn't
go back to home. >> Oh, that is stupid. Why doesn't it just go back? >> Because it's Apple logic. Wherever I
just came from. >> Take me there. >> Take me there. >> That's why it's called the back button.
>> I thought it was cuz baby got it. >> That's >> like the last set. We've got three
HDMIs. one with ER as well as optical audio, but we actually lose the 3 and a
half millimeter jack. We get a coax jack, an Ethernet port, and a type-C USB
port. Why is it so damn hard to just find the input? They don't want you to
use anything but the TV. TV inputs.
>> It's so buried, too. Why is it down here? HDMI mode. No, just I just I want
to use it. What's the rocket ship button? Quick launch. Hold to change
this shortcut. >> Change it to an input button. >> I'm going to try. You got to be kidding
me. >> You can change it so it goes to the Roku channel, though.
Okay, home. It's Maybe it's down here somewhere. Oh my god, it's below the
fold on the home screen. That is some passive aggressive level I
just want you to use the TV. >> Okay, so movie is just warmer. Wow, this
is actually pretty well configured out of the box.
>> Y >> not bad anti-glare. Not great. >> It's not amazing, but like it's totally
usable. Oh, very usable. >> I think we just didn't notice the anti-glare coating on the previous TV
because of how small.
>> This is a wild take. >> Hold on. >> Was the last one brighter? Because I
think it was. >> This one. >> Oh, and the gamma handling is like bad.
>> The problem with having all of these like dynamic contrast enhancer and other
settings like that >> Yeah. >> is it's not going to look amazing until
you find the right setting for it. I mean, it's only on like low.
>> I know, but turn it up to high. >> You're going to get less color accuracy,
but it'll probably be a brighter image that most people are going to prefer. >> Oh, hold on. We're in dark HDR,
>> which is the most accurate, I will say.
>> The bright one looks horrible. Standard
looks a little poppier, >> but look, everything in the back is
crushed. It's all crushed. This is not supposed to look like this.
>> There's no full array local dimming. >> There wasn't full array local dimming on
the last one. >> I know, but it also wasn't trying to do HDR at all. But my point of comparison
is a $30 TV that make Look how bad that
looks. The entire right side of the frame is just black.
>> Maybe don't use HDR on a TV that's not meant for HDR.
>> I didn't advertise it as HDR. >> I know when available. Okay, sure.
>> Okay, I can turn off HDR.
>> I would take this over the last image. >> I would too. >> 100%. Not even close. This is why you
don't get an HDR TV that just says HDR
and then play HDR content on it. You need >> full local dimming.
>> Full array local dimming, which is only going to come in miniLEDD or OLED.
>> Yeah, >> cuz microLED is not out yet. >> Well, not in consumer space
>> at a price that anyone cares about. >> Definitely not at $300.
>> Look how much better this is, though. >> It really is like everything in the background. You can still make it out.
And it's just because the whole thing is kind of lifted. Yeah. I'd rather watch
this. >> How are the speakers, though?
I don't think they're even better than the last one. >> Not really. No. But like they're both
okay. >> You can really tell what they've tuned for. Like right in the vocal range.
>> Yeah. >> Everything else, don't worry about it. How was the lab's results?
>> Not awful. >> We're getting a little over 200 nits in SDR, about 320 in HDR.
>> Yeah. And that lack of brightness, even compared to our $35, $70 TV, you really
see it. >> Yeah. Our color accuracy is not bad, both in SDR and HDR. And our latency is
similar to the last TV. At 60 Hz, we're getting 5.2 milliseconds over our
theoretical perfect. >> Very usable. Something to note, by the way, is we made these purchases before
Black Friday, so these aren't even necessarily the best deals you can find.
We saw a similar TCL for as little as $170 as a doorbuster sale, which is
flipping wild. As for our TV, okay, it's
10 times the price, but you are getting nine times the pixels and in my humble
opinion, other benefits that I think clock it in at over 10 times the
enjoyment. >> Yeah, as much as certain things weren't that much better.
>> Yeah, the speakers. Wow. >> But the size and resolution alone,
>> without question, this is the bang for the buck Goldilocks right here. Of
course, that doesn't make it absolute cinema either. What happens if we 10x
our budget again? Wo, that's bigger TV.
