The most popular 4K HDR Smart LED TVs 2019

This review is updated regularly with new models

Last updated: September 18, 2019

Introduction

Of course, today it’s hard to imagine an apartment without a TV. Their popularity is accompanied by high demand, to which companies respond quite adequately. As a result, fierce competition encourages companies to constantly improve their products, annually offering new models. Therefore, in recent years, the structure of competition has changed and expanded. The TV segment perfectly illustrates this aspect.

In the TVs segvent, today competition is characterized by the following factors:

– competition between technologies, for example, OLED vs LED (including QLED and Nano Cell) TVs;

– competition between brands and companies.

Of course, most companies focus on improving one or two technologies (Samsung – QLED, LG – OLED and Nano Cell). But they usually also offer models based on other technologies.

– competition between the most successful models in the last few years. Expanding functionality through the use of innovation does not always compensate for lower prices for previous models.

p> As a result, TOPs of many experts simultaneously contain new innovative models and the most popular models of past years.

But they often do not coincide with bestsellers, the list of which depends significantly on price, advertising and customer reviews. In particular, today, many users prefer inexpensive 4K HDR Smart LED models.

This review contains the following Best Sellers of 2019:

– Toshiba 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart LED TVs;

– TCL 4K Ultra HD Roku Smart LED TVs;

– Insignia 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TVs;

– Samsung UN RU7100FXZA Flat 4K UHD HDR 7 Series Smart TVs with Alexa Compatibility;

– Sony X800G 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV with HDR and Alexa Compatibility.

Toshiba 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart LED Tvs

As known, in early 2015, Toshiba sold its television business in the United States, including a factory in Mexico and the right to sell TVs under the Toshiba brand in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The new owner was a Taiwanese Compal Electronics, Inc, which manufactures laptops, PCs, tablets and TVs for a variety of clients around the world, including Apple Inc., Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, etc. In addition, it also licenses brands of its clients.

Already in 2018, the new owner introduced more than 10 new models under the Toshiba brand. They have Fire TV Edition, Voice Remote with Alexa, dual-band Wi-Fi, and three HDMI inputs. As known, Fire TV Edition integrates with the help of HD antenna the live over-the-air TV and streaming channels on a unified home screen. In addition, TVs provide 4K Ultra HD picture quality with over 8 million pixels. In addition, they have a modern, stylish design.

But, the unprecedented low price has become their main trump card. It did not exceed several hundred dollars, which was impossible to imagine a few years ago for 4K UHD HDR Smart TVs! Of course, buyers enthusiastically responded to the offer.

Probably, at first, many buyers were afraid of quality problems, but it turned out to be quite high. As a result, these TVs got a flurry of positive reviews, which, in turn, caused an avalanche-like increase in popularity.

As a result, these TVs have been confidently included in Best Sellers for two years now.
Perhaps too low a price is the deliberate dumping of the company and it will increase it over time. But, today, most buyers are happy to take the opportunity to profitably buy TV.

TCL 4K Ultra HD Roku Smart LED Tvs

As known, TCL LED TVs with tremendous triumph first appeared in 2017. Chinese TCL Corporation proposed TVs 4K HDR TVs with a built-in Roku smart platform, and a fairly high picture quality for an amazingly low price. Of course, the popularity of these TVs has been growing rapidly. For example, TCL 6 Series became one of the Best Sellers of 2018.

It includes a 55-inch TCL 55R617 (Best Buy) / 55R615 (Amazon) for a little over $ 500, and a 65-inch TCL 65R617 / 65R615 up to $ 1,000.

55- and 65-inch models have the same specs. But, of course, they use different amounts of FALD (full-array local dimming) zones due to different screen sizes (96 and 120, respectively).

The R617 models cost $ 50 more because of the Roko remote with support voice commands.

Key features:

– 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160);

– High Dynamic Range support (HDR10 and Dolby Vision standards);

– built-in Roku streaming platform with Roku remote;

– FALD (full-array local dimming) LED backlight;

– native 60 Hz refresh rates.

Testing in Movie mode showed SDR Contrast of 200 nits / 0.02 nits (brightness/black level) and SDR color gamut coverage of 97% (Rec. 709), and great local dimming.

In addition, these TVs provide excellent HDR content playback quality, providing peak brightness around 600 nits and covering around 93% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

Input lag in Game mode does not exceed 18 ms, allowing you to use TV as a game console for not very demanding games.

This year, the company introduced the TCL S425 4K UHD Smart Roku TV series, priced from $ 280 to $ 1,000.

Insignia Roku 4K HDR Smart LED TVs

As known, Roku pioneered streaming for the TV. It developed a very popular Roku streaming platform based Roku OS. Today, co-branded Roku TV models are manufactured and sold by several large global TV OEM licensees, including Insignia, TCL, Hisense, Hitachi, Sharp, and Element, which use the Roku OS. In 2016, Roku, Inc announced the new 4K UHD Roku TV called Insignia at a great price. The new Insignia Roku TV has become one of the cheapest 4K UHD TVs. In addition, using a ystematic 4K Spotlight Channel catalog, Insignia TV provides simple and easy access to 4K UHD content online.

