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Orgo-Life the new way to the future Advertising by AdpathwaySo you want a new TV? Whether you need a screen for the World Cup, gaming or streaming shows and movies, there's a TV here to meet your needs. I've reviewed most of the current TVs head-to-head in a dedicated lab, in a bid to help you find the TV that incorporates the the best picture quality, the right size for your room and most-of-all the best price.
At the halfway point of 2026, and after testing most of the prominent TVs on the market, I believe I have found the best TV of the year: the TCL QM8L. It improves on the award-winning QM8K in almost every meaningful way, and still manages to take on more expensive TVs and win. It's brighter, it's more colorful and it's better for gaming to boot.
Though the technology of the moment is MiniRGB LED, TCL has stuck to its guns with a QLED TV variant that improves the quantum dots and makes them "super." The result is more colors and better compatibility with future video formats.
Though an OLED like the LG C5 or C6 will give you better contrast for the same price or better, there is nothing out there right now which can match the TCL QM8L for brightness, picture quality and value-for-money. This is the best TV I've seen in 2026 and a deserving Editors' Choice.
Pros
- The TCL QM8L is one of the brightest TVs yet
- This TV has excellent color and contrast
- It's simply great for gaming
Cons
- LG C6 OLED has better contrast at the same price
- More reflective of ambient light than its peers
The Samsung S90F has a lot going for it. It's relatively affordable, super-light, easy to install and delivers some of the best images I've ever seen. It's great for gaming, too, with super-low lag scores and well-saturated colors. It dispenses the "infinite black" of the best OLEDs, pairing it winningly with excellent shadow detail.
Pros
- The Samsung S90F delivers excellent image quality
- Fast motion for gamers
Cons
- It lacks the step-up model's glare free coating
- No Dolby Vision
While every other OLED TV until now has shown modest increases year-over-year, the LG G5 is a massive improvement on its predecessor. LG says it has a 40% improvement in brightness -- a claim I verified in my own testing -- and it's a TV that can take on LCD TVs for its clarity and punch. The G5 has better color than any other TV I've tested in the past 12 months, including its replacement the G6, and the G5 is the winner of the CNET Labs Award for Best Color Accuracy. It's a lot better for gaming, too. For the right person, the extra $800 for the G5 over the C5 is worth it.
Pros
- The G5 has the highest brightness of any OLED TV yet
- It's capable of stunning image quality
Cons
- Brightness boost is not visible in all content
- Remote is not as good as previous versions
- Expensive compared to LG C5
If you want the best TV you can buy in 2026, this is it. Samsung's S95F takes everything we loved about last year's S95D -- great picture quality, super-fast gaming, superior anti-glare -- and somehow manages to improve upon it. What's especially impressive is how well this TV banishes reflections, making it well-suited for watching in a bright room. If you find yourself squinting at the screen because you can see a window or overhead lights in your picture, this TV is for you. While there is some loss of contrast with the lights on, it's not as pronounced as with the S95D, and its overall lack of reflectivity is well worth the trade-off.
Pros
- Best overall image quality I've tested
- Best-in-class glare reduction in a bright room
- Superior contrast and off-angle viewing
- Ultrathin panel with external input box
Cons
- Expensive
- Slightly diminished contrast in bright rooms
Key to the Hisense QD7QF’s success is full-array local dimming -- a display tech you usually only find in more expensive TVs -- and it's something the previous QD7N also lacked. As a result, this Hisense has a level of picture quality I've never seen before in a TV this cheap. The enhanced levels of contrast give images a solidity that meant the Hisense was unmatched.
Pros
- The Hisense QD7QF has excellent image quality thanks to local dimming
- It's bright compared to rivals
- This TV is great for gaming
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- Best TVs of 2026: Expert Tested and Reviewed
- These are the best TVs for 2026
- Best TV of 2026
- Best value TV
- Best color accuracy of 2026
- Best TV for picture quality
- Best budget TV
- Best TV under $1,000
- Other TVs I've tested
- How CNET tests TVs
- Factors to consider when choosing a TV
- TV brightness according to CNET's testing
- FAQs on the best TVs of 2026
Though I have reviewed many 2026 TVs, including the Samsung S95H and full review of the LG G6 OLED here, much of this list is from 2025 or even earlier. This is because TVs are a stable technology and year-to-year improvements are usually minor, which means you can buy a TV that's similar to a current model, but for a fraction of the price.
The TVs on this list are the best models you can buy currently, from high-end QLED and OLED TVs to midrange mini-LED and cheap 4K smart TVs. CNET has awarded one of these TVs, the LG G5, as the winner of the first Labs Award for Best Color Accuracy, while the TCL QM9K is the brightest screen I've tested.
