Insignia 55 Class F30: At First Glance
Insignia televisions are one of the most affordable TVs you will find in the market. Moreover, Insignia TVs aren’t just cheap but also offer great features that most users will find interesting.
Hence, as a means of expanding its collection, Insignia released the Insignia 55 Class F30 in 2021. Despite being one of Insignia’s latest TVs, this television comes with a relatively low price tag.
Specifically, when this review was published in March 2022, the Insignia 55 Class F30 was sold for $349.99. With such a low price tag, one might wonder if this Insignia television really offers great features and performance.
Well, there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to read this review all the way through.
Insignia 55 Class F30: Design, Dimension, and Weight
The Insignia 55 Class F30 doesn’t come with a stunning design, but its design isn’t that bad either. To be descriptive, this TV features a set of averagely-thin bezels that surround its display.
To give more details, the top and side bezels measure half an inch while the bottom bezel is thicker, measuring 3.3-inch. Furthermore, these bezels are composed of plastic and have a matte-black finish.
Moreover, due to the thickness of the bottom bezel, Insignia was able to include a gray “INSIGNIA” logo at the center. This logo is meant for brand identification and it also beautifies the television.
Having discussed the front side of the television, let us now turn to the television’s back. To start with, the Insignia 55 Class F30 comes with a plain metallic back panel.
There are holes in this back panel that can accommodate a 200 X 200 VESA mount for mounting this TV on the wall. Moreover, when mounted on the wall, the TV shouldn’t stick out too much because the back panel isn’t particularly thick.
However, you won’t find any form of a cable management system on this TV’s back panel. Thus, cables connected to the TV might look messy and disorganized if not arranged manually.
Just in case you don’t wish to mount the Insignia 55 Class F30 on the wall, you can place it on a table. Specifically, the television comes with a pair of legs that are made up of plastic with a matte-black finish.
Moreover, even though they are made of plastic, these legs are sturdy enough to support the TV to stand well. However, the Insignia 55 Class F30 might wobble a bit when forcefully pushed.
Sadly, these television’s legs are situated at the edges of the television. As a result, you’ll need a fairly large table to place the TV on if you decide not to mount it on the wall.
Unexpectedly, unlike televisions nowadays, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s legs are very short. Therefore, users might have issues placing a soundbar underneath the television.
Moving away from the TV’s legs, the television’s dimensions and weight is something we need to discuss. To begin with, the Insignia 55 Class F30 measures 1242 x 83.8 x 726.4 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 13290.2 g.
When compared with the TCL 55S425, this Insignia television weighs more. To be more specific, the TCL 55S425 measures 1244.6 x 78.7 x 721.3 mm (W x D x H) and weighs just 12100 g.
In summary, the Insignia 55 Class F30 comes with a basic design that isn’t bad for a television less than $400. Therefore, I will rate the Insignia 55 Class F30 a seven out of ten in this design review section.
Insignia 55 Class F30: Display Features and Picture Quality
As its name implies, the Insignia 55 Class F30 comes with a 55-inch display. In addition to that, this display features a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution.
Moreover, with its 4K resolution, this television’s display should be able to deliver vivid, realistic, and detailed picture quality. Also, the display should be able to deliver a picture quality that is four times better than a standard HD display.
Aside from featuring a 4K resolution, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display also offers an excellent contrast ratio of 4660:1. Having such an impressive contrast ratio implies that this television’s display will be able to produce deep blacks.
In other words, blacks on the display would appear as they should or even darker without tending to look grayish. Thus, movies such as Underworld that have plenty of dark scenes would be ideal to watch on the TV.
Also, in case you love watching movies in a dark room, this Insignia television is good for dark room viewing thanks to its high contrast ratio. For your information, contrast ratio refers to the difference between the brightest white and the deepest black a display produces.
Sadly, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display fails to support local dimming. Local dimming refers to a technique that enhances the contrast ratio of an LCD/LED display by dimming backlight zones when required.
Thus, blacks on the display will look darker with local dimming than they would without local dimming. However, this television’s display not supporting local dimming should be a major concern or problem.
