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Prices of Very Large Flat TVs are Falling Fast

Holy crap... 98" TVs under $1k.

www.walmart.com

TCL 98" Q Series (NEW 2025) 4K QLED, 144Hz, Dolby Vision HDR & Dolby Atmos Google TV, including Built-in Google Assistant with Voice Remote – 98Q51CG - Walmart.com

Buy TCL 98" Q Series (NEW 2025) 4K QLED, 144Hz, Dolby Vision HDR & Dolby Atmos Google TV, including Built-in Google Assistant with Voice Remote – 98Q51CG at Walmart.com
www.walmart.com


Very tempting...

Martin
 
RTINGS is wrapping up their 3 year TV stress test
Summary of findings:
  • Backlight type was generally the only meaningful bearing on TV lifespan
    • Edge and direct lit tended to die sooner
    • OLED and full array tended to last longer
  • Of the brands, TCL and LG seemed to do well
    • for LG that is mostly because the OLED-heavy weighting. LG's LED models performed similarly to other LED models.
  • There was no meaningful correlation of price and longevity
  • It seemed like 10,000 hours was the expected lifespan of most TVs
  • No TVs are designed to be user-serviceable, the most sensible course of action in most outside-of-warranty failures is to simply buy a new one
 
I'd argue that in ideal thermal circumstances, TVs will last way past the 10K hours that they are 'supposed' to. Not sure where that number is derived from. Unless the current line up intentionally uses the parts that will fail within 10K hours, I don't see a reason why current get could not live as long as the previous ones.
 
masterhw said:
RTINGS is wrapping up their 3 year TV stress test
Summary of findings:
  • Backlight type was generally the only meaningful bearing on TV lifespan
    • Edge and direct lit tended to die sooner
    • OLED and full array tended to last longer
  • Of the brands, TCL and LG seemed to do well
    • for LG that is mostly because the OLED-heavy weighting. LG's LED models performed similarly to other LED models.
  • There was no meaningful correlation of price and longevity
  • It seemed like 10,000 hours was the expected lifespan of most TVs
  • No TVs are designed to be user-serviceable, the most sensible course of action in most outside-of-warranty failures is to simply buy a new one
Click to expand...
Like rtings.com. Too busy to watch, therefore, Thanks for the summary
 
Oddball said:
I'd argue that in ideal thermal circumstances, TVs will last way past the 10K hours that they are 'supposed' to. Not sure where that number is derived from. Unless the current line up intentionally uses the parts that will fail within 10K hours, I don't see a reason why current get could not live as long as the previous ones.
Click to expand...
I still have an early Samsung 4K OLED doing bedroom duty and it's at least 10 years old.
 
ban25 said:
I still have an early Samsung 4K OLED doing bedroom duty and it's at least 10 years old.
Click to expand...
I have two oldies. 77" curved Samsung and 88" curved Samsung. Flagships of 2014 and 2015. They still go strong and we have plenty of rooms to accomodate the aging TVs.

I still can't get around the sad fact that curved displays did not survive. My girls love the new and fancy 98" TCL, but their main argument is that curved would be so much better. Once you grow up on a good thing, difficult to let go of it.
 
Oddball said:
I have two oldies. 77" curved Samsung and 88" curved Samsung. Flagships of 2014 and 2015. They still go strong and we have plenty of rooms to accomodate the aging TVs.

I still can't get around the sad fact that curved displays did not survive. My girls love the new and fancy 98" TCL, but their main argument is that curved would be so much better. Once you grow up on a good thing, difficult to let go of it.
Click to expand...
Curved are great for anyone sitting on the centreline. For anyone else, they get differential image distortion from one side of the screen to the other, due to the differing angle of incidence between screen and eye.
 
My LG is 8 years old I estimate as much as 13000 hours on it, certainly more than 10000.

If brand makes no difference then Hi-Sense makes sense for the next one. A 65'' is only £400 now. A 75'' is a grand.
 
Oddball said:
I have two oldies. 77" curved Samsung and 88" curved Samsung. Flagships of 2014 and 2015. They still go strong and we have plenty of rooms to accomodate the aging TVs.

I still can't get around the sad fact that curved displays did not survive. My girls love the new and fancy 98" TCL, but their main argument is that curved would be so much better. Once you grow up on a good thing, difficult to let go of it.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the specifications for '4K' TV offer no support for displaying images in 3-D.

I don't know, but I wonder if a 100-inch size TV would renew interest in viewings in 3-D.

Is there a way to create a 4K TV that can offer 'out-of-spec' support for displaying compatible titles in 3-D ?


The introduction of 98/100 inch size TV's has put downward price pressure on all smaller sizes of TV's.

IIRC, around Black Friday 2025, Walmart offered a basic 85-inch TCL 'S4' TV for $498 delivered.

I have read that since around 2018, LCD panels can be created with a diagonal measurement of up to 132 inches - they are often 'cut up' to provide panels for smaller TV's. That information makes me wonder if manufacturers will offer TV's under $5K with noticeably larger sizes than 100 diagonal inches.

I also wonder just much the packaged size and weight of a very large TV is putting a 'floor' on the delivered price.


