When comparing TCL S405 55" (55S405) vs VIZIO P-Series 55" (P55-E1), the Slant community recommends TCL S405 55" (55S405) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” TCL S405 55" (55S405) is ranked 5th while VIZIO P-Series 55" (P55-E1) is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose TCL S405 55" (55S405) is:
The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Decent for casual movies/TV watching
The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness.
Pro Highly versatile
The S405 is versatile enough to be used as a general-purpose display.
The picture quality is decent for movies and TV shows, and it checks all the boxes that makes a TV suitable for gaming, sports, and as a computer monitor: low input lag, low motion blur, good screen uniformity, and full 4:4:4 color support.
Pro Well-balanced side inputs
Even when the S405 is mounted on a wall, you'll still have access to all essential inputs and outputs which are situated on the side of the unit.
Pro Decent picture quality
The S405 looks decent with adequately deep black levels, above-average color accuracy, and sufficient peak brightness levels for most content.
It’s especially great at reproducing dark scenes thanks to the panel’s contrast ratio of about 4000:1, which means blacks can get really dark at about 4000 times darker than the brightest white it can produce.
Colors are spot-on even without calibration, and the panel can get bright enough with a peak brightness level of ~200 nits to make them pop in dark environments.
The best viewing experience will be in a dark environment where the panel won’t have to compete with light. The S405’s screen can’t really get bright enough to perform as well in bright environments.
Pro Colors are accurate even without calibration
The S405 is excellent at reproducing colors accurately out of the box.
Even without calibration, the colors are spot-on - they're very close to what the source signal demands, and any inaccuracies are generally considered imperceptible to most end users.
The overall average difference between the source signal and the panel's reproduction of the color is measured in Delta-E, where lower means better accuracy. The S405 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users.
Pro Colors are easy to calibrate
Color calibration can be performed easily via the Roku mobile app. You won't have to fiddle with the remote trying to set the values correctly.
Pro Main interface has no ads
The S405 has no ads on its main interface, although there can be ads in third-party applications. Third-party ads can't be blocked, but the tracking and personalisation can be limited through the TV's settings.
Pro Excellent for gaming
The S405 is excellent for gaming - the overall experience will be very responsive and fluid, thanks to the really low input lag and barely noticeable motion blur.
It has an input lag of ~15ms that makes the TV highly responsive to user input - gamers will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what's on the display. The panel can fully change its pixels color in under 15ms, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.
It's also suitable for HDR gaming because there is no increased input lag for HDR, and it has full 4K suport @ 60 FPS, which makes it suitable for all new 4K games.
Pro Intuitive & smooth user interface
The S405 runs on the Roku TV smart platform, touted for its simple, straightforward, and lag-free UI.
It’s easy for anyone to grasp how navigation works, thanks to its two-column design with the menu on the left and options on the right.
There’s also no noticeable lag during navigation or menu selection.
Pro Decent for watching sports
The S405 is a good pick for watching sports thanks to its low motion blur and reasonably consistent color uniformity.
Fast-moving objects, like footballs, won't leave any visible trails on the screen due to the low motion blur of ~15ms. While there are slight uniformity inconsistencies in the edges of the panel when displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields, the issues generally go unnoticed by most.
Pro Works well as a computer monitor
The S405 works well as a computer monitor thanks to its low input lag, barely noticeable motion blur, and full 4:4:4 color support. The 43" model can even be used up close due to its small minimal viewing distance.
The low input lag and low motion blur of ~15ms makes it highly responsive to input and gives it the ability to handle dynamic content well.
It also has full 4:4:4 color support, so text or shapes with hard edges on the screen won't be blurry.
Pro Excellent value for money
The S405 strikes a nice balance between picture quality, screen size, and input lag, all for an affordable price of below $500. It's a great choice for watching and gaming casually without breaking the bank.
Compared to its direct competitors, it offers decent picture quality that is a tad below them, bigger screen size, and lower input lag.
Content looks decent enough for most casual viewers - the black levels are sufficiently deep, colors are vivid, and it gets bright enough for most types of content in a dark room.
The size difference is pretty huge as options with similar size of 49", or even smaller, cost fairly more than the S405.
Its low input lag of ~15ms contributes to a more responsive gaming experience. It's barely noticeable, and it’s also one of the lowest among 4K TVs, which is an impressive feat in this price bracket.
Pro Highly versatile
Suitable for gaming, movies, and sports, the VIZIO P-series is one of the most versatile TVs in its price range. While the combination of low input lag and fast response time makes the TV suitable for gaming;, the VIZIO P-series also does a great job of processing highly dynamic content, such as sports. Furthermore, the TV’s uniform blacks, excellent local dimming, and reasonably high peak brightness makes it an attractive option for home theater.
