Our Verdict
Good TV for mixed usage. Picture quality is above average, and motion is handled very well. Very low input lag which is great. Unfortunately the picture diminishes from the side and it lacks features found on high end TVs.
- Excellent TV for gaming
- Great value 4k TV
- Very narrow viewing angle
- Cable and DVDs look blurry
- Poor screen uniformity
Performs well for movies. Displays deep blacks and has good black uniformity for dark rooms. Has local dimming but it doesn't work very well.
Average for TV shows. Upscaled content looks okay, and doesn't have the brightness to compete with reflections in a bright living room.
Average sports performance. Picture quality is above average but screen is not very uniform which results in dirty screen effect. Handles motion very well though.
Very good for video games. Picture quality is above average, and motion handling is great. Fast camera movements handled easily. Exceptional input lag which is great.
Doesn't support HDR. Color gamut only enough for SDR content. Can't get very bright for highlights. Above average picture quality though.
Average PC monitor. Picture quality is above average and handles motion very well. Input lag is exceptional, unfortunately doesn't support a wide range of input resolutions.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Vizio D Series 4K TV that we bought is the 50" with SKU D50u-D1. We expect our review to be valid for the 40" (D40u-D1), 55" (D55u-D1), 58" (D58u-D3) and 65" (D65u-D2). It is not valid for the 1080p variations of the Vizio D Series which we reviewed separately here.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their Vizio D Series doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review.
| Size | Model | Effective Refresh Rate | Real Refresh Rate | HDMI # | Speakers | Local Dimming Zones |
| 40" | D40u-D1 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 5 | 10W x 2 | 8 |
| 50" | D50u-D1 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 5 | 10W x 2 | 12 |
| 55" | D55u-D1 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 5 | 10W x 2 | 14 |
| 58" | D58u-D3 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 5 | 10W x 2 | 10 |
| 65" | D65u-D2 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 5 | 15W x 2 | 16 |
Compared To Other TVs
The Vizio D Series 4k 2016 performs quite well across the board and excels in gaming performance for those after a 4k TV on a budget. For those that don't require a 4k TV, it is very similar to the Vizio D Series 1080p 2016 which is available at a lower price.
Test Results
The Vizio D Series 4k won't impress with its looks or thinness. In fact, it might remind you of the look of old LCD TVs, minus the very large borders. Before you buy, make sure you have a table that is broad enough to accommodate the wide stand.
When using the stand, the TV leans a little bit toward the back.
Footprint of the 50" TV stand: 10" x 39.2"
Although the TV is thick, its back connections are arranged so there are no wires that can stick out from the back. It can then be mounted flush on a wall.
The deep blacks the Vizio D has make for a high contrast ratio and good picture quality.
Local dimming really didn't work well on this TV, even though it has a full-array backlight. You don't see any blooming, even though the zones are really big, because the overall picture darkens too much.
The SDR peak brightness was tested with local dimming on, and this has the effect of reducing the peak brightness on the smaller sized windows. Turn off the local dimming if you want to have the same brightness on all window sizes.
This TV does not support HDR.
Like most LED TVs, the uniformity of the screen isn't good and dark patches can be seen whenever the camera pans over playing surfaces like ice or grass. The small number of LEDs in the full-array backlight doesn't help here.
If you don't sit directly in front of the TV, colors appear washed out and black appears grayish. If you sit too close to the TV, even the right and left edges will appear whitish.
Our black pattern is free from any obvious clouding or light bleed, which is great.
The Vizio D Series uses an 8-bit panel. We could clearly see the 8-bit gradation in our gradient pattern, even when the TV was fed with a 10-bit signal.
White balance was good out of the box. Color was ok.
White balance could be fixed correctly with calibration, but we couldn't get individual colors much better without applying extreme values that worsened other colors.
The Vizio D displays 480p softer than most other TVs do. Increasing Sharpness to 20 and activating the 'Reduce Noise' setting fixed most of this problem. It looks softer than even the 1080p equivalent of the D Series (see review).
As with 480p, 720p resolution looks a little blurry. Setting 'Sharpness' to 20 and enabling the 'Reduce Noise' feature can help a little bit.
The Vizio D that we reviewed can display 4k resolution (some other Vizio Ds can do a maximum of 1080p, see our separate review for them)
The Vizio D 4k doesn't have a wide color gamut option. Its color output is limited, but this won't be an issue with normal, non-HDR content.
Similar to other SDR TVs, the D Series 4k 2016 can't produce very saturated colors at any luminance level.
The semi-gloss finish does a good job of minimizing reflections without adding rainbows. The Vizio D will be fine in a room with a few windows.
The response time is good and the result is clear fast motion. The trail following the moving logo in our test is short. The down transitions are a bit slower than the up transitions, which results in an orange tone between the letters of our logo.
The Vizio D Series 4k uses PWM to dim the backlight, which can be seen in duplications following the motion blur logo. It is possible to reduce this frequency to 60Hz to clear up motion.
This TV isn't able to completely remove judder. 'Reduce Judder' does reduce the amount of judder on 24p content, but still couldn't remove it completely.
Update: Enabling 'Game Low Latency' solved the 24p issue, but still not over 60p or 60i.
Vizio advertise this TV as a '120Hz Effective Refresh Rate' which is more of a marketing term. The Vizio D 4k 2016 is in fact a 60Hz TV and as such, can only interpolate content with a refresh rate of 30Hz and lower, using the 'Reduce Judder' setting. Cable TV and streaming services that run at 60Hz won't be able to use the soap opera effect.
You can read more about fake refresh rate here.
This is the lowest input lag we have measured on a TV so far. The time it takes for the TV to respond to a controller input is extremely low. Any serious gamers, even those playing competitively, should be pleased with the Vizio D. To get the input lag to a minimum, we had to use the 'Game' picture mode and the HDMI 5 input. For the HDMI 1, the 1080p input lag under game mode (with 'Game Low Latency' on) is 42.2ms.
For 4k @ 60Hz support, use the labelled HDMI port (HDMI5).
Update: 4k @ 60Hz is limited to 4:2:0. 4k @ 30Hz supports 4:2:2.
Poor low-end cutoff and low maximum loudness. The frequency response (tonal balance), however, is decent. The major issue here is the total lack of bass.
High distortion. Even though the TV doesn't get loud (barely reaching 85dB SPL), the distortion level is quite high. It should also be noted that the plasticky frame of the TV shakes and rattles quite noticeably under loud and full-range content.
Most popular apps are available, including Netflix, Amazon Video, and YouTube. HBO Go is missing, and there is no web browser.
The smart features of the Vizio D Series aren't that advanced, but cover the basics. Although functional, there is no fancy remote that comes with the TV, either. There is a good number of inputs, though.
