Hisense introduced RGB mini-LED to the world in 2025, and while I was impressed by the 116UX (the first RGB mini-LED model) in many ways, I anticipated it would be a high-end tech for some time, sitting at a premium price and size that kept it from competing with the best TVs.

I didn’t anticipate how quickly the new tech would come to more mid-range options, and how many brands would take on RGB (check out our guide here). As luck would have it, a budget RGB model has landed in TechRadar’s testing lab: the 65-inch Hisense UR8.

I’ve also been testing the Samsung QN80H, which uses standard mini-LED, and the timing means I can put the new school RGB against the traditional mini-LED tech.

You’re probably wondering why I’m testing these two side-by-side: surely the new tech is significantly pricier? Surprisingly no: in fact, it’s nearly identical. A 65-inch Samsung QN80F costs $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,199 at the time of writing, while a 65-inch Hisense UR8 costs $1,799 / AU$2,395 (it’s yet to appear at UK retailers). So, can the new tech surpass the traditional?

A quick note on the photos below: the UR8 appears to have a red tint. This is the result of its matte screen interacting with my camera. In reality, there is no hint of this red tint.

Also, we obviously had different sizes of the TVs in, and that can make a difference to the backlights involved. It's what Hisense and Samsung sent us, respectively, so bear this in mind during the comparison — but there's plenty worth talking about by putting them side by side anyway.

Colors

One of RGB mini-LED’s primary sales pitches is how vibrant and bold its colors are and from my experiences so far, its color reproduction is impressive. Samsung on the other hand is known for its own dynamic color reproduction, in both its OLEDs and mini-LEDs.

For this test, I put both TVs in their default HDR Cinema modes and starting with Wicked, I was surprised by what I saw. While the UR8 did deliver some natural colors that appeared accurate (more on that at the end), the QN80H’s colors were much more vibrant.

The pink flowers of a tree and the blue decoration on the walls had much more pop on the QN80H. The UR8’s colors had some nice punch, but fell a little short compared to the QN80H.

There were some instances where the QN80H’s color brightness made things look a little artificial and this is again where the UR8 triumphed, showing some nice richness without going too far. But again, that color pop I was anticipating from the UR8’s RGB tech wasn't really there.

Switching to La La Land, the same was true again. At the Spring party, Mia’s yellow dress was much more vibrant on the QN80H, dazzling on screen. The same dress looked natural on the UR8 but didn’t have that wow factor.

Switching the UR8 to Standard, its colors suddenly had more pop, but looked a bit too artificial for my taste, so I reverted back to Cinema.

This is not to say the UR8’s colors looked bad during testing, but they didn’t have that saturation I expected from an RGB TV, even in scenes where they should have it.

Contrast and backlight control

Switching both TVs to their Filmmaker Modes, I put on The Batman, which has always served as a challenge for some TVs, and while the best OLED TVs can generally handle its low brightness comfortably, mini-LEDs sometimes struggle.

The QN80H demonstrated higher perceived contrast, with deeper dark tones and punchier highlights. Flashbulbs from cameras and lamps on walls in Mayor Mitchell’s house balanced well with shaded walls and corners to create dynamic contrast.

The UR8 still showed good contrast between dark and light tones as well as solid shadow detail, but dark areas took on a more washed-out, gray look. This was evident in the scenes in the Batcave and when Batman stands on the subway platform, where shadowed areas on screen looked too bright.

There was however a way to improve this. In the UR8’s picture settings, I dropped its brightness from the default 50 to 49, and it made a huge difference: the brightness control had been one of the more aggressive I’d seen.

After the tweak, the UR8 had much deeper black tones and stronger contrast. In the interest of fairness, I tried to tweak the QN80H’s settings, but its brightness control was much more subtle. Lowering it took away the impact from the highlights so I left it as is.

A note on the above photos: the QN80H's clouding was not this bad in-person, but this does illustrate the UR8's better backlight control (more on the in a second).

The same experiment with a brighter but still contrast-y movie in Dark City had mixed results. Dropping the UR8 down to 49 brightness resulted in deep blacks, but at the expense of detail.

As John speaks to the desk clerk in the opening scenes, the texture in his black hair was difficult to see, but less of an issue on the QN80H. Both TVs showed some black crush, but the UR8’s was slightly more noticeable. The default brightness showed nice contrast and better shadow detail, but again at a sacrifice to the dark tones.

But one thing that was apparent in my dark room testing was the UR8 had better backlight control and better viewing angles. Unless viewed head-on, the QN80H showed a clouding effect on dark backgrounds where the backlight bled through. The UR8 showed no signs of this and demonstrated no signs of clouding or blooming.

This was also evident in black and white content. Watching Sunset Boulevard, the QN80H showed backlight bleed on the edges of the screen. The UR8 did have a subtle brown tone over some blacks, whites and grays, but it was better than the QN80H.

So when it comes to reducing backlight bleed and wider viewing angles, the RGB panel gets us closer to the excellent performance of OLED in these areas — but not necessarily closer when it comes to contrast overall.

Brightness

Measuring the UR8’s peak HDR brightness in a 10% window, it clocked in at 2,087 nits in Filmmaker Mode and 2,394 nits in Standard. The QN80H registered 1,189 nits in Filmmaker and 1,204 nits in Standard.

Fullscreen HDR numbers are similar between the two, with the UR8 clocking in at 771 nits and 767 nits in Filmmaker and Standard respectively, while the QN80H hit 603 nits and 672 nits in Filmmaker and Standard respectively.

How does the brightness look in practice? That’s where things get interesting. Watching brighter, more colorful scenes, I found that the QN80F seemed to have more impactful highlights. In the end of the ‘Wizard & I’ scene from Wicked, as Elphaba stands over a white cliff, the whites definitely seemed brighter on the QN80H.

In some shots from Spears & Munsil demo footage, brightness seemed to trade off from shot to shot. In the opening snow scenes, whites looked vibrant on both TVs. In a later shot of a lit-up ferris wheel, it seemed brighter on the QN80H. A shot of a white lizard in a darkened studio was far brighter on the UR8 than the QN80H.

This was surprising, considering just how much of a leap there was in measured peak brightness between the two. One shot from Dark City, where John is in the Automat, the overhead lights appeared brighter on the UR8, but it wasn’t as substantial as I’d expected.

One area where the UR8 did succeed was reflection handling, but this was down to its anti-glare layer rather than its brightness.

While the QN80H had its own anti-reflection layer, it wasn’t nearly as effective as the UR8’s, which did a great job at limiting reflections without raising black levels.

Couple this with its excellent viewing angles, and you have a great TV for daytime sports — a timely release with the World Cup arriving. (Unless you're in the UK — what an own goal by Hisense there…)

A step forward, but…

Between these two TVs, it’s a tough call on which one I prefer. While the QN80H has bolder colors and crisper textures out-of-the-box, the UR8 has better viewing angles and better backlight control, resulting in more uniform pictures.

It shows that the next-gen RGB Hisense tech can definitely still learn from the traditional Samsung mini-LED. While the UR8 is decent out-of-the-box, it requires some adjustment (namely in its brightness), and its color accuracy isn’t great (registering a surprising 7.9 delta-E score in Filmmaker Mode, when we aim for a score of below 3…).

But the UR8 is a step in the right direction towards bringing OLED's strengths in viewing angles and uniformity to mid-range mini-LED. For that reason, I’d just about recommend the UR8 in this battle, but the QN80H proves there’s still life in the old mini-LED dog yet — it's a very appealing TV.

The World Cup is here, with the tournament kicking off on June 11, and if you're thinking of getting a last-minute TV upgrade but don't want to break the bank, I've found three models I think will fit the bill.

While there aren't a ton of deals out there right now, with Prime Day only a matter of weeks away (running from June 23-26), there are still some discounts to be had. In the US, today's best deal is the TCL QM6K 65-inch for $599 at Amazon. This isn't the cheapest it's been, but for a 65-inch mini-LED, it's a great price.

In the UK, the highlight deal is actually for one of 2025's best OLED TVs: the LG B5. The 55-inch B5 is available for £663.20 at Currys: 20% off its full price of £829! While we do tend to recommend mini-LED over OLED, this deal is too good to miss.

TCL QM6K/C6K

Today's best US deal

Todays best UK deal

A good mini-LED doesn't have to be expensive, as proven by the TCL QM6K (known as the TCL C6K in the UK). It has a great set of gaming features, solid brightness, and effective local dimming: all for a nice, affordable price.

The QM6K/C6K's strengths lie in its picture quality. It can deliver bold colors, which will be perfect for rendering players' uniforms and the field during the World Cup. It also has great detail, making on-screen images look crisp.

It's also got great full-screen brightness for a TV in this price range, with the QM6K hitting 595 nits and the C6K hitting 706 nits. Fullscreen brightness is important for showing daytime sports in bright rooms, which is when a lot of World Cup games will be taking place. For a TV at this price, these are great numbers.

It also has responsive motion handling, meaning fast-paced sports will be well handled. I found during my testing of the C6K that setting judder reduction to 3-4 resulted in smooth motion that also looked accurate.

LG B5

Today's best US deal

Today's best UK deal

The LG B5 is an excellent value OLED TV, and while mini-LED is the primary choice for sports due to its higher brightness, the B5 will more than deliver on other picture elements, such as color and detail, and deliver smooth motion as well.

The B5 may be an entry-level OLED, but it delivers superb picture quality. I was impressed by its vibrant, accurate colors throughout my testing, which will be ideal for delivering the colorful players' uniforms and green fields.

Its motion handling is also excellent. Even with no motion settings activated, the B5's performance is razor-sharp, expertly handling fast-paced sequences in both sports and movies.

One elephant in the room: the B5 is not very bright. It can struggle in brighter rooms, so if your World Cup space is bright, you might want to look elsewhere. If you've got ways of managing any light, however, the B5 will make for a great World Cup companion.

Hisense U8Q

Today's best US deal

Today's best UK deal

The Hisense U8Q is a flagship-level mini-LED TV that costs less than rivals. It delivers some serious brightness, as well as brilliant picture quality and, with some tweaking, smooth motion handling.

Where the U8Q shines (literally) is in its staggering brightness. It clocked in at 2,888 nits peak HDR and 744 nits full-screen HDR brightness in Standard mode (our recommended mode for sports viewing). It also clocked in at 600 nits SDR fullscreen brightness: a huge number for SDR. Pairing this with its anti-reflection layer gives you a solid TV for daytime viewing, which will be especially useful in bright rooms when watching earlier games during the World Cup.

Elsewhere, the U8Q impressed us with its colors, which, during our testing, worked great when watching an NBA game. The colors of the U8Q player's uniforms are just, so you can expect the same during the World Cup.

Motion handling is just average out-of-the-box, but an easy adjustment, setting blur and judder reduction to 3-4, smooths out motion without creating an artificial 'soap opera effect'.

Looking for some other options? Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

Whether you call it football or soccer, the Beautiful Game is the best. As someone whose soul is nourished to an unhinged degree by watching 22 millionaires bashing a synthetic sphere around a field, I’m incredibly excited about the upcoming 2026 World Cup, which kicks off on June 11.

That said, I’m much less enthused by the prospect of huge amounts of people watching the world’s biggest sporting event on the wrong type of TV. Okay, maybe “wrong” sounds absolutely obnoxious to say. I’ll retract that. How about a ‘less than ideal’ type of display?

A huge number of people are buying (or plan to buy) bigger screens for the World Cup, and these days you can get amazingly cheap TVs in giant sizes. These will be LCD TVs with basic backlights (which means a set of LED lights that shines through the pixels, creating the light your eyes will actually pick up), but they're exactly what I want to warn you against.

But a super-cheap LCD is quantifiably the last type of TV I’d want to watch the World Cup on, due to one extremely annoying screen defect you're likely to encounter if you TV is too basic. Let me explain.

The dreaded dirty screen effect

Before I break down exactly what ‘dirty screen’ effect or ‘DSE’ is, I’ll flat out admit I utterly loathe this particular screen quirk that can be particularly obvious on many cheap LCD TVs.

How much do I detest DSE? As a coulrophobe who hates mushrooms and is also deathly afraid of heights, I’d rather go on a date with Pennywise involving a 10-course sampling menu of nothing but portobello-based appetizers atop the CN Tower, before I’d watch a single World Cup match on an LCD display.

What exactly is the dirty screen effect? It’s an issue where inconsistencies in a TV's backlight levels quickly lead to visible onscreen blotches.

These smudgy areas, where particular areas of the panel look darker or lighter than others, are especially easy to spot while watching something with a pretty uniformly colored portion of the screen, and with lot of fast-paced camera pans.

And wouldn’t you know it? Football/soccer has a whole lot of constant back and forth camera swings every time the ball is booted from the center circle to the edge of the opposition’s D.

Dirty screen effect is easiest to identify when watching content where large parts of the screen are made up of a single uniform color. Whether that’s pans across blue skies or across a green field, whenever a camera is swinging from side to side against large patches, DSE will rear its ugly head on lower-quality sets.

What causes the dirty screen effect?

Rather than being caused by a single factor, there are multiple issues that can lead to the dirty screen effect occurring. Though I’ve finally stopped worrying about OLED burn-in thanks to Light-Emitting Diode displays combating the issue through features like pixel cleaning cycles, DSE on huge cheap LCD panels remains as bad as it was on smaller cheap LCD panels a decade ago, because the fundamental problem hasn't changed.

The production process that goes into making LCD TVs is largely to blame for the soccer-ruining dirty screen effect. LCDs use multiple layers and diffuser sheets, which often leads to backlight uniformity issues when panels are being assembled.

If a cheaply-made panel is combined with not having enough LEDs behind the screen to illuminate it all uniformly (you can even end up with parts of the panel's interior casting shadows), you'll end up with some areas being more strongly illuminated than others.

In order to make TVs today so much bigger than they were, but affordable at the price most people want to pay, corners have to be cut — and the quality of panel assembly and backlighting can end up as a casualty.

And yet, giant screens are where you're most likely to notice these issues, because there's so much more space for you to notice the imperfections.

Despite, some folks will be completely oblivious to DSE. I get that. But as someone who is cursed with obsessive eyes that still hates myself for enabling motion smoothing on a TV when switching on sports (but you should do it — as I explained in that article), my peepers are constantly drawn to the lighting defect while watching soccer in a bar.

And trust me, as someone who watched over 60 Arsenal games last season (hoo-boy does that Champions League Final defeat in Budapest still sting), I know a thing or two (times 30) about watching football on subpar screens out in public.

What can you do about it?

Personally, I'd buy an OLED TV. I’ve watched nearly all of my football at home on OLED panels since 2015. If you have the budget for it, and watch to enjoy the World Cup with the best image quality and least distracting visual issues, check out the best OLED TVs. If you go OLED, your eyes will never be bothered by LCD’s biggest deficiency when watching footy/soccer. The LG G5 is a bargain while stocks last, as is the cheaper LG C5. The Samsung S95F, with its anti-reflective screen, is particular good for daytime sports viewing.

However, big-screen OLED TVs are expensive. They're also nowhere near as bright for fullscreen viewing as decent mini-LED TVs, meaning they're more prone to distracting reflections if you're watching during the day (though the Samsung S95F and LG G6 are better for this — but they're still pricey).

So here's some very basic advice: get a mini-LED TV instead of a regular LED TV and you're less likely to have a noticeable dirty-screen problem. All mini-LED TVs use a grid of LEDs across the whole back of the screen with support for local dimming — and more premium sets use much smaller LED and fit in many more of then, which helps with the uniformity of lighting. And they'll pack in more LEDs are larger sizes, to avoid any problems from going big.

If a mini-LED doesn't fit in your budget at the size you're thinking, you should drop down a size, rather than getting a poorer-quality but larger screen. You don't want to spend a whole tournament getting distracted by a strange shadowy effect on the screen.

The cheapest TV TechRadar's reviewers recommend to avoid a major dirty screen effect is the TCL QM6K in the US, or the TCL C6K in the UK. The uniformity on this set still isn't always perfect, but it's as good as you get for the price.

If you step up to the TCL QM7K (US) / TCL C7K (UK) or the Hisense U7N, you're at the point where you're unlikely to notice it.

Going further to the premium Samsung QN90F (which we rate as the best TV for sport), the TCL QM8K (US) / TCL C8K (UK) or the Hisense U8N means you won't need to worry about DSE.

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• A report claimed LG was in talks with Hisense executives to explore a possible sale of LG's TV business
• The original report has been taken offline to be "reviewed by an administrator"
• LG tells TechRadar that "These reports are groundless"

Today has been a rollercoaster for fans of the best OLED TVs — a major report from Korean business news outlet EBN claimed that LG was exploring spinning-off and/or selling its TV business to Hisense.

However, the original report has now been removed from the EBN website, replaced with just a pop-up message that says the report is down while it's "reviewed by an administrator".

An LG spokesperson told TechRadar "These reports are groundless." LG provided a slightly longer statement to Android Authority that's more forceful: "LG Electronics would like to state that this news regarding the potential sale of its TV business is completely baseless and therefore entirely speculative and misleading."

The original report claimed that LG executives travelled to Beijing to meet executives from Hisense, including discussions of the future of LG TVs and possibly a sale of the entire LG TV business to Hisense.

Maybe this happened, maybe it didn't, maybe it was misreported — LG's denial is firm, but companies often firmly deny things they then go on to do. But if the same were to happen, it would follow a growing trend, making it not necessarily that surprising.

From Philips to Sony to Panasonic… maybe LG?

If LG were considering a full sale or a partnership with Hisense, it wouldn't be the first big TV brand to do so: Sony's partnership with TCL is likely to give Sony's mid-market and budget models a boost, with Sony providing the brand cachet and proprietary technology and TCL bringing its high volume manufacturing efficiencies.

Panasonic has reached a similar arrangement with Skyworth to make its US TVs, and many Japanese TV brands are made under license too, including Toshiba and Sharp.

Philips' TVs have been made under licence for years, with TP Vision making them in Europe and Skyworth making them for the US.

The reason for all this is simple: making TVs is a tough business with fairly low profit margins, so you need to sell tons of TVs to make money. LG's OLEDs do good business, but its LED TVs have struggled to impress, and are nowhere near as dominant as its OLED sets.

TCL and Hisense are grabbing market share across the board thanks to being able to produce really solid mid-range sets that are pretty damn cheap — so much so that Hisense eclipsed LG sales in the premium TV market last year.

This kind of deal could likely boost LG's entry level and mid-range offerings, but there would probably be a lot of resistance to it online from OLED fans, because Hisense doesn't have much love for that tech. (A similar worry is facing Sony fans from the TCL partnership.)

Still, LG says you have nothing to worry about — reports of its TV business' death have been greatly exaggerated, apparently.

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The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11, so that still gives you plenty of time to upgrade your TV if you’re looking for a bigger and better view of the tournament.

Over the last few years, bigger screens — 75 inches and over — have become a lot more popular, and they certainly will be for the World Cup. The big question is what kind of TV to get at these size, because the prices can get really expensive.

When it comes to big-screen sports, there’s one type of TV we recommend above the others: mini-LED.

Why would I recommend mini-LED over OLED? There are several key reasons, and they're mostly practical concerns about getting the best value, but I’ll get into them properly below. As TechRadar’s TV tester, I always include sports as part of my testing, so I'm speaking from experience of actually watching sports on every kind of TV.

Brightness

OLED TVs are getting brighter, but mini-LED will always have the advantage in the brightness department. But, where mini-LED has a big advantage is in fullscreen brightness. The same G6 OLED I mentioned earlier hit 387 HDR fullscreen brightness in Standard mode. The same Hisense U75Q mini-LED I mentioned above? 887 nits: bordering on three times the brightness.

Fullscreen brightness is important for sport, as it not only means it can give a large area on the screen more impact, say the field during a soccer game, but it’s crucial for helping with viewing in bright rooms.

The brightest OLED I’ve measured to date is this year’s LG G6, which clocked in at 2,524 nits peak HDR brightness in Standard mode (the picture mode I often recommend for sports viewing). While this is a great result, even mid-range mini-LEDs will dwarf this number. Last year’s Hisense U75QG (the US mid-range mini-LED in Hisense’s lineup) hit 3,372 nits in the same Standard mode.

This peak brightness will make a huge difference when it comes to highlights on screen, such as the sun on the horizon, giving them more impact. This will likely have an effect on the color brightness of a team’s kits during the World Cup, giving them more punch.

While peak brightness is important, fullscreen brightness is a game changer when it comes to bright rooms, often limiting mirror-like reflections compared to OLED — and let's talk about those now.

Reflections

As games during this year’s World Cup are being played at all sorts of times, including during the day, this brightness can make or break your viewing, because you don't want reflections in a bright room to obscure your enjoyment.

While OLEDs like the Samsung S95F, with its OLED Glare Free matte screen, and the LG G6, which has effective anti-reflection layer, are getting better at limiting reflections, most OLEDs still struggle. Their glossy screens are often magnets for reflections.

Even budget mini-LED TVs do a pretty good job of limiting reflections, purely thanks to their high fullscreen brightness — reflections being visible is a simple question of whether the light shining through the screen is brighter than what's being reflected, so a super-bright screen is a major advantage.

While they can still be subject to some screen glare, during my testing of TCL’s models last year (called the C-series here in the UK and headlined by the TCL C8K) I found that they more than held up to the scrutiny of the overhead lights in our testing labs. The same couldn’t be said for LG’s mid-range and budget OLEDs.

Samsung introduced the Glare Free matte screen to its Neo QLED (mini-LED) last year in the flagship Samsung QN90F, which was our pick as the best TV for sport and bright rooms in a lot of our best-of lists. Coupled with its high brightness and excellent motion handling, it made for a superb sport for TV, though it's a pricier model, and obviously value is important if you're buying a really big screen — so let's dig into that side of things.

Value for money

OLED TVs come at a premium. A mid-range model, such as last year’s LG C5, will set you back $1,399 for a 65-inch model at the time of writing. A 65-inch Hisense U75Q will cost you roughly $699, again at the time of writing. That’s 50% cheaper. As great as the C5 is, double the price is a tough ask.

