Next, I watched an episode of House of the Dragon using the HBO Max app via Google Cast. During a scene with a dragon, the scales looked visible but not nearly as textured as they did when using the UR9. Whether the subtle difference is worth paying more for the higher model remains to be seen, but the differences are noticeable nonetheless.

In the movie The Creator on Fandango at Home, a beach landing looked a bit washed out and dark. During The Batman , gunfire looked bright enough in a dark hallway scene, but—similar to the aforementioned dragon scene—lacked rich detail.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on Peacock is tailor-made for testing colors: Stars floated around on the screen in a brilliant rainbow of colors, appearing bright and accurate, but some of them had too much blooming (aka a halo effect where bright tones bleed onto their darker surrounding colors). In all fairness, the UR9 also rendered this scene in a similar way.

Photograph: John Brandon

It’s not all bad news, though.…