Best TV 2024: The best affordable and premium sets

Our current top pick for 2024 remains the award-winning Panasonic MZ2000.

The biggest difference to its predecessor, the LZ2000, is the MZ2000’s MLA OLED panel. Created by LG Display and further customised by Panasonic, our reviewer found it offered a huge jump in brightness in its Standard mode preset, registering 1500 nits on a 5% window, and a mighty 1877 nits on a 10% patch in Dynamic mode. Alongside the LG G3 OLED, it’s one of the brightest OLEDs on the market.

We found that highlights burnt with intensity, images shine with punch and depth. Contrast is excellent, skin tones are naturally conveyed and reds and blues take on a rich, deep look. With support that covers all HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive, the picture performance makes the MZ2000 the jewel in Panasonic’s crown.

The MZ2000 is a good choice for brightly lit rooms as it has the brightness to dispel reflections or ambient light from causing distractions. The swivel design of the central design can also help evade annoying glare and reflections too.

My Home Screen remains easily accessible and customisable, with Freeview Play adding the UK catch-up apps along with big hitters in Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ and others. The Game mode has been updated with two modes to choose from in Game and True Game, the latter offers accurate colour performance much like Filmmaker mode does for film and TV. 

We measured input lag at 14.5ms, which is not as good as the LG G3 OLED or Samsung S95C OLED but is brisk enough for competitive gaming. HDMI 2.1 technologies such as VRR, ALLM, 4K/120Hz, but they’re only available on two HDMI inputs.

We found sound quality was equally top notch with the side- and upfiring speakers conveying a large presence in a living room. It remains light on bass, however, failing to give bass-heavy scenes the emphasis they require. Nevertheless, this is one of the best-sounding TVs on the market. If you find the price too dear on your wallet, the Panasonic MZ1500 is an excellent alternative.

The upcoming Panasonic Z95A will feature an even brighter MLA panel and a new interface, as Panasonic is ditching its My Home Screen for Fire TV. There are some potential pitfalls with that decision, but there’s no doubt that if you felt Panasonic’s weakest area was its smarts, the Z95A will remedy that.

Reviewer: Steve May
Full Review: Panasonic MZ2000

While there are still questions marks over whether 8K TVs will become a mainstream proposition, Samsung is still leading the push, and the QN900D is arguably its best flagship 8K TV ever.

Peak brightness has been raised with the Movie mode now hitting 2445 nits compared to the QN900C‘s 2096 nits. That high level of brightness, which is beyond what an OLED can produce, feeds into impressively bright and colourful HDR images. The lack of Dolby Vision, however, remains a disappointing omission.

Of course, there is a lot of native 8K content about, so the Samsung QN900D’s main task is to take 4K content and make it look better, and in that respect, it achieves its task. Our reviewer noticed a big jump in detail with upscaled 4K images, Samsung’s latest AI processor is able to bring out and refine the detail within the image without producing a soft or noisy image. It’s 4K content but looks better than anything a 4K TV can manage.

The excellent motion processing can now track fast-moving objects without introducing motion blur that often afflicts LCD LED TVs.

Input lag is 11ms, and VRR technology in HDMI VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro brings the latency down even further. With all four of its HDMI inputs supporting 4K 120Hz gaming, you won’t need to worry about which HDMI port to place your console or PC in.

The sound system tracks sounds accurately across the screen but like the QN900C, it doesn’t have enough bass to give soundtracks heft. It’s still capable of producing a wide soundstage with good levels of detail, but you should consider a soundbar to go with this TV.

Reviewer: John Archer
Full Review: Samsung QE75QN900D

We’re now onto the third-generation of Samsung’s QD-OLED screen and the S95D appears to have hit its stride.

The first and second-gen QD-OLEDs from Samsung were enjoyable, though we found they had some flaws. Those issues appear to have been resolved by the S95D. It is the brighest OLED TV we’ve reviewed, producing 1798 nits on a 10% window, beating the likes of the Panasonic MZ2000 and LG G3 OLED

It’s a TV that offers strong sharpness and detailing, and according to our reviewer, produces incredibly rich colours with contrast that brings out the detail in both dark and light areas of the image. We did notice some instability in maintaining brightness in its Standard mode, which is rectified by switching to its Movie mode. Our reviewer also felt that the anti-glare screen technology was impressively implemented on this TV, though it does mean that dark areas do take on a slightly grey appearance.

The Tizen interface has been enhancec with the introduction of new sections and the ability to create multiple profiles to feed recommendations to. Gaming-wise we measured input response of the game mode at 9.8ms, and all four of the HDMI 2.1 inputs support 4K 120Hz through the One Connect box and with 144Hz supported for PCs.

The sound system supports Dolby Atmos, and like with Samsung;s other OTS speaker systems, it’s very good at placing effects on and around the screen with accuracy. However, while it can produce a wide soundstage, it can’t push that sound forward into a room, and volume is a little limited in terms of how loud it can do. The Sony A95L is better in terms of its sound, and offers an impressive all-round performance, though in terms of overall brightness the S95D beats it.

Reviewer: John Archer
Full Review: Samsung S95D OLED

2024 sees Samsung placing its OLED and LCD TVs on more equal footing, and though the S95D has come on in strides in terms of its brightness output, the QN95D still offers the brightest HDR performance.

