- steve
- January 21, 2024
- 17 Comments
Original publish date June 15, 2021. Updated for 2024.
The rise and fall of the non-Chinese television
The first electronic television was invented by Philco Taylor Farnsworth from Utah in 1927 but even by 1946 only 0.5% of U.S. households owned a TV set. By 1954, 55.7% of households had them, and by 1962, 90% did. During this time a staggering number of U.S.-based brands popped up to meet the insatiable demand of consumers who wanted to watch Lucille Ball, Steve Allen, and Gunsmoke. And the manufacturing was done in the United States.
In 1995, the last original U.S.-based manufacturer, Zenith, ceased to exist as an American-based brand then it was sold to South Korea’s LG Electronics. Every one of the the great Amercan brands you know–RCA, General Electric, Westinghouse, Sharp–were in name only, a nameplate to stick on a foreign-made brand in hopes that unsuspecting consumers wouldn’t notice or care.
Today, there are only a handful of TV brands left outside of China: Samsung and LG (South Korea), Sony (Japan), Philips (EU) and Vizio (US). A company in China had attempted to acquire Vizio in 2016, but that deal never happened so as of now they’re still a US company (they recently had their long-awaited IPO).
What brands do I avoid?
Pretty much every other brand you’ve heard of: TCL, HiSense, Seiki, Insignia are 100% based in China. Just recently, Japanese electronics giant Panasonic announced that they were outsourcing their TV production to TCL. And many recognizable brands like Toshiba, Sharp, Westinghouse have also been subsumed by China-based companies.
This is a prime example of where uneducated consumers don’t understand how state capitalism works. Do you ever wonder how brands like HiSense or TCL got so popular so quickly?
First, years of taking notes from manufacturing other countries’ products allowed China companies to mimic their technology to achieve a product that may not be equal to offerings from LG, Samsung, or Sony, but are “good enough”.
Second, the CCP then subsidizes these companies so that they can offer comparable models at highly discounted prices to their competitors. The CCP is playing the long game: they’ve know that once they’ve cornered the market they’ll be able to charge whatever they want. It’s precisely the same kind of anti-competitive behavior that the U.S. Government has broken up when it happens within its borders, but is powerless to do anything about when a state does it.
And of course, it’s American consumers who ultimately make it happen when they rush to Walmart or Amazon and buy the cheap China brand to save a few dollars. This takes money away from companies that do real innovation and funnels it to allow the CCP to gradually take over the entire industry.
Are any TVs not made in China?
Here’s where it gets complicated. As we’ve seen in posts for other kinds of products, you simply can’t find a TV where 100% of the components are made outside of China. For example, LG Electronics (who builds TVs) sources its WOLED panels from LG Display, who had produced their panels in South Korea but is shifting production to Guangzhou, China. So regardless of what TV you buy, a portion of it is going to prop up the CCP.
But you can stem the bleeding. For one thing, if you buy from the big non-China brands: Samsung, LG, Sony, Philips and Vizio, at least you can support some non-China employees, such as their product development, marketing, or administrative departments.
And ideally, you’ll want to find a company that at the very least assembles their products outside of China, even if many or most of the parts are made in China. This is where the large form factor of the TV helps. A manufacturer in China could assemble a 65″ or 75″ TV and ship it 7,000 miles away, but at that size and weight it’s probably more cost effective to build a plant that’s closer to their target market and hire locals to assemble the product. So at least there’s some benefit to the local economy.
Manufacturers tend to be coy about where their parts come from and where their products are assembled. If you read what their PR departments post as a response to Amazon questions a typical responses is something vague like “our TVs are built all over the world”, so we don’t know if 99% of a TV was made in China and the other 1% was divvied up between other countries.
A little Internet sleuthing helps, however. As of 2021, Samsung has recently ceased TV production in China. Sony TVs intended for the North American market are assembled in Mexico. LG TVs are also produced in Mexico for the North American market and in Poland for the European market. Vizio does maintain manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and Mexico, so there’s a decent chance your North American-based set was made there.
