When I recently moved my old 720p TV died. I was in a hurry to replace it and didn't really do any shopping or research. When I did my shopping it seemed that 4K was pretty cheap and looked great in the store so I picked up a 55 inch 4K and headed home. The picture did not look anything like the store showroom. I had bought too much TV for my little apartment that was hooked up to my cable TV and Roku. Here is what I found.
My Roku was 720p and most "HD" cable TV broadcasts in 1080p. What was making my picture look horrible was that my inexpensive ($500) 4K TV had to up-convert every scene and I was sitting too close to the TV so I could see every flaw. It was possible that I had a bad screen and or the processor doing the up-convert was defective but I think I bought too little and too much at the same time. My 4K just didn't have the processing power to make all those up-converts right. Maybe if I would have spent several thousand on a 4K I would have seen the picture I saw at the store. Maybe the screen was too big and I was sitting too close. I think the trick to buying a new TV is to buy a TV specific to what you are using it for.
If you are like me and you get your viewing content through a Roku or Cable TV then 1080p is all you need. 720p should be fine too but my old 720p TV struggled with some HD programming so I wouldn't recomend it over 1080p. When I replaced the 4K with a 1080p TV that was just 43 inches and kept the settings to "show native resolution" the picture looked fantastic. Now if you are using a Blue-Ray player or a device than can stream true 4K content then you will enjoy your 4k TV...until you need to switch back to cable TV. Also if you are going the 4K route I think you need to go all in with buying a very expensive set that you need to research the heck out of. I was looking for a good TV experience not realizing that I was shopping for a home theater experience when choosing 4K. Sometimes you can buy too much tech and get a really bad result like I did with my 4K experience. My 1080p cost half and I am just loving the picture and the screen size.
I went back to the store that I bought the 1080p and on display it looks so small but at home it is huge for the room I have it in. All the 4Ks look so much better but the stores are probably feeding them content from a true 4K source. What you see in the showroom unfortunately is a real illusion. A good refund policy is your only real protection from bringing home something that isn't going to work. Find a store that has a good refund policy and treat the box and its contents that your TV came in with kid gloves. I experienced the showroom illusion at every store I went to but the return policy is key difference between stores. Also, a little internet research won't hurt either. When I ran into my 4K problem I did some research thinking that I just needed to adjust some settings. Well, that is when I stumbled upon the 4K issue of 1080p up-conversion problems. Some postings made it seem like no big deal and others mirrored the problem I experienced.
My parting advice is, don't buy too much, do a little research, and have a very good return policy before you buy.
