VIZIO M322i-B1: At First Glance
In recent years, VIZIO has gained a place in the TV market as one of the best television manufacturers. This is due to the brand’s consistency in delivering well-priced televisions with great specs.
In that regard, the brand released the VIZIO M322i-B1 in 2014. This VIZIO television is a smart TV that offers decent specifications and unique features.
Some of these unique features include a remote control that has a keyboard on its back. Besides that, this television offers decent picture quality and a reasonable amount of ports.
However, as with most VIZIO televisions out there, the VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with its own fair share of flaws. Hence, to discover more about this television and its flaws, you have to continue reading.
VIZIO M322i-B1: Design, Dimension, and Weight
The VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with an attractive design, but not as attractive as VIZIO’s high-end televisions. To give more details, this television has moderately-thin bezels that flank its display screen.
Moreover, these bezels have a matte-black finish and are composed of plastic. Furthermore, you’ll find a “VIZIO” inscription imprinted in a small gray plastic tag at the right edge of the bottom bezel.
Interestingly, these bezels are also framed with a silver-gray band/lining that makes the TV look appealing when viewed from the sides. With that being said, let us now consider the backside of the television.
To start with, the VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with a solid plastic back panel that features a matte-black finish. Furthermore, there is a huge black VIZIO logo in the middle of this back panel.
Aside from this logo, there are also four holes on the television’s back panel that can accommodate a 100 X 100 VESA mount. Obviously, this VESA mount is for mounting this VIZIO M322i-B1 on the wall.
Besides, because its plastic back panel isn’t particularly thick, the TV shouldn’t bulge out when wall-mounted. Sadly, there is no form of a cable management system on the back panel of the television.
Therefore, one would need to manually arrange cables attached to the TV to ensure a neat setup.
That said, in case you don’t wish to mount the VIZIO M322i-B1 on the wall, it comes with a metallic stand. This stand features a shiny silver-gray finish and a flat footprint with a wide opening at the center.
However, despite being made of metal, the stand is far from sturdy. As a matter of fact, the television will wobble even when slightly nudged.
For dimension and weight, the VIZIO M322i-B1 measures 726.6 x 52.8 x 434 mm and weighs 6001 g. Comparatively, this television is way heavier than most 32-inch TVs out there.
For example, the Hisense 32H4F weighs 3810.1 g and the TCL 32S305 weighs 4399.8 g.
In a nutshell, the VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with a decent overall design. However, the television is very heavy, and its stand isn’t sturdy enough.
As a result, I will be rating the VIZIO M322i-B1 an eight out of ten in this design review section.
VIZIO M322i-B1: Display Features and Picture Quality
The VIZIO M322i-B1 features a 32-inch LCD display that offers FHD (1920 x 1080) resolution. Thanks to the FHD resolution, this television’s display should be able to deliver sharp, crisp, and clear picture quality.
Besides, an FHD display has roughly two times the number of pixels that the standard HD display has. What this means is that an FHD display should deliver better picture quality than an HD display.
However, a 4K display is far better than both an HD display and an FHD display.
That said, in addition to its FHD resolution, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s 32-inch display is made with an IPS panel. Due to this IPS panel, the display offers wide viewing angles.
As a result, this VIZIO television is ideal for a large room setting. This is because the display’s picture quality and colors won’t lose accuracy when watching the TV off-center or from the sides.
Sadly, as with most IPS panel displays, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s display has a poor contrast ratio. To be more precise, the display comes with a contrast ratio of 1138:1.
As a result of its poor contrast ratio, this display won’t be able to render deep blacks. Practically, blacks on the display will tend to look more like gray.
Hence, the VIZIO M322i-B1 isn’t suitable for watching movies with lots of dark or shadowy scenes. Also, due to its display’s poor contrast ratio, the television isn’t ideal for dark room viewing.
For context, the contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest white and the darkest black a display can produce. To make up for its mediocre contrast ratio, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s display supports local dimming.
Local dimming is a picture technique that enriches the contrast ratio and black level of an LED/LCD display by dimming backlight zones. Hence, with the help of local dimming, blacks on this TV’s display should appear deeper than they would without local dimming.
However, unlike most televisions nowadays, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s display does not support HDR (High Dynamic Range). Briefly, HDR refers to a picture technique that enhances the highlights, range of colors, and brightness of a display when viewing HDR-supported content.
For your information, HDR-supported content is mostly found on streaming apps like Netflix. Besides, you can still watch HDR-supported content on the VIZIO M322i-B1.
However, the picture quality and colors won’t be as sharp and realistic as they would be on an HDR-compatible television.
Impressively, despite not supporting HDR, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s display offers a decent peak brightness of 350 nits. Due to this, this television should be suitable for usage in a well-lit or bright area.
Moreover, when using the VIZIO M322i-B1 in a well-lit area, you don’t have to worry about reflection. This is due to the fact that the television’s display features a semi-gloss coating on its surface.
This coating handles reflections decently by reducing the density of sun glares and rays of lights across the display screen.
On the downside, the VIZIO M322i-B1 isn’t good for playing video games. This is because its display offers an input lag of 41.5 milliseconds.
For clarity, input lag is the duration it takes a display to respond to signal input from external sources like a wireless gamepad. Furthermore, for a TV to be deemed ideal for gaming, its display must have an input lag of 15 milliseconds or less.
Well, as seen above, the input lag of the VIZIO M322i-B1’s display is miles above 15 ms. Hence, this television isn’t a good choice for gamers.
On a bright note, the television’s display has a super-fast response time of 8 milliseconds. Hence, this VIZIO TV is ideal for watching fast-motion content like racing sports or action movies.
