We headed over to Polaroid’s booth here at CES to see their new, inexpensive 50-inch 4K TV that will sell for just $999. Unfortunately, it is not very good.

Hands-on with Polaroid's 4K TV
Polaroid made a splash before CES when they announced a 50-inch 4K TV for just $999. This is not the first inexpensive 4K TV, as Seiki has sold inexpensive 4K TVs throughout 2013, but this one comes from a known brand.

So we headed over to Polaroid’s CES booth, and unfortunately it turns out that the 4K TV is not very good. During very slow pans or static content it has impressive details, but on moving images it was very evident that the processor introduces jaggedness and pixel noise. The panel also has far too much added sharpness, which really should not be necessary with a 4K panel.


The viewing angles on Polaroid’s TV were also very narrow, meaning that you pretty much had to stand in front of the TV. As you can see the picture shows a small logo reading Innolux, which means most likely means that the 4K panel inside is manufactured by Innolux.

At $999 we obviously have to adjust our expectations for a 4K TV, but Polaroid is not alone in this price segment, and based on our early experiences it looks like there are much better deals out there, for example Vizio’s $999 4K TV.