Vizio P Series Quantum X (P85QX-H1) Review: Bright Idea
Vizio 65-inch Quantum X 4K P-Series HDR Smart TV
"But with great strength comes great responsibility."
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Incredibly bright TV
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Fixed black levels
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Incredible price-performance ratio
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Good for playing
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Red tone with ready-to-use image settings
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The calibrated dark mode hides the shadow details
When it comes to televisions, bigger is often better. But how about brightness? We dive into the Quantum X 85-inch Vizio P-Series TV (P85QX-H1) to find out.
Out of the box
For this review, we tested the 85-inch model because … why not? Vizio was kind enough to send the huge $ 2,500 TV with it, and we thought it would be a good time to see what Vizio's best look at its largest size looked like.
The large size of the TV made it a little more difficult to set up than usual as Vizio suggests placing the TV on a large surface when installing the TV feet. Fortunately, we had a table just big enough and the TV comes with a large piece of protective cardboard that can be used to isolate the TV screen from the surface in use.
The feet themselves are made of matte black metal and are relatively easy to install. We recommend inserting both screws into the appropriate holes for each foot before tightening. This will avoid potential problems with correctly aligning the holes.
In the box with the television, the feet and the screws, there is also a power cord, batteries and the remote control from Vizio, which, by the way, is not a voice remote control. Google is required to use a smart assistant with the TV. Amazon Alexa or Apple device or speakers.
The aesthetic design of the TV is quite elegant, with very thin bezels and pleasantly textured edges. The back of the TV is made of plastic, which isn't what you'd expect from a flagship TV, but Vizio doesn't charge the same amount of money as its competitors.
Our only real design problem is a lack of cable management.
Entrances
Vizio includes full specification HDMI 2.1 inputs in the P-Series Quantum X with a bandwidth of 48Gbps – at least that's true now that Vizio has released an update for the TV series. At the time of evaluation, we were struggling to get all HDMI 2.1 features to work when testing with a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Please see below for more information on the TV's gaming capabilities.
First picture adjustments
The P85QX-H1 is absolutely huge at 85 inches. But what is the picture like, apart from the impressive size? The P85QX-H1 is definitely bright – up to 3000 nits. The lighter the whites got, the more a red hue crept in. While the problem can be fixed in the white balance settings, the correction took much longer than expected. Once this was corrected, the color coverage and accuracy were measured very well. We are only concerned that some of the value will go out the window when a professional calibrator has to be called in to bring the image closer to accuracy.
Calibrated dark mode vs. calibrated mode
When it came to calibrated HDR content in calibrated dark mode, a lot of the dark scenes we saw were just black. Turning the local dimming setting to medium didn't help much either – it just wasn't good for dark scenes. According to Vizio, this is not normal, but we did not see any fixes to the settings during our test period.
However, when entering Calibrated (instead of Calibrated Dark Mode) the details were enlarged significantly and showed all the nuances we should see rather than just the black stripe of nothing we saw in Calibrated Dark Mode. Although the details were now visible, the color still had to be corrected and calibrated.
Black levels and brightness
The black levels of the PQX are very good with the right settings. You get a good amount of shadow detail and blooming is kept to a minimum for most of the time. The brightness is very intense. The P85QX-H1 is pretty good at doing HDR effects, and it's pretty dazzling, even though some of the white clouds we previewed were tinted pink with no color correction. However, the computing power of the P85QX-H1 is spot on.
The black levels of the PQX are very good with the right settings.
Backlight
Backlighting became an occasional problem. We found that the backlighting algorithm / TV execution was a bit slow to meet the requirements of the content and as a result we noticed slight brightness shifts on the screen that shouldn't be there. Granted, it's more obvious because the P85QX-H1 is just so big, but it's a visible problem that we couldn't ignore.
Uniformity, movement and processing of the screen
The screen evenness of the obtained P85QX-H1 was solid. As for movement, we saw stuttering on challenging scenes like an evening flight through New York City – the buildings stutter as they move from top to bottom. The good news is that we didn't see any moiré, which is a common occurrence when viewing this test clip – another sign of excellent workmanship.
This processing can also be identified by the lack of color stripes, even at lower resolution and low bit depth content. During some pans, however, while the movement was smooth, there were light flashes in bright areas that we occasionally found annoying.
Audio
The audio quality of the P85QX-H1 isn't bad – but it's not great either. It has a decent low end, which avoids the thin sound of many TVs. And while the speakers are near the bottom and the back, the presence of the sound is such that it doesn't sound like the sound is coming from behind the TV or from below. Adding one of Vizio's sound bars would be a great addition and would equate the sound with the grandeur of the TV.
Play
The input delay of the P85QX-H1 is good at around 13.5 to 14 milliseconds at 4K 60 frames per second with HDR switched on. Unfortunately, like so many other TVs this year, the P85QX-H1 did not achieve 4K 120Hz with 4: 4: 4 chroma at the time of testing. Fortunately, Vizio has since fixed this problem with a firmware update so that owners of Sony PS5 and Xbox Series X can now take full advantage of their video settings. The Vizio gaming engine can now communicate very well with these consoles and these settings are automatically set correctly for you.
The P85QX-H1 is great but needs a bit of help to get there
Our opinion
We have mixed feelings about the P-Series Quantum X. In a minute it'll kick the ass and look absolutely gorgeous, but in the next minute it's going to do something that scares us off in a way that's hard to articulate. A TV of this caliber shouldn't need as many color corrections right away. Once corrected, it does some amazing things – the brightness reveals colors that we've never seen before.
The most important thing about this is that the P85QX-H1 is great but needs a bit of help to get there. It does take some tweaking (and possibly some cable management options), but once those are fixed it can take you into brilliant new visual territory.
Is there a better alternative?
Comparing the Vizio P-Series Quantum X to other televisions is made difficult by the fact that, although Vizio launched its new line of TVs in late 2020, the company refers to it as the 2021 TV line for all of 2021. In In this case, we will update this section as soon as competing 2021 models are released.
Compared to 2020 TVs currently available, the Vizio is extremely competitive in the price-performance category. This is one of the boldest, brightest TVs you can buy anywhere compared to the Samsung Q90T, and it costs $ 800 less than the Samsung at the 65-inch size. At 85 inches, the PQX costs around $ 1,000 less than a Samsung Q90T of comparable size.
How long it will take?
Since the Quantum X of the P-series is equipped with HDMI 2.1 connections and appears to be well built, the television should last several years despite quality control.
warranty
Vizio grants a one-year guarantee on its TV products. Please refer to the Vizio warranty page for more information.
Should you buy it?
We will say yes with the caveat that we strongly recommend that the TV be professionally calibrated. Without calibration, the TV appears to display an obvious shade of red that cannot be removed using the basic settings or guesswork in the two-point white balance setting section. Unfortunately, the cost of a professional calibration takes away some of the PQX's value, but it remains a lower cost, high-performance TV option compared to Samsung, LG, and Sony TVs.
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