Dealmaster: Get a high-performing 55-inch Vizio 4K TV for less than $600

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with another round of deals to share. Today’s list is headlined by a nice deal on Vizio’s acclaimed P55-F1 4K TV, which is currently down to $598 at Walmart. That’s $100 off the 55-inch set’s standard going rate and the lowest outright price we could find for this specific model to date.

While this keeps the TV a little bit pricier than TCL’s 55-inch R-Series Roku TV—Vizio’s chief competition—the extra $70 or so may be worth it for Vizio’s apparent advantages in picture quality. While we don’t review many TVs at Ars, various outlets have praised the P-Series sets for its excellent motion handling (with its 120Hz refresh rate) and low input lag, which make it particularly well-suited for gaming. It supports a wide color gamut and all the necessary HDR formats, including Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG, and it can display that content vibrantly thanks to its high brightness and 56 local dimming zones (the $1,000 65-inch model has 100 zones, but this should still be sufficient). The set itself has five HDMI inputs, too, and it will soon gain support for Apple’s AirPlay 2 protocol, which should be a boon for iPhone users.

The big caveat here is that this TV is from 2018. Vizio didn’t announce an exact follow-up to its mainstream P-Series sets at CES earlier this year, but it will launch some new models soon, which helps explain the price slashing now. Vizio’s smart TV interface isn’t quite as helpful as that of a Roku TV, either, and image-wise, its viewing angles aren’t great. Like most smart TV makers, Vizio also tracks users’ viewing habits for ad purposes. Still, this is how the cycle of TV pricing works. And while the panel is a clear step below premium sets like LG’s OLED TVs, it still represents good value at this price for anyone willing to pay for picture quality.