I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering TVs and other AV equipment. In addition to this guide, I oversee Wirecutter’s guides to OLED TVs, budget 4K TVs, media streaming devices, and several others. I have reviewed TVs since 2012, and I have ISF Level III training and calibration certification. There are more TV stands in my house than there are people.

For the latest version of this guide:

• I tested eight 2024 TV lines that were well reviewed by trusted sources at CNET, Rtings, and Tom’s Guide, and that met our minimum requirements for inclusion.
• I consulted hardware engineers, scientists, and Hollywood colorists regarding subjects such as mini-LED functionality and the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect (video).
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

This guide is aimed at anyone who wants better performance than the average budget 4K TV delivers but doesn’t want to spend thousands of dollars for the absolute best.

In our tests, we’ve found that OLED TVs consistently deliver better-looking images than LCD TVs do. For most people, however, OLED technology is prohibitively expensive, especially at screen sizes larger than 65 inches. The best LCD/LED TVs can deliver a picture that looks almost as good for less money and in a wider variety of screen sizes. They can also get brighter than many OLED models, so generally they’re a better fit for an especially bright viewing environment.

For us to consider an LCD/LED TV for this guide, it has to include the following elements (see our TV buying guide for explanations of these terms):

• full-array LED backlight with local dimming
• support for as many HDR formats as possible
• native 120 Hz refresh rate
• support for the wider color gamut used in Ultra HD video content
• inputs that support HDMI 2.1
• integrated smart-TV services

We prioritize LCD TVs equipped with mini-LED backlights, though that feature is not a strict requirement. We aren’t currently testing TVs with 8K resolution, as we don’t think there’s enough 8K content yet for anyone to justify spending more on them.

Although we don’t target a specific price range for this guide, we do keep an eye toward picture quality versus value. Sometimes, barely perceptible picture improvements can cost significant amounts of money, an investment that may not be worth making for anyone other than hardcore videophiles.

We focus on the popular 55-inch and 65-inch screen sizes in our testing because TVs of those sizes can fit into most living rooms, and they offer a large, cinematic experience without overwhelming the room. But many of our picks come in other screen sizes, as well.

To evaluate LCD/LED TVs, we use a combination of objective measurements, subjective viewing, and side-by-side comparisons. Our measurement equipment consists of Portrait Displays’s Calman Ultimate software, a C6 HDR colorimeter, and a VideoForge Pro signal generator. For subjective testing, we use source material from streaming apps, Blu-ray discs, contemporary gaming consoles, and HDR benchmark discs. Read more about Wirecutter’s TV testing methodology.

Important specs

The Hisense U8N is the LCD TV to buy if you want the latest advances in performance and features but don’t feel the need to pay a premium for the nth degree of performance and polish.

This TV’s image contrast almost rivals OLED quality. For years LCD TVs have been in an arms race in pursuit of increasing brightness, and if I were judging by brightness alone, I would’ve recommended the TCL QM8, the 2024 version of our 2023 top pick, which exceeds 3,000 nits of sustained brightness. But the QM8 gets almost too bright, resulting in slight but appreciable lightening of its shadow tones during tricky HDR scenes. And videophiles generally prefer OLED TVs because of their perfect black levels.

The Hisense U8N is almost as bright—in our tests we found a sustained brightness just shy of 3,000 nits in the TV’s Dolby Vision IQ picture mode—but that isn’t what makes it stand out from the competition. This TV’s strength is that it maintains inky black levels even while it’s blasting your eyes with searing highlights, creating amazing contrast. It’s still no match for an OLED, but it gets darn close. While watching Batman Begins, I found that the U8N compared very favorably to Sony’s new Bravia 9 mini-LED flagship—a TV that costs almost $2,000 more in the 65-inch size.

Quantum dots make for a vivid color presentation. Currently, almost every TV available can create 100% of the colors required for standard (non-HDR) content. But traditional LCD designs struggle to compete with OLED TVs to handle the wider HDR color range. They need a little help from their friends—namely, nanocrystal particles called quantum dots.

The U8N’s quantum-dot color, combined with its heady brightness abilities, can make for some very beautiful presentations. The results aren’t as colorful as what you can get from price-premium OLED TVs and LCD TVs such as our upgrade pick, but you’re still likely to be impressed by its range of hues.

This TV excels when showing high dynamic range (HDR) video. The U8N’s excellent brightness, contrast, and color, along with its support for all of the major HDR formats—including Dolby Vision—make it an especially good choice for people who primarily watch HDR sources.