This is because there will be little to no blur trails when the display is viewing such content. If you don’t know, response time refers to the time it takes a display to change from one color to another.
In conclusion, the VIZIO M322i-B1 offers an average display performance. Thus, I will rate the TV a seven out of ten in this display review section.
VIZIO M322i-B1: Sound Features
As with the display, the VIZIO M322i-B1 offers average sound performance. To begin with, this television comes with a pair of 5-watt speakers that delivers average sound quality.
Also, these speakers aren’t loud at all. As a matter of fact, they cannot comfortably fill a medium-sized room with sound, talkless of a large room.
To worsen the situation, the television lacks a built-in subwoofer. Hence, its speakers won’t be able to produce enough bass for enjoying rumbling sounds and vibrations in movies.
As a result, the VIZIO M322i-B1 isn’t the right television for watching bass-heavy movies. Nevertheless, to get a decent amount of bass, you can purchase a soundbar alongside the TV.
On a positive note, the VIZIO M322i-B1 features multiple sound technologies to enhance its sound performance. These sound technologies include Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Studio Sound.
Firstly, Dolby Digital Plus improves the surround sound production and loudness of the television’s speakers. In doing so, allowing the speakers to deliver a cinema-style sound quality.
Meanwhile, DTS Studio Sound filters noises and unwanted signals, making the speakers deliver minimal to no distortion. In case you are wondering, distortion is the change of a sound system’s original frequencies/signals.
As a result, making the sound system produces disturbing sound quality.
That said, the VIZIO M322i-B1’s speakers produce clear and understandable dialogue. Therefore, when watching a movie on the TV, you will be able to clearly hear the conversations between multiple characters.
All things considered, I will rate the VIZIO M322i-B1 a seven out of ten in this sound review section.
VIZIO M322i-B1: Ports and Connectivity Features
Port-wise, the VIZIO M322i-B1 features a reasonable amount of ports. To give more details, some of the ports are down-facing while the others are left-facing on the TV’s back.
Starting with the left-facing ports, they include an HDMI port, a USB port, a composite video input, and a component video input. Meanwhile, the down-facing ports include two HDMI ports, RF connector, Ethernet port, RCA analog stereo out, and digital optical audio out.
It is worth noting that one of these HDMI ports among the down-facing ports supports ARC (Audio Return Channel). Thus, users should be able to connect a soundbar to the VIZIO M322i-B1 using that particular HDMI-ARC port.
For wireless connectivity, this VIZIO television offers a built-in 802.11b/g/n WiFi but lacks Bluetooth.
Moving on, the VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with an XRT500 remote control. This remote is composed of plastic with a glossy-black finish and gray-sliver lining surrounding its edges.
Although not too large, this remote control comes with lots of rubber buttons. These buttons include a large square-shaped navigation button, channel and volume rockers, and a full number pad.
That’s not all, the remote also has three dedicated buttons for quick access to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and iHeartRadio. Besides that, at the center of this remote control, there is a big button with the VIZIO logo on top.
This button automatically activates the VIZIO M322i-B1’s smart platform (V.I.A Plus) when pressed. Uniquely, the backside of the XRT500 remote features a fully backlit QWERTY keyboard
This keyboard can be used for inputting login details and searching YouTube videos. Besides, it is much easier than using the navigation button to select each letter on an on-screen keyboard
However, this remote control backs an in-built microphone for voice commands.
All in all, I will be rating the VIZIO M322i-B1 an eight out of ten in this ports and connectivity review section.
VIZIO M322i-B1: Smart Features
Unlike recent VIZIO smart televisions, the VIZIO M322i-B1 doesn’t come with the SmartCast operating system. Rather, the television makes use of V.I.A (VIZIO Internet Apps) Plus smart platform.
Just so you know, the V.I.A Plus smart platform is mostly found on older models of VIZIO smart TVs. Besides, the smart platform offers a user-friendly interface that allows for easy navigation.
However, there are annoying ads on the interface of this smart platform. To make things even worse, there are no means to disable the ads.
That said, although the V.I.A Plus features lots of pre-installed streaming apps, it offers a limited amount of popular streaming apps. The few popular streaming apps that you will find on this smart platform are Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, iHeartRadio, and Prime Video.
However, the smart platform has a built-in app store called the VIZIO App Store. Therefore, with the help of this app store, you will be able to download additional streaming apps.
Nevertheless, this app store offers limited applications compared to the Google Play Store or Samsung Store.
Hence, to conclude this smart features review section, I will rate the VIZIO M322i-B1 a seven out of ten.
Frequently Asked Questions
The VIZIO M322i-B1 was released in 2014.
Sadly, the VIZIO M322i-B1 lacks Bluetooth.
Sure, the VIZIO M322i-B1 is a smart television that makes use of V.I.A (VIZIO Internet Apps) Plus smart platform. This smart platform gives the TV access to various streaming apps like Netflix.
The VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with just one USB port.
With its display’s input lag of 41.5 milliseconds, the VIZIO M322i-B1 is not good for gaming.
Conclusion
The VIZIO M322i-B1 is a 32-inch smart TV that delivers an overall average performance. Specifically, this television comes with a decent FHD display that offers adequate maximum brightness and wide viewing angles.
However, the display has a poor contrast ratio and doesn’t support HDR. Also, because of the display’s not-low-enough input lag, the television isn’t a good choice for gamers.
Aside from that, the VIZIO M322i-B1 comes with an average sound performance and lacks Bluetooth. Nevertheless, this TV offers a reasonable amount of ports and unique remote control.
Hence, if you need a medium-sized television for casual viewing, you can consider the VIZIO M322i-B1.
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