4 of the best TVs, according to home theater designers and electronics reviewers


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February is packed with sports action — like the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl — and all that appointment viewing may also have us eyeing television upgrades.  Set makers such as Sony, Samsung and LG are running a race of their own: Who can build the biggest screen with the most dazzling, high-resolution picture and the thinnest frame?  With so many choices on the market today, we asked a home theater consultant and delved into professional reviews to find some of the best smart TVs you can buy now — at prices starting at $580.

Great for a very large room

Sony X95J 85″ TV: BRAVIA XR Full Array LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV with Dolby Vision HDR and Alexa Compatibility

$1,798 for a 65″ – $3,798 for an 85″

Tim Duffy, who designs and outfits home theaters and other high-end home entertainment systems for clients in Southern California, has this 85” Sony in his living room, and praises Sony’s overall fit, finish and build. “The build quality is the best,” he says. “They seem to just have very, very few problems.”

The Bravia offers Dolby’s proprietary technologies for surround sound (Dolby Atmos) and picture enhancement (Dolby Vision HDR). It also works with the “big three” in voice control — Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant — for anyone wanting to give the remote a rest. For cord cutters, there is a NextGenTV tuner built in to capture high-definition digital video and audio.

If you want an OLED TV

LG OLED C1 Series 65″ Alexa Built-in 4k Smart TV

$1,796.99

Duffy praises the image quality of LG’s organic light emitting diode (OLED) televisions — “organic” because the eight million, individually self-lighting pixels that comprise the screen are made of carbon. And he’s not alone. Three of Consumer Reports’ top 5 TVs for 2021-2022 are LG OLEDs, and Wirecutter has named the C1 LG OLED C1 Series 65” Alexa Built-in 4k Smart TV ($1,796 from Amazon) the overall best OLED TV.

LG’s large screen OLED line leans into home TV viewing as a personal movie theater experience, with Dolby surround sound and image enhancing technology built in, and a “filmmaker mode” that (temporarily) switches off some picture-smoothing features that can make movies look less natural.

Budget pick

Hisense 55″ Class U7G Series Quantum 4K ULED Android TV

$599.99

This Google-friendly TV was Wirecutter’s pick for the best 4K LCD for the money, with the site lauding its “great image quality, superb gaming features, and the Android TV interface,” while noting it has “a narrower viewing angle and fewer screen sizes than some other TVs.”

Hisense’s U7G series TVs boast the highest available image refresh rate, at 120 Hz (meaning 120 individual images per second) to reduce blur and freezing — a feature usually reserved for more expensive televisions. The Google-made Android TV interface uses Google Assistant for voice commands but also supports Alexa, and can play content beamed from thousands of phone apps — Android or Apple — that have Google Cast or Chromecast enabled.

Best flat screen if you want beautiful home design

SAMSUNG 65-Inch Class Frame Series – 4K Quantum HDR Smart TV with Alexa Built-in

$1,497.99

The kitchen television in Duffy’s house is a 65-inch Samsung picture frame model that he loves for the same reason his clients do: It looks like part of the home’s design, and not like an occupying appliance. “Architectural” is how Duffy describes it. “I would put them anywhere in my house where they’re going on a bare wall,” he says, adding that of the 11 sets a new client of his is having installed throughout his house, eight will be Samsung picture frame sets.

A wall-mountable, customizable frame with differently colored and textured pieces is included to help match the television to its decor. And when it’s off, the Frame’s screen-saving “Art Mode” lets you display selected artworks, or photographs of your own on the TV’s vivid 4K canvas.

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