tvgeek
Member
Three 40-ish inch sets sitting at $159.99 and I got stuck on the Insignia listing for an embarrassing amount of time. It's a 50-inch 4K UHD Fire TV for the same money as two 40-inch 1080p sets, and it has zero ratings. Not 4.2 from a handful. Zero. Meanwhile the other two are both 4.2 stars, one from 381 ratings and one from 466. That gap is the entire thread.
The Roku Select is the boring answer and I mean that as a compliment. 40 inches, 1080p Full HD, Roku's own panel and Roku OS, 8K+ bought in the past month. The feature bullets are literally the same line pasted twice, which tells you how little Roku thinks it needs to sell you on. No QLED claim, no HDR claim, no resolution games. For a bedroom or kitchen set where the source is a streaming app and the viewing distance is short, 1080p at 40 inches is fine and nobody in that room will complain.
The Hisense QD4SR is the one I'd actually lean toward if I were buying today. Same $159.99, same 40 inches, same 4.2 stars from 466 ratings, but it's a QLED panel with full array LED and Dolby Audio, plus Alexa compatibility. 2K+ bought last month. On paper that's more TV for identical money than the Roku. My caution is that "Hi-QLED Color" is doing a lot of marketing work in that single bullet, and at this price the local dimming is going to be basic at best. QLED here means wider color, not black levels.
Now the Insignia. The listing says 4K Ultra HD, HDR10, four times the resolution of Full HD, upscaling, Alexa voice remote, 10K+ bought in the past month. A 50-inch 4K set for $159.99 is aggressive even by budget TV standards, and the complete absence of ratings on a product with 10K+ recent purchases is the part that makes me squint. Either the listing is new enough that reviews haven't landed or something got relisted. I'm not calling it a scam, but I'm not spending $159.99 on a listing I can't cross-check against a single owner's experience.
Who each one suits: Roku if you want the least to think about and you trust the platform; Hisense if you want the better panel spec for the same money and you're fine with a Roku TV interface anyway; Insignia only if 50 inches and 4K genuinely matter to you and you're willing to be the guinea pig. Skip the Insignia if you're buying for someone else.
What I actually want to know: has anyone here bought the NS-50F502NA26 and can confirm the panel is really 4K and not a 1080p panel taking a 4K signal? That's the one thing the listing can't tell me.
What the listings say (as of Nov 03)
The Roku Select is the boring answer and I mean that as a compliment. 40 inches, 1080p Full HD, Roku's own panel and Roku OS, 8K+ bought in the past month. The feature bullets are literally the same line pasted twice, which tells you how little Roku thinks it needs to sell you on. No QLED claim, no HDR claim, no resolution games. For a bedroom or kitchen set where the source is a streaming app and the viewing distance is short, 1080p at 40 inches is fine and nobody in that room will complain.
The Hisense QD4SR is the one I'd actually lean toward if I were buying today. Same $159.99, same 40 inches, same 4.2 stars from 466 ratings, but it's a QLED panel with full array LED and Dolby Audio, plus Alexa compatibility. 2K+ bought last month. On paper that's more TV for identical money than the Roku. My caution is that "Hi-QLED Color" is doing a lot of marketing work in that single bullet, and at this price the local dimming is going to be basic at best. QLED here means wider color, not black levels.
Now the Insignia. The listing says 4K Ultra HD, HDR10, four times the resolution of Full HD, upscaling, Alexa voice remote, 10K+ bought in the past month. A 50-inch 4K set for $159.99 is aggressive even by budget TV standards, and the complete absence of ratings on a product with 10K+ recent purchases is the part that makes me squint. Either the listing is new enough that reviews haven't landed or something got relisted. I'm not calling it a scam, but I'm not spending $159.99 on a listing I can't cross-check against a single owner's experience.
Who each one suits: Roku if you want the least to think about and you trust the platform; Hisense if you want the better panel spec for the same money and you're fine with a Roku TV interface anyway; Insignia only if 50 inches and 4K genuinely matter to you and you're willing to be the guinea pig. Skip the Insignia if you're buying for someone else.
What I actually want to know: has anyone here bought the NS-50F502NA26 and can confirm the panel is really 4K and not a 1080p panel taking a 4K signal? That's the one thing the listing can't tell me.
What the listings say (as of Nov 03)
| Spec | Roku Store | Hisense Store | INSIGNIA Store |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $159.99 | $159.99 | $159.99 |
| Amazon rating | 4.2 (381 ratings) | 4.2 (466 ratings) | 4.2 (0 ratings) |
| Bestseller rank | #3 | #13 | #5 |
