When comparing VIZIO P-Series 65" (P65-E1) vs Sony A1E OLED 65" (XBR65A1E), the Slant community recommends Sony A1E OLED 65" (XBR65A1E) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” Sony A1E OLED 65" (XBR65A1E) is ranked 10th while VIZIO P-Series 65" (P65-E1) is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Sony A1E OLED 65" (XBR65A1E) is:
The Sony A1E is an 4K OLED TV with perfectly uniform blacks and infinite contrast ratio, achieved by its ability to manipulate pixels individually. This, along with its color uniformity and wide color gamut, gives it exceptional picture quality and makes it the perfect choice for movies. It also has no issues with brightness levels as the panel can reach up to ~650 nits of brightness when playing HDR content, and it handles reflections very well.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great for movies and HDR content
The P65-E1 performs extremely well for HDR content thanks to its black levels, high native contrast ratio (4675:1, up to twice of that at 9271:1 with local dimming), and wide color gamut — all three of which are essential to HDR.
Pro Can be remote-controlled from smartphones/tablets
The P65-E1 runs on Vizio’s SmartCast OS, which has a remote app for iOS & Android capable of controlling the TV.
Pro Supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision
There are two different formats for HDR — HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Some TVs support only HDR10 and can't play Dolby Vision content. The P65-E1 supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision, giving it the ability to play any HDR content in 2017.
Pro Does not suffer from image retention
Unlike the OLED panels in this price range, the P65-E1 has a VA panel and thus it does not suffer from image retention issues.
Pro Interface is ads-free
The user interface of modern smart TVs can include some advertisements similar to those on the internet or in a mobile app. The P65-E1 does not include any.
Pro Dark scenes looks great
The P65-E1 can handle dark scenes very well thanks to its high native contrast levels, which clocks in at 4675:1 native, and it can go up to double of that at 9271:1 with local dimming enabled. This, along with good black levels and uniformity, gives the TV the ability to achieve great representations of dark scenes beyond most expectations.
Pro Suitable for watching sports & gaming
The P65-E1 is versatile enough to be used for sports & gaming — its handling of motion blur is fantastic at ~11ms, and the input lag is only ~16ms which makes it good for gaming where input lag matters (but it is not suitable for HDR gaming because of the ~45ms of input lag for HDR content).
Pro Great at handling motion
The P65-E1 is great at handling motion with very fast response time (~11ms). It will have no issues with displaying fast-moving objects — they will look smooth without any blur or lag.
Pro Decent color representation
The P65-E1 does a decent job with color accuracy — the colors are accurate out of the box and there is no calibration required, although it would benefit from some adjustments to the white balance. Color calibration is recommended to get the most out of this TV, but not necessary if you find it alright.
Pro Excellent black levels and uniformity
The black levels of a TV affects the viewer’s perception of other colors next to it. If the black levels are not deep enough and doesn’t remain uniform across the screen, the overall picture quality will look “flat” without much depth. The P65-E1 handles this well with only <0.8% deviation (across the entire screen) from what a pure black screen should be — this results in a significant gain in its native contrast levels, thereby increasing the picture quality.
Pro Decent color reproduction
The color gamut of a TV refers to the range of colors the display can reproduce — the wider the color gamut, the more colors it can display, and the better the overall picture quality will be. This is extremely important for HDR content because it requires a much wider color gamut than SDR content. This TV has a wide color gamut and have no issues with accurately reproducing the colors necessary for true HDR, although its color gamut is not as wide as other TVs in this price range (e.g. the Sony X900E).
Pro Great picture quality
The picture quality is great on the P65-E1. It has one of the highest contrast ratios in an LED TV when local dimming is enabled (9271:1), giving it the ability to produce very deep and uniform blacks. The brightness level for HDR is decent enough at ~450 nits to fight glare in bright environments without much picture quality degradation.
Pro Local dimming is superb
Local dimming is the TV's ability to dim areas of the screen for deeper black levels and better contrast — they are separated into different dimming zones, where each zone can be individually dimmed as needed. The local dimming on the P65-E1 is by far one of the best in LED TVs of 2017 (only beaten by the Sony X940E). It is capable of doubling the contrast levels from 4675:1 to 9271:1.
Pro Decent performance in bright environments
The P65-E1’s panel has a semi-gloss finish for diffusing the light across the screen evenly to decrease intensity. This, along with its ability to get quite bright (practically, it peaks at ~450 nits for HDR and can maintain this level of brightness), means that this TV is decent at handling reflections and performs okay in bright environments.
Pro Perfect TV for movies and HDR content
The Sony A1E is an 4K OLED TV with perfectly uniform blacks and infinite contrast ratio, achieved by its ability to manipulate pixels individually. This, along with its color uniformity and wide color gamut, gives it exceptional picture quality and makes it the perfect choice for movies. It also has no issues with brightness levels as the panel can reach up to ~650 nits of brightness when playing HDR content, and it handles reflections very well.
Pro Virtually no reflections
The Sony A1E's panel has a glossy finish that handles reflections exceptionally well.