In fact, following a trend over the past few years, the U8N actually looks better when it’s handling HDR content than it does with SDR or lower-resolution content. Out of the box, it’s better calibrated for HDR performance than SDR performance, too. Even in its Theater Night SDR picture mode, it averages over 1,200 nits of brightness. Subtlety is not its strong suit.

Gamers will love the combination of features and speed. The U8N’s Game picture mode offers excellent picture quality while enabling the full suite of HDMI 2.1 features, including gaming at 4K resolution at a native 120 Hz refresh rate (up to 144 Hz with the appropriate PC graphics card), variable refresh rate (VRR) support, and support for 1440p resolution, FreeSync, and G-Sync.

The cherry on top is the U8N’s low input lag. Using a Leo Bodnar input-lag tester, I measured just a little over 13.1 milliseconds with a 4K 60 Hz signal, and you can expect about half of that while gaming in 4K 120 Hz. I still wasn’t able to pull off frame-perfect lightning uppercuts while playing Tekken 8 on the PlayStation 5, but that wasn’t the TV’s fault: These hands are getting older.

The design is sturdy, especially for what you’re paying. The U8N has better build quality than some similarly priced competitors, as it leans more to the industrial/metal side than the cheap plastic side.

If you opt for the 65-, 75-, or 85-inch model, the stand is centrally placed, which allows it to work well with a variety of TV furniture pieces, even those on the narrower side. The stand is a big, ugly hunk of metal covered with thick molded plastic, but sturdy and unsightly is better than pretty and flimsy. In contrast, the 55-inch model has two wide-set feet, so if you intend to get that size, measure your TV furniture in advance.

As smart-TV platforms go, Google TV is our favorite. It’s snappy, intuitive, non-proprietary, and generally well maintained where app and security updates are concerned. The U8N is equipped with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, ATSC 3.0 (for 4K broadcasts), and compatibility with Alexa and Google Assistant. And naturally, because it’s Google TV, casting from a second device is exceedingly easy to do.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Early versions of this TV were glitchy. One of the first things I noticed about the U8N was a weird quirk where, when I set the volume to 0, the mute icon stayed on the screen indefinitely. This got me curious about glitches that other reviewers may have encountered, and I found sources I trust reporting issues with over-brightening HDR content and bugs with VRR in video games. My U8N loan sample didn’t have those issues, but it’s clear that Hisense did only so much QA testing before releasing this TV to the public, as the company has released several firmware updates already.

Most of these issues are minor considering how the vast majority of people use TVs, and Hisense is addressing problems as they arise—but it’s worth being aware.

You don’t get the best horizontal viewing angles. As with most LCD TVs, the U8N’s viewing angle—how well the image holds up when you’re watching it from off to one side—isn’t best-in-class.

Viewers sitting front and center will have no issue, but if you hope to give significant groups of people the best viewing from around a large room, you may want to consider springing for our upgrade pick instead.

The U8N’s rendering of sub-4K video could be better. As I said above, the U8N is at its best when playing 4K HDR content, but it doesn’t do as good a job of upconverting lower-resolution video.

For most people, this isn’t a problem: Even YouTube is available in 4K resolution nowadays. But if you have a substantial library of DVDs, and you plan to buy this TV, you may want to invest in a Blu-ray player with a good built-in upscaler.

You don’t get the same performance from every size. The 55-inch U8N allegedly has a peak brightness of only 1,800 nits, versus around 3,000 nits for the larger sizes, so if you really need that extra brightness for bright-room viewing, you should either buy one of the larger sizes or spend more for the 55-inch version of our upgrade pick.

And keep in mind that the 75-inch U8N uses a different panel type than the other sizes, so its contrast is marginally worse. On the other hand, the U8N Series’s contrast is already so good that we can’t imagine that this drawback is a realistic deterrent for anyone but the most hardcore videophile.

Recommended settings

If you want the most accurate picture settings, we recommend setting the Hisense U8N to its Filmmaker Mode picture mode. This setting is highly accurate in SDR. My U8N sample also tested well in its HDR Filmmaker Mode, but other reviewers have reported problems with over-brightening, as the TV gets too bright too quickly when it transitions from black to white.

Hisense is allegedly aware of that issue, so if the results from Filmmaker Mode look off to you in HDR content, make sure that you’ve updated the TV to the latest firmware.

Once you’ve set the TV to Filmmaker Mode, go into the advanced picture settings and confirm that the Local Dimming and Peak Brightness settings are set to High. You should also set the Color Temperature to Warm 1—as of the latest firmware, Warm 1 is more accurate than Warm 2.