What we updated: July 2026
Added TCL QM8L and added QM8K to also tested list. Updated tables and all pricing.
These are the best TVs for 2026
Pros
- The TCL QM8L is one of the brightest TVs yet
- This TV has excellent color and contrast
- It's simply great for gaming
Cons
- LG C6 OLED has better contrast at the same price
- More reflective of ambient light than its peers
At the halfway point of 2026, and after testing most of the prominent TVs on the market, I believe I have found the best TV of the year: the TCL QM8L. It improves on the award-winning QM8K in almost every meaningful way, and still manages to take on more expensive TVs and win. It's brighter, it's more colorful and it's better for gaming to boot.
Though the technology of the moment is MiniRGB LED, TCL has stuck to its guns with a QLED TV variant that improves the quantum dots and makes them "super." The result is more colors and better compatibility with future video formats.
Though an OLED like the LG C5 or C6 will give you better contrast for the same price or better, there is nothing out there right now which can match the TCL QM8L for brightness, picture quality and value-for-money. This is the best TV I've seen in 2026 and a deserving Editors' Choice.
Pros
- The Samsung S90F delivers excellent image quality
- Fast motion for gamers
Cons
- It lacks the step-up model's glare free coating
- No Dolby Vision
The Samsung S90F has a lot going for it. It's relatively affordable, super-light, easy to install and delivers some of the best images I've ever seen. It's great for gaming, too, with super-low lag scores and well-saturated colors. It dispenses the "infinite black" of the best OLEDs, pairing it winningly with excellent shadow detail.
The only ding against it, like all Samsung TVs, is that it doesn't support Dolby Vision, but HDR10 Plus is more than enough for most purposes. Also, it lacks the step-up S95F's light-rejecting coating, so it is not as good in a lit room as that TV.
All in all, though, the Samsung S90F is a fantastic TV with great contrast levels and highly saturated colors, which can bring cinema-like images into your home.
Pros
- The G5 has the highest brightness of any OLED TV yet
- It's capable of stunning image quality
Cons
- Brightness boost is not visible in all content
- Remote is not as good as previous versions
- Expensive compared to LG C5
While every other OLED TV until now has shown modest increases year-over-year, the LG G5 is a massive improvement on its predecessor. LG says it has a 40% improvement in brightness -- a claim I verified in my own testing -- and it's a TV that can take on LCD TVs for its clarity and punch. The G5 has better color than any other TV I've tested in the past 12 months, including its replacement the G6, and the G5 is the winner of the CNET Labs Award for Best Color Accuracy. It's a lot better for gaming, too. For the right person, the extra $800 for the G5 over the C5 is worth it.
With its high brightness, the G5 is also great for use in a lit room, although it's behind the excellent Samsung S95F and the G6, in my testing, in terms of reducing glare in a bright room.
With excellent clarity, punchy contrast and bold color, the LG G5 is the model to choose if you want the best combination of picture quality and brightness.
Pros
- Best overall image quality I've tested
- Best-in-class glare reduction in a bright room
- Superior contrast and off-angle viewing
- Ultrathin panel with external input box
Cons
- Expensive
- Slightly diminished contrast in bright rooms
If you want the best TV you can buy in 2026, this is it. Samsung's S95F takes everything we loved about last year's S95D -- great picture quality, super-fast gaming, superior anti-glare -- and somehow manages to improve upon it. What's especially impressive is how well this TV banishes reflections, making it well-suited for watching in a bright room. If you find yourself squinting at the screen because you can see a window or overhead lights in your picture, this TV is for you. While there is some loss of contrast with the lights on, it's not as pronounced as with the S95D, and its overall lack of reflectivity is well worth the trade-off.
Picture quality is just as great as you'd expect from an OLED, with vivid colors and fantastic contrast. The TV has also had a brightness boost in 2025 of about 30% and can go toe-to-toe with the even-brighter (on paper, at least) LG G5.
The only downside? It costs a lot of money. Yet, as Samsung's flagship OLED, the S95F makes your investment worthwhile -- and rewards movie fans and gamers alike with excellent performance in an attractive package.
Pros
- The Hisense QD7QF has excellent image quality thanks to local dimming
- It's bright compared to rivals
- This TV is great for gaming
Key to the Hisense QD7QF’s success is full-array local dimming -- a display tech you usually only find in more expensive TVs -- and it's something the previous QD7N also lacked. As a result, this Hisense has a level of picture quality I've never seen before in a TV this cheap. The enhanced levels of contrast give images a solidity that meant the Hisense was unmatched.
