VIZIO D50X-G9 Review: A Smart TV with Good Picture Quality

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By Oluwaseun Bamisile

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My take on VIZIO D50X-G9

Summary

The VIZIO D50X-G9 is a 50-inch smart TV that offers a good deal in terms of cost and picture quality. Furthermore, this television features a good contrast ratio and an amazing motion-handling performance. Sadly, the display brightness of the VIZIO D50X-G9 is sub-standard.

Overall
3.8

Pros

  • SmartCast OS
  • Fast response time
  • High contrast ratio
  • Good for gaming
  • Supports HDR

Cons

  • Limited viewing angles
  • Lacks local dimming
  • Mediocre display brightness

VIZIO D50X-G9: At First Glance

The VIZIO television brand is quite popular and known for manufacturing affordable televisions with high-end features and qualities. One of these televisions is the VIZIO D50X-G9 which offers a 50-inch 4K display with impressive picture quality.

Furthermore, this television comes with a pretty affordable price tag – it costs only $223 during the period this article was published in November 2022. The VIZIO D50X-G9 is also a smart television that runs on the SmartCast operating system, as with most VIZIO smart TVs.

However, to keep the price tag of this television as low as possible, VIZIO had to make some compromises. For example, the display brightness of the television is pretty poor for a 4K television.

Having discussed a few things about the VIZIO D50X-G9, why not read on to get more details about the television?

VIZIO D50X-G9: Design, Dimension, and Weight

The VIZIO D50X-G9 comes with a simple yet attractive design. Specifically, the TV features moderate-looking bezels surrounding its 50-inch display, with the bottom bezel accommodating the “VIZIO” inscription.

However, due to that inscription, the bottom bezel is slightly thicker than the others. Nevertheless, the inscription allows people to know the manufacturer of the television at first glance.

That aside, the bezels surrounding the VIZIO D50X-G9’s display are made of plastic and have a black brushed textured finish. Similar to the bezels, the legs that come with the television are also made of plastic with a black textured finish.

These legs are spread wide apart from each other, measuring almost the full length of the TV. Although the legs are made of high-quality plastic material and provide enough stability, the TV will wobble when nudged with force.

Moving to the rear, the VIZIO D50X-G9 features a back panel with a mixture of metal and plastic material. To be more precise, the top part of the back panel is metallic, while the bottom part is made of textured plastic material.

However, the bottom part of the back panel is significantly thicker than the top part. This is because the bottom part houses the television’s ports and components.

You will also find three control buttons on the left side of the bottom part of the VIZIO D50X-G9’s back panel. These buttons are for turning on/off the TV, volume adjustments, and input switch.

Disappointingly, the back panel of the VIZIO D50X-G9 doesn’t provide any form of a cable management system, unlike most televisions nowadays. As a result, you will need to arrange the cables attached to the television manually to ensure a neat setup.

On a positive note, the VIZIO D50X-G9 comes with VESA 200 x 200 mount holes on its back panel. As you might expect, these holes are for wall-mounting the television.

Even though the bottom part of the TV’s back panel is thick, the entire television is pretty slim and lightweight for a 50-inch television. To be more specific, the VIZIO D50X-G9 measures 1120.9 x 61.5 x 650.0 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 9670.5 g.

Comparatively, this television is slimmer and lighter than the Insignia NS-50DF711SE21 and TCL 50S425. Precisely, these televisions measure 1127.7 x 83.8 x 662.9 mm (W x D x H) and 1120.1 x 81.28 x 652.7 mm (W x D x H), respectively.

They also weigh 11702.6 g and 10477.9 g, respectively.

In conclusion, the VIZIO D50X-G9 offers a simple but attractive design. Also, it is slimmer and lighter than most of its competitors.

Therefore, I will rate the VIZIO D50X-G9 an eight out of ten in this design review section.

VIZIO D50X-G9: Display Features and Picture Quality

Regarding picture and display properties, the VIZIO D50X-G9 comes with a 50-inch LED display. Also, it offers a display resolution of 4K UHD (3840 x 2160).

Notably, the 4K display resolution has 8 million pixels, which is 4x more than that of the FHD resolution. Therefore, the television’s display should be able to produce a sharp, clear, and colorful picture quality.

In addition to the 4K UHD resolution, the VIZIO D50X-G9 display also comes with an excellent contrast ratio of 7,395:1. The high contrast ratio of this television’s display can be credited to the fact that the display is made with a VA panel.