The only way to tell for sure is to visit your local electronics store and see for yourself what the “Made in” or “Assembled in” label says on the particular unit you’re looking for. You can also search for “China” or “Made in” in Amazon reviews to see if anyone reported widespread sales of China-made units to the US.
1. LG OLED evo G3
Back in 2021, I named the LG OLED C1 as the best overall pick for a NMIC television. It’s still being sold and is still a great TV. But it’s the newest generation LG OLED evo G3 that CNET called “the best performing TV we’ve ever reviewed” and which Consumer Reports gave its second-highest rating, under Samsung (which I’ll cover below).
It’s the brightest OLED ever made and even though it’s not marketed as a gaming monitor, its 0.1ms response rate and 120Hz refresh rate make it perfect for gaming. It also makes an excellent computer monitor (right now as I write this, I have my blog authoring screen opened in one window and my research open in another—it’s like having 6 monitors).
And of course, you can use it as a TV. 😛 It mounts flat to your wall and provides movie theater-like sound with Dolby Atmos.
I prefer to buy my equipment , but it’s of course available at Amazon and other retailers like Best Buy and ABT Electronics.
If the G3 line is a bit above your price range, the C3 line is still amazing and more affordable.
Unfortunately it looks like LG is doubling down on China to produce LCD panels, so every device you buy with an LCD or OLED panel is propping up China. But even as LG rushes to cheap production in China, brands have stolen their intellectual property and are getting into the LCD panel business themselves now.
Still, the best we can do is support TV makers that do at least some of their business outside of China, and in the case of LG, that still means Mexico for the US market.
LG commands a whopping 50% of the OLED TV market share. Let’s hope it uses its market power to reinvigorate the business of panel manufacturing outside of China, rather than pull an Apple and end up tying itself to a tyrannical state.
2. Samsung QNS90C
Consumer Reports gives its overall highest rating to this line by Samsung, the S90C, and Wirecutter named it as the best OLED TV of 2024. It’s made in Mexico for the US market.
It uses QD-OLED technology, which provides great 4K HDR picture quality. Reviewers love how it’s ultra-thin, displays a brilliant array of colors, and is especially strong for viewing movies. One reviewer said it reminded him of the color and motion of a plasma set, but without the energy consumption.
Since I originally wrote this post, Samsung has had a lot of drama as to where they source their panels from. In 2023 they turned to LG display to provide their higher-end OLED panels (77 and 83 inch TVs), and they had to abandon making their own LCD panels, turning to China to make those. But that’s even more reason to go OLED.
China has all but dominated the market for LCD panels, and is threatening to take over OLEDs from Korea which (for now) still dominates the market. It’s biggest threat is not China, it’s American consumers who salivate over buying a China brand OLED TV instead of supporting Korean brands like LG and Samsung.
3. Sony Bravia XR A95L
While I used to feature OLED, LED, and LCD TVs on this list, I decided to focus this list for 2024 on just OLED TVs. The price has gone down enough to make them affordable, and (for now) the components are still mostly made outside of China.
Sony TVs destined for the US market have been made in Mexico for a long time, and that hasn’t changed. Sony gets its OLED panels from LG and Samsung, so there’s a good chance it’ll be made in Korea.
This model isn’t cheap, but it won the latest Value Electronics shootout for best 4K TV based on its overall features.
4. Cello Smart TVs – Best for the UK
I tend to focus on the US market mostly, but for those of you visiting from Europe, Paul in the comments below brought up Cello TVs. I never heard of this brand before but the more I learn about them the more I’m impressed. They manufacture all of their TVs in County Durham in the North East of England.
Cello has an impressively low price point (alas, it would be cost-prohibitive to ship them across the Atlantic Ocean, so we can’t find them here in the US). Their reviews on Amazon are consistently high (sadly, it looks like China trolls are on Amazon UK upvoting every negative comment to get them to rise to the top, but focus on the overall ratings). If you need a basic TV at a great price that supports communities and the economy in the UK, you should definitely get one of these.
You can find them at Amazon UK and also through catalog retailers like JD Williams.
Do you know of other TVs not made in China worthy of mention here? Let us know in the comments!
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- electronics
- tvs
