Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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
With an exquisite picture and exhaustive features, the LG C3 OLED is an incredible TV for movies, gaming, and everything in between. 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 Samsung S90C delivers an incredible QD-OLED experience (and a wealth of gaming features) for less than top-tier TVs. Read More
The Sony A95K is not only the best OLED we’ve ever tested, it’s also the best TV, period. Its top-of-the-line picture quality outshines a handful of minor flaws. Read More
The Samsung S95C improves on a winning formula, offering an elevated OLED experience with the features to back it up. Read More
OLED TVs are some of the best-looking TVs around. OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) is a panel technology that creates stunning contrast, incredible color, and ultra-slim profiles. The results are dramatic, and OLED TVs have topped our “Best TV” lists for several years.
For the best blend of performance and value, we recommend the LG C3 (available at LG) . This LG is not only one of the best OLED TVs of 2023, it's our current pick for the best all-around TV.
Since almost every OLED TV looks amazing, the big differentiators are features and price. All of the OLEDs here are glorious in their own right, proving themselves in our strenuous laboratory tests.
The LG C3 combines the unbelievable performance of an OLED with an array of exciting features.
The A95L offers an incredible experience.
The Samsung S90C combines the unbelievable performance of a QD-OLED with an array of exciting gaming features.
World-class picture quality
Superb design
Fast, flexible software
Gaming support so-so
Minor color fringing
Incredible contrast
Dazzling color
Fantastic gaming support
Sluggish, cluttered software
Raised black levels in ambient light
No Dolby Vision support
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
QD-OLED is a game changer
Excellent gaming TV
Superb design
No Dolby Vision
Might need to be calibrated
Minor color artifacts
Excellent color and contrast
Elegant design
Not as bright as other OLEDs
Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
We're beyond serious about TV testing. Our Cambridge, Massachusetts laboratory features much of the same equipment you'd find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates television.
Our hardware includes a Konica Minolta CS-200 tristimulus color meter, a Portrait Displays C6 HDR2000 colorimeter, an LS-100 luminance meter, a Leo Bodnar input lag tester, a Murideo Seven 8K signal generator, and more Blu-rays than we can keep track of.
Our software includes Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate color calibration software. It’s the industry standard in taking display measurements and calibrating screens to standard specifications.
Our lab is outfitted with much of the same equipment you would find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates televisions.
Our testing process is similarly in-depth, and we’ve honed it over many years. We collect data that’s niche enough to satisfy curious video engineers, while also focusing on what’s important for the average person’s viewing experience.
We measure peak brightness, black level, and the hue and saturation for primary and secondary digital colors. We consider the accuracy of the TV's electro-optical transfer function—we go deep into a TV’s performance to make sure we know what we’re recommending
We weigh our tests based on how the human eye prioritizes vision. Humans notice brightness before colorimetry, for instance, so we give brightness more weight than color in testing.
We also set the testing equipment aside and spend a lot of time just watching and using each TV. We want to understand the at-home experience of finding your favorite streaming service. We want to see if it’s easy to connect a Blu-ray player and watch movies, or to use the smart features. We examine the TV's ports, remote, and on-set buttons—anything and everything that might be relevant.
Trying to figure out what you’re paying for is challenging when it comes to TVs. A TV’s specs aren’t all that matters, but they do make a huge difference. Here’s some key jargon to help you shop:
4K resolution—specifically, 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, is the current standard resolution for most TVs. UHD means Ultra High Definition, a collection of picture improvements that includes 4K resolution. It also includes features like Wide Color Gamut, which can display many more shades than HD TVs.
Like UHD, High Dynamic Range (or HDR) refers to both a type of TV and a type of content that expands on the typical range of brightness (luminance) and color that a TV will produce.
HDR TVs are usually a bit more expensive, but can have many times the brightness and 30% more color production than non-HDR TVs. Current top HDR formats include HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision. Some TVs support one or two of those formats, while others can play all three.
These numbers refer to the refresh rate, the number of times in one second that the TV image refreshes. The number of refreshes per second is measured is called Hz (hertz).
Currently, most TVs come in 60 or 120Hz. That means they scan and refresh the TV picture either 60 or 120 times in a single second. A higher refresh rate is always better, but not always necessary.
The term "smart TV" has evolved a lot, but it really just means that the TV connects to the internet. Most smart TVs use that connectivity for streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video directly on your TV. Some smart TVs have browsers, calendars, or even Roku or Android functions. All smart TVs have ethernet or WiFi built-in.
While OLED TVs have many upsides, their major downside is concern over "burn-in" or "image retention,". The two are related. Image retention refers to any image that "sticks" on a screen, even when the picture changes. It usually appears as a faint ghost, and typically fades after a moment or two.
Burn-in is like image retention, but lasts much longer. You may even see the burned-in image when playing other content. Both concerns have surfaced about OLED TVs since the tech first appeared. But the truth is, there's not much to worry about.
Burn-in is typically caused by leaving a static image, like a paused movie, on a screen for a long period of time. It used to be a more pressing problem, but it takes some extreme circumstances for modern TVs to experience image retention and burn-in.
For instance, our lab tests indicated that long-term OLED burn-in was only a risk if a static image was left on the screen for well over 20 hours. Meanwhile, most minor image retention issues seemed to go away with time.
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.
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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