When Amazon announced an expansion of its Omni TVs in September 2022, I was pretty excited. I’d heard a lot of great things about the existing Omni TVs, but they lacked QLED. Now Amazon has a QLED TV in the Omni range, and it’s pretty cheap. While the MSRP for the 65-inch screen is $799, it’s routinely under $600. This makes it one of the cheapest QLED TVs on the market.
Now being the cheapest isn’t always a good thing. How does it work? We’ll cover all of that and more in this review.
First off, what is QLED?
If you’re not familiar with TVs, you might not even know what QLED is. So, before we continue with this Amazon Omni QLED TV review, let’s take a minute to explain exactly what it is.
QLED is:
A quantum dot display is a display device that uses quantum dots, semiconductor nanocrystals that can produce pure monochromatic red, green, and blue light. Photoemissive quantum dot particles are used in LCD backlights and/or color filters for displays.
In layman’s terms, it’s similar to OLED but at a much cheaper price. It also doesn’t suffer from burn-in like OLED would. In addition, QLED also offers almost lifelike colors. Since it doesn’t use a backlight, it means the blacks are actually black instead of gray.
Test Amazon Omni QLED TV: display & image quality
The picture quality of this TV is pretty good. It’s not quite as bright as I’d like, but when there’s not much sunlight coming into the room, the brightness is okay. It’s also really good with darker TV shows. Because it’s QLED, it actually shows deeper blacks compared to an LED or LCD TV. So shows like Manifest or The Oval look really good on this TV.
Some will say the picture quality isn’t great here, but you have to keep in mind that there are QLED TVs that cost three times or more the price of this TV. Here, of course, some corners are shortened. But if you’re coming from a 4K LED TV, you’ll find this display quite nice.
There’s HDMI 2.1 here, but it doesn’t support 4K120. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? Well, the TV itself only offers a 60Hz refresh rate, so it’s not the port but more the panel that limits this.
Amazon has also included Dolby Vision IQ here, which helps make this TV look incredible. It also supports HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ Adaptive. Along with HDR10+ gaming.
With the Omni QLED, the strong point isn’t really the image quality, but rather the Alexa and Smart Hub capabilities.
Amazon Omni QLED TV Review: Sound Quality
Typically, the sound quality of the TV is poor. Unless you buy an expensive TV from Sony, Samsung or LG. That’s really the only time they focus on the sound. But here Amazon focused on the sound quality. It unfortunately doesn’t have Dolby Atmos, but the sound is still pretty good.
I used the TV for about a good month without my Sonos Beam Gen 2 and Sub Mini connected. And it sounded pretty good, but I missed having the sub available for movies and the like. So if you have a soundbar, you’ll probably want to use it here anyway. But this is a TV that doesn’t necessarily need a soundbar.
Amazon Omni QLED TV Review: Alexa & Software
If you’ve used a Fire TV device for the past few years, the software here will feel right at home. It’s basically like having an Amazon Fire TV Cube plugged into your TV, except you don’t lose an HDMI port for it. I say the Cube because it always has Alexa. Here’s how you can talk to Alexa while the TV is off. Below the TV is a small box with an indicator light that shows when the TV is turning on and when Alexa is listening to you. Now there is another physical button to turn off the microphone. Here’s how you can press the microphone button on the remote to talk to Alexa.
The software is a bit different here as it powers the TV. So it needs to add support for switching ports and such. Which works well here. But what works really well is the software. Similar to the Fire TV Cube, Amazon has properly powered the TV. Which absolutely makes Fire TV OS fly on this TV. The experience is similar to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max or the Fire TV Cube. Each app opened and worked quickly. However, YouTube TV was pretty slow, and I think that’s more of a YouTube TV issue. As it was the only app that had problems.
Amazon makes it super easy to jump into different apps on the TV and find something to watch. Thanks to the integrated Alexa, it also works very well as a smart home hub. Well, that’s nothing new as this is all on the Fire TV Sticks and Cube too. But you can see your Ring cameras on your TV, get notified when a package arrives, and more.
However, the Ambient Mode is new here. It’s basically a screensaver for your TV. But Amazon added widgets. So when it jumps into ambient mode, it can also show some widgets at the bottom of the screen. Like one for your smart home products, one for the weather, etc. It’s almost like having an Echo Show 15 on your TV. In addition, it can also turn itself off when it detects that everyone has left the room and then turn itself on when people come back into the room. This works about 70% of the time. Ambient mode and widgets are okay, but not features that I’ve really used a lot.
Amazon Omni QLED TV Review: Ports & Connectivity
The Omni QLED TV has a pretty decent selection of ports. These include Ethernet, three HDMI 2.0, one HDMI 2.1, cable/antenna, USB, IR emitter, headphone and optical. So there are three HDMI ports available, one of which is HDMI 2.1. But as mentioned, this TV doesn’t support 4K120 as it has a 60Hz panel. And since the HDMI 2.1 port is the eARC port, you’ll probably be connecting your soundbar to it anyway.
However, with four HDMI ports, it means you can plug in your games console(s) and a soundbar and get going. Or use one for another streamer like Chromecast with Google TV or Roku if you prefer that ecosystem over Fire TV.
Amazon Omni QLED TV Review: Design
When it comes to TV design, I don’t really think it matters. You usually look at the display anyway. Sure, the thin bezels are nice to have, but the TV that doesn’t have thin bezels costs no less than $100. The Omni QLED TV has a pretty nice design. With thin borders on the sides and top. The bottom has a slightly thicker bezel and is brushed aluminum, with just a Fire TV logo in the middle. What I rarely notice is there, to be perfectly honest.
Of course, under the Fire TV logo, we also have what I call the Alexa box. This has the button to turn off the microphone. Which shows up as an icon there, telling you it’s turned off. There’s also an indicator strip there to show when the TV is being interacted with, when Alexa is listening and/or speaking to you, and the like. It takes a little getting used to because you don’t always see it.
Now there’s another box at the top of the TV, but it’s kind of behind it, so you don’t really see it. This is used to help the tv see if someone is in the room to turn off the tv with ambient mode.
The legs are quite splayed, so if you’re getting the 65-inch or even the 75-inch model and you have a shorter console for it, it might not fit. The legs screw in quite well and easily. Setup super easy.
As with most TVs, the connections are on one side of the TV and the power supply is on the other. Fortunately, the connections are not on the back, but on the side. Make it easy to connect a new console or soundbar without having to disassemble your entertainment setup.
Amazon Omni QLED TV Review: Summary
I really like the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED series. I know it’s not the best QLED TV out there, but for most people, especially those investing in the Amazon/Alexa ecosystem, I think it’s the best option. Keep in mind that with this TV you’re limited to just two sizes, 65- and 75-inches. So if you need something smaller or something bigger (like 55 or 85 inches) then you’re out of luck here.
You should buy the Amazon Omni QLED TV if:
- You already own multiple Echo and/or Ring devices.
- You want good picture quality without spending a buck on a new TV.
- You want a good Fire TV.
You should not buy the Amazon Omni QLED TV if:
- You want to play in 4K120.
- You use Google TV or Roku, there are better alternatives with those ecosystems.
- They worry that Amazon is always listening.
