choosing fisrt 4K TV on the cheap(-ish)

[tautvydas]

so for quite a while now i have been looking into buying a TV.

i have been looking mostly into LG tv's because they seem to have more budget options (samsung is there sort of too, while Sony's offerings are a bit extra)
still unsure if i want to go 49" or 55", but i'm leaning towards 55" one.

the model i'm mostly interested in is LG 55UM7400PLB. but the thing is there is almost to none coverage of this exact model. i know Rtings has one for 55" 7300 one, and i'm guessing that they are very similar, except 7400 one has slightly better sound stuff, otherwise they seem same on paper (and thats the thing, there is not way to confirm anything, it could be that its using slightly different panel and that would kinda make Rtings review irrelevant to me. (feel free to prove me that i'm wrong, that would help a lot).

also in Rtings review they noted that LG 49" panels were using some sort of panels that are not true RGB but something called RGBW witch from what iv understood is basicly worse and could impact the viewing experience to some extent and i'm unsure how much that would be, but then again it is cheaper. the price of 55" is 430Eur (410Eur) and 49" one for 370Eur (360Eur)

another issue i found, is that LG still uses global dimming like it did long ago (i use old TV/monitor from LG M22WD) and that shit was driving me crazy when i was trying to run that display trough HDMI (as i later found out technicly that TV does not support PC input over HDMI but that was causing other issues and i dropped that idea). Is global dimming still noticeable on the new TV's ? from what iv gathered some people just straight up gave up on it, some say that they get used to it, some dont even notice it. On my current display i made peace with it that i cant turn it off (using DVI-D/VGA cable makes it slightly less obivous, except for when i watch something, moving mouse breaks that dimming shit), and just assumed 10 years later (now) they would have came to their senses and would have an option to disable it, but that does not seem to be the case. Samsungs have the same option from what iv seen, while the only one SONY tv's i looked at have this setting off by default, so no flickering on dark/light transitioning scenes, but they are extra 100 Euro at the bottom of 4K tv's of 49" or 55"

TL;DR
looking at ~450 budget for a first 4K TV, main concerns: global dimming, flickering, pannels, trusted manufacturer because  i want it to last.
if anyone is using LG 55UM7400PLB or LG49UM7400PLB any insights on how are they ?

[Bombastinator]

The problem lately seems to be there are a ridiculously large number of models of monitor and TV out there today, and they come out fast.  So fast and so many that they often can’t all be reviewed.  The thing is is there are fewer panel manufacturers than TV manufacturers, and each manufacturer may use the same panel in  More than one device.  You may be able to find a useful review by figuring out what panel is in the tv and looking at other devices that use that panel. 
 

So what you are saying is you want a local array dimming panel for better blacks from a high end manufacturer for less than $450.  I’m not sure such an animal exists. 

[tautvydas]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

The problem lately seems to be there are a ridiculously large number of models of monitor and TV out there today, and they come out fast.  So fast and so many that they often can’t all be reviewed.  The thing is is there are fewer panel manufacturers than TV manufacturers, and each manufacturer may use the same panel I. More than one device.  You may be able to find a useful review by figuring out what panel is in the tv and looking at other devices that use that panel. 
 

So what you are saying is you want a local array dimming panel for better blacks from a high end manufacturer for less than $450.  I’m not sure such an animal exists. 

no no, local array dimming is the thing i dont care about, global dimming (thats seems to be LG version of it) is when the scene is black/dark it dims the display even more. (example: car driving trough dark tunnel, everything on screen is black, so the display turns dimmer, then when car leaves the tunnel and the sun shines and it gets bright, the display then turn its brightness up to what its usually is.) i want to avoid that dimming nonsense, just one straight brightness/dimming level throughout everything.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, tautvydas said:

no no, local array dimming is the thing i dont care about, global dimming (thats seems to be LG version of it) is when the scene is black/dark it dims the display even more. (example: car driving trough dark tunnel, everything on screen is black, so the display turns dimmer, then when car leaves the tunnel and the sun shines and it gets bright, the display then turn its brightness up to what its usually is.) i want to avoid that dimming nonsense, just one straight brightness/dimming level throughout everything.

Ah.  So you’re looking for something even more primitive than global dimming.  That may be hard to find, though years ago it was more common.  Monitors sometimes do this but global dimming is cheap and makes better blacks so it’s very likely everywhere now and has been for years.  Even my phone does it and it is by no means a new phone. Best hope might be to find a device where it can be turned off and just put up with the poor black levels it creates. 

