The 7 Best TVs - Fall 2023 Reviews

The best TV we've tested is the Samsung S90C OLED. It's a fantastic TV with a great selection of extra features and incredible picture quality. It looks fantastic in a dark room thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity, with no distracting blooming around bright areas of the screen. HDR content looks fantastic thanks to its high peak brightness, wide color gamut, and incredibly vibrant and realistic colors. Unlike some other TVs, the Samsung model doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR, nor does it support advanced DTS audio formats. It does support Samsung's less widely used HDR10+ format, which looks just as good as Dolby Vision. It's available in four sizes, 55, 65, 77, and 83 inches, although the 83-inch model uses a WOLED panel, so it looks different than the smaller sizes.

The built-in Tizen OS interface is easy to use and has a great selection of streaming apps and games. It's a fantastic TV for console gamers looking to get the most out of their Xbox Series X or PS5. It's also perfect for gamers wanting to take advantage of their recent PC GPU, as it supports 4k @ 144Hz gaming on all four HDMI ports and variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to help reduce screen tearing. If you have money to burn, you could opt for the Samsung S95C OLED instead. It's Samsung's 2023 flagship option and is an amazing TV. It's brighter than the S90C, but for most people, it's not worth the significant price premium over its lower-tier sibling.

If you're looking for the absolute best TV for a home theater setup and don't care as much about the price, check out the Sony A95L OLED. Although it's a very similar TV to the Samsung S90C OLED, it's better for home theaters thanks to its advanced video format support. Compared to Samsung's HDR10+ format, the Sony TV supports the more popular Dolby Vision HDR, so you'll enjoy the most advanced HDR experience possible from almost any source. Sony's processing does a better job following the content creator's intent, so the brightness and colors of HDR content look the way they're supposed to. It also offers better audio format support than the Samsung, including DTS:X passthrough over eARC, so you can simplify your connection to your audio-video receiver by running everything through your TV without sacrificing audio quality.

Like the Samsung TV, it looks stunning in a dark room thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio, delivering perfect blacks with no distracting blooming around bright areas of the screen. Finally, the TV is available in three sizes: 55, 65, and 77 inches. Unfortunately, the A95L 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 a big step down in brightness and color vibrancy.

If you mainly watch TV in a bright room, a TV with an LED backlight and higher peak brightness, like the Sony X93L/X93CL, is a better choice than the top two picks on this list. It's an excellent TV with impressive picture quality and an incredible peak brightness that helps it overcome glare in a bright room. It still looks good in a dark room thanks to its high contrast ratio and Mini LED local dimming feature, but there's more distracting blooming around bright highlights and subtitles in darker scenes compared to an OLED TV.

It has nearly identical features to the Sony A95L OLED, with a great selection of gaming features, including HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, so the TV can fully utilize the latest consoles or PC graphics cards. It also has an excellent response time and fantastic input lag for a very responsive gaming experience. It supports HDMI Forum VRR and G-SYNC, so VRR works with any recent source. It's available in three sizes, from a 65-inch size to a huge 85-inch model. All sizes deliver incredible picture quality, with an adequate viewing angle, deep blacks, and a wide color gamut for HDR content. For those with deep pockets, the Sony X95L is the best LED TV on the market but is only available in an 85-inch size in North America. Plus, as amazing as it is, it's not worth the price increase over the X93L for most people.

If you want a good home entertainment OLED but don't want to get the expensive Sony A95L OLED, check out one of the best upper mid-range TVs we've tested, the LG C3 OLED. It's a premium TV that delivers stunning picture quality, especially in dark rooms; thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio, there's no blooming around bright objects. It gets bright enough to fight glare even in moderately-lit rooms, and the reflection handling is incredible, but it doesn't use quantum dot technology, so colors aren't as bright as some of our other picks. The LG partly makes up for it with its versatility, as it has very good image processing, Dolby Vision HDR support with Dolby Vision gaming at 120Hz, and can passthrough advanced DTS audio formats. Like the Sony TVs, the LG supports Dolby Vision HDR, which is more widely used than Samsung's competing HDR10+.

The TV is available in a wider range of sizes, from a small 42-inch to an impressive 83-inch option. It's an amazing TV for gaming thanks to its nearly instantaneous response time, low input lag, and a great selection of gaming features. It supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four inputs, meaning you can take full advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X's capabilities with 4k @ 120 fps gaming. It has native FreeSync, HDMI Forum VRR support, and G-SYNC compatibility to reduce screen tearing. Its built-in webOS system is easy to use if you stream your favorite shows and movies. If you love this TV but wish it were more vibrant, consider the more expensive LG G3 OLED. The G3 is one of the brightest OLEDs on the market and is certainly brighter than the C3, but it's not worth the price difference for most people.

The Hisense U8/U8K is the best mid-range TV we've tested if you want something cheaper and still want high-end features. It's an impressive TV with excellent reflection handling and fantastic peak brightness, so it easily overcomes glare in a bright room. Blacks aren't as deep as they are on the OLEDs, but its fantastic contrast ratio and great Mini LED local dimming feature still deliver deep, uniform blacks with very little blooming around bright objects. It has surprisingly good image processing capabilities, so movies and shows look good regardless of source. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is narrower than on the more expensive TVs. Still, it displays a wide range of colors and has excellent pre-calibration accuracy, so colors are accurate and lifelike no matter the content you're watching. It also supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR, plus advanced DTS audio formats, making it a very good home entertainment option for those unwilling to pay what Sony asks for its TVs.

The built-in Google TV interface has a huge selection of apps and an easy-to-use interface, so you won't have to buy an external streaming box. It's also a fully featured gaming TV capable of up to 4k @ 144Hz on two of its HDMI 2.1 ports and supporting every VRR technology for a nearly tear-free gaming experience. You could also save some money by going for the Hisense U7K instead: it has worse contrast and lower peak brightness than the U8K, but it has the same features and is a great TV for the price. Inversely, if you have deep pockets, Hisense has a limited-release super high-end product, the Hisense UX. It's better than the U8K overall but for a massive price increase. It's likely not worth it for most people.

If you want to spend less, the best budget TV we've tested is the Hisense U6/U6K. It delivers surprisingly great performance for the price. The Hisense has excellent contrast, so dark scenes look amazing in a dark room, with little blooming around bright areas of the screen. It also has good peak brightness in SDR and decent reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue in a brighter room. It has an excellent color volume, making this TV very colorful overall. It's bright enough in HDR for a pleasant viewing experience, and just like the Hisense U8/U8K, 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 on the U8K, 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 its more expensive sibling, 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 want something cheap that gets the job done, the TCL S4/S450G is the best widely available cheap TV we've tested. It's an okay entry-level TV, delivering a surprisingly good picture quality for a cheap TV. It's a decent choice for a dark room, with 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.

Of course, by going with a cheap TV, you're losing out on advanced features like local dimming to improve the appearance of dark scenes, and you're losing out on gaming features like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and VRR. It does have extremely low input lag for fast and responsive inputs. It comes with Google TV built-in, which is very fast and easy to use, and it has a good selection of streaming services available, so you can quickly find your favorite content. It has acceptable image processing, which is nice for a TV at this price point. If you're a Costco member, you'll instead want to get the much better Hisense A6/A65K, which is brighter and more colorful.