In the UK, the numbers get a bit tighter, but it’s still a similar story. A 65-inch C5 costs around £1,299 right now, whereas a 65-inch TCL C7K (also called the TCL Q7C at some retailers) will cost £849. It's another big price gap that’s tough to justify if you’re on a budget, especially when the C7K boasts a lot of similar features, such as a 144Hz refresh rate for gaming.

The gap gets bigger as the screen sizes get bigger. A 75-inch Hisense U8Q costs $1,599, whereas a 77-inch LG C5 costs $2,199. And the gap gets even bigger when stepping up a size as an 85-inch U8Q costs $1,799, while an 83-inch LG C5 will set you back $3,299: almost double the price. The same is true on budget and premium models for each as well. If you're looking for the best value screen, it's mini-LED.

Stadium-sized screen? No-brainer

If you’re looking for a big screen for the World Cup, a mini-LED is your best bet. As more people look for cinema-sized screens at home, mini-LED has proved itself to be the better value option.

The largest OLED TV you can currently get is 97-inch, and these models are at the very premium end of the market. A 97-inch LG G5 will set you back $24,999 / £24,999. You can now get a 100-inch mini-LED screen for $2,999 / £2,999: just under 10% of the price of a big-screen OLED.

While you may think these 100-inch mini-LEDs will be super-cheap and dodgy models, you’d be wrong. The Hisense U8Q and TCL QM8K (TCL C8K in the UK) are just two of the models available in this 100-inch size, and these are two of the best mini-LED TVs available.

If you're in the UK, you can even pick up a 115-inch Samsung QN90F, our pick for the best TV for sport that I mentioned above, for £7,999, still a fraction of a 97-inch OLED. It’s available in the US too, but at a much higher $24,999 price. So, if you’re after the largest, readily available screens for the best price, mini-LED is your best bet.

The arrival of RGB

RGB TVs made a big splash when they were announced at CES 2025, with the Hisense UX serving as the first model. Since then, brands including Samsung, TCL, Sony and LG have followed suit, announcing their own RGB TVs.

These TVs use RGB LEDs to boast incredible colors with the contrast of premium mini-LEDs. While we worried that it would take years for these screens to become more affordable, smaller screens, it only took a year.

The Hisense UR9, TCL RM9L and Samsung R95H are the headliners for 2026. We’ve tested the UR9, and as well as a staggering 93% BT.2020 HDR color gamut coverage, it has incredible brightness. While the HDR numbers are high, it’s the SDR number that impressed us.

In Standard mode, we measured the UR9’s peak brightness at 2,486 nits, which is the kind of level that elite OLEDs reach in HDR — it's way beyond what they can do in SDR. Considering some sports are broadcast in SDR, this number means watching in daytime sports should be a breeze for RGB TVs, especially because the Hisense UR9 and Samsung R95H both have a matter anti-reflective coating.

You’d think this new tech will cost seriously premium money, but again you might be pleasantly surprised. The UR9 75-inch is available for roughly $3,000 / £3,500: again, that's cheaper than rival OLEDs. We’re waiting on prices for other brands, but we’d expect them to be in a similar region.

We’re still early doors in our testing of RGB TVs, but it’s an exciting tech for sure, and for it to be priced at this level this early is only good news. If these TVs prove to be the real deal, they could become the number one choice for sports.

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If you're thinking about upgrading your TV in time for the World Cup, you may already be discovering that the world of TVs is incredibly confusing these days. With different screen-tech options, a wide range of sizes, and prices ranging from a few hundred dollars or pounds to several thousand, making a decision isn't straightforward.

Don't worry, because we're here to help. Our team of reviewers has tested the best TVs on the market, paying particular attention to sports viewing, since live sports demands smooth handling of fast-moving action. And in this guide, I'll explain the features that matter most when buying a TV for sports, and why they're important.

Note that not everything you should consider will be listed on the box. I've highlighted the key things to look out for, but much of this information is more likely to be found in reviews and online store descriptions, rather than on the packaging itself.

Good upscaling and motion handling

Technically two features, but upscaling and motion handling go hand in hand to deliver clarity when watching sport — and if only one of the two is good, you’ll end up disappointed.

Upscaling is the process by which a 4K TV takes lower-resolution video and turns it into higher-resolution video to fill all of its pixels. Most people won’t be able to watch the World Cup in 4K natively, so upscaling will be necessary. There are many ways that TVs can do this, and many models these days will advertise themselves as using AI-assisted upscaling.

Motion handling is a similar process but for the movement of objects on the screen. A TV will tweak the image to improve the appearance of objects in motion, because in digital video, fast movement of something like a ball being kicked is difficult for video encoders to keep up with. This means it can lose a lot of detail in motion, causing fast-moving objects — such as a football — to appear blurred or smeared, or even leaving ghostly trails behind them.

Motion handling is designed to track fast-moving elements such as the ball and players, then process them to reduce blur and other motion issues to action is clear and easier for the viewer to follow. Some TVs can even generate new frames, creating the impression of a higher frame rate and smoother-looking motion.

The downside of poorly implemented motion handling – in some cheaper models, for example – is that such changes can look odd and unnatural. The ball might have an odd halo around it, players will appear strangely hard-edged, and the overall look will be very artificial, instead of naturally more detailed.

And this is the reason motion handling and upscaling tech need to work together to deliver the best results. For example, an upscale might be adding plenty of detail, but if motion processing is poor, that detail can become blurred in fast-action shots and difficult to see . Equally, if motion processing is great but the upscaler is adding weird edges to the ball, that again will undo the hard work.

LG’s OLED TVs, such as the LG C5 or LG G6, are excellent at upscaling and motion, as are Samsung’s higher-end TVs, including the Samsung QN90F and Samsung S95F. Sony’s TVs had a great reputation for this for years, but most recently we’ve found LG and Samsung to be superior. TCL and Hisense TVs generally handle these elements well in the more mid-range models, with the Hisense U8QG and TCL QM7K (both are US models) being especially impressive for their respective prices. Amazon’s Ember QLED TV is also decent out of the box compared to most budget-friendly TVs, as is the Roku Plus Series in the US.

Good screen uniformity

You might have heard this talked about as the "dirty screen effect". Basically, screen uniformity is a TV's ability to display an evenly lit image across the entire screen, without patches that appear darker. It's an issue that mainly afflicts LCD-based TV, including LED, QLED, mini-LED and RGB models.

LCD TVs work by shining a backlight made of LEDs through a grid of pixels, and the design of this backlight plays a major role in screen uniformity. If LEDs are unevenly arranged or lit, some areas of the screen can appear slightly darker or brighter than others. This is especially noticeable in scenes where there are large areas of solid colour – the grass on a football field, for example.

If your TV's screen uniformity is poor, you'll see odd dark patches rippling across the field as the camera follows the ball. Some people might mistake it for dust, hence the informal name.

The larger a TV, the more susceptible it can be to the dirty screen effect, simply because there’s a bigger area that needs to be lit evenly. This is why opting for a super-large budget model can sometime work against you, since they're less likely to come with the higher-quality backlighting required to maintain consistent screen uniformity.

While you can’t know for sure how a particular TV will perform, you can get a clue by considering the number of "dimming zones" listed in a TV's specs. In general, more dimming zones means more control over the backlight, which often goes hand in hand with a higher number of LEDs in the panel and better screen uniformity.It's also worth checking out reviews where people discuss screen uniformity.

I’ve talked about LED TVs a lot here — but what about OLED? In theory, OLED TVs display issues with screen uniformity, because every single pixel is its own LED. OLEDs can have problems with the evenness of the image, but it’s more likely to be the result of an actual fault rather than just a poor-value TV.

A reflection-beating screen

Watching sports generally means a lot of daytime viewing, and that tends to mean a lot of light. Even if you’re watching in the evening, you might still have lots of lights on in your room. The glossy screens of most TVs means they reflect like a mirror, making it difficult to see what’s on-screen.

Mirror-like reflections are particularly distracting, not only because they pull your attention away from the game, but also because your eyes will naturally try to focus on the reflection, rather than the image on the TV. Since the reflection appears to sit at a different distance to the TV image, constantly refocusing between the two can cause eyestrain.

TVs use a several methods to reduce reflections, and almost all TVs have a polarizer built in to help control how light travels through the panel. However, in budget TVs this can be very basic, and so won’t appear to make a huge difference in bright rooms.

So, in a more affordable TV, higher brightness can often present the best method of counteracting any reflections. Mini-LED TVs excel here because they use a huge number of tiny LEDs, allowing them to produce much higher brightness across the whole screen over what OLED TVs can achieve.

Some TVs also have specific anti-reflection layers. Samsung’s higher-end mini-LED and OLED TVs come with a “Glare Free" coating, which is basically a matte layer that scatters light rather than reflecting it. Any reflections instead appear as a dim haze rather than an object of focus, making it more easily handled by the TV's own brightness to overcome and therefore less distracting for the viewer. Hisense has also added a less-aggressive matte layer to its high-end and mid-range mini-LED TVs. The LG G6 OLED TV includes a very impressive layer that massively reduces the brightness of mirror-like reflections.

Basically, if you’ll be watching your TV in a bright room, then the higher the level of brightness in your TV the better — and a premium TV with an extra anti-reflection layer will help even further.

Sound that extends beyond the screen

When you're watching the World Cup, you want to feel immersed in the atmosphere of the event, and the sound is a major part of that. If the crowd noise seems confined to the TV itself, it’s hard to forget that you’re simply watching a screen. But when the sound feels like it's coming from beyond the box, you'll feel more like you’re part of the action.

Similarly, audio with deeper bass and clearer highs will deliver a more immersive feeling, because drums, stamping feet, voices and the roaring of a whole crowd will sound more full and realistic.

Once again, while there’s no way to know for sure from the specs alone if a TV will deliver a decent, you can make an educated guess.

Budget TVs are likely to have a very basic speaker system, usually comprising just two small speakers that point downwards. As such, their ability to engulf you in audio will be limited. If a TV has just a 2.0-channel speaker system, odds are that will be small-sounding.

A TV with forward-firing or side-firing speakers is far more likely to deliver expansive audio. Look for models whose specs feature a bass system (either a subwoofer or just passive bass radiators), which achieve a much fuller sound.

The good news is that mid-range TVs and upwards are increasingly capable of delivering full, well-handled sound straight out of the box. Models such as the TCL QM7K and Hisense U7 perform well in this area, but step up to the TCL QM8K, Hisense U8 or especially the Samsung QN90F, and you'll experience a much bigger and more spacious feel.

Of course, another way to ensure superb sound quality is with a soundbar or speaker system. Around this time of year, you'll find plenty of TV deals with soundbars thrown in, or offered at a low price, so keep a lookout. It’s possible that a mid-price TV with an affordable soundbar turns out to be the best-value combination overall for mixing a big screen with big sound.

A big screen size balanced with price

A lot of people looking to buy a TV for World Cup viewing will be tempted to go for the biggest screen possible, and there many huge sizes available for not much more than the cost of an 65-inch model, which will tempt people even more so to go big.

But big isn't necessarily best, because of all the factors I’ve mentioned above. All the potential dangers I’ve mentioned. Poor motion handling, weak detail, uneven screen uniformity, distracting reflections and limited sound are all more noticeable on a larger screen, where flaws have nowhere to hide.

If you have a budget of $1,000 to spend, you could buy a basic 85-inch TV, or a good 75-inch model, or a higher-quality 65-inch set. How you balance size, quality and budget is ultimately a personal choice, but it's important to note that unless your budget increases alongside the screen size, you’ll usually be trading performance for acreage.

If you're wondering what the "right" screen size is for your particular setup, check out this calculator, which will help you figure it out:

• "Now is the time to start thinking about pointing input" for Google TV says Google
• No Google TV manufacturers currently use pointy remotes
• Gemini AI features seem to be the reason for the push

I believe there are two kinds of TV user in the world: people who hate LG's Magic Remote, and people who haven't used LG's Magic Remote. I'm in the former camp, so I'm bemused by Google's latest announcement: it looks like something very similar is coming to Google TV.

If you're not familiar with the Magic Remote, it uses Wii-style motion control with similar accuracy, so trying to point at anything can be frustrating: the cursor drifts with even the slightest movement, turning channel hopping into what feels like a round of Wii Tennis. It's an attempt to solve the ongoing challenge of controlling a smart TV from a distance, and I don't think it's a successful one: my kids' TV has a Magic Remote and they, and I, hate it.

But Google seems to disagree. "Now is the time to start thinking about pointing input", Google TV developer relations engineer Paul Lammertsma told app makers at Google I/O this week (via FlatpanelsHD)

What's the point of a pointing remote?

To the best of my knowledge, the only mainstream TV manufacturer using pointing remotes is LG, and LG doesn't use Google TV. So what's going on?

It's all about Gemini and ever more feature-packed TVs, it seems. As Lammertsma explained: "The TV experience that we once knew is changing. Gemini is changing the way we discover and stream content with voice, but how we use the remote is evolving too. Pointer remotes bring motion-controlled input to the big screen, unlocking faster user navigation across the Google TV Home page and within content-heavy apps."

It seems unlikely that LG is going to dump its own webOS platform in favor of Google TV, so Google encouraging the adoption of pointing remotes in apps strongly suggests that either Google or one of its partners is developing pointing remotes for Google TV sets. It's unclear whether the support will be backwards compatible or limited to new TV models only.

Making TV remotes is hard, I know: some are far too complicated and others are far too simple. I hope Google has cracked the drift and accuracy problems that plague handheld remote controls and that the movement looks like it does in the animation above — and not like the remote control in my kids' room that drives us all mad.

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

The 2026 World Cup is only a few weeks away, so if you're thinking of upgrading your home setup, now is the time. With new 2026 TVs appearing in stores now, 2025's models are at some of their cheapest prices, meaning you can grab a real bargain.

But, while you may be looking at a new TV or a new soundbar, I've come up with a few TV/soundbar combos in case you're looking to overhaul your whole home setup.

To be clear, any of these TVs will go great with any of these soundbars if you're looking to mix and match, but I've picked pairs to hit particular budgets that are ideal matches.

I've chosen some of the best TVs from the likes of Samsung, Hisense and TCL and the best soundbars from Sonos, Samsung and more.

Setup 1: Budget bang-for-buck

TV: TCL QM6K/C6K

The TCL QM6K, known as the TCL C6K in the UK, is a budget gem. It uses a mini-LED panel that delivers punchy colors, strong contrast with deep black levels and solid brightness all for an affordable price.

With a measured HDR fullscreen brightness of 594 nits in Standard mode for the QM6K and 706 nits in the same mode on the C6K, these TVs are more than bright enough to handle daytime viewing without distracting reflections. With games played at various times throughout the day in the World Cup, this is crucial.

The QM6K/C6K also make for great gaming TVs when you're not watching the World Cup. They support 4K 144Hz, FreeSync Premium, Dolby Vision gaming and ALLM: an excellent suite of features for a TV this price.

The QM6K/C6K's best feature is its price. A 65-inch model will cost $699 / £649 respectively, which is a bargain for what you're getting. This is easily the best option for the budget conscious.

Soundbar: Sony HT-S150F

The Sony HT-SF150, know as the Sony HT-S100F in the US and Australia, is our current pick for the best super-cheap soundbar on our best soundbars list. Why? Because it delivers impressive depth, clear speech and decent power and bass for a very low price: $99 / £99 / AU$199.

It also has a decent feature set including Bluetooth support for music streaming, an elegant design and easy setup and use: all big positives for a budget soundbar.

While it isn't the most sonically diverse soundbar, it's superb value and will really help add another level to your World Cup experience by boosting commentary and crowd noise more than your TV's speakers would.

Setup 2: The step-up option

TV: Hisense U8Q

The Hisense U8QG is an excellent-value mini-LED TV. It produces rich colors and powerful contras,t and has a strong feature set including both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, plus 4K 165Hz and VRR for gaming.

The U8Q also produces super-high brightness for a TV at this price point. A measured 3,337 nits and 2,888 nits peak HDR brightness in Filmmaker Mode and Standard respectively really help highlights pop on screen as well as producing strong perceived contrast.

With 744 nits HDR fullscreen brightness and even 600 nits of SDR fullscreen brightness, the U8Q is more than capable of handling bright rooms — perfect for daytime World Cup games.

At $999 / £1,299 / AU$1,599 for a 65-inch model, the U8Q is fantastic value for the performance it delivers and the features it comes with. If you're looking for a substantial upgrade at a fair price, this is top-notch value.

Soundbar: Sonos Beam (Gen 2)

The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) may be a few years old now, but it's still one of the best all-in-one, mid-range soundbars you can get. It delivers spacious, punchy sound quality with plenty of detail. This compact soundbar is mightier than it looks.

Not only does it tick the boxes for movies, but it's fantastic for music too. It delivers the same detail it does for movies, offering a layered sound with strong, well-controlled bass, clear highs and natural sounding mid-tones.

The Beam also supports hi-res audio and Dolby Atmos, as well as Wi-Fi streaming support for better sound quality. At its usual $499 / £449 / AU$799 price tag it's a great value soundbar that will give any World Cup game an extra dimension — and occasionally it gets nice deals, too. It's great in its own right, but can be expanded with a subwoofer and rear speakers too for a fuller experience.

Setup 3: The premium option

TV: Samsung QN90F

The Samsung QN90F really is the perfect for TV for sport. Not only does it deliver high brightness thanks to its mini-LED panel, but it comes equipped with a Glare Free matte screen that makes it the ideal TV for those in a bright room because it totally squashes reflections even in darker scenes. Daytime sports viewing will be no issue for the QN90F.

Aside from the brightness, the QN90F has excellent motion handling. With the right settings (judder and blur adjustments set to 3), it delivers a smooth picture that will help deliver the games from the World Cup accurately and more clearly than basically anything else on the market.

The QN90F also delivers excellent contrast and color for movies and is a gaming powerhouse with 4K 144Hz, VRR and ALLM all supported across four HDMI 2.1 ports.

Since its release in 2025, its prices have dropped significantly. A 65-inch set costs $1,599 / £1,399 / AU$2,899 so while it's at the pricier end of the mini-LED market, it is excellent value, made even better by the big drop in price from its original $2,499 / £2,499 / AU$3,499 price tag.

Soundbar: Samsung HW-Q800F

The Samsung HW-Q800F sits at the top of our best soundbars list. It delivers a powerful, immersive sound with solid Dolby Atmos reproduction. Its subwoofer, which is a new compact, dual-driver unit, produces some serious bass that's precise and well controlled.

Speaking of precise, this is one of the Q800F's greatest strengths. Not only is its sound immersive, it's accurate too. Its mapping of different effects is pinpoint and is has excellent directionality. It will do a great job with the fast-paced action of a World Cup game and the feeling of crowd's ambiance exploding out of the soundbar and into the space all around the TV.

The Q800F also supports Wi-Fi music streaming and supports 4K 120Hz gaming in its HDMI in ports. And, it does all this for a fairly reasonable price too, costing $799 / £599 / AU$799. While that is getting to the pricier side of the soundbar market, it's worth every penny.

Setup 4: The elite OLED & surround experience

TV: Samsung S95F

The Samsung S95F was one of 2025's best OLED TVs. It delivers excellent picture quality, with vibrant, bold colors and strong contrast, as well as crisp textures and refined detail. It's also fully stocked for gaming with four HDMI 2.1 ports that support 4K 165Hz, full VRR including G-Sync, ALLM and HDR10+ gaming.

What sets the S95F apart from other OLEDs is its anti-reflection screen. A matte coating means mirror-like reflections are reduced to haze, making it a fantastic OLED for bright room viewing. With this TV, you'll get to watch daytime sports with OLED's color, detail and perfect viewing angles without worrying about reflections. While mini-LED is our typical recommendation for sports, this OLED changes the game.

However, as a flagship OLED, the S95F is in the premium price bracket. A 65-inch model costs $2,499 / £2,299 / AU$3,799 which is pricey, but if you're after an elite World Cup experience, then this OLED TV should definitely be on your list.

Soundbar: Samsung HW-Q990F

The Samsung HW-Q990F is a multi-box soundbar system that delivers serious power across 11.1.4 channels. It's sound is expansive and precise, creating a real Dolby Atmos experience at home thanks to its two rear speakers and subwoofer.

The subwoofer is a new, compact size but thankfully, none of the hefty, detailed bass has disappeared. The dual-driver sub delivers raw power which works wonders for movies. The rear speakers are excellent at delivering surround effects and the soundbar itself delivers clear speech, punchy audio and excellent separation.

If you're looking for a soundbar to capture the stadium atmosphere of the World Cup, this is it. This level of performance comes at a price though. At $1,599 / £999 / AU$1,399, this is a premium soundbar.

But for the performance and features it brings, including hi-res audio and Wi-Fi streaming support as well as 4K 120Hz passthrough for gaming, the Q990F is worth the investment if you have the budget.

The 2026 World Cup starts on June 11, and while a lot of people will be thinking about a new TV, there's still one crucial component that can make or break the whole experience: audio.

A new soundbar can really add another dimension to the World Cup viewing experience, delivering clearer commentary and a more immersive atmosphere by capturing the roar of the crowds. Let's face it, even the best TVs have average built-in audio, and it'd be a shame to miss out on the full World Cup feeling.

Below, I've picked four of the best soundbars you can buy right now that will be more than up to the task of delivering the atmosphere of the World Cup, whatever your budget.

Best overall: Samsung HW-Q800F

Currently sitting at the top of our best soundbars list is the five-star-rated Samsung HW-Q800F. One of the brand's mid-range 2025 soundbars, the Q800F really does cover all the bases.

The Q800F is a soundbar-and-sub combo that delivers everything you could need. We found in our testing that the bass delivered by the new, compact subwoofer was still suitably powerful and sizeable, accurately delivering the ignition of the Darkstar jet in Top Gun: Maverick.

It also demonstrated excellent precision with surprisingly effective Dolby Atmos height effects in movies such as The Mask, accurately capturing the chaotic nature of the titular character as he tears around Edge City. Expect it to accurately deliver the ball's movements around the field during the World Cup.

