With TVs being cheaper than ever and given that we now consume more audiovisual content, a 2021 TV guide is always useful to help you choose the TV that best suits your needs. In this guide, we'll give you tips to consider before buying a TV.
Table of Contents
Calculate the size we need
First, let's calculate the space we have, and the distance we will usually be from our television. And if possible, if there will be reflections. A very large screen will not only be much more difficult to handle and take up a lot of space, but it will be much more uncomfortable to see if we are relatively close. On the contrary, a very small television will make us not appreciate the quality and it will be difficult for us to read texts on the news or subtitles screen.
Know what type of screen suits us for our use
There are several types of screen for televisions, each with its particularities that we will explain in this guide to buying televisions updated to 2021. They are mainly divided into LCD and LED, and each one has different properties.
LCD screen types
- TN (Twisted Nematic): The most economical, with low response time, contrast and ideal refresh rate for playing video games. But it has poor viewing angles, the colors are not very accurate, and its image quality is not as high as the alternatives.
- IPS (In-Pane Switching): They are the type of panel most demanded by players. Its viewing angle is up to 178º, with good contrast, color accuracy and a wide color palette, high refresh rates and short response time. They are usually the most expensive both in purchase price and electricity consumption and that black colors tend to turn towards a gray tone
- VA (Vertical Alignment): This type of panel is a mix between the previous two. It offers good colors and quality in black colors, has IPS-like viewing angles and has high refresh rates. Its downside is that colors can be less accurate.
- PLS (Plane to Line Switching): This model is owned by Samsung, although it is difficult to find it in segments of home users as it is focused on professionals. It has a wide viewing angle, good brightness, accuracy and color gamut, and is cheaper and less power-efficient than IPS. Its main negative point is that it has a refresh rate of 5ms, which can be inconvenient for playing video games. This type of screen is more focused on graphics professionals who do not care much about a fee, but image quality does.
LED display types
- AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) and Super AMOLED: Another exclusive Samsung technology. It offers better contrast than IPS panels, realistic colors, good light reflection and low consumption. They are ideal for the domestic sector and home cinemas, but we cannot recommend them for playing video games.
- QLED (Quantum dot display): This variety of LED screens it offers a high brightness, with a wide color gamut and does not lose light. For now, this type of panel is very rare.
- OLED (Organic Light-emitting diode): This screen format for televisions created by LG, is also seen in Panasonic, Phillips and Sony. The panels are thinner, there is no color or contrast degradation depending on the viewing angle, the blacks are very pure, it supports G-Sync technology and very high refresh rates. However, it has a low useful life and images can be burned in addition to having a high energy consumption.
The primary use that we are going to give it will influence our decision
A television serves us many things and in this guide to know which televisions to buy in 2021, it is important to know the use of this television. Are we going to use it to play video games in the living room? Better to go for one with a low refresh rate. If we have a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox S series, we will want it to also support 4K and HDR resolutions.
Integrated SmartTV, or via Chromecast
With the rise of streaming, on-demand consumption and Internet television services, a television is now a huge monitor in your living room that we control using a remote control or even our mobile phone. Smart televisions have come to stay, since they allow us to put YouTube or Dailymotion videos while we eat, or put chapters and movies from our mobile phone or from services such as Netflix, HBO Max, WWE Network or Disney +. In this guide to buying TVs in 2021, we say that investing in a Chromecast is a much better idea.
We can think that it will be much more convenient for our television to be a Smart Tv with everything integrated, but it must be noted that its processing capacity is not very large, it will be very slow and navigation through a television remote at the time of writing and browsing is very slow. We will have to see if it has a native option to send streams to television, or if it is convenient for us to dedicate one of the HDMI outputs to a Chromecast. This option may end up being the best because that way they will only need to go to that video output and you can handle it comfortably from your mobile without depending on your television having certain applications.
