The 6 Best TVs to Buy in 2026

Anyone who watches sports (or plays video games) knows the pains of a TV that can’t handle the daylight. OLED TVs have always, for me, felt like the easiest solution to glare. The viewing angles still can’t hold up, but the latest Hisense MiniLED gives that assessment the first real run for its money I’ve seen. Our tester sat this right next to a floor-to-ceiling window in a room with a skylight. No matter the time of day, the screen was clear as can be, and ultra-vibrant in color.

The support for gaming is great too, working as seamlessly as the TCL. Technically, the 165 hertz refresh rate beats out the other TV, but to most players, the difference won’t be noticeable.

When you get to real budget territory, TCL beats out Hisense by just a hair. For under $600, a 55-inch TCL Google TV is the best way to spend your money. If somehow, you've never watched a movie at home or played a video game in 4k, we can say with certainly this TV is worth every single penny.

From app streaming for sports and TV to console gaming, the whole experience is super user-friendly, and reliable. I can't say the same for every manufacturer and OS (looking at you FireTV!). Sure, the contrast won’t be as great as the new TCL, the viewing angles won’t be as numerous as with the Sony OLED, and the sound can’t compete with Bang & Olufsen. But, ask yourself, does that even matter?

When you need a TV that decorates your wall like a work of art, The Frame Pro is everything. Samsung innovated with The Frame—a TV that acts like a piece of art when it's off—but this time around there have been major improvements to the picture quality, once again placing it at the top of the (now much larger) heap. A glare-proof screen, thin bezel, and partnerships with the Met, MoMA, and a few high-profile artist estates make it the art TV to beat once again.

Samsung always considers how a TV will fit lifestyles against how great the picture is and makes sure both boxes always get checked. That sounds simple, but no other brand does it this well. Take the Wireless One Connect box. It helps keep your Frame setup free of wires and clutter by being an external hardware hub for the TV. Instead of plugging your router, consoles, and Blu-ray player to the TV itself, you can hide all that away in a corner with the Connect box. Truly, it’s still one of Samsung’s biggest game-changers.

Sony’s newest Bravia TV is probably the best entry-level OLED to ever exist. At $2,000 (and that’s before the typical discounts), this 65-inch plays in the same ballpark as the excellent TCL and Hisense TVs I’ve highlighted here. Only, for real display purists, nothing quite looks as dynamic and colorful as an OLED screen. And nothing beats OLED still when it comes to viewing angles—no matter where you are in the room, you’ll be able to see the action. And hear it too, in full detail thanks to the bass reflex speakers in the TV.

Compared to the Samsung Frame Pro and Hisense U7, you will get some noticeable glare that impedes daytime viewing or gaming. It’s really the only disappointing aspect of the TV. Beyond that, you’re getting a ton of smart features, but all are pretty standard for modern 4K TVs.

With the regular priced TVs sorted, let's talk about the crazy luxury stuff. No one is doing luxury TV like Bang & Olufsen, at the moment. The Danish brand has deep roots in electronics, but has settled into the niche of sound products: Soundbars, headphones, and speakers, B&O is best-in-class in all of them. A recent partnership with LG has launched the brand back to the top of the television world.

LG televisions (which, full disclosure, are narrowly behind Samsung in our estimation) are paired with built-in Bang & Olufsen audio. The sound is incredible, and LG's OLED is as good as any is going to look (sans Sony's QD-OLED). But the real draw is the look of the TV itself. These things are beautiful, and the use of organic materials makes them a real standout in the tech world. As a piece of decoration, it is the rival to art TVs.

And yes, the price point is insane, but the brand is part of a fascinating Cradle to Cradle certification. This isn't a lifetime warranty, but it's a way that the company is showing it cares about its customers. Essentially, every Bang & Olufsen product with this certification is future-proofed. This TV will last years—decades with proper care—but if new designs or tech innovations happen, the products are totally modular and allow new parts to replace the old. It's not a fix to tech's circularity crisis, but it's the start of an interesting solution.

To help everyone understand it all better, here are a few very brief, very general need-to-know terms. What is QLED? What is OLED? What is 4k? What is the difference between any of these TVs? Well...

LCD: Liquid Crystal Display. The most common type of TV (which includes QLED). A backlight shines through a panel of Liquid Crystal making the colors more refined and clear. It's pretty basic, but it's 2025 and we can do better so no LCD screens on this list.

QLED: Invented by Samsung, the Liquid Crystal panel of LCD is replaced with a quantum-dot panel. This innovation gives TVs brighter, more lifelike color images. For many years, competitors would call what they were working with QLEDs, but you may have noticed in recent years that has changed to Mini LED and ULED. There's a reason for that.

Mini LED: Instead of using hundreds of tiny LED lights, these are made by using thousands of the little buggers. Compared to LCD and regular LED, this local dimming and black levels.

QD-Mini LED: This is a Mini LED with a quantum dot layer applied over it. It's brighter than a Mini LED, while still taking advantage of the black levels that format provides. Therefore, the contrast winds up being pretty stellar on the ones we've seen. The new TCL TVs claim to take this to the next level with ‘super’ quantum dots, but at the end of the day SQD-Mini LED is just another branding exercise.

OLED: A distinctly different class of TV. (Organic Light Emitting Diode) Every single pixel creates its own light. There is no liquid or quantum-dot panel, only a shit ton of little lights. The contrast on these TVs is better than what came before it. But the colors are not significantly nicer, and the price is a lot higher.

4K: This is a pixel resolution, with specific reference to the width of the TV. The images on 4K TVs are 3,840 pixels wide, which is why the image is clearer than one in 1080p.

When it comes to shopping for TVs, there are a lot of choices you have to make about size, resolution, display type, the list goes on. But before all that, it's smart to choose a brand that aligns with your needs and values. These are a few things to consider when making that choice.

Budget: First thing's first. What's your budget? If you're looking for a 4K TV in the five hundred to one thousand dollar range, TCL and Hisense Google TVs are your best bet. If the sky is the limit, go with Samsung or a Sony Bravia OLED.

Resolution: Most brands offer 4K TVs as the most common option. This is the new standard in HD, and the days of selling the 1080p TV are almost entirely behind us. But if you're looking for something with a lower (or higher) resolution, you can still pick up a 32-inch Roku TV on the cheap. That sucker will only do full 1080p, but alternatively it’s currently only $130.

Smart Features: Almost all new 4K TVs you'll buy will come equipped with its own set of smart features. So what we are talking about here is user interface or operating system. While TVs within a brand are sometimes differentiated on an OS level (see Roku vs Google TCLs), some of these brands like Samsung and LG have their own unique operating systems. Our advice? Look up some screenshots. Between LG's webOS, Samsung's One UI Tizen, and the Roku, Amazon, and Google offerings you have a lot of choices.