Best 7 TVs I've Tested in 2025

If you want the best TV you can buy in 2025, 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 good this TV is at banishing reflections, which makes it well-suited to 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 around 30 percent 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.

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 -- and I verified this through 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 the company's own C5, and it's a lot better for gaming, too. For the right person, the extra $600 or so for the G5 over the C5 is well worth it.

With its high brightness the G5 is also great for use in a lit room, though it's second to the excellent Samsung S95F, 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.

The C4 may be a 2024 TV, but it is the best TV you can buy right now for number of reasons: namely, it has better picture quality than any LCD TV on this list, including the TCL QM8, and it's currently selling for the same price as a mid-range LCD TV. As I found in my measurements, the C4 has perfect black levels, unbeatable contrast and well-saturated colors. In my comparison tests, its overall brightness isn't quite as impressive as 2025 OLEDs like the C5 and G5, but it's still an incredible performer in all types of room lighting.

The C4 is well-suited to almost any kind of content. For example, its fast pixel response times and high saturation make it great for watching sports, as well as making it a superb gaming TV.

The C4 demonstrates why it's often better to buy last year's version of a TV. It's very similar to the new C5 and about a grand cheaper in the 65-inch size.

As an OLED, the C4 is still more expensive than the cheaper TVs here, so the only reason you wouldn't buy this TV is if you wanted a better "bang for buck." The TCL QM8 or even the Roku Pro Series is a better value.

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 boasts 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.

As the brightest TV I've ever tested, the TCL QM9K is the winner of the inaugural 2025 Lab Test Award for Brightest TV Screen. It had a maximum brightness of 4,520 nits, which is around 500 nits brighter than its nearest competitor, the Hisense U8QG. This TV's high brightness is an asset whether you're watching a movie in a well-lit room or playing the latest AAA game. The TV still costs less than flagship OLED models like the LG G5 and Sony Bravia 8 II. This TV also offers better gaming response times than most high-end models.

If you tend toward gaming almost exclusively, the QM9K is a good match with its high brightness and zippy response. Alternatively, if you want the best picture for the same money, you could get the LG G5 or, for even less money, the Hisense U8Q or TCL QM8K.

TCL has topped CNET's list of the best TVs for the past few years, and the QM8K improves in a few key ways. In my side-by-side comparison tests with both the LG C5 and the Hisense U8K, the TCL stood out with excellent color and OLED-like black levels. The key to the TC's picture-quality performance is mini-LED tech and its new Halo Control System, which is designed to reduce light bleed in dark scenes. It works, though it does mean the screen is a little less bright than the previous QM851.

The TV also has a sleek design with a center-mount stand and a spiffy remote control. The operating system is Google TV, which I don't like as much as Roku TV, but it's still a solid smart TV system.

Apart from a slightly slower gaming response time -- measured at about 1ms slower than most and 4ms slower than the best -- the main downside of the TCL QM8K is that it's only available in large sizes (65 inches and up). If you're looking for a TV for a smaller space, I recommend the similarly-performing Hisense U8QG instead.

When it comes to the best TVs for the money, it's the TVs priced under a grand typically include the features you want without paying too much. The TCL QM6K started at a grand and is now even cheaper (around $650) 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 boasts compatibility with all the HDR formats -- including both 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.