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How to pick
Size first, and nearly everyone buys too small. A rough guide for a 4K set is to sit about one and a half times the screen's width away, which for most living rooms lands somewhere between 55 and 75 inches. Measure the wall and measure your sofa before you fall in love with a model. Next, ignore 8K entirely. There is almost nothing made in it, you cannot see the difference at normal viewing distances, and you are paying a large premium for a number. What actually changes the picture is how bright the set gets and how well it handles dark scenes. That is where OLED wins, with perfect blacks, though it costs more and is happiest in a room you can dim. A good QLED gets brighter and suits a sunny room better for less money. Every TV sold now is a smart TV, so do not pay extra for that, and if the built in software turns sluggish in a few years a cheap streaming stick fixes it. Last thing: budget something for a wall mount or a stand, and check the TV's VESA pattern before you buy one.
What I recommend
TCL or Hisense 4K smart TV
For a spare room, a bedroom, or anywhere the TV is on in the background, these are remarkable value and perfectly good. The picture will not hold up next to the sets below in a bright room, and the software is a bit slower, but for the money nothing else comes close.
- Best for
- Spare room or background viewing
- Picture
- Fine, until the room is bright
- Software
- A bit slow, a stick fixes that
- Value
- Nothing else comes close
TV wall mount
Check two things before you buy: your TV's weight, and its VESA pattern, which is the square of screw holes on the back. A tilting mount is worth the small extra if the TV goes above eye level. Full motion arms are only worth it if you genuinely need to swing it round the room.
- Check
- Your TV's weight
- Check also
- VESA pattern on the back
- Tilting
- Worth it above eye level
- Full motion
- Only if you must swing it
Hisense or TCL QLED
The sensible middle. Much brighter than the budget sets, which is what matters if your living room gets a lot of afternoon sun, and colours hold up far better. This is where most people should be spending, and the jump from here to the expensive sets is smaller than the price difference suggests.
- Brightness
- Handles a sunny room
- Colour
- Holds up far better than budget sets
- Sweet spot
- Where most people should spend
- Sizes
- 55 to 75 inch
Hisense U8 or TCL QM series
The upper end of sensible. Gets very bright, handles dark scenes far better than a normal QLED, and has the fast refresh rate that matters if anyone in the house games. If you want a picture that makes people comment without paying OLED money, this is the range to look at.
- Backlight
- Mini LED, much better dark scenes
- Brightness
- Very high
- Refresh
- 120Hz, matters for gaming
- Value
- OLED-ish picture for less
LG or Samsung OLED
Perfect blacks, because each dot switches itself off rather than being dimmed. In a room you can darken, nothing else looks like it. Costs a lot, and is less suited to a very sunny room than a bright QLED. Worth it if you watch films properly and the picture is the point.
- Blacks
- Perfect, each dot switches off
- Best in
- A room you can dim
- Less good
- Very sunny rooms
- Worth it if
- The picture is the point
Related reading
New TV still in the box?
Mounting, cables, apps and getting everything signed back in. I can have it all working in an afternoon so you are not left with a remote and a shrug.