The Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 is a great 4k TV with a VA panel. It delivers great picture quality, with deep, uniform blacks, an outstanding color gamut, very good gradient handling, and decent HDR peak brightness. It has good overall motion handling with an excellent response time, but the backlight isn't flicker-free and it doesn't have a motion interpolation feature. Unfortunately, like most TVs with VA panels, the image degrades when viewed at an angle, and it has noticeable uniformity issues.
Overall, the Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 is a great TV for most uses. It's a great choice for watching movies or playing games, even in a dark room. It has great reflection handling and great SDR peak brightness, good for watching TV shows or sports in a bright room, but the image degrades at an angle, so it isn't as well-suited for watching at an angle or with a group of friends.
See our Mixed Usage recommendationsThis is a great TV for watching movies in a dark room. It has an impressive native contrast ratio, good local dimming feature, and outstanding black uniformity. 1080p content is upscaled well, and looks almost as good as native 4k content. It can remove 24p judder from native 24p sources and the internal apps, but not from a cable box or other 60p/i source.
See our Movies recommendationsThis TV is good for watching TV shows in a bright living room. It has great reflection handling, and great peak brightness with SDR content, so glare shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, the image degrades at an angle, and older, lower resolution shows aren't upscaled as well as on other TVs.
See our TV Shows recommendationsThis is a good TV for watching sports in a bright room. It has great reflection handling and great peak brightness, so glare shouldn't be an issue, and it has an excellent response time. Unfortunately, the image degrades when viewed at an angle, so it isn't a great choice for watching the big game with a group of friends, and there is noticeable dirty screen effect (DSE).
See our Sports recommendationsThe Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 is an excellent TV for playing video games. It has outstanding low input lag on all ports, an excellent response time, and 1080p content looks almost as good as native 4k. Unfortunately, it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, and it doesn't support any advanced gaming features, like FreeSync.
See our Video Games recommendationsThe Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 is a great TV for watching movies in HDR. It has an impressive contrast ratio and good local dimming feature. This TV also has an impressive color gamut. Unfortunately, it has only decent peak brightness in HDR.
See our HDR Movies recommendationsThis is an excellent TV for HDR gaming. It has outstanding low input lag and an excellent response time, for a responsive gaming experience. It also looks amazing in a dark room, due to the impressive contrast ratio, outstanding black uniformity, and good local dimming feature. This TV also has an impressive color gamut, but only decent peak brightness in HDR, although most games have an option to adjust the game to match the TV's peak brightness.
See our HDR Gaming recommendationsThe M Series Quantum 2019 is a great TV for use as a PC monitor. It has outstanding low input lag for a responsive desktop experience, and it has an excellent response time, so there is very little blur behind fast-moving objects. This TV can also display proper chroma 4:4:4 in any of the supported modes. Unfortunately, the image degrades at an angle.
See our PC Monitor recommendationsThe Vizio M Series Quantum is a mid-range 4k Vizio TV, and it directly replaces the Vizio M Series 2018. It's available in three variants: the M7 variant, the M8 variant, and a Black Friday variant known as the M6. The M Series Quantum's main competitors are the Samsung RU8000, Sony X850F, and LG SM8600.
The back of the TV is very plain, and looks very similar to last year's M Series 2018, but with an all-black finish. The inputs face towards the side and bottom of the TV, and are easy to access when wall-mounted.
Unfortunately, there is no cable management.
The 2019 model is a bit thicker than last year's model, but still looks good. There is a slight backwards lean, but this isn't very noticeable. We don't know if this is by design, or a defect. The M Series 2018 did not have a tilt.
The Vizio M Series Quantum has decent build quality. It's very similar to other Vizio TVs, and the exterior panels are made of plastic. The stand supports the TV well, but it still wobbles a bit. There is a slight backwards tilt; this isn't very noticeable with normal viewing, and we don't know if this is a defect or by design.
The M Series Quantum has an outstanding native contrast ratio, similar to the Vizio V Series 2019. This results in excellent deep blacks, great for dark-room viewing. With local dimming enabled, the contrast ratio is boosted significantly, similar to the Samsung Q70R.
