Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022  TV Review

The Vizio MQ6 looks a lot like the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2021. It's a simple-looking TV with an all-black body, mainly made of plastic. It looks surprisingly good for a budget model, with thin bezels and a modern design that looks good in most rooms.

The wide-set feet hold the display well, as there's minimal wobble. They also raise the screen high enough off the table that most soundbars won't block the screen.

Footprint of the 55-inch TV: 39" x 11" x 3.15" to the bottom of the screen.

The back of the TV is a mix of plastic and metal components. Because the inputs are placed towards the center of the TV, they're hard to reach, especially if you have it wall-mounted. Unfortunately, there isn't anything for cable management.

The section where the inputs are sticks out, and the TV doesn't sit flush against the wall if you mount it.

The Vizio MQ6 has decent build quality. It feels good for a budget-friendly TV, and even if its materials aren't premium, it's well-put together, and there aren't any noticeable issues. There's a bit of flex on the back panel, but that's normal and isn't an issue until you press on it.

The Vizio MQ6 has an excellent native contrast ratio but no local dimming feature. In dim scenes with no bright lights, blacks are deep and uniform. In more complicated scenes with a mix of bright and dark areas, blacks are raised and washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no blooming around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones.

Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance.

The Vizio MQ6 has poor HDR peak brightness. Scenes that are supposed to be bright aren't impactful, and since the TV lacks a local dimming feature, small bright highlights don't stand out.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Calibrated Dark
• Tone Mapping: 50
• Color Temperature: Warm
• Gamma: 2.2

The HDR brightness in Game Mode is poor and looks the same as outside of Game Mode.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Calibrated Dark
• Game Low Latency: On
• Tone Mapping: 50
• Color Temperature: Warm
• Gamma: 2.2

This TV has excellent PQ EOTF tracking. It follows the target nearly perfectly, but as there's a sharp roll-off at the peak brightness, there are a lot of details lost in bright scenes. Due to its lack of a local dimming feature, dark shadow details are raised.

The Vizio MQ6 has disappointing SDR peak brightness. It doesn't get bright enough to fight glare, so it's best to use it in a dim or moderately-lit room. The higher-end Vizio M Series Quantum X 2022 gets significantly brighter.

These measurements are after calibration, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Calibrated Dark
• Backlight: 100
• Color Temperature: Warm
• Gamma: 2.2

This TV has an excellent color gamut thanks to its quantum dot technology. It displays a wide range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content, and it also has good coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space. Unfortunately, the tone mapping is noticeably off in both color spaces, meaning most colors in HDR aren't displayed accurately.

The color volume is decent, but it struggles to display bright colors well, and it's limited by its incomplete color gamut.

This TV has mediocre accuracy in SDR before calibration. Most colors and the white balance are noticeably off. Luckily, the color temperature is very close to the 6500K target, and while gamma is brighter than the 2.2 target, it's only slightly off.

The accuracy after calibration to the 6500K white point is fantastic. It's easy to calibrate the white balance and gamma, but because the colors were so inaccurate before calibration, they're still slightly off after calibration.

See our full calibration settings here.

The Vizio MQ6 has okay gray uniformity. There are noticeable issues with backlight bleed and dirty screen effect that can get distracting with large areas of uniform colors, particularly when watching sports. Even with near-dark scenes, there's noticeable backlight bleed.

The black uniformity is alright. There's backlight bleed throughout, resulting in the blue screen, but it isn't terrible either. Unfortunately, without a local dimming feature, it can't further deepen those blacks.

The Vizio MQ6 has a narrow viewing angle. Colors lose their hue very fast, and the image looks washed out as you move off to the sides. This means it isn't an ideal choice for wide viewing areas.

The reflection handling is decent. It handles a moderate amount of light well, but considering it has low peak brightness, it struggles to fight glare in a well-lit room.

This TV has excellent gradient handling in HDR. There's some noticeable banding in dark shades of gray, but everything else looks nearly perfect.

