Hi, I’m Carl with Abt, and today we’re gonna show you three reasonably priced, 55”,
4k TVs.
You may have seen our last TV video with the larger, higher end models that you can check
out in the link below, but not everyone’s looking to spend a small fortune on a set
and we wanted to show you what you can get for right around 4 digits.
We’ve got TVs from the big three again, the Sony xbr55X850D , the Samsung UN55KS8000
and LG 55UH8500.
They’re all 4k and all of them currently priced around $1000.00.
We’re gonna take a look at 4 different categories on these, design, operating system, sound
quality, and lastly, picture quality to give you information to hopefully help with your
selection.
Now we realize that these are very subjective categories so we’d love to hear your opinions
in the comments section below too.
And if you decide at any point during this video you want to place an order for any of
these, keep in mind we have free shipping going on these almost all the time.
Our first category is design.
They’re all dark rectangles.
That’s true, but it’s best to consider looking at everything all the way down to
the pedestal.
So if we start at the bottom, we have three pretty distinct pedestals.
The Samsung, which is two chrome boomerangs, one at each end, the Sony, kind of a wedge
design, and the LG which has a curved foot.
The Samsung’s pedestal looks really good, but can be a little impractical if you need
to place it on a stand that isn’t quite as wide as the TV because of the distance
between the feet, so make sure to keep that in mind if you plan on putting this on a stand.
The LG is a little better in that it’s a solid piece all the way across so it can fit
on a wider variety of stands.
And the Sony has that classic wedge design you may have read about in the history books.
It was good 1000 years ago and it’s still good now.
It holds the TV up and out of these three TVs I think it fits the most applications
since it’s a little more compact than the others, but again, that only comes into play
if you’re putting it on a narrow stand.
Moving on in the design category, we go to the bezel around the set.
These all have very thin bezels.
The Samsung has a brushed silver trim around the outside edge and a black border around
the screen here which I think looks really nice.
The Sony has a darker brushed metallic frame around the sides and the screen as well and
there’s a little gold accent that runs around the perimeter on the outside.
They have a similar design on a lot of their larger sets now.
The LG has a silverish border around the perimeter and has a black border around the actual screen.
All three are great looking TVs from the front and sides.
The backs of the TVs are going to appear a little different.
The LG has a stark white back which to me seems like a really bold choice.
The other two are black/dark gray on the backs which I prefer to the bright white.
Now, how much time are you actually going to spend looking at the back of the TV?
Not very long I hope, so this probably doesn’t matter a whole lot in the long run, but it’s
part of the TVs overall design so I wanted to mention it.
Speaking of the backs of the sets and sort of in the design category, we’ll take a
look at inputs.
Samsung’s gonna be a little different in that they use their one connect box to consolidate
the inputs, but let’s just pretend like we’ve used some double sided tape and stuck
it to the back of the TV for this part.
So, the Samsung and Sony both have 4 HDMI inputs.
LG only has 3.
They all have 3 USB connections, for the Samsung, it’s two on the one connect box and one
on the set itself.
All have a digital optical output, but only the Sony has a 3.5 mm analog output.
I know it might not seem like a big deal, but there are still a lot of customers out
there that have old analog wireless headphones that they want to use or even have hardwired
headphones that they like, so this gives them an option without having to spend more money
on new headphones.
The LG and Sony also have component/composite inputs, where the Samsung doesn’t.
Not necessarily a big deal, like the headphone jack, but if you have an old component you
want to plug in, Samsung doesn’t really give you that ability unless you go through
a receiver first.
Moving on to our next category, we’ll look at the operating systems.
These all have different systems in place, but they all possess similar features.
The app catalogs for all three are decent and offer a lot of ways for you to customize
your television experience.
I was able to do some exploring of all three of them and really found they all had their
limitations.
It’s hard to tell if it was the network or the operating system itself in a lot of
cases, but nonetheless, they all were a bit inconsistent.
I would say the easiest one to navigate was the Samsung however I still have a soft spot
in my heart for LGs Web OS.