Dialogue was crystal clear throughout our testing as well, which is a good sign that a commentary track during the World Cup should be delivered with real clarity.

The Q800F is brilliant value too. You can expect to pay around $799 / £599 / AU$849, which is a great price for this soundbar. Expect prices to drop in the lead-up to the World Cup, too.

Best premium: Samsung HW-Q990F

For those looking for a complete soundbar system, it doesn't get much better than the Samsung HW-Q990F, the brand's 2025 flagship model. This 11.1.4 channel soundbar is a beast, composed of four separate units and really delivers the full surround sound experience.

I personally tested the Q990F and was blown away by its performance. The new compact subwoofer delivers room-filling bass that is mighty, but also well controlled. The rumble of the Batmobile's engine in The Batman was room-shaking but dynamic and precise, with the subwoofer accurately delivering the chunky gear changes.

The Q990F boasts a wide soundstage that's not only great for big musical numbers from movies like Wicked, but also action-packed scenes such as the Death Star attack in Star Wars: A New Hope. The sound is expansive with pinpoint placement, such as the TIE Fighter's screeching flight path in Star Wars. The stadium atmosphere in the World Cup will sound sensational through this system.

Speech was perfectly clear throughout my testing, whether it was hushed conversation in The Batman or the loud, soaring vocals of 'Defying Gravity' from Wicked. Expect the same with commentary in the World Cup.

The Q990F is at the more premium end of the market, costing $1,599 / £999 / AU$1,599, but this mammoth soundbar system will cover you for sports, movies, and gaming, and do a superb job with all of them.

Best budget US: Sonos Beam

The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) may be compact, but don't let that fool you. It delivers a beefy sound that you wouldn't expect from a soundbar this size and is easily one of the best models for music on the market.

The Beam (Gen 2) has been around for a while now, but it still consistently delivers a satisfying sound that works for a diverse range of genres. I tested it alongside the Sony HT-S2000 and Denon Home 550, two compact rivals, and I was always pleased with the Beam's performance.

The bass it delivers for a small unit is tightly controlled and punchy, as it accurately delivered the roar of jet engines in Top Gun: Maverick. Its soundstage was also spacious, giving effects room to breathe with a great balance overall. As The Mask tornadoes around his bedroom in The Mask, the Beam did an excellent job mapping the direction of the whirlwind, connecting the sound accurately to the picture.

Dialogue is nice and clear despite its smaller stature, so commentary should be nice and clear for the World Cup. It also has a diverse sound profile that makes it great for music.

Sonos' soundbars often get some nice discounts throughout the year, but even at the full $499 / £449 / AU$799 price, it's a superb soundbar that's real value for money.

Best budget UK: Hisense AX5125H

The Hisense AX5125H is one of the most impressive budget soundbars I've ever used. Not only are you getting a great 5.1.2 channel Dolby Atmos system, but you're getting it for a ridiculously low price.

Using the Death Star attack from Star Wars: A New Hope, I was seriously impressed with the AX5125H's clarity and control. It accurately delivered the whirring engines of the X-Wings and did a solid job with height channels, recreating the screech of the TIE Fighters as they flew overhead.

The AX5125H also has a wide soundstage, which helped pick up subtleties in The Batman's opening crime scene, with camera clicks, mumbled conversations, and the sparse, scratchy strings of the score all presented clearly. This should do a great job picking out the dynamics during the World Cup, from a travelling ball to the crowd noise.

Speech was also clear throughout testing, coming through loud and clear during both quieter conversations and action-packed scenes. This will have no problem delivering clear commentary in a packed stadium atmosphere.

The AX5125H's real highlight is its low price. A 5.1.2 channel system for £249 is ridiculous. This would have been my pick for the US budget option, but sadly, it's out of stock. For UK readers, this one is a no-brainer if you're on a budget.

Ever since I saw my first RGB-backlit TV at CES 2025, from Samsung (immediately followed by Hisense and TCL later in the show), I've been really bullish on the technology's potential — even going so far as to call it "a huge danger to OLED TVs".

2026 is really the year of the RGB TV, with major launches coming from nearly every huge TV maker, and I've been really excited by the models I've seen in previews, ranging from Samsung's first-of-its-kind 130-inch RGB TV to Panasonic's tease of a future RGB model it may launch, to Hisense's UR9 RGB TV that's unique by offering a DisplayPort connection, to Sony's demonstration of the tech it plans to launch in 2026.

So, having finally seen so much of these TVs in action, my anticipation of them actually arriving must be only growing, right?

My friends, they haven't even launched yet, and I'm already exhausted by the whole RGB rollout.

They're not even here and they're too confusing

A major part of the problem is that there are already just too many variations — or possible variations — and considerations to track.

You can read our full explanation of RGB-backlit TVs here. Still, the gist is that because it uses a colorful backlight, that means it can deliver a wider range of colors than regular mini-LED and can have less light bloom from bright areas to dark area potentially, because colors don't always leak as obviously (as my colleague Jake Krol noted on his more recent trip to see Sony show off its RGB tech again).

So, this is a new technology that's better than regular mini-LED, right? It's the most premium tech, ready to take on the best OLED TVs?

Well, not according to TCL, which is including two RGB TVs in its new TV range, and neither of them is its flagship TV. The flagship is the TCL X11L, which uses a new-and-improved version of regular mini-LED tech to deliver some impressive results compared to other mini-LED models in our testing.

Here's what's most confusing: one of the RGB TVs that TCL is launching is its second-fanciest model, sitting just below the X11L, but the other is one of its least-premium models, sitting below its mid-range 7-series mini-LED TVs, due to its limited number of dimming zones and middling brightness.

LG is also launching RGB TVs, which might come as a surprise given that it's the standard-bearer for OLED. Well, guess what? It's positioning its RGB TVs below the LG G6 and LG C6 OLED TVs in the range, and it really just seems to be offering them so it can provide an affordable, larger-screen option than its OLEDs can deliver.

Philips is similarly launching an RGB TV model that seems to replace the mini-LED models it's always had that sit below the OLEDs in its product range, so it's the same deal there.

So all three of these companies think that RGB TVs are not going to be the flagship. But Hisense disagrees! Its flagship TV this year is an RGB TV, and the TV just below that will also use RGB tech, and then it switches to regular mini-LED tech once you get to the mid-range U7-series (which looks great this year thanks to a new anti-reflective layer).

Samsung is also making RGB TVs the flagship of its LED range, with mini-LED models only coming in lower down the range with the QN80H and below (including some models that are mini-LED without QLED, which genuinely shocked me).

Except Samsung has a kind of split flagship TV personality these days: is the flagship the Samsung R95H RGB TV, or is it the Samsung S95H/S99H elite OLED TV (which has impressed us in our early testing at home)? It's basically both!

Sony will launch its 'True RGB' TV sometime this year, but we have no idea what the price will be, or how it will compare to the Sony Bravia 8 II OLED TV in the line-up — but I expect it to sit above it, based on Sony's pursuit of 4,000 nits reference-quality TVs to match its studio monitors.

So to recap, is RGB tech the new premium OLED-killer tech? Well, LG and Philips seem to think it's not, and OLED is still the top dog. Samsung hasn't chosen a side. TCL doesn't like OLED anyway, and yet still says RGB tech doesn't even beat its own mini-LED tech.

Only Hisense is fully committed, and is even removing its sole OLED TV from sale in 2026.

So what's the average TV buyer supposed to think? Obviously, the TechRadar TV team is going to be testing them to work out which are indeed very premium and which should be genuine alternatives to OLED as the premium TV pick… but for someone who's just trying to understand the options available to them and level of quality you get from a particular type of technology, the RGB launch looks like a total fumble.

And that's before you get to trying to reckon with what's in the panels themselves.

Not all RGB tech is created equal, probably

Since mini-LED launched around 2021, the technology has become… complicated. There's no rule on what can be called "mini-LED," so some of the TVs marketed that way today are just TVs we would have known as direct-LED TVs in the past. Samsung even released edge-lit TVs that it markets as mini-LED, which I think is pushing the definition too far.

But also, do you get better results from something with very small LEDs packed in, but terrible control of light bleeding from one area to another, or from something with bigger LEDs in fewer zones, but with better shaping of the light as it passes through the panel?

At first, the technology was very samey, but it's developed into something complex over time with a million ways to approach its simple concept.

RGB TVs are launching with a ton of confusion around the specific implementation already built in, even though they offer such a clear original concept (of having a colorful backlight instead of a single color).

For example, did you know that some RGB TVs might not actually use red, green, and blue LEDs in each backlight element, as is the whole promise of the technology? There are versions of the tech that use two LEDs (blue and green) with a phosphor color filter to create the full range of hues. This would be cheaper to make, but it will surely perform less well.

Sony has been making a big fuss about how its upcoming TV will have individual red, green, and blue LEDs for each backlight element, because it's a premium piece of tech. Sony seems to be briefing against other brands that might be cutting corners, to make clear that its (probably high-priced) TV is worth the cash.

Who would be launching a cheaper TV that cuts corners this way? Most people would probably guess the Chinese brands that have been undercutting the likes of Sony and Samsung on price for years.

But Hisense is doing the exact same briefing as Sony against unnamed competitors who may use the cheaper version. The company told me that its two new RGB TVs use all three LED colors, unlike some that might be using the dual-LED system.

Okay, what about TCL? The company certainly gets some side-eye from TV enthusiasts following the result of a lawsuit saying that it can't call certain TVs "QLED" anymore. Well, TCL told me explicitly that its higher-end RGB model not only uses all three RGB LEDs, but it actually has two of each LED per element to provide better light performance.

The company said that the red element even uses an individual control chip per red LED, because the red wavelength needs the most careful management. For green and blue, the two LEDs are each controlled by one chip.

Now, Sony's made a big song and dance about having one LED per color, and TCL's out here with two LEDs per color — who's the more premium now, eh, Sony? The answer is: I have no idea! We'd have to test both, but this whole thing leaves me exhausted rather than excited about a new technology that hasn't even launched yet. Multiple companies are pointing fingers at others for cutting corners, but everyone is also successfully emphasizing how they're absolutely not cutting corners.

The good news is that it should be very obvious if TVs are using the cheaper system once we get them in our labs, because the spectrum power distribution of a TV screen is like a fingerprint for different technologies, since it measures the inherent luminance of different wavelengths within the panel, which gets adjusted for the content.

But the thing is, we're not even done with the technology being confusing yet, because at CES in 2026, Hisense literally didn't show its two new RGB TVs at all, instead opting to show the next version of the tech, which is no longer RGB anymore. It's RGBC, because the company is apparently adding a cyan LED in addition to the red, green, and blue.

Am I excited about this? I don't know, man, why don't you let me see what I think of the RGB ones first!

And I haven't even talked about how RGB TVs will often "color zones" instead of the "dimming zones" you get with mini-LED, meaning you need to divide the number of color zones by three in order to get the equivalent number to simple dimming zones, because color zones count all three RGB elements as independently dimmable (but this is silly, because we only care about the number of zones in terms of their ability to turn things black).

What do you tell people in your own advertising?

Look, it's obviously great that the TV world is more innovative and competitive than it's ever been right now. It's going to mean better results and cheaper TVs for people buying them, so I'm far from mad about all this.

But I'm bemused, because the TV companies are making it both harder for themselves and for me by rolling this tech out in such a chaotic manner.

Take Hisense, valiantly betting on RGB as being the flagship top-of-the-line TV. It will surely just advertise that RGB is the best you can get — nice and easy, right? Except TCL will offer an RGB TV that massively undercuts both of Hisense's TVs, so Hisense's own advertising may work against it because it makes that TV look incredibly tempting in comparison to its own — and both companies have opted to name their versions of the technology 'Mini RGB', so they'll sound incredibly similar to most people.

When someone asks me whether one type of TV technology is better than the other, or even just whether something is good for a particular purpose, I can normally give a succinct answer, even if it starts with 'depends'.

I really don't know how to answer with RGB tech this year. I'll probably have to tell people to ignore the name and just think of it as mini-LED because of how interspersed it is with mini-LED tech between different manufacturers at similar prices.

But that seems like such a waste of a new screen technology, doesn't it? OLED has such a simple dominance of branding as the premium TV tech, and RGB could have challenged it, but collectively, the branding has been diluted before it even launched fully.

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I just attended a demo of Hisense's new 2026 TVs, and while discussing the new UR9 RGB TV, one unusual feature jumped out at me: it has a DisplayPort connection. It's not a full-size DisplayPort port, but it's a USB-C port with full DisplayPort support and branding.

HDMI has obviously dominated the world of TV inputs, but DisplayPort is still the most common output on GPUs — and preferred by the PC hardcore in many cases. In general, it seems more hassle to include DisplayPort than it's worth on most TVs, so it's just never on there — which is why this one obviously caught my eye.

Hisense didn't explain exactly why it went for it on this particular model, but there are two things going on with this TV that might explain it.

First, the set has 3x HDMI 2.1 ports, not 4 like most high-end TVs. This was also true of the Hisense U8QG last year — it appears to be a result of the particular connection control chip that Hisense is using.

When Hisense revealed this to me, it explained that the TV has three HDMI ports, then made a point of saying it also has DisplayPort, which will support 4K at 170Hz/180Hz (depending on size). So it's possible that adding a DisplayPort was simply a way of offering a fourth 4K 170Hz/180Hz input, overcoming whatever HDMI limitation there is.

But the second element is that this is an RGB-backlit mini-LED TV, and Hisense claims that it should be able to hit over 100% of the BT.2020 pro color space, and is also Pantone validated (though the latter doesn't mean too much — Hisense's more affordable TVs have this rating too).

So there could be an element of Hisense aiming to include DisplayPort for maximum color depth for creatives who want to use the wide color support of the screens. Whether the TV will hit the claimed color figure is something we'll have to wait to see — there are multiple ways to measure the color space, and the Hisense UX116 released last year with RGB tech hit 92.6% of the BT.2020 space in our tests. This is way better than regular mini-LED TVs, which have tended to max out at around 75-78%, but obviously isn't quite 100%.

The only potential issue for both gaming and creative use is the size of the TVs — the UR9 series will come in 65-inch, 75-inch, and 85-inch sizes, with 100 inches also available in the US. That means it's not desk-friendly but might still have potential for both.

I think it's PC gamers looking for a sofa setup who will find this the most interesting. You'll have the flexibility to use the HDMI ports for whatever AV connectivity you need that really requires HDMI, and you can make the most of the high refresh rates over DisplayPort.

The TV supports AMD FreeSync, and while Hisense hasn't confirmed it for this model, most of its mini-LED sets are G-Sync compatible, though not G-Sync certified.

Its TVs usually have fairly low latency when we've measured them, and they have easy-to-use gaming menus for adjusting settings.

But the other tempting factor is that RGB mini-LED technology isn't coming out in monitors at the moment, and it's a really interesting new technology. It uses an LCD panel with a mini-LED backlight, but the backlight isn't one color: each light element has red, green, and blue LEDs, so effectively a low-res version of the image is created by the backlight, and then the LCD layer adds the final color-filtering and detail.

It's theoretically more efficient than regular mini-LED, while having a wider color gamut and potentially less noticeable blooming from light areas to dark ones.

And it's much brighter than OLED, and this TV has a lightly matte anti-reflective coating to help make it work well for brighter rooms, if you're playing during the day.

Having a DisplayPort option won't be a major game-changer for most people, but it's so rare that I had to call it out — and it's especially interesting that it's on a TV technology you can't get in a smaller version, so the UR9 offers something unique.

It's not going to be cheap, though — in the US, the 65-inch model is officially priced at $3,499, while in Australia it's set to retail at AU$3,999, which actually works out to be great value. We don't have UK prices yet, but based on the US price, that's around £2,650.

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• German court tells TCL to stop advertising and selling QLED TVs
• Rival firms' complaints allege deceptive advertising
• Standardized certification might help buyers

TCL has been ordered to stop selling some of its TVs in Germany. A court in Munich has ruled that TCL had broken the country's unfair competition law by advertising supposedly QLED TVs that "do not deliver the color reproduction expected from QLED TVs," as reported by Korea Times.

The court decision means that TCL can no longer advertise or sell current certain specific QLED TV models in Germany.

The case was filed by Samsung, which claimed that TCL was running deceptive advertising, and more court cases on the same topic are coming in other countries, including the US.

The lawsuits all make the same claim: that what TCL calls a QLED isn't a QLED as it's commonly understood, and that consumers are being mis-sold TVs as a result.

Tests for quantum dots found not a lot

The court found that TCL's quantum dot TVs, such as the QLED870 series available in Germany, didn't deliver the characteristics of a quantum dot LED, and that consumers were being misled as a result.

This isn't the first time it's been claimed that TCL's quantum dots don't deliver the goods. In late 2024, the South Korean news website ET News published details of tests that didn't detect the chemicals required to make quantum dots on TCL quantum dot TVs.

The tests were commissioned by Seoul chemicals company Hansol Chemical (which, it's worth noting, works with Samsung, a key TCL rival, and which heavily promoted the results of these tests alongside launching the court case) and carried out by Geneva's SGS and the UK's Intertek.

According to ET News (via Google Translate), "no indium (In) or cadmium (Cd) was detected in three TCL QD TV models. Indium and cadmium are essential materials that cannot be omitted for QD implementation… if neither is present, QD technology cannot be said to have been applied." You can see the test results here.

TCL disputed the findings — "The QD content may vary depending on the supplier, but it definitely contains cadmium," it responded — and published its own tests, including a test by SGS, the same firm that conducted tests for Hansol.

The results contradicted Hansol Chemical's tests, but those tests used a different methodology: where TCL's tests focused on TCL's quantum dot films, Hansol's commissioned tests were on finished TCL TVs.

It seems very unlikely that TCL would get away with selling quantum dot TVs that didn't contain any quantum dots, and the performance of TCL's QLED displays in our reviews has been consistent with the stated specs and color performance, regardless of what tech was used inside to get there, within the usual margins for error we expect when going from marketing claims to real-world use.

Hansol Chemical has filed a complaint against TCL with the US Federal Trade Commission, alleging false advertising, and TCL is also facing class action lawsuits in several US states making the same claim. TCL isn't alone here: Hisense has also been targeted in the US.

The claims and counterclaims indicate a problem with TV tech: without independent certification, we have to take manufacturers' claims on trust. And in Germany at least, the court decided that TCL was making promises it hadn't kept.

While independent certification might help consumers, right now it's all very confusing: Germany's TÜV Rheinland has awarded official certification to both Samsung and TCL for quantum dot TVs, but for different things: Samsung has been certified as "Real Quantum Dot Display" while TCL was awarded "Realistic Visual Experience".

TCL declined to comment for this article, and we approached Samsung but have yet to hear back. We'll keep you posted with any further response.

• Amazon's first major Fire TV software rework in five years
• Initially for Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2023), Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, and Fire TV Omni Mini-LED
• Rollout is currently US-only; will be expanded in the Spring

Amazon is now rolling out its most exciting Fire TV device upgrade to date, featuring the first major redesign of this software in five years, and some important under-the-hood change that promise to majorly speed up your devices.

The rollout has started in the US, and it looks like Amazon is taking it slow: it's coming to just three devices to begin with. Those devices are the Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2023, 2nd Gen), the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, and the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED TV.

The update will roll out to more countries and more devices in the Spring of 2026, with third-party Fire TV devices (such as TVs from TCL, Panasonic, Hisense, Insignia and more) getting upgraded too.

What's new in the Amazon Fire TV upgrade?

This isn't just a minor refresh, although everything has been tweaked to make it look better. There's much more room for pinned apps and subscriptions, giving you 20 slots instead of the current six. There's a new streamlined navigation bar too.

One of the key goals of the update is to reduce the amount of time you spend searching for something to watch, with improved recommendations and easier access to live content too.

The focus on watching means that less commonly used features such as games, photos, music videos and the Appstore are tucked away in a three-line hamburger menu.

Alexa+ will enable you to ask questions using natural language, ask follow-up questions and generally chat with Amazon's digital assistant. If it's as good as Amazon says you'll be able to do interesting things such as ask Alexa to recommend movies that have a similar visual style. Alexa+ is included in your Prime subscription; non-subscribers can pay separately to enable the feature.

Perhaps most excitingly, Amazon says that its reworking of the underlying code makes the update "20–30%" faster – and responsiveness has always been an area where Fire TV could use a little nudge.

This also comes hot on the heels of Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming coming to Fire TV devices, albeit not quite in the full quality that we'd hoped for – but it's still a great combo.

According to TechCrunch, the spring rollout will cover more countries and more Fire TV models including the latest Fire TV 4K streaming players, the Fire TV 2-Series and 4-Series, and the Omni QLED Series. You'll also have it on the new Amazon Ember Artline TVs.

• You can't afford it
• You don't have room for it
• It's probably quite nice, though

When we saw Samsung's world-first 130-inch RGB TV in person back in January, we thought it was beautiful, but it wasn't clear whether it would actually go on sale – at the time Samsung said it was just a concept, but now there's more rumblings that it might happen.

But now a new report suggests that if it does become available to buy, it's going to be very, very expensive.

Enormous TV in 'expensive' shocker, I know. But there's a significant jump in production cost between the current 115-inch / 116-inch panels and a 130-inch one, so there's likely to be a very significant cost for early adopters.

How much will a 130-inch TV cost?

The current flagship extra-large TVs are 116-inch models, such as the Hisense 116UX, which had a launch price of $29,999 / £24,999 / AU$39,999.

According to research firm Counterpoint, as reported by FlatpanelsHD, the cost of a 130-inch LCD panel is nearly 1.5x the cost of a 115-inch one.

It's tempting to grab the calculator and multiply the cost of the Hisense 116UX by 150%, but the panel is only part of the cost of a TV. While it's a significant chunk of the overall bill of materials, there are other factors at play including the processor, sound system – in the case of the Samsung, 14 built-in bass units – and the cost of engineering and building the frame for such a large, heavy panel. Some of those might cost more than for a 115-inch TV, some might cost the same.

