All posts tagged: TVs

60Hz vs. 120Hz vs. 165Hz: I’ve tested dozens of TVs, and here’s what’s best for your home

60Hz vs. 120Hz vs. 165Hz: I’ve tested dozens of TVs, and here’s what’s best for your home

Published by skeptic

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Regardless of which smart TV catches your eye lately, manufacturers seem obsessed with pushing refresh rates as the ultimate selling point, right alongside the panel technology.  Whether you’re hunting for a solid budget-friendly find or ready to drop serious cash on a flagship home theater setup, navigating the refresh rate landscape usually feels like wading through a messy swamp of technical buzzwords and overblown marketing hype. Also: How to disable HDMI-CEC on your TV But does a high refresh rate automatically mean you get a better picture? To help you find the right fit for your space and entertainment needs, I broke down what refresh rates are and how they affect picture quality.  What does refresh rate even mean? A refresh rate, also known as frame rate, is the number of times a TV screen displays an image per second. Measured in hertz, there is a very complicated formula that electrical engineers use to calculate refresh rates, but it’s easier to imagine your TV as a …

I replaced Google TV’s home screen with a launcher app, and I can’t imagine going back

I replaced Google TV’s home screen with a launcher app, and I can’t imagine going back

Published by skeptic

I’ve been happily using my Onn Streaming Box for a few months now, and it’s still just as incredibly snappy as it was when I first unboxed it. But in the pursuit of pushing things to their limits, as per normal, I wanted to see if GoogleTV was just as customizable as the Android counterpart. I’ve learned that Google TV is pretty locked down when it comes to that, and if you want to change your launcher or make any major changes, you’ll need to side-load some different apps and programs to get things running. But at that same time, I discovered Projectivy. While Google TV did recommend a few shows to me via the constant stream of trailers and videos, the occasional lag and stutter that it brought was enough to irk me. Now? I don’t even have to fret about it again. Related I plugged a Raspberry Pi into my smart TV and it changed how I watch everything An old TV, a Raspberry Pi, and a setup that beats every streaming box …

Is TV’s tackling of toxic masculinity only further alienating our young men?

Is TV’s tackling of toxic masculinity only further alienating our young men?

Published by Daniella Wilson

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. I can’t tell you how many people, when I said I was writing about masculinity this week, replied, “Oh, yes. Toxic?” It seems you can no longer have one without the other, which is a damning indictment on the state of man, or men, before we even get started. In last week’s RT, Christopher Eccleston lamented: “Masculinity is in crisis, and it seems it’s particularly white, working-class boys who are being neglected.” Right on cue, Richard Gadd, he of the Emmy award-winning semi-autobiographical stalker tale Baby Reindeer, returned to our screens with something equally disturbing, but probably more familiar. Half Man, Gadd’s drama following the dysfunctional relationship between two men – meek Niall (Jamie Bell) and volatile Ruben (Gadd) – unblinkingly charts what Gadd calls “male existence and repression, internal brokenness and hardwired expectations”. He deliberately doesn’t use the word “toxic”, but it’s not exactly The Likely Lads and, with a glance at the news headlines, its subject matter feels horribly real and widespread. Why so? We …

Apple TV’s Hit Show ‘Silo’ is Returning Soon: Release Date and Trailer

Apple TV’s Hit Show ‘Silo’ is Returning Soon: Release Date and Trailer

Published by skeptic

Apple today announced that its hit sci-fi series “Silo” is returning for a third season starting Friday, July 3, and it shared a teaser trailer. “Silo” follows the lives of 10,000 people living in an underground bunker to escape the seemingly toxic wasteland outside. The people are unaware of why the silo was built, and those who seek the truth face deadly consequences. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer who attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding the silo following a loved one’s murder. The show is based on Hugh Howey’s best-selling book series, and it is one of the most popular original series on the Apple TV streaming service. The third season will have 10 episodes, with one released every Friday through September 4. Apple already renewed “Silo” for a fourth and final season as well. “With the final two chapters of ‘Silo,’ we can’t wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos,” said showrunner and …

Hisense U7SG TV Review (2026): Better Design, Great Value

Hisense U7SG TV Review (2026): Better Design, Great Value

Published by skeptic

Unlike previous years in what TV nerds like me call the “brightness wars,” the U7SG doesn’t outblast its predecessor, but it’s not a problem. It gets around three times as bright as anything you can stream (which is naturally capped due to compression), and has enough firepower for all but the flashiest 4K HDR Blu-rays. Its color processing shows a little more restraint than in previous models. It’s not quite what I’d call “accurate to the director’s intent,” like the best TVs I test, but it does keep itself from blasting your eyeballs most of the time. The high brightness is matched by deep black levels, without much of the “blooming” or “haloing” around bright objects that can dilute the contrast of many budget-friendly TVs. It’s not as striking as OLED TVs, which can control each of their millions of pixels on demand, but it’ll wow you in deep space scenes just the same. I was pleased that the TV’s odd local dimming issue didn’t crop up in real-world content, but the picture does tend …

