Vizio OLED55-H1 with IQ Ultra processor

It’s been more than a year since Vizio unveiled its OLED H1 series TVs at CES 2020. It’s time to take a look at one of the TVs in this lineup. While these models are not exactly “fresh,” they could be strong competitors lowering the price of OLED TVs.

Despite the fact that Vizio mainly represent their products in the overseas market, we were interested in compiling a review of the Vizio OLED55-H1 as a representative of this series. Let’s see if the OLED55-H1 can compete with the top-selling OLED models.

Among the Vizio 2020 lineup, the OLED-H1 series under review is a premium. It offers two diagonal TVs – OLED55-H1 and OLED65-H1. The price category of 65 diagonal – up to 2000 dollars. Recall that the LG of the simpler LG BX series with the same diagonal will cost $2,333.

Design, packaging, assembly

Inside the box there is a remote control (no voice control option), batteries for the remote and some details of the Vizio OLED55-H1 TV stand. There is also an information booklet, but there is no instruction manual for the TV itself. Perhaps the manufacturer relies on the consumer himself and his ingenuity for installation.

Installation of the Vizio OLED55-H1 must be done by two people. There is a warning about this on the huge stickers on the front of the TV. Attention should be paid to this as the OLED screen is quite flexible. To secure the stand, you are supposed to lay the TV on a flat surface.

You will feel the screen flex slightly when you install it. This is especially true for the large diagonal OLED65-H1, so extra care should be taken when assembling and installing it. The manufacturer would do well to take an example from the Sony XG95 package, where you don’t need to stack the TV and the stand legs are mounted vertically.

Vizio OLED H1 design.

The OLED55-H1 TV’s relatively slim body attaches to a sleek pad in the center of the screen. The second part of the stand is mounted on the back of the case. The main stand has a wave-shaped profile and looks slightly futuristic.

The case is made of dark matte plastic. The connectors are located on the left side of the TV, pointing sideways and downward. Interface compartments are closed with decorative covers. The cable routing from the bottom should go first to the center and then down through the center auxiliary stand. Believe me, laying the antenna cable is often not easy, and you have to leave the decorative panel cover aside.

Connections

The Vizio OLED55-H1 TV has three downward-facing HDMI ports. One of them has eARC, and a couple of others have 4K@120Hz support. The few ports on the side are composite, HDMI and USB and are easier to access. Vizio tried to keep the back of the OLED H1 in design minimalism. But in practice it turned out to be unnecessary.

After all, if the wires are laid “correctly” their length will increase by half the width of the TV body. Some information about HDMI ports. There are only two interfaces labeled 4K@120Hz, and Vizio assures that these ports are HDMI 2.1 standard.

That is, they are capable of supporting variable refresh rate (VRR) and automatic low latency mode (ALLM) in 4K@120Hz mode. Upon inspection, it turns out they don’t. But Vizio has already released a firmware update that solved this problem. So the Sony PlayStation 5 will interact normally with the TV.

Compatibility

The operating system in the Vizio OLED55-H1 TV is SmartCast, the digital tuner does not support the DVB-T2 standard. Therefore, the use in the European segment simply as a “TV out of the box” will not go, unless you do not use a satellite receiver. Here you should immediately think about buying an external set-top box, for example, Android TV.

Black Level

As you might expect, the black levels of the Vizio OLED55-H1 TV are impressive. After all, this is an OLED TV, so when the pixels are off, you get true black. But that’s not all you need for a good picture. You always need good gradients going into darker shades of gray, shadow detail and blending.

And here the Vizio H1 OLED has a bit of a downside. There can actually be problems with viewing dark images if the TV is set in a bright room. The image doesn’t go smoothly beyond black, so there’s no detail in the shadows. And viewing perfect dark scenes is difficult.

Here’s a tip – place the Vizio H1 OLED in a darkened area. But on the other hand, the black uniformity is perfect, which allows the H1 OLED to set the TV to an excellent contrast picture. The gray gradient on the screen, as well as the uniformity of gray, is almost perfect.

Brightness

What’s interesting about Vizio’s H1 OLED is that when factory calibrated, the image itself is not very bright. The result of the tests is only 400 nits at peak in HDR and about 300 nits in SDR. As you can see, that’s not much difference between HDR and SDR content.

