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Reviewed.com / Timothy Renzi
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Credit:
Reviewed.com / Timothy Renzi
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
Learn more about our product testing
The Samsung S90C delivers an incredible QD-OLED experience (and a wealth of gaming features) for less than top-tier TVs. Read More
The Sony A95L doesn’t come cheap, but it’s got the best picture quality money can buy, plus an exhaustive list of extra features. Read More
The Hisense U8K is a bright, colorful, competitively priced TV overflowing with value. Read More
With its incredible picture and extensive list of features, the Samsung QN90C is one of the best-performing mini-LED TVs you can buy. Read More
The Hisense U6K is the most affordable mini-LED TV on the market and a great fit for those who want a good-looking TV for daytime viewing. Read More
If you spend more time gaming than you do channel surfing, you've probably got slightly different priorities when buying a new TV. The models that are great for movies may not be optimized for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X. You want great image quality, but also the best gaming features you can find.
That’s why we’ve spent countless hours testing hundreds of TVs to help you pick the right one. The best gaming TV you can buy right now is the Samsung S90C (available at Amazon) , thanks to its full suite of HDMI 2.1 inputs, its excellent picture quality, and the inclusion of Samsung Gaming Hub.
If that's too pricey, though, we've got plenty of other suggestions. Whatever your budget, there's a great gaming TV for you.
The Samsung S90C combines the unbelievable performance of a QD-OLED with an array of exciting gaming features.
The A95L offers an incredible experience.
The Hisense U8K offers great performance for a price most people can justify.
The Samsung QN90C is one of the brightest LED TVs we’ve reviewed this year.
Thanks to mini-LED display technology, the Hisense U6K delivers excellent performance for a budget TV.
Incredible contrast
Dazzling color
Fantastic gaming support
Sluggish, cluttered software
Raised black levels in ambient light
No Dolby Vision support
Incredible contrast
Vivid, accurate color
All the gaming features you’ll need
So-so smart platform
Not as bright as competitive OLEDs
Excellent contrast and out-of-the-box accuracy
A gaming powerhouse
Attractive wall-mounted design
Lackluster tabletop configuration
Lags behind QD-OLED in some ways
So-so streaming platform
Incredible contrast
Vivid, accurate color
All the gaming features you’ll need
So-so smart platform
Not as bright as competitive OLEDs
Excellent color and contrast
Elegant design
Not as bright as other OLEDs
Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
Spectacular for HDR
A terrific gaming TV
Posh design
Difficult-to-use software
Less refined SDR year over year
No Dolby Vision
Bright and Colorful
Exceptional local dimming
Great for gamers
Design lacks polish
Picture quality drops off-axis
Bright picture
Impressive backlight control
Great gaming features for the price
HDR content often looks washed out
Minor motion-related color fringing
Our lab is outfitted with much of the same equipment you would find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates televisions.
Reviewed has been testing TVs for over a decade. Our Home Theater expert, Michael Desjardin, has been at Reviewed since 2014. A film enthusiast and TV expert, he takes picture quality seriously, but also understands that not every TV is a good fit for everyone.
John Higgins is Reviewed's A/V & Electronics Senior Editor. He has been reviewing, measuring, and calibrating TVs for years and is an ISF Level III-certified calibrator.
We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue, and so on.
At our Cambridge, Massachusetts laboratory, we test TVs with much of the same equipment factories use to manufacture and calibrate them.
Our hardware includes a SpectralCal C-6 HDR2000 colorimeter, a Konica Minolta CS-200 tristimulus color meter and a LS-100 luminance meter. We have a Leo Bodnar input lag tester, and a Murideo Seven 8K signal generator for testing 8K TV features.
For software, we use Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate color calibration software. It’s the industry standard for display measurement and screen calibration.
Over many years, we’ve developed a testing strategy that collects enough esoteric data to satisfy curious video engineers, while also focusing on what matters to the average viewer. We measure factors like brightness, black levels, and color, weighing our scores based on the order that the human eye processes information like brightness and color.
We also just spend time using the TV like normal, looking for any unexpected difficulties or little frustrations.
There are plenty of factors involved in buying a TV, and image quality is a big one. However, if you specifically want to play games, you have a few extra factors to consider. There are plenty of extra features available focused on making a smooth gaming experience.
