How to Choose the Right TV Size for Your Living Room
Black Friday seems to be approaching early this year, and as always, the new 4K TV is likely to top the shopping list, especially with a good TV can be a major source of joy during an ongoing celebration. – return of quarantine . There’s a catch, though: depending on your living room layout, you may not benefit from the increased 4K resolution at all.
You can figure out pretty quickly if you’ll notice the extra detail that 4K brings to the table by measuring the distance between where you plan to watch TV and the screen. After that, it’s just a little math: According to Samsung , the correct TV size is the viewing distance (in inches) divided by two.
So, for example, if your sofa is set 120 inches from the TV, or 10 feet, you will need a TV that is at least 60 inches – that is, diagonally.
Of course, Samsung makes TVs and has a lot of incentive to sell you the largest screen you can afford. I find his measurements to be too simple and generally incorrect. Instead, I prefer to use the more accurate measurements from Reference Home Theater , whose sole author, Chris Heinonen, is the inspiration behind Wirecutter television. Here is his graph:
What do these numbers mean? As he describes:
This is based on 20/20 vision, and the viewing range for each resolution is the distance you can sit from that TV and see more detail than at a lower resolution, and not close enough to see additional detail on a higher screen. resolution. So with a 50 ” 1080p display, if you are closer than 9’9 ” you will see more detail than a 720p display, but if you are more than 6’6 ” away, you will not be able to see more detail on the screen. 4K. display.
So, using the same example with a 60-inch 4K TV, you need to make sure that you are within seven feet ten inches of the screen. More and you won’t see unnecessary details. As you will see, this is slightly different from Samsung’s measurements (10ft), which means you won’t like the fine details on the fancy new 4K TV you just bought.
If this is a little confusing, I also refer to this chart a lot to make sure I’m buying the right size TV for my room. Even more stringent are the requirements for how close you have to sit to your new TV to truly enjoy all the details of the picture. Basically, you don’t want to be more than five feet from a 4K TV for maximum detail, unless you’re rocking some insanely huge screen that’s 85 inches or more. (And if so, can I come over to your house?)
Does 4K TV size matter?
That’s the problem. If you are ditching your 4K TV right now because you checked the table and your sofa is too far away, don’t worry about it. First, 1080p TVs are niche now, not the norm. Most TV manufacturers only target 4K across a wide range of prices. Sure, you can still find 1080p – probably an older model – if you really want to, but it’s not worth the investment wherever you sit.
That’s because 4K isn’t just about resolution. If you buy an OLED screen, you’ll enjoy incredibly rich contrast, far more than any previous LCD TV you’ve ever owned. If you take a new 4K TV with local dimming and HDR support, the picture quality you are viewing on supported content will be higher than your SDR setting. Choose a TV with a 120Hz refresh rate and you will enjoyshake-free motion pictures . And of course, the new 4K TV can come with all sorts of built-in technologies like the Roku interface and Google TV, which means you won’t have to plug in all sorts of dongles and external boxes to stream whatever content you want. from your favorite services.
All of these features have nothing to do with the raw 4K screen resolution. And these are features that not every 4K HDTV can have – or do well. I wouldn’t worry too much about the resolution of a 4K TV or the distance you sit from the screen. Admit it, change it if you can, but also keep in mind all the other upgrades a great 4K TV can make to your existing installation.
You will probably get everything that makes a 4K TV great on a cheap $ 300 Black Friday 4K TV. If I were you, I wouldn’t update just because you don’t have 4K. Spare your money, enjoy the TV you have right now, and choose a great 4K TV that gives you all the key features worth having over the next five years or so.
This story was published by Emily Price in January 2018. It was rewritten in November 2020 by David Murphy with new math, guidelines, and images.