The Best Cheap TVs Right Now

The word “budget” is a stretch here, but as we've come to expect from LG's B-Series, the LG B5 serves up the primary benefits of OLED TVs (perfect black levels, fantastic contrast, vibrant colors, and excellent off-axis viewing) at a budget-friendly cost. It's not as bright or stylish as the step-up C-series, but there's enough punch to properly showcase Dolby Vision HDR, and plenty of other premium performance touches to soup up your home theater.

I was particularly entranced by the B5's accurate colors and surprisingly great shadow detail that just seemed to get better over time. Gamers will get serious performance, with top features across all four HDMI 2.1 ports—something you won't find in many high-end models at twice the cost (cough, Sony). Last year's B4 is similarly appointed, and the C4 is also worth considering while it lasts, but the B5 is a solid value that has finally begun to drop to “grab it now” sale pricing.

Roku's decision to jump into the TV business has paid off, mixing the brand's brilliantly intuitive smart interface with impressive picture quality, especially in its top two models. The Plus Series Roku TV is the goldilocks option for value shoppers, offering quantum dots for vibrant colors and full-array local dimming for rich black levels. Extra smarts like a voice-search remote and support for Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant round out its bona fides for a versatile display with plenty of brains. This older model is getting harder to find (we'll be testing the new one soon), but it's a great buy on a good sale.

The Hisense U6QF comes with mini-LED backlighting for excellent black levels and features Hisense's excellent ULED technology for great colors. This 55-inch model is often priced under $600, and it’s worth the extra cash when you can find it on sale. A 144-Hz refresh rate makes it an excellent gaming TV for everything from getting the most out of your PS5 to keeping pace with gaming PCs, and the built-in Fire TV interface is more than fine for streaming your favorite TV shows and movies, despite not being as easy to use as Roku or Google TVs. On picture quality alone, this competes with models that cost about twice as much, which is impressive enough for most living rooms. — Parker Hall

If the QM6K is too pricey but you still want Google TV, this older Q6 could be a good alternative. The model name is a bit of a misnomer, as TCL added several technologies to the latest model. The Q6 lacks local dimming, so it won't look nearly as good as the QM6K in the dark, and it only offers a 60-Hz screen. Still, its mix of poppy quantum dot colors, breezy streaming, and handy features (including some good gaming extras) makes it a solid affordable TV, especially since you can often get a 55-inch model for under $300.

If you are an Alexa fan or you like the Prime TV app best, this is the cheapest model I'd recommend buying. It's not a fantastic TV specs-wise—it has only a 60-Hz refresh rate, and it doesn't feature local dimming—but this TV has decent color and brightness and is hilariously affordable. It features Airplay, so you can easily cast to it from your iPhone. Some people have complained a lot about the built-in Amazon interface on this TV. I think they're probably just used to TVs with faster processing; the interface is a bit slow on the uptake, but I never had it freeze,; it just can take a second to load apps. If it's that much of a problem for you, a Fire TV stick can solve it. —Parker Hall