Samsung MU6300 40" (UN40MU6300) vs Sony A1E OLED 77" (XBR77A1E)

In its range, the Samsung MU6300 has better than average picture quality because of the TV’s high native contrast ratio, excellent black uniformity, and relatively high SDR peak brightness.

The TV does almost flawless dark scene reproduction. It has the highest contrast ratio in its range at 5768:1, which allows it to recreate rich and immersive dark scenes which are further enhanced by the TV’s excellent black uniformity. In fact, the MU6300 has the best black consistency out of all of its closest competitors, including the VIZIO M-series and Sony X720E.

Priced just above $400, the Samsung MU6300 is the most budget-friendly option in its range.

The Samsung MU6300 is an excellent companion to any current generation gaming console, including the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and Wii U. The TV is also suitable for HDR console gaming.

The MU6300 makes an excellent 4K computer monitor because of the TV’s fast response time and full 4:4:4 color support.

The Samsung MU6300 runs the Tizen smart platform which is well known for its simplicity and intuitiveness. Tizen’s entire menu is organized around the Smart Hub which acts as a gate for accessing all the functionality of the TV. Additionally, the Smart Hub has a row which contains the most-used apps.

As all the inputs of the Samsung MU6300 are situated on the side of the TV, you will always have unobstructed access to all the needed ports (HDMI ports, USB, Ethernet, etc.) even when the TV is mounted on a wall.

The Samsung MU6300 has all the bits and pieces needed for a good gaming TV. It has the input lag of 20.2 ms which allows it to do a decent job in fast-paced gaming. Additionally, the TV is perfectly suitable for HDR gaming, since its input lag remains low even while the TV is processing high-bandwidth 4K HDR input.

The Samsung MU6300 has everything needed to display high-quality dynamic content since it TV features well-handled motion blur, decent picture quality, and acceptable color uniformity.

The TV’s motion blur is handled by its relatively fast pixel response time which ensures that even fast moving objects do not leave overly long trails. Its full response time of 18.7 ms is on par with its main competitors, like the Sony X720E and VIZIO M-series.

While the MU6300’s color uniformity may not be as good as its main competitors, the TV is still capable of displaying attractive and uniform football, hockey, and golf fields.

The Sony A1E is a 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.

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 imposing compared to some other high-end TVs, 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.

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.

The Sony A1E's panel has a glossy finish that handles reflections exceptionally well.

The Sony A1E runs on Android TV — normal Android apps from the Google Play Store (or other app stores) will work on it.

As 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.

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).

The sound quality of the Sony A1E is surprisingly good for a TV (which isn't known for having excellent 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 be better, the built-in speakers should suffice for most users that don't wish to spend additional money on an audio set-up.

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.

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.

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.

The Sony A1E's versatility is top-notch. The motion blur along with great overall color uniformity makes it an excellent choice for sports.

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 broader color gamut than SDR content. The Sony A1E has no issues with accurately reproducing the colors necessary for true HDR.