What the fuck happened to HDTVs are why are they so fucking cheap now

[Himu]

Last time I bought an HDTV (my Samsung 32 lcd) a 50 inch was over 1000 dollars. During Christmas I visited Best Buy and they've got massive Samsung 50 inches 4k tvs  for like 400 dollars. Holy shit. What happened.

[Tasty]

Lol I just saw a 4K 50" one for $350 on Kinja Deals and thought the same. Insane.

[Himu]

Yeah, it's pretty mind boggling. It's like high end up computers suddenly dropping to 300-400 dollars. It's absolute madness.

[Himu]

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-UN50MU6300-50-Inch-Ultra/dp/B06XGJRVJY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1514483209&sr=8-2&keywords=4k+50+inch+samsung

[ToxicAdam]

I had the same experience when I was in Target the other day. I knew off-brand televisions could be that cheap .. but all the brands were now there.

I bought my 55 inch Samsung about 6 years ago for 1700 dollars. That was right as prices were starting to drop from 5000+ to the 1500 dollar range. The TV is still going strong and I don't see a need to replace it.

[Himu]

https://www.target.com/p/samsung-50-smart-uhd-4k-120-motion-rate-tv-un50mu6300fxza/-/A-50714354#lnk=sametab

Holp poop.

So these are just sales?! Still amazing.

[demi]

Depends on what TV, some models are better than others. TVs usually go down in price around this time I believe

[Mupepe]

Honestly, you're getting about what you'd think for a $400 tv.  It has a lot of features but not the specs to really use them.  They need sufficient brightness to take advantage of HDR along with local dimming (or OLED).  That tv maxes out at 330 cd/m2 for HDR.  You won't really start seeing HDR effects until around 1000.  The viewing angles are god awful on most low end Samsungs.  You won't see the contrast without local dimming which that set doesn't have.  No wide color gamut means you're not going to get all those nice bright colors and contrast you see on the other sets.  Also, 60hz sucks.

At that price point get a nice HDTV and skip UHD.

[Tasty]

Nvm

[VomKriege]

Probably a breakthrough in the means of production of panels maybe correlates somewhat with the smartphone boom or something and the different technologies getting more trivial for the manufacturers, suddenly lots of demand for large and very small panels. Samsung, LG, Sony etc... still have upper tier options (55" for 3000 euro or so). Mupepe is also probably right that at that price some corners might have been cut as far as picture quality goes though it's probably minor to most everyone considering how resolutions and sizes bumped.

Maybe the economic model changed from the days of exclusive Pioneer, Panasonic & al displays (over imperfect LCD TV lagging behind tube TVs on many points) to manufacturers trying to hit that magic price point to convince people to change TV as much as they renew phones ?

[Raist]

Nothing weird about it. Same happened with previous tech milestones for TVs and players. Low end models reaching sufficient momentum with mass market coverage and become dirt cheap to produce.

[Human Snorenado]

We Made America Great Again. That's what happened.

[Rman]

economies of scale.

Check out the TCL-P line.  Excellent prices.

[Raist]

Is there actually a single US-based TV manufacturer?

Philips > NL
Sony, Sharp, Toshiba, Panasonic > JPN
Samsung, LG > KOR

Can't think of any.

[Samson Manhug]

https://www.target.com/p/samsung-50-smart-uhd-4k-120-motion-rate-tv-un50mu6300fxza/-/A-50714354#lnk=sametab

Holp poop.

So these are just sales?! Still amazing.

I have this TV. I got it for $450 from Target a few weeks ago and it was $450 at Best Buy recently. It's 120 hz, not 60 hz, and the colors look fantastic. I upgraded from a TV I bought a decade ago for over a grand. I thought it pretty much looked fine, but the difference was shocking. The HDR support in Battlefield meant I was seeing entirely new things — dudes running around on the ground from the sky, beautiful blues and pinks, etc. Good TV.

[samfish]

I got a 48” Seiki a few years ago for $350. Picture quality is fine on it. Apparently a lot of these off brand TVs are using the exact same parts as the high end ones.

I’m waiting to get a 75” TV for below $600 before I buy a new TV. Got close this year and saw a few for around $800. I figure I’ll have a new TV for sure by 2019.

[bork]

Yeah, the thing to be careful about is how the TVs are for gaming.  Probably not as much of a difference for just watching crap.  A lot of cheaper 4K stuff are lower quality and will have lower brightness levels and/or high input lag.  There's also some sets that claim to be HDR but are actually "HDR compatible" or just shit-quality HDR to the point where it makes no difference.

economies of scale.

Check out the TCL-P line.  Excellent prices.

Definitely.  The TCL-P605/607 is the best "budget" 4K HDR/Dolby 10 TV that actually works really well for gaming.  It's around $600 and is a steal for that price.

The Wirecutter named it the best 4K TV overall because of its price and noted that it beat out TVs that cost 2-3 times as much in tests.  That's when I jumped on it and bought one.

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-tv/

Also would like to note that while I'm happy with the TV, HDR is overrated as fuck.   It's nice, but not "OMG LET ME RUN OUT AND REPLACE MY 1080P TV" nice.  I did it to replace a 27" monitor that I had been using for gaming.  Wanted to get a bigger screen.  Almost returned it when I saw a 40-something inch monitor that got released, but it apparently isn't very good for gaming.

[Mupepe]

I got a 48” Seiki a few years ago for $350. Picture quality is fine on it. Apparently a lot of these off brand TVs are using the exact same parts as the high end ones.

I’m waiting to get a 75” TV for below $600 before I buy a new TV. Got close this year and saw a few for around $800. I figure I’ll have a new TV for sure by 2019.

The bolded is true.  For example, Sony sells their OLED tv's for over twice as much as LG but both panels are made by LG.  Sony has some great software that runs it, but it doesn't do anything that warrants twice as much. 

And as Dos Locos Tacos mentioned, there's a hell of a lot of word smithing going on in the 4k advertisements and marketing.  Lots of "120hz" sets are not really 120 hz.  They're 60hz and use software to simulate a higher refresh rate.

I'd recommend using rtings.com    They have great comparisons and review each aspect of the tv.

[Rman]

This is also why Apple didn't get into TVs either.  They like their high margins.

[Trent Dole]

HDTVs have become the standard so they're cheaper than they used to be. 4k is for the high end people now.

[ToxicAdam]

Affordability and quality of television is at an all-time high, yet my interest is at an all-time low.

[Samson Manhug]

This is applicable too. Cheap TVs may be part of a greater social problem:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/17/the-stuff-we-really-need-is-getting-more-expensive-other-stuff-is-getting-cheaper/

[Himu]

So can someone explain 60 hz and 120 hz? I'm kinda new to the whole 4k thing.

[Mupepe]

120hz helps with motion blur issues and judder, especially when playing movies that are in 24p.