Looking for the best TV to buy now in 2024? This article is for you. If you are looking to replace a five or ten-year-old TV, chances are that you are about to dive into the deep end. Welcome to a world of acronyms and features that you have only heard about in passing.
Not to worry, though. We’ll break down this year’s best selections based on several baseline metrics that will aid you in your quest to find the best TV to buy now. This information will guide you towards a television set that will give you joy many years from now.
Content Breakdown
Figuring out the best TV to buy now in 2025
It’s a good idea to start your search by knowing the qualities you want in a TV. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Good build quality that makes the TV sturdy
and durable - Great picture quality
- A smooth, intuitive, and versatile (Smart) TV
interface - Access to great content
- Enough input/output ports for all your external
devices - A voice assistant can be useful
- Great inbuilt speakers
- Affordability
You should consider these qualities as you shop for a new television. An ideal outcome would be to find a TV that checks all these boxes without making any tradeoffs.
1. The best-priced high-end OLED TV: The LG OLED B8 series
This product line may be from 2018, but no other television model can match the performance-to-price ratio of the LG B8P OLED displays. It is without a doubt one of the best TVs to buy now.
LG does not hold back when designing its statement pieces. B8 panels offer rich colors, excellent color accuracy, and great native contrast, making for sharp, detailed pictures with lifelike textures. A picture-quality aficionado will notice a little noise during dimly lit scenes from their favorite show.
This minuscule drawback will not even register with the rest of us. We would be far too distracted by the grime trapped between the scales of the reptilian predator stalking the protagonist. That’s well-executed OLED technology for you. The icing on the cake is the sleek design and wide viewing angles of the LG OLED B8 series.
The B8 series of LG OLED televisions currently dominates this category. However, the prices of the 2019 releases will dethrone this product line, which brings us to LG’s 2019 C9 series.
2. The OLED TV with the best picture quality, period: The LG C9 series
The 2019 C9 beats the 2018 OLED B8 by this much. We expect improvements in picture quality and user experience with each product release. This time, though, the picture quality of the C9 is slightly better than last year’s product lines.
If price is not a consideration, then get a C9 OLED TV. With its brighter display, deeper blacks, and larger color volume, a C9 panel’s picture quality is better. It also boasts a lower response time and input lag than its B8 equivalent, making for a better gaming experience for both SDR and HDR games.
Plus, you get HDMI 2.1 capability on all four of the C9’s ports, making your prospective purchase a little future-proof. This allows the TV to keep up with whatever the coming years throw at it regarding content and external devices.
Related: LG 65-Inch TV 4K OLED65C8PUA OLED Review
3. The OLED TV that gives the most value for money: The LG OLEDB9
This series of LG OLED displays splits the difference between the 2018 OLEDB8P and the 2019 C9. The B9 is the 2019 version of the B8 series. It is the most affordable series in LG’s 2019 OLED product range.
The B9 panel is similar to the C9 panel in picture quality. It has deep, gorgeous blacks and impressive peak brightness levels. Combined with a wide color palette, the high native contrast ratio allows the B9 panel to render rich colors and perform accurate color reproduction. The B9 panels also do a great job of shadow contouring, which allows for sharp detail even where the colors are dark.
To sum up, B9 TV sets render vivid, crisp, detailed, and accurate pictures. They perform almost as well as C9 panels and slightly better than B8 panels. The low input lag and excellent motion handling of B9 OLED televisions 7 are comparable to those of C9 televisions, which is a huge selling point.
Regarding pricing, B9 panels lie in the same price range as the B8.
4. The next best thing to an OLED TV: The Samsung Q70R series
So you don’t feel like spending OLED money, but you still want to splurge a little. How about a QLED TV instead? Samsung has just the thing. It is a good TV to buy now in 2025.
A display from the Samsung
Q70R series has a quantum dot color filter to ‘process’ the light emitted by its LED backlight. This is nothing close to an OLED screen, where every pixel is its backlight. Still, a QLED panel is a cut above the rest in the following ways:
- This screen is a gamer’s dream, with near-zero
lag time and excellent motion handling - The blacks are deep and uniform, and the peak
brightness levels allow for an impressive native contrast ratio - Couple that with a wide color gamut,t and you have
a display panel that renders rich, accurate colors that are true to life - The detail and sharpness of the picture add a
level of texture that seems to change the surface of the screen
There is one downside to this panel, though. It has narrow viewing angles.
5. The best TV to buy now in 2020: The TCL 6-Series 2019
Technology is most authentic when disruptive, and the TCL 6-Series proves this fact. This affordable yet high-performing television disrupts the notion that there has to be a tradeoff between affordability and excellent picture quality.