The M Series Quantum has a good local dimming feature, slightly better than the Q70R but not quite as good as the P Series Quantum 2018. It reacts decently well to fast scene changes, but the leading edge and some small, bright objects can appear dimmer than the rest.
Higher settings on the TV cause the TV's overall brightness to increase. Although we normally recommend the 'Medium' setting, it might be too bright for some environments, in which case the 'Low' setting might be better.
The M7 Series Quantum 2019 variants have a slightly worse local dimming feature, with fewer dimming zones.
The Vizio M658-G1 has great peak brightness, but it isn't quite as bright as the M Series 2018. There is some variation in brightness with different content (ABL), but it shouldn't cause any issues for most people.
We measured the peak brightness after calibration, with the 'Calibrated Dark' Picture Mode, and the Color Temperature set to 'Normal'.
The local dimming feature affects the TV's peak brightness, and higher settings result in a higher peak brightness. We measured the peak brightness with the Active Full Array setting on 'Medium'. Lower settings result in a lower peak brightness, so you may need to adjust this setting depending on your viewing conditions. The 'High' setting resulted in a dimmer image with some real content.
If you prefer a brighter image, or a colder color temperature over an accurate one, with the 'Vivid' Picture Mode and the 'Cool' Color Temperature, we measured a peak brightness of 634 cd/m² for a short period of time, as measured on the 10% test window.
The M7 Series Quantum 2019 variants have a slightly lower peak brightness.
Decent peak HDR brightness, slightly worse than last year's models.
We tested the HDR peak brightness with no calibration settings, using the 'Calibrated Dark' Picture Mode, with the Backlight set to '50'.
The local dimming feature affects the TV's peak brightness, and higher settings result in a higher peak brightness. We measured the peak brightness with the Active Full Array setting on 'Medium'. Lower settings result in a lower peak brightness, so you may need to adjust this setting depending on your viewing conditions. The 'High' setting resulted in a dimmer image with some real content.
If accuracy isn't as important to you, or if you prefer a colder color temperature, the 'Vivid' Picture Mode hit a peak brightness of 581 cd/m² for a short period of time, with the Backlight set to '100', Color Temperature set to 'cool', and local dimming on 'High'.
The M7 Series Quantum 2019 variants have a slightly lower peak brightness.
Decent gray uniformity. Subjectively, it looks worse than the current score. There are noticeable vertical bands throughout the entire screen, which can be very distracting with some content. These results are closer to the TCL R617, but with less vignetting.
Like most VA panels, the M Series Quantum 2019 has disappointing viewing angles. When viewing off-angle, the image appears washed out and colors shift noticeably and lose accuracy.
Unlike the P Series Quantum X 2019, there is no Enhanced Viewing Angle feature.
The M Series Quantum 2019 has great reflection handling. Bright light sources aren't completely diffused across the screen, so bright lights or windows opposite the TV can still be distracting. This TV has much better reflection handling than the TCL R625.
With our pre-calibration settings, the M Series Quantum 2019 has good accuracy. Gamma mostly follows the target curve, but some really bright scenes are noticeably over-brightened. There are some minor inaccuracies in colors, but most people won't notice anything. The color temperature is warm, giving the white point a slight red-yellow tint.
After calibration, this TV has excellent accuracy. Gamma follows the target perfectly, with almost no variation from 2.2. Color errors are almost completely corrected, and any remaining inaccuracies are completely unnoticeable. The color temperature is extremely close to our target of 6500 K, and the white balance is essentially perfect.
You can see our recommended settings here.
4k content is displayed perfectly, with no pixel issues or sub-pixel dimming. Unlike the higher-end Vizio TVs, like the P Series Quantum X 2019, there is no Enhanced Viewing Angle feature, so there is no spatial dithering.
The Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 has an impressive color gamut, one of the widest we've ever measured.
