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If there’s one weakness of today’s TVs, it’s sound. TVs are getting bigger and bigger in screen size, but thinner and thinner – and great sound requires big speakers that take up a lot of physical volume. High-end TVs use fancy speaker arrays to offer pretty good sound, but still tend to lack bass, because that requires even more physical volume.
And budget TVs often sacrifice the sound, to ensure that all the effort is put into a dazzling picture – and cheap TVs can be really mediocre in some cases for sound clarity.
But soundbars are very inexpensive generally, and that goes double over Black Friday…
When it launched, mini-LED was strictly a premium tech only – but in only a few short years, it’s appeared on budget TVs, where it makes a huge difference to the picture quality.
Roku Pro is the pro’s choice of mid-range TV
When it comes to impressive mid-range mini-LED TVs, TCL and Hisense tend to get all the attention. But real ones know that Roku’s Pro Series is one to keep your eye on, and it really impressed our reviewers.
Its picture delivers solid contrast, good brightness and effective motion handling. It also comes with a great list of gaming features including 4K 120Hz support, and it has the intuitive Roku smart TV interface. This deal knocks 34% off its price, and it’s a great price for a high-quality 65-incher.
A mini-LED bargain
Let’s move on from OLED, and talk about a mini-LED TV that’s just fantastic value. The Hisense U75Q packs a long list of features, including 4K at 165Hz and VRR for gaming, as well as high brightness levels and strong picture quality in an affordable package.
And before Black Friday has even arrived, its 55-inch model has dropped to $527, a huge 42% off and a new record-low price worthy of checking out.
Is burn-in still a problem for OLED TVs? For many years, the tech had a reputation for a big problem: images that appeared on screen often and for long periods – such as network logos or parts of a game’s interface – would ‘burn’ into the screen, and leave ghostly images there all the time.
This reputation was well-earned – it was a big problem for the tech, no doubt. But recent TVs have essentially fully overcome this problem, using a combination of better screen tech, smart processing that detects and mitigates the effects of static logos quietly in the background, and the use of good old-fashioned screen savers if they detect that you’re leaving a fully still image (like a paused video) on the screen for too long.
Samsung 5-star OLED, but only in one size
While we’re talking about OLED, here’s a good-but-specific deal. The Samsung S90F uses a mix of different OLED plans types across its different sizes, which means we can’t generally verify its performance, which makes it very hard for us to review and recommend. However, the 65-inch version uses just a single panel type, so we reviewed that size only – and we gave it five stars out of five.
It’s an excellent TV, with superb picture quality, top-tier gaming features, and it has a great discount right now.
If you’ve heard all the fuss about OLED TVs, but you’re not sure what the deal is, then let me direct you to our ‘What is OLED‘ guide – but here’s the short version.
LED screens, including QLED, consist of a big screen of lights behind a color-filtering layer of pixels. This makes it hard for these TVs to show true black tones, because trying to block light coming from the backlight often results in something a little gray. Most good TVs these days have an element of ‘local dimming’ to help avoid this, where the light turns itself off in sections that should be black to create true black tones – but if there still a bright section, light will ‘bleed’ into the dark area.
OLED screens don’t have this issue. Each pixel generates its own light, and can be dimmed all the way to being off, for true black tones that can be right next to tiny bright highlights, and there’ll be no bleed from one to the other. For this reason, they’re considered the ultimate in image quality by many people – though they can’t go as bright as LED TVs, so there’s a trade-off.
A small premium TV with elite features
Best Buy’s Black Friday sale has slashed a generous $700 off LG’s 48-inch B5 OLED TV, bringing the price down to $599.99 – though this was $549 earlier in this year’s sales, so keep an eye out for it to drop again.
Released this year, the LG B5 is the best budget OLED TV on the market. The 48-inch display delivers an exceptional picture with brilliant colors and sharp contrast that impressed during out measurements (which you can see in progress above).
You also get excellent gaming features, thanks to the four HDMI 2.1 ports and new AI tools, including AI Search, AI Concierge, and an improved AI Chatbot. All those features, premium OLED pictures, all in a compact size, for under $600 – it’s pretty damn great.
A 75-inch bargain
98 inches a little too much for you? That’s understandable. (I am not joking when I say that companies sometimes have to call up buyers to make sure that the box can actually get into their home…)
How about a really good 75-inch TV for under $600 instead? This is the cheapest we’ve seen the highly rated Amazon Omni Series TV. You’re getting 4K resolution, Dolby Vision HDR, and hands-free control with Alexa.
A 98-inch TV that’s actually affordable – no, really
I remember only a few years ago, when projector-sized TVs cost as much as a house. Now they cost as much as… well, other TVs. The Q6 delivers high brightness with vivid color and strong contrast, as well as solid gaming features and performance. If you’re looking for a massive display, you won’t find a better deal.
Roku quality for a super-cheap price
Roku’s own-brand TVs have only been around for a couple of years, but they’ve quickly settled in as being great value. This is the cheapest option, and you’re getting a 4K TV with HDR, solid picture quality – and, of course, Roku’s excellent software so it’s easy to use.
Something small and cheap?
Amazon’s super-popular 40-inch 2-Series HD smart TV is down to just $149.99, which is a 40% discount. The Amazon 2-Series TV lacks 4K resolution, that doesn’t matter at this kind of size – the important thing is that it offers smart capabilities through the Fire TV experience, plus Amazon Alexa provides hands-free control.
The LG C4 is still one of the deals of the year
LG’s C4 OLED TV was a 2024 TV, but the 65-inch model is on sale for a record-low price of $1,274.99, and while stocks last, we’d happily recommend this over the newer LG C5 at the lower price – the differences are pretty small.
A mega-bargain 65-inch TV
Let’s start with one of the juiciest deals of the day. This budget mini-LED TV offers simply amazing image quality and features for the price – next-gen gaming, rich contrast, impressive brightness, great detail. It feels far more premium than a sub-$500 should make possible.
I promise above that if you email me, you’ll get a personalized TV recommendation, and it’s true. If you don’t answer for a few hours, please bear with me – I will get back to you, but it probably just means I’m on a break or tied up with something else for a while.
I’ll share the answers to any questions I think are interesting to other people here as well, but I won’t reveal the name or any personal information at all of people who email me – just what kind of TV you asked me about.
I’m the lead of TechRadar’s AV team, and I’ve been covering TVs and home theater for nearly a decade. I’ll update this page regularly over the course of today, not just with general TV buying tips and explanations, but also adding to (and removing) deals based on what I think will be think will be the best ways to spend your money.
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