Damn, what a glorious beast you are. The
Samsung S85F83 in. We're calling this our $3,000 TV,
but we got an absolute steal of a deal on it, and so can you. Just like how a
savvy shopper avoids buying an iPhone in August, savvy TV buyers can follow the
industry's predictable cycle to get amazing deals. See, the new models
usually get announced in January, then they land in the spring or the summer.
That means that when fall rolls around, the discounts come out to play, and you
can often get something that hasn't even been replaced yet for significantly less
money. Because of this, we got an 83in
OLED for under our budget at just $2500.
And it's packed with all kinds of features that you would expect on a
high-end freaking giant freaking OLED, like four HDMI ports. It's worth noting,
by the way, that as good as this thing is, it did have a pretty serious
challenger. >> Yeah, the LG C5 also had an 83in model
for sale, but it was $3,200, >> so it's over our budget, but according
to ratings, I mean, it's the better TV. >> Well, before we say that, why don't we
fire this up? >> Sure. >> Wow, this thing is a monster.
>> We did get the S85 instead of the 95, so
it's not quite the top end model. >> Well, yeah, but like
>> I know. Yeah, but it's also just regular OLED. Samsung can't make cutie OLED in
this size yet. >> Thank you for choosing Smart Things. Did
I choose Smart Things or did I have Smart Things jammed down my throat? Why
is it so trendy to put so few freaking buttons on your remote? Does this not
have an input button either? >> It doesn't. Neither does my S95B at
home. They >> So offensive. >> You go to the home menu and then you go
to connected devices and then you go from there. does charge on solar though.
>> Yeah. And it's got USBC on the bottom, too. >> Okay. So, I open this app. Oh my god.
Location. The You need my location for >> Does it want you to tap that button on
the remote? >> Oh, wait. Did I not have to do any of
this? I can just click TO THE RIGHT. WO.
And then go hello. Oh my. Okay. I got
dark pattern. >> That's wild. It happens to the best of us. The right navigation button being
how to advance through the menus is not how that works on any interface in the
history of computing. This is the confirm button. These buttons are
navigation buttons. >> Right means forward and go within a left
to right. >> Not not in Japan. Let's start. All
right. >> Connect to Wi-Fi. This is pretty standard. >> This is fine. And thank you for the
quarterty keyboard. Okay. Enjoy a wide range of smart features.
>> Can you just hit next? Can you skip? >> I can. >> Okay. >> But then it just prompts me to sign in
>> later. >> Oh, >> it gave us a later option. Even this.
>> Do it later. Do all this stuff later. >> I mean, this this is kind of cool.
>> Yeah, this is neat. The adapt the volume stuff. Sure. >> Yeah, I'll enable that now. Turned up
our brightness. It knows we're in a bright room. Hey, this is nice. You can
use your smart remote to control your screen and connected devices. It just picked up everything. Explore your
favorite content quickly and easily. A bunch of Christmas movies like Die Hard.
>> We're actually not that inundated with ads. >> I mean, these are all ads. It is
literally all ads, though. >> I know, but they're like >> They're all ads,
>> but they're like movies I might want to watch. >> Picture clarity off. Wow, that was
actually very simple to do within this little quick menu here. Live translate.
That's interesting. What is the difference between AI optimized and AI
customization? >> It's the mode that best suits your viewing environment. I don't know.
>> You know what? AI optimizer panel care. >> This is our first OLED. And while they
don't burn in to nearly anywhere close to like plasmas or early OLEDs, you
should still probably enable all of the panel health. This is something that has
driven me crazy about HDR TVs since the advent of HDR TVs. Why is this grayed
out? It's grayed out because there's no HDR content active.
>> So what? >> Let me change the settings. >> Let me just set it up. I have to choose
a film for >> Go to connected devices. Go to our NVIDIA Shield.
>> I'm on it. >> It should power it on, too. Yeah, there it goes. >> There we go. CEC, baby.
>> Shout out. $20 versus $20,000 projector.
That video is coming soon, too. >> $200,000 projector.
>> $2,000. >> $200,000. >> He found a whole higher gear than you.
