TRACK ONE

Here's the deal with buying a new TV: it’s easy to fixate on just one thing—maybe you want the biggest screen possible, or the absolute best picture quality, or maybe you're just hunting for the best deal. But the real trick is finding the sweet spot between screen size, picture quality, and cost that fits your space and needs.

A bigger screen is tempting, especially if you're dreaming of that home theater vibe. But bigger doesn’t always mean better, especially if you end up sacrificing picture quality. A huge TV with poor resolution or weak contrast is just a big disappointment—especially if you’re close enough to see every flaw. On the flip side, getting the best picture quality can be pricey. Features like OLED panels, 8K resolution, and robust HDR really do make a difference—vibrant colors, deep blacks, and amazing clarity—but they also come with a steep price tag, especially if you still want that big screen.

For most folks, the best value lies somewhere in the middle. Think about how far you'll be sitting—a 55-inch 4K TV might be perfect for a bedroom, a 65-inch or 75-inch TV for a medium-sized living room, while an 85-inch screen or even a 100-inch (or larger) TV could be ideal for a bigger space, if you’ve got the budget for it. However, prioritizing features like HDR performance and good upscaling can give you a more immersive experience, even if it means choosing a slightly smaller screen to stay on budget.

There are also various image quality parameters that cost extra to have. One of the main ones is brightness and color gamut. These are two separate things, but very much intertwined when it comes to reproducing high dynamic range (HDR) properly. You need bright highlights, a lot of contrast, and deep blacks to make the picture pop. But you also need rich, vibrant color to make it all come alive. The ability to cover the entire DCI-P3 color gamut—which is used to master Hollywood movies—is a good place to be. Bright highlights, deep blacks, and a wide color gamut all work together to deliver that immersive, high-quality viewing experience.

Color Gamut: The range of colors a TV can display. A wide color gamut means more vibrant and true-to-life colors.

HDR (High Dynamic Range): A technology that enhances both brightness and contrast, giving images more depth and detail. HDR helps make scenes look more realistic and vivid.

Dolby Vision vs. HDR10
Most TV brands feature Dolby Vision HDR, but not Samsung's. However, that's not a point to get hung up on, because a high-quality television doesn't lean on Dolby Vision all that much, even though Dolby Vision has capabilities that go beyond the standard HDR10 that all HDR TVs are compatible with. With many TVs, especially the more affordable ones, it is primarily a compensating factor—in other words, it is bridging the gap between what the original HDR content asks the TV to do and what the TV is actually capable of doing.

This can have the effect of making the picture look nicer compared to unprocessed HDR10, but the picture can't look any better than what the hardware itself is capable of. Moreover, the latest TVs are able to dynamically process standard HDR10 and optimize it with their own algorithms. So, you should not feel any trepidation about purchasing a TV that doesn't have Dolby Vision if the TV performs at a very high level. In this instance, hardware capability matters more than the HDR format.

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The Price of Premium
There's a lot more than good HDR that you'll pay extra for on a premium TV, such as a highly effective anti-glare screen coating or a completely flat and thin design that sits flush against the wall and just looks really slick. The sound might even be a bit better, although an external system is always the way to go for true high fidelity AV sound. But higher-end models usually have a soundbar option that is an aesthetic match for the TV, which can be a major benefit for those seeking a low-profile installation.

You might also wind up paying for a combination of high brightness and wide viewing angles, which is something that you get with OLED TVs. But if you're looking at LED LCD TVs—which are the most common variety—you'll need to go for a premium backlit model to get both wide viewing angles and high brightness, and even then, it's not going to match OLED in many respects.

It's also worth noting that only movies and 4K shows truly demand a huge screen that is ultra sharp. Standard HD broadcasts can actually look too soft if viewed on a screen that's too big. But for some uses, like watching sports, that softness may not matter as much as simply having that giant picture to enjoy the action. Plus, with sports, you might use the multi-view function on a large screen to watch more than one event at a time—kind of like how TVs are set up at sports bars.

Gamers will want to pay particular attention to gaming-related features, including support for high refresh rates, variable refresh rates, automatic low latency mode, and ensuring that the TV itself has very low input lag.

