What you need to know before you buy | Tech Reddy

Black Friday is a popular time to buy TVs, but it can be intimidating if you don’t know what you want.

There are many things on television that make shopping for someone difficult and confusing. It’s like an acronym attack. What is HDR? What does 8K mean? What is the difference between LCD, OLED and QLED displays? How important is brand?

The discounted TVs on Black Friday may not be the best. “The TVs you’re going to get on Black Friday are usually entry-level sets,” said Paul Gagnon, vice president and business consultant at market research firm The NPD Group. Gagnon, who has covered the television industry for 25 years, says that especially when you’re downsizing, it’s important to make sure the TV you buy has all the features you need.

Here’s a guide to explaining all those important features to find the right TV for you.

4K TVs are standard these days. If you’re not sure what 4K means, it refers to image resolution. 4K TVs have four times as many pixels as 1080p resolution sets. But keep in mind most live broadcasts aren’t shot in 4K, so you’ll mostly see the benefit in apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, or if you sign up for YouTube TV with a 4K premium bundle.

When choosing between resolutions, you can see things like Ultra HD, UHD, or 4K. They all mean the same thing.

8K resolution has twice the resolution of 4K. It is equivalent to four times the number of pixels in 4K and 16 times more pixels than 1080p.

While that may sound tempting, you won’t enjoy any of the benefits of 8K because there’s no content being shot in 8K yet. Not to mention 8K TVs are expensive. Be prepared to spend over $2,000.

HDR, otherwise known as dynamic range, allows your TV shows and movies to look exactly as the studio that produced them intended them to be shot in HDR. You’ll get more light in dark scenes, which means it’s easier to see content. Most 4K TVs have HDR compatible with them.

There is a wide range in HDR TV quality. The more expensive ones may look good, while the cheaper ones may not. If done right, HDR can be even more important than 4K.

Good HDR comes down to brightness and contrast. When the bright areas of the TV picture are bright they enhance the color and make the picture appear to have more depth and movies and TV shows can appear more lifelike. Let’s say you watch a movie with a shot of the sea, you will be able to see the nuances and textures of the waves, deep blues and white caps, which make you feel the reality of the place.

But HDR performance can vary greatly from TV to TV. Make sure the TV you buy has a minimum brightness of 400 nits – a measure of brightness – because sometimes TVs with ratings below 400 are sold as HDR TVs, too. 600 nits or better, with the best performing HDR TVs hitting 1,000 nits or more.

You will see many different types of HDR commercials. HDR10 is widely used because it is open source and free. Pretty much all TV sets selling HDR support will work with HDR10 content.

There is also HDR10+ supported by most major broadcasters, except for Netflix. Keep in mind, however, that TVs can get updates so if a manufacturer decides to jump on board with HDR10+, the company can add that capability to your TV without you having to do anything other than update the software.

A TV’s refresh rate is the number of times per second it can refresh and display a picture. Most TVs today offer 60 Hz, which means the display refreshes 60 times per second, or 120 Hz, which refreshes 120 times per second.

The latter is more expensive but may be better if you watch a lot of fast-moving content, such as action movies. When refresh rates are low, it creates motion blur, which makes the animation look busy.

This number is very important for players. The latest consoles, such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X offer 120 Hz refresh rates, but you’ll need a true 120 Hz TV to see graphics as clearly as possible.

If you’re connecting a playback system that uses a high refresh rate, “make sure the TV has an HDMI 2.1 input,” says Gagnon. That port will support these fast refresh rates, he explains.

Almost every TV today uses a liquid crystal display (LCD) or an organic light-emitting diode screen (OLED). The latter is able to produce the best picture while LCDs are usually less expensive but can give you a good picture.

OLED is a new technology. It does not have a bottom light. Instead, each pixel is illuminated individually. Most standard LCDs, on the other hand, have local dimming, which means that parts of the screen can be dimmed without affecting the brightness of the rest of the screen.

“The biggest advantage of LCD is that it’s the most affordable of all technologies,” Gagnon said. “High-end LCD TVs do a very good job of approaching or matching the performance of OLED displays.”

With OLED, “then you’re talking about what’s the highest performance display. So it’s going to have higher levels of contrast, and better color performance.” It will be easier to watch TV from multiple viewing angles, and it will have the fastest refresh rate, Gagnon explains.

There’s also QLED, which stands for quantum light-emitting diode. QLED TV is a multi-dot LCD TV. Quantum dots are tiny molecules that, when hit by light, emit their own light of a different color. Thanks to this technology, QLED TVs emit colors accurately, which improves the overall image quality.

With QLED, “you get better color performance, you get a little improvement, which means that the set can be a little brighter, and often these tend to be TVs that include other features, for example, higher refresh rates and other HDMI inputs,” said Gagnon.

Almost all TVs are smart now, so no matter what brand you choose, you’ll have apps preloaded on your new TV. You can connect an external streaming device to any TV, such as an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku box, or Apple TV. If you do, go for one with 4K and HDR, if that’s what your new TV supports. That way you will ensure that you have the best viewing experience.

When it comes to using preloaded apps on your TV, it’s important to know that smart TV stores, where you can download apps for your TV, vary depending on the TV brand. Samsung TVs will allow you to access the Samsung Smart TV store and LG TVs have the LG Content Store. Some brands work with distributors you are familiar with. TCL, Hisense, Toshiba and other companies partner with media providers you know like Roku, Google and Amazon.

It’s less important to get a TV with your favorite smart service built in and more important to get the best quality TV. You will always have the option to add a streaming device to the TV if you prefer one company over another.

If you’re relying on built-in TV apps, Gagnon recommends making sure the Smart TV you buy supports all the streaming apps you use regularly. And if you have an iPhone and like screen mirroring, make sure your TV supports Apple screen mirroring. If you’re an Android user, make sure your TV supports streaming, Google’s version of sharing content from phone to TV.

Because TVs are so thin these days, there isn’t much room for speakers, which means that most TVs have very poor sound. Soundbars can solve this issue by providing larger speakers with deeper bass and better range. They will help a bit if you ever encounter an issue where the TV display is very quiet in some areas and really loud in others. You can find good ones in a range of prices, anywhere from $100 to $800. You can get free articles on Black Friday if retailers combine them with TV purchases.

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