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May 19, 2024

Vizio M65

With China-based manufacturers like Hisense and TCL pulling the prices of budget HDTVs lower, Vizio has had difficulty keeping up with its affordable image. That changes drastically with its latest

With China-based manufacturers like Hisense and TCL pulling the prices of budget HDTVs lower, Vizio has had difficulty keeping up with its affordable image. That changes drastically with its latest M-Series. Vizio's new models are now capable of displaying ultra high-definition (UHD, or 4K) video and, thanks to LED array backlighting, have very good picture quality. On top of it all, they're very affordable compared with similar big-screen 4K HDTVs. The 65-inch M65-C1 we tested lists for just $1,499.99, making it an outright steal if you're looking to make the jump to 4K.

DesignThe M65-C1 is a large, unassuming slab of an HDTV. The flat screen is surrounded by a half-inch matte black bezel on every side, which itself is framed by a silver-colored band. A small power light, along with the remote sensor, sits in the lower left corner of the display, while a silver-colored Vizio logo sits in the lower right corner. The entire HDTV sits on a pair of V-shaped, silver-colored metal legs that hold the display up securely, with no wobble.

With the exception of the power connector, which sits in its own recessed slot on the right side of the back of the M65-C1, all ports and controls sit on the left side of the back of the screen. Two HDMI ports, a USB port, and a combination composite/component video input face left, while three more HDMI ports, optical and analog stereo audio outputs, an antenna/cable connector, and an Ethernet port face down. Power, Volume Up/Down, and Input buttons sit on the corner, just in front of the ports.

Remote and InterfaceThe included remote is nearly identical to previous Vizio remotes. It's a rectangular, double-sided wand that features conventional controls (number pad, navigation pad, playback controls) on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other. The buttons aren't backlit, but it's relatively easy to find the major controls by feel. It's a completely infrared remote, and the emitters are hidden, so you'll have to be careful to hold it by the sides when using the QWERTY keyboard; you can easily block the emitter on the side of the remote with your fingers when typing with your thumbs.

The M65-C1 offers a generous selection of apps and services. Most of the big names are here, including Amazon, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and YouTube, and even music services like Pandora and Spotify. The HDTV uses the Yahoo Smart TV app store, which is functional and supports on-screen widgets, but isn't as robust or as smooth to navigate as the Roku Channel Store found on Roku TVs, or the WebOS 2.0 app store available on LG connected HDTVs. The interface also looks and feels a bit soft in 4K, with slightly blurry text in most menus. The softness doesn't extend to actual content, though.

PerformanceWe test HDTVs with a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a DVDO AVLab 4K test pattern generator, and SpectraCal's CalMAN 5 software. After basic dark room calibration, the M65-C1 displayed a peak brightness of 325.74cd/m2 and a black level of 0.03cd/m2, for a contrast ratio of 10,858:1. That's excellent for an HDTV in this price range, especially when 4K LCD HDTVs have had issues displaying dark black levels for some time. If you want better performance on a large, 4K screen, you'll have to look to a much more expensive LG OLED display, like the 65EF9500.

Colors were similarly very good out of the box. The chart above shows ideal color levels as boxes and measured color levels as dots, and the M65-C1 hit all marks nearly spot-on. Again, this is particularly impressive considering the 65-inch 4K display's price tag when compared with other large 4K screens.

Daredevil in 4K on Netflix looks balanced and crisp, with the strong contrast of the display producing some very nice results in the show's dark, shadowy scenes. Thanks to the M65-C1's LED array backlighting, which uses 32 separate light zones, there was very little noticeable light bloom in parts of the screen where bright objects popped out against dark backgrounds.

Breaking Bad also looks great in 4K, though very bright scenes can look slightly washed out and less vivid than ideal. Flesh tones look accurate both indoors and outside, and while the deep, foreboding reds of Walter's lab didn't pop quite as much as on the LG 65EF9500 ($2,498.00 at Amazon) , that's comparing a $1,500 HDTV with a $6,000 HDTV. For the price, the colors and contrast are excellent.

Input Lag and PowerInput lag is the amount of time between when a display receives a signal and the screen updates. The the M65-C1 doesn't fare particularly well here unless you use a very specific setup. With our lag tester plugged into the HDMI 5 input, which Vizio says is the fastest of the HDTV's inputs, and with the screen set to the Game mode, it displayed a very respectable 21.3 milliseconds. Outside of that input and that mode, however, input lag at least doubles. Even in the dedicated Game mode, we measured a long input lag of 47.3 milliseconds for other inputs. The Samsung JS9500 ($2,498.00 at Amazon) series offers far quicker performance than the M65-C1 (a downright impossible-seeming 1ms in our measurements), but it's much more expensive and offers less compelling overall picture quality. If input lag is an important factor for you, consider getting a dedicated gaming monitor; they're smaller than HDTVs, but consistently perform much better in this test.

No specific energy saving features are available on the television. Under normal viewing conditions, the M65-C1 consumes 217 watts in our calibrated mode. This is on the low side for a big-screen 4K HDTV; the 65-inch Samsung JS9500 HDTV consumes 222 watts in a slightly screen-dimming power-saving mode, and a high 325 watts in calibrated mode.

Vizio's M-Series stands as one of the best values you can find in big-screen 4K HDTVs. They perform very well, and the price ($1,500 for the 65-inch model we tested) can't be beat. If you don't need a big screen, the smaller Sharp UB30 ( at Amazon) series is even less expensive. On the other hand, if money's no object, the LG 65EF9500 OLED HDTV offers the best picture available, for more than three times the price of the M65-C1. But if you want a big HDTV that can handle 4K and you don't want to break the bank, the M-Series is the way to go, and our Editors' Choice.

Vizio's new M-Series of HDTVs shows you can get a big 4K screen with a very good picture without spending a whole lot of money.

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