Adding to its superior picture was its higher brightness -- over twice that of other 2025 budget TVs I tested head-to-head -- and this boosts immersion in video games as well.
As I write this, the QD7QF’s price is subject to some volatility -- it’s currently $309 (for the 50-inch) but was $400 the previous time I checked. If the Hisense is out of stock or becomes more expensive, the 2024 Fire TV 4-series is almost as good, even if it lacks local dimming.
Pros
- The TCL QM6K has excellent picture quality
- The black levels are surprisingly deep
- This TV offers outstanding bang for buck
Cons
- The TV's brightness and color saturation could be better
For the best TVs for the money, it's the TVs priced at less than a grand that typically include the features you want without paying too much. The TCL QM6K started at a grand and is now even cheaper (about $550) and it has those tick boxes already checked -- excellent picture quality, streaming and gaming. It's an attractive TV with its "bezel-less" design and is simple to put to together and set up.
The TV delivers compatibility with all the HDR formats -- including Dolby Vision and HDR10+ -- and includes the company's Halo Control System processing, which is designed to eliminate backlight haloing in its 500 dimming zones.
In my side-by-side tests of the TV I found that it had plenty of contrast compared to its competition, though I had hoped for a lot more oomph in the brightness department -- its 655 nit reading is super low for a modern TV. Yet, if you're watching in the dark, or without direct reflections, its lack of dazzling whites won't be an issue.
LG G6
Ty Pendlebury/CNETLG G6 OLED: Not quite as good as the G5 in some respects, and certainly more expensive, but it is preferable to the older model if you want to watch TV in a lit room -- its antireflective layer is great. Read my review of the 2026 LG G6.
TCL QM8K: Last year's TCL was also top of CNET's list of the best TVs for the past few years and it's still a great television. It's available for a lot less than the current QM8L, and is almost as good, which makes it a bargain. Read my review of the TCL QM8K.
Samsung S95H OLED: I had big hopes for the Samsung S95H as it's able to show static artwork, which is a big no-no for most OLED TVs. The TV is still good, but its color isn't as accurate as its rival directly above. Read my review of the Samsung S95H.
Hisense U8Q: An excellent TV, the Hisense U8Q goes tit-for-tat against the TCL QM8K and it's also a lot brighter. Read my review of the Hisense U8QG.
Roku Pro Series TV has some of the best onboard sound I've ever heard
Ty Pendlebury/CNETRoku Pro Series: If you want a TV that's also a Roku, this is the best one yet, though third-party models may give you better picture quality. Read my full review of the Roku Pro Series TV.
LG C5: Like the Samsung S90F, this is an excellent OLED TV for watching TV or playing games. It's a fine TV, but the S90F is better. Read my review of the LG C5 TV.
CNET's David Katzmaier and Ty Pendlebury have been testing TVs since the turn of the century.
Sarah Tew/CNETIn every CNET TV review, I compare three or more similar TVs side by side in a dedicated, light-controlled test lab. With each review, I employ a rigorous, unbiased evaluation process honed over more than two decades of TV reviews. I test TVs with a combination of scientific measurements and real-world evaluations of TV, movies and gaming content.
To evaluate picture quality, I use an AVPro Connect 8x8 4K HDR splitter so each TV receives the same signal. I test the TVs using various lighting conditions, playing different media, including 4K HDR movies and console games, across a variety of test categories, from color to video processing to gaming to HDR.
To measure each TV, I use specialized equipment to grade according to light output and color. My hardware includes a Konica Minolta CS-2000 spectroradiometer and a Murideo Six-G 4K HDR signal generator. I use Portrait Displays CalMan Ultimate software to evaluate every TV I review according to its brightness, black levels and color.
The Konica Minolta CS-2000 spectroradiometer testing an LG OLED in CNET's lab.
David Katzmaier/CNETTo determine a television's color accuracy, I compare three results in every TV's Geek Box chart: Avg color error (primary and secondary colors), Avg grayscale error (10 measurements of gray from almost black to white) and Colormatch HDR error (over 20 HDR colors). With these three tests, I can compare almost 50 data points of how each TV's color output varies against its input. By finding the average of these values, I can then pick the one with the lowest overall value. In 2026, the Labs Award for Best Color Accuracy belongs to the LG G5 OLED.