Important specs

If you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of image brightness and contrast to spend less money, the Hisense U7N Series is a smart choice. In many ways, its performance is identical to that of our top pick, and it comes in the same screen sizes.

The U7N isn’t as bright—but it’s all relative. At 3,000 nits, the U8N, our top pick, is uncannily bright. The U7N is a full 1,000 nits dimmer, peaking around 2,000 nits—but that’s still very bright. Our favorite OLED TVs hit around 2,000 nits, and they’re still bright enough for a well-lit room. Additionally, the vast majority of HDR content is mastered for 1,000 nits, so the U7N is certainly up to the task.

Think of it this way: The U7N is still a delicious Oreo cookie. It just isn’t double-stuffed.

Its black-level performance is also worse—but that’s also relative. Just as with the brightness comparison, the U7N’s overall contrast and handling of dark, complexly lit scenes is still very good, especially compared with the vast number of LCD TVs that lack local dimming altogether. It simply doesn’t have that almost-OLED level of contrast that its pricier sibling, the U8N, does.

This is more important for folks who like to watch movies in dark rooms, where subtle black-level differences are much more noticeable. The U7N is more prone to blooming (where light from bright objects bleeds into the darker content around them) and flashlighting (when the backlight’s brightness fluctuations are visible, such as in the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen).

Essentially, the U7N is worse than the U8N at performing in “extreme” viewing environments, those that are either very bright or very dark. But if your viewing area tends toward average conditions, you could save some money and get this TV instead of our top pick.

The U7N is identical to the U8N in many other ways. Both TVs support all of the HDR formats and are capable of color production covering 100% of the SDR color space and roughly 72% of the HDR color space.

Both TVs give you two HDMI 2.0 and two HDMI 2.1 inputs, with native refresh rates of 120 Hz and variable refresh rates up to 144 Hz. Both TVs offer essentially the same motion performance and almost the exact same input lag in video games.

Both offer an intuitive if occasionally slow Google TV experience, and both come equipped with ATSC 3.0 tuners, Bluetooth 5, and Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, as well as built-in support for Alexa and Google Assistant.

Even the remote controls are essentially twins, and I mixed them up more than once during the testing process.

This TV does a good job of cutting down on screen reflections. Although the U7N isn’t as bright as the U8N and thus doesn’t fare as well in particularly bright rooms, it is equipped with the same screen finish, so it dispels a fair amount of ambient light.

Because the U7N’s screen is semiglossy, it doesn’t refract light as skillfully as a TV with a matte screen, but you can still watch it without overt threats from lights and windows.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The U7N has many of the same flaws as our top pick. With so many similarities between the U7N and U8N, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they share almost all of the same flaws.

The U7N’s horizontal viewing angles aren’t very good, and like our top pick, it looks better with 4K HDR video than it does with lower-resolution sources. But the U7N is even more mediocre in upconverting SD and HD content, at least at its out-of-the-box settings. The results aren’t so bad that the average viewer would spot anything amiss, but videophiles might notice.

As with the U8N Series, the 75-inch U7N uses a different kind of LCD panel than the other sizes—one that widens the viewing angle at the expense of image contrast. Since the contrast is lower here than on the U8N to begin with, that difference might be a bigger issue in this case, but we did not have a sample of the 75-inch model on hand to test it ourselves.

This TV’s stand gave me a stress headache. While some reviewers have praised the “simplicity” of the U7N’s stand, I found it to be woefully flimsy. In assembling the TV, you have to attach two metal feet to the middle of the panel and then snap a plastic plate into place over them. Anytime I moved the U7N around the room, the plate would pretty quickly detach and fall to the floor.

This might not be an issue if you never move your U7N once you’ve put it in place, but in my experience, even turning the TV to plug in HDMI devices or angle it differently prompted the stand to threaten to tumble apart. I’d consider wall-mounting this TV or going with a third-party stand.

Recommended settings

As with the U8N, your best bet with the U7N is to pick the Filmmaker Mode for both SDR and HDR content. Once you’ve set the TV to Filmmaker Mode, go into the advanced picture settings and confirm that the Local Dimming and Peak Brightness settings are set to High. You should also set Color Temperature to Warm 1, which is more accurate than Warm 2.

Important specs

Available in a whopping seven screen sizes and delivering some crucial performance improvements over our other picks, the Samsung QN90D is one of the best LCD TVs you can buy in 2024. For the discerning video fan, it’s much more polished across the board, offering more color volume, better viewing angles, superior audio performance, lower input lag, more consistency across screen sizes, and more HDMI 2.1 inputs.

