Though QLED TVs are a relatively recent innovation, the market has already been saturated with all kinds of different models. How can you possibly choose the perfect QLED TV amongst such a vast sea of choices?
If you’ve been trying in vain to navigate the QLED TV market, then allow us to be your trusty guide. In this article, we are going to help you to narrow down your choices, based on your specific needs, so that you can grab a QLED TV that suits you to a tee!
What Should You Consider When Buying A QLED TV?
Resolution
QLED TVs are renowned for their immense picture quality, and their ability to replicate realistic colours. Why wouldn’t you want to go for a model that takes advantage of this? To really get the most from your new QLED TV, we’d strongly recommend opting for a much higher resolution. Though they do cost a little bit more, 4K and 8K televisions boast enough pixels to allow QLED technology to really shine.
It’s now likely that you’re stuck deciding between either a 4K or 8K model! Is it worth paying that little bit extra for a QLED TV that can present content at 8K resolutions? It’s worth mentioning that 8K TVs are still a relative novelty. 8K TVs simply aren’t as popular as 4K TVs. Though this could likely change, it does mean that more content is produced with 4K in mind, rather than 8K. If you want to save a little bit of extra cash, then we’d recommend opting for a 4K model!
It’s worth purchasing a QLED TV in either a 4K or 8K form. The bolstered resolution is perfect for the richer colours achieved by these displays! Just keep in mind that there’s more 4K content than 8K content available!
However, 8K models are still a worthwhile purchase. It’s likely that, as 8K TVs become more common, more content will be produced to take advantage of the increased resolution. Buying an 8K QLED TV could be fantastic for future-proofing your home entertainment!
Screen Size
Your choice of screen size will largely come down to how much you are willing to spend, and where you plan to place your new QLED TV. It’s no secret that larger TVs cost more. That’s part of what makes them so alluring. However, you shouldn’t simply buy the biggest screen on the market just because you can!
It is totally possible for a TV to simply be too big for a space! If you’re having trouble choosing a screen size, or you’re really tempted by the largest one, it’s worth measuring the room you plan to place it in. A large TV that’s crammed into a tiny room won’t exactly lend itself to a comfortable viewing experience.
You want to ensure that there is plenty of space within your room to be able to take in the entire image of your new QLED TV. There needs to always be a suitable distance between the sofa, and the TV itself. But how do you work out that perfect distance? Luckily, it’s very simple. Take the diagonal width of a given TV screen, and multiply it by 1.5 to 2.5 times. The resulting sum is the amount of space that should be between you and your new QLED TV!
HDR Support
QLED TVs are fully equipped to produce a wide array of colours. If you want to take full advantage of the capabilities of a new QLED TV, we strongly recommend opting for a model with full HDR support!
HDR, short for “High dynamic range” is an amazing innovation that allows any given TV to access a much wider range of colours and brightness levels. This means that HDR allows TVs to create much sharper contrast in every image, for more pleasant viewing! We know it may sound like total tech wizardry, but it’s very real and very worthwhile!
QLED TVs were practically made for HDR! The addition of extra colours and brightnesses will help bring out the true power of your QLED TV. It may cost more, but HDR is a worthy addition!
QLED TVs operate very similarly to standard LED TVs. By this, we mean that they make use of extensive backlight arrangements that help to project an image. While this does allow QLED TVs to be much brighter, it does mean that light can occasionally bleed through where it shouldn’t. This can lead to colours being rendered inaccurately, or black values appearing as a muddy grey. HDR can help to counteract this problem by enhancing contrast for much sharper image quality.
Smart TV Features
It’s highly unlikely that you’d ever find a QLED TV that doesn’t double as a smart TV! Smart TV functions can help to make your TV-watching experience all the more pleasant. Smart TVs are able to learn from how you interact with them, and your unique viewing habits, to provide you with a personalised experience.
However, this does add another potential hurdle between you and your new QLED TV. You’ll need to carefully consider which smart TV operating system you want to opt for! Whether it’s Samsung’s Tizen OS or LG’s WebOS, you’ll want to be sure to look for the smart TV that offers you the smoothest experience. A smart TV OS that’s cluttered with extra buttons and superfluous features will quickly become annoying to use!
Certain smart TV operating systems may be exclusive to specific manufacturers, so we would recommend taking your time looking through all of the options. Don’t rush yourself!
Sound System
If you don’t want to have to splash extra cash on an advanced external sound system, we’d recommend going for a QLED TV with greater sound capabilities.
