Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 TV Review

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 looks a lot like the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2021. It's a simple-looking TV with an all-black body, and it's mainly made of plastic.

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 is made of metal on the back panel and plastic where the inputs are and at the bottom. 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 M6 Series Quantum 2022 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 M6 Series Quantum 2022 has a high native contrast ratio. It means that it displays deep blacks next to bright highlights, which is ideal for dark room viewing. However, without a local dimming feature, it can't further improve it.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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 results are from after calibration using the 'Calibrated Dark' Picture Mode with the Backlight at its max, Color Temperature on 'Warm', and Gamma set to '2.2'.

By setting the Picture Mode to 'Bright', Color Temperature to 'Cool', and Gamma to '1.8', the TV reaches a peak of 276 cd/m² in the 10% window. However, this isn't a significant difference, and the image is less accurate.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 has poor HDR peak brightness. It doesn't get bright enough for highlights to stand out against a dark image, and it doesn't deliver a satisfying HDR experience. These results are in the 'Calibrated Dark' Picture Mode with the Gamma on '2.2', Color Temperature on 'Warm', and the Tone Mapping set to its default of '50'.

If you want a slightly brighter image, set to Picture Mode to 'Bright', the Color Temperature to 'Cool', and the Gamma to '1.8'. It makes the image slightly brighter at 273 cd/m² with a 10% window, but it isn't enough to be a significant difference, and the image is less accurate.

The HDR brightness in Game Mode is once again poor and looks the same as outside of Game Mode. It was tested using the same settings, but with Game Low Latency enabled.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 has excellent PQ EOTF tracking with darker shades and show details. 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. If you find the image too dim, set the Gamma to '1.8' and the Color Temperature to 'Normal'. This makes shadows appear brighter, as you can see in this EOTF, but there's still the same sharp roll-off.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 has excellent gradient handling. There's only a bit of banding in darker colors, which is normal for most TVs. There's a Contour Smoothing setting to help reduce the banding, but it also causes a loss of fine details in high-quality content.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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 M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 has mediocre out-of-the-box accuracy in SDR. Most colors and the white balance are noticeably off, resulting in an inaccurate image. Luckily, the color temperature is very close to the 6500K target, and while gamma is brighter than our intended 2.2 target for moderately-lit rooms, 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 a bit off after calibration.

See our full calibration settings here.

Unfortunately, the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 can't properly upscale 480p content, like from DVDs and SD cable channels. It doesn't apply the proper aspect ratio as it stretches the image horizontally. Vizio TVs are known to have upscaling issues, but never like this.

720p content from HD cable channels looks decent. It isn't as good as some other 4k TVs, but it applies the proper aspect ratio, unlike with 480p content.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 upscales 1080p content, like from Blu-rays, without any issues.

Native 4k content looks great, but there are some dithering issues that results in a blurrier image compared to other 4k TVs.

This is a 4k TV that can't display an 8k signal.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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's future-proof because it also has good coverage in the Rec. 2020 color space, which more content will start to use.

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

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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. Keep in mind that 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.

Because the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 doesn't have the fastest response time, lower-frame-rate content doesn't stutter that much.

Unlike most TVs, the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 supports variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing. It only works within a narrow range because it doesn't support Low Framerate Compensation, so you'll see screen tearing when the frame rate drops too low.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 has low input lag in Game Mode for a responsive feel. Even outside of Game Mode, you won't notice too much of a delay while scrolling through menus.

This TV supports most common signals up to 4k @ 60Hz, including proper chroma 4:4:4 which helps with text clarity when using it as a PC monitor. It actually accepts a 120Hz signal with 1080p and 1440p resolutions, but it skips frames.

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, the Vizio M6 Quantum Series 2022 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. It's also advertised to support Wi-Fi 6E, which is 6GHz, but this only works with Wi-Fi 6E compatible devices for faster speeds.

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

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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.

The Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022 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