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Choosing the Right TV for Your Home

With the Super Bowl coming early in the year, that means January is TV buying season! If you're looking to upgrade your TV, we have some technology recommendations best-suited for your TV viewing space. And if you're buying, selling, or remodeling your home, we've also included some considerations for making you or your buyers' TV experience as best as possible!

Location. Location. Location.

One of the most common mistakes homeowners make when placing their TV is height and heat. Specifically, we’re talking about fireplaces. Mounting your TV above your fireplace isn't a great idea for two reasons…

For one, heat rises. Heat from your fireplace can affect the long-term health of your TV’s electronics, and particularly the plastics in the screen—potentially discoloring it over time.

Secondly, mounting your TV high over your fireplace places it at a bad viewing angle. Viewing a TV off-angle from the side or below can wash out colors and brightness. Most display technologies are meant to be viewed as straight-on as possible for the best possible picture. Also, the movie theater principle applies to your TV: No one likes to sit in the front row of a theater since having to tilt your head up is uncomfortable. The same applies to your TV.

The best height & location for placing your TV is on a large, open wall at eye-level. If you’re looking to buy a home, take into consideration any fireplaces you’ll need to work around for optimally placing your TV. Homes with corner fireplaces are great. You get the luxury of a fireplace without it taking up an entire wall!

Built-in Cabinetry

If you’re buying or selling a home, built-in living room cabinetry can be a turn-off feature for placing a TV. Many older homes with built-in cabinetry were designed with older, deep, tube TVs no larger than 27-inches in mind. Today’s TVs are the complete opposite: thin with wider, taller sizes increasingly more affordable. Dated built-ins are increasingly unsuited to fit larger, modern TVs.

If you’re considering remodeling before selling, think about modernizing any living room cabinetry. Open up the TV enclosure if possible, or have it removed in order to give yourself (or potential buyers) an open wall that doesn’t limit their TV options.

Bigger is Better (and Affordable)

Years ago, a 55-inch TV at $1,500 was the typical size & price. Today, anyone can easily find a 75-inch TV for as low as $600 . Sure, it’s not going to be the highest-end TV, but if you’re not a technophile who’s concerned with the best black levels or HDR, then why not go bigger for cheaper? Even high-quality 75-inch micro-LED HDR TVs can be found as low as $1,800. You may think you don’t need a TV as big as 75-inches, but if Covid has taught us anything, staying inside means re-creating the theater experience inside our homes is important to combat cabin fever. ( PROTIP: Invest in a good Dolby Atmos sound system to pair with your large TV for a true home theater.)

OLED or LED?

OLED TVs are the newest technology with the best picture quality due to their extreme black levels. Since each of the millions of pixels in an OLED TV are individually lit, they can each be turned completely off in order to emit zero light. Imagine a space scene from Star Wars with stars and planets. Planets and the tiniest stars emit light from the screen, but the surrounding space can be 100% pure darkness. But the pure black of OLEDs come at the cost of maximum brightness that LED TVs excel at. OLED TVs are also the most expensive. The best 77-inch LG OLED is around $3,500 compared to a similar quality & size micro-LED at $1,800.

Cheaper LED TVs can struggle with their black levels appearing gray. "Local dimming" technology groups pixels into multiple light “zones” where tens, hundreds, or even thousands of pixels share a single light source which can cause “light blobs” around small, bright lights on dark backgrounds (like stars) that make their surrounding space appear gray rather than pure black.

However, the best balance between price, black levels, and overall brightness comes from micro-LED technology. Micro-LED closely approaches the black levels of OLED TVs, maintains the maximum brightness of LED, while still being less expensive than OLED.

In dark theater rooms, OLED is definitely the way to go , but micro-LED is also a fantastic option if cost is an issue . However, if you plan to place your TV in a sunroom or outdoors, skip OLED and micro-LED technology altogether; go for a cheap LED TV in extremely bright sunrooms, exercise rooms, and outdoor spaces where theater quality isn't an issue.

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