The Insignia F50 is an entry-level 4k TV with a quantum dot panel designed to deliver a wider range of colors than traditional LED-backlit TVs. It's a very basic TV released in 2022, and it sits above the Insignia F30 Series 2022. It runs the latest version of Amazon's Fire TV smart interface, with a great selection of streaming apps and an easy-to-use layout. The quantum dot panel delivers an excellent wide color gamut, but sadly, it can't display colors accurately, as saturated colors are terribly oversaturated. The VA panel delivers excellent contrast and good black uniformity, making it a good choice for a dark room, but like most budget TVs, it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. It has decent peak brightness in SDR and decent reflection handling, so it's also a good choice for a moderately-lit room, but it can't overcome bright glare. It also has narrow viewing angles, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image degrades when you move off-center.
Our Verdict
The Insignia F50 QLED is an alright TV overall. It's good for watching movies or TV shows in a dark room, as it has excellent contrast and good black uniformity, but it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. It delivers a decent gaming experience with low input lag and a good response time, but it lacks advanced gaming features like variable refresh rate support. It supports HDR and can display a wide color gamut, but it's not bright enough for small highlights to pop, so HDR adds very little overall. It's not suitable for desktop PC use, as it can't display chroma 4:4:4 signals properly, so text looks blurry.
- Excellent contrast.
- Great selection of apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Colors are oversaturated in SDR.
- Image degrades at an angle.
The Insignia F50 is decent for watching TV shows in a bright room. It has decent peak brightness and reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue in moderately-lit rooms, but it can't overcome glare if you have a lot of windows and no curtains. It has a great selection of streaming apps, so you're sure to find your favorite content, but sadly, it doesn't upscale DVDs properly. Unfortunately, it has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on, as the image degrades rapidly as you move off-center.
- Excellent contrast.
- Great selection of apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Colors are oversaturated in SDR.
- Image degrades at an angle.
The Insignia F50 Series is a decent TV for watching sports in a bright room. Glare isn't an issue in moderately-lit rooms, as it has decent SDR brightness and reflection handling. It has good gray uniformity, but there's some noticeable dirty screen effect when watching sports. Sadly, it has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not ideal for a wide seating arrangement, as the image degrades rapidly as you move off-center.
- Excellent contrast.
- Great selection of apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Colors are oversaturated in SDR.
- Image degrades at an angle.
The Insignia F50 Series is satisfactory for playing video games. It has outstanding low input lag for a responsive gaming experience and a good response time, but there's still some noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects. It also has excellent contrast and good uniformity, so it's a good choice for gaming in the dark, but it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. Unfortunately, it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, and it doesn't support any advanced gaming features like variable refresh rates or HDMI 2.1 bandwidth.
- Excellent contrast.
- Excellent low input lag.
- Good black uniformity.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Colors are oversaturated in SDR.
- No local dimming.
- No advanced gaming features.
The Insignia F50 QLED is mediocre for watching HDR movies in a dark room. It has excellent contrast and good black uniformity, so blacks are deep and uniform, but it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. It's not very bright in HDR, though, so small highlights don't stand out at all. On the other hand, it has an excellent SDR color gamut, with nearly complete coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, so HDR content looks lifelike.
- Excellent contrast.
- Great selection of apps.
- Excellent wide color gamut.
- Good black uniformity.
- No local dimming.
- Can't remove judder from any source.
- Low peak brightness in HDR.
The Insignia F50 is decent for gaming in HDR. It has excellent contrast and good black uniformity, so blacks look good in a dark room, but it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. It has outstanding low input lag and a good response time, so games are responsive and look good. It also has an excellent wide color gamut. Sadly, it can't get very bright in HDR, so small bright highlights in HDR games don't stand out, and it doesn't support any advanced gaming features, like variable refresh rate support.
- Excellent contrast.
- Excellent low input lag.
- Excellent wide color gamut.
- Good black uniformity.
- No local dimming.
- No advanced gaming features.
- Low peak brightness in HDR.
The Insignia F50 is alright for use as a PC monitor, but only for gaming. It has low input lag and a fast response time, resulting in a responsive desktop experience, and it has decent reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue in moderately-lit rooms. Unfortunately, it can't display chroma 4:4:4 signals properly, so text looks blurry from the desktop. It's fine for gaming from a PC, but because of this limitation, it isn't a good choice for desktop use.
- Excellent contrast.
- Excellent low input lag.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Text isn't clear, as it can't display chroma 4:4:4 signals properly.
- Image degrades at an angle.
Changelog
- Updated Sep 11, 2024: We've updated the Accelerated Longevity Test with more details on this TV's failure. Unfortunately, it's been removed from the test permanently.
- Updated Jul 29, 2024: We posted an update to the Accelerated Longevity Test section of the review, as the backlight has failed and this TV has been removed from the test.
- Updated Jul 17, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated May 02, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 65 inch Insignia F50 QLED (65F501NA22), but the results are valid for the other sizes available, which you can see in the table below. According to Insignia, the 50" model doesn't support motion interpolation, but all other sizes do.
| Size | US Model | Full Model Code | Motion Interpolation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50" | 50F501NA22 | NS-50F501NA22 | No |
| 55" | 55F501NA22 | NS-55F501NA22 | Yes |
| 65" | 65F501NA22 | NS-65F501NA22 | Yes |
| 70" | 70F501NA22 | NS-70F501NA22 | Yes |
If someone comes across a different type of panel or their Insignia F50 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we'll update the review.
Our unit was manufactured in October 2021; you can see the label here.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Insignia F50 QLED is a basic, entry-level 4k TV with a wider color gamut than most similar TVs on the market. It's great if you enjoy saturated colors, but it delivers limited picture quality overall and has very few extra features. It's much better than the step-down Insignia F30 Series 2022, but there are much better choices available in the same price range from other budget brands, including Hisense and TCL.
See our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best smart TVs, and the best QLED TVs.
The Insignia F50 QLED is better than the Toshiba C350 Series 2023 due to its deeper contrast, brighter panel, and wider color gamut. Toshiba's IPS-type panel gives it a wider viewing angle, making it the better pick for wide seating arrangements. The Insignia is, however, the better pick for gamers due to its faster response time and slightly quicker input lag.
There's no clear winner between the Insignia F50 QLED and the Hisense QD65NF. The Insignia TV has better processing overall, so it can smooth out low-quality content better, and gradients are smoother, but it can't remove judder from 24p content. The Hisense, on the other hand, has better dark room performance, with deeper and more uniform blacks.
The Insignia F50 QLED is much better than the Insignia F30 Series 2022. The F50 looks much better in both bright and dark rooms. The F50 gets significantly brighter, so it can handle more glare, and it has a much higher contrast ratio, so blacks look deeper. The F50 also has a much wider color gamut, so HDR content looks more vivid and lifelike. Finally, the F50 is better for gaming thanks to its much faster response time, with less blur behind fast-moving objects.
The Insignia F50 QLED is better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Insignia has much better accuracy out of the box, a faster response time, better uniformity, and it's a bit brighter. On the other hand, the Amazon TV can remove judder from all sources, and it's better at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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