Walmart in Talks to Buy TV Maker Vizio
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/13/24072191/walmart-vizio-smart-tv-acquisition-rumor
It’s been a while since I was in touch with the TV market. Is Vizio still good? 10 years ago, Vizio made excellent budget TVs. They were my go-to recommendation for people who weren’t looking to spend $1000 or more on a TV.
Walmart’s current store brand for TVs is Onn. Perhaps they’re looking to replace their lineup, or add some high-end offerings?
Vizio always had really good screens, but bad processers.
So when 1080 was the norm, Vizio was always a great bargain.
Their 4k is still decentish when your source is 4k, but they don’t do a good job of showing 1080p upscaled to 4k
Since most people looking for a budget TV usually stream 1080, it can be a waste to buy a Vizio 4k, a 1080 would be pretty similar and a lot cheaper.
Or you’d want to spend the extra to get a 4k that’s good at upscaling 1080 to 4k
Most people don’t think about upscaling, and how much processing power it takes.
I like my Vizio tv, it’s pretty great but the “features” in it suck and yeah it runs like dogshit in the menus.
I use an appleTV as my source and couldn’t imagine trying to use their smart stuff.
My “budget black Friday basement Samsung TV” is … probably as good as the Vizio but “lacking features” that I otherwise have turned off on my Vizio.
The best part about my Samsung relative to the Vizio is the Samsung turns on without issue whereas the Vizio sometimes seems to take forever to wake up. This might be an energy saving feature of the Vizio vs Samsung but it’s annoying.
Vizio is fantastic if you’re using your own source, I wouldn’t rely on their smart stuff though.
Vizio is fantastic if you’re using your own source, I wouldn’t rely on their smart stuff though.
I’d still refute that claim. I bought a vizio tv about ~7 years ago and it was perfect when I first bought it. A few software updates later and now the TV will switch to it’s internal bullshit any time there isn’t an input source for greater than ~3 seconds. It’s infuriating that if my nvidia shield takes a second too long to push out a video signal the TV will just switch inputs on me. There is no way to disable this antifeature. The best part is after I noticed this behavior, I (at the network level) prevented all outgoing communication from this TV and it is still perfectly happy to just switch to a blank internal input whenever an external source takes slightly too long.
“If I can’t track you, fuck you I’ll make your TV basically unusable”
I just don’t have my TV connected to the network at all, I think there is an option (on mine at least) to disable the switch to “smart whatever” when no source. YMMV though.
I agree wholeheartedly though, I use my devices to power the tv on and off and when that fails it’s such a mess even just swapping inputs.
I connected it because it was in that like 2 year span where they had that a small android tablet as a remote. Legitimately cool feature but I should have known better than to let it update.
I’ve updated mine and it’s generally made it better tbh, at least insomuch as now that I have that setting toggled I don’t have to deal with hitting their smart shit.
I just always update it and then reset it, stay at the firmware level but set it up like a new TV and don’t connect it.
factory reset went back to the shitty upgrade version I upgraded to :(. But I will say that I haven’t let it update since that initial terrible upgrade assuming it might get worse. Maybe I should try upgrading it once more and then lock it off if the next version is decent?
Black Friday models are specially made to have less features so they’re as cheap as possible.
For Vizio, that’s just normal.
I don’t see as many Vizios as I used to. I recommend Hisense now for better bang-for-your-buck TVs.
I still prefer Sony or Samsung, but you’d be paying more to get similar picture quality.
For low end, my pick is TCL, and higher end is the incredible LG C3.
Samsung TVs are absolute trash now in my experience. I was a diehard fanatic in the early 2010s but Samsung stopped building quality products since then.
They have a product line with quite good panels; their internals have always been trash. Most of their lines are basic quality.
I use Vizio on a broadcast flypack I inherented…time to upgrade.
I thought Vizio was a Walmart brand like a decade ago.
Sounds about right: Vizio the throw away brand. Horrible warranty terms, they refuse to repair them even if you offer to pay and completely unrepairable yourself.
How are they unrepairable yourself? Are there not people online selling boards for them? Most of the time all you have to do is replace the power board or image board or one of the others if a TV dies. $100 and you gotta new TV. Is that not a thing for Vizio TVs?
As per iFixit and other sites like tvserviceparts, it depends on the Vizio model. Mainstream models you can often replace the screen and even power input board, others you simply cannot without sourcing their brand though.
Example repairable model: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/VIZIO+TV+Screen+Replacement/120241
Vizio makes it 100% impossible to acquire a replacement of: buttons, bezels, control boards and input boards for intellectual property rights reasons.
In short, unlike other brands, they make it far less easy to repair either by IP restriction or by over usage of glues.
Garbage brand to acquire garbage brand.