[Chris Pratt]

4 minutes ago, tautvydas said:

no no, local array dimming is the thing i dont care about, global dimming (thats seems to be LG version of it) is when the scene is black/dark it dims the display even more. (example: car driving trough dark tunnel, everything on screen is black, so the display turns dimmer, then when car leaves the tunnel and the sun shines and it gets bright, the display then turn its brightness up to what its usually is.) i want to avoid that dimming nonsense, just one straight brightness/dimming level throughout everything.

That's how LED works. There's a back light. When scenes are dark, it has to turn the back light virtually off to simulate black, and then all the way up to simulate white light. Normal scenes essentially operate in greys. Local dimming, is how higher end LCD panels "fix" this, by turning off just the areas of the panel that are dark, while leaving the regularly lit parts of the scene on. In practice, it's still not great, and frankly I find it more annoying than just universal dimming.

 

The only way to avoid this is to step up to an OLED panel, which literally only lights the pixels that are on. However, you're not getting OLED anywhere south of $1000.

[tautvydas]

1 minute ago, Chris Pratt said:

That's how LED works. There's a back light. When scenes are dark, it has to turn the back light virtually off to simulate black, and then all the way up to simulate white light. Normal scenes essentially operate in greys. Local dimming, is how higher end LCD panels "fix" this, by turning off just the areas of the panel that are dark, while leaving the regularly lit parts of the scene on. In practice, it's still not great, and frankly I find it more annoying than just universal dimming.

 

The only way to avoid this is to step up to an OLED panel, which literally only lights the pixels that are on. However, you're not getting OLED anywhere south of $1000.

never though about it that way, makes more sense now. but then again i'm not really bothered by gray-ish black that IPS panels do. but the way its done is a bit too much for me, i remember when i was watching GoT and they were in the cave, i had to constantly move the mouse to avoid screen getting so dark i could not see anything at all.
Like i said in my original post, from what i can tell only SONY has this option off by default, while other have it on with no real way to turn it off. and yeah, when at the store and watching side by side comparison of IPS and OLED displays you can really tell the difference, not to mention price difference.

[Chris Pratt]

I'm not sure how this can be turned "off". You can up the base brightness level, such that dark never really gets that dark, but it has to dim the backlight, or black would be white.

[tautvydas]

3 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

I'm not sure how this can be turned "off". You can up the base brightness level, such that dark never really gets that dark, but it has to dim the backlight, or black would be white.

i guess better expression would be, that it does not fully go black and stay that gray-ish color since it does not clearly dim the whole screen, and i would give an arm and a leg so other displays could have that as an option you could choose. this whole dimming thing sounds great on paper and probably is good when watching things at night, but in the daylight its just annoying

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

I'm not sure how this can be turned "off". You can up the base brightness level, such that dark never really gets that dark, but it has to dim the backlight, or black would be white.

Wouldn’t be white because there’s still liquid crystals in front of the backlight trying to make it darker. Dirty grey though sure.  If liquid crystal were totally opaque it would still work and there would be no global dimming.  The issue is oled and liquid crystal work differently. 

[Chris Pratt]

20 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Wouldn’t be white because there’s still liquid crystals in front of the backlight trying to make it darker. Dirty grey though sure.  If liquid crystal were totally opaque it would still work and there would be no global dimming.  The issue is oled and liquid crystal work differently. 

Well, yeah. I was being intentionally simplistic. The point is that if you don't dim the backlight it's just on an the screen would never get darker than a very light grey, functionally white, at least as far as the display is concerned.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

Well, yeah. I was being intentionally simplistic. The point is that if you don't dim the backlight it's just on an the screen would never get darker than a very light grey, functionally white, at least as far as the display is concerned.

Problems of English.  A repetitive issue.

 

“Screen” in this case is a vague term because there is the backlight and the liquid crystal mask. “White” is also vague in this case because it can be 100% white what-the-sun-would-look-like-on-screen, and the term used in color balance.  “Very light grey” would be a value judgement.  Far less than pure black certainly.  A lcd cannot produce a pure black because they’re not opaque. In a scene with pure black and sun on an edge lit screen the difference between deepest shadow and the sun would be what “very light grey” would be.  Many would call that a lot more than “very light gray”.