However, after resetting the TV settings and adjusting a few settings, the performance was greatly improved to match the manufacturer’s claims: almost 400 nits in SDR and 650 nits in HDR when using a 10% window filled with white.

Color accuracy

Adjusting the brightness level can often have a negative impact on color accuracy. Nevertheless, the OLED55-H1’s standard colors are fantastic once the image calibration mode is worked out. The DCI P3 standard is covered by 98%.

Motion processing

Although the OLED55-H1 handles colors well, the processing of dynamic scenes is slightly behind. Of course, anti-blur features are in the spec. But problematic 24p content can play back with some jitter. Naturally, this was done with motion compensation and shake settings turned off to try it out.

However, when these enhancement settings are turned on and even at the lowest levels, we get the unfortunate “soap opera effect.” Most likely, as most users assume, this is not worth the trade-off.

Image Processing

Unfortunately, image processing is an area in which Vizio must evolve. You could say that the picture clarity is incomparable to the OLED models of LG or Sony. Perhaps that’s why the price segment is down. Image processing in Vizio TVs has improved markedly this year, but the H1 OLED is still weak on low-resolution and low-bit color depth content. But high-resolution content on the H1 OLED looks amazing.

OLED burnout

A lot of people are interested in the part of the OLED TV review that talks about the possibility of screen burn-in. Although burn-in is not as big of an issue now as it was in past versions. However, there are still risks in this area, and any OLED TV manufacturer complicates some of the features against this “OLED disease”.

So if the user likes to play the same game for ten hours a day, or the same TV channel looms on the screen every day, the problem may be that graphic banners “burn through” the screen where they are.

Nevertheless, the OLED55-H1 technologically combats such burn-in. If the OLED-H1 notices a static image on the screen for more than 30 seconds, the H1 simply goes out. In addition, the series is equipped with pixel shifting technology and a brightness limiting function to avoid OLED burnout.

Sound

Oddly enough, the sound quality of the H1 OLED out of the box is not impressive. But after rebooting the TV and making small adjustments, the 2x15W system improves dramatically in terms of sound quality. Still, there’s an opinion that such a great TV deserves a separate sound bar.

Fortunately, Vizio makes some of the most affordable and high-performance soundbars on the market today. In particular, the Vizio Elevate soundbar would be an excellent choice.

Game Mode.

Once the PlayStation game console was connected, the process was expected to be fully automated. However, Vizio’s H1 OLED automatically recognized the console and marked the appropriate input, but the picture quality was not up to par.

A little poking around in the settings, it turns out that the TV does not accept HDR, although the PS5 “gives” this standard by default. Having worked out the settings of H1 OLED, we managed to get the desired image. By the way, you can do something in the PS5 settings – manually switch some settings to create 4K HDR with up to 120 Hz. In general, it is worth a little bit of fiddling here. And the H1 OLED TV is a great choice for a gaming TV with a 3ms pixel response time.

OLED-H1 price

Now a little bit about the price of OLED models from Vizio at the beginning of spring 2021. So, a 55 diagonal OLED55-H1 TV will cost $1,300. The largest 65 diagonal OLED65-H1 is priced at $2,000. As a reminder, Vizio OLEDs are not designed for the European market and you’ll have to consider buying an additional set-top box if you still don’t have one.

OLED-H1 specefications

Results of the OLED-H1 review

In conclusion of the review OLED-H1 from Vizio we summarize. The Vizio H1 OLED models are definitely interesting. Vizio’s main accomplishment is lowering the price, but at the expense of image quality. Indeed, Vizio has competitors, such as LG’s OLEDs. But as we can see, Vizio has reduced the cost of OLED TVs to almost $1,000. After updating with various patches, the Vizio H1 OLED ends up being a pretty good OLED matrix TV.

What can be chosen as a competitor is the LG CX OLED series. It’s probably a direct competitor to the Vizio H1 OLED, but it costs more. For the extra penny you get a little more accurate processing

What you can choose as a competitor is the LG CX OLED series. It’s probably a direct competitor to the Vizio H1 OLED, but it costs more. For the extra penny you get a little more accurate image processing. But the Vizio H1 OLED has good high-resolution content processing, too, and most potential buyers can save a little money.

Pros

• Perfect black levels.
• Excellent colors out of the box.
• Great for gaming.
• Slim, elegant design.

Cons

• Cable styling.
• Slight risk of OLED burn.