The 7 Best Smart TVs For Streaming - Summer 2023 Reviews

The best smart television we've tested is the Samsung S90C OLED. It's an amazing TV with a great selection of smart features, including support for Bixby and Alexa voice assistants. This means you can choose your preferred platform and spend less time searching for content and more time enjoying your new TV. If you don't want to use voice assistants, its well-organized Tizen smart interface is fast and easy to use. It has a huge selection of streaming apps, so you can quickly find your favorite shows.

Like all OLEDs, the TV looks great in a dark room, but it's no slouch in a bright room either; it easily gets bright enough to overcome glare and bright lights, and its reflection handling is fantastic. Of course, you get perfect black levels when using it in a dark room thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio, and there's no distracting blooming around bright objects in dark scenes. Compared to 2022's Samsung S95B OLED, the S90C is a bit brighter and comes in 77 and 83-inch sizes. Aside from that, they're extremely similar TVs. The S95B is not as readily available as it used to be, but you can still find it on clearance, and it's the better value of the two.

Although the Samsung S90C OLED is the best choice for most users, if you want the best home theater experience possible, consider the more expensive Sony A95K OLED. It delivers similar picture quality to the Samsung, using a similar QD-OLED panel. Still, the Sony TV is more accurate overall and has better image processing capabilities, so it displays scenes exactly as its creator intended. It supports advanced audio and video formats, like Dolby Vision HDR, which is a more widely supported format than Samsung's competing HDR10+. Overall, you'll get the best HDR experience possible from more content with the Sony than you would with the Samsung.

The Sony is also no slouch when it comes to smart features. It runs the built-in Google TV interface, which is slower than Samsung's Tizen OS but has more features and a wider selection of streaming apps. It supports hands-free voice control, so you can find your favorite content without the remote or use the voice assistant to control your other devices. Of course, the A95K is very expensive, so if you want a Sony OLED specifically for its processing capabilities, the Sony A80L/A80CL OLED is much cheaper. Still, it's also a big step down in brightness and color vibrancy.

If you're looking for the best TV for streaming in the upper mid-range price category, check out the Samsung QN90C/QN90CD QLED. Unlike our top two picks, this TV isn't an OLED, and as such, it doesn't look nearly as good in a dark room due to more blooming around bright objects in darker scenes, including around subtitles. However, it looks much better in well-lit rooms thanks to its incredibly bright mini LED backlight, making it an excellent choice for a bright viewing environment. It's even bright enough to use outdoors but isn't weather-proof, so you'll need an appropriate enclosure.

As far as smart features go, it's identical to the S90C, with the same great Tizen OS interface. There's a huge selection of streaming apps, and the remote makes it easy to find your favorite content thanks to its built-in support for different voice assistants. The TV has a satisfactory viewing angle, certainly good enough for a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on, as the image doesn't fade or look washed out much when viewing it from the sides except at extreme angles.

Its predecessor, the Samsung QN90B QLED, has a slightly better viewing angle but at the cost of some rainbow effects when hit by reflections. Still, the QN90B is a very similar TV to the QN90C, but it's, unfortunately, becoming harder to find. If you find it for a good price, it's the value option of the two.

If you want an OLED but want something a bit more affordable, consider the LG C2 OLED. It uses a WOLED panel, which isn't as bright or as colorful as the QD-OLED found in the Samsung S90C OLED or Sony A95K OLED, so highlights don't pop as much in HDR, and colors aren't as vivid. But, the LG offers the same near-infinite contrast that OLEDs are known for, making it a fantastic choice in dark rooms.

In terms of its smart features, LG's proprietary webOS smart platform is excellent, as it's easy to use, and navigating through it feels smooth. LG's remotes are unique because they have a point-and-press feature, similar to a Nintendo Wii remote, that lets you easily choose apps and settings in the menu, saving you the hassle of scrolling through everything with a directional pad. The webOS smart platform also allows customization with different profiles, so you can have a different layout than someone else at home.

The LG C3 OLED is now out, but it's only a marginal improvement over its predecessor and isn't worth the price difference for most people. However, home theater fans who don't want to pay the premium Sony asks for its TVs might want to look into the C3 specifically, as it has better image processing than the C2 and DTS audio format support.

If you want something cheaper but aren't necessarily on a budget, consider the Hisense U8H. It's a clear step down from the LG C2 OLED regarding picture quality as it doesn't deliver the same perfect blacks, but it's still an impressive TV that outperforms any other TV in its price range. Unlike the LG, the Hisense runs Google TV as its built-in smart interface, which has many apps available to download through the Google Play Store, so you're sure to find your favorite content. Google TV can take some time to learn, but once you do, it's easy to use, and navigating the menu feels smooth.

It also supports hands-free voice control, which makes it easy to find your favorite content, as you can ask it to search the name of your show or open a specific streaming app without even picking up the remote. Regarding picture quality, it gets incredibly bright and has excellent reflection handling, so it can easily overcome glare in a bright room. Unfortunately, it has a narrow viewing angle, so it isn't good for watching shows with a wide seating arrangement, as the image degrades as you move off-center.

If you want to save money, the best budget smart TV we've tested is the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED. Compared with the Hisense U8H, the main trade-off is that this TV doesn't get as bright, so highlights don't pop as much in HDR, which is normal for a budget-friendly model. It also has worse reflection handling, so it's better to use in a dark room, where it displays deep blacks thanks to its full-array local dimming feature. Unfortunately, there's some blooming around bright objects. It has some good processing features, with great gradient handling, and displays most content the way the creator intended.

The TV runs the Roku OS interface, which is very simple to use and has a great selection of streaming channels. The included remote is basic and doesn't support voice control, which is disappointing if you want to search for something quickly. However, the TV includes the well-made Roku companion app. It offers a few unique convenience features, including a private listening feature that lets you send the audio from the native apps to your phone.

If you want something cheap that gets the job done, the Hisense A6H is the best cheap smart TV we've tested. It's a basic TV that delivers worse picture quality than the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED, but this is typical of cheap models. It also isn't as good in a dark room due to its washed-out blacks, and by going with a cheap TV, you're losing out on advanced features like local dimming to improve the appearance of dark scenes. However, unlike the TCL, it has a wide viewing angle, which is great if you watch TV while walking around, as the image remains consistent when viewed from the sides.

It runs the same Google TV smart interface as the Hisense U8H, which has one of the widest streaming app selections, so you can easily find your favorite shows and movies. It makes it a great choice for an office or guest bedroom, as your guests can watch their favorite shows without you having to worry about buying an extra streaming stick.