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From Black Friday Deals to Big Game Steals
Now let's get into shopping for a TV. Black Friday has just passed, but do not despair. Those Black Friday prices, I promise you, they're going to be back right after Christmas. The only catch is that right after Christmas is also CES 2025, when the TV makers will announce new models, new technologies, and new gimmicks. It might be slightly more difficult to buy a 2024 model when you know what's coming in 2025, but the same pricing games will play out like they do each year. New models from major manufacturers always cost a lot more upon their introduction than they do when Black Friday rolls around again, and the reality is it's only a short month and a half between Black Friday shopping and CES. So it's only an illusion that you're getting this really great deal on a state-of-the-art TV if you buy it within that little window.

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Why Prices Fluctuate
TV prices often drop around major sales events because manufacturers and retailers aim to clear out older models before introducing new ones. Additionally, competition among retailers drives discounts, making these particular times ideal for consumers to find great deals.

What I suggest is seeing what gets announced at CES and then looking right at the next significant sale event and taking advantage of it to get that TV. And guess what that event is? That's right, it's the Super Bowl. You will see just about the same prices that you saw for Black Friday as part of Super Bowl TV sale promotions. In some cases, those Black Friday prices become the actualy prices until the TVs actually sell out.

It really just depends on your psychology. Would you rather know what's coming next, albeit at a higher price, and buy a bargain? Then wait. Would you prefer not to know what's next but save as much as you can? Then you should have bought your TV over Black Friday.

What you should not do is succumb to the temptation to buy a new TV the moment it is released. The annual drop in prices is as predictable as the four seasons.

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Choosing the Best TV for Your Needs
While there certainly are TVs that rate the best if you stick a meter on them and rank by measurable performance, the reality of TVs is that there is no best TV. There is simply a best TV for a given budget, a given application, and a given set of priorities for the purchaser. It's a dynamic mix of those elements. And I always encourage TV shoppers to go through the thought exercise—ask themselves, what do they prioritize?

• Watching a lot of movies with the lights out? An OLED is pretty much a necessity.
• Watching a lot of sports during the daytime (e.g., Sunday football)? One of the high-sensor TCL 100-inch TVs would do the trick.
• Enjoy both movies and sports? Consider a super premium Sony, Samsung, or a giant LG OLED.
• Multi-millionaire? Samsung's amazing micro LED TVs are available, but they come with six-figure price tags.

One of the most impressive and consumer-friendly things to happen in the world of TVs is the recent drop in the price of going big. The cost of extraordinarily competent 85-inch TVs has dropped dramatically. You no longer pay this giant premium for that screen size. That's been taken over by the 98-inchers and larger. At 85 inches, you're just getting that incremental increase in price that comes with the incremental increase in screen real estate. But in many living rooms, that 85 inches is enough to deliver a cinematic viewing experience and to let people really see those details in 4K movies. And so, given that I have really never met anybody who has regretted going big, the ultimate advice I can give right now is to look at what's available at 85 inches among the 2024 models within the premium performance categories.

What's going to happen is next year's step-down model is going to get a bunch of features from this year's premium model, and the premium model is going to get something new—whatever it is. But that 2024 premium model will still be a phenomenal TV: build quality, aesthetics, features. It's just that the sweet spot for most TV buyers lies in a quantum dot LED full array local dimming backlit premium TV at an 85-inch screen size or for movie lovers, an 83-inch OLED can also be had for an astonishing price. Shop big and premium while leveraging sales and you are getting a TV that was practically unobtainable at any price just a few years ago—one that is truly everything that almost anybody is going to need for years to come in terms of being able to handle whatever content you throw at it. TVs have evolved to that point—they're just pretty much incredible relative to their cost.

The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, picking the right TV is all about how these factors interact. A smaller, higher-quality TV could be way more satisfying than a big, cheap one that struggles to deliver decent picture quality. But the price of a good TV at a large screen size has dropped dramatically, opening up large screen sizes as a qualitative factor to consider within a given budget. It's all about knowing what you value most and how you plan to use your TV.