Are you going to take that? >> I can't find a 300. Actually, you know what? We probably could find a $300,000
TV if we got a micro LED. >> Subscribe for all of that nonsense.
Where are all my picture modes that aren't AI optimized? I don't understand
what's happening right now. >> I don't know either. Ew, the motion
smoothing is back on. Why can't I turn film mode on? Where the hell is my
filmmaker mode? Is it because I enabled AI optimization during setup? I'm
factory resetting it. I'm going to not tell it do AI things this time.
>> Okay. >> I should 100% be able to change a
setting like that after the fact, though. And it should be obvious. I'm so
pissed off at this point. Hey,
what was that before? So, don't use AI.
Whatever. I don't know. But now we can actually change our picture modes
properly. >> Okay, >> which we should have been able to do.
>> Now that we're finally here, this is far and away the best looking image we've
seen. >> Yeah, >> it's incredible that we had to go through that much hassle in order to get
here. >> But that could have been user error during TV setup.
>> Look how bright this thing gets, though. >> Yeah, >> in SDR it definitely doesn't get very
bright, but in HDR, >> but that's that's normal.
>> It's not supposed to. >> That's fine. I like a popped out like
tonemapped SDR actually. >> Yeah, >> but it's not supposed to. But in HDR,
>> it's good. We're getting over 800 nits, which isn't as much as the flagship.
We're not cracking a,000, but like >> on an OLED, >> good enough for me. And now we're
getting full array local dimming per pixel. >> Show me those fireworks.
That looks good. Another thing completely ignoring the image quality is
this is packed with features that we didn't have on our previous sets. 120 Hz
4K, variable refresh rate, auto low latency mode, very low latency, I would
assume. I haven't seen the Labs test results. >> It's an OLED. And I'll tell you right
now, it's pretty good. >> All right. And how's the color accuracy?
>> Also quite good. Both in SDR and HDR.
>> That makes sense. >> Yeah, it's OLED. >> Oh, we haven't listened to the speakers
yet.
>> They're not that much better than the 55 in TV. In terms of clarity, I would
agree with you, but they manage that clarity across a greater range.
>> Sure, if all you care about is you want to hear the news anchor on Fox or CNN or
whichever only source of news you choose to consume, then any of them is going to
achieve it pretty much the same. But if I was going to watch a musical, I would
prefer to watch it on these speakers. or
having spent this much money, >> yeah, >> I would spend the rest of my $500 on a
nice soundbar or a surround sound setup or or a delightful RGB sweater from
ltstore.com. Would you love having 10 times more to spend on your TV? I would
love that. Then why don't we go take a look at our last display? It's so big we
couldn't transport it here, so we got to go to the lab.
Here we are. And here is the High Sense
116UX. This puppy is pure bragging rights at 10
times the price and nearly twice the area of the 83in TV that we just looked
at. Five times the cost for two times
the size. Yes, sir. See, this bad boy
gets hit with a double whammy of price boosters. First, it uses a brand new
emerging backlight technology called RGB Miniledd. Instead, white lights or blue
ones. The back lights on this TV are multicolored for the widest color gamut
that we have ever measured in the lab. You can see it in action in this high
sense factory tour that we're going to have linked down below. The second
whammy is mother glass. Now, some of you may be familiar with this. Give yourself
a cookie. But for everyone else, every smaller TV comes from a giant sheet of
what's called motherlass. that mother glass gets cut down into the smaller
panels. Now, as mother glass sizes have gone up with each generation of TV
production, so have the sizes of the displays that you can cut out of it. But
the prices for the top sizes in each generation remain very high because they
could have taken that single sheet and they could have cut it up into a whole
bunch of 55 in or 65-in TVs. Also, when
you're cutting smaller pieces out, it's a lot easier to salvage usable displays
out of an imperfect sheet. Say you had a bad spot here. Well, you just make one
of these and one of these and one of these. No big deal. When you're making
one giant TV, well, the entire sheet has
to basically be perfect, which just doesn't happen very often, even under
the best conditions. I've heard that the yields are so poor on these that even
large multinational brands will make dozens or at most hundreds of these
signature flagship products. So, they got to make sure that the juice is going
to be worth the squeeze. And then you've got to decide if your wallet can take
the squeeze and also your back because moving and installing something this big
is a major hassle. And it only has three HDMI ports. But that's actually cool
because its last input is a USB-C port
that handles DisplayPort in. Also, those HDMIs will do up to 165 Hz at 4K.