That includes minimizing the lag between pressing a button and seeing the result onscreen. It also includes helping the frame rate of the game and the refresh rate of the television match each other for smooth visuals. Here are some terms and features to know.
HDMI 2.1 is the latest version of the HDMI interface, featuring both improved ports and cables. This new standard is a requirement for 4K gaming at 120Hz, or even 8K gaming at 60Hz.
Some TVs may include features that are standard for HDMI 2.1—like Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, but won’t include HDMI 2.1 ports themselves. That means you get some neat enhancements, but you won’t get 4K/120Hz gaming.
TVs scan and refresh their images many times every second. The number of times, measured in Hertz (Hz), is the refresh rate. The current standards are 60Hz, 120Hz, or 144Hz. The more often the TV updates its picture, the smoother and more realistic motion will appear.
TVs with a native refresh rate of 120Hz and above are better equipped to deliver a smooth video game experience. However, you can still get a lot out of 60Hz TVs, especially if you’re on a budget.
Finally, refresh rate (Hz) is not the same as the fps, or frames per second, of what you’re watching—but they are related. A TV with a 4K at 60Hz function can often play lower-resolution, 1080p (full-HD) content at 120 frames per second.
Variable Refresh Rate, or “VRR,” is a software feature that helps a TV adjust its refresh rate to match the frame rate of a game. This helps prevent visual problems like screen tearing or artifacting. Some forms of VRR carry names, like Nvidia’s G-Sync and AMD’s FreeSync.
Auto Low Latency Mode, or “ALLM,” is a feature that allows a TV to automatically switch into its designated gaming mode when you start a game. It adjusts the settings to minimize input lag and low latency without you having to make those adjustments manually.
ALLM is part of the HDMI 2.1 standard. If you see an HDMI 2.1 port, you know you’ve got ALLM. However, some TVs include ALLM even without having the latest HDMI technology.
Input lag is the time between the player making a physical input and seeing the result onscreen. Too much input lag can be a big problem in games that require split-second reflexes, and it's even worse if you're playing online. Thankfully, input lag is minimal on most modern TVs.
Your TV may have features that you can enable to reduce its input lag. Here are some things to consider.
1. Turn on Game Mode. Most TVs have a "Game Mode" (or some similar) that enables faster response times. This may be an option under "Video Mode," a preset picture setting, or even a standalone setting that you can toggle on or off. It usually turns off reduction features and motion-smoothing modes, and pumps up the brightness and color saturation. TVs that offer Auto Low Latency Mode will automatically enable Game Mode when playing a video game.
2. Turn off reduction features. Most TVs on the market today come with at least a few reduction settings. They may be hidden deep in sub-menus and tricky to find, but it’s worth seeking them out.
These settings have many names. You may see: Noise Reduction, Mosquito Reduction, NR Reduction, and MPEG Reduction. Whatever they may be called, they always increase input lag.
If a certain feature sounds enticing, at least try to play the game without it first. You can always turn it on later, but you may notice that it affects response when you do.
3. Turn off motion enhancements. Nearly every TV that we've tested for input lag goes from excellent (sub-30ms input lag) to horrible (over 80ms input lag) just by turning motion smoothing on. Whatever else there is to say about it, it’s terrible for gaming.
Michael Desjardin graduated from Emerson College after having studied media production and screenwriting. He specializes in tech for Reviewed, but also loves film criticism, weird ambient music, cooking, and food in general.
John is Reviewed's Managing Editor of Tech. He is an ISF Level III-certified calibrator with bylines at ProjectorCentral, Wirecutter, IGN, Home Theater Review, T3, Sound & Vision, and Home Theater Magazine. When away from the Reviewed office, he is a sound editor for film, a musician, and loves to play games with his son.
Michael Garrett Steele has been writing and editing professionally since 2013, and has been a part of Reviewed since 2020. An MFA in music composition, Garrett has lent audio expertise to everyone from Independence Community College to Bethesda Softworks, informing reviews of audio equipment and services. Garrett also covers tech, drawing on experience working everywhere from IT helpdesks to enterprise architecture sales. Steele has also become a go-to reviewer for minor plumbing fixtures since covering bidets for Reviewed in early 2020.
Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.
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