Micro RGB TVs Were Everywhere at CES, but TCL’s QM8L Could Put Them to Shame

Micro RGB TVs Were Everywhere at CES, but TCL’s QM8L Could Put Them to Shame

Published by skeptic

TCL’s 2026 TVs are here, and it’s an impressive slate starring the new QM8L and QM7L Super Quantum Dot TVs and the RM9L Micro RGB TV. Prices start at $1,200. The premium QM8L is the follow-up to the excellent QM8K, and boasts even greater brightness than before, as well as upgraded color, courtesy of Super Quantum Dots. The Super QDs, or “SQD-MiniLEDs” as TCL calls them,  are a refined version of the existing dots, and they are the same ones that make up the backlight of the company’s flagship X11L. They also enable the TVs to hit more colors than ever before — the company says they’re capable of reproducing 100% of the hard-to-obtain BT.2020 color space. See also: Best TVs of 2026 TCL says the QM8L TV features up to 4,000 discrete local dimming zones, as well as the company’s Halo Control system, which should lead to even better contrast. In addition, there is an increase to 6,000-nit peak brightness — up by 2,000 — which would make it one of the brightest TVs ever produced. At …

The USB trick that bypasses your smart TV’s 100Mbps Ethernet limit

The USB trick that bypasses your smart TV’s 100Mbps Ethernet limit

Published by skeptic

Ethernet is supposed to be the fast lane. Solid, stable, and always better than Wi-Fi. But when it comes to smart TVs, that rule doesn’t always hold up. Not because Ethernet is flawed, but because of that slow, limited Ethernet port most TVs come with. Yes, the Ethernet port on most smart TVs is only capable of handling speeds up to 100 Mbps, which is basically the bare minimum internet plan these days. So even if you’ve gone through the effort of setting up a wired connection on your TV, you might not actually be getting the speeds you’re paying for. The good news is that it’s easy to overcome this limitation. All you need to do is throw a simple USB to Ethernet adapter into the mix. Related The Surprising Device That Can Transform Your Home Internet: Here’s How It Works You don’t need to spend loads of cash to get faster internet. Wi-Fi may be faster than Ethernet on your TV The rare case where Wi-Fi wins Pankil Shah / MakeUseOfCredit: Pankil Shah / …

Euphoria gave us TV’s darkest teen drama yet but just how true is it?

Euphoria gave us TV’s darkest teen drama yet but just how true is it?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Euphoria whipped up a storm when it first premiered in 2019. The teen drama from HBO triggered outrage and moral panic with a scene featuring 30 penises (yes, 30), as well as frequent and graphic depictions of drug use, sex and violence. The show, which released a second season in 2022, follows Rue (played by Zendaya), a 17-year-old drug addict who comes out of rehab and struggles to say sober, while also exploring the lives of her peers, who it soon emerges are equally – if not more – troubled (yes Nate, we’re looking at you), and is perhaps the darkest look at teenhood we’ve had on screen since Skins. But does it offer an accurate depiction of the pressures facing Gen Z today, or is it a sensationalised portrayal of adolescence? Ahead of season 3’s release, Radio Times talks to a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist about how true to life the show’s first two seasons are. Addiction and drug use A lot of the criticism levelled at the series focused on its portrayal of drug …

Samsung S95H vs. Samsung S95F: I compared the OLED TVs and wasn’t prepared for the upset

Samsung S95H vs. Samsung S95F: I compared the OLED TVs and wasn’t prepared for the upset

Published by skeptic

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Samsung is a relative newcomer to OLED TVs, releasing its first consumer models in 2022. In just a handful of years, the brand has gone toe-to-toe with Sony and LG, offering signature OLED picture quality with spatial, object-tracking sound to enhance the experience.  The latest 2026 Samsung OLED models offer a slew of smart features, along with a few hardware tweaks, to keep the S95H on the cutting edge of home theater tech. Also: The best Samsung TVs you can buy At first glance, it doesn’t seem like the Samsung S95H offers anything different than its predecessor, the S95F. But with an updated processor and reworked operating system, could it be worth the upgrade? To help you understand where the real differences lie and which Samsung OLED is the right fit for you, I’ve broken down each model’s most interesting features for streaming, gaming, and live TV. Specifications Samsung S95F Samsung S95H Display type OLED OLED Display size 55 to 83 inches 55 to 83 …