Upgrading your TV before the Big Game? Read this first

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Tens of thousands of football fans will be at State Farm Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday. Millions more will watch the game from the comfort of their own couches. “The Super Bowl is a key drive time in the industry,” said Douglas Kern, the senior director of product marketing at Hisense. “It always has been when people want a big TV for the big game.”

Consumers want everything to be bigger, crisper, and clearer with better contrast and better color. “We’re seeing that consumers still strive for the most realistic image, submersive, realistic image that they can have,” Kern added. “And we’re doing it in better screen sizes that are going to continue to expand.”

Technology keeps expanding, too. “8K TVs, many thought was too much. You don’t need it. Can your eye even tell the quality?” said CNET’s Brian Cooley. “But know that the sources we stream are going to get better as bandwidth gets faster and faster, which it always does. Those sources like Netflix and Amazon and YouTube TV will start to send greater quality. It’s not so good right now. It will get a lot better. You want a TV that can reflect it.”

Wireless TV technology is another trend to watch. “The idea is we’ve gotten wireless technology so good now that any sort of other device that you want to send a signal to your TV can do it in ultimate fidelity,” Cooley said. “A Blu-ray player no longer needs a cable. Maybe you’ve still got something else on old media. You want to send that there. Maybe you want to stream from your phone and have really good quality. That’s all possible now with wireless technology.”

At CES in Las Vegas in January, LG introduced the OLED M, a wireless 4K TV. “I can plug the TV into power and take all my source components and put them over maybe on a side wall or a back wall and I can connect them all up to what we call our zero connect box,” said LG’s Gregg Lee. “We are wirelessly sending 4K at 120Hz all the way over to the television right there in their living room.” It’s not on the market yet, but will be soon, according to Lee.

Among televisions that are currently on the market, CNET says its testing determined the TCL 6-Series Roku TV is the ‘best TV for the money,’ at $1,000 for a 65-inch television. The Hisense U8H was the runner-up in the category.

Copyright 2023 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.