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At Amazon’s big event in September 2022, the company unveiled the first QLED Fire TVs made under its own Omni brand. The initial info sounded incredibly well-specified for the price – we’re talking a direct full-array backlight with local dimming, Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive HDR, the wider colors of QLED, 4K resolution, an almost border-free design and 65- inch and 75-inch size options, all for $799 for the 65-inch, or $1,099 for the 75-inch. (The sets are not currently scheduled to launch outside of the US.)
Amazon has now confirmed more details about the new Omni QLED TVs, including surprisingly good gaming support to compete with cheaper options in our guide to the best gaming TVs. Notably, there’s support for HDMI 2.1, including Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR).
ALLM means the TV will automatically switch to game mode when your PS5 or Xbox Series X signals you’re gaming, while VRR support means games can add more graphical effects without the danger of framerate dips causing screen cracks.
However, despite the HDMI 2.1 support, you can’t play in 4K 120Hz here – the panel itself is only 60Hz. But for the price, we’d have been surprised to see a 120Hz display here, so we don’t have any complaints about the gaming support here in general.
No built-in Dolby Atmos, however
While the gaming support is a pleasant surprise, Amazon also confirmed something more disappointing: there’s no built-in Dolby Atmos audio support.
In many cases, that actually works out fine, because the TV can pass the encoded Dolby Atmos data to a Dolby Atmos soundbar, which can then decode the Atmos track and still give you the best quality.
However, in our experience, TVs that successfully pass Dolby Atmos can be hit and miss – it’s usually fine with built-in apps, but may not happen with external boxes, such as a streaming stick or 4K Blu-ray player. We haven’t tested the new Amazon TV yet, so obviously we don’t know how well it will work in this case, but that’s one of the reasons we want TVs to have Atmos support – then there’s no doubt about it.
There’s also no DTS audio support, and Amazon just said the TV can pass Dolby encoded audio.
We aim to test the new QLED Omni TVs as soon as possible – if the performance is up to the specs, they could be one of the best TVs of the year for sheer value.