The 4 Best TVs Under $500 - Spring 2023 Reviews

The best TV under $500 we've tested is the TCL 55S555. It's a great TV with a good selection of extra features, and it delivers surprisingly good picture quality for the price. It's a great choice for watching movies or shows at night in a dark room, thanks to its impressive contrast ratio. It's one of the only TVs on the market at this price point to offer a full array local dimming feature to improve the appearance of dark scenes, and it helps it deliver a great overall HDR experience, as small bright highlights stand out.

It runs the Roku OS interface, which is simple but very easy to use, and it has a great selection of streaming channels. It also offers a great selection of gaming features, including low input lag, a fast response time, and variable refresh rate support to reduce tearing in games. The 55-inch model of the S555 is the best TV, but if you're looking for the best 50-inch TV under $500, the TCL 50S555 is a great choice.

Most TVs on this list aren't available in smaller sizes, but if you're looking for a small TV for a bedroom or office, the best 43-inch TV under $500 is the Sony KD-43X80K. It's a decent TV with a wide viewing angle, making it a great choice for a room you move around in while watching TV. It runs the Google TV interface, with a premium, polished interface that's easy to use and has a great selection of streaming apps.

It delivers decent picture quality, with great upscaling of low-resolution content. It can display a wide color gamut in HDR, which is uncommon for TVs in this price range, but it's not very bright in HDR, so highlights don't stand out the way they should. It has decent peak brightness in HDR and decent reflection handling, meaning it can handle moderate amounts of glare in a bright room.

Although the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED is available in a 65-inch size, it costs more than $500. If you're on a tight budget of under $500 and want a 65-inch TV, the best option is the TCL 65S455. As you go for larger sizes in this price range, you lose out on some features and performance, which is the case with this TV compared to the S555, but it's still decent overall. It runs the Roku TV interface, which is very easy to use and has a good selection of streaming apps.

The TV has a high contrast ratio and remarkable black uniformity; however, it differs from the other TVs in that it doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve the picture quality in dark scenes. It also doesn't get bright enough to fight glare, so it's best to use it in a dim or moderately-lit room, but its reflection handling is still decent.

If you want the biggest TV possible on a tight budget and aren't concerned about extra features, you can find the 70-inch Hisense A6H for under $500. It delivers worse picture quality overall compared to the smaller, higher-end models on this list, but the 70-inch model uses a VA panel and has much better contrast than the 65-inch model we bought and tested. It makes it a much better choice for use in a dark to moderately-lit room, as dark scenes look great, with deep, uniform blacks and no distracting blooming around bright areas of the scene.

The built-in Google TV platform is easy to use, with a nice, polished interface that makes it easy to find your favorite content. It has one of the widest selections of streaming apps available, so you can easily find your favorite streaming services. It doesn't have much to offer gamers; however, it has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience. Surprisingly, it even supports a variable refresh rate to reduce screen tearing.