Our Verdict
Below average for a range of usages. Picture quality is below average, and degrades a lot when viewed at a slight angle. Has uniformity issues.
- Handles motion well
- Low input lag
- Picture quality degrades when viewed at a slight angle
- Poor uniformity
Bad TV for watching movies in a dark room. Picture quality is below average, and the local dimming does not work well to improve it.
Below average for watching TV in a bright room. When viewed at a slight angle, the picture quality degrades very rapidly. The TV is average at dealing with reflections, and cannot get bright enough to combat glare.
Average for watching sports. The motion is handled well, but picture quality is below average. When viewed at a slight angle the picture quality degrades rapidly. No motion interpolation features.
Average video game performance. Fast motion is handled well, and input lag is good. Unfortunately picture quality is below average.
Does not support HDR content. Also does not support features necessary for a good HDR experience such as a wide color gamut, or high peak brightness.
Below average as a PC monitor. Motion is handled well and input lag is good. Unfortunately only a 1080p resolution and picture quality is below average. Does not support Chroma 4:4:4 for clear text on some backgrounds.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Vizio E Series 1080p TV that we bought is the 48" with SKU E48-D0. We expect our review to be valid for the other sizes.
If someone's Vizio E Series 1080p doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review.
Note: This review does not apply to the 4k variant of the Vizio E, which we reviewed separately and can be found here.
| Size | Model | Effective Refresh Rate | Real Refresh Rate | HDMI # | Speakers | Local Dimming Zones |
| 32" | E32-D1 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 2 | 5W x 2 | N/A |
| 40" | E40-D0 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 2 | 10W x 2 | N/A |
| 43" | E43-D2 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 3 | 10W x 2 | 5 |
| 48" | E48-D0 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 3 | 10W x 2 | 5 |
| 55" | E55-D0 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 3 | 10W x 2 | 10 |
Popular TV Comparisons
The Vizio E Series 1080p 2016 is a budget TV, but it offers poor picture quality even considering the price. There are other TVs for the same price which provide much better overall performance. Keep this in mind when viewing our recommendations below.
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 are done with 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
The Vizio E 1080p 2016 is blocky, and made of plastic. It features a wide set stand which supports the TV well. An improvement on last year's design, but very basic and won't turn any heads. Looks identical to the 4k variant of the same TV.
Basic wide stand, same as Vizio E Series 4k 2016. Provides a stable support.
Footprint of the 48" TV stand: 10.6" x 36.4"
The simple back provides easy access to all inputs, even when wall mounted.
The borders have an average thickness, and look quite good with a textured side.
The max thickness measurement is taken at the bottom of the TV. Will stick out if wall mounted.
Contrast Ratio is good on the E Series 1080p. It is high enough to provide deep blacks in a dark room.
Has a full array backlight, but zones are horizontal and the full width of the screen. Looks similar to Samsung edge-lit TVs such as JS8500. Note that the different sizes have different numbers of dimming zones, as shown in the 'Differences between Sizes and Variants' below. The E48-D0 we reviewed has 5 local dimming zones.
The peak brightness is below average for the Vizio E Series 1080p TV. The peak brightness measurements are with 'Active LED' set to on. The TV takes a few seconds to respond to dark screens with backlight dimming.
This TV does not support HDR.
The gray uniformity is average. Both side are darker than the center. Some warmer vertical bands can also be seen towards the center. Some dirty screen effect will be visible.
The viewing angle of the E Series 1080p is pretty bad, the picture quality degrades really fast when viewed off axis. At 10 degrees, you already start to lose some color saturation.
Update: We have changed the methodology of testing. Since this is an old TV which we don't have anymore, we extrapolated the results.
Black uniformity is disappointing, not to say the least. You can clearly see on the picture that the center is much darker than both sides of the screen, this is due to the narrow viewing angle. The picture quality at the sides degrades even when viewed from in front.
You can see easily the 8 bit gradation on our gradient picture. Color gradation are more visible in the darker colors but does not exhibit real banding issues. The only color tint problem are due to the gray uniformity problem in the corners.
Before calibration, the white balance is quite good. The colors are also very accurate. For most people, a calibration is not necessary.
Issues with the SmartCast App meant the changes to the white balance and color space were not visible on the app. This made calibration very difficult, but since the pre-calibration result was very good this is not an issue. You can see our calibration settings here.
The 480p upscaling isn't as good as some of the other brands. Content looks a bit soft.
Upscaled 720p material looks good on this Vizio TV. It does look a bit softer than other brand of TV like Sony, but it still does a good job. Small detail are sometimes lost.
Native 1080p content like Blu-rays looks good and sharp. No problems can be noticed here.
This TV does not support a wide color gamut, and is limited to displaying Rec. 709 content. It is good enough for SDR content.
The E Series 1080p 2016 can't produce very saturated colors.
Average at dealing with reflections, and better suited to a room without much glare. One or two windows at the side should be fine, but the backlight is not bright enough to combat too many reflections.
The Vizio E48-D0 uses a different type of pixel. It has a horizontal pixel contrary to the more used vertical pixel matrix. This type of horizontal pixel matrix seems to offer a narrower viewing angle. This is the same type of horizontal pixel found in the Vizio E 4k 2016.
Motion is handled well. The transitions are quick, but do have some overshoot. This is visible in the lighter trail following the logo. The transitions appear to be similar to the Vizio E Series 4k 2016, but tuned differently which causes a faster response but with the drawback of more overshoot. The backlight uses PWM to dim which causes some flickering.
Just like the other 2016 Vizio TVs, the E Series 1080p has a 'Clear Action' setting which reduces the backlight flicker frequency to 60Hz and clears up motion. This is good for gamers or sports fans who don't mind some visible flicker.
Set 'Film Mode' to 'Auto' to play 24p sources over 24Hz without judder. The E Series 1080p 2016 is not able to remove judder when playing 24p content over 60Hz signals.
There are no motion interpolation features on this TV, similar to the Vizio D Series 1080p.
Input lag is good for the E Series 1080p. To have the lower input lag, you need to set the picture mode to 'Game' and also turn on the 'Game Low Latency' option. With these settings, the input lag varies between the lowest value of 29.6ms and about 45ms.
The E Series 1080p only accepts a signal up to 60Hz, as it has a 60Hz panel. Although chroma 4:4:4 is accepted by the TV at 1080p and 60Hz, it is not really 4:4:4 and not as clear as other TVs.
Above average and mostly flat frequency response. However, the low-end cutoff of 143Hz means that this TV lacks a lot of bass. Also, with maximum loudness of 88.32B, this TV doesn't get much loud either. Additionally, under maximum loudness, pumping and compression will be present in the higher frequencies.
Average distortion results. The overall amount of harmonic distortion at 75 and 85dB SPL are good. However, at maximum volume, there is a dramatic rise in harmonic distortion with high amounts of aliasing. However, the high distortion and aliasing will be less noticeable in real-life situations.
There are no applications on the TV itself, but any Android or iOS phone can stream to the TV. There are many major applications which support this platform, such as YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. Amazon Prime Video is not supported at the moment.
This TV features the same SmartCast platform found on the higher end Vizio TVs this year, such as the Vizio M Series 2016. It works similarly to ChomeCast, as the TV receives information about streams to play from a tablet, phone or PC. Unlike the higher end models (Vizio M Series 2016 and Vizio P Series 2016), it does not come with an included tablet. This TV has an inbuilt tuner, unlike the 4k variant.
The controls are located behind the left side of the TV. They provide basic functionality and are easy to access if wall mounted.
Same basic remote found with the other 2016 Vizio TVs that feature the SmartCast platform such as the Vizio E Series 4k 2016.