The EOTF doesn't follow the PQ Curve very well. Darker scenes are displayed accurately, but it starts tone mapping very early, and all scenes above around 100 cd/m² appear darker than they should be. In 'Game' mode, the backlight defaults to '100', which causes the EOTF to display darker scenes brighter than they should be, as shown by this EOTF. With the backlight set to '50', the EOTF more closely tracks the PQ curve.
If you find HDR too dim, changing the Backlight to '100' results in a brighter image, as shown by this EOTF. If you want an even brighter image, decreasing the gamma will probably improve the brightness a bit more, but we don't expect it to impact the apparent brightness as much as the backlight setting.
This TV has great color volume, again, one of the best we've tested. It can't quite fill out its color gamut, but can display most colors at any brightness level, including dark, saturated colors.
This TV has great gradient handling. There is some noticeable banding in most colors, but it isn't very noticeable. Unfortunately, there is no smooth gradation feature to improve gradients.
There are no signs of temporary image retention on the M Series Quantum 2019, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.
We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.
This TV has an excellent response time. There is some slight overshoot in most transitions, but this isn't very noticeable. There are duplications in motion, as seen in the above photo, due to the flicker of the backlight.
The M Series Quantum 2019 uses PWM to dim its backlight, and there is flicker at all backlight levels below 100. The 480Hz flicker is identical to last year's M Series 2018, but behaves very differently from the 120Hz flicker on the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2019. This high flicker frequency does cause noticeable duplications in motion, which can be seen in our response time photo.
This TV has an optional black frame insertion feature which can improve the appearance of motion. When enabled, this feature reduces the backlight flicker frequency to 60Hz, which helps reduce the amount of persistence blur. This results in more noticeable duplications in motion.
Unfortunately, this TV does not have a motion interpolation feature.
Due to the TV's fast response time, there is some noticeable stutter when watching 24p content, like movies. This is especially noticeable with slow-panning shots.
The M Series Quantum 2019 can remove judder from 24p sources and from the native apps, as long as Film Mode is enabled. Unfortunately, it can't remove judder from 24p content sent through a 60p/i source, like a cable box.
This TV has a 60Hz panel, but doesn't support any advanced variable refresh rate features, like FreeSync or HDMI Forum's VRR feature.
The M Series Quantum 2019 has excellent low input lag, as long as Game Low Latency is enabled. Unlike many top Vizio TVs, including the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2019, there is no dedicated low latency port. Instead, all four HDMI ports have the same low latency.
See our recommended settings for gaming here.
This TV supports 1080p and 4k inputs, but only at 60Hz. It doesn't support a 120Hz input or 1440p. Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly, as long as the Picture Mode is set to 'Computer'. Higher bandwidth formats, like 4k @ 60Hz 4:4;4 requires that the Full UHD Color setting be enabled for the port in use.
See our recommended settings for PC gaming here.
Update 12/09/2019: Vizio has added support for HDR10+ on most 2019 and 2018 models.
This TV supports Dolby Vision from all sources.
The M Series Quantum 2019 supports ARC over HDMI port 1, but it doesn't support eARC. It can pass DTS and Dolby Digital over ARC, but for DTS to work over optical, the Digital Audio Out setting must be set to 'Bitstream'.
Decent frequency response. The low-frequency extension (LFE) is bad, resulting in very limited bass, with no thump or rumble and very little punch. The response above the LFE is good, and dialog is clear, but it lacks airiness a bit. It can get quite loud, but unfortunately, there is significant pumping and compression at louder volumes.
Update 11/26/2019: We've retested the TV with the latest SmartCast interface, and found it to be much faster.
The interface is visually appealing and easy to use, but unfortunately, it's not very smooth.
Like other Vizio TVs we've tested, there are no ads. There is a row of suggested content, though, on the main page, and this can't be disabled.
The remote is very basic, and is identical to the remote included with other Vizio TVs. There are a few dedicated buttons for the most popular streaming features, but the remote has no other advanced features, like voice control.
The remote app is great, and replaces all functions of the remote. It can also be used to enter text into some apps, and can be used to adjust the TV's settings.