If you ever owned a Palm Pre cell phone, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but the name definitely brings back memories
of my favorite cell phone.
The Sony was very capable as well and I liked the layout, but I would have to say that while
we were testing them the samsung lagged the least and again, for me, was the easiest to
navigate.
Please keep in mind though, that the smart menus can be affected by the speed of your
internet connection too so this category is a little dependent on outside factors that’ll
be different from home to home.
Next, lets talk about sound.
I know, it’s not the greatest category to use for a TV comparison, but there are a lot
of people out there who still don’t want to or don’t have the extra money to spend
on a soundbar or surround system, and since we’re trying to keep things a bit more budget
minded, let’s assume you’re not adding any supplementary sound.
I listened to a variety of different things on these sets, from movies to music to just
regular TV feeds and I found the LG to have the best sound of the three.
Sony and Samsung were fine considering the size of the speakers and the small amps in
the TVs, but they seemed more tinny than the LG.
We’re not going to spend too much time talking about details on these since, let’s be honest,
none of the three come with sound that matches up with their picture qualities at all.
I just found the range on the LG to be the best for me.
It had the closest thing to what resembled bass and the highs were the clearest.
They were all really close though and realistically, you should be getting a soundbar or surround
system if you’re getting one of these TVs anyways.
Our last category is, of course, the one you’ve all been waiting for.
Except for the people that only wanted to hear about the sound quality.
For all of you, you can stop the video now because you may not like this next part, but
for those that decided to stay, here’s my thoughts on the picture quality.
I’ll say the same thing here as I said in the last TV comparison video, if you’re
taking any one of these three sets home, you’re gonna be happy, I honestly thought all three
were good.
So they’re all 4k and they’re all 120hz.
What’s the difference you might ask?
The LG is the only one that has 3d built in which is cool, but it’s just not a technology
that’s ever done anything for me and a lot of the TVs are moving away from it now anyways.
So, getting back to the things that are a little more fair to compare, let’s talk
about the colors.
I thought the Sony had the most accurate color quality out of all three, with the Samsung
and LG coming in very closely after.
I just felt the Sony’s looked the most natural, but the others weren’t far off.
I will say the Samsung, for me, had the best black levels, but I also found their picture
to fade most quickly on off angle viewing.
The Sony and LG dropped off at almost the same spot as each other and both were slightly
better than Samsung in this category.
With that being said, if you’re watching TV in your own home, you should be sitting
in the best spot anyways.
If you’re not directly in front of the TV when the movie starts, I found a good trick
is to tell whoever’s sitting in your seat that their car’s getting towed.
When they go to check it out, take your seat back.
It works almost every time, unless they didn’t drive to your house.
Getting back to the important stuff, I also found the motion on the Samsung to be the
best looking when watching a variety of different things.
To me, it had the least soap opera-ish feeling.
There are settings you can change on all of them to help with this so you really can cater
them to your preference and to what you’re watching.
The last big thing I want to talk about in relation to the picture, was watching things
with HDR.
I thought these all looked great watching HDR content.
I found the Samsung to show the most detail in their HDR picture, but it wasn’t a significant
difference over the others.
So to wrap everything up, all three of these TVs are really nice.
Design is very similar and if you’re mounting your tv on the wall, the pedestal won’t
matter.
With that being said, if you’re putting the TV on a stand, the Sony’s gonna fit
the most stand sizes.
Sound is really average on all three with the LG having just slightly more bass and
a little more clarity in their highs.
I found the Samsung’s smart features to be the least buggy, but that can be affected
by your network at home so it’s not necessarily going to be the same experience for everyone
and the picture was great on all 3 of these TVs.
You really can’t make a bad choice between these three.
Now that you’ve had a chance to see these TVs a little more closely, we’d love to
hear your thoughts on which set you like the best and why so be sure to let us know in
the comments section?
As always, we appreciate you watching our videos and remember, if you want to see more
information on any of these sets or if you want to place an order, click on the links
in the description below and don’t forget to like and subscribe to see what we have
next.