Vizio V Series 2022  TV Review

The Vizio V Series has a simple design with thin bezels on three sides, and a thicker bottom bezel, and its body is mainly black.

The stand consists of two V-shaped feet that hold the screen well. The display is also high enough off the table that most soundbars fit in front without blocking the image.

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

The back consists of a metal back panel and plastic housing for the inputs. As the inputs are towards the center of the TV, they're hard to reach, particularly if you have it against the wall. Sadly, 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 build quality is decent. It's well-put-together, and there aren't any obvious quality control problems. The stand supports the TV well, as there's minimal wobble, and although there's a bit of flex on the back near the inputs, this is normal for most TVs. Overall, it feels good for an entry-level model, but it doesn't have anything premium about it.

This TV has an excellent native contrast ratio, so blacks are deep in very dark scenes. There's no local dimming feature, though, so when bright highlights are on the screen, black levels rise considerably and look more gray.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no localized blooming around bright highlights in dark scenes. Instead, the entire screen looks gray and washed out.

Since there's no per-zone local dimming feature, there's no noticeable change in brightness as bright highlights move across the screen. Although advertised to have a 'Full-Array Backlight', this just means it uses direct LED backlighting with the LED backlights placed directly behind the panel and not along the edges.

There's no difference in dark scene performance when you're in 'Game' mode.

This TV has poor HDR peak brightness. It doesn't get bright enough to display an impactful HDR experience with bright scenes, and since it lacks a local dimming feature, bright specular highlights don't stand out at all. Overall, HDR adds very little and looks flat and dull.

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 once again 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

The Vizio V Series has excellent PQ EOTF tracking overall. 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. Since it lacks a local dimming feature, it also can't display perfect blacks, so shadow details are raised a bit.

The Vizio V Series has okay SDR peak brightness. It doesn't get bright enough to fight glare from strong light sources, so it's best to use it in a dim or moderately-lit room. It gets slightly brighter than the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022, but the difference is insignificant.

These measurements are after calibration, with the following settings:

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

Unlike the higher-end M Series models from Vizio, this TV doesn't have a quantum dot layer, so it can't display a wide range of colors in HDR. It has good coverage of the commonly-used DCI-P3 color space but it isn't as good as other TVs and has limited Rec. 2020 coverage, so it isn't future-proof. The tone mapping is terrible in both color spaces, so colors aren't displayed accurately.

This TV has mediocre HDR color volume. Limited by its incomplete color gamut and low peak brightness, it can't display bright or dark colors well.

The Vizio V Series has fantastic accuracy in SDR with the most accurate settings before calibration. There are hardly any inaccuracies with most colors, and even the white balance is incredible, except pure white is a bit off. Gamma and the color temperature are both very close to their targets.

Although it's not really needed for an accurate image, the accuracy after calibration to the 6500K white point is incredible. The TV is easy to calibrate, and calibrating the white balance fixed most color inaccuracies, too.

See our full calibration settings here.

This TV has disappointing gray uniformity. There's noticeable backlight bleed throughout and vignetting towards the sides. It's noticeable while watching content with large areas of uniform color, like sports or scenes with panning shots, or when you're using it as a PC monitor. Even in near-dark scenes, the backlight bleed and vignetting are still visible.

The black uniformity is good. There's very little clouding in the center of the screen, but there's backlight bleed and vignetting towards the sides. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve dark scene performance.

The Vizio V Series has a narrow viewing angle, so it's a poor choice for wide seating areas, as people off to the sides won't see the same image as those in front.

The reflection handling is good. Although it doesn't get bright, its semi-gloss finish does enough to reduce glare from small light sources, like if you have a lamp or some spotlights in your room.

This TV has great gradient handling in HDR. There's some noticeable banding in darker shades of all colors, but brighter shades are displayed perfectly.

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: 26
• Super Resolution: Low

This TV uses a BGR sub-pixel structure, which doesn't affect image quality; however, 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, negatively impacting the 4k upscaling as some images aren't as sharp.

This TV has a good response time. Most motion looks smooth, but there's still a bit of inverse ghosting and image duplication due to the backlight flicker.

This TV uses pulse width modulation to dim its backlight at any Backlight setting below its max. Since this TV isn't very bright anyway, you should leave the brightness at max, and it won't be an issue.

Unfortunately, the Vizio V Series doesn't have the option to introduce flicker, and it always flickers at 480Hz with its backlight setting below its max.

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

Despite the quick response time, there isn't too much stutter with low-frame-rate content.

The Vizio V Series removes judder from 24p sources, like Blu-rays and native apps, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies. However, it can't remove judder from 60p/i sources, like cable boxes.

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

The Vizio V Series has low input lag in Game Mode to provide a responsive gaming experience without much delay.

The Vizio V Series supports most common signals up to 4k @ 60Hz, including with proper chroma 4:4:4, which helps with text clarity when using it as a PC monitor. It 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, this TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X as it's limited to signals up to 60Hz.

Although the manufacturer advertises the HDMI inputs 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. As its tuner only supports ATSC 1.0, you can't stream over-the-air 4k content. It's also advertised to support Wi-Fi 6E, 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 V Series supports eARC with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X signals. You can pass this high-quality audio to a compatible receiver with a single HDMI connection.

The Vizio V Series has an okay frequency response. Like most TVs, it gets loud and has a well-balanced sound profile in the mid-range, resulting in clear dialogue, but it doesn't produce much bass, so you'll need to get a subwoofer for the best sound experience possible.

The Vizio V Series has disappointing distortion handling. While there isn't much distortion at moderate listening levels, it gets much worse and more distracting at its max volume.

The Vizio V Series comes with the Vizio SmartCast system. It's easy to learn but feels laggier than other operating systems as it's web-based and feels slow at times. There are a few bugs, like the fact that the SmartCast was unavailable on initial startup until we reset the TV, which we also experienced with the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022.

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. It 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 included remote is basic and only has a few necessary navigation buttons, including quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. There's a mic in the remote, or you can use the app on your phone to access the voice assistant features, which you can ask to open apps and switch inputs, but you can't search for content.

There's a single button on the bottom left side to turn the TV on/off and change inputs.

• Remote control
• 2x AAA batteries
• User guides