The QN90D doesn’t max out in brightness, but it delivers a lot more color. Although all of our LCD TV picks use quantum dots to improve color performance, the QN90D manages to capture a much wider portion of the HDR color gamut—roughly 10 to 20% more, depending on the content.

The improvement was clear as day in our lab measurements, but it was also obvious while I was watching movies and playing video games. While playing Baldur’s Gate 3 in HDR on this TV side by side with the Hisense U8N, I noticed our upgrade pick’s prowess as I compared the orange light of torch flames and the purple hues of a wizard’s robe.

However, the QN90D doesn’t get as bright as the U8N: Its HDR peaks surpass 2,000 nits, but it never hit 3,000 nits during testing like our top pick did. It is brighter than our budget pick, however, and it offers more stable black levels across all content types.

It’s a stellar choice for HDR. The QN90D provides great contrast, local dimming, and color capabilities, and it looks especially good when playing content in the HDR10+ format.

The TV’s Intelligent Mode artificially adds brightness and color to SDR video to make it look as if it’s in high dynamic range. Other TVs can sort of do the same if you put them in their Vivid or Dynamic picture mode, but their results are often blown out, garish, or grossly inaccurate. My repeated testing has revealed that, while Intelligent Mode isn’t perfect, it makes most contemporary content look brighter and more colorful without skewing too far from directorial intent. Movies and shows that came out in the 1990s or earlier tend to look bad with Intelligent Mode on, but I’ve found everything else to be mostly improved.

This TV is an excellent choice for gamers who use multiple consoles. Although all of our LCD picks are solid choices for gamers, the QN90D had the lowest input lag, producing a measured 9.8 ms of lag with a 4K 60 Hz signal (in contrast to about 13 ms from our other picks). You get even less lag if you game at 120 Hz.

Notably, all four of the QN90D’s HDMI inputs are 2.1-capable, so they can all handle 4K 120 Hz gaming and provide full support for functions such as variable refresh rate, G-Sync, and 144 Hz refresh rates (for PC gamers). On our other picks, you’re limited to two HDMI 2.1 inputs.

You can expect consistent performance regardless of the screen size. Unlike our other picks, the QN90D’s seven screen sizes all have the same tabletop stand and the same LCD panel type. This means you can expect roughly identical performance no matter which size you buy, which is an inherent benefit. (The one caveat to this claim is that the 98-inch QN90D can’t do 144 Hz refresh rates.)

One reason the QN90D costs more is that it’s outfitted with a screen finish and backlight design that help improve the viewing angle and cut down on screen reflections. So this TV fares brilliantly in brighter rooms, even though the picture isn’t technically as bright as that of the U8N.

The QN90D also offers better built-in audio quality than our other picks, with 60 watts of power (versus 50 watts on the U8N and 40 watts on the U7N) and a more robust speaker configuration. Most folks still fare better with a soundbar, but you get notably better-than-average audio from the QN90D.

It has a sleeker yet more reliable build. Another reason the QN90D fetches a higher price than our other picks is the materials it uses: It manages to be lighter in weight while also feeling more sturdy and polished than our other picks.

That doesn’t mean much if you’re just hoping to trade dollars for pure performance—that’s why the U8N is our top pick, after all. But if you don’t mind spending more for a model that’s both aesthetically pleasing and less wobbly on its TV stand, the QN90D is dressed for success.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It doesn’t support Dolby Vision HDR. One of Samsung’s biggest flaws every year is the company’s refusal to pay to license Dolby Vision support for its TVs. It’s a bit absurd to buy a TV that’s so good at HDR and not get support for what is arguably the most premium HDR format.

The QN90D does support the similar HDR10+ format, and in our tests HDR10+ content looked dazzling on this TV—in our comparison with Dolby Vision content on other TVs, we found no huge differences. But there’s relatively less HDR10+ content available, especially on Ultra HD 4K discs.

If you want an “upgrade” mini-LED TV that supports Dolby Vision, check out the Sony Bravia 9 mini-LED model. Just be prepared to pay even more.

The upscaling is better than that of our other picks but still not perfect. In years past, Samsung has struggled to implement good sub-1080p upscaling in its TVs, and the QN90D still has a ways to go in that regard. It’s on a par with our other picks, but for this amount of money, we’d love to be able to heartily recommend this TV to folks who have large DVD libraries.

