Computers & Electronics

Since when was Vizio considered High End or even Mid End?

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  • Jan 13th, 2018 2:43 am
Member
Jul 24, 2015
237 posts
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Since when was Vizio considered High End or even Mid End?

As far as I'm aware, Vizio was always considered a budget brand for a TV that works but wasn't known for its quality.

But nowadays, I'm seeing people compare Vizio TVs with high end Sony, Samsung, and LG TVs.

Did Vizio finally shake off their budget brand label?
16 replies
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Jul 3, 2017
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https://www.cnet.com/news/buyer-beware- ... good-deal/

"During Black Friday well-known name brands like Samsung and LG often sell their cheapest models for prices far below what you may expect. A lot are fine, but some might not deliver the same level of picture quality or features as a lesser-known brand like TCL or Vizio -- both of which routinely top CNET's list of best TVs for the money. In other words, even on Black Friday a TV's brand shouldn't be the sole determining factor.

And on the flip side, there are many brands that you might recognize that are nothing but the name of a formerly great company. Chinese companies have spent years buying up the trademarks of once storied companies. Polaroid, Kodak and many others have little-to-no relation to the companies you once knew. They're Chinese manufacturers looking to use the name recognition of a once-great brand. Again, these aren't necessarily bad, but don't let the name fool you."
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Mar 14, 2009
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Vizio is still a budget brand, but as @Exp315 just said, brand matters less with TVs than most people think. The most important component of any TV is the panel. Samsung, LG, and Sony all have some TVs in their lineup that suck. The Samsung 6300 series, for example. For the same price or less you can get a vastly superior TV that will do a great job with HDR, from a lesser known brand.

That being said, you do have to be careful. Brands like RCA and Haier are extremely budget oriented and I have seen a lot of quality control problems with them first hand.

IMO the best budget brand right now is Hisense. They make great TVs. With Hisense you can often get a bigger TV with better specs compared to the bigger brands, for the same price or less.
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Aug 2, 2004
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East Gwillimbury
Vizio is still a budget brand in my mind.

I always assume they are using b grade panels from the tier 1 manufacturers.
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Gee wrote: I always assume they are using b grade panels from the tier 1 manufacturers.
Well that's certainly a more reliable way to judge than reading actual tests from an expert test lab like CNET. :)
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Mar 23, 2009
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SickBeast wrote: Vizio is still a budget brand, but as @Exp315 just said, brand matters less with TVs than most people think. The most important component of any TV is the panel. Samsung, LG, and Sony all have some TVs in their lineup that suck. The Samsung 6300 series, for example. For the same price or less you can get a vastly superior TV that will do a great job with HDR, from a lesser known brand.

That being said, you do have to be careful. Brands like RCA and Haier are extremely budget oriented and I have seen a lot of quality control problems with them first hand.

IMO the best budget brand right now is Hisense. They make great TVs. With Hisense you can often get a bigger TV with better specs compared to the bigger brands, for the same price or less.
Vizio is still a budget brand too. The problem with them is also the quality control. It seems from the various reports that the panel lottery is in full play here with Vizio. It's true with other brands too, but more so with Vizio. Furthermore, their firmware stability has seemed sub par.
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Jan 18, 2009
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2016 Vizio P from C|Net :
Aside from the OLED TV, the P-Series was the overall best in my lineup in a dark room. It delivered deep blacks with minimal blooming, beating out all of the other LCD sets in this area.
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A "budget" brand which has been consistently breaking into the CNET "Top 5 TVs of the year" for last few years. The choice is yours. Switched from Samsung and gave Vizio a try in 2015, couldn't been any happier.
Newbie
Dec 9, 2017
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I have bought an MU6300 for Black Friday for a good price ($700) Would you say its worth it to return it and pay the difference for a Vizio M-Series for the better HDR? (Even though the input lag isn’t as great...)

I keep reading amazing things about the Vizio M series, and I’m really starting to regret my purchase of the MU6300...
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markie99 wrote: I have bought an MU6300 for Black Friday for a good price ($700) Would you say its worth it to return it and pay the difference for a Vizio M-Series for the better HDR? (Even though the input lag isn’t as great...)

I keep reading amazing things about the Vizio M series, and I’m really starting to regret my purchase of the MU6300...
I have Vizio P not the M. My uncle got the Costco variant of the MU6300 (my aunt is a big Samsung TV fan). The Samsung is not a bad TV per se. However, for Movies it sncks @ss, compared to the Vizio P. For HDR, it's simply terrible... My uncle keeps saying that: HDR is a pure marketing lie, there's no difference between SDR and HDR! :)
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Aug 4, 2005
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Brampton
I trust Vizio as much as any other brand.

Only thing is compared to Sony or LG, etc, I expect the price to be a tad less or more value for your money.

Although I wasn't in the market for a TV this year it seemed like basically LG if you want OLED, Sony for a high end LED, Vizio for Value high end value and the rest are either not worth it or for being budget friendly. Did not know about TCL before but if you lived in the states(does not sell here) then that's also a good brand for value.
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Nov 8, 2017
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Why does brand matter when buying a TV? Picture quality is number 1.

Samsung and LG are the only brands that make their own panels. This generation processing, backlighting and upscaling are much more important.
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Mar 23, 2004
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Since when? Probably for years now. Personally I consider them to be a lower-priced Tier 1 brand and have for quite some time. I've never bought one but I'd probably be far more likely to buy one than a "warranty-is-not-worth-the-paper-it's-written-on" Samsung TV. For some background, all the TVs in my house are Sony, and basically always have been going back to the CRT days (okay okay I once owned a Toshiba flat-CRT for a bedroom, lol). While my next TV purchase would probably again be a Sony, I'm not at all opposed to buying a Vizio. Samsung OTOH? Probably would never own one--no thanks.

