I’ve had my 65″ Sharp for 9 years now (blogged about here). I finally have an upgrade. I got an 85″ Samsung LCD/LED, at a big Black Friday week discount from Amazon.
Like most modern TVs, it is a 4K TV (or UHD – Ultra High Definition – twice the linear resolution of HDTV). There’s not a lot of content in 4K yet, but more all the time. Netflix has several series that are streamed in 4K (House of Cards, Jessica Jones…) and Amazon and YouTube are adding content all the time too. Dish has announced a 4K upgrade that I will look into, but they already over-compress a lot of HD content and I will have to read some reviews before I pay any more.
The big “gimmick” right now is curved TVs. Personally I don’t like the curve, and so this is a flat TV. Partly I think they make them curved just because they can, and it looks kind of neat. But I think they are worse for off-angle viewing, and catch more reflections.
I am mostly very happy. It’s a good upgrade to my old TV. Nature shows in 4K are especially amazing to watch, but even HD content gets upscaled and looks very good.
My biggest complaint is that the screen is glossy and reflects any light behind me. My old Sharp had a matte finish, but that’s not really an option for a 4K TV, as the matte tends to blur the fine details that 4K reveals. I will have to figure something out, either a curtain behind the sofa or opaque shades on the kitchen lights.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Dale // Dec 4, 2015 at 1:15 pm
I think you need to build a home theater room with stadium seating, dark velvet curtains all around, and new surround sound.
2 Ken // Dec 4, 2015 at 3:30 pm
Why do you need lights in the kitchen? With that amount of lumens pumping into your living room I would think it would light up the whole place!
3 Donna // Dec 4, 2015 at 5:55 pm
It did look pretty spectacular on that nature youtube video I saw. Have you decided what you’re going to do with your 65′?
4 Don // Dec 5, 2015 at 9:14 am
Big TV. Big, big, big TV. REALLY BIG TV.
I find our 70″ is a tad large for our living room but with your large room an 85″ should be great.
5 Daryl // Dec 6, 2015 at 10:35 am
Our viewing distance is about 12 feet. CNET and others suggest that an 85″ TV is not too large for that distance, especially 4K. The TV could even be larger, but I’m afraid that might be like sitting in the front row in the theater where you have to turn your head to follow the action.
I find myself sometimes distracted from the story by marveling over the clarity of the image, but I’m sure I will get used to that.
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