Choosing the Right TV for Your Home
If you’re renovating your living room, moving into a newly built home, or just looking to upgrade, you might be in the market for a new flat screen TV. The size of the room the TV is going into, how much space you have for the TV itself and what you will use the TV for most of the time are the main factors that will help determine the best flat screen TV for you.
Flat screen TVs are available in sizes from 32 inches or smaller to 80 inches or larger. One that's too large can overwhelm a space, and one that's too small will be difficult for everyone in the room to view. Choose a size based on the size of the room, keeping in mind that the larger the screen of the TV is, the farther away you’ll need to sit to comfortably view it. You’ll also need to think about whether the TV will sit on a stand on top of a piece of furniture or be mounted on the wall or the ceiling. If you’re mounting a television set, you may be able to fit a larger device since you won’t be using up floor space.
Most people settle on a TV that's between 55 and 65 inches in size. This size is considered the current “sweet spot” in terms of price, performance and typical living room size.
Resolution
The native resolution of a TV screen is the size of the screen expressed as the number of pixels it displays. The more pixels a screen has, the more depth and variety of color it can show. Image resolution refers to the resolution of what's transmitted to the TV. This means you can have an 8K resolution TV, but a television channel or streaming app may be transmitting only 4K images. It’s common for transmissions to be available in multiple resolutions so you can choose which will work best with the native resolution of your television.
4K TVs are far more affordable than they once were, and the picture quality is sharper than full HD or 1080p TVs. There are also 8K TVs on the market for the highest quality picture currently available and they're typically more expensive.
Display Types
When you start getting into all of the TV display acronyms, it can get a little confusing. How can you know if you want an LCD TV or an OLED TV? LCD TVs became more common than their predecessors, the plasma TV, starting in 2014. It might help to understand that all LED TVs are LCD TVs, but with certain upgrades in the technology. LCD stands for liquid crystal display, which is something that LED TVs also have. The difference is that LCD TVs use fluorescent backlights, while LED TVs use light-emitting diodes to create a superior picture quality.
OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode. Each pixel in an OLED monitor can be individually shut off, which is not possible with an LED monitor. OLED monitors have thinner construction, better picture quality and greater energy efficiency than LED monitors, but they are more expensive.
QLED stands for quantum light-emitting diode. Each pixel in a QLED monitor has a quantum dot, which essentially helps boost the brightness of the pixels, creating more vivid colors. A QLED TV is more budget-friendly than an OLED TV and has a much higher picture quality than LCD or LED TVs
Consider What You Use Your TV For
The way you most want to use your TV will affect the types of features you want your set to have. HDMI ports are necessary to allow you to connect to different devices, such as gaming consoles. If you have multiple consoles, you’ll want to have enough ports for all of them. For an even better gaming experience, HDMI 2.1 has features like Auto-Low Latency Mode (ALLM), which switches your TV to game mode as soon as you turn on your console, and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), which matches the screen to the frame-by-frame output coming from the TV.
TVs also have USB ports that allow you to connect additional hardware such as Blu-ray players or sound bars. This is a key consideration if you’re a movie buff who likes to own hard copies of your favorite films.
Features to Look For
Wall Mount
If you plan to mount your new TV on the wall, make sure it's set up for that kind of configuration. Though it’s common for most sets to be wall mountable these days, not all of them are.
Compatible With Your Smart Devices
Most TVs are smart and Wi-Fi compatible now. You'll want to make sure to choose a TV that works with whatever smart home devices you use in your home. Check to see if the TV is compatible with specific smart devices, such as Amazon Alexa, if that's important to you.
Refresh rate
The higher the refresh rate your TV has, the smoother the motion in TV shows, movies and video games will appear on the screen. Look for a 60 Hz or 120 Hz refresh rate when choosing your TV.
HDR Compatible A TV that is high dynamic range (HDR) compatible will produce more realistic color and contrast.