(If you're wondering about the crude value proposition here, a 130-inch screen is 27% larger than a 115-inch screen in terms of the area – so 50% higher price for 27% more screen.)

It's clear that the first 130-inch LCD TVs are going to be out of reach for most of us, but their role isn't really to sell in serious numbers: the first flagships are there to showcase new technology and to burnish brands' reputations as market leaders, so they're only really bought by the most affluent early adopters.

As we said of Samsung's 130-inch prototype, "it's a big flashy showcase". Every new generation of TV tech has started off with sky-high price tags and then getting much cheaper in a relatively short space of time as manufacturing improves and becomes more efficient.

Assuming you're even in the market for one of the new TVs, there's also the issue of performance. The "never buy a 1.0 product" advice is an old tenet of tech, and it applies to TVs too: for example when we reviewed the Hisense 116UX we noted that it had screen uniformity issues and struggled with some dark scenes.

With each new wave of TV tech we've seen the panels and the TVs containing them improving over time – and price dropping – and it's highly likely that the same will happen with these even bigger flagships. So at first, a high-end 130-inch may be in the $40-$45k region – but later, who knows? Maybe you'll only be paying a bargain $20k. I'll have two!

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For the longest time, I’ve held a bitter grudge against LCD TVs. I still vividly remember buying my first flatscreen back in 2007, and immediately recoiling in disgust upon seeing how much worse the on-screen text looked in Xbox 360 games than they had on my ageing CRT set. Fast forward 20 years – a period in which I became obsessed with OLEDs – and I’m ready to give LCD another chance.

Alright, it's not quite as simple as that. When I say ‘LCD’, I specifically mean ‘RGB mini-LED’, but hey – it’s still a traditional liquid crystal display, just with (quite a few) bells and whistles. But this tech ditches so many of the drawbacks of LCD, while also potentially improving on the few weaknesses OLED has – I think it could be the premier screen type for AV snobs going forward.

As managing editor of entertainment Matt Bolton recently argued, RGB TVs are a huge danger to OLED TVs… and I’m right there with him on that. Brighter, potentially cheaper (more on that shortly), and sporting incredible color deptch, the most tantalizing TV technology coming out of CES 2026 has made my obsessive eyes oh so excited.

Easy as RGB

The technology behind RGB mini-LED (or Micro RGB, as you will sometimes see it called) is fascinating… providing you’re a massive AV dweeb. Rather than use a single color of backlight behind the pixels, as LCD TVs always have, every LED in the backlight now has red, green and blue elements, meaning they can shine the correct color for the part of the picture they're behind. This means much less color-filtering is needed, and yet you get a wider range of colors at the same time. It also makes them more efficient.

What does that mean for my inner OLED obsessive? A good chance of higher brightness compared to my go-to TV tech, combined with a precision level of backlight control that should limit the ‘halo effect’ that has dogged the corners of even the best LCD TVs for decades, where light leaks from bright areas to dark areas.

Even though Samsung has already shown us its giant 115-inch Micro RGB TV, I’m particularly excited to see what LG and its ‘Micro Dimming Ultra’ feature can produce in its first RGB panels.

Sure, OLED TVs can self-dim every single onscreen pixel. But then again, thanks to my Philips Hue Gradient Lightstrip, and the fact it projects the colors of whatever content I’m watching onto my lounge wall, I don’t really need every dark scene in my favorite film to be perfectly inky because the wall-illuminating technology boosts perceived contrast anyway.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m currently extremely happy with my 77-inch LG G3 OLED. What. A. TV. Thanks to its infinite black levels, incredible contrast and peerless screen uniformity, the South Korean manufacturer’s flagship panel of 2023 is comfortably the best television I’ve ever owned. And hoo-boy, have I bought a lot of them during my four decades on this spinning rock.

Still, a part of me will forever be enticed and intrigued by the shiniest new form of TV tech. Hence why I’ve owned 12 separate OLED panels since 2016. Somewhat pathetically, I can remember every single model number; be it the 10 LG sets or the Philips and Sony screens that made me cheat on my favorite OLED manufacturer.

OLED down the garden path

Over that time I’ve been jazzed by all the latest advances on the ‘Light-emitting Diode’ front. MLA brightness-boosting solutions. Primary Tandem 2.0 panels. Glare-ending ‘Reflection Free Premium’ screens. For all I appreciate the drastic increase in peak HDR brightness with the best OLED TVs year on year, my hyper focused eyes are now obsessed with the potential of RGB mini-LED sets.

Every manufacturer is boasting that RGB TVs will deliver well over 100% of the HDR color gamut, and I'm excited by the promise of going super-deep on colors. As someone who is bothered by color banding (where tonal changes that should be a smooth gradient have clear 'bands' dividing them) on his current LG OLED to an unhinged degree, this statement has me hoping that RGB tech can overcome this, either by delivering more advanced HDR color 'upscaling' on streamed content, or just with less color limitation on the panels.

When you’re playing one of the best PS5 games, it can be all too obvious when spotting the differences in gradients of certain hues while panning across a bright blue sky. I’m not saying Micro RGB panels can entirely cure this issue, but I’m hopeful they can reduce it.

I also have a slight problem with my LG OLED’s preset modes when it comes to colors. I tend to favor Vivid (hersey, I know) in most situations. That’s mainly because I prefer a cooler tone in movies over the earthier hues that my TV’s Filmmaker and ISF Expert modes offer.

Even still, I can’t shake the feeling my G3’s color accuracy isn’t quite on the money, which is only making me thirst more and more for Micro RGB.

Huge punch at smaller sizes

There’s also a good chance I’m going to have to plump for a smaller (and crucially cheaper) TV than my G3 in the not too distant future. I’m currently in the process of selling my apartment, and in all likelihood, the place I end up staying next won’t be able to accommodate a 77-inch screen.

Though the first, colossal Micro RGB sets that launched last year are pricey, that's because they were huge. Considering they’re far closer tech-wise to mini-LED than they are to OLED, it’s not far fetched to expect them to drop lower than comparable mid-range OLEDs over the next few years.

Considering I may well have to channel my inner Scrooge Mode going forward while I downsize to a smaller place, the fact that Micro RGB TVs can potentially be more energy efficient is seriously seductive too. As much as I adore wall-dominating screen real estate, the notion of a super-bright 55-inch Micro RGB with amazing colors and almost OLED blacks has my Spide… AV sense tingling.

As I gradually make peace with a future that involves a smaller screen, I find my TV horizons are broadening. Five years ago, I would have rather taken a bath in sulphuric acid than own an LCD screen. Yet with Mico RGB becoming increasingly attractive? I say bring on the sulphur.

Have you ever been watching a movie or tv show and found it doesn’t look right? Almost like the movement of the picture looks too smooth? Well, that's commonly called called the ‘soap opera effect’.

Why is it called the soap opera effect? It stems from the fact that soap operas were shot at higher frame rates compared to movies particularly (but also some TV shows), giving them a kind of 'hyperreal' smoothness to the movement.

So why is this a problem on movies on modern TVs? It's because even the best TVs tend to come with some hidden settings active by default, called ‘motion smoothing’ or ‘motion interpolation’. On some TVs, such as Samsung, they are also now referred to as ‘clarity settings.’

If you’ve been fed up with this weird looking motion on your TV but don’t know how to solve it, we’re here to help. But first a quick explanation as to what’s going on.

Why does the soap opera effect happen?

Modern TVs are very bright and work at a range of different frame rates (how often the image on-screen changes) and this can cause a problem called 'judder' in movies (which are shot at 24 frames per second), where you can really see gaps in the movement sometimes, which you can't see in the dim, custom-designed world of movie theaters.

On top of that, many cheaper or older TV literally can't show a clean 24fps image. Many of these TVs have screens that refresh at 60fps, and can only cleanly show motion at a number that 60 divides into (such as 30fps, which is common in HDR video). This means you'll get more judder, because 24fps movies are having frame moved forward or backward in timing to fit the world 60fps TVs.

(More advanced TVs are 120fps, and these actually can show a clean 24fps image, because 120 divides by 24).

On top of that, lower-quality streaming or digital broadcasts lose a lot of information in fast-moving scenes, because the amount of data they can include is pretty limited. Anytime there is a quick, panning shot or fast moving sequence, there will be a loss of detail on the screen.

This is where motion smoothing settings come into play. TV manufacturers began to add motion settings into their lower frame rate TVs to help reduce motion blur and judder during fast paced content, but it's used in all TVs.

With motion smoothing activated, a TV will artificially insert new frames within content to improve clarity. The TV essentially guesses what the next frame is going to look like based on the previous few frames, and adds new frames in – in order to make the image appear smoother and more detailed.

This may sound great for sports, and it usually is – but it has a weird effect on 24fps movies, or cinematic TVs shows. When a TV tries to artificially add more frames into a movie, the movie starts to look too smooth, almost like it's moving too fast – because the low frame rate of movies is very distinctive.

A long panning shot will suddenly look like it’s moving at a higher speed, taking on a soap opera appearance, hence the name ‘soap opera effect’. People will feel like they've move too twitchily. Things will also appear artificially 'clear' in a way that's really off for how we're used to films.

Thankfully, in most cases, these motion settings can be controlled or turned off. Here’s how – but bear in mind, you won't always want to turn them off.

Turning off or adjusting motion smoothing

If you head to your TV’s picture settings, often under 'more' or 'advanced' settings, motion settings can often have their own sub-category. Sometimes, they can be found under another menu and can be referred to as 'clarity' settings.

Below I've done a quick step-by-step guide on how you would access motion settings to turn them off or adjust using our reference LG C5 – there's no way I can run through it for every TV, but it will hopefully give you a useful example.

An indicator of motion settings will be two headings called ‘blur reduction' and ‘judder reduction’, or can be referred to under different names. I found, for example, that while testing Philips OLEDs, judder is referred to as ‘smoothness’.

Another quick fix, if you’re looking for film-accurate picture, is to set your TV to Filmmaker Mode picture mode. Not all TVs have one, but most do nowadays. This picture mode is designed to turn off any enhancement features, including motion smoothing (though some brands have started to keep some more minimal motion settings on).

Where motion smoothing can help

While home theater purists often say motion smoothing is no good, as someone who's tested a lot of TVs of every kind, there are many situations where it can be helpful.

We loved TCL’s mini-LED range in 2025, with the TCL QM7K (the TCL C7K is the UK equivalent) being a particular highlight. While this TV is great, its motion handling is less so, despite it being a 120Hz TV.

When I tested the C7K, I found that without motion settings tweaked, there was a lot of judder while watching sports. However, setting blur and judder reduction to 3 (out of 10) resulted in a smoother image that didn’t result in the soap opera effect.

I’ve found this to be the case with a lot of budget TVs, especially 60Hz panel ones for the reason mentioned above – 24fps movies literally can't show correctly on these screens, so a minimal amount of motion smoothing is the best option.

In fact, I found that LG’s OLEDs, including one of my top sets of 2025 the LG C5, benefitted from keep a motion setting on. In its motion settings menu, activating Cinematic Movement, a mild form of motion smoothing designed purely to preserve the look of 24fps movies, resulted in a much more stable image. A panning shot of a rocky cliffside in No Time To Die had a lot less judder with this setting activated – more like how it's supposed to look.

Really, motion smoothing is all about personal preference. It will require some time experimenting, but it’s worth the investment. It will depend on what TV you have and what content you’re watching as well, but if you’re looking to get away from the soap opera effect, this is how to do it.

• LG no longer makes its 8K OLED TV, nor any 8K LED TVs
• 8K panel production is "on hold", but could come back if things change
• Even Samsung isn't pushing 8K as hard – it's starting to look a lot like 3D

Stop me if you've heard this before: a TV technology has failed to excite customers due to high prices and a lack of compatible content. It looks like 8K may be going the way of 3D TVs and is winding down, as LG reportedly abandons a market that TCL and Sony have already exited.

LG was the only maker selling 8K OLED TVs worldwide, but its Z3 OLED TV was discontinued last year and there's no replacement model in this year's line-up. Panel producer LG Display has confirmed to FlatpanelsHD that the development of 8K panels is on hold for the foreseeable future unless market conditions improve.

The Z3 was one of our picks of the best 8K TVs. But the fact that our list only includes three TVs, one of which is still available but is no longer being made, is a bit of a clue to why LG is apparently getting out.

What's the state of the 8K TV market?

With LG getting out of the 8K TV market, Hisense's 8K plans apparently on hold, and both TCL and Sony gone, that leaves Samsung as the sole carrier of the 8K torch – and Samsung enthusiasm doesn't look that strong either.

A few years ago, Samsung offered a range of 8K TVs aimed at different budget levels. Last year, it only bothered with a really high-end model, and that seems to be the case in 2026 as well – unusually, though, Samsung didn't showcase this TV at CES 2026, focusing RGB TVs and QD-OLED instead.

Perhaps even more notably, when Samsung first demoed its Micro RGB backlight tech at CES 2025 it was in an 8K prototype – but the only RGB TVs it's actually launching are 4K.

We identified 8K TV as one of our losers for 2025, and explained that a huge part of the problem is that 8K TV doesn't solve a problem: "there’s only so much information the human eye can actually perceive. In a world where the best 4K TVs continue to dazzle, native 8K UHD panels (7860 x 4320 pixels) are overkill." At normal viewing distances "you’d be hard pressed to tell the fine details of your favorite Ultra HD movie or show on the 8K display from the current best 55-inch 4K TV".

I think another key issue is the ongoing and probably fatal lack of content for it. Blu-ray tops out at 4K resolution, as do all the major streamers' most premium tiers, and there will not be an 8K disc format; last year Warner Bros said it had scanned some big-name movies in 8K, but the number of films was just 20 and it wasn't clear how those movies would be distributed. As I wrote at the time, "the dearth of 8K content is clearly worrying the TV firms and keeping sales numbers low."

I think that's a shame, but as the former owner of a 3D TV who struggled to find much worth donning the silly specs for, I'm well aware that sometimes TV tech's usefulness doesn't always live up to the hype (although maybe 3D isn't as dead as it looks: a new TV tech delivers glasses-free 3D TV. The big question is whether enough of us will want it).

I think there's a place for 8K technology: Samsung's The Wall is extraordinary, and it can be useful in monitors where you want a lot of pixel acreage.

But given the cost of the kit, the lack of content and the sheer brilliance of the best 4K TVs, I'm just not sure that place is in my living room or yours. And it looks like the manufacturers are increasingly coming to that conclusion too.

CES 2026 didn’t just feel like a victory lap for bigger and brighter TVs – it also made the whole “big screen at home” conversation a lot more interesting.

On one side, you’ve got genuinely enormous TVs pushing into the 130-inch range, with brands leaning on next-gen tech such as micro-LED, RGB mini-LED or possibly SQD mini-LED to argue that a giant panel is the way to get punchy, colorful, and premium images in a normal room.

On the other, projectors aren’t quietly accepting defeat. Instead, they’re turning up with brighter laser models and increasingly living room-friendly setups, while still holding the ultimate trump card: sheer scale.

When demos of the latest consumer-friendly models are talking about images up to 300 inches, it’s hard not to wonder whether the next upgrade is a bigger TV on the wall, or a projector that turns your entire wall into the screen.

Either way, CES this year pointed to a new battle for the living room, and it’s one where both sides – TVs and projectors – have a real case.

Why 130 inches suddenly feels realistic

A few years ago, a 130-inch TV felt like something you’d only see in a showroom, or a high-end sports bar – impressive, but wildly impractical, not to mention astronomically expensive.

CES 2026 suggested that’s starting to change, and not just because brands want a headline-grabbing centerpiece.

As our CES 2026 TV roundup made clear, the show’s big story wasn’t only 'bigger', but 'better at being big', with next-gen backlights pitched as the route to higher brightness, stronger color, and fewer of the expected compromises, such as problems with screen uniformity.

Samsung’s 130-inch Micro RGB prototype is the clearest example: a giant TV positioned less as a novelty and more as a direct challenger to the reasons people buy projectors in the first place. It's big, it's immersive, and it's designed in a way that's realistic for fitting into a home (if your home is large).

The key point is that display tech is now evolving with 'real rooms' in mind, not just darkened home theaters, and CES was full of signs that multiple brands are treating giant TVs as a genuine battleground in 2026 and beyond.

Hisense used CES to talk up its fresh RGB mini-LED direction, including an 'Evo' approach that adds a cyan element to the red, green and blue light modules.

Meanwhile, TCL used the show to push its own next-gen mini-LED message – including its TCL X11L SQD mini-LED flagship – while also flagging new RGB mini-LED models in the same breath.

Both those brands, plus Samsung and LG, also offer micro-LED TVs ranging from 130 inches to 160 inches, though these cost a lot more, and are less designed for standard living rooms.

CES's projectors: bigger and more flexible

If giant TVs were the loudest at CES 2026, projectors seemed to be making the more pointed argument: 'we can still go bigger, and we’re easier to live with in most rooms'.

As we found in our CES 2026 projector roundup, there was a good mix of brighter portable models, gaming-friendly options, and even a more mobile home-theater concept that underlines how far projectors have come.

Hisense did the clearest job of framing projectors as the natural rival to the 130-inch TV push.

Ahead of CES, the company unveiled the XR10 – a 4K laser projector pitched for screens up to 300 inches – alongside the Hisense PX4-Pro, positioned as the sequel to its highly regarded Hisense PX3-Pro (which we regard as the best ultra-short throw projector), with many features aimed squarely at living rooms.

And then there’s the other trend that the CES launches kept reinforcing: convenience.

Samsung’s updated Freestyle+ portable projector isn’t trying to beat a home-theater laser projector on sheer impact, but it does show where the category is heading: higher brightness and smarter automatic picture optimization.

The 2026 living room battle: TV or projector?

This is where the giant TV vs projector debate stops being about CES spectacle and starts being about what your living room can realistically handle.

A huge TV’s biggest advantage is that it behaves like a TV: bright, consistent, and largely indifferent to the type of media or environment.

The push among the best TVs around next-gen backlights (especially RGB mini-LED) is effectively an attempt to stretch that advantage to extreme sizes, keeping colors looking rich and highlights looking punchy, even if your room is brightly lit.

The best projectors are getting brighter, and the laser models shown around CES underline how far performance has come, but they’re still more sensitive to the room and factors such as ambient light, which makes them look washed-out very quickly, and makes black tones look gray.

While ultra-short-throw projectors can make projection far more living room-friendly in terms of setup, you’re buying into the idea that the space is part of the system.

Reflections are the other unglamorous factor. The bigger the screen, the more it can behave like a mirror in a bright room, which is why premium TV makers keep pushing reflection-reducing approaches alongside raw brightness and colour gains.

Projector screens don't reflect light at all – but they do suffer from ambient light in the way mentioned above, which can be more harmful to the viewing experience, depending on your setup.

What CES really signalled

If CES 2026 proved anything to us, it’s that 'the biggest screen for your home' is no longer a settled question.

Giant TVs are pushing into the 130-inch class with a new argument – not just that they’re enormous, but that next-gen backlights like RGB mini-LED can deliver top-end quality at scale.

At the same time, projector makers are making compelling upgrades to their latest models. Hisense’s XR10 and PX4-Pro explicitly pitch around living room practicality, while still dangling that headline-grabbing 300-inch screen.

So the battle for the home theater isn’t really TV versus projector in the abstract: it’s two competing versions of convenience.

Right now, it comes down to: do you want the appliance-like certainty of a wall-sized TV, or the flexibility of projection, where the room is part of the system, but the payoff can be truly theater-scale?

2026 is going to be the year of RGB TVs. The biggest TV makers have sets coming out using next-gen RGB backlight technology, which basically replaces the blue or white backlight of a traditional mini-LED LCD TV with one that has full RGB color support, meaning that these TVs are more efficient, offer richer and more accurate colors, and can suffer less light leakage into dark areas.

Obviously, we need to wait and see just how well these TVs perform in practice – but TechRadar's TV team has seen several of them in early demos, and they're incredibly impressive. Wide viewing angles (often an issue with LCD TVs), vibrant yet realistic colors, inky deep black tones, powerful HDR highlights… they look like a huge danger to the best OLED TVs.

That's in no small part because RGB TVs are set to arrive at only slightly higher prices than standard mini-LED technology, and that's in their first year – think about how quickly standard mini-LED prices have dropped in the few years since their inception, meaning you can get a large-screen, great-quality mini-LED set for under $500 / £500 these days.

My colleague Al Griffin, a TV industry veteran of nearly 30 years, even went so far as to say the budget OLED TV is doomed. He thinks that RGB TVs' contrast performance is so close to non-flagship OLED TVs, with richer colors and far superior brightness, that cheaper OLED TVs will become "irrelevant".

I agree with him in principle, although the news that LG Display's new, cheaper, and simultaneously brighter new cheap OLED panel is coming this year probably means that reports of budget OLED's demise are slightly exaggerated.

But I can see a different potential path forward, I hope: while I agree with Al's sentiment about the current state of the industry, I think the aggressive expansion of RGB TVs is the best thing that could happen for OLED TV fans.

At the high end of OLED TVs (like the LG G5 and the Samsung S95F), there's been significant development over the last few years – micro lens array, QD-OLED, Primary RGB Tandem, next-gen quantum dots.

The progress in mini-LED TVs, plus the arrival of competition for the creation of OLED panels between LG and Samsung, lit a fire under the high-end OLED world. It's improving faster now than at any time in the 13 years OLED TVs have been mainstream.

But at the more affordable end? Not so much.

The LG C5 OLED uses essentially the same panel as the LG C4, and as the LG C3 – and the LG C6 also has it (although there will be a new LG C6H at larger sizes with a better panel).

The LG B5 affordable OLED uses basically the same panel as the LG B4, the B3, and… you get it.

And that's been okay, because the TVs have been very high quality, and mini-LED TVs haven't really been able to match OLED in the key area that people buy them for: the perfect black tones maintained down to the individual pixel.