This is because the display already has a high contrast ratio which makes it deliver deep blacks.
Moving on, as with most modern televisions, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display supports HDR (High Dynamic Range). For clarity, HDR refers to a picture technique that boosts the brightness and color accuracy of a display.
Hence, when watching HDR-compatible movies on the Insignia 55 Class F30, the display’s picture quality will be more lifelike and realistic. Streaming services such as Hulu and Amazon Prime Video are where you can find HDR-compatible movies or TV shows.
However, in spite of supporting HDR, this television’s display isn’t bright enough. To be more precise, the display has a maximum brightness of 288 nits.
Although this maximum brightness is decent, it isn’t enough for the television to be comfortably used in well-lit or bright areas. Thus, for an ideal viewing experience, it’s best you view the Insignia 55 Class F30 in a moderately-lit or dark room.
In addition to its mediocre display brightness, this television’s display offers bad viewing angles. Thus, pictures quality and color accuracy will rapidly reduce when viewing the television from extreme angles.
In fact, you’ll lose 50% of pictures quality and brightness when you view the television slightly off-center. Hence, to get a good viewing experience, I advise viewing the TV directly from the center.
On a bright note, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display handles reflection decently. This is due to the semi-gloss coating on the surface of the display that retracts reflection and reduces the density of sun glares.
Moving on, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display comes with an input lag of 34.5 milliseconds. Input lag refers to the time it takes a display to respond to signal inputs from external sources such as a wireless gamepad.
Furthermore, for an ideal gaming experience, a display must have an input lag of 15 milliseconds or lower. In other words, the lower the display’s input lag, the better the gaming experience.
Sadly, as we can see above, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display isn’t low enough to deliver an ideal gaming experience. Thus, this Insignia TV might not be the best choice for gamers.
On the plus side, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s display has a fast response time of 20.8 milliseconds. As a result, this television is good for watching movies with lots of fast-moving scenes such as Fast and Furious.
This is because there will be minimal blur trails when the display is viewing these kinds of movies. For the record, response time refers to how fast a display can change from one particular color to another.
In conclusion, the Insignia 55 Class F30 offers a decent display performance for a budget television. Moreover, the television’s display supports HDR and comes with a high contrast ratio.
Therefore, I will be rating the Insignia 55 Class F30 an eight out of ten in this display review section.
Insignia 55 Class F30: Sound Features
Unlike most budget TVs, the Insignia 55 Class F30 offers a decent sound performance. To start with, this TV comes with a pair of 10-watt built-in speakers that produces good audio quality.
Furthermore, these speakers can get really loud to the extent of filling a fairly large room with sound. In addition to that, the speakers are capable of producing a decent amount of bass even though the TV lacks a subwoofer.
Thus, the Insignia 55 Class F30 should be okay for viewing movies with rumbling and thumping sounds. However, if bass-heavy movies are your thing, you might consider purchasing a subwoofer to support the speakers’ bass production.
That said, the Insignia 55 Class F30 offers an excellent distortion performance. This isn’t a mere claim but has been proven via the television’s Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) test result.
For clarity, the THD test is an assessment carried out to measure the amount of distortion a sound device can produce. Moreover, on this THD test, a score of 1% or below is fine while a score above 1% isn’t good.
Impressively, the Insignia 55 Class F30 scored 0.2% on the THD test. As a result, even a the max volume level, the television’s speakers will produce minimal to no distortion.
Just in case you’re wondering, distortion is the alteration of original sound frequencies that might result in less appealing and noisy sound quality.
In addition to excellent distortion performance, the Insignia 55 Class F30 supports a sound technology called Dolby Audio. This sound technology enables the television’s speakers to create immersive and realistic surround sounds.
Thus, with this Insignia television, you should get a cinematic audio and viewing experience right in your room. That’s not all, Dolby Audio also allows the TV’s speakers to deliver loud and clear dialogue.
Briefly, dialogue refers to the conversation between two or more characters/people in a movie or TV show.
