Value Electronics, a Scarsdale, N.Y.-based specialty retailer, has announced the results of its annual 4K TV and 8K TV Shootout events, which took place in New York City on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2023. Sony’s A95L takes home a win in the 4K category, while LG’s Z2 secured victory in the 8K category.

The popular consumer AV retailer says the field of competition included premium television products from all of the market’s top brands. Ensuring the competing products performed to their maximum capabilities, the TVs were calibrated by DeWayne Davis, Jason Dustal, Cecil Meade, and John Reformato. The TVs’ respective performance were evaluated through the use of test patterns and various pieces of content, and Caleb Denison of Digital Trends served as master of ceremonies for the event.

Sony A95L OLED TV Takes Tightly Contested 4K TV Category

Value Electronics points out this year’s 4K TV Shootout included six displays, with three MiniLED TVs lined up on the top row, and three OLED TVs on the bottom row of the competition venue. All the 4K TVs in the competition were 65-inch screen size models, and the field included Samsung’s QN95C, Sharp’s XLED, Hisense’s U8K, Samsung’s S95C, Sony’s A95L, and LG’s G3. Two reference Sony BVM-HX310 Professional Mastering Monitors were included in the event so each stack of displays could be compared next to a reference monitor. 

According to Value Electronics, not included in the competition for the title of “King of TV,” was a section to judge each TVs’ out-of-the-box performance, which was added to the judging ballots. In this portion of the evaluations each TV was put in its best preset picture mode without professional calibration. In this segment, Sony’s A95L OLED won or tied nine of the 10 judging categories, and Samsung’s S95C and LG’s G3 each won or tied four of the 10 judging categories. The best TV For out-of-box performance was Sony’s A95L OLED. The best MiniLED TV was Samsung’s QN95C. 

For the 4K event, the three main categories judged were Standard Dynamic Range (SDR content), High Dynamic Range (HDR content) and Preference, and out-of-the-box performance without calibration. In SDR, the Sony A95L OLED was the winner, taking four of five attributes judged. Samsung’s S95C QD OLED and LG’s G3 OED both were close behind, with the S95C tying for Shadow Detail/Black Level and the LG G3 winning HD Resolution.

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The HDR segment also had Sony’s A95L in the lead, sweeping all attributes, with the OLEDs closely following the Sony. Due to its win in most categories judged and the average of all categories for both SDR and HDR, the Sony A95L OLED was crowned the “King of TV” for 2023. The “Best MiniLED TV” was awarded to Samsung’s QN95C. 

Moving onto day two of Value Electronics’ annual TV Shootout event, 8K TV performance was next on the agenda. Value Electronics says the 8K TV field for 2023’s event included a trio of televisions in the 75-/77-inch screen size class category: Samsung’s QN900C, Sony’s Z9K, and LG’s Z2.

The 8K television ballot was split into two categories—SDR and HDR performance. On the SDR portion of the ballot LG Z2 won four of the five categories to win the SDR evaluations. For the HDR half of the 8K event, LG’s Z2 OLED once again won four of five categories to win best 8K HDR TV.

Value Electronics adds the Sony Z9K was the best 8K MiniLED through its wins in the native motion categories in both SDR and HDR. The Sony Z9K also performed well in the UHD Resolution and High APL categories. The LG Z2 OLED was awarded “King of 8K TV” for 2023 due to its win of the most categories in SDR and HDR, as well as the average of all attributes. 

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