That truly cinematic look just hasn't come across the same in mid-range mini-LEDs… but RGB TV could change that. Sony told me that one of the advantages of using colorful backlights is that some light wavelengths are more easily absorbed in black areas than others, meaning that there will naturally be less 'blooming' from light areas to dark, as you get in current mini-LED TVs.

If mid-range RGB TVs get close to the contrast of cheaper OLEDs while outperforming them in color and brightness, even purists may turn to the RGB side.

Why is this still a problem for OLED?

The problem for OLED TVs has always been in the manufacturing. The materials needed for the organic pixels haven't changed enough in price over time, and the complicated nature of depositing the material hasn't shifted enough either. Yield rate is another major issue that still holds it back – the manufacturing process just isn't reliable enough to keep prices from dropping.

There have been breakthroughs in areas like the holy grail new blue phosphor material, or the developments in inkjet-printed OLED materials – but I've been told by insiders that the latter is probably three years away from even starting to be used on TV-sized panels, and blue phosphor just won't be enough on its own.

The costs of making OLED panels just haven't changed enough over time to have ever made them truly cheap TVs, and while there's no magic wand for making them less expensive suddenly now, there's certainly more incentive.

Nothing motivates like an existential threat – and RGB TVs certainly have the potential to be just that for today's affordable OLEDs.

• Telly promised to deliver 500,000 TVs, available for free. Spoiler: it hasn't
• These smart TVs are free in exchange for high numbers of ads and tracking
• Use of content recognition tech can be controversial

Way back in 2023, we reported the launch of an unusual smart TV brand: Telly, which was going to provide 500,000 people in the US with a 55-inch 4K HDR smart TV for free. There was just one catch, and of course it involves advertising.

As the cliché goes, if you're not paying for the product then you are the product. And in the case of Telly, your free TV has a second screen that permanently displays ads, and it collects quite a lot of personal information about your viewing.

That makes it a hard sell, and it turns out that the 500,000 prediction was a bit optimistic – but thousands of people have still signed up for Telly and it's reportedly making more money from ads per user than other smart TV platforms such as Roku.

How many people are watching their Telly today?

According to a leaked investor presentation that's been passed to TV industry expert Lowpass (via FlatpanelsHD), as of November 2025 Telly had 35,000 sets in people's homes – slightly up from the 28,000 in the previous financial quarter, but far short of the half million promised at launch – although the report did say that Telly was ordering another 110,000 TVs from its manufacturing partner, Foxconn.

Telly is apparently bringing in an average of around $50 per user per quarter from ad revenue, which is a huge jump on the $41 per year that Roku apparently brings in.

But it's also suffering from multiple issues. Lowpass reports that 10% of Telly TVs are breaking in transit between the warehouse and the customer, and funding the manufacture of its next tranche of 110,000 TVs is going to be a financial challenge.

There may be a more serious challenge too. Telly uses a feature called Automatic Content Recognition, ACR for short, to work out what you're watching and tailor ads accordingly. It's far from the only firm to use the tech, but there are legal cases against multiple manufacturers – Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony and TCL – regarding the use of ACR and the data it generates.

That's partly political – Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge, claims that ACR means "surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries" – but as DJI and TikTok can both attest, politics can have a big effect on tech firms' operations in the US.

With ACR so central to its business model, I'm sure Telly is watching the cases closely – because in the worst case, it might never even get close to the original 500,00-unit goal.

• LG Display has shown off 'OLED SE' screens – cheaper but brighter for budget TVs
• 120Hz refresh rate and up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness
• Coming in 2026 from "major customers"

When it comes to the best TVs, you know the drill: OLEDs are revered for premium image quality, while mini-LEDs are brighter and cheaper. But LG Display may disrupt that with a new kind of OLED panel it calls 'OLED SE'.

OLED SE is designed for entry-level TVs, and while its specifications aren't even in the same zip code as the Primary Tandem OLEDs of the LG G5, it could be a game-changer for affordable OLEDs such as the LG B5.

Like the panel in the B5, OLED SE has a refresh rate of 120Hz. But it delivers a claimed 1,000 nits of brightness, which is significantly more than the 668 nits we measured on the B5.

However, I should mention here that LG Display claimed that the Primary RGB Tandem panel used in the LG G5 can hit 4,000 nits, but we measured the LG G5 at a maximum of 2,268 nits, so we'll have to see if 1,000 nits is real-world or not.

Still, this could make OLED more competitive for budget-conscious TV buyers who might otherwise go for mini-LED due to its sheer bang-for-buck.

How does OLED SE cut the cost of an OLED TV?

As LG Display explained in a Q&A at CES 2026: "SE retains OLED's pixel-level dimming and core advantages, including superior HDR picture quality, perfect black levels, and outstanding response times, enabling clearly superior image quality compared to LCD TVs in a similar price range."

So why is it cheaper? According to our colleagues at What Hi-Fi?, one of the ways in which LG Display has managed to reduce the price of the OLED SE panels is by going without the polarizer.

Polarizers reduce reflection and glare, but also reduces the amount of light that a panel emits, so by binning it you get more brightness and less cost. The downside, of course, is that you also end up with a more reflective TV.

TV manufacturers could deal with that by adding their own anti-glare layer, and that could be in the form of their own polarizer, or a matte layer like the one used in the Samsung S95F (which we've been told can be inexpensive to apply). These may affe

LG Display doesn't just supply LG: it makes panels for all kinds of manufacturers, including Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Hisense and Philips. It said it will be supplying OLED SE to "major customers" in 2026.

LG Display told FlatPanelsHD that it will be making the OLED SE panels in five sizes to begin with: 48 inches, 55 inches, 65 inches, 77 inches and 83 inches.

Those sizes just happen to correlate with the five sizes of the LG B5, and of course they're generally the most popular sizes of mid-range or high-end TVs. So it feels like a safe bet that we'll see OLED SE in the LG B6 – but LG has told us that we won't really hear more about that TV until the spring.

The recent CES 2026 was, as usual, a showcase for the best OLED TVs, with LG and Samsung trotting out new flagship models with brighter screens, sleeker designs, and all manner of AI-based features to enhance both picture quality and the overall user experience.

At this year’s show, however, there was an even greater sense of urgency to the OLED TV unveilings I attended. And that may be because OLED TVs, which consistently earn our highest praise year after year, are now under threat from a formidable new contender for the best TV crown: RGB mini-LED.

TechRadar provided extensive coverage of RGB mini-LED tech and its variants both before and during CES. A key takeaway from the show was that RGB mini-LED will be available in smaller sizes in 2026, with 55- and 65-inch screens featured alongside the monster-sized models slated to arrive from Samsung, Hisense, TCL, LG and potentially other TV brands.

The first RGB mini-LED TVs to be released in 2025, such as the Hisense 116UX and Samsung 115-inch Micro RGB, were extremely large and expensive. We expect the forthcoming smaller-size offerings to be significantly more affordable, though, as examples of first-generation tech, they will likely be more expensive than their regular mini-LED TV counterparts out of the gate.

From what I’ve seen so far of this tech, it’s capable of OLED-level contrast, shadow detail, black uniformity, and viewing angles – ie, all the things that OLED used to beat the competition on, year after year.

Many new models also have a claimed 100% BT.2020 color space coverage, which is a benchmark that OLED doesn’t match. (The LG G5 topped out at 81.3% when we measured it, and the Samsung S95F at 89.3%.)

The new RGB mini-LED TVs slated to arrive in 2025 are likely to be priced higher than the same-size OLED models, even the flagship ones such as the LG G6 and Samsung S95H. But if history is any indication, those prices will quickly fall, while OLED prices will keep stalling, and the real competition with OLED will then kick in, and I don't expect the tide to turn in OLED's favor.

A tale of two OLEDs

Another CES TV takeaway was that the OLED TV category is not just facing an existential threat, but is starting to split into two distinct camps: luxury OLED and everyday OLED.

The main example of the luxury trend on the CES show floor was the new LG OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV. This series features a 9mm, pencil-thin Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 display panel – the same one used in the company’s 2026 flagship G6 OLED TV – that’s wirelessly tethered to LG’s latest-gen Zero Connect Box, an external connection box that supports lossless 4K 165Hz transmission.

LG hasn’t released pricing information yet for the W6, but we expect it to arrive at a premium over the G6 OLED series. It was the star attraction of LG’s CES tech briefings, and appears to be a main focus for the company, which touted its innovative design, flush-mount installation features, and also its reflection-free screen and ability to display artworks from LG’s Gallery+, a subscription-based platform that lets viewers select from a library of over 4,500 still and motion images to display in ambient mode.

In Samsung’s off-site CES display, the new flagship Samsung S95H OLED TV also impressed with its bright QD-OLED display panel featuring a Glare Free OLED screen coating that thoroughly eliminated reflections. Samsung says that the S95H is 35% brighter than last year’s Samsung S95F and features refined tone mapping that lets it process HDR sources mastered at up to 4,000 nits with ease.

We always expect to see year-over-year improvements such as these in Samsung’s flagship OLED TVs, but the most notable changes were a new metal ‘art frame’ that gives it an elegant floating effect when wall-mounted, and support for the Art Mode found in the company’s The Frame TVs. The S95H features built-in connections, but can also optionally be paired with the company’s Wireless One Connect Box for a cable-free installation, even to have up to eight HDMI ports.

Compared to these very design-forward TVs, LG and Samsung’s more affordable, mid-range OLED offerings at CES looked comparatively bland. For 2026, LG has opted to split its trusty C-series lineup into two, with the larger 77- and 83-inch models getting the same Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 display panel found in the flagship G6 and W6 series, while the smaller screen sizes will carry over the same type of OLED panel used in last year’s LG C5.

With the ‘better’ C6 version (LG calls it the C6H) limited to large screen sizes – and potentially priced higher due to the upgraded OLED panel – the smaller, more mainstream models in the 2026 C-series don’t appear to have advanced much over last year’s LG C5, which in itself represented only an incremental improvement over the previous year’s LG C4.

And then there’s LG’s budget B-series OLED models. A new B6 series wasn’t revealed at the show, but LG confirmed it's coming – and given the direction the C6 series is taking, I don’t expect it to be much different than last year’s LG B5 series, which again was only an incremental improvement on the previous year’s LG B4 series.

As for Samsung, the company’s new S90H OLED series was announced at the show. Similar to last year’s Samsung S95F, we expect only the 65-inch model to feature a higher-performance QD-OLED display panel. The full S90H series does gain the Glare Free screen tech used in Samsung’s flagship TVs, however, which will make it a more enticing option for bright room viewing.

Again, we know a budget-friendly Samsung S85H OLED model is coming, but it looks set to be extremely similar to the Samsung S85F from 2025.

Cheaper OLED TVs: Winter is coming

So, the story for OLED TVs in 2026 is essentially that flagship models are brighter, more beautiful, and more packed with innovative features than ever.

The midrange and budget models, in contrast, will be basically the same versions we’ve seen over the past few years, with only minor enhancements – and yet the world of competitor TV tech is moving fast around them

If RGB mini-LED TVs (or other variants such as TCL’s SQD mini-LED) end up priced competitively with the more affordable OLED TVs, while offering higher brightness and otherwise equivalent or even better performance, the market for even mid-range OLED, let alone budget models like the LG B-series and Samsung S85-series, could quickly evaporate.

I’d fully expect that fancy, design-savvy, wireless OLED TVs with much higher than average brightness and effective anti-glare screen coatings will continue on well into the future.

As for cheaper, basic OLED TVs… it was nice knowing ya.

When I visited Samsung's big showcase at CES 2026, the company showed off a couple of interesting concepts for the future – TVs that aren't necessarily going on sale, but that might if interest is strong enough, because they're essentially fully formed products.

One of them was the 130-inch Micro RGB TV that already impressed me with its cool frame design and super-rich images, and the other was a 140-inch micro-LED TV with no bezel at all. In fact, the display simply runs over onto the side of the TV, so it's all screen until it hits the wall.

Samsung showed a couple of different ideas for how the bezel can be used: it can "extend content onto the onto the bezel for added immersion", but it can also show additional information. Samsung had a demo where you could watch sports on the main TV section, while the latest scores from other matches were shown along the bezel, like the ticker in SportsCenter.

I'd assume that in a final version of it, you'd also just be able to choose a solid color (and maybe even a texture) for the bezel, almost like having an infinitely customizable (and very large) version of Samsung's The Frame TV.

Or perhaps you could have the sides display colors matching what's on-screen to spread onto the wall – not literally extending the on-screen image, but instead adding ambiance, like the excellent Philips Ambilight feature, which I love and have written about here.

The whole thing naturally made me think of Samsung's phones with the curved 'Edge panels', where the old screen curved down at the side of the phone and could be used for notifications or shortcuts, debuting on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge over a decade ago.

This time, we're not talking curved OLED, though – micro-LED is tipped to be one of the next big things in TV tech, and Samsung has been pushing it forward for years. It works like OLED, in that the pixels emit their own light and color, but can theoretically get much brighter than OLED, with no risk of burn-in.

Micro-LED is particularly suited to this kind of design, because it works really well in modular panels that can be stitched together into larger panels – in fact, that's how nearly every micro-LED TV you've seen works. So adding panels on the side that link right into the panel on the front is easier here than with other screen tech.

The problem is that micro-LED remains extremely expensive to produce, and manufacturers have struggled to change that in the five years since its introduction – and Hisense recently told me that we're still between five and eight years from it becoming mainstream.

But when Samsung is ready for it, this would definitely be a fun way to introduce micro-LED – especially with Samsung Art Mode on, mimicking The Frame models, as I mentioned earlier. Though it may need to be a little smaller than 140 inches.

• QD-EL / NanoLED TVs promise exceptional brightness and color
• It uses self-emissive quantum dots – like OLED, but better
• Quantum dot maker Nanosys says the tech could be ready in 2029

It's always wise to take tech predictions with a big pinch of salt. But when the predictions are about TV technology and come from the firm that invented quantum dots, we're all ears. Nanosys has described multiple advances coming to TVs in the next few years, and some of them are pretty exciting.

The firm was talking to Insight Media in the video below, and explained that the first big development we'll see is the introduction of brighter QD-OLED TVs this year. That's thanks (in part, at least) to a new version of the Quantum Dot Color Converters (QDCC) that enables panels to deliver that higher brightness. We've likely already seen the first TV with that upgraded technology in the form of Samsung's S95H (pictured at the top of this article), which we got our first information about at CES, which promises to be 35% brighter than the Samsung S95F that it replaces.

Those brighter TVs may just be the beginning. According to Nanosys's Jeff Yurek, "By 2030, we want to ship what we consider truly 'high flux'. Now we are talking about not just QD-OLED but maybe microLED for something like an AR application, which would require hundreds of thousands or maybe a millions or more nits".

So that's less TV, and more 'a headset so bright it can mimic looking at the sun', if you're into that sort of thing.

But Nanosys also mentioned a long-awaited technology waiting in the wings that could potentially overtake OLED as the best tech for high-end TVs: QD-EL, aka NanoLED.

QD-EL NanoLED TVs are coming by the end of the decade

We've written about QD-EL – also known as QD-LED, EL-QD, EL-QLED and NanoLED – before: Samsung was investing significantly in the technology last year with the goal of commercializing it "within a few years". And according to Nanosys's Yurek, "We think 2029 is a reasonable target for when we'll start to see those in the market."

The EL in QD-EL stands for electroluminescent, and like OLED it is a self-emissive technology, meaning each pixel would generate its own light. That means there's no need for a backlight, as you have in current QLED TVs – and it promises to be very bright and very energy efficient.

As we reported last year, the QD-EL prototypes shown at trade shows have been relatively small – under 20 inches – and reports suggest that there are still obstacles to overcome regarding QD-EL's stability and energy efficiency.

QD-EL isn't the only tech on the way that promises to steal the crown of current OLED tech among the best TVs.

We heard from an insider at CES 2026 that inkjet-printed OLED could start being used in TV-sized panels in 2-3 years, following recent breakthroughs in the tech from TCL.

My colleague Matt Bolton was also told at CES by Sonny Ming, Hisense's General Manager of Product Marketing and Scenario Product Operation Department, that microLED TVs could finally be ready at mainstream sizes and more realistic sizes within 5-8 years.

Assuming that these aren't predictions of the Elon-Musk's-flying-roadster kind, that means before the end of the decade we could have multiple new kinds of TV tech – on top of the new RGB TV tech arriving in 2026 – delivering exceptionally bright, energy efficient and immersive displays.

• The AI-driven memory shortage doesn't just affect PCs
• More capacity is coming, but not before 2027
• Low-margin budget products are likely to be hit hardest

What do the best DACs, the best Hi-Res Audio players, the best TVs, and the best soundbars all have in common? They're all facing component shortages and price hikes – not because of tariffs, but because of the AI-driven shortage of memory and storage chips. And the pain's going to be particularly pronounced at the more affordable end of the market, where profit margins are already razor-thin.

As you're no doubt aware, the AI industry is buying a lot of memory for its data centers: as Reuters reported back in October, just one AI firm, OpenAI, intends to order 900,000 semiconductor wafers in 2029. That's around 40% of the world's entire production. And there's plenty more demand in the industry.

As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, "The rapid build-out of infrastructure for artificial intelligence is consuming a large portion of available supply of NAND flash memory, DRAM memory and hard drives. That has resulted in a shortage of memory for other markets such as PCs and smartphones."

Audiovisual devices aren't the same as PCs, and don't typically need as much memory as smartphones. But they still need some memory in order to do what they do. Everything from smart speakers to smart TVs to in-car entertainment systems use RAM alongside their processors, and some of them use NAND storage too, because they're all just small computers at heart; both of these components' prices are rocketing.

We've already seen Samsung warn that its TVs' prices may rise due to comopnents shortages, while there are warnings about smartphone makers scaling back their specs for this year's mobile phones, cutting their memory to cut the cost of manufacturing.

And according to NPR, memory prices are expected to rise even more this year. As Avril Wu of the consultancy Trendforce told NPR, "I keep telling everybody that if you want a device, you buy it now."

How AI could affect AV

AI data centers don't use the same memory chips as a DAC or a Hi-Res Audio player: they use High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), not the DDR RAM you'd find in a PC or PlayStation. But those differing chips are made from the same kind of semiconductor wafers, and those wafers are in ever-increasing demand because HBM uses roughly three times more of those wafers than DDR5 RAM does.

They're also much more profitable to sell, and as a result many firms are shifting focus from consumer memory chips to data center ones – so for example Micron, one of the big three memory makers alongside SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, has shut down its long-standing consumer memory business, Crucial, "to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments". In other words, AI.

As some manufacturers shift focus, new capacity for other kinds of memory isn't coming on board fast enough to cover the demand. So for example in October SK Hynix announced that it "has already secured full customer demand for its entire DRAM and NAND production for next year", and that it'll need to expand its production to cope with the market demands – but even the equipment to make the chips are set to rise in price.

In the shorter term, that means higher memory prices. Much higher prices. CNBC reports that RAM prices are expected to rise "more than 50% this quarter compared to the last quarter of 2025." And the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute says that "DRAM prices have also surged 171% year-over-year, outpacing gold, while DDR5 spot prices have quadrupled since September 2025. DRAM and NAND prices doubled in a single month".

While capacity is being added to existing production plants and new plants are being built, that capacity isn't expected to come online until 2027.

That's likely to have two key impacts on the AV hardware market. The first is that we'll see price increases down the line, especially at the budget end of the market where manufacturers can't simply swallow the increased cost: there's a lot less margin on a $300 smart TV than a $3,000 one.

The second is that manufacturers may go back to the drawing board as some smartphone firms have done, limiting their next products' specifications to compensate for shortages and price hikes. It may also persuade some firms to postpone their product plans altogether until market conditions are more favorable.

We've been here before, of course: I remember the completely fruitless search for in-stock AV receivers after chip production had shut down during COVID lockdowns. At least this time we know the component crunch is coming, and can make purchasing plans accordingly.

Our picks of the best AV gear across different categories

CES 2026 has officially come to a close and it’s been another mammoth year for TVs. The real talk of the town has been RGB TVs, known as RGB mini-LED, Micro RGB or RGB mini depending on which brand you’re speaking to. There’s also been plenty of OLED upgrades, super sized screens and even some additions to the world of gallery and lifestyle TVs.

Some of TV’s biggest hitters were at CES this year and nearly all of them have adopted RGB TVs into their repertoire for 2026. Elsewhere, LG and Samsung announced brighter OLEDs with some new AI-based OS upgrades, Hisense introduced the world to RGB Evo and RGBY MicroLED, and TCL showed off its new SQD (Super Quantum Dot) mini-LED X11L TV. There’s even more to talk about, but I’ll get into it below.

As TechRadar’s TV reviewer, I’m lucky enough to test the best TVs each year and there were more than a few models announced at CES, including some from the list above, that joined my testing wishlist. Now, these aren’t necessarily TechRadar’s best TVs of CES 2026, just my personal list of most anticipated sets I’m hoping to get my hands on throughout 2026. Of course, I’d love to test everything, but the models below are my top picks

LG C6H

Probably one of the most surprising announcements of CES was that LG was splitting its LG C-series into two. The LG C6 will use a standard W-OLED panel (or what LG now just calls Tandem WOLED) and will be in 42, 48, 55 and 65-inch sizes. This will be the closest model to last year’s LG C5, one of the best OLED TVs of 2025.

The other C-series model will be the LG C6H. It will use a Tandem OLED panel – a more advanced OLED panel that promises higher brightness, stronger contrast and bolder color. In fact, it's the same Tandem OLED panel that will be used in the flagship LG G6!

While the C6H will only come in 77 and 83-inch sizes, which dampened my excitement somewhat, it’s nonetheless a great development for the C-series. It’s been due a panel upgrade for a number of years and this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the C6H will live up to the hype.

Samsung S90H

A rival to the LG C6, the Samsung S90H is Samsung’s mid-range OLED for 2026. The big news here is the S90H will come with Samsung’s OLED Glare Free anti-reflection screen, a matt screen that is effective at reducing mirror-like screen reflections. This was previously reserved for flagship OLEDs such as last year’s Samsung S95F, and then introduced to flagship Neo QLEDs such as the Samsung QN90F.

