A diversion from the post I promised last time, although significantly related. This post is the result of an exchange of comments in this YouTube video.
The idea was to elaborate on the current supremacy of OLED over LCD/LED tvs, and right now that basically means LG over all other brands.
But Sony and others also have now OLED offerings. They all use LG OLED panels, mind you, so credit where credit is due. But still, we might want to compare the scores of two OLED TVs from different brands even if they all use LG panels, because obviously, besides the panels, not all other things are equal.
Yesterday I submitted a comment with a special ranking I made for myself about TV brands. My ranking calculation works the following way:
Rtings.com has six usage categories for TVs. Here they are with links to the corresponding pages that include the full scoring tables for several TV models and brands:
1. HDR Gaming
2. Movies
3. PC Monitor
4. Sports
5. TV Shows
6. Video Games
For each of those six Rtings.com usage categories, I simply find the first position where a TV brand appears on the corresponding scoring table. There are six categories, so that means there will be exactly six such numbers for each brand. I average those six numbers, and that's the brand score. Simple.
Keep in mind that for a given brand, their best scoring TV model in a given usage category may not be the same best scoring TV they have on another category. And a given brand X may have a TV in the first position, but then all other top TVs for that category from position #2 till #50 might be from brand Y. But we will not worry about any that, because we are trying to rank the brands themselves, not specific TV models. And we are ranking the brands just by averaging the top positions they achieve in these categories, and nothing else.
Yesterday I submitted a comment to that YouTube video, showing my ranking of the top four TV brands (LG, Sony, Vizio, and Samsung) calculated using this scheme. The scores per brand were the following:
LG: 1.0
Sony: 4.5
Vizio: 11.5
Samsung: 13.0
But that was yesterday. Incidentally, today Rtings.com published their review of the newly released Sony OLED A1E. That's why I'm posting this on my blog. I had to recalculate my brand rankings, and I figured this whole thing was a bit too long for a YouTube comment :P
Well here is the update. In each usage category, the top standings per brand right now are the following:
HDR Gaming:
First LG at #01: EG9600 (Score 8.9, 2015)
First Sony at #02: A1E (Score 8.9, 2017)
First Vizio at #10: P Series 2016 (Score 8.4, 2016)
First Samsung at #12: Q7F (Score 8.4, 2017)
Movies:
First LG at #01: LG C6 (Score 9.4, 2016)
First Sony at #02: A1E (Score 9.0, 2017)
First Vizio at #08: P Series 2016 (Score 8.7, 2016)
First Samsung at #13: JS9000 (Score 8.0, 2015)
PC Monitor:
First Sony at #01: A1E (Score 8.7, 2017)
First LG at #02: C7 (Score 8.7, 2017)
First Vizio at #07: P Series 2016 (Score 7.9, 2016)
First Samsung at #17: Q7F (Score 7.3, 2017)
Sports:
First Sony at #01: A1E (Score 8.4, 2017)
First LG at #02: C7 (Score 8.4, 2017)
First Samsung at #14: Q7F (Score 7.8, 2017)
First Vizio at #18: P Series 2016 (Score 7.6, 2016)
TV Shows:
First LG at #01: C6 (Score 8.4, 2016)
First Sony at #04: A1E (Score 8.3, 2017)
First Samsung at #15: Q7F (Score 7.7, 2017)
First Vizio at #23: P Series 2016 (Score 7.3, 2016)
Gaming TVs:
First LG at #01: C7 (Score 9.0, 2017)
First Vizio at #02: P Series 2016 (Score 8.9, 2016)
First Sony at #03: X850E (Score 8.9, 2017)
First Samsung at #09: MU8000 (Score 8.5, 2017)
LG: 1.3 = (1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1)/6
Sony: 2.2 = (2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 3)/6
Vizio: 11.3 = (10 + 8 + 7 + 18 + 23 + 2)/6
Samsung: 13.3 = (12 + 13 + 17 + 14 + 15 + 9)/6
So even if Sony is using LG panels in its TVs, it does not seem to beat LG's own TV offerings for now, according to this ranking. LG and Sony seem to be somewhat close though, so in a similar league, with LG on top. They could be regarded as a Tier 1. Vizio and Samsung, however, are rather far below them in their scores, so they could represent a Tier 2. Within that second tier, they are close, but Vizio seems slightly above Samsung.
The current TV Brand rankings therefore:
Tier 1:
#1: LG
#2: Sony
Tier 2:
#3: Vizio
#4: Samsung
And that's it for now. Still planning to write what I promised at the end of my previous post.