Let's give it a shot. We have literally done this before and yet it still stuns.
The small white setup is just so bright.
Dazzling. Welcome to our new theater room. By the way, we built this in the
lab so we don't have to always drag things to and from my house. How bright
is this thing again? >> Almost 7,000 nits.
>> That's wild. It'll even do 5,000 nits in SDR. So, you end up with a very HDR-l
like effect even on your older content. Oh, wait. This is already set up from
last time. >> Forget the setup. Whatever. >> At what point?
At what point is it too much? >> I've talked about this before. I don't
think it can be too much until we reach the point where it looks like real life.
You know, if you're on the bus and the sun catches the glass on a skyscraper,
>> it can be eye searing. >> It can be very bright. I want bright to
look bright, not white, you know. Does it have an input button? Yes. Oh,
>> 30 grand. That's what it takes to buy an input button. >> Also, shout out Highense. They have
proper on and off for universal remotes
instead of just power toggle which can be important for getting everything
aligned in there shutting down and turning off. Ah, menu. Thank you. Apply
to all sources. Thank you. Oh, we decided we liked the dynamic color
enhancer on this one, didn't we? I think on low or medium. Yeah, not on high.
It's only $30,000.
Oh, another big thing. I believe this one supports Dolby Vision.
>> Yeah, that's a big point we didn't mention last time is Samsung is still
stuck with HDR10 and 10 Plus. They do not support Dolby Vision, whereas High
Sense has seen fit to implement both. And that's not just on their $30,000
sets. Samsung's got to get it together on that, man. This is the first TV that
4K content looks not quite sharp enough. >> I was thinking that, too, cuz the PPI we
are looking at >> It's lower, isn't it? It's This is lower
than the 32 in 720p TV. We are getting
just about 38 PPI or pixels per inch. >> Nice.
>> It It definitely looks low res even though it's not. But
that's our fault. That's not the TVs. >> Yeah, we're just sitting too close. >> Way too close.
>> God, it's beautiful. >> Yeah, the color is just incredible.
>> The brightness cuz it's not just the color range. It's the color volume. You
need brightness to really make HDR content pop off the screen. And this has
it in spades. This isn't even like that crazy bright of a mastered film either.
>> No, >> but it's still TV gets so bright still.
>> And it's pretty darn accurate, too. The streamers, they look so good.
>> And as much as we might have complained because there's only like 3500 local
dimming zones, realistically, it still looks really good, especially compared
to just about any other TV. >> Yeah. It just happened to be next to one
that had way more dimming zones, but I can see the I know. Me, too. Hair there.
>> The next generation of this. >> Oh, yeah. Boom.
>> This is the closest to looking at actual fireworks that we've been.
>> We didn't quite measure the 95% to BT2020 they claimed, but I think we hit
like 92 or 93%. >> 93 and change.
>> It was It was really close. >> It does have other downsides though.
While the input latency is very good, the pixel response times are not. So,
gaming on this set can be a little smeary looking, especially when you've
got high contrast action on the screen. I was pretty disappointed in that. With
that said, though, the speakers are a strong point.
Damn, >> they're still TV speakers, but they're
way better than all the other TVs we tried. Yes. But at this budget,
you should get standalone speakers. Oh yeah. I mean, at this point, I feel like
I'm talking to literally several people. But if you have this kind of budget, and
if you are looking at your various options, OLED Mother Glass has also been
getting bigger over the years. And LG now has a 97in G5 for about $25,000. It
is smaller and when a regular TV that
size can be had for just a few thousand, it's kind of a hard sell. But that one
is probably the largest display on the market that manages truly peak flagship
image quality for the discerning cinnaphile. If you're keen on that or
any of the TVs that we showed off or talked about today, we're going to have them all linked down below. And if you
want to spend some money on today's sponsor, well, you're going to have to wait for me to say
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