I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).
The 50-inch Vizio M-Series Quantum X TV offers an incredibly wide color range and great gaming features for a reasonable price.
Vizio’s M-Series Quantum X series packs some of the company’s most advanced panel technology into an affordable package, and should help Vizio take back some of the budget TV space it lost to Hisense and TCL over the last few years. For its part, the 50-inch M50QXM-K01 ($629.99) boasts a 120Hz panel and support for AMD FreeSync Premium, which makes it a good choice for gamers. It also offers even wider colors than our Editors’ Choice-winning budget TV, the 55-inch Hisense U6H (which is often available for far less than its $699.99 list price), even if it doesn’t get nearly as bright.
The M50QXM-K01 resembles most other recent budget and midrange TVs. It features a thin, gunmetal-colored band around the sides and top of the screen rather than a bezel, while a three-quarter-inch-wide brushed metallic border creates a bottom bezel. An infrared remote sensor is positioned on the left side of this metallic border and a chrome Vizio logo is on the right. The bottom bezel is a bit wider and more reflective than the matte or semi-matte strips on other TVs like the Hisense U6H, but that's a minor complaint. The TV sits on two thin, flat legs near its edges and has standard VESA screw holes for mounting it on the wall.
All of the rear ports are located on the right side and face right, except for the power cable connector, which is on the left. The TV includes four HDMI ports (one eARC and one that supports 4K120 for gaming), a USB port, an Ethernet port, 3.5mm and optical audio outputs, and an antenna/cable connector.
The plastic remote sports a matte black finish; it looks and feels elegant, almost as if it was made of metal. A large, circular navigation pad sits in the middle, while power, home, settings, and input buttons reside above it, alongside dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, iHeartRadio, Netflix, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Vizio’s Watch Free+ channel (similar to Pluto TV). The top of the remote also houses a pinhole microphone and indicator LED. Back, closed caption, and voice search buttons are all below the navigation pad, along with a volume rocker.
Vizio’s SmartCast smart TV platform has evolved into one of the best interfaces for streaming media consumption. It doesn’t have a full-fledged voice assistant like Alexa or Google Assistant, but it does offer a solid selection of popular streaming apps. It also supports both Apple AirPlay and Google Cast, as well as Bluetooth for listening to audio via headphones without disturbing anyone else. Overall, it’s simple and easy to use.
The Vizio M50QXM-K01 is a 4K TV with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10+. It has an over-the-air tuner, but it doesn't support ATSC 3.0.
We test TVs using a Klein K-80 colorimeter(Opens in a new window) , a Murideo SIX-G signal generator(Opens in a new window) , and Portrait Displays’ Calman software(Opens in a new window) . The M50QXM-K01 has a full array LED backlight system, but don’t expect it to get very bright or show particularly high contrast. Out of the box in Calibrated mode, the TV more or less matches the promised 300 nits full-screen and 400 nits sustained light output. Indeed, we measured 328 nits with a full-screen white field and 443 nits with an 18% white field, with little variation between SDR and HDR signals. Black levels captured via a 2% white square on the screen averaged 0.055cd/m^2, for a respectable, but unimpressive, 8,054:1 contrast ratio. Note that this testing applies only to the 50-inch model; Vizio claims that the 65- and 75-inch models in this same M-Series Quantum X line offer full-screen and sustained brightness levels of 900 and 800 nits, respectively. As it is, the M50QXM-K01’s contrast performance is a bit behind the Hisense U6H (588 nits peak brightness, 0.03cd/m^2 black level, and 19,608:1 contrast ratio), but well ahead of the Amazon Fire TV Omni (334 nits peak brightness, 0.11cd/m^2 black level, and 3,033:1 contrast ratio).
Although it doesn’t have the brightest picture, the M50QXM-K01 has one of the more colorful ones we’ve seen in this price range. The above chart shows the TV’s color levels in Calibrated mode with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. The SDR colors are spot-on, which is always good to see, though more and more affordable TVs hit those values out of the box these days. The HDR colors, however, are surprisingly wide and exceed DCI-P3 levels at some points. Greens are a bit oversaturated and yellows are just a bit undersaturated, but all of the colors balance properly and lack any noticeable skewing. The white color level appears particularly accurate.
The M50QX-K01’s excellent color performance is on full display with BBC’s Planet Earth II. Natural environments looks lush and vibrant, while the wide color range provides a lifelike sense of depth. Greens occasionally look a touch oversaturated, but never unrealistic or cartoonish; everything appears well-balanced. The colors fade a bit when you view the TV from off angles, but not to a significant degree.
The red of Deadpool’s costume in the overcast opening scenes of Deadpool looks vivid, though, again, colors fade a bit from side angles. In the burning lab fight, the yellows and oranges of the flames appear bright and varied, while shadow details come through clearly despite the TV’s relatively low peak brightness.
The modest black levels of the M50QXM-K01 are apparent in the stark party scenes of The Great Gatsby. The whites of balloons, lights, and shirts all stand out, but the black suit jackets look washed-out and overly bright. Shadow details like the cuts of lapels and textures of fabric and hair come through but, ultimately, the scene loses some of its high-contrast impact. Skin tones look mostly natural, but occasionally a bit oversaturated (straight-on) or faded (from a side angle).
The M50QXM-K01 should please gamers, especially those with Radeon video cards. The TV has a 120Hz panel and supports variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low-latency mode (ALLM), plus features AMD FreeSync Premium. The panel can also be pushed to 240Hz when set to 1080p, a very novel boon for gamers who want to get the highest framerates their hardware can push. It’s rare for a TV at this price to include those features together with such a quick refresh rate. Its input lag won’t disappoint, either; using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix(Opens in a new window) , we measured latency of just 6.7 milliseconds in Game mode, well below the 10ms threshold we use to consider a TV one of the best for gaming.
Vizio’s M50QXM-K01 is an impressive, but imperfect, TV that fills a few specific niches. For instance, it offers excellent color range and some of the best gaming features we've seen at this price point. We're also fans of its SmartCast platform, which supports both Apple AirPlay and Google Cast. Its contrast is only so-so, however, and its picture isn’t that bright, but the Vizio M50QXM-K01 is still worth a look for gamers in the market for an affordable 50-inch model. Ordinarily we’d also recommend the larger 65-inch and 75-inch versions, but they use completely different backlights and we need to evaluate those independently.
You should also check out the Editors' Choice-winning Hisense U6H series, which offers better contrast, similarly excellent color, a powerful Google TV interface with hands-free Google Assistant, and Apple AirPlay support. The 55-inch TCL 6-Series 4K Google TV (which is often available for less than its $949.99 list price) is another Editors' Choice winner. That model boasts a much brighter panel and has higher contrast, though its color performance and gaming features aren't quite as strong.
The 50-inch Vizio M-Series Quantum X TV offers an incredibly wide color range and great gaming features for a reasonable price.
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I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).
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