One of my frustrations with LG’s C-series is how reflective it is. Introducing an anti-reflection screen into the mid-range OLED market makes the S90H a viable alternative for people with a bright room. I found that Glare Free was improved in 2025 to maintain better black on the S95F, so hopefully it’s the same story for 2026.

I actually picked the S90H over the C6H as my more anticipated mid-range OLED, due to the S90H’s matte screen and the C6H’s limited screen sizes. I’m hopeful that the S90H isn’t subject to the same panel lottery as the S90F – which was the reason why we only tested the 65-inch S90F. If it isn’t, the S90H could be a really exciting TV for 2026.

Hisense UR9 and UR8 RGB mini-LED

When I tested the Hisense 116UX RGB mini-LED last year, I was impressed by its vibrant colors, excellent detail and high brightness. Contrast and black were also solid, but there were some screen uniformity issues. I was excited to see an advance for mini-LED, but 116-inch is not a realistic size for most people, so I hoped to see it come to smaller screens over the next couple of years.

Imagine my surprise when Hisense announced at IFA 2025 that RGB would come to 85-inch screens at the very least and then revealed at CES 2026 that RGB would be coming to screens as small as 55-inch! It’s unclear what sort of brightness or contrast we can truly expect from the smaller RGB mini-LED screens, but I’ll be eager to test them.

While no pricing has been announced, Hisense did say its prices would be competitive with other brands' RGB TVs – though no other brand has announced pricing yet either. Here’s hoping it competes with OLED, its main rival.

Samsung Micro RGB TVs

Don’t be fooled by the different name: Micro RGB is RGB mini-LED. This is Samsung’s name for the new panel tech, which has also been adopted by LG for its own RGB TV. What's interesting is that Samsung is also bringing Micro RGB to screens as small as 55-inch. So, there’s already competition for 2026.

I actually saw Samsung’s 115-inch Micro RGB TV in action last year. It was next to an unnamed RGB mini-LED TV (which had to be the Hisense 116UX as it was the only other RGB TV available). Samsung's colors were more vibrant and bold, but the Hisense felt more natural and true-to-life. The Samsung also demonstrated strong contrast, better shadow detail and blacks.

I expect Samsung’s Micro RGB TVs will be pricier than Hisense’s RGB mini-LED sets, but it’ll be interesting to see if the price upgrade is worth it. Hisense’s conventional mini-LEDs, such as the Hisense U8QG, have really caught up to Samsung in recent years. Will that carry over to RGB?

LG G6 and Samsung S95H

OK, so this one’s a bit of a cheat. Both LG and Samsung’s flagship 2026 OLEDs are boasting higher brightness, faster processing with new AI enhancements, and design changes for 2026. So it’s tough to choose between them.

The LG G6 is said to be 20% brighter than last year’s LG G5 thanks to Brightness Booster Ultra, and it comes with the new Primary RGB Tandem OLED 2.0 panel, which LG says will improve picture quality over the 1.0 Tandem panel in the G5. It also will have reduced screen reflections compared to the G5, and boasts a full suite of gaming features including a new motion boost that means games can be played at 1080p 330Hz on PC.

The Samsung S95H’s changes are more cosmetic. Samsung says it will be 35% brighter than last year’s Samsung S95F, but the big update here is the new metal frame and the removal of the One Connect Box (the external connections box that housed ports for other devices). The ports are back on the rear of the TV, but Samsung says you can optionally add the Wireless One Connect Box, which would give you up to eight HDMI ports in total.

Both these TVs sound superb, but really neither of them were as headline-grabbing as their mid-range counterparts, the C6 and S90H. But, as the brightness battle continues, I’m still keen to test both models.

The TV world’s heavy hitters are all showing new models at CES 2026, with cutting-edge TVs that use new RGB mini-LED tech grabbing attention via their exceptionally rich color.

RGB mini-LED and its variants (Samsung Micro RGB, Hisense RGB evo, LG Micro RGB, TCL Mini RGB, and so on) will be featured in this year's top TVs arriving as soon as late January. But there are also new and improved OLED TVs on display at CES, with both LG and Samsung stepping up their game to deliver even brighter OLED sets than last year, along with better reflection resistance and enhanced gaming features.

Below is a list of the TVs that we’ve seen so far at CES 2026 that look like they'll have a claim to join our guide to the best TVs right out of the gate. And if you’re wondering why there are no Sony models included, it’s because Sony typically waits until spring to announce its new TVs for the year, while Panasonic didn't show any new sets at CES either.

Samsung S95H OLED

The Samsung S95H is the successor to the Samsung S95F, TechRadar’s TV of the year for 2025. This new flagship features 35% higher peak brightness than last year’s model, which Samsung says is due to improvements in the efficiency of the QD-OLED panel’s color filter and emitting layer.

Other picture-quality improvements include refined HDR tone mapping, with the TV now tuned for content mastered at up to 4,000 nits, along with upgraded noise reduction processing to improve the look of 4K programs streamed at a low bitrate.

The S95H will ship with a metallic ‘art frame’ that gives the TV a floating appearance when wall-mounted, and it supports the Art Mode found in the company’s The Frame TVs. Unlike the S95F, which featured Samsung’s One Connect Box for external source hookups, the new S95H has its connection ports built in, though it can optionally be paired with Samsung's Wireless One Connect Box, an option that boosts the HDMI input count to a whopping eight ports in total.

LG OLED evo G6/W6

LG’s new flagship OLED evo G6 features a new Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 display panel with a Brightness Booster Ultra feature that delivers a 20% brightness increase over last year’s LG G5. LG’s Hyper Radiant Color technology extends the panel picture quality benefits to other factors such as color and contrast, while Reflection Free Premium tech ensures a “perfect black’ in both light and dark room viewing conditions, with lower than 0.5% screen reflectance.

The new G6 is also a premium gaming TV, with Nvidia G-Sync, FreeSync Premium Pro, and 4K 165Hz support, as well as a Motion Booster feature for 1080p gaming at 330Hz. It’s the world’s first TV to feature 4K 120Hz GeForce Now cloud gaming, and it supports ultra-low latency Bluetooth game controllers.

The LG OLED evo W6 marks the return of LG’s Wallpaper TV concept, with a refined design that takes advantage of the company’s latest-gen Zero Connect Box, a 35% smaller version of last year’s wireless connection box that supports streaming at up to 4K 165Hz.

LG W6 TVs use the same Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 display panel as the G6, but it’s encased in a pencil-thin cabinet with stylish curved linear pattern side bezels and an ebony wood back panel. A two-point integrated folding bracket allows for a flush-mount wall installation, and an optimized sound path and sound port give the super-slim TV’s 4.2-channel, 60-watt built-in speakers enough space to properly do their thing.

LG C6H OLED

At TechRadar, we are big fans of LG’s C-series OLED TVs, which offer impressive picture quality and gaming features at a reasonable price point. This year, LG opted to split the new C6 series in two, with the 77-inch and 83-inch models getting a Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 display panel – the same one used in the new LG G6 – and the smaller-size models in the lineup getting a more standard and lower-brightness W-OLED panel.

What all C-Series OLED TVs will share is a speedy Alpha 11 Gen 3 AI processor that provides picture, sound, and UI navigation enhancements. LG’s new strategy with the C-Series should provide ample reason to go big, with the 77- and 83-inch models offering theoretically as good performance as the company’s flagship OLEDs at a more reasonable price.

TCL X11L SQD Mini-LED

The star of TCL’s CES TV display was the TCL X11L series SQD mini-LED lineup. These models utilize newly formulated Super QLED Crystals, which are just one component of a Deep Color System that delivers 100% coverage of the BT.2020 color space, according to the company.

The X11L Series TVs are also capable of 10,000 nits of peak brightness and have up to 20,000 local dimming zones to deliver blacks with OLED-like depth and clarity. They will support the forthcoming Dolby Vision 2 Max format, sport an Audio By Bang & Olufsen front-firing speaker array with a dedicated center channel speaker, and are Dolby Atmos FlexConnect-capable.

Samsung 130-inch Micro RGB

If one were looking at CES for a TV that would give the best projectors a run for their money, Samsung’s 130-inch Micro RGB is that TV. Like other RGB mini-LED examples at CES, this beautiful beast of a TV delivers 100% BT.2020 color space coverage. It uses Samsung’s ‘Timeless Frame’ design concept for support and has the same Glare Free screen found in other Samsung TVs, such as the new S95H OLED.

Sadly, the 130-inch model is only a prototype that won’t be available in 2026. However, it features the same core tech found in the new Samsung Micro RGB TV lineup (this is effectively a 130-inch version of the top-end R95H), which will be sold in 55- to 115-inch screen sizes.

Hisense 116UXS Mini-LED

Hisense opted to do things a bit differently with its forthcoming mini-LED TV lineup. At CES, the company is showcasing RGB MiniLED evo, a variation on its RGB mini-LED TV tech that adds a cyan component to the RGB light module for expanded color detail, along with an incredible 110% BT.2020 color space coverage.

Hisense says that the cyan addition creates even more realistic colors than RGB mini-LED TVs can display. And while the psychedelic color palette of the computer-generated content used to demonstrate the 116-inch 116UXS at CES looked far from realistic, it was definitely rich and eye-catching.

Hisense was early out of the gate with RGB mini-LED, releasing the Hisense 116UX in 2025. At $30,000, that 116-inch model is priced well out of reach for most buyers, but we have high hopes that the 55-100-inch screen-size RGB mini-LED TVs that Hisense also announced at CES will be (much) more affordably priced.

OLED has been at the very top of the TV market for several years now and is arguably the most popular of panel technologies. Thanks to its self-emissive pixel design, it generates the most accurate blacks and contrast available, along with vibrant colors and excellent detail.

One area where OLED used to struggle, however, was its brightness. The best OLED TVs used to cap out at roughly 1,000 nits peak brightness a few years ago, making them difficult to view in brighter viewing conditions. This is where mini-LED came in. Even more affordable, mid-range mini-LED TVs were capable of hitting higher peak brightness, making them the top choice for brighter rooms.

But OLED TVs are getting brighter. At CES 2026, OLED panels capable of hitting 4,500 nits were introduced by LG and Samsung, and although this will be under specific testing conditions, we’ve seen flagship models such as the LG G5 and Samsung S95F hitting 2,268 nits and 2,135 nits peak HDR brightness respectively. This means OLED is chipping away at mini-LED’s advantage, necessitating an evolution in mini-LED.

Cue RGB mini-LED. Touted as the ‘OLED killer’, RGB mini-LED was introduced by Hisense at CES 2025. Whereas standard mini-LED uses a layer of single color LEDs (usually blue and sometimes white), which are then filtered through a layer of color changing pixels, RGB mini-LED uses red, green and blue LEDs. This results in brighter, bolder colors, improved contrast and better blacks.

So, can RGB LED really de-throne OLED? Let’s take a deeper look.

The RGB mini-LED story so far

The only RGB mini-LED currently available is the Hisense 116-inch UX. I actually got the chance to test it in 2025 and I was impressed by its striking, vibrant colors, staggering brightness and impeccable detail. Textures were given a real 3D-effect while still looking natural. With some of my testing discs, it also showed solid blacks and contrast.

However, I noticed a clouding effect in some really dark scenes in movies such as The Batman and Alien: Romulus that reminded me of cheap mini-LED TVs I’d tested before. And in some instances, blacks took on a gray tone, especially when viewed from an angle. It wasn’t quite the OLED killer I thought it would be but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

Cut to 2026 and RGB mini-LED has been seemingly embraced by most major TV brands. Referred to as Micro RGB by LG and Samsung and RGB mini-LED by Hisense and TCL, all these brands have plans to release sets in 2026. The good news is that it’s not going to be reserved for super-sized screens either, as Hisense is set to introduce models starting from 55-inch with its UR9 and UR8 series. Samsung is also set to release Micro RGB sets starting from 55-inch as well.

So, RGB mini-LED/Micro RGB has definitely captured the attention of some of the biggest TV manufacturers, even those who make OLEDs. But what do these RGB TVs need to do to de-throne OLED?

What RGB needs to do

As you may have noted above in my summary of the Hisense 116UX, while I was impressed by its overall picture, its clouding effect in dark scenes and its blacks with a gray hue held it back from toppling OLED. This is where the battle is hardest fought: contrast and screen uniformity.

As OLED uses self-emissive pixels, it can generate ‘true’ blacks. This is where its biggest strength lies, as LED TVs can only rely on their backlight's dimming capabilities. While mini-LED does improve this over standard LED, it will always be a limitation compared to OLED. Screen uniformity, the ability to display a single color such as black evenly over a whole screen, can be a real issue for LED TVs. If RGB mini-LED really can improve its local dimming and blacks to a rate where it stands toe-to-toe with OLED, then RGB mini-LED has a shot at rivalling, if not beating it.

Mini-LED already has brightness won. I talked about OLED’s general brightness above, but how do RGB mini-LED and OLED compare? We measured the 116UX RGB at 6,014 nits peak HDR brightness (in Vivid mode), meaning there’s scope for the smaller screens to hit big numbers too. Even if the newer generation of OLED realistically hits closer to 3,00 nits peak HDR brightness, RGB mini-LED has still won.

The 116UX also clocked over 1,000 nits fullscreen brightness, which OLED won’t hit anytime soon. The highest we’ve measured is 390 nits on the Samsung S95F. Standard mini-LED hits over 600 nits fullscreen brightness now. So what will the smaller RGB sets hit?

RGB mini-LED could create stronger perceived contrast if it really can get the blacks right, as it already has the brightness part of the contrast nailed. From what I’ve seen and tested of RGB mini-LED so far, its colors and textures are already rich enough to rival OLED. Contrast and blacks are the missing piece of the puzzle.

What about the price?

Pricing is another area where things will be interesting. The LG G5, LG’s flagship 2025 OLED, cost $2,499 / £2,399 / AU$4,199 for the 55-inch model. We don’t have any confirmed pricing for the 55-inch RGB mini-LED/Micro RGB TVs from Hisense or Samsung set to launch in 2026 yet, but if it can get close to OLED numbers, it’ll be a big win.

I suspect that RGB mini-LED, as it’s a new panel technology, will be pricier to begin with. OLED was a real premium on its debut and prices have now seemed to hit a steady pace, only really rising or falling with inflation each year. If RGB TVs can drop their prices fast however and sort its screen uniformity and contrast, OLED may need to take notice.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from wireless TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI. You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we’ll do our best to answer it.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!

• Dolby Vision 2 is coming to select Hisense, TCL and Philips TVs in 2026
• This follows news that Peacock will be the first streamer to support Dolby Vision 2
• There will be two versions of Dolby Vision 2: Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max

Select Hisense, TCL and Philips will be the first to support Dolby Vision 2, Dolby has confirmed at CES 2026.

Dolby Vision 2 is the next generation of and successor to the popular HDR format Dolby Vision, which is used by some of the best TVs and best 4K Blu-ray players. Dolby Vision enhances color, detail, and contrast compared to regular HDR10 by using dynamic metadata to improve picture quality.

At IFA 2025, it was confirmed that Hisense would be the first TVs to support Dolby Vision 2, but specific models weren't confirmed at the time.

Dolby has now verified that Hisense's 2026 RGB mini-LED TVs including the UX, UR9 and UR8 models will all support Dolby Vision 2, while its cheaper mini-LED TVs should receive support via a future software update.

TCL's 2026 X QD-mini LED TV series and C series TVs will also get a future software update to support Dolby Vision 2.

Finally, TP Vision's Philips 2026 OLED TVs will support Dolby Vision 2 in their OLED811, OLED911 and OLED951 models.

This follows the news, first announced at CES 2026, that Peacock is the first streaming service to support Dolby Vision 2 and next-gen Dolby Atmos audio encoding.

There will in fact be two versions of Dolby Vision 2 on offer: Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max (more on that below). It's not clear which of the above TVs will support which version yet, but we'll be keeping an eye out.

Dolby Vision 2: the new generation

We've actually seen Dolby Vision 2 in action on cheap TVs and were impressed by how much perceived difference it made to black tone handling, contrast, and color. It seemed like a clear step up from its predecessor, Dolby Vision.

Dolby Vision 2 will have several new features in its arsenal. Firstly, Precision Black, which is designed to make blacks more natural and answer consumer frustration with 'too dark' scenes on streaming services. Next is Light Sense, which will adapt the picture on screen to suit the ambient light conditions of the room. And, live sport optimization for more accurate motion processing and picture.

Dolby Vision 2 Max will have these features, plus an even more optimized image engine and Authentic Motion. This is a tool designed to reduce judder, but maintain natural and authentic motion by having filmmakers adjust motion themselves rather than relying purely on the TV's motion settings. We've seen Authentic Motion in action, and were again impressed.

Dolby Vision 2 looks to be an exciting upgrade over its widely used predecessor. The fact that it's coming to Hisense's RGB mini-LED TVs, which could be a real threat to OLED now it's set to be used in smaller sets, is an exciting development for 2026, and I for one can't wait to get some real testing time with Dolby Vision 2.

• Hisense announced two RGB mini-LED TV series in 50-100-inch screen sizes
• It also revealed RGB mini-LED Evo, a variation on its RGB mini-LED TV that adds a cyan component to the RGB light module
• Hisense's new RGBY MicroLED is a MicroLED technology advancement that adds yellow as a fourth primary color to the RGB display

Hisense announced at CES 2026 that its RGB mini-LED TV is coming to smaller screen sizes, and the company further announced an upgraded RGB mini-LED panel technology and a new variation on MicroLED displays.

Hisense had previously shown a 116-inch 116UX RGB mini-LED TV at CES 2025. That model will now be joined by the Hisense UR9 and UR8 series in 55-100-inch screen sizes.

RGB mini-LED technology incorporates red, green and blue LEDs into each lens of a mini-LED panel for wider color gamut coverage and improved contrast and brightness. We tested the Hisense 116UX last year, and while it doesn’t quite beat the best OLED TVs just yet, it was certainly impressive.

In other CES 2026 news, Hisense also revealed an evolution of its RGB mini-LED panel called RGB mini-LED Evo. This introduces a fourth color, cyan, that the human eye is sensitive to, into the optical lens. Hisense maintains that this addition will produce even more realistic colors. The first set to feature this tech will be the Hisense 116UXS, a 116-inch TV that uses the Hisense Hi-Vew AI Engine RGB processor, which analyzes content in real time to enhance contrast and color.

Hisense also claims the new TV will cover 110% of the BT.2020 color space, which would be the highest level by a TV to date. The previous highest we measured was the first RGB mini-LED, the Hisense 116UX, which covered 92.64% of BT.2020. The new spec would put it in line with some of the very best projectors driven by triple-laser light engines.

Lastly, Hisense announced RGBY MicroLED, a MicroLED technology advancement that adds yellow as a fourth primary color. Hisense claims the addition will improve viewing angles, clarity and durability. The first offering with this tech is the Hisense 163MX, a 163-inch display that uses self-emissive microLED panels and has a claimed 100% BT.2020 color space coverage. The Hisense 163MX is also powered by the HI-View AI Engine RGB processor.

No pricing or release dates have been confirmed for the new Hisense TVs.

RGB mini-LED: a threat to OLED?

When RGB mini-LED was first revealed, it was touted as a potential ‘OLED killer’, with more vibrant colors, higher brightness, and better blacks and contrast than OLED could hope to achieve.

Even so, I found that when I tested the Hisense 116UX RGB mini-LED TV, its color and detail were striking, and its black levels impressive, but there were also screen clouding and backlight blooming issues visible in dark images.

At IFA 2025, I saw the first RGB mini-LED in a more home-friendly 85-inch size, and was happy to see it delivered the same color and contrast performance as the much larger 116-inch model. What I didn’t have on my CES 2026 bingo card was a 55-inch RGB mini-LED, with two models to choose from! While no pricing or full specs have yet been revealed, the Hisense UR8 will presumably be a cheaper model.

If Hisense can get its pricing right on these smaller RGB mini-LED TVs, as well as avoid the screen clouding issues I noted when I tested the Hisense 116UX, then we could be looking at a real challenger to OLED’s crown.

CES 2026 is about to start, and I'm going to be on the ground and in the fortunate position to go and see all the tech coming this year that I'm most excited about. I lead TechRadar's AV coverage, and I have no shame in admitting to being a total nerd about the latest OLED panel construction, speaker design innovations, and home theater upgrades.

A huge part of the fun of CES is finding things you had no idea existed, but obviously, I also see things I either expect to see or know I'll see. As I'm about to head into the show in the next few days, here's what's top of my list of things I'm looking forward to, and that I recommend you keep an eye out for more information about if you're an enthusiast like me.

TV tech

1. LG's next-gen OLED TV panel

LG hasn't announced its next-gen OLED TV yet, but we already have a good idea on what to expect from its flagship TV. For a start, a next-gen Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 WOLED panel has been announced by LG Display (the part of the company that makes OLED panels), which is the successor to the tech in the magnificent LG G5 flagship.

But there's also been a leak about the LG G6, revealing higher brightness and lower reflectivity, meaning it'll have even more punch. I can't wait to see this TV and its new panel in action in person.

2. RGB TVs from everyone

RGB LED TVs are the next big thing – pretty much all the big companies will launch affordable versions of this new kind of screen tech this year, and I've run down what to expect in a full article here.

Compared to existing mini-LED TVs, the new tech promises even brighter TVs (or the same brightness with less energy use), more vivid colors, and potentially better contrast. With Samsung, LG, Hisense, TCL all either confirmed or very likely to show these TVs off during CES, I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do.

4. Samsung's mysterious new ultra-high-end OLED

Samsung hasn't confirmed any OLED TV plans before CES, but a leak has revealed that we should expect several new Samsung OLED TV models this year – not just replacing last year's options, but actually new model numbers that seem to indicate upgrades we haven't seen before.

Top of my list to see from this leak is the Samsung S99H model. Previously, Samsung's flagship OLEDs have been 'S95', and based on Samsung's usual naming schemes, 'S99' would be even higher-end than that. What kind of tech would make something even more elite than the Samsung S95F, which we crowned as our TV of the Year 2025?

