Newer televisions offer better functionality in a few areas: 1) Larger. Kind of obvious, bigger is better until you hit diminishing returns for your viewing distance. Much beyond 65" is dumb unless your living room is a cathedral. 2) Improved HDR. This represents the dynamic range of color it can represent in close proximity, and through fast motion changes. If a colorful scene looks washed out, your HDR is poor. 3) The depths of blacks, particularly next to bright lights. Better televisions portray e.g. stars on the night sky MUCH better than low end or older models. If you're watching cartoons or potato-quality reruns from the 70s, who cares. If you're watching 4K, epic cinema...it's the difference between looking at the stars in LA and in the Andes.