LCD TV Reviews

Black: 0.007
White: 25.1

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 3,586:1

The measurements above were taken with the backlight at 15 (the factory default is 80—the center position!), the contrast at 35 (in the factory default of 50, bright whites on test patterns had a noticeable pink tint), and the brightness setting on 52 (the factory default of 67 hides the uneven screen illumination, but it produces a pale-looking image with elevated blacks).

This is an excellent result for an LED-lit HDTV that doesn’t have local dimming. While I took my measurements from the center of the screen, as always, be aware that because of the uneven screen lighting, some parts of the screen were brighter, and some parts were darker.

The correct Brightness control setting in our sample varied between 51 and 53 depending on the program material and the test disc used. In addition to the one above, I made several other contrast measurements by varying the brightness setting within this range and the backlight between 10 and 20. Two examples: With Brightness on 51 and Backlight on 10, the full-on/full-off contrast ratio was 4,006:1 (20.03 foot-lamberts peak white, 0.005 ft-L black); with Brightness on 53 and Backlight on 20, the corresponding result was 3,340:1 (30.06 ft-L, 0.0009 ft-L).

The Color Tracking charts below show how well a display adheres to the D65 standard white point; the tighter the overlap of the three primary colors, the nearer the result is to D65. The Before Calibration result in this sample (taken in the Warm color temperature setting) was only fair. The After Calibration result is very good, with all of the Delta E values between 30 IRE and 100 IRE at 3.27 or less (mostly much less). The only exception was a value of 7.1 at 20 IRE (very dark). My attempts to improve this degraded the result where the error was more visible. (Delta E is a figure of merit showing how close to result is to the standard D65 white point. Most experts recommend a Delta E value of 4 or less or a visually ideal result. Some are more stringent and recommend no more than 3.)

There are no color management adjustments for the color gamut, or optional fixed selections, but the set’s gamut, shown in the CIE chart above, is less oversaturated than we’ve seen on some sets.—TJN