The only thing I would guess with any degree of safety is that it'll use the Zero Connect wireless video box, as seen on The Frame Pro and Samsung Q990F last year. I'm looking forward to seeing what else it might do.

5. Dolby Vision 2's next steps

Last year, Dolby Vision 2 was unveiled, promising to improve HDR further for budget TVs, making pictures even more accurate for high-end bright TVs, and fixing motion smoothing for good measure.

I got to see Dolby Vision 2 in action, and it looks genuinely impressive, but we had very little info about when and where we'd see it in our homes. I'm hoping we'll get more confirmation at CES about streaming platforms and TVs that will support it – we know Hisense will, and TCL very heavily implied that it will, so we may hear more about that. LG was much more cagey, but perhaps that'll be confirmed, too. Samsung is unlikely to change its stance on not supporting Dolby Vision.

Home theater sound

6. Samsung's Sonos Arc Ultra competitor

Ahead of CES, Samsung has announced its next two flagship soundbars. One is an all-in-one bar that's a square shot across the bow of the Sonos Arc Ultra, as an all-in-one that doesn't come with or need a separate subwoofer to deliver impactful sound.

It promises 7.1.2 channels of sound with Dolby Atmos support, meaning seven forward and angle 'surround' channels, two upfiring height channels, and bass provided by four dedicated woofers.

It can lie flat on a TV surface, or can be mounted to the wall in an upright configuration, and adjusts its sound automatically whichever way you have it. It's Samsung's first go at a high-end single-unit soundbar that I can recall, so I'm eager to hear what its audio engineers can do. We consistently rate its other soundbars among the best soundbars on the planet, after all.

7. LG's Dolby Atmos FlexConnect soundbar

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect is one of the most interesting bits of home theater tech of the last few years, but it's had a very gentle start to life. The idea is that it enables you to be way more flexible with where you position speakers for your sound system – you pick the location, and the system will detect where they are, and recalibrate how sound is output to match them, creating immersive sound even if you don't have room for speaker position in the usual front left, front right, center, rear left and rear right positions.

LG is launching the first wireless soundbar with FlexConnect at CES this year, with compatibility built into its upcoming TVs, too, and this could be the breakthrough the technology needs.

8. Ultimea's 9.2.6-channel sound system

We know very little about this yet, but as a home theater fan with a small house, I'm very intrigued by it. Ultimea is best known for cheap soundbars, and it makes some impressive ones – but it's launching a new, very powerful and intriguing model at CES.

Ultimea has teased a 9.2.6-channel surround system that looks like a super-immersive beast. A soundbar combines with four satellite speakers – side and rear – and dual subwoofers for a system that's really elaborate, yet appears to be very compact and simple.

I'm really looking forward to trying this – if it's affordable (and history says it will be, compared to anything remotely close to its configuration). It could be the dream option for home theater enthusiasts with very limited space.

Audio tech

9. Samsung's Music Studio speakers

Samsung is launching two wireless speakers at CES 2026 that, much like its soundbar above, seem to take aim straight at Sonos. They're called 'Music Studio', come in two sizes, and have a cool minimalist look I wouldn't normally associate with Samsung.

The Music Studio 5 has basically the same speaker setup as the Sonos Era 100, and is a similar size; the Music Studio 7 has basically the same spatial audio-friendly speaker setup as the Sonos Era 300.

Will they sound as good as these speakers and be priced competitively? I'm really looking forward to finding out.

10. New bargain, repairable buds from JLab

We don't have any leaks about this, but JLab is always high on my list of companies to visit. The company makes some of the best cheap earbuds out there, and regularly surprises me at events with some new set of buds that feature impressive tech for half the price you'd guess, even knowing the company is a budget specialist.

One thing we do know is that JLab is hot on the future of earbuds being repairable – I suspect that CES 2026 will bring models with replaceable batteries at the very least.

11. Soundcore's next wild creations

Anker Soundcore can always be trusted to bring something really interesting to trade shows. At IFA 2025, it was a portable projector with removable and foldable surround sound, and at CES 2025, it had one of the first speakers to use AI to remove vocals from any song for easy karaoke from any streaming source.

I don't know what to expect from CES 2025, but I know there's going to be something I've never seen before.

12. Japanese hi-fi greats Onkyo and Technics

The hi-fi world has a variable relationship with CES – there are plenty of dedicated audio shows for companies to launch at, so these companies don't always go hard at CES.

Onkyo and Technics tend to be consistent exceptions. At CES 2025, Technics introduced the new best earbuds in the world in the form of the EAH-AZ100, while Onkyo unveiled some impressive wireless speakers along with a whole new 'Icon' line of hi-fi amplification separates.

I don't know what the companies have planned this time, and there haven't been any big early leaks, but I always recommend keeping an eye out for their announcements.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from wireless TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!

So farewell, 2025 – you were frequently exciting, regularly chaotic, occasionally frustrating but always interesting. And that’s how we like it around here.

It was a year in which often fairly iterative improvements to hardware were overshadowed by rapid and significant advances on the computing side of things. I’m talking, of course, about AI, which is now so dominant within the tech world that it’s increasingly hard to find a device that doesn’t have an AI brain.

Not that I’m complaining, because the leaps made in 2025 by the likes of OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Gemini were truly astonishing; the pace of change is such that it feels like we’re squeezing about a decade’s worth of advances into each year now, and I wouldn’t like to predict what the state of play will be in 12 months’ time. Well, other than to say that we’ll be taking for granted things which seem almost impossible right now – although as our AI Editor Graham Barlow notes below, maybe we’re already doing that.

In comparison, it often looked in 2025 as though things were slowing down on the hardware side. Could Apple really make its already-excellent MacBooks much better? Could Samsung improve much on the superb Galaxy S series? Was there much scope for OLED TVs or wireless headphones or mirrorless cameras to develop?

The answer was yes, yes and yes. Though the upgrades to many models may not have been as big as those on the software side, they were frequently excellent in their own right. The improvements to battery life, screen tech and camera lenses may not be as flashy as those on the AI front, but they can make a real difference to how we use our devices on a daily basis. In many ways, tech fans have never had it so good.

Whether that will continue in 2026 remains to be seen. AI now looks to be having a direct – and negative – effect on component prices, which could make your favorite new phone or laptop more expensive in the coming year. We might also see stock shortages in some areas, which could further inflate those price tags.

It looks like we’re set for another year of exciting, chaotic, frustrating and interesting news, then – and we’ll be here with you every step of the way. Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading TechRadar in 2025, and have a happy New Year!

My year in tech

I bent reality, but I failed to bend an iPhone

This year was marked by astonishing leaps in AI capabilities, which I tried to not only report on but experience in full. From my first experience with ‘vibe coding’ to wild leaps of fancy with Veo 3 (and later the Sora app) to creating my own digital double, AI’s fast-changing capabilities constantly amazed me.

Never in four decades of covering emerging technologies have I seen anything like it: AI’s rise continues to be a heady mixture of enthusiastic adoption tinged with white-knuckled fear about what it all means for jobs, and for humanity, and nothing we saw in 2025 did much to resolve that anxiety.

However, it was my conversations with those leading the AI and wider innovation charge that stood out. My interviews with Amazon’s Panos Panay about Alexa+ and Google’s Sameer Samat about the future of Android were particularly memorable, as was the moment when one of Apple’s top executives threw his brand-new iPhone Air to me during a video podcast and insisted that I try to bend it.

The rise of humanoid robots was a trend that shocked and pleased me in equal measure, though I’ve tried to temper my enthusiasm with the knowledge that clever marketing and eye-popping videos will only get us so far. We all want the ultimate home robot, but I still don't think many of us are willing to pay $20,000 to get it.

Away from all the AI and robots, I spent much of the year trying new phones, including redesigned iPhones and an incredibly thin folding Samsung phone, along with a wide range of wearable technology that included the Galaxy XR headset, and some very exciting AR glasses from Meta and Google’s Android XR group. Experiencing these felt like peering into our near technological future, which increasingly will be filled with on-demand AI, flexible phones, and maybe those robots.

The year in AI

This was the year we started taking AI for granted 

For all the talk of breakthroughs and hype, 2025 felt less like the year AI changed everything and more like the year it quietly became unavoidable. While the much-hyped arrival of super-powerful artificial general intelligence (AGI), predicted for 2025 by many, simply hasn’t materialized, the year has still been a strong one for companies such as OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic, and Google. That said, there have also been some massive flops; and as for Apple, it feels like yet another year in which it slipped further behind in the AI race.

ChatGPT maintained its vice-like grip as the most popular AI chatbot in the world, though it hasn’t been plain sailing for OpenAI. Legal challenges, particularly the copyright infringement claim brought by The New York Times, have continued to dog the company, and in June its servers crashed for a couple of days, giving the world a brief taste of life without the ubiquitous chatbot.

OpenAI then fumbled the ball with the release of its GPT-5 model, which came across as cold and unemotional compared to the previous GPT-4o. For millions of users who’d come to rely on the chatbot as something closer to a trusted companion it felt like a best friend had undergone a personality transplant overnight, forcing OpenAI to make the legacy 4o model available again.

The company has also lost a little ground to Google’s Gemini in recent months. The arrival of Gemini 3 Pro in November was well received, and on the image front, Gemini’s Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro proved superior to ChatGPT for image generation. OpenAI responded with a new image-generation model in December.

AI-powered pets and toys also began to appear this year. We took Moflin for a spin, until we accidentally fried its battery. More broadly, the dominant theme of the year was that every product must now have AI built into it in some form, and no company exemplifies this approach better than Microsoft, which has spent the year enthusiastically stuffing Copilot into just about everything it makes.

Finally, the year looks set to end on a high note for Amazon. Alexa+, the AI-powered version of Alexa that Amazon has been promising all year but hasn’t yet managed to fully roll out, may finally be getting a web version, at least in the US.

THE YEAR IN PHONES

Slim pickings for thin phones, and hints of a tri-fold future

2025 was the year of the super-thin phone, writes Roland Moore-Colyer, Managing Editor, Mobile Computing, with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge in the first half of the year, and the iPhone Air in the second. These handsets grabbed headlines with their svelte proportions, but so far sales figures have yet to match the hype.

That’s likely due to their relatively high prices in the face of already pretty slim iPhones and Galaxy and Pixel handsets, all of which saw the expected yearly upgrades with the iPhone 17, Galaxy S25 and Pixel 10 lines respectively. While the upgrades to the iPhone 17 family appeared incremental at first glance, I'd argue they're a bigger deal when you dig into the details: there was a new design and cooling system for the Pro phones, the standard model finally got a 120Hz display, and Apple's 48MP 'Fusion' camera came to every iPhone in the lineup, including the Air (the Plus model went the way of the dodo).

AI found its way into more phones and more features, with Google’s Pixel phones in particular boasting a whole host of genuinely useful smart tools. Meanwhile, Apple just about managed to distract us from the shortcomings of Apple Intelligence with its flashy Liquid Glass design and the eye-catching Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro.

Some of the most interesting phones came from smaller brands, with the Nothing Phone 3 offering something a little different without scrimping on flagship features. There was the Oppo Find X9 Pro with its strange but useful camera kit, while the OnePlus 15 was the only phone to earn a maximum five-star review from us this year. There were also a clutch of affordable phones from the likes of Motorola and Xiaomi, proving that you don’t have to pay a lot to get a very capable smartphone these days.

We saw further evolution in the folding phone space, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 leading the way, and Samsung also unveiled its first tri-folding phone, with the Galaxy Trifold joining Huawei's Mate XT, and teasing a future of devices that truly blend phones and tablets. We may even see a foldable iPhone in 2026, but don’t hold your breath.

THE YEAR IN COMPUTING

RAM drama enlivens a year of evolution over revolution

When it came to computing, 2025 didn't start off as the most promising year. While 2024 felt like a year of revolutionary change, with the explosive growth of AI, the fall of Intel, and the rise of Arm-based laptops that were actually worth buying, this year has felt more like we're in a holding pattern, as the innovations of the past few years are iterated on and refined.

The year kicked off with Nvidia launching its latest generation of consumer graphics cards, the RTX 5000 series, at CES 2025, and they encapsulated the ‘evolution, not revolution’ theme, with some great new features that haven't fundamentally shaken up the industry, as the introduction of ray tracing with the RTX 2000 series did. Of course, making a great product even better is no bad thing, and our components editor and GPU expert John Loeffler was suitably impressed, enthusing in his RTX 5090 review that “If you're a gamer, you'll still get impressive gen-on-gen performance improvements over the celebrated RTX 4090, and the Nvidia RTX 5090 is really the first consumer graphics card I've tested that can get you consistent, high-frame-rate 8K gameplay.”

I have an RTX 5090 and I love it, and I've also been impressed by its 8K performance in modern games, but with the majority of PC gamers still playing at 1080p, this high-end GPU might be a bit too expensive to justify. Other releases from AMD and Intel, plus Apple’s latest M5 chip, continued the theme of impressive releases that don’t massively change the computing landscape.

Perhaps the biggest event in 2025 was the continued rise of AI. Recently, the AI boom has led to a global shortage of memory, which has in turn caused an increase in the prices of devices that use it. All of a sudden, PCs, RAM, and GPUs look set to get increasingly expensive, though some, like our computing editor Christian Guyton, aren’t too worried – yet. Personally, the end-of-year drama is making me nostalgic for those early months when 2025 felt rather boring.

THE YEAR IN TVS

The era of giant, cheap TVs is here

This year saw two really interesting developments in TV technology, with the first being the arrival of a whole new kind of ‘Tandem RGB’ OLED TV panel from LG. This appeared in the LG G5, helping it to score the maximum five stars in our review, and in the fantastic Panasonic Z95B, enabling both TVs to hit stunning levels of brightness and color depth, but with reduced power consumption.

However, this new screen technology didn’t win either of those sets our TV of the Year award – that went to the Samsung S95F, which not only earned its own perfect 5-star review, but was also voted the top TV in the most categories by the judges in our flagship OLED TV showdown, which pitted it against the LG G5, Panasonic Z95B, and Sony Bravia 8 II.

The second big tech development was the arrival of RGB mini-LED tech – and, make no mistake, this is the next big thing. It’s more efficient than current mini-LED tech, and is capable of richer colors and less light leakage from bright areas to dark ones, and it could be the tech to finally knock OLED off its perch.

We know that Samsung, LG, TCL and Hisense will all launch RGB mini-LED TV ranges in 2026, but the Hisense UX116 was the only TV to use it in 2025 – and it was a mixed bag, with performance issues that disappointed given its eye-wateringly high price. Still, we’re excited to see how this tech develops.

But the biggest thing in TVs this year was the TVs themselves – as in, they got big and they got affordable. TCL and Hisense launched 85-inch and 100-inch TVs that were within the budgets of regular mortals, and 75-inch TVs are becoming positively cheap, while still being good. While new tech is exciting, huge TVs like the Hisense U8N and TCL QM7K becoming more affordable is the change that made the biggest difference for customers.

THE YEAR IN VR/AR

Android XR arrives to challenge Meta’s dominance

This year XR or 'extended reality' took center stage, thanks in large part to Android XR hardware finally breaking cover in the shape of the Samsung Galaxy XR headset. We also tested prototype Android XR glasses ahead of their expected release in the coming year, and they’re impressive (the glasses at least, the headset less so right now). Google, along with its Android partners, looks set to seriously challenge Meta in 2026.

For its part Meta debuted several new smart wearables over the past 12 months, including two pairs of Oakley smart glasses – the stylish HSTNs and the sporty Vanguards, the latter of which are perfect for runners when used with a compatible Garmin watch. We also saw a Gen 2 model of the Meta Ray-Bans, and the company's latest step towards full-on AR specs, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which as you can probably guess feature a display for the specs to relay info visually. We’ve tested them, and they’re everything Google Glass wanted to be, but right now they're not easy to get hold of.

What about VR headsets proper? Valve surprised no one (because the device was so heavily leaked before launch) with its Steam Frame headset announcement. Key details like the price are still a mystery, but it will be landing in 2026 – and when it does, the spec sheet teases a device that could seriously challenge the reigning champion of VR, the Meta Quest 3. Depending on how Valve handles the launch, I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes all other headsets feel obsolete – even the Galaxy XR and Apple Vision Pro.

Talking of Apple's mixed-reality spatial-computing headset, we got a new version with an M5 chip and comfier strap, but while it's a worthwhile upgrade the price still feels too high.

THE YEAR IN AUDIO

The year the big dogs bit back

If 2024 was the year niche UK hi-fi brands took over the dance floor amid a hiatus from audio's heavy hitters (see Bowers & Wilkins' fantastic Pi8 earbuds or Cambridge Audio's inaugural, affordable, adorable P100 cans), 2025 was the year the big dogs returned to the party and got their groove back.

We got five major headphones releases in 2025, starting with the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds in February. The hotly anticipated update to the 2019 Powerbeats Pro proved that Apple could indeed deliver heart-rate monitoring in its earbuds.

Cut to May and Sony's WH-1000XM6 landed, to finally knock the 2020-issue WH-1000XM4 off the top spot in our best headphones guide. It was a similar story with the June arrival of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), quickly followed by the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) in September – a two-pronged attack on the market that saw Bose reinstated as the king of ANC.

However, this roundup wouldn't be complete without a nod to the biggest launch of them all: the fall arrival of Apple's AirPods Pro 3. The shape's different, the ANC is twice as good, and yes, like the Powerbeats Pro 2 they also keep tabs on your ticker, in a slightly different way, and with increasing third-party fitness-app support. Still the most popular earbuds in the world? Absolutely.

Elsewhere, Spotify Lossless finally landed, at no cost to Premium subscribers, offering almost-as-good-as-Apple-Music resolution at up to 24-bit/44.1kHz. While Lossless wasn't a huge hit with fans initially, the big green streaming machine's popularity continues to grow, despite concerns over artist payments.

Oh, and if you take note of just one audio brand name this year, let it be WiiM. As Sonos continues to tackle trust issues among its once-loyal fanbase, the plucky multi-room underdog unveiled its WiiM Sound (and now the WiiM Sound Lite) premium hi-res speakers – and the firm would love to help you build your wireless sound system around them.

THE YEAR IN CAMERAS

A memorable year for glass as well as for cameras

2025 was full of pleasant surprises for photographers. The Sigma BF was truly out of the ordinary, being dubbed ‘the camera Apple would have made’, while the Caira with its Nano Banana AI skills showed us a glimpse of how on-the-go generative editing can work in an actual camera.

Fujifilm and OM System showed us that user experience matters with the quirky X half and retro OM-3 respectively, while Hasselblad and Nikon delivered strong offerings of their own – my favorite stills camera ever, the X2D II, and a new player in the cinema-camera game, the Nikon Zr. A special shoutout goes to Nikon for becoming the best-value camera brand this year, notably for the excellent Z5 II, which is our Camera of the Year, and Z50 II.

It was arguably an even better year for new lenses than cameras, with Sigma, Sony and Viltrox in particular knocking it out the park with world-first and affordable optics. Canon continues to lock out third parties from its full-frame camera lineup, but that decision feels more justified after it launched the affordable and capable 45mm F1.2 STM prime.

A sense of order was restored towards the end of the year when Canon and Sony launched their anticipated mid-range full-frame cameras: the EOS R6 III and A7 V, both of which are integral to their lineups.

The long-threatened US ban on DJI products finally came into effect, and we saw a couple of major product launches from the brand in the build-up to it: the incredible (sort of) sub-250g Mini 5 Pro, and the DJI Osmo 360 – its first foray into 360 cameras, and rival to both the Insta 360 X5 and GoPro’s new Max 2. DJI is also being tipped to launch its first 360 drone soon, but Insta360 got there first with the truly innovative Antigravity A1.

Overall, it’s been a good year for camera fans, with demand seemingly remaining strong in the face of competition from increasingly capable smartphones. I’m predicting that the consumer and cinema camera spaces will continue converging in 2026, and I hope the likes of Viltrox expand our options with new and affordable autofocus zoom lenses.

The year in gaming

The Switch 2 makes waves, and GTA 6 looms over 2026

Gaming in 2025 was largely dominated by the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s a safe improvement on the original Switch, and one that epitomizes the ‘evolution not revolution’ approach to console development.

The specs sheet won’t blow anyone’s socks off, but it’s a superb package that cements the Switch's position as the go-to handheld console; and it was so popular in the pre-order and launch phases that it took months for retailers to catch up with demand. It’s been backed up by some excellent games too, including Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Kirby Air Riders, and Pokémon Legends Z-A.

Sony had its own say in the gaming handheld space, breathing new life into the PlayStation Portal handheld device, which is now capable of excellent cloud streaming. This has elevated the handheld, which we were already big fans of, to impressive new heights.

The PS5’s game library got a bump with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei, as well as titles including Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders and TechRadar Gaming’s Game of the Year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Elsewhere, indie games ruled, with the likes of Blue Prince, Hades 2, and Hollow Knight: Silksong proving standouts in a strong year for releases.

It’s been a year to forget for Xbox, however, and its woes only accentuated the aforementioned successes for Nintendo and Sony. For starters, more Xbox games – including Gears of War: Reloaded – arrived on PS5, while others are set to follow, including the symbol of Xbox itself, Halo. Meanwhile studios were shuttered and prospective games cancelled, and to make matters worse the Xbox X/S were outsold by a tiny family console, the Nex Playground, over Black Friday. All in all it’s been tough going for Team Green.

As for 2026, it’s beginning to feel like the pace of progress towards next-gen consoles will quicken, and the game release calendar looks well stocked. However, a titan looms: Grand Theft Auto 6 is now slated for release in November after being originally planned for late 2025, and the whole gaming world is going to revolve around its arrival.

THE YEAR IN FITNESS

Time’s finally up for wasteful wearables, thanks to Google

Last year, I ended my contribution to this round-up by predicting a move away from fitness watches towards screenless trackers, such as a new WHOOP model, writes Matt Evans, Senior Editor, Fitness, Wellness & Wearables. Well, we got not one, but two new WHOOPs, and they were… fine. But, as prices rose, I found the ongoing subscription model far too expensive.

