The question you’re probably asking yourself is, why do I need to measure the size of my TV? And to be honest, that’s a question we’re wrestling with ourselves.
For all intents and purposes, you’re likely to know what size TV you’ve got. Unless you’ve forgotten. Perhaps you don’t have the box it came in any more and you want to move it somewhere else in the house. Or maybe it’s not your TV and was passed on to you.
To be honest, there are a few people who see new TVs in the Trusted Reviews testing room and like to guess the size and invariably get it wrong; so actually perhaps there is a need for setting things right and figuring out just how big a TV you’ve got.
It’s time to get the measuring tape out of the kitchen drawer.
How to measure the size of your TV
You might think a TV is measured from side-to-side, and if so, you’d be wrong.
It’s an easy mistake to make, especially as we think about the sizes of things in width; but the actual size of a TV screen – your 32-inch, 65-inch, 98-inch – is not done from left to right but in diagonal length.
So, how do you measure a TV? First, whip out the tape measurer and potentially ask if someone else can help in your thirst for knowledge if you’ve got a sizeable TV and the tape measure just won’t stay put.
You can start from any corner – upper or lower – just make sure that, for the first measurement at least, you’re covering from bezel (that’s the physical border of the TV) to the other bezel. Don’t include the bezel itself, and you’ll get the true size of your TV screen.
If you want to know the entire TV size measurement, then you can measure from each diagonal and include the bezel this time, given you a firmer idea of not just how big the screen is, but how much space the TV takes up, whether that’s in inches or in centimetres.
Why does size matter?
Bigger means better when it comes to TVs, right? Not necessarily. Bigger is only better if you’ve got the space for a bigger screen. If you don’t have the space, then to paraphrase Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, you gonna need a bigger room.
TVs can go as small as 24-inches, and recently we’ve seen TVs as large as 116-inches (try and find a tape measure long enough to measure that). As always, not all TVs are the same and size does have an impact.
For instance, TV screens at 24- to 32-inches tend to be only bigger enough to support 720p resolution (or HD Ready, as it’s also known as). TV displays up to and including 40-inches are 1080p (Full HD). The higher the resolution, the higher the levels of clarity, detail and sharpness you’ll be able to see in the image.
42- and 43-inch TVs tend to be the crossover point into 4K UHD. You’ll find 42-inch OLEDs that support 4K UHD, but there’s also 43-inch tellies that go as far as Full HD. Obviously there’s a difference in the resolution, but also display technology involved and the price you’ll have to pay for it.
From there on, it’s 4K UHD all the way. There are 8K TVs available and sizes for TVs with 8K resolution start at 65-inches (there were 55-inch models but they’re no longer available).
If you buy a TV that’s bigger than 43-inches, it’s very likely to be a 4K UHD model.
OLED vs LCD – different sizes
The bigger you go with sizes, there’s a divergence that happens with OLED and LCD models.
For example, OLED TVs are available at 42-inches while LCD models are 43-inches. The next size for OLEDs is 48-inches, LCD is 50-inches.
From there on they’re about the same until we get past 65-inches. LCD TVs hit 75-inches, while OLED is 77-inches; then it’s 85-inches for LCD and 83- and 88-inches for OLED.
Get close to the 100-inch barrier and it’s 97-inches for OLED and 98-inches for LCD. We should note as we did before that prices differ, but in this case OLED, which due to the way it’s manufactured is available in limited sizes and is more expensive to make, incurs a higher price.
A 97-inch OLED could cost close if not over to £20,000 / $20,000, while an 98-inch LCD could cost £2000 / $2000 to £5000 / $5000 depending on the brand. Something to keep an eye on when it comes to sizes and figuring out what size TV you need.
And while we’re on this subject, as well as figuring out to measure your TV size; we have another guide in what size TV you should buy that takes into account the size of the TV and viewing distance too.
The post How to measure the size of your TV — and what the measurements actually mean appeared first on Trusted Reviews.