Color accuracy of 2025 TVs
| Avg. Grayscale error | Avg Color error | ColorMatch HDR | Average (lower is better) |
| 1.66 | 1.8 | 1.63 | 1.70 |
| 2.02 | 1.26 | 2.2 | 1.83 |
| 2.03 | 1.93 | 2.65 | 2.20 |
| 1.14 | 3.65 | 1.9 | 2.23 |
| 2.9 | 3.14 | 3.81 | 3.28 |
| 2.21 | 2.24 | 5.78 | 3.41 |
| 3.07 | 2.23 | 6.33 | 3.88 |
| 7.15 | 2.22 | 3.28 | 4.22 |
| 4.50 | 3.67 | 5.26 | 4.48 |
| 5.42 | 7.23 | 3.36 | 5.34 |
| 1.06 | 1.08 | 17.01 | 6.38 |
| 4.78 | 2.35 | 15.15 | 7.43 |
| 3.51 | 1.68 | 17.38 | 7.52 |
My reviews also account for such things as features, design, smart TV performance, connectivity including HDMI inputs and gaming compatibility.
Check out How CNET Tests TVs for more details.
The Sony Bravia 8 II is a new flagship OLED.
David Katzmaier/CNETWith all of the TVs available today, and all of the technical terms and jargon associated with television technology, it can be tough to figure out what's important. Here's a quick guide to help cut through the confusion.
Picture quality: Broadly speaking, the type of display technology helps dictate how good a TV's picture quality is, but OLED is typically the best display technology, and this is followed by LCD (including QLED, and Mini LED). OLED tends to have the best picture quality because it doesn't need a backlight, and every pixel can be either on or off, leading to great black levels. In comparison, each LED in a backlight looks after multiple pixels at a time, so it isn't as precise -- it's not yet 1:1. Among midrange models, look for a feature including full-array local dimming, mini-LED and 120Hz refresh rate, which (unlike some other extras) do help improve the picture in my experience. Additionally, if a TV uses Quantum Dots, it often leads to better color performance, whether it's an OLED or an LCD.
Screen size: Bigger is better in my book. I recommend a size of at least 43 inches for a bedroom TV and at least 55 inches for a living room or main TV -- and 65 inches or larger is best. More so than any "feature," stepping up in TV screen size is the best use of your money. One of the most common post-TV-purchase complaints I've heard is from people who didn't go big enough. And I rarely hear people complain that their TV is too large. It's worth adding that while TVs can get really big indeed, 4K resolution is sufficient for even the biggest models, and CNET doesn't recommend any 8K TVs as they represent a poor comparative value.
Price: TVs range in price from $100 to more than $2,000. Smaller screens are cheaper, well-known brands are more expensive and spending more money can also get you better image quality. Most entry-level TVs have a good enough picture for most people, but TVs last a long time, so it might be worth spending more to get a better picture. It's also best to shop for a TV in the fall when prices are lower.
Sound quality: Every TV has some sort of built-in speaker, but in my twenty years of reviewing AV equipment the sound of modern TVs has been routinely terrible. While I do test the audio on each model, if you are serious about sound quality then buying a separate soundbar (from $100) or home theater system will instantly improve vital aspects such as speech and bass reproduction.
Smart TV: Among entry-level TVs the most important feature is what kind of smart TV system the TV uses, and while some are proprietary to each brand (Samsung and LG) some models do offer Roku and Google TV.
For more TV buying advice check out How to Buy a TV.
One important aspect of image quality I test is overall brightness using the CS-2000 spectroradiometer. Here's how brightness compares in nits across select TVs listed above. Read TVs Are Getting Uncomfortably Bright, and This is Why for more information on how the most recent models fared.
How much should I spend on a TV?
Prices vary widely by size and features, from less than $100 for basic 24-inch TVs to more than $2,000 for big OLED models. TVs last a long time, so we think it's worthwhile to spend a little extra beyond the bare minimum to get a bigger screen, better picture quality or better features. With that in mind, here are some ballpark prices that will get you a very good TV in 2026.
- 55-inch: $700
- 65-inch: $1,000
- 75-inch: $1,300
You could pay (much) more or less. The fact is that just about any TV will produce a picture decent enough to satisfy most viewers. Most complaints you read in user reviews aren't about picture quality. Instead, they're about ease of use, smart TV menus or sound (or a broken TV).
What size TV should I buy?
Which is better, OLED or LED?
In our reviews, OLED TVs, which use organic light-emitting diode technology, have always had better picture quality than LED TVs, which are essentially LCD TVs that use LED backlights. The main reason is that OLED TVs can produce a perfectly dark shade of black with no stray illumination or blooming, which leads to better contrast and pop. LED TVs can get brighter and usually cost less than OLED TVs.
What is the best smart TV system for streaming?
At CNET, our favorite is Roku for its simplicity, but different systems like Google TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung and LG have different strengths, particularly for voice commands. In any case, we don't consider the built-in smart TV system that important because you can always connect a streaming device to any TV.
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