Well, the benefit of the high contrast ratio is that the display will be able to produce deep black. Therefore, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is the ideal television for watching content with lots of dark scenes, such as horror movies.

Also, the television will be great for watching movies in a dark room or dim lighting environment. Just in case you are wondering, contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest white and shadiest black that a display can produce.

Unfortunately, the VIZIO D50X-G9’s display doesn’t support local dimming. Although local dimming isn’t particularly important alongside a high contrast ratio, it would have been nice if the display supported the feature.

After all, the feature improves the black level of a display by dimming the backlight of the display. Thus, with the feature, blacks will appear darker than they would without the feature.

Moving on, the VIZIO D50X-G9 display produces a disappointing brightness level. To be more precise, the television’s display offers a peak brightness of just 236 nits, which is quite disappointing for a 4K UHD display.

Due to the poor peak brightness of the display, this television won’t be suitable for use in well-lit environments. Apart from the poor peak brightness, the VIZIO D50X-G9’s display also offers mediocre viewing angles.

Therefore, watching the television from the sides or extreme angles will lead to color distortion and a drop in picture quality. As a result, you are better off watching the television directly from the center to get the best viewing experience.

On a positive note, the VIZIO D50X-G9 display has good reflection handling. This is mainly because of the semi-gloss coating on the display screen, which helps to reduce the intensity of light reflected on the display.

Besides, the VIZIO D50X-G9 supports some HDR (High Dynamic Range) formats, such as HDR 10 and HLG. For your information, HDR is a display technology that allows a display to produce vivid colors, improved contrast ratio, and life-like images when rendering HDR-support content.

HDR-supported content is mostly found on streaming platforms such as Hulu, HBO, and Netflix.

In terms of motion-handling performance, the VIZIO D50X-G9 records a response time of 18.6 milliseconds. Explaining further, response time is how fast a display is able to transition from one color to another.

Hence, with a decent response time of 18.6 milliseconds, there shouldn’t be many blur trails when the VIZIO D50X-G9 is rendering fast-motion content. That aside, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is a decent television for gaming as it registers an input lag of 24.7 milliseconds.

By the way, how fast a display is able to register signal inputs is known as the input lag.

In conclusion, the VIZIO D50X-G9 offers satisfactory display qualities and performance. However, its display lacks good viewing angles and has poor peak brightness.

Thus, I will be rating the VIZIO D50X-G9 an eight out of ten in this display features review section.

VIZIO D50X-G9: Sound Features

When it comes to sound production, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is outfitted with 2 CH 10-watt speakers. With a total sound output of 20 watts, these television speakers should be considerably loud.

However, they are not loud enough to fill a large room with sound. Sadly, the VIZIO D50X-G9 doesn’t come with a subwoofer for producing an adequate amount of bass.

Therefore, you might not enjoy watching bass-heavy movies or movies with lots of thumping and rumbling sounds on this television. Nonetheless, you can purchase a soundbar alongside the TV to get a proper bass production to enjoy those bass-heavy movies.

Gladly, the speakers of the VIZIO D50X-G9 are able to produce clear dialogue. Thus, conversation-driven content will be ideal for watching on this TV.

That aside, the VIZIO D50X-G9 comes with some sound technologies to boost its audio performance. These technologies include Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Studio Sound.

Firstly, the Dolby Digital Plus allows the speakers to produce surround sound of up to 5.1 audio channels. Meanwhile, the DTS Studio Sound helps the TV speakers to deliver an immersive sound quality.

Therefore, with these sound technologies, the VIZIO D50X-G9 should offer a cinema-like audio experience.

Moving on, the VIZIO D50X-G9 offers a Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) score of 0.746%. Hence, the television’s speakers should produce minimal distortion even at the maximum volume level.

In case you are wondering, distortion in this context is the deformation of audio frequency, allowing a sound system to deliver unwanted noises. Meanwhile, THD is a sound test that determines the amount of distortion that a sound device can produce.

Furthermore, a THD score of 1% or higher means the sound device is capable of producing a significant amount of distortion. However, a THD score of less than 1% means the opposite – it means the sound device will produce minimal distortion.

Having considered the overall sound features and performance, I will be rating the VIZIO D50X-G9 a seven out of ten in this section.

VIZIO D50X-G9: Ports and Connectivity Features

Although the VIZIO D50X-G9 doesn’t come with plenty of ports, the available ones should suffice for most people. Moreover, the available ports are located on the left rear of the TV and divided into two groups.

To be more specific, some of the ports are facing the side while others are back-facing. The side-facing ports consist of one USB port and an RF port.

