so some news came across my desk the other day and as soon as I read it
I thought yeah 2023 is looking like a pretty solid year for TVs this is
exciting and it got me thinking sure TVs get at least a little better year after
year but our TVs in 2023 going to be so much better that you should wait to buy
welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and if you just bought a new TV please don't be mad at
me here I'm not trying to trigger a bunch of anxiety or fomo the fact is technology marches
forward like a juggernaut the grass always looks greener on the other side of the CES fence and
it's just not worth wasting emotional energy on worry look I'll be here to calm your nerves in
a moment just stick with me anyway every year at some point I do a video about what to expect from
TVs in the coming new year usually I do it closer to CES after after the holiday buying Blitz but
some news came out of the mediatek summit on November 10th and it was then that I realized
that I should probably just make this video now there's a very good chance you might be
thinking of buying a TV right now but if you're doing any research you might start hearing about
how cool next year's TVs are going to be and you might see some YouTube videos posing this
question should you wait to buy a new TV I'm going to try and help you make that decision
but to do it I want to cover some of what we can expect from TVs in 2023 and that requires
talking about a pain Point TV enthusiasts have been discussing for the past few years now for
my knit nerds out there I think you already know what's coming when I say mediatek don't
you but if you're like what's a mediatek don't worry all will be explained in a moment but hey
if my saying mediatek triggered you tell me so in the comments and I'll know you're one of the knit
nerd Army help comment about anything you want I love reading your comments click some buttons
down there if you feel moved to do so I really do appreciate it you guys you're the reason I do this
you're the reason I can do this and I love you for it thank you so much now should you wait to
buy a new TV first here's the news peg mediatek which is a company that makes the socs that go
into a bunch of TVs has announced it's deploying the new Advanced super tech nerdy pentonic 1000.
I love that name too bad it's probably the last time you'll ever hear it because mediatek's socs
have never been known by their names actually most folks have probably never even heard of
them anyway mediatex socs are at the heart of a lot of TVs out there but they only recently
became familiar to TV enthusiasts because well they became notorious for letting folks down
perhaps unfairly but they landed in the crosshairs to better explain that I've got to back up a few
years but if you don't really want the history lesson that's cool you can skip right ahead to
the part where we get down to whether you may or may not want to buy a new TV got a link for that
down below hard to believe it's been almost three years since LG touted at CES 20 20 that
its new TVs would have HDMI 2.1 ports and then suddenly people were like HDMI 2.1 you say well
what does that give me and the promised features rolled in 48 gigabits per second would allow HDMI
earc zero latency audio 4K at 120 hertz 8K at 60 hertz Auto low latency mode variable refresh
rate g-sync vsync heatsink the kitchen sink sorry I got a little bit carried away there
anyway the way it was described HDMI 2.1 and all the features that came with it were a big
deal LG had it Samsung wasn't far behind and then well TCL Sony Hisense and Vizio sort of
did this awkward dance where they were like yes we offer many of the features promised with HDMI 2.12
such as Auto low latency mode and earc and vrr but when asked if they had full bandwidth HDMI
2.1 ports they had to say well no but you don't really need them to yeah I'm just going to cut
it off there because this just sparked a bunch of confusion point is folks watching and reading
TV reviews that praised certain TVs for having HDMI 2.1 ports and pointing out that four other
brands didn't well they had reason to pause if they wanted a future-proof TV or so they thought
but then in 2021 it seemed like those four Brands upgraded to have two HDMI 2.1 ports in their best
TVs which was interesting because Samsung and LG were still over here like yeah we still have four
and also here's a whole slate of gaming related features we've added and then in 2022 same thing
still just two HDMI 2.1 ports one of which was the e-arc port and reviewers like me were having
to point out that if you wanted to use a sound bar or AV receiver it would take up the e-art
port thus leaving you with just one HDMI 2.1 Port so tough luck if you wanted to connect an Xbox
series X and a PlayStation 5 and or an advanced gaming PC whether that was really a problem for
a lot of people well I'm getting to that fact is this disparity was weird it was curious to folks
that were paying attention how come LG and Samsung have this full functionality and the others don't
and that Curiosity led to folks discovering the real bottleneck the mediatek soc that all these
TV brands were using aha that's the problem oh and also the pandemic that basically shut down chip
production and that's when the comments really started coming in about how well until Brand X
ditches that old ass mediatek HDMI thing Brand X is dead to me or something along those lines
probably not in that voice but the notion was why upgrade to a new TV if they're still Half Baked
with these new features and HDMI ports fair question which leads us to today mediatek's
pentonic 1000 is the soc that a bunch of us TV nerds have been waiting for and for anyone who
is worried about getting a TV as future-proofed as they could because remember that folks don't
need to understand the deeper intricacies of the conversation to understand there's stuff a thing
can't do and they might want to wait to buy until the thing can do that stuff the hope is that the
mediatek pentonic 1000 should enable a bunch of TVs in 2023 to offer all of the things through
all of the HDMI ports better processing power multi-window picture-in-picture with Dolby Vision
atsc 3.0 tuners av1 decoding just about every nerdy video feature that could get Enthusiast
excited and making noise and posting in forums about how they're going to get all that stuff
