The 6 Best Flat Screen TVs - Fall 2023 Reviews

The best flat-screen TV we've tested is the Samsung S90C OLED. This remarkable TV delivers incredible picture quality, with deep, inky blacks that look amazing in a dark room. Its near-infinite contrast ratio allows it to display incredibly bright highlights when watching HDR content, with no blooming or haloing around bright highlights in dark scenes. Its QD-OLED panel also lets it display bright and vivid colors, meaning the latest HDR content looks incredibly vibrant.

It's an incredible TV with fantastic picture quality and great gaming features. It supports up to 4k @ 144Hz on its four HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports, meaning you can take full advantage of multiple HDMI 2.1 sources, like a PS5, Xbox Series X, or a recent PC graphics card. It has an incredibly thin profile that looks amazing on its stand or when wall-mounted. There's also the higher-tier Samsung S95C OLED, which is a bit brighter than this TV and has a sleeker, slimmer design that doesn't stick out as much when wall-mounted. However, it's significantly more expensive, so the S90C is the clear value choice.

If you're in a bright room and don't need the perfect blacks of the Samsung S90C OLED, a Mini LED TV with higher peak brightness, like the Sony X93L/X93CL, is a better choice. It's an impressive TV that delivers impressive picture quality with incredibly high peak brightness, making it a better choice for a bright living room. It has excellent contrast, helped by a good local dimming feature, is colorful, and has amazing image processing to make any content look its best. It has a great selection of gaming features, including HDMI 2.1 bandwidth inputs, although unlike some of its competitors, it only has two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of them being the eARC port.

It runs the Google TV smart interface, which is fast and easy to use. It has a great selection of streaming apps, and the built-in Google Play Store makes it easy to find others. The TV supports Dolby Vision HDR and advanced DTS audio formats, so movies look and sound their best on the Sony no matter their source. It also has an ATSC 3.0 tuner, so it streams 4k content over-the-air. Overall, the TV delivers incredible picture quality, with an acceptable viewing angle, deep blacks, and a wide color gamut for HDR content. In North America, it's the unofficial successor to 2022's Sony X95K, with the Sony X95L only being available in an 85-inch size in that region. For those with deep pockets, the X95L is the best LED TV on the market and is especially enticing if you have access to its smaller sizes. Still, as amazing as it is, it isn't worth the price increase over the X93L for most people.

The best upper mid-range flat-screen TV we've tested is the LG C3 OLED. It's an excellent all-around TV that delivers stunning picture quality and performs well for any use. OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, resulting in a near-infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity. There's no blooming around bright objects on a dark background, making it a fantastic choice for watching content in dark rooms. It has great features, whether gaming or simply streaming your favorite content. Its WOLED panel isn't as colorful in HDR content as the QD-OLED panel in the Samsung S90C OLED, but it still looks great. However, the LG is a better choice for a home entertainment setup, as it has better image processing than the Samsung TV, supports the popular Dolby Vision HDR format, and passes through advanced DTS audio formats.

The built-in LG webOS interface is easy to use and has a ton of apps available to download, and the included Magic Remote makes it easy to navigate through the menus. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, variable refresh rate (VRR) support, low input lag, and a near-instantaneous response time for a smooth gaming experience. If you have deep pockets or are looking for the best of the best, the higher-end LG G3 OLED has all of the same features but is noticeably brighter. Still, the C3 and S90C are better values for most people.

The best mid-range flat-screen TV is the Hisense U8/U8K. It's an impressive TV that looks great in any viewing environment. Although it can't produce blacks as deep and inky as the LG C3 OLED, it still has an outstanding contrast ratio and an impressive Mini LED full array local dimming feature, so there's little blooming around bright objects in dark scenes. It's incredibly bright and has fantastic reflection handling, so it's a great choice for a bright living room with many windows. The TV also supports both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, passes through advanced DTS audio formats, and has good image processing, making it a cheaper home entertainment option to the C3 or the Sony X93L/X93CL.

The built-in Google TV interface is easy to use and has a great selection of streaming apps through the Google Play Store, so you're sure to find your favorite content. While it only has two HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports, one of them being the eARC port, they can do up to 4k @ 144Hz, which is great for gamers. You'll otherwise find a great selection of gaming features, including support for every variable refresh rate technology, ensuring a smooth, nearly tear-free gaming experience. Overall, it's an amazing bang for the buck, but if you want to save even more money, consider the step-down Hisense U7K. It's dimmer and has worse contrast than the U8K, but it has the same feature set and is a great value.

The best flat-screen TV we've tested in the budget category is the Hisense U6/U6K. It has an excellent contrast ratio, so dark scenes look amazing in a dark room, with little blooming around bright areas of the screen. It has a sub-par but functional full array local dimming feature, but there's a bit more blooming than on the Hisense U8/U8K, and it's not nearly as bright. Still, it has alright peak brightness in HDR and good peak brightness in SDR, with decent reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue in a brighter room. It has a wide color gamut, so colors look vibrant and realistic, and it displays HDR content the way the content creator intended. It supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR, although it doesn't support advanced DTS audio formats.

Unfortunately, its image processing is significantly worse than its more expensive sibling, so there's visible digital noise when watching low-bitrate content from streaming platforms. Still, it's a great TV for gaming, as it has superbly low input lag and variable refresh rate support for a responsive, nearly tear-free gaming experience. Unlike the U8K, it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, which is disappointing for gamers wanting to take full advantage of their Xbox Series X, PS5, or recent gaming GPU. It's still great for visually-intensive games on consoles targeting 4k @ 60Hz in their 'Graphics' mode or for 60 fps PC gaming.

If you're shopping on a tight budget, the best widely available cheap flat-screen TV we've tested is the TCL S4/S450G. It's an okay entry-level TV, delivering surprisingly good picture quality in a dark room thanks to its satisfactory contrast ratio and decent black uniformity. It has good reflection handling, so even though it doesn't get very bright, it's certainly good enough for a moderately lit room. The TV supports Dolby Vision HDR, but it isn't nearly bright enough for it to matter. Unlike the more expensive TVs on the list, it doesn't have a local dimming feature to further improve its contrast, but that's the cost of going with a cheaper model.

It runs the Google TV interface, with a massive selection of streaming apps available, so you can easily find your favorite shows or movies. It's also a decent TV for gamers thanks to its superb low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming experience. Unlike more expensive models on this list, it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth or VRR, and it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, so motion isn't as smooth. If you're a Costco member, you'll instead want to get the much better Hisense A6/A65K, which is brighter and more colorful.