However, my prediction that we’d move away from smartwatches hasn’t really been borne out. Wearable tech isn’t changing much in the mainstream, with the highest-profile releases being a slate of new watches from Garmin, Apple, Samsung, Google and OnePlus, and they’ve been as popular as ever.

Look beyond those big releases, however, and interesting new stuff is out there. A subscription-free WHOOP competitor band was launched by Polar, while Core Devices, the resurrected Pebble watch company led by its original founder, unveiled a pair of watches inspired by the original Pebble designs, complete with low-power LCD-style screens, and open-source software that anyone with the know-how can tinker with.

Core Devices also launched a new kind of smart ring with a button and a microphone, which the company says acts as “external memory for the brain”. Elsewhere, the AirPods Pro 3 now have built-in heart rate sensors, and Meta teamed up with Garmin to bring us the Oakley Meta Vanguard sports specs. Cool new wearable innovations are happening, but it all still feels quite fringe.

My innovation of the year, however, came from Google. The Google Pixel Watch 4 is the first properly repairable smartwatch, as you’re able to take it apart and replace the battery and display. This enables you to change individual parts rather than the whole watch, reducing your contribution to e-waste, and saving you money in the long run.

Almost every other piece of wearable tech from every other company is still a sealed unit that will ultimately end up being disposed of, and I hope Google's move could be the catalyst for change that the wasteful wearable tech industry sorely needs.

THE YEAR IN ENTERTAINMENT

Streaming sensations, box-office flops, and merger madness

The biggest story of 2025 broke late in the year, and it concerned off-screen studio machinations rather than on-screen drama. Netflix’s $82.7bn bid for Warner Bros. sent shockwaves through the industry when it was announced in early December, and provoked a counter-bid from Paramount Skydance. There’s still a long way to go before a deal is approved, but should Netflix acquire one of the film world’s most iconic studios it would be a landmark moment for the streaming sector, and would represent a seismic shift for the entertainment industry as a whole.

Turning to the year's big theatrical releases, and numerous new movies flopped at the box office, including some with huge names attached (I’m looking at you, Dwayne Johnson and The Smashing Machine). Heck, with Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps all underperforming, even the usually reliable Marvel Studios didn’t have a money-spinning hit on its hands. I wonder how many people predicted that animated and live-action/CGI hybrids would rule the theatrical roost, led by multi-billion dollar-spinning flicks like Lilo & Stitch, Zootopia 2, and Ne Zha II…

As for the major streaming services, users endured more of the now-customary annual price hikes, while Max raised eyebrows by rebranding itself – again – to HBO Max. On the screen, unexpected hits such as HBO medical drama The Pitt, plus Netflix's ‘one-shot’ drama Adolescence and pop-culture phenomenon Kpop Demon Hunters, proved that not even the savviest industry exec can really be sure what viewers will latch onto. Add in the return of unmissable shows including Severance and Stranger Things amid the glut of great and not-so-great film and TV releases, and there was plenty to keep our eyeballs engaged. Now, what have you got in store for us, 2026?

The Year in Smart Home

If the subscriptions don't get you, the fridge ads will

It's been a slow but not insignificant year in home technology as legacy brands scramble to keep pace with bigger, already tech-savvy players vying for their spot in our homes – whether that's Breville reinventing the toaster with a proprietary optical sensor, IKEA launching new renewable energy solutions, or Eufy and Dreame duking it out to give us the most effective stair-climbing robot vacuum.

Some brands were less innovative than others though. Dyson left some of us feeling snubbed with its 'new' (read: decade-old) vacuum, while Shark's TurboBlade Cool + Heat failed to impress despite its noble attempt at mimicking other SharkNinja product's viral fame.

Elsewhere we saw big plays from Amazon and Google in the smart home space, with the arrival of their AI-bolstered home assistants. Amazon's Alexa+ and Google's Gemini for Home both entered Early Access beta in the US, and while the early reviews for both have been mixed, it's a promising glimpse into the future of the connected home.

Both of those services are subscription-based offerings, and subscriptions look set to become a major battleground for smart-home brands, and a bone of contention between brands and their customers, as companies attempt to lock users into their ecosystems, as we've already seen with video doorbells. Between that, and brands like Samsung using screen-loaded appliances as advertising billboards around the home, now might be a good time to really think about which brands you want want to invest in as you build your smart home.

Hisense L9Q: two-minute review

The Hisense L9Q represents the pinnacle of what Hisense can do for home theater projection. It’s a sizzlingly bright 4K ultra short throw (UST) projector that boasts the wide color gamut of triple-laser projectors alongside the accurate color of Pantone Validated hardware.

The Hisense L9Q is a capable streamer on its own thanks to integrated Google TV, and it has fast-enough hardware to run the operating system smoothly. It can also serve as a hub for various video sources with its multiple HDMI ports and an ATSC 3.0 tuner input – a rare feature on the best projectors. And though it doesn’t include a screen like some earlier Hisense L9 models, this version has a variable focus to let it adapt to different setups.

Where most other projectors settle for two or maybe four speakers, the L9Q packs in a whopping ten Devialet-designed speakers in a 6.2.2 configuration for the most impressive sound I’ve heard from a projector. It may not beat actual surround sound speaker systems, but it’s enough to put even the best soundbars to shame.

The L9Q is even a solid gaming projector with its ability to display 4K 60Hz gameplay with low input lag or switch over to 1080p 240Hz for extra smooth visuals and responsive gaming.

It’s a serious package, but it comes with a seriously high-end price at $5,999 / £3,999. That may seem steep, but considering how quickly the prices of TVs ramp up when you go past 75 inches, the math starts to work in Hisense’s favor. The L9Q can put out a 150-inch picture just as easily as it can do 100 inches, and has flexible setup features to get up and running.

For most people who don’t need the added brightness and already have a good sound system, the $3,499 / £2,499 Hisense PX3-Pro will be a more reasonable option. But if you demand the best, the L9Q delivers.

Hisense L9Q Review: price and release date

• First available: September 2025
• MSRP: $5,999 / £3,999 / AU$9,999 (includes 120-inch screen)
  

The Hisense L9Q is available for $5,999 / £3,999. In Australia, the projector comes bundled with a 120-inch screen and sells for AU$9,999. Given that it launched towards the end of 2025, the L9Q is unlikely to see any major discounts until sometime in late 2026.

Hisense L9Q Review: Specs

Hisense L9Q Review: design and features

• Stunning design
• Projector, sound system, and streamer all in one
• Plentiful connection options

Hisense here has created what I think is its best-looking UST projector yet. The L9Q borrows some of the ideas from the retro-futuristic PX line to deliver a bronze-kissed work of art. Most of the frame of the L9Q is a little boxy, keeping it simple with clean lines, but the front has small channels with power indicator lights and the top bears a curved sort of wave meant to evoke Roman amphitheaters. That’s not just for style either, as the top integrates several speakers. The front is emblazoned with concentric rings and a grille on the front hides even more speakers. Around the side, there are two discs housing yet another pair of speakers.

While the design is very appealing, it’s also functional. The projector sits on four height-adjustable feet to help you level the projector and get a perfectly square image. Where its Hisense L9G predecessor was designed with specific screen sizes in mind (and included those screens), the L9Q is more flexible, offering adjustable keystone and focus to let you adapt it to your needs. The flip side is that the L9Q does not include any screen, which was an addition worth easily $1,000 on earlier models. Whatever screen you do set it up with, the projector can automatically fit the picture to it, though it's a software solution and will reduce the actual image resolution.

Another set of sensors at the top of the projector helps protect your eyes. When these detect someone is close to the projection, they'll dim the display, and after 5 seconds, turn it off entirely. That's good to have since this projector uses bright lasers, and in my testing, the sensors have been fairly responsive.

Another update with the L9Q is that the throw ratio has been reduced to 0.18:1. This lets you get a big image while getting the projector closer to the wall.

Around back, the L9Q has a good selection of connections. You get four HDMI ports, two of which meet the version 2.1 spec. A separate HDMI offers eARC, so you don't have to use up an HDMI 2.1 port for audio output. There's also an optical digital audio output, an Ethernet input, and an RF input for the L9Q’s ATSC 3.0 receiver. The projector even supports a PVR recording system for broadcast TV using an attached storage device. Three USB ports round out the options, with two offering USB 3.0 speeds, and one of those using a Type-C connection.

Even if you don't connect the projector to an external source, you can stream content on the built-in Google TV operating system. While many projectors include built-in operating systems like this, the L9Q actually has the hardware to run it smoothly. In my time testing, the system remained responsive even as I launched and navigated apps, and I could reliably control the projector at all times. The Wi-Fi 6E connection used by the streaming platform is also robust.

Hisense’s included remote is almost the same as what came with the PX3-Pro. It's a long silver handset made out of plastic with the typical Google TV navigation ring. At the top, it features a handful of shortcuts to streaming apps, including one customizable shortcut. There's also a dedicated input select button, which is always handy to have.

One difference between the remotes is that instead of having a control for brightness, the L9Q remote has a channel select button. This and the volume controls are on tall, pill-shaped buttons that are easy to feel out. One great feature of the remote is that it reacts to movement and will light up many of the controls if you simply move it. This is very helpful in the typically dark home theater environment.

• Design and features score: 5/5

Hisense L9Q Review: performance

• Wonderfully bright picture with rich color
• Support for 1080p/240Hz gaming
• Potent 10-speaker Dolby Atmos sound

The Hisense L9Q brings UST projector picture quality to new heights. Hisense already impressed me with earlier models such as the L9G and PX3-Pro, but the L9Q carries the torch even further. It’s their brightest projector yet while still providing the stunning color of Hisense’s RGB laser light engine.

Ultimately, its specified 5,000 lumen brightness may be overstated, as maximum brightness comes via a high-brightness mode that results in some horrible color shift. But even without that, the projector beams a brilliant picture. The vivid colors it is capable of don’t mean a sacrifice in accuracy either, as the L9Q is both Pantone Validated and Pantone SkinTone certified.

All of that is delivered with strong contrast. The black levels aren’t so low that letterbox bars disappear completely, especially in darker movie scenes, but when the projector is beaming bright, the bars become hard to see thanks to the projector’s contrast.

The L9Q’s black levels and contrast aren’t quite on the level of the Sony Bravia Projector 7, but it gets closer than most projectors I’ve seen, and it manages it with more vivid color and higher brightness. Not to mention that the L9Q is almost half the price of Sony’s projector.

With most picture presets, you’ll be facing some unfortunate motion smoothing, though, since the projector’s SDR and HDR picture profiles default to using motion smoothing. This has its benefits for some content by smoothing out camera pans and moving objects, but it adds a soap opera effect to movies. The “Film” setting avoids these unsightly artifacts while still keeping judder subdued, however.

The L9Q delivers good focus from corner to corner with manual setup, making the most of its 4K resolution. And the amount of detail you can see with the picture stretching up to 100 inches or larger is exceptional.

Gamers can get plenty from the L9Q as well. Even when it’s beaming a 4K 60Hz picture, it’s able to keep the input latency low enough to make for a fairly responsive experience. Like the Hisense PX3-Pro, the L9Q can drop down to 1080p and crank its refresh rate to 240Hz for super smooth gaming (just make sure to set the HDMI input source to Enhanced Pro or it will top out at 120Hz). I took it for a few runs in Hades, and it was stunningly smooth with virtually no detectable lag.

Though the L9Q did a good job of hiding the rainbow effect most of the time, it is susceptible to it like many other DLP projectors. I didn’t notice it much when watching 4K content, where it only occasionally cropped up and was most visible on white areas of the image. It was also more noticeable while running the projector at 1080p/240Hz.

The projector’s very robust speaker system was an extra pleasant surprise. It uses a total of 10 speakers in a 6.2.2-channel configuration. Four of those speakers are in the front, two on the sides, with four more positioned along the curved top. It’s not as engrossing as a proper surround system or as booming as a double-sub setup (nor is it hitting deep sub-bass), but the sound is weighty, loud, and presents a surprisingly wide soundstage for such a small unit.

With Dolby Atmos audio piping out of the speakers during Star Wars: The Force Awakens, blaster shots seemed to come out from different points in space, there was some height to the TIE fighters flying over, and explosions were properly booming. Ultimately, it’s worth pairing a projector of this quality with an external sound system, but if you don’t, there’s a lot to get from the built-in speakers.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Hisense L9Q Review: value

• High price
• Extra value as an all-in-one system
• No projector screen included in US and UK

The Hisense L9Q is a serious piece of kit, and it has the price to match. At $5,999 / £3,999, you have to expect a lot from this home theater projector, and for the most part, it delivers. Its picture is bright and color-rich, it has powerful built-in sound, and it has Google TV for streaming. But for most people, the $3,499 Hisense PX3-Pro is going to be the more sensible option, since it offers much the same experience but without quite the same brightness, audio power, or extensive connectivity options.

It's kind of a shame that the L9Q doesn't come bundled with a projector screen in the US and the UK, but its flexible lens control means you can pair it with whatever screen you want for the most part. Hisense had offered pre-order customers the option of either a free screen or its HT-Saturn sound wireless speaker system, both of which would have made this an astounding value, but that deal appears to have since expired.

• Value score: 4/5

Should I buy the Hisense L9Q?

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if… 

Also consider...

How I tested the Hisense L9Q

• Tested at home in multiple, real-world viewing conditions
• Presented the display with a variety of media and formats
• I have tested numerous projectors and displays over the last half-decade

I tested the Hisense L9Q at home, in real-world conditions. This saw it faced with ambient light coming in from numerous windows, in-room lighting, as well as ambient noise that both the projector and speaker systems had to overcome. The projector was tested both against a bare, white wall and an Akia Screens CineWhite screen. It was presented with streamed content, HDR and non-HDR, and PC gameplay.

My testing evaluates the projector’s performance with respect to its price and competition from other models that my colleagues and I at TechRadar have tested.

I have been testing projectors since 2021 and displays for even longer.

First reviewed: December 2025

• Read TechRadar's review guarantee

It’s been an excellent year for TVs in 2025, with groundbreaking new OLED and mini-LED sets delivering better-than-ever brightness. It’s been an especially competitive year for flagship OLED TVs, with some close-fought battles between the main contenders from Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic.

I’ve been fortunate enough to test some of the best TVs of 2025, and I’m already looking ahead to 2026. With CES 2026 kicking off the first week of January, we can expect to see big news in the TV world, and I’ll be keeping a keen eye out for announcements from each brand.

In anticipation of CES, I’ve compiled a list of what I’m hoping to see from each TV brand in 2026. Some of this will be answered as early as January, but other details won’t arrive until later in the year.

(A quick note: I’ve not commented on Philips TVs as I’ve not yet had any hands-on time with its 2025 models.)

LG: brighter OLEDs

All three 2025 LG OLED TVs, the G5, C5 and B5, scored highly in our reviews, with the G5 and C5 earning 5 stars overall and the B5 4.5 stars. While I don’t have many complaints about these TVs, there's one change I’d like to see in the successors to the B5 and C5 in 2026: higher brightness.

In our testing, the LG B5 had a measured peak HDR brightness of 688 nits (Filmmaker Mode) and fullscreen HDR brightness of 172 nits (Standard mode). Both of those are average brightness results for an entry-level OLED. I’d love to see more brightness from the new B-series model, to give HDR highlights more punch, and to make it easier to view in brighter rooms.

While the C5’s peak brightness is solid, reaching 1,180 nits in our tests, its fullscreen HDR brightness is under 200 nits. As flagship OLEDs are now going past 350 nits, it would be great to see higher fullscreen brightness from LG’s C-series in 2026. Whether this will come from a new panel design – as we thought we’d be getting in the LG C5 – we’ll have to wait and see.

Samsung: lower Neo QLED pricing

Samsung OLED TVs had a fantastic year, with the flagship Samsung S95F being named TechRadar’s TV of the Year 2025. Its flagship Samsung QN90F Neo QLED (mini-LED) earned five stars overall in our review and proved itself to be a phenomenal TV.

One area where Samsung needs to improve in 2026 is the pricing of its entry-level and mid-range mini-LED TVs. The Samsung QN80F, which I awarded four stars overall in my review, cost $1,299 / £1,399 (roughly AU$1990) for the 55-inch model on release. The TCL QM7K/C7K, in contrast, cost $999 / £799 / AU$1,699 mere weeks after its release, and it was the better-performing TV of the two.

While Samsung’s TVs do carry more smart and gaming features, these often aren’t enough to justify the large price gaps between Samsung and TCL and Hisense’s sets.

TCL: gaming support

TCL’s TVs have seen consistent improvement over the past couple of years. TCL TVs were among the best I tested in 2025, particularly the mid-range C7K (QM7K in the US), but there is one area where they could improve further: gaming features.

Don’t get me wrong: TCL’s mini-LED TVs have fantastic gaming features already, with all sets supporting at least 4K 144Hz, FreeSync Premium Pro and Dolby Vision gaming. However, input lag seems stuck around 13.5ms, and while Hisense TVs used to have similar performance, 2025 models like the Hisense U8QG had sub-10ms results in our testing. TCL TVs are also limited to two HDMI 2.1 ports, so it would be good if that number were bumped up to four.

TCL’s TVs do still compete with the best gaming TVs and have great features for their price, but with a few improvements, they could become the ultimate budget-friendly gaming sets.

Hisense again delivered excellent TVs in 2025, with the Hisense U8QG and Hisense U75QG in particular impressing us with their staggering brightness and refined local dimming. But, there’s one area where Hisense could take notes from TCL and Samsung: viewing angles.

We measured the Hisense U75QG’s peak brightness at 3,372 nits (in Standard mode) and its fullscreen brightness at 887 nits. Such high brightness makes it a great TV for daytime viewing, including sports. However, in our testing we noted that when viewed off-axis, the U75QG’s picture quality decreases, and that’s the case for the whole Hisense range. It’s a shame that a TV with this much to offer stumbles when it comes to viewing angles.

Viewing angles used to be a problem with most mini-LED TVs, but over the years, brands, including Hisense’s major affordable rival TCL, have found a way to address it. This is one area where I’d love to see Hisense improve in 2026. I tested the 116-inch RGB mini-LED, and its viewing angles seemed better, so hopefully this can be carried over to the standard mini-LED lineup.

Sony: a cheaper QD-OLED

The Sony Bravia 8 II, which uses a QD-OLED display panel, received numerous accolades in 2025. It earned a four-and-a-half-star overall score from TechRadar’s Al Griffin in his review, and it fared well in my four-way OLED TV comparison. Sony has adopted a bi-annual cycle with its TVs, and I think it’s about time for a cheaper QD-OLED.

Sony’s previous mid-range OLED was the Sony Bravia 8. It’s a great TV, but it was released in 2024 and realistically struggles to compete with LG’s C-series. Samsung had success in 2025 by incorporating QD-OLED in its step-down Samsung S90F 65-inch model, which has brighter pictures than the rival LG C5, but for a similar price.

A mid-range QD-OLED with Sony’s built-in audio pedigree? Now that would be amazing.

Panasonic: higher brightness

I chose the Panasonic Z95B as my favorite flagship OLED of 2025 after comparing it to other models in a four-way OLED showdown. I loved its contrast-rich picture, powerful built-in sound and sleek design. But one area where I felt there was a missed opportunity was brightness.

I’m talking specifically about the Z95B’s brightness in the default Movie and Filmmaker Mode settings. While the brightness can be bumped up, I found during testing that this affected the Z95B’s picture accuracy. It turns out this was intentional by Panasonic, which decided to prioritize accuracy over brightness in the Z95B.

The Z95B uses the same Primary Tandem RGB OLED panel as the LG G5, which hit a peak brightness of 2,268 nits in Filmmaker Mode in its default settings when we tested it. The Z95B’s peak brightness in the same mode: 992 nits. At that level, the Z95B’s contrast wasn’t quite as striking as I’d have liked. A brightness boost, even a slight one, would make Panasonic’s next flagship even better.

• Hisense unveils two new 4K TriChroma laser projectors with up to 6,000:1 contrast
• Hisense XR10 can do up to 300 inches, at up to 6,000 ANSI lumens
• Hisense PX4-Pro is the sequel to our favorite ultra short throw projector

It's 11 years since Hisense launched its first laser projector and six since the introduction of its TriChroma Laser TV system. And now it's unveiled two brand new laser projectors with its newest-generation tech, called the XR10 and the PX4-Pro.

The XR10 is exceptionally bright, delivering a whopping 6,000 ANSI lumens of brightness that enables it to shine in even very well-lit environments. It has 16 all-glass lenses for better light transmission and temperature stability and a new IRIS system that automatically adjusts the lens aperture and exposure to match changes in lighting conditions. Contrast is a claimed 6,000:1 and the XR10 features a "dramatically expanded" BT.2020 color gamut.

With an optical zoom range of 0.84x to 2.0x the XR10 can deliver screen sizes up to 300 inches despite being in a home-friendly design and thanks to an industry-first four-camera and dual TOF intelligent sensor system it can achieve lossless correction of side-projected images up to ±15°. Pricing may be announced at CES 2026 – we'll speak to Hisense while we're there.

Hisense PX4-PRO: key features

As the name suggests, the PX4-Pro is the successor to the Hisense PX3-Pro – a projector we described as "a perfect ultra-short throw projector for gaming and movies", and that tops our list of the best ultra short throw projectors. It's designed for visuals up to 200 inches and delivers 3,500 ANSI lumens of brightness, contrast of up to 6,000:1, and with 4K resolution.

Like the XR10, it features the new IRIS automatic adjustments and Hisense's TriChroma laser technology. It's also certified IMAX Enhanced.

As with the XR10 pricing hasn't been announced yet, but the PX3-Pro had a launch price of $3,499 / £2,499 in September 2024, so the new model is likely to be similarly priced.

TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!

The next big thing in TVs is RGB LED backlighting – it's been clear that this would be the case since the technology was first unveiled back at CES 2025 in January, and all the major TV companies said they planned to support it.

Nearly a year later, the first of these TVs