Pro Good for gaming
It has great motion blur handling abilities and a dedicated gaming HDMI port with a reduced input lag of 15.9 ms makes the VIZIO P-series quite suitable for gaming.
The TV’s excellent motion blur handling is directly related to its ability to change the color of each pixel 80% of the way in just 3.9 ms so you won't notice any trails on rapidly moving objects. The VIZIO P-series by far outperforms all the competitors on the market when it comes to this.
Pro Picture looks good from an angle
The 55-inch model of the VIZIO P-series has excellent viewing angles because of its IPS panel which preserves correct colors and shades no matter the angle between the viewer and the panel. This property makes the TV ideal for watching with a group.
Pro Can increase media's frame rate
This TV is an excellent choice for those who like to ‘speed up’ the regular 30FPS media, sourced from cable/satellite boxes or old DVDs as it can boost up low frame rate content up to a whopping 120 frames per second rate. Some people call it a ‘soap opera effect’, but technically the process is called interpolation. Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that this TV’s biggest competitor: the TCL P607 cannot interpolate motion.
Pro Compatible with HDR media
The VIZIO P-series is suitable for HDR-enhanced content because of its full HDR10 and Dolby Vision support. The HDR10 and Dolby Vision are currently the two flagship HDR formats used in the multimedia industry, which means that all the new HDR movies and shows are compliant with either one of those formats.
It’s also worth noting that in the HDR field, the VIZIO P-series outperforms its competitors, including the Samsung MU8000 which lacks Dolby Vision support.
Pro Good build quality
The VIZIO P-series feels solid and rugged because its frame and stand are built from high-quality metal. In comparison, the most significant competitors of the VIZIO P-series: Samsung MU8000 and TCL P607 have their frames and stands built from plastic.
Pro Has an excellent remote app
This TV comes with a brilliant, well-integrated phone and tablet application which can transform your smart gadget into a fully-functional remote. The application is particularly handy when you need to input some text, for example, while searching content on YouTube or Netflix.
Pro Compatible with current-gen consoles
This TV works fine with all the current generation consoles, including the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and Wii U, because of its 4K 60 Hz support.
Cons
Con Can't fight glare very well
The S405 can deal with low amounts of light, such as sunlight through curtains, but it won't be able to deal with significantly bright light.
Apart from being unable to get bright enough, its handling of reflections is only average. The panel has a semi-gloss finish which helps in reducing reflections a little, but its peak brightness level of ~200 nits is not enough for fighting glare.
Con Not suitable for group watching
The S405 has a narrow viewing angle that makes it unsuitable for watching with groups.
People sitting away from the center of the screen will not experience the same picture as those sitting in the center because the picture quality starts to deteriorate significantly when viewing from just ≥30° away from the screen's center.
Con Lacks support for Dolby Vision
The S405 only supports the HDR10 format for HDR content.
Con Remote lacks functionality
The S405 has a basic remote that is only capable of navigation, playback control, and volume control. It doesn't have fancy stuff like voice command found in remotes of other TVs.
Con Poor sound quality
The speakers on the S405 are too bassy, so distortion becomes a huge problem at high volumes. A relatively cheap speaker system or a soundbar will make a huge difference in sound quality.
Con HDR support is basic
The S405 can't reproduce HDR pictures very well because it lacks various important features.
HDR won't look much different from SDR due to the lack of wide color gamut and low peak brightness. It can't reproduce the full range of colors necessary for HDR, and the brightness level of only ~200 nits is barely enough for HDR content to stand out.
The black levels are also insufficient for highlights to stand out, and it won't be as dynamic as one would expect for HDR due to the lack of local dimming.
Con Bad for HDR gaming
This TV is not a good choice for HDR gaming because its dedicated gaming HDMI port does not have enough bandwidth to support the HDR-enchanted input. This means that you will have to use a regular HDMI input port to feed the TV with the HDR content. The problem here is that the regular HDMI input has 43.5 ms input lag which is too high for fast-paced, competitive gaming.
Con The 55-inch model has low contrast
The 55-inch VIZIO P-series TV has significantly lower picture quality than the 65-inch and 75-inch models. The 65-inch and 75-inch models use a VA panel while the 55-inch model has an IPS panel. The main difference between those is that the VA panel has, on average, four times higher contrast ratio than the IPS panel; Thus, the VA panel can reproduce more vibrant and more in-depth scenes.
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