VIZIO 50-inch Quantum Pro 4K 120Hz QLED HDR10+ Smart TV with Dolby Vision, Active Full Array, 240Hz @ 1080p PC Gaming, WiFi 6E, Apple AirPlay, Chromecast Built-in, M50QXM-K01, 2023 Model

Turn off Local Dimming
Turn off “Local Dimming” and it is amazing for the price. The local dimming does not have enough zones to work properly but it does not detract from the experience at all when turned off

Good QLED IPS Panel – Useless local dimming/HDR
UPDATE: After exactly 1 year, the optical output on the TV broke. Now I am stuck using the TV’s built-in speakers because there is also no analog audio output on this TV. Combined with the issues listed below, I can confidently say avoid this TV.I settled on this TV after a long and frustrating search – Most QLED panels are VA type, which gives inky black contrast that, when combined with full array local dimming, gives OLED panels a run for their money in HDR, but sacrifices viewing angle. For my application however, the viewing angle was important, and OLED was out of my price range, so I needed an IPS panel, which has better off-center picture quality but can’t really make black pixels black, they end up looking gray. And I wanted a TV with quantum dots for the vibrant color and brightness. I figured that modern local dimming tech, where the backlight dims in darker areas of the image to allow black pixels to be darker and improve the dynamic range of the display (HDR), would be good enough for my application. It wouldn’t rival an OLED, but it would be an improvement on past TV’s without this tech and negate the disadvantages of IPS, or so I thought…The only 75” panels I could find with IPS and QLED at first were a series of TV’s by LG. The LG TV’s were a little lower in price than this Vizio, but they used edge-lit displays, which can’t really do local dimming because they do not have the ability to turn down the backlight behind specific parts of the image. After a lot of searching, I came across this product, which I was thrilled to find was QLED, IPS, and full array local dimming. It wasn’t well loved by tech reviewers, seemingly mostly due to software, and underwhelming HDR performance compared to the VA-panel equipped competition. The poor ratings of dynamic range were all done with the local dimming turned off, which is no surprise as IPS panels can’t make pixels fully dark. But I figured that was an unfair measure and the dynamic range would be greatly helped by the full array local dimming. I figured this was the only option that met my criteria.When I first set up the TV, I was extremely disappointed in the picture quality. There was simultaneously a lack of detail in the highlights and the shadows, and really inconsistent picture quality across a variety of content sources. I went into the settings to see what I could do to adjust the picture.Turns out the culprit is extremely poor software calibration for the local dimming HDR feature. High, Medium, or Low local dimming all created an over processed image that looks almost like when you convert a video file through multiple formats, as well as deeply unconvincing HDR. But when you disable the local dimming feature, VOILA! The picture quality became excellent. Even watching HDR demo videos isn’t too disappointing, because while the blacks aren’t that black, the screen gets very bright in the bright parts.It is worth noting that to execute local dimming HDR, the TV has to know precisely where the lighting zones start and end, must intelligently adjust the backlight brightness of each zone, and adjust the “brightness” of the pixels in that zone to account for an inconsistent amount of light being pushed through them. This takes sophisticated software calibration to achieve, but once you do it, it’s free to copy it to every TV you make.It is extremely disappointing that this TV has the hardware I want but the software calibration of the HDR feature is SO atrocious it is COMPLETELY UNUSABLE. I’m left thinking that they just copied software from a VA panel calibration and gave an intern half a week to fiddle with variables. This TV has the hardware I was looking for but because they couldn’t be bothered to do the software right, I may as well have dropped my local dimming requirement and bought an LG panel with edge lighting for less money.That said, for a non-HDR IPS QLED, the image quality is very good. The complaints about the usability of the smart features are overblown, it’s not any worse than any other mainstream smart TV software – considerably better than Samsung’s – and the remote control is actually quite nice to use. Plus, I notice that the reflections on the screen are much less clear/bright than they are on my other (LG) TV so perhaps its worth the extra money over the LG IPS panel just for that superior reflection handling. In any case, I’m not going to return it. It’s going to serve my needs just fine.But I’m warning you: There is no good picture quality on this TV unless you DISABLE one of its HEADLINE FEATURES: full array local dimming. And the only reason for that is bad software calibration. Try harder, Vizio; and if getting full array local dimming to work properly on an IPS display actually is impossible, then why build this panel?