Get the Big Picture

When's the best time to buy a TV?

A 65-inch TV can cost $1,100 when it first hits the market, drop to $880 a few months later, and cost as little as $650 the following year, when stores are trying to clear out stock to make room for new models. Research shows that Black Friday is the time for the deepest discounts. But the second-best discounts often come two weeks before the Super Bowl, thanks to “Big Game” promotions. Prices then drop again in the spring when the first wave of models for the new year start arriving in stores and retailers want to clear out their older sets.

4K is quite literally four times better than old HD standards, and four times better isn’t a subtle improvement – it’s a holy mackerel, smack-in-the-face improvement, especially if it’s a good 4K TV. And though there’s not a ton of 4K content available yet (most is still on Blu-ray), content providers of all sorts are preparing to release almost everything in 4K… and your new 4K TV will be equipped to handle this exciting future. But wait, there’s more:

• Your new 4K TV makes even regular old HD content better, thanks to new upscaling technologies that beautifully (and instantly) transpose 1080P to 4K by adding pixel density in the process.

• With old HD, you saw only a fraction of the digital data that’s actually there. But with your new 4K TV, you get it all, and the result, even if you’re just browsing the net or looking at your own digital photos or home movies = a dramatically better experience.

• Blu-ray movies in 4K? Also mind-blowing. Until someone figures out a way to improve the human eye, we’re not sure it gets any better than a premium 4K Blu-ray movie on a good 4K TV.

• Gaming in 4K? That’s coming soon too, and suffice it to say a lot of us are going to be chronically late for work.

Moral of this story: you want a 4K TV. It’s the new standard and it is other-worldly good. Just keep in mind, the biggest difference between, for example, a $1000, 55-inch 4K TV versus a $4000, 55-inch 4K TV is picture. But is the picture on a $4000 TV really 4 times better than the picture on a $1000 TV? Some say that depends on A) how much you watch TV and B) how long you plan to keep your TV. If you watch a lot of TV and plan on having your new TV for 5 years or more, then yes, spending more is worth it.

That said, there are still reasons you may want to get a regular old 1080p TV:

• HDTVs are cheap these days. And they're just fine for a kitchen, spare bedroom, etc.

• HD resolution (1080p) on a smaller screen (32 inches or less) is still a fantastic picture.

Make sure it’s HDR compatible.

What is 4K HDR? HDR = High Dynamic Range, and HDR does for TVs what whipped cream does for hot chocolate: makes it better. It’s just way better than not having it, but you will have to pay for it. If you can, don’t miss out.

Quick note: Though we all have an HDR feature on our smart phone cameras, or what some call the “soap opera” effect, it’s not the same thing. (In spite of the same name.) HDR on a phone allows the camera to take multiple exposures at the same time, and then combines them for higher contrast. (The results are often unnatural.) HDR on your TV generates higher contrast within the existing pixels, expanding contrast and color so the end result is more natural, accurate, and has more depth.

With HDR, color on a TV remains true to form. Without HDR, a TV can’t reproduce certain colors in a true-to-life way. Really, what HDR does for a TV is so amazingly spectacular, it’s worth a deeper dive.

Up till now, certain colors weren’t possible on TV. Prince’s purple guitar, Mountain Dew green, even a true strawberry red – without HDR, the best a TV can do is approximate and substitute with less-than-true-life results. But HDR fixes that by greatly expanding the two most important factors for a great picture: color and contrast ratios. And the difference isn’t subtle, it’s remarkable.

Art directors and cinematographers love HDR’s accuracy, and how it puts on TV the real life colors they put on set. And once you see HDR do its thing on your TV, you’ll have your own “oh, NOW I get it” moment.