There are also three HDMI ports, including one HDMI port that supports ARC (Audio Return Channel), among the side-facing ports. Hence, with the HDMI-ARC port, you can connect an HDMI-supported sound device or soundbar to the VIZIO D50X-G9.

Meanwhile, the back-facing ports include one composite video input, a digital optical audio out, and an Ethernet port. For wireless connectivity, the VIZIO D50X-G9 lacks Bluetooth but is equipped with Dual-Band 802.11ac WIFi.

Moving forward, the VIZIO D50X-G9 comes with a basic XRT136 remote control. This remote control is relatively large and made of plastic with a black finish.

Due to its large size, the remote control features quite a number of buttons. These buttons include a full number pad, a previous button, a square-shaped navigation pad, a volume rocker, and a channel rocker.

Interestingly, this television remote control also comes with six dedicated buttons for quick access to certain streaming services. These streaming services are Vudu, Netflix, Oracle, Xumo, Amazon Prime, and iHeartRadio.

Sadly, the remote control doesn’t have an in-built microphone for voice commands. In spite of that, the TV has support for voice AIs such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Hence, you can control your television with your voice using an Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker.

In summary, the VIZIO D50X-G9 has a decent amount of ports and offers a functional remote with lots of buttons. However, the television lacks Bluetooth.

Hence, I will be rating the VIZIO D50X-G9 a seven out of ten in this ports and connectivity features review section.

VIZIO D50X-G9: Smart Features

The VIZIO D50X-G9 runs on VIZIO’s proprietary smart TV operating system, known as the SmartCast OS. The interface of this operating system is easy to navigate and good-looking.

However, the interface isn’t smooth to operate as it sometimes lags when launching an application. Nonetheless, the SmartCast OS offers lots of pre-installed streaming services.

Some of the pre-installed streaming services and apps that this operating system offers include YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and Xumo. Although most of these streaming services are not free, SmartCast OS offers a free streaming service known as WatchFree.

WatchFree gives users access to over 100 free movies and series. Unfortunately, the SmartCast OS doesn’t come with a built-in app store for downloading additional streaming services and applications.

On a positive note, the VIZIO D50X-G9 has a built-in Chromecast. Therefore, you should be able to share/mirror content from your screencast-supported smartphone to the television.

All in all, the VIZIO D50X-G9 deserves an eight out of ten rating in this smart features review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is the VIZIO D50x-G9 a smart TV?

Yes, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is a smart 4K TV that offers the SmartCast operating system.

2. Does the VIZIO D50x-G9 have HDR?

Yes, the VIZIO D50X-G9 supports some HDR (High Dynamic Range) formats, such as HDR 10 and HLG. HDR is a display technology that allows a display to deliver vivid colors, improved contrast ratio, and life-like images when rendering HDR-supported content.

HDR-supported content can be found on streaming services like Hulu, HBO, and Netflix.

3. Does the VIZIO D50X-G9 have Bluetooth?

Unfortunately, the VIZIO D50X-G9 doesn’t come with Bluetooth.

4. What are the dimensions of the VIZIO D50X-G9?

The VIZIO D50X-G9 measures 1120.9 x 61.5 x 650.0 mm (W x D x H).

5. Does the VIZIO D50X-G9 have WIFI?

Yes, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is equipped with Dual-Band 802.11ac WIFI for wireless connectivity.

Conclusion

The VIZIO D50X-G9 is a 50-inch smart television that offers a decent design with adequate performance. To give more details, this television comes with a 4K UHD display that delivers colorful picture quality and high contrast ratio.

Also, the TV supports multiple formats of HDR and offers lots of streaming services thanks to its smart OS called SmartCast OS. However, the display brightness of the television is somewhat disappointing.

Additionally, the television has poor viewing angles and doesn’t support local dimming. Nevertheless, if you need a 50-inch 4K smart television with an overall decent performance, the VIZIO D50X-G9 is worth considering.

I hope you found this VIZIO D50X-G9 review helpful. If you found it helpful, click on “Yes” beside the “Was this page helpful” question below.

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For more television reviews, visit our Television Review page. You may also find our Television Specs page very helpful.

About the Author

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Oluwaseun Bamisile

Oluwaseun is the Lead Content Editor at Itechguides.com. He holds a National Diploma in Computer Science (currently studying part-time for his Higher National Diploma). An internet geek with a love for automobiles, he writes product reviews, tech articles, and how-to guides on the site.

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