The number of local dimming zones remains at 1344 from the QN95C, but what has the biggest impact of the QN95D’s picture performance is the presence of the upgraded Neo Quantum 4 Gen 2 processor. It’s four times faster than the previous model to deliver superior local dimming controls and improved upscaling with sub-4K sources.

The result is a dazzling sense of brightness with HDR content, reproducing reds, greens, and blues with a notable richness, as well as delivering colours with subtlety and naturalness. This TV can hit over 770 nits on a full-screen window, twice as much as the S95D OLED is capable of, making it a better choice for those who watch HDR programmes during the day.

It’s a sharp and detailed picture too, with the new processor doing a fantastic job of upscaling lower quality content to look crisp and clean.

Our reviewer found the latest Tizen smart system to be a decent improvement over what came before, especially in terms of prioritising content you’d want to watch. Support for multiple profiles have been added, and Tizen duly features pretty much every streaming app you’d ever need.

We measured input lag at 9.8ms, there’s VRR support in FreeSync Premium Pro as well as (unofficial) Nvidia G-Sync support for PC titles. With variable refresh rate and auto low latency supported across all the TV’s HDMI inputs, you can plug a console or PC into any of the HDMI ports.

The QN95D’s audio performance offers an excellent sense of detail and clarity, with the Object Tracking Sound (OTS) system ably casting sounds around the screen. It also performs a decent job at casting sounds away from the sides of the screen, though it remains limited in terms of pushing audio forwards from the TV, as well as being diminished in terms of volume and bass output. You’d likely want a soundbar to go with this TV.

Reviewer: John Archer
Full Review: Samsung QE65QN95D

Roku’s smart TVs have enjoyed much success in the US, and for the past few years they’ve been teaming up with manufacturers such as Hisense and TCL to bring some of that magic to the UK. In the TCL 55RC630K Roku TV, they’ve served up their best model to date, winning our best affordable TV award.

This set is only available in the UK, and in our view, it’s good as you can get for a budget TV at its price. The design is sensible and easy to assemble, as well as being tall enough to slip a soundbar beneath its frame should you want to, something that wasn’t as easy to do with the Toshiba UK4D.

The Roku smart interface places an emphasis on simplicity rather than flash, but it works because of its accessibility and the range of features it supports. A wide range of voice assistants are supported, though through an external device and not natively, and there’s AirPlay 2 and Apple HomeKit, which aren’t features often supported by cheaper TVs.

There’s a massive amount of apps with all the big names such as Disney+ and Netflix, along with the UK catch-up apps through Freeview Play. The interface itself is fast to scroll through and easy to navigate, better than the interfaces we used on the Panasonic LX800 and Samsung BU8000. The Roku mobile app is even better, and also features a few more advanced picture settings too.

The TCL 55RC630K isn’t built for high-end gaming with only ALLM supported for putting the TV into its game mode mode. We measured latency at 11.5ms, which is quick for any telly.

Boasting a QLED screen, the TCL 55RC630K puts in a decent HDR performance for its price. We measured peak brightness at 386 nits on a 10% window, which isn’t enough to really give a great sense of what HDR can do, but the QLED screen does present good-looking colours and accomplished looking skin-tones with HDR content.

Contrast isn’t as strong as what you can get if you spend more, but there is support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision to assist. However, we did find that both HDR formats could benefit from being a little more precision and impact with HDR content. Upscaling is an improvement over the past TCL Roku model with more colour and vibrancy to images, as well as a better sense of sharpness and clarity. The TCL Roku won’t make content look better than it is, but for its price point it’s a competent performance. 

The audio system is more than competent. Bass is surprisingly punchy, there’s fine levels of detail and clarity to what we watch, and dialogue is always clear in tone. There’s also a Dialogue Enhancer to help boost what people are saying, and we found it worked effectively.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: TCL 55RC630K Roku TV

While projectors can offer a big screen experience in the home, they can’t do HDR as well as big-screen TVs, or handle bright living room conditions. And currently, you can get the 98-inch TV Q80C for less than £5000 / $5000, which we’d consider to be a good price for a screen of this size.

At a whopping 98-inches, this is TV will take plenty of space in any home, and because of its size, it’s a screen that feels more like a cinema than a TV. It’s surpisingly slim for a big screen featuring just 120 dimming zones to control brightness and black levels. It’s not the number of dimming zones but what you do with it that’s most important.

And this big-screen Q80C can produce bright and colourful images, our reviewer spotting only a little backlight clouding or blooming. With the size of this screen, it needs an advanced processor to process HD and SD images, and we felt the upscaling was very good, doing an effective job of upscaling HD images. SD images can look a little stretched, but we’d say you shouldn’t be watching low-res content on a screen of this size.

Tizen is not the easiest to navigate in terms of its settings, but features all the streaming apps you could want. There are four HDMI 2.1 inputs on this model, and all can handle 4K/120Hz sources. We measured input lag at 10.7ms which should ensure a snappy performance even before VRR support comes into play.

Sound quality is fine with good detail and effects accurately placed around the screen. The main issue is that this screen doesn’t get particularly loud or generate the kind of power and scale a screen of this size should command. Bass levels are decent but we’d recommend getting a soundbar for this screen.

There is competition from TCL with its 98-inch P745K and C805K TVs, and they’re available for less money than this Samsung TV.

Reviewer: John Archer
Full Review: Samsung QE98Q80C