I think Vizio is just fine TBH. Back when they started it was easy to pass them off as some el-cheapo Tier 2 brand but they managed to shed that reputation very quickly. If they really had that many problems with QC and reliability, then you'd see a good number of very vocal ppl going on about "never buying Vizio again!" however from just being a forum-user of AVS, I've not really seen much of those comments. I've actually seen way more of those directed at Samsung and Sony (whether warranted or not is another story but being the big players obviously they are going to have a lot of complainers too).

The TV landscape has changed a lot over the past few years as well, as pointed out in post#2. And it's not just since the age of LCDs either, it's also in more recent times. For example Sharp, in North America, isn't really making TVs anymore either, relegating them to Tier 3 rebrand/rehash/"just-a-name" status. In Japan apparently they still make TVs, but the ones here? Not really Sharp. And the funny part is Sharp was the pioneer of LCD technology! But now, over here at least, they're not even in the game.

You don't really have many first tier choices these days either, so I wouldn't count Vizio out. You basically have Sony, Samsung, LG, and Vizio at this market level. Then you have stuff like Hisense and TCL (which we don't even see here much); and then the rest is just a bunch of junkety-junk "mass-produced" stuff with tons of brand names but little besides the name...with crap quality, ultra cheap prices, and massive inconsistency (sometimes completely different panels/internals for the same mode#!), that are basically just "fix-it-yourself-out-of-the-box-or-live-with-it" type jobbies that rest on Tier 3 and below. And those are a far distance apart from the higher tier brands in many cases.
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Jan 18, 2009
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ES_Revenge wrote: Since when? Probably for years now. Personally I consider them to be a lower-priced Tier 1 brand and have for quite some time. I've never bought one but I'd probably be far more likely to buy one than a "warranty-is-not-worth-the-paper-it's-written-on" Samsung TV. For some background, all the TVs in my house are Sony, and basically always have been going back to the CRT days (okay okay I once owned a Toshiba flat-CRT for a bedroom, lol). While my next TV purchase would probably again be a Sony, I'm not at all opposed to buying a Vizio. Samsung OTOH? Probably would never own one--no thanks.

I think Vizio is just fine TBH. Back when they started it was easy to pass them off as some el-cheapo Tier 2 brand but they managed to shed that reputation very quickly. If they really had that many problems with QC and reliability, then you'd see a good number of very vocal ppl going on about "never buying Vizio again!" however from just being a forum-user of AVS, I've not really seen much of those comments. I've actually seen way more of those directed at Samsung and Sony (whether warranted or not is another story but being the big players obviously they are going to have a lot of complainers too).

The TV landscape has changed a lot over the past few years as well, as pointed out in post#2. And it's not just since the age of LCDs either, it's also in more recent times. For example Sharp, in North America, isn't really making TVs anymore either, relegating them to Tier 3 rebrand/rehash/"just-a-name" status. In Japan apparently they still make TVs, but the ones here? Not really Sharp. And the funny part is Sharp was the pioneer of LCD technology! But now, over here at least, they're not even in the game.

You don't really have many first tier choices these days either, so I wouldn't count Vizio out. You basically have Sony, Samsung, LG, and Vizio at this market level. Then you have stuff like Hisense and TCL (which we don't even see here much); and then the rest is just a bunch of junkety-junk "mass-produced" stuff with tons of brand names but little besides the name...with crap quality, ultra cheap prices, and massive inconsistency (sometimes completely different panels/internals for the same mode#!), that are basically just "fix-it-yourself-out-of-the-box-or-live-with-it" type jobbies that rest on Tier 3 and below. And those are a far distance apart from the higher tier brands in many cases.
+1

We've always bought Sony TVs until the last one. At that time, the Vizio P was the best TV for our budget. Sony had no FALD and OLEDs were over our budget. But our next TV will probably a Sony FALD or an OLED. We'd never buy a TV that can't display black correctly and don't mention bias-lighting. Bias-lighting is stupid. Movies are mastered to be watched in the dark. There's no bias-lighting in theatres.
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Exp315 wrote: Well that's certainly a more reliable way to judge than reading actual tests from an expert test lab like CNET. :)
IndyBeak wrote: A "budget" brand which has been consistently breaking into the CNET "Top 5 TVs of the year" for last few years. The choice is yours. Switched from Samsung and gave Vizio a try in 2015, couldn't been any happier.
Is it just me who doesn't put much stock in CNET, then?
I prefer RTINGS for TV reviews.
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JAC wrote: Is it just me who doesn't put much stock in CNET, then?
I prefer RTINGS for TV reviews.
Vizios are rated and reviewed very positively on RTINGS as well. And yes you are right, RTINGS is a more relevant site for TV reviews. CNET has a much wider scope.
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Nov 18, 2017
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Only good and reliable brands are Sony/lg/Samsung. Vizio has horrible colors. Brands like Toshiba and sharp are now junk cause they no longer make their own TVs. Never had a Sony crap out or have problems. They get outdated before they die lol. You may have a good or bad experience with Vizio but with the big three you’re guaranteed quality pretty much and better colors tbh. And the hdr isn’t as good on Chinese junk/ budget panels. Quality has a price.

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