Pro Great performance in bright environments
The Sony A1E has a practical peak brightness of ~650nits for both SDR and HDR content — it can sustain this level of brightness when playing content. While the number here isn't very impressive compared to some other high-end TVs (e.g. the Sony X930E with ~1.4k nits of brightness), the panel of this TV offsets this by being an OLED. It can handle reflections very well and will not have any issues with fighting light in bright environments.
Pro Decent sound quality
The sound quality of the Sony A1E is suprisingly good for a TV (which isn't known for having good sound). The speakers can get really loud without much distortion happening, and its frequency response is perhaps one of the best measured in a TV's speakers. While an external audio set-up will definitely be better, the built-in speakers should suffice for most users that doesn't wish to spend additional money on an audio set-up.
Pro Great ecosystem of third-party apps
The Sony A1E runs on Android TV — normal Android apps from the Google Play Store (or other app stores) will work on it.
Pro Interface is ads-free
The user interface of modern smart TVs can include some advertisements similar to those on the internet or in a mobile app. The Sony A1E does not include any, and it also has a feature for limiting ads in third-party applications.
Pro Excellent for dark rooms
The Sony A1E performs exceptionally well in dark environments. Its ability to produce absolute and perfect blacks means the reproduction of dark highlights and scenes in movies will look great — this is further improved when there's no light around the TV as it allows the blacks to stand out more. This makes it great for watching all sorts of movies in a cinema-like setting, particularly movies with many black highlights/scenes where this is immediately noticeable even to undiscerning viewers (e.g. Interstellar).
Pro Extremely low motion blur
Because the Sony A1E has an OLED panel, it has near-perfect pixel response time; the motion blur is virtually non-existent at sub-1ms, which means this TV will have no issues with displaying extremely fast-moving objects — they will look smooth without any blur or lag.
Pro Decent for gaming
Input lag is one of the most important factors when considering a TV for gaming — it's representative of how fast the TV can display the image after receiving the input. The Sony A1E has ~30-40ms of input lag, which is decent enough for most gamers, but competitive gamers might find this lacking.
Pro Dark scenes are perfectly reproduced
The Sony A1E can handle dark scenes very well thanks to its OLED panel, which gives it infinite contrast ratios — it can reproduce dark scenes perfectly because of this.
Pro Wide viewing angle
The picture quality of the Sony A1E does not suffer from much deterioration when viewed from other angles. The brightness will decrease with deviations in viewing angles, but the black levels seem to be maintained perfectly.
Pro Excellent for watching sports
The Sony A1E's versatility is top-notch. The motion blur (sub-1ms) along with great overall color uniformity makes it an excellent choice for sports.
Pro Great color reproduction
The color gamut of a TV refers to the range of colors the display can reproduce — the wider the color gamut, the more colors it can display, and the better the overall picture quality will be. This is extremely important for HDR content because it requires a much wider color gamut than SDR content. The Sony A1E has no issues with accurately reproducing the colors necessary for true HDR.
Cons
Con Lacks TV tuner
The P65-E1, along with several of VIZIO’s latest TV lineups, does not have a TV tuner built-in. If you plan to watch local over-the-air broadcasts, you will need to purchase a TV tuner separately.
Con Bad sound quality
The sound quality of the P65-E1's built-in speakers is bad — it can't get very loud and the frequencies are not very well-balanced. There is also noticeable distortion at all volumes that gets worse with higher volumes. An external audio setup — such as a soundbar — is highly recommended in order to get the most out of this TV.
Con Interface can be sluggish and slow
The interface of VIZIO’s SmartCast OS can sometimes be sluggish; some users have reported experiencing choppy animations, frame drops when browsing through the menu, and slow response to input/selection.
Con Poor viewing angles
The picture quality on the P65-E1 suffers from some degradation when viewing from an angle, as typical of a VA panel. It is worth noting that this con does not apply to the 55" version of the VIZIO P-Series as it has an IPS panel whereas the rest has a VA panel.
Con Suffers from image retention issues
The main drawback of OLED panels are image retention issues with static images — pixels on the panel gets burned in when the picture doesn't change for extended periods of time. Noteworthily, the static image doesn't have to be whole like a full wallpaper on the TV; it can happen with content that has a static image anywhere on the screen (e.g. the logo of some TV channels).
As the Sony A1E has an OLED panel, it unfortunately suffers from this problem. There might be some retainment of artifacts for ~10 minutes when this happens, and it usually goes away after watching other content without static images. It's worth noting that while this issue is present, the Sony A1E reportedly handles this pretty well — most users report the artifacts going away only ~5minutes of playing normal content.
Con Lacks support for Dolby Vision
The Sony A1E can currently only play HDR10 content. It does not support Dolby Vision.
Con Might be hard to access inputs when mounted to a wall
The Sony A1E is extremely thin and it has a reflective finish on the back. After mounting it to a wall, the inputs might be hard to access and because of the reflective finish, it can pick up fingerprints/smudges when attempting to access the inputs (which also becomes hard to clean because of how thin it is).