Actually, the Insignia Roku TV works like a symbiosis of a budget HDR 4K Smart TV with a console and can be positioned as the first combo streaming model. Of course, such an offer aroused enthusiasm among consumers, providing a profitable 2-in-1 purchase.

Main specs:

– stylish design with a case thickness of not more than 15.4 mm.

– Dolby Vision HDR support;

– brightness up to 1000 nits;

– UHD 4K resolution;

– TCL 4K Creative Pro upscaling option;

– 4000R screen curvature coefficient in curved models;

– Premium Harmon Kardon audio system with six speakers, including two subwoofers, mid-range speakers and tweeters;

– 4-core main CPU and 6-core image processing processor.

Today the company offers the Insignia NS-DF710NA19 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TVs with HDR and Fire TV Edition with a diagonal of 43 to 55 inches at a price of $ 250 to $ 380. In addition, the series includes the 24-inch and 32-inch 720p HD Smart LED TVs for $ 140 / $ 150, and 39-inch 1080p Full HD for $ 200 (all with Fire TV Edition).

Samsung UN RU7100FXZA 4K UHD HDR 7 Series Smart TV with Alexa Compatibility

Of course, traditional leaders did not stand aside and also offered excellent models in this segment. The 2019 range of low-cost Samsung 4K HDR LCD LED TVs includes the RU 7100, 7300 (curved), and 7400 Series. They all use a 8 Bit 4K VA-LCD panel which deep black and a high native contrast ratio of more than 5600:1 and with support of 10 Bit color depth. TV has a native 60/50 Hz frequency, UHD Engine processor, Edge LED backlight, Tizen 5.0 Smart TV, supports the HDR10, HDR10 + and HLG standards for HDR, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

In addition, Input lag less than 11 ms allows you to use TV as an excellent budget game console.

Today the most affordable and popular RU7100 series includes models with a diagonal from 43 inches to 75 inches at a price of $ 330 to $ 1,200.

As known, the Samsung annually improves Tizen OS and 2019 was no exception. Enhanced Tizen 5.0 supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Additionally, Tizen includes an integrated Samsung Smart-Things platform and a new Ambient mode for decorative images when the TV is off.

Of course, the model uses Samsung’s PurColor technology. As known, it was developed in 2015 to improve color reproduction. PurColor is used in UHD models to improve content with lower resolution. When receiving a signal, the processor compares several points, estimates the number of free pixels between them and paints them in the most suitable color, providing smoother gradations.

Unfortunately, the VA panel provides too narrow viewing angles, distorting color reproduction at an angle.

Sony X800G 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV with HDR and Alexa Compatibility

Sony also offered the relatively inexpensive 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV series with HDR and Alexa Compatibility. The X800G series includes 49, 55, 65, and 75 inch models priced from $ 700 to $ 1,500.

Of course, Sony TVs do not require presentation. The series uses almost all of Sony’s latest technology, including:

– 4K X-Reality PRO upscaling technology;

– TRILUMINOS Display;

– fine tune TV sound with ClearAudio+;

– Android TV;

– Motion flow XR technology for highly dynamic content;

– Dynamic Contrast Enhancer;

– built-in cable management.

In addition, TVs HDR10 & HLG standards support.

Models provide traditionally excellent image quality with very accurate color reproduction, vivid colors, and high contrast. Unfortunately, reliability and quality are expensive, limiting their competitiveness. Nevertheless, today this series is the cheapest among Sony 4K HDR TV’s and may be interesting for fans of this brand.

Conclusions

1. As usual, price is the main criterion for the Best Sellers list. Today, Toshiba (Taiwanese Compal Electronics, Inc), TCL, and Insignia TVs compete fiercely in this segment. All of these models are 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TVs with HDR and Alexa Compatibility. The companies offer a huge range of models with a diagonal from 50 to 75 inches at a price of up to $ 1,000. At the same time, the price range for 55 inch models ranges from $ 350 for the TCL 55S425 (2019), up to $ 450 for the Toshiba 55LF711U20. 55 inch Insignia NS-DF710NA19 costs a little less than $ 400. But, on the other hand, the difference in $ 100 reaches 25% of their average price.

2. Samsung UN RU7100FXZA 4K UHD 7 Series Smart TV with pricing up to $ 500 for 55 inch model provides the best performance and functionality, including UHD Engine processor, Tizen 5.0 Smart TV, etc.

3. 55-inch Sony X800G 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2019) with HDR and Alexa Compatibility costs less than $ 700 and supports all Sony’s latest technology, including 4K X-Reality PRO upscaling, TRILUMINOS Display, ClearAudio +, Dynamic Contrast Enhancer, etc. It leads the list of budget segment of the 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TVs with HDR and Alexa Compatibility.

4. Of course, such a variety pleases consumers, providing comprehensive and dynamic development in this segment, but sometimes it significantly complicates the choice of the optimal TV.

We sincerely wish you the Right Solution!

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