Brightness is one of the biggest compromises TV manufacturers make when producing a budget TV, but the VQM performs surprisingly well on this front. Using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software, and testing the TV out of the box in HDR Calibrated mode with an HDR10 signal, I measured a peak brightness of 431 nits for a full-screen white field and 766 nits for an 18% white field. After upping the local dimming to max, the peak brightness jumped to 475 nits for a full-screen white field and 969 for an 18% white field. However, that made the TV’s noticeable light bloom worse. Still, 766 nits peak brightness is pretty good for a cheap TV.
For comparison, the Hisense U65QF wowed me by reaching a blazing-for-budget 1,024 nits. Although I also consider the U65QF a budget TV, it’s much more expensive than the Vizio. The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series is much closer to the VQM in price, but it can only put out a paltry 285 nits.
Get Our Best Stories!
All the Latest Tech, Tested by Our Experts
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy
Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
(Credit: PCMag)
Color performance is excellent on the VQM. The above charts show the TV’s color levels in Calibrated mode with an SDR signal, compared against Rec. 709 broadcast standards; with an HDR10 signal, compared against DCI-P3 color levels; and in Dolby Vision Bright mode with a Dolby Vision signal, also compared against DCI-P3. Although SDR whites, cyans, and magentas lean a bit cool, HDR whites are spot-on, as are most HDR colors. The panel doesn’t cover the full DCI-P3 color space, but it comes close while remaining well-balanced. Magentas lean a bit warm with an HDR10 signal, but not significantly.
In testing, the BBC’s Planet Earth II looked very good on TV. The colors were varied and balanced, and daytime scenes looked satisfyingly bright. I clearly discerned the fine textures of fur and bark in scenes shot in the sun or shade. It’s an accurate, natural look.
The Great Gatsby demonstrated that local-dimming mini-LED arrays aren’t created equal, as the anamorphic picture’s letterboxing suffered significant light bloom, making the black bars lighten and darken noticeably depending on the scene. I could sometimes clearly see the cuts and contours of black jackets, but just as often, they lost their darker details to muddiness. Whites looked bright in contrast to those muddy blacks, despite the TV’s relatively low peak brightness.
Speaking of bright whites, I liked the snowy and cloudy shots in the demonstration footage on the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD benchmark. While the panel lit up big swaths of the screen quite well, it lost a lot of highlight detail to clipping, making clouds and falling snowflakes disappear into a sea of flat white. Light-bloom torture-test shots of colorful objects against completely black backgrounds also produced significant haze that tapered off gradually across the screen. This is unsurprising, since all local-dimming LED TVs show some bloom, and cheaper TVs with fewer zones than high-end models can’t control light leakage along high-contrast edges as well. The U65QF showed similar light bloom behavior in testing, as well as clipping in highlights and muddiness in shadows.
The colors remained vibrant when viewed from off-angle, with minimal desaturation. The contrast remained intact as I moved left or right from the screen’s center and past the edge, though the light bloom became much more noticeable.