when it comes out and so my friends I can see why some folks might catch wind of this discussion
and consider it a reason to wait to buy a TV especially if they were already holding off on
getting a new TV and then there are a host of other reasons one might want to wait more or
less the same reasons we see every year of this time of year well we're just a few months away
from the new ones coming out and they'll probably be brighter than last year they'll probably have
better local dimming better black levels less blooming more features for lower prices maybe
it makes sense to wait until next year to get a new TV ah but then you start to see that holiday
sale pricing or that closeout sale pricing now is a very popular time to buy a TV TV prices coming
down some of the most aspirational TVs of the year are closer to being Within Reach and some
of them are priced so well it'd be crazy not to buy that Thrifty part of your rationale kicks in
and you're thinking about World Cup and Super Bowl how can you not get a new TV right now but dang it
next year's might be better what to do I mean it can be tough TVs are expensive you want to make
the right decision but you know what this happens every year to a lot of folks so what's my advice
should you buy now or wait to buy a 2023 TV well there's no single right answer for everyone it
depends on your priorities your needs and I mean it's your money all I can do is share my thoughts
they might resonate with you they might not but even that might be helpful I'm hoping anyway
here's where I'm at point one is I think that if every time you are about to make a big purchase
you spent too much time worrying about whether next year's Tech was going to make the expensive
thing you were about to buy obsolete well then you'd probably worry several years off your life
and that's just no good for anyone point two when it comes to TVs year by year progress is usually
more Evolution than Revolution even in 2022 when we got the first cutie OLED TVs what we found is
that even though it was kind of a revolutionary way of using OLED technology by pairing it with
Quantum dots it was still an evolution in terms of picture quality a notable one for sure but
is it life-changing for most folks I'm going to say not to most folks so let's break down what I
think we'll see in terms of improvements in 2023 TVs and as we go through this weigh them in terms
of importance to you see if it helps you decide first cutie OLED will there be advancements yes
I think we'll be seeing more size options so so if you've been hungry to get in on cutie OLED action
but wishing you could get a bigger one you'll be able to do that in 2023. I don't know how big or
small the screen sizes will be but I do know the bigger the Cutie OLED the bigger the price so be
ready to spend if you go big and there's some hope that the 2020 355 and 65 inch cutie OLED TVs could
come down in price over what they came out for in 2022 but probably not much cheaper than the
sale prices of 2022 cutie OLED TVs and I don't know that any other advancements we see in this
Tech Will justify the bigger spend as for w OLED LG's bread and butter TV technology it's hard to
imagine there being a huge leap forward here I think the C2 and G2 are going to be Mighty smart
purchases going into the new year and well into 2023 too now for Sony their 2023 models May well
have four HDMI 2.1 ports and more of the gaming Centric features that we've seen on LG sets but is
that something you really need do you have both an Xbox series X and a PlayStation 5 or one of those
consoles and a high-end gaming PC and you need to connect them both directly to your TV and you want
a Sony specifically well then maybe Sony 2023wo LEDs are worth waiting for otherwise not so much
how about LED LCD TVs what kind of changes might we see in the 2023 models well I think mediatek's
new SOC will bring more LED LCD TVs with HDMI 2.1 ports and advanced gaming features so the Hisense
u8 series and U7 series along with the tcl6 series and Vizio M series could get that functionality I
think mini LED backlight technology is going to come to lower priced models and that could mean
more dimming zones at lower prices too I think many LED TVs from Sony Samsung and LG might get
brighter HDR performance per dollar since Hisense is really pushing the market in that direction and
along those lines I can see Hisense coming out with just an insanely bright and inexpensive
mini LED TV but really I think it's the raised performance of the mid-tier Sony Samsung and LG
TVs that might be more compelling and TCL I can see it's 6 series getting even better which could
be worth waiting for with all of that said TV performance per dollar is already extremely good
and the features built into today's TVs already exceed what most folks actually need and could
conceivably want so for most folks I don't know that waiting is going to provide a lot of benefit
better to take advantage of the lower prices that we see on 2022 TVs than to just wait on 2023.
unless you believe that inflation is going to calm significantly in a year and that inflation now is
causing you some hardship which I know is the case for a lot of folks actually I think writing out
inflation is maybe the most compelling reason to wait for a full year to the end of 2023 to buy a
new TV if an upgrade is looking like a stretch for you but if you've been budgeting and saving for
a new set I think most folks can feel comfortable knowing that the TV they buy now is going to make
them happy for many years to come as for my TV Enthusiast friends out there well I know that
you love the latest and the greatest and for you well you have a tough call to make 2023 has some
exciting things in store it could be another we've reached Peak TV year on the other hand there's no
guarantee that just because this new mediatek chip exists that it's going to get used maybe
the question for you isn't should you wait but can you wait and only you know the answer to that
question thanks as always for watching everyone I hope this video has been helpful whether it was or
not let me know down in the comments if you liked it and want to see more hit me with a like And
subscribe I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two more videos I think you might like