To sum it all up, the Insignia 55 Class F30 delivers a good sound performance that some pricier televisions lack. As a matter of fact, the distortion performance of the television is superb.
Thus, the Insignia 55 Class F30 deserves nothing less than an eight out of ten in this sound review section.
Insignia 55 Class F30: Ports and Connectivity Features
Port-wise, the Insignia 55 Class F30 features a decent amount of port. Furthermore, these ports are located on the back of the television.
To give more details, some of the ports are left-facing while the others are facing downward. Starting with the left-facing ports, the ports include three HDMI ports, one USB port, and a headphone jack.
It is important to mention that one of these HDMI ports supports ARC (Audio Return Channel). Hence, with the single HDMI-ARC port, users should be able to connect an HDMI-supported external speaker or a soundbar to the TV.
When it comes to the downward-facing ports, you will find composite video inputs, optical audio output, RF connector, and an Ethernet port. Meanwhile, for wireless connectivity, the Insignia 55 Class F30 features a built-in 802.11 ac Wi-Fi but lacks Bluetooth.
Having said all that, let us now consider the included remote control. To begin with, unlike most budget televisions, the Insignia 55 Class F30 features a voice remote control.
In terms of design, this remote control is made of plastic and has a matte-black finish. Furthermore, the remote is small in size, meaning it doesn’t feature a lot of buttons.
Speaking of buttons, this television’s remote lacks a full number pad. However, there is a round-shaped navigation button a bit above the center of the remote control.
Aside from this navigation button, the remote control also features four dedicated buttons for quick access to streaming services. These streaming services include Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO, and PlayStation Vue.
Moreover, just below these dedicated buttons, you will find an “INSIGNIA” logo boldly written with a white finish. Besides, as a voice remote control, the Insignia 55 Class F30’s remote features a built-in microphone.
Thus, you will be able to control the Insignia 55 Class F30 with your voice via Amazon Alexa.
In conclusion, the Insignia 55 comes with a decent amount of ports that match its $349.99 price tag. Additionally, the television offers a voice remote control.
Due to this, I will be rating the Insignia 55 Class F30 an eight out of ten in this ports and connectivity review section
Insignia 55 Class F30: Smart Features
The Insignia 55 Class F30 makes use of Amazon’s Fire TV as its operating system. One interesting aspect about this OS is its user-friendly interface that is lag-free, smooth, and makes navigation very easy.
Furthermore, the Fire TV operating system offers a variety of popular streaming apps. Some of these streaming apps include YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+.
Should in case you desire more streaming apps, you can simply go to the Amazon App Store on the operating system and download your desired apps.
Interestingly, the Insignia 55 Class F30 comes with WiDi/Miracast that allows you to share content from your Windows and Android devices to the TV. That’s not all, this television also features Apple AirPlay.
This feature enables you to stream/share content from any Apple device to the insignia 55 Class F30.
All in all, I will be rating the Insignia 55 Class F30 a nine out of ten in this smart features review section.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Insignia 55 Class F30 had a price tag of $349.99 when I wrote this article in March 2022.
Yes, it is. The Insignia 55 Class F30 is a smart television that makes use of Amazon’s Fire TV as its operating system.
The Insignia 55 Class F30 features three HDMI ports. Moreover, just like most TVs nowadays, one of the television’s HDMI ports supports ARC (Audio Return Channel).
The Insignia brand is owned by the retail mogul, Best Buy.
Sadly, the Insignia 55 Class F30 lacks Bluetooth.
Conclusion
The Insignia 55 Class F30 is a budget smart television that offers above-average performance. To give more details, this television comes with good picture quality and awesome sound performance.
In addition to that, the Insignia 55 Class F30 features the Fire TV operating system that offers plenty of streaming services. Moreover, this television has a decent amount of ports as well as a voice remote control.
However, the TV lacks Bluetooth and offers bad viewing angles. Nevertheless, for a little more than $300, these flaws are nothing compared to the good features that this television has to offer.
Thus, if you need a budget television with reasonable performance, the Insignia 55 Class F30 might just be your best pick.
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