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Sarah Tew/CNET
Vizio has announced its 2014 M-Series television , which features a couple of significant changes over last year’s model, but it’s mostly about the picture.
Firstly there is no 3D, and secondly the local dimming backlight system has morphed from edge-lit to full-array, with up to twice the number of dimmable zones.
As David Katzmaier noted in his exclusive review , these simultaneous attempts to “trim the fat” and appreciably improve picture quality make for a TV that will “likely set the pace at or near the top of CNET’s Best TVs list for a good chunk of 2014.
The M-Series is available now in sizes from 32 to 70 inches, with the exception of the 50-inch model, which will come a bit later. Pricing is quite aggressive. The 60-inch version David reviewed goes for about $1,250 right now, for example, about $50 less than the Samsung UN60H6350 , which scored much lower in our review.
According to Vizio, the M-Series models feature a 240Hz “effective refresh rate,” and also come with a flipper QWERTY remote, Vizio Internet Apps Plus, and improved processing. See our review for more details.
Also highly anticipated is Vizio’s P-Series of 4K TVs, which was announced back at CES 2014. It offers HDMI 2.0 and also doubles the amount of dimming zones again to 64. Pricing was announced back in January at levels far below current 4K TVs from the likes of Samsung and Sony. The 50-incher starts at about $1,000, and there’s also a 55-inch ($1,400), a 60-inch ($1,800), a 65-inch ($2,200), and a 70-inch (price TBD) size.
Today we asked Vizio again about when the P would be available, but the company wasn’t able to answer that question on the record. Pricing and availability for the flagship R-Series is also yet to be announced.
