The 3 Best Budget TVs - Summer 2024 Reviews

The best budget TV we've tested is the Hisense U6/U6K, which delivers surprisingly decent performance for the price. It looks amazing in a dark room thanks to its excellent contrast ratio, and it has a full-array local dimming feature to improve the picture quality in dark scenes, although there's blooming around bright objects. If you want to use it in a bright room, it has good peak brightness in SDR with decent reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue even if you have some lights around. It has okay HDR peak brightness, so some highlights stand out, but brighter highlights don't pop the way they should. It's also a very accurate TV, so content looks like the creator intended. Unfortunately, its image processing isn't great. Its sharpness processing when upscaling is decent, but its low-quality content smoothing is poor, with visible digital artifacts in low-bitrate content. Like many TVs in this price range, the viewing angle is inadequate, so it's best when viewed directly from the center of the screen since the image degrades when you watch it from the sides.

Still, this TV has plenty of features. It supports Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, so you can take full advantage of HDR formats. It can passthrough advanced Dolby audio formats through eARC and basic DTS 5.1 through ARC. Unfortunately, it can't passthrough advanced DTS audio formats, so it's not a great option if you're into physical media. It has superb low input lag and variable refresh rate (VRR) support for a responsive, nearly tear-free gaming experience. However, it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, meaning you can't take full advantage of current-gen gaming consoles. Finally, it runs the Google TV smart interface, which has a great selection of streaming channels, including many free streaming services.

The 2024 Hisense U6N is now available. It's supposed to have an improved local dimming feature for better contrast and an increase in brightness, but it's also a lot more expensive at first. Unless you need those incremental upgrades, you're better off getting the cheaper U6K while it's still available.

What if you want a budget TV and are willing to invest slightly more money to get something truly impressive? You can get the Hisense U7N, the best premium budget TV we've tested. It's an upgrade over the Hisense U6/U6K in every way. It's a very bright TV with amazing reflection handling, so it overcomes glare in a bright room. It's also a great option if you want something that impresses in a dark room due to its excellent contrast that delivers deep blacks. However, like the U6K, there's noticeable blooming around bright highlights when they're against a dark background. Still, highlights in HDR content really stand out and colors are vibrant due to the TV's excellent HDR brightness and wide color gamut, delivering an impactful HDR experience. It supports HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision, so every major HDR format is covered. It's also easy to find your favorite content due to the Google TV interface, which is fast and user-friendly. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is very narrow, so it's not the best choice for watching movies or shows with a big group of friends.

Despite its price, the TV is packed with gaming features. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two of its ports, both capable of up to 4k @ 144Hz. It also has VRR support and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), so you're fully covered if you own either an Xbox Series X|S or a PS5. On top of that, its incredibly low input lag means it delivers a responsive gaming experience, and its excellent response time delivers fast motion with minimal blur behind it. If you're looking to save some money and can find it in stock, you could opt for last year's very similar Hisense U7K instead. It's not as bright as the U7N, but it's still bright enough for use in most well-lit rooms.

The Roku Select Series is the best cheap TV we've tested if you want something affordable that gets the job done. It isn't as good as the Hisense U6/U6K in a dark room due to its lack of local dimming, although its contrast and black uniformity are certainly good enough for a pleasant dark room viewing experience. It doesn't get very bright in HDR, so highlights don't stand out, but it has good SDR brightness with decent reflection handling, so it can handle a few lights in a moderately lit room. The TV is at its best when watching high-quality 4k content, as its image processing is disappointing overall. It's available in a wide variety of sizes, although its 24- and 32-inch models have a 720p resolution, and its 40-inch model is limited to 1080p. The bigger sizes are all 4k TVs.

It comes with the great Roku TV smart platform, which is extremely fast, simple, and easy to use. It's a bit light on features as it doesn't have any motion smoothing, and it can only remove 24p judder from external 24Hz devices, like DVD and Blu-ray players. It doesn't have VRR support, although it has a great response time and very low input lag for responsive inputs with minimal blur behind fast movements on screen. It has a good remote with an integrated microphone for voice commands, or you can also give commands through the Roku companion app on your phone. You can also plug headphones into the remote, a great feature at this price point. Overall, the TV is decent and provides a good user experience, especially at this price. Still, if you're a Costco member, you can get the slightly better Hisense A65K for a similar price.