How We Tested 40-Inch TVs

The Testers

Reviewed has been testing TVs since some of its current employees were in middle school. While many proud TV testers have come and gone through Reviewed’s labs, the current Home Theater team consists of Michael Desjardin and Lee Neikirk. Michael is a Senior Staff Writer and a seven-year veteran of the Reviewed tech team. A film enthusiast and TV expert, he takes picture quality seriously but also understands that not every TV is a good fit for everyone.

As Reviewed’s Home Theater Editor, Lee doesn’t do as much testing these days. However, he designed the company’s current TV testing methodology after receiving calibration certification from the Imaging Science Foundation.

The Tests

It’d be an understatement to say that we’re serious about TV testing. The lab in our Cambridge location is outfitted with much of the same equipment you’d find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates television.

On the hardware side, we’ve got things like a Konica Minolta CS-200 tristimulus Color meter, an LS-100 luminance meter, a Leo Bodnar input lag tester, a Murideo Seven 8K signal generator, and more Blu-rays than we can keep track of. For software, we use Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate color calibration software, the industry-standard in taking display measurements and calibrating screens to specifications.

Our testing process is equally complicated and has been honed over many years to gather data that is marginal enough to satisfy curious video engineers, but also relevant to the average person’s viewing experience. We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue and saturation for primary and secondary digital colors, the accuracy of the TV’s electro-optical transfer function—you get the idea, it’s complicated.

Weighting for our performance tests is based on how the human eye prioritizes vision, which means we put “brightness” data (monochromatic eye based on light sensitivity) higher than colorimetry, which is also scaled by the eye’s sensitivity, and so on.

Outside of the strictly technical tests, we also spend a lot of time just watching and using each TV, getting a feel for the at-home experience of doing things like dialing up streaming video service, connecting a Blu-ray player and watching movies, using the smart features, and checking out the TV’s ports, remote, and on-set buttons—anything and everything that might be relevant.

What You Should Know About Buying a 40-Inch Television

While everyone has different eyes, generally, our vision all functions the same way: we prioritize dynamic information and bright, compelling colors over subtler hues and resolution (sharpness). Generally, a TV can be considered a good TV when we forget that we’re watching a TV. We don’t see pixels creating mixes of red, green, and blue to simulate colors; we see the real world, lit and colored as it is, in fluid motion.

In simpler terms, this means a TV that can get very bright and dark without obscuring details; produces accurate colors (compared to various color standards designated by the International Telecommunication Union); possesses proper bit-mapping and the right codecs and decoders for video processing; and can properly play the various types of content thrown at it without judder, blurring, and so on.

Note that specs alone (pixel count, measured brightness) aren’t automatic indicators of quality, much like intense speed is not automatically an indicator of a good car.

What TV Terms Do I Need To Know?

When it comes to knowing what you’re paying for, almost no category is rifer with subterfuge and tomfoolery than TVs. While knowing the specs of the TV you’re shopping for is only half the battle, it’s the bigger half. Here are the key bits of jargon you’ll want to know while browsing:

LED/LCD: This refers to Light Emitting Diode and Liquid Crystal Display. LEDs are the backlights used in LCD TVs, also sometimes called a LED TV for this reason. The LED backlight shines through a layer of a semi-solid substance called “liquid crystal,” so named for its ability to morph in reaction to tiny electrical volts and allow light to pass through.

OLED: This means Organic Light Emitting Diode. This is an altogether different panel technology than LED/LCD. Rather than an LED backlight element shining through an LCD panel element, OLED TVs essentially combine the backlight and crystal array, using sub-pixel strata that produce light and color individually.

4K/UHD: Usually 4K refers to resolution—specifically, 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. This is the current standard/mainstream resolution for most TVs. UHD means Ultra High Definition, and actually refers to a suite of picture improvements like 4K resolution and Wide Color Gamut, which can display many more shades than HD TVs.

High Dynamic Range: Like “UHD,” High Dynamic Range (or HDR) refers to both a type of TV and a type of content that expands on the typical range of brightness (luminance) and color that a TV will produce. HDR TVs are newer and usually a bit more expensive, but can have many times the brightness and 30% more color production than non-HDR TVs. Current top HDR formats include HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.

60Hz/120Hz: These numbers refer to what is called a “refresh rate,” with Hz (hertz) representing “times per second.” So if a TV’s refresh rate is 60Hz, this means it re-scans and updates for picture information 60 times per second; with 120Hz, it’s 120 times per second. Currently, TVs only come in 60 or 120Hz. A higher refresh rate is always better, but not always necessary.

Smart TV: The term “smart TV” has evolved a lot over the years, but all it really means is that the TV connects to the internet. Most smart TVs these days are just a way to watch streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video on your TV. Some smart TVs have browsers, calendars, or even Roku or Android functions. All smart TVs have ethernet or WiFi built-in.

Quantum Dots: Quantum Dots are used in LED/LCD TVs only. These are microscopic nanocrystals that produce intensely colored light when illuminated. Quantum dots can be used to vastly improve the red and green saturation of a TV, and are one way that LED/LCD TVs can match the color spectrum of OLED.

Local Dimming: OLED panels look great because each pixel can operate independently. LED/LCD TVs can imitate this functioning via a process called local dimming, where localized clusters of LEDs dim or boost depending on whether the screen needs to be darker or brighter, sometimes vastly improving their performance and worth.

What Is A TV Series?

You may notice the TVs listed in this roundup don’t follow the traditional naming convention you might see in a store or online. That’s because rather than nominating a single size of TV (such as the LG OLED65C8PUA, aka the 65-inch LG C8 series OLED), we nominate the entire range of sizes within a “series.”

Typically these TVs are identical in performance but differ in price and size. We do this in order to offer you more flexibility in your decision, but also because it’s the most accurate representation available.

Other 40-Inch TVs We Tested

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