This week on You Asked, we’re tackling some of the most common TV buying questions right now, from choosing between the latest OLEDs from LG and Samsung to which brands are handling upscaling best. We also explore the question of whether Dolby Vision 2 is a reason to hold off on buying a new TV, or whether today’s high-end sets are already good enough.
LG C5 vs Samsung S90F: Which one should you buy?
@alexandervictoria7609 asks: Hello, I’ve been following you for years. You are the reason I bought the Sony A80K. Now my TV is broken and I’m looking for something new. I can get a discount on the LG C5 and Samsung S 90F, both the same price and about 150 more than the 2024 models. What should I do?
First of all, you will have a lot of fun with both TVs. In terms of HDR brightness and peak highlights, they’re both an upgrade over the A80K. And I think we both had them on our best TVs list this year.
The competition between the C5 and the S90F is very strong, and it probably comes down to whether you care about Dolby Vision on the C5 or not.
Samsung doesn’t support Dolby Vision, but will you miss it at all? What the S90F has that LG doesn’t have, and neither does the Sony A80K, is a QD-OLED panel in sizes 55, 65 and 77 inches. It offers a good bit more color volume than the C5 and its W-OLED panel.
The advantage of the C5 is the SDR brightness and if you’re an Xbox gamer you get Dolby Vision there too.
Nevertheless, both options offer four HDMI 2.1 ports and a very wide viewing angle with excellent contrast due to OLED.
So I’m voting for the S90F, but you really can’t go wrong.
Which TVs have the best upscaling?
@bmj4052 asks: My biggest question that I can never get a clear answer to – which TV has the best upscaling for standard definition signals? ie. Basic Netflix, YouTube and other generic streaming platforms that don’t allow 4K streaming
That’s a good question. And while I haven’t personally run this test with a bunch of TVs side by side playing the same thing from different sources to thoroughly test which is best, I have some assumptions and evidence behind it.
When we tested the Vizio Quantum Pro a while back, one of our biggest criticisms was exactly this. Things didn’t go well with upscaling. To illustrate this, we compared it to the Sony A95K OLED. These TVs aren’t in the same league at all, but facts are facts.
The Sony performed significantly better in this test. And because these are night-and-day comparisons between a cheaper mini-LED TV and a premium OLED TV, we also tested it against the Samsung QN90C, a premium mini-LED TV that launched the same year. It was also a big step up.
Having watched a lot on this Samsung TV in my home and having filmed some of the best TVs from Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic over the last few years, I would say Sony. Their workmanship has been a running favorite for years.
That’s probably why many people are worried that TCL might take over Sony’s TV production next year.
While Sony’s processing and upscaling is top notch, I’m not sure it’s something that jumps out at you from one TV to the next unless you compare it to some of the best from Samsung and LG. Even if it’s plain Netflix or another streamer in 1080p instead of 4K, with good production the content will look pretty good on most modern high-end TVs.
It’s chunky, grainy, poorly lit, or old content that hasn’t been remastered that you can really see how well a TV does its job of cleaning up.
Is Dolby Vision 2 worth waiting for?
@amitavraja3385 asks: In 2026, only TCL and Hisense will support Dolby Vision 2, the rest of the major manufacturers will not. I don’t think Sony would do that either. I expect most major brands to wait this year and perhaps start supporting Dolby Vision 2 in 2027. Don’t forget that 2026 TVs won’t be backwards compatible without a major hardware upgrade unless they come from TCL and Hisense. So is it risky to buy new expensive TVs this year knowing that these TVs cannot support DV2?!
I would like to point out that I read this question as written, but I don’t know if this is all 100 percent true. I don’t know what some of these manufacturers have planned, nor do I know what exact chipsets the upcoming TVs will have and whether they will support Dolby Vision 2. What we do know is that TVs require the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chip.
What I can offer is some perspective, especially since we learned about the TCL-Sony deal.
If I had to guess and speculate about one manufacturer that could eventually have Dolby Vision 2 capability, it would be Sony. MediaTek has been their source for system-on-chips, and given the hype and work being put into their new RGB-backlit TV that’s on the way, I find it hard to believe that Sony wouldn’t put the latest and greatest into this model, especially if that meant getting an over-the-air update later and boosting sales with the addition of Dolby Vision 2.
So if you have the funds to buy this premium Sony TV, I’d probably be happy with it. And I bet it will be a beautiful TV.
That brings me to my next point. Dolby Vision 2 looks really, really good and is a noticeable improvement over the original Dolby Vision. But the biggest difference is seen in lower and lower-priced TVs, at least compared to what we were shown at CES.
The difference between the high-end TVs we saw Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision 2 on wasn’t quite that big.
My point is this: If you need an expensive, high-end TV or just want one because an upgrade is coming up, I don’t know that Dolby Vision 2 will be the reason to delay that purchase.
HDR10 and HDR10+ also look great. You won’t have the content intelligence feature to clean up some really dark scenes, but the stuff still looks great, and none of it is Dolby Vision 2.
Whether it’s processing and upscaling, HDMI inputs, brightness, contrast, picture quality, brand loyalty, or any other reason you can think of, there are many things that can influence your TV purchase. Evaluate these things along with your interest in Dolby Vision 2 and make your decision based on that.
