When shopping for a new television, most buyers naturally focus on the headline specifications: price, screen size, resolution and perhaps the latest display technology. While those factors certainly matter, they don’t always tell the full story of how a TV will perform in your living room.

Retail showrooms are designed to make televisions look as impressive as possible, with vivid demo footage and picture settings that prioritise impact over accuracy. As a result, it’s easy to be swayed by eye-catching colours without realising that some important aspects of picture quality are being overlooked.

According to Patrick Chen, Product Training Specialist at TCL Electronics Australia, there are several simple checks shoppers can perform in-store to better judge a television’s real-world performance.

Check Skin Tone Accuracy

One of the easiest ways to assess a TV’s colour reproduction is to pay attention to how people’s skin looks on screen.

Many televisions in retail stores are configured with boosted saturation to make landscapes and colourful scenes appear more vibrant. While bright blues, greens and reds can look impressive, excessive colour enhancement can make people appear unnatural.

“TVs in-store are normally tuned to be as eye-catching as possible to impress potential customers,” Chen explains. “Often bright hues such as reds, greens, and blues can make a person on-screen look unrealistically bright or artificial, so ensuring skin tones still look natural is key.”

Chen recommends choosing scenes that combine colourful backgrounds with people, allowing you to judge whether the TV can maintain realistic skin tones alongside vibrant colours.

“You should ideally be able to look at the bright blue sky or strong orange stripes of a tiger during a movie scene and still see someone’s skin tone remain as you would expect in real life, just as the director intended it to look.”

Examine Black Levels

Colour isn’t the only indicator of picture quality. Dark scenes can reveal just as much about a television’s capabilities.

Chen advises shoppers to look closely at how well a TV reproduces deep blacks, particularly around the edges of the panel.

If blacks appear grey, washed out or inconsistent across the screen, contrast performance may suffer, reducing the overall sense of depth and immersion during movies and television shows.

Don’t Forget Viewing Angles

Many buyers judge a TV while standing directly in front of it, but that’s rarely how it’s viewed at home.

Whether mounted on a wall or positioned in a large living room, viewers are often watching from different angles.

“Depending on the screen technology, watching the TV side-on can cause the picture quality to change or degrade,” Chen says. He recommends stepping several paces to either side of the display in-store to see whether colours, brightness and contrast remain consistent.

“The screen’s colour and tone should remain consistent regardless of where the viewer is positioned, be it in the middle of a couch or from a kitchen island off to the side.”

Consider Your Real-World Viewing Habits

Picture quality extends well beyond screen resolution.

Before making a purchase, it’s worth considering the type of content you’ll spend the most time watching. Streaming services, free-to-air television, live sport, gaming and movies all place different demands on a display.

Features worth evaluating include:

  • HDR performance
  • Local dimming capability
  • Motion processing
  • Anti-reflection coatings
  • Smart TV platform responsiveness and app support
  • Gaming features such as HDMI 2.1, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)

These technologies can significantly influence everyday viewing enjoyment and may prove more valuable than simply opting for a higher resolution panel.

The Bottom Line

While price, screen size and resolution remain important considerations, they shouldn’t be the only factors guiding your purchase.

Taking a few extra minutes in-store to assess skin tone accuracy, black level performance and off-axis viewing can provide a much clearer picture of how a television will perform once it’s installed at home.

Combined with an understanding of the features that best suit your viewing habits, these simple checks can help ensure your next TV delivers excellent performance long after you’ve left the showroom.