Unfortunately, the processing features of this TV are very limited, and it can't smooth out low-quality content at all. There's still significant macro-blocking and pixelization, and fine details aren't maintained.

Unfortunately, this TV has poor upscaling when watching 480p content from a DVD or other low-resolution, low-bitrate sources. Edges aren't very sharp, fine details are lost, and text is blurry.

The optimal settings for a sharp image with no over-sharpening are as follows:

• Sharpness: 25

This TV uses a BGR sub-pixel structure, which doesn't affect image quality, but it can negatively affect text clarity when using the TV as a PC monitor. You can read more about it here. It also has dithering in blue pixels, which negatively impacts the 4k upscaling as some images aren't as sharp.

This TV has a decent response time. Motion looks good for the most part, and while there's a bit of blur trail behind fast-moving objects, it's minimal with brighter objects. However, it has a slow response time in dark transitions, leading to black smearing with darker objects.

This TV uses pulse width modulation to dim its backlight at any Backlight level below its max and in any picture mode. Considering how dim the TV is, it's best to set it at its max backlight level to avoid flicker, but the flicker is high enough that it likely won't bother you if you're sensitive to flicker. However, it can also cause image duplication.

There's an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to reduce persistence blur. It works at 60Hz, which matches up with the refresh rate, but there's still a bit of image duplication. The BFI score is based on the flicker frequency and not the actual performance.

There's no motion interpolation feature to bring lower-frame-rate content up to 60 fps.

There's very little stutter on this TV, but it's still noticeable with some slow-panning shots.

Unlike most TVs, this TV only removes 24p judder from native apps. Strangely, it can't do it with a 24p source, like a Blu-ray player. The setting to remove judder is actually grayed out when you use an external device.

This TV supports variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing.

The Vizio M6 Series has low input lag in Game Mode, ensuring a responsive gaming or desktop experience.

This TV supports most common signals up to 4k @ 60Hz. Chroma 4:4:4 and RGB are displayed properly at all supported resolutions, which is essential for clear text from a desktop PC. Like many TVs, it'll also accept a 120Hz signal with 1080p and 1440p resolutions, but it just skips every other frame, so the end result is the exact same as a 60Hz signal.

Without HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and a 120Hz refresh rate, this TV can't take full advantage of the PS5 as it's limited to signals up to 60Hz.

Without HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and a 120Hz refresh rate, this TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X as it's limited to signals up to 60Hz.

Although the HDMI inputs are advertised as HDMI 2.1, they're limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, so you can't take advantage of the extra bandwidth of HDMI 2.1. Vizio also advertises that it supports Wi-Fi 6E for faster wireless streaming.

The RCA Analog Audio output is great if you have an older two-channel sound system that requires this connection.

The Vizio M6 Series supports eARC with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X signals. It means you can pass this high-quality audio to a compatible receiver with a single HDMI connection.

This TV has an okay frequency response. It's good for listening to dialogue and gets loud, but like with most TVs, it doesn't produce much bass, if any.

The distortion handling isn't bad. It's better with moderate listening levels, but it gets more noticeable at its max volume.

The Vizio SmartCast platform is a bit different from other operating systems as the apps are web-based, and the interface feels slower. It's easy to learn, but there are a few bugs as the SmartCast was unavailable when we first started the TV, and we had to reset it for it to work.

Like with most TV brands, there are ads throughout the interface, but they aren't always there.

The Vizio SmartCast platform doesn't have an app store because all the apps are web-based. This means you can only use the ones it already has, but there's a large selection of apps to start with, and you can cast content from your phone.

This TV comes with a basic remote. It has all the basic functions, including quick-access buttons to popular streaming services, and there's a mic for voice control. You can ask it to open apps and switch inputs, but you can't use it to search for content in apps or change the TV's settings. You can use Google Assistant, Alexa, or Apple Home too. Also, you can use the Vizio Mobile app on your phone to use the voice features.

There's a single button on the bottom left side to turn it On/Off and change inputs.

• Remote control
• 2x AAA batteries
• User guide