It seems that every new TCL release is purposefully designed to vastly improve on its predecessor. The TCL 6-Series follows this trend. It has a sleek yet simple design that belies a surprising amount of power. A 6-Series TV makes good use of the wide color gamut native to the panel. The blacks are as deep as they are uniform, so there is little chance of noise or dirty screen effects in dark movie scenes. The brightness levels are impressive, which gives the already expansive color panel added volume.
The result? You have a contender for the title of best TV to buy now. Accurate color reproduction and rich, detailed picture that is true to life. A 6-Series panel works amazingly well in SDR but is not bright when rendering HDR content. Still, at its price point, this TV does an excellent job. Even better is that the input lag and motion handling of the 6-Series are comparable to that of most high-end TV sets.
There are only two downsides: A slight glare in a bright room and a narrow viewing angle, which happens with VA panels like this one. However, the Roku Smart-TV interface more than makes up for these shortcomings.
Related: TCL TV Reviews 49S405: The Best-Selling Budget Television in the World
6. Runner’s up for the best TV to buy now based on value: Vizio M8-Series Quantum
The TVL 6-Series takes the top spot for combining affordability and performance. The Vizio M8-Series Quantum comes a close second.
Vizio M8-Series Quantum televisions come with VA displays. These panels have good black levels made even better by excellent black and grey uniformity. On the other end of the luminance spectrum, the M8 Quantum series has impressive peak brightness levels of nearly 400 nits. Add a wide color gamut to this, and you will have a large volume of color to work with. To top it all off, local dimming and a high contrast ratio allow the M8 Quantum to produce sharp, detailed pictures. Even when the picture is dimly lit.
The M8-Series Quantum does a great job of accurately reproducing color from an input signal. The end result is a high-fidelity picture that is detailed, vivid, and true to life. The icing on the cake is this TV’s excellent responsiveness and motion handling. With so many impressive features, it is no surprise that it made our list of the best TVs to buy now in 2025.
The display’s anti-glare finish makes up for its narrow viewing angles and backlight flicker to some degree.
7. The most affordable TV: The TCL 4-Series
A built-in Smart TV interface is par for the course these days—so much so that a large percentage of television sets ship with one. If you are currently navigating the world of endless acronyms and incomprehensible features, then let the smart TV interface be a guiding light as you search for your next TV.
Look for one with Roku, and thank us later.
Like the TCL-6 series of televisions. These are well-priced TV sets that come preinstalled with Roku OS. The interface gives you access to a world of content and valuable tools. Better still, the display panels in this product line support 4K and HDR content.
Being budget televisions, the panels in the TCL-4 series do not pack the powerful performance of OLED screens. For starters, VA panels work best when viewed from narrow angles. Their brightness levels are not as high as those of higher-end models, which keeps them from holding their own in a bright room.
That being said, a TCL 4-series TV is the kind of display gamers love. It has near-zero input lag and excellent motion handling. As picture quality goes, a 4-series display has good native contrast. Despite lacking a wide color gamut, a TCL 4-series TV renders fairly accurate colors. The picture quality is decent enough for everyday use.
8. The best compact TV: TCL 3-Series
So far, we have been looking at TV sets that measure 55 inches or more. If you are in the market for something smaller, consider the TCL 3-series. The televisions in this series range in size from 28 to 49 inches. This series of televisions is one of the best to buy if you want something that won’t take up much space.
The 3-series has smart capabilities, thanks to the pre-installed Roku OS. It comes with 1080p resolution. It has great native contrast, which would be enhanced if the panel allowed for local dimming. As it stands, the lack of local dimming limits shadow contouring. This means details will not stand out as you watch night scenes in your favorite show.
You should know that a TCL 3-series TV works best in a room with average brightness. Too bright, and the picture becomes dim. Too dark, and you notice a dirty screen effect on the sides of the panel.
That said, a TCL 3-Series panel shines regarding responsiveness and motion handling. Gaming or watching fast-paced videos on this screen is fun. It also bears mentioning that the color accuracy and overall image quality are excellent in standard definition.
There’s a TV for every buyer
There you have it—a list of the best TVs in 2025. Whatever qualities you are looking for in a TV, you can find them in one of the product lines detailed above. This should help your search along. We hope we’ve made it easier for you to figure out the best TV to buy now.
Read more:
Samsung Q70 Series Review: Good Performance at a Good Price
Sony 85-inch TV XBR85X850F Ultra 4K HD: Is It Too Big to Succeed?
Samsung Crystal UHD Review: Good Picture Quality for a Good Price
QLED vs OLED: The Samsung-LG Battle for Picture Quality Supremacy