Technology

I remember when Sony was THE brand, not? Meh

Its funny because all these grand Japanese OEMs like Sony and Panasonic got undercut by Korean rivals like LG and Samsung in the 2000s, which forced Sony to move further into exclusively high priced devices and for many other OEMs to leave the US or global market.

Now TCL and HiSense are undercutting the grand Korean OEMs, which is slowly forcing them out of the low-middle end market.

I upgraded from a 20+ year old Phillips LCD to TCL's QM8K, and the display technology for being a QLED panel is astounding. It looks 95% like a high quality OLED for a fraction of the cost.

Only downside is Google TV (Junk Android that you have to debloat a bit) and for some reason the TV can't passthrough Dolby Atmos from app players like Kodi, even though it can do DTS-X just fine. I'm pretty sure the second issue is just a software bug, but TCL has been taking ages to respond. Pass through from an external source works perfectly fine though.

If you're in the market, I highly recommend seeing it in person at a hardware/electronics store. The side by side comparison is insane.

The only negative thing about my TCL tv is that it's running Google tv launcher. I replaced that with Projectivy.

So… on the customer market only PlayStation needs to flop and Sony is gone forever

Dammit. I’ve had an LG plasma for the last 15, and it looks like I’ll have to get that Sony well before I’m ready for it.

This is good news as far as I’m concerned. I was burned by an expensive Bravia TV with a lack of promised feature support, poor quality control, zero customer support, and unfixable hardware design flaws that made several prominent features permanently unusable.

TCL on the other hand might have always been a budget brand, but their TVs are very well made considering their price point. They are much more competently made TVs with a level of quality control that blows Sony out of the water. If they commit to making the Bravia series at its current price point, as opposed to just turning the Bravia line into budget TVs, I’m reasonably confident they can deliver.

Absolutly nothing Sony, TCL or any of that garbage will ever be in my home. Or any of the advertising supported TV's. Nope.

Honestly sounds like nothing is really changing except branding and maybe where panels are sourced from.

Where I live, it's mostly the Korean brands on top and middle-tier, but for the working class they have an insane number of choices from Chinese makers, despite the quality.