If a particular QLED TV takes your fancy, make sure to check its specifications, to see what kind of sound it can deliver. Check to see how many speakers are built into the TV itself, and how they’re arranged. It’s best to opt for a TV with spread-out speaker arrangements. This will help the TV to create more immersive directional audio.
It might also be worth checking to see if a TV has any front-facing speakers built in. Front-facing speakers can throw sound out much farther. This helps to make the TV sound much louder, and add a little bit of extra bass!
When checking the sound capabilities of a QLED TV, there’s more to it than just the hardware itself. You should also check the TV’s compatibility with specific sound formats. In particular, we’d recommend looking out for Dolby Atmos compatibility. Dolby Atmos is one of the best premium sound formats around. Dolby Atmos introduces a vertical sound channel that allows sound to pass overhead. This also means that individual sound “Objects” can be created, to create true 3D audio!
Gaming Features
QLED TVs are great for gaming. The increased colour palettes, brightness levels, and improved contrast make it much easier to stay in control and draw you much closer to your favourite digital worlds. However, there are a few features you should look for if you want to keep up with the gaming world on your new QLED TV.
The best feature to look out for is a ‘Gaming mode’. Gaming modes on modern TVs help to optimise the gameplay experience by optimising the display. It will do this by removing any post-processing effects that are usually used to make standard content look better. Removing these effects helps to significantly reduce input lag.
Input lag is that interminable limbo that occurs between you pressing a button on your controller, and the TV displaying the correct response. Preferably, you want input lag to be as short as possible. Even a few milliseconds can ruin a gaming experience.
You should also check to make sure that your new QLED TV has plenty of input ports for you to hook up all of your consoles. If you’re an avid gamer, it’s likely that you have a number of consoles you like to play on. If so, look out for a QLED TV that offers plenty of HDMI ports. This will help you to hop from platform to platform without having to mess around with any cumbersome wires!
Warranty
QLED TVs are some of the most costly TVs on the market. So, you don’t want to have to find yourself forking over more money only a few years into the TV’s life. This is where warranties come into play. We recommend looking through all of your options as you browse the TV market, to find healthy warranties.
Warranties are offered directly by TV manufacturers, and help to ensure that, if issues occur within a certain window of time, they will be covered entirely by the company. You won’t have to spend a single penny!
Of course, most manufacturers would prefer to avoid having to cover warranty costs. As such, you can use warranties as a guarantee of quality. If a manufacturer is willing to offer a warranty that covers a number of years, you can be sure that your new QLED TV will last at least that long!
Be sure to take your time to look through the numerous warranty options. They can vary quite massively from model to model or manufacturer to manufacturer.
Price
As you’re looking through the QLED TV market, you’re going to notice that the prices fluctuate massively from model to model. The price of a QLED TV can be affected by a massive number of things, and prices can change from day to day. As such, you should make sure to keep a close eye on your budget throughout your QLED TV search.
Each of the many factors we discussed above can have an impact on the total price of a QLED TV. For instance, a QLED TV with high-quality speakers will cost more than one with basic speakers.
While you might need to be at least a little bit flexible with your budget, it’s valuable to consider exactly what you want out of your QLED TV. After all, what would be the point of spending extra for a QLED TV with high-quality speakers, if you’re just going to use an external sound system? Don’t pay too much for features you won’t even use!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Should You Consider When Buying A QLED TV?
There are a few features we believe are essential when looking for the perfect QLED TV. Though it may cost a little more, we recommend opting for an HDR-compatible model. HDR will allow your QLED TV to access more colours. Make sure to also look for other features such as sound and resolution, and measure these against your budget!
Is Samsung QLED Worth Buying?
If you are someone who cherishes film and TV as art forms, then a Samsung QLED is a very worthy purchase. QLED displays are able to render vast spectrums of colour with total realism. This makes QLED TVs great for film lovers. Colours will be reproduced to look exactly as they did in a film’s original theatrical release!
What Is The Disadvantage Of QLED?
The biggest drawback of QLED TVs is their difficulty with reproducing true black values. QLED TVs make use of a backlight to project an image out to the viewer. This unfortunately means that small amounts of light can bleed through where they shouldn’t. An OLED TV, on the other hand, can turn pixels off entirely when needed. This allows such TVs to create true black values for greater contrast.
How Long Do Samsung QLED TVs Last?
Samsung QLED TVs can easily last you ten years of happy use. Even if you were to spend entire days binge-watching box sets, you can still expect such a TV to stand the test of time. To help a Samsung QLED TV to last longer, you should be sure to take good care of it, and turn it off when no