Two TV's in secondary locations.....

2007 Philips 47-inch LCD - weighs about 58 pounds - 12 hours a week

2009 Panasonic 50-inch '720P' plasma. - weighs about 78 pounds - 8 hours a week

IIRC, my Kill-A-Watt measured each as drawing about 200 watts - they are space heaters too. :)


Main listening space....

2019 Samsung 82-inch (edge-lit) 4K LCD - weighs 101 pounds - it draws 79 watts at the expense of very modest measured levels of brightness for HDR content - per Rtings dot com. Upscaling 1080p SDR content to 4K resolution is be the best use case for this TV.

Walmart completed their purchase of Vizio in December 2024. Little of the $2.3 billion price was based on the profit margin of selling a TV. It was based on the value of data collected from households using Vizio TV's.

Back when Vizio had a larger share of the TV market, I recall the company telling financial analysts that Vizio calculated the value of customer data collection for every Vizio TV sold with an estimate that their TV's would last an average of seven years.

I owned a 2006 37-inch Vizio TV with a portion of the panel going 'black' after 7.5 years.
 
98" size had made the mark and apparently people want that size more and more. 115" is probably not breaking sales records as it is really large. Not many rooms can accomodate it and thus it might be the size where TVs stop. While they can make 130" panels, no point of making them if people don't want them in some meaningful quality. This upper range will be taken care of once micro-LED panels become of age.

IMO they should do 105". That would be in the realm where 98" is only a bit bigger.

Not sure if 3D will even come back - as well as the beautifully curved screens.
 
Oddball said:
98" size had made the mark and apparently people want that size more and more. 115" is probably not breaking sales records as it is really large. Not many rooms can accomodate it and thus it might be the size where TVs stop. While they can make 130" panels, no point of making them if people don't want them in some meaningful quality. This upper range will be taken care of once micro-LED panels become of age.

IMO they should do 105". That would be in the realm where 98" is only a bit bigger.

Not sure if 3D will even come back - as well as the beautifully curved screens.
Click to expand...
3D & Beautifully curved screens (together) would cause me to be an early adopter as soon as they hit! As long as they had some in the 50"-80" category.
 
EJ3 said:
3D & Beautifully curved screens (together) would cause me to be an early adopter as soon as they hit! As long as they had some in the 50"-80" category.
Click to expand...
If we keep on dreaming, I would add 2.05:1 panel as well.
 
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My OLED PC monitor died today. I´,m trying to get it somehow repaired, but it seems like it will not happen due to the nature of the issue (stuttering and horizontal lines).

So my next step is probably looking at 42 to 48 inch TV´s because, considering how they are at, they are as worth it as any PC monitor. I´m leaning towards an LG G5, but I welcome recomendations.
 
Vacceo said:
My OLED PC monitor died today. I´,m trying to get it somehow repaired, but it seems like it will not happen due to the nature of the issue (stuttering and horizontal lines).

So my next step is probably looking at 42 to 48 inch TV´s because, considering how they are at, they are as worth it as any PC monitor. I´m leaning towards an LG G5, but I welcome recomendations.
Click to expand...
On my desk, I'm using a 32" Samsung Curved something or another (I still do not know what song Sam Sang) but all is good. My old laptop has an HDMI out & can play anything up to Blue Ray's in it's disk drive & I sometimes use it & 40" TV when I am out on ships.
I'm not sure that I would want anything bigger than a 32" for my desk.
 
We just bought a condo on the West Coast and the owner sold us his for $200.
 
EJ3 said:
On my desk, I'm using a 32" Samsung Curved something or another (I still do not know what song Sam Sang) but all is good. My old laptop has an HDMI out & can play anything up to Blue Ray's in it's disk drive & I sometimes use it & 40" TV when I am out on ships.
I'm not sure that I would want anything bigger than a 32" for my desk.
Click to expand...
I was using a 42 inch monitor for years, I´d rather keep it at that side or slighlty more.
 
Vacceo said:
I was using a 42 inch monitor for years, I´d rather keep it at that side or slighlty more.
Click to expand...
Maybe (actually, probably) if I had one of those desks like one I had once before in another country (the CNMI in Oceana) that is designed to fit in a corner and had a raised section in the corner tier that a curved 42" would have fit on. That was in 2003-2004 & I have not ever seen a desk so well designed for that purpose since then.
 
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Oddball said:
I have two oldies. 77" curved Samsung and 88" curved Samsung. Flagships of 2014 and 2015. They still go strong and we have plenty of rooms to accomodate the aging TVs.

I still can't get around the sad fact that curved displays did not survive. My girls love the new and fancy 98" TCL, but their main argument is that curved would be so much better. Once you grow up on a good thing, difficult to let go of it.
Click to expand...
I have the 65 inch curved 3D LG OLED flagship from like 2016/2017. I too am bummed the curved didn't survive. It's not something I thought I would want until I had one. Now I don't know how people survive with out it.
 
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After CES 2026 coverage, I may have to wait a bit to replace the monitor. We´ll see what this year brings once reviews settle in.
 
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