Samsung’s Tizen Smart Hub is fine, but we prefer Google TV. The Google TV platform continues to be our favorite smart-TV platform and the basis of our favorite media streaming device, too.

For most folks, Smart Hub is overdesigned, introducing too many menus and submenus and insisting on identifying and labeling every HDMI device you plug in. It’s great when it works, but when it doesn’t work—say, it doesn’t know what a device is or labels the device incorrectly—finding and switching to the source you want can be almost impossible.

Although you can tinker with all of that until it works flawlessly, Smart Hub is really too clever for its own good. We prefer Google TV for its simplicity and ease of use, and we think most folks are likely to, as well.

Broadcasts are limited to 1080p. Unlike our other picks, the QN90D doesn’t have an ATSC 3.0 tuner (it’s limited to ATSC 1.0), so it can’t receive 4K broadcasts. That isn’t ideal, but you can always buy a separate ATSC 3.0 tuner if you need one.

Recommended settings

The Samsung QN90D looks most accurate in Filmmaker Mode, whether you’re watching SDR or HDR video. While the QN90D isn’t significantly more accurate out of the box than our top pick, it is a lot more accurate than our budget pick.

You can also toggle Intelligent Mode on if you want to punch up the picture for daytime viewing without sacrificing too much accuracy.

Make sure that the Peak Brightness toggle is set to High to get the best experience during HDR. You can leave the QN90D in its color temperature default of Warm 2.

If you’re willing to pay OLED TV prices to get maximum LCD brightness: Sony’s Bravia 9 flagship TV gets almost as bright as our top pick but handles reflections, viewing angle, and audio performance as skillfully as our upgrade pick. It supports Dolby Vision HDR, it’s capable of OLED levels of color saturation (hitting 99% of the DCI-P3 color space), and it does an excellent job of upscaling SD and HD content to 4K.

But it’s limited to screen sizes of 65, 75, and 85 inches, and it commands a premium price—the 65-inch model is $3,000 at this writing. In that price range, we recommend buying an OLED TV instead, unless you really need 3,000 nits of light output to handle a challengingly bright viewing environment. Plus, our picks are better for video games.

If you want a highly accurate TV that won’t break the bank: The more affordable Sony Bravia XR X90L is a surprisingly good option. It lacks mini-LED backlighting, but it’s extremely accurate out of the box, so it’s ideal for the videophile on a budget. The only drawbacks are that it doesn’t get as bright as our picks, and it adds a bit more input lag in games.

Sony’s Bravia 7 represents a step down in price from the company’s flagship Bravia 9 but has a lot of the same high-performance features, so we hope to get it in for testing soon.

Although Roku’s proprietary TVs haven’t been impressive so far, we’re still aiming to test the Roku Pro Series, which is new for 2024.

Our requirements for the best LCD/LED TV, including full-array local dimming and a true 120 Hz refresh rate, keep most LCD TVs from qualifying for testing and contention in this guide. Look for lower-priced TVs in our guide to the best 4K TV on a budget. We aren’t currently considering 8K TVs, as we believe there still isn’t enough compatible content to justify their steep prices.

LG’s QNED LCD TVs traditionally have performed worse than other premium LCDs while still costing more than our picks. So we don’t intend to test the 2024 models.

We also don’t intend to test the Samsung QN85D, which is a step down from our upgrade pick, as reviewers we trust have found that it falls short of our top pick in performance—it’s closer in performance to our budget pick, which costs less. Nor do we plan to test the flagship Samsung QN95D; specifications and trusted reviews make it clear that, if you’re going to spend $3,000 on a 65-inch mini-LED TV, the Sony Bravia 9 is the superior performer.

We tested and dismissed the 2024 TCL QM8 and QM7. Although the QM8 came close to our top pick in price and performance—in fact, it was even brighter, according to our measurements—its local dimming and overall contrast weren’t as good. The QM7 seemed promising but actually had noticeably worse performance than our budget pick, the Hisense U7N.

We tested the Sharp 4T-C65FV1U and found that although it’s a unique TV within the current landscape, it’s simply too expensive for the performance it offers. While the FV1 has everything it needs to succeed on paper, including mini-LED backlighting with local dimming, quantum-dot color, a 120 Hz refresh rate, and the Google TV smart platform, as well as some rare features such as the ability to swivel on its stand, our testing revealed subpar brightness and unsightly banding in HDR video, as well as poor out-of-the-box calibration in several picture modes. Our picks are better choices from a price and performance perspective.

Vizio has yet to release any new TVs in 2024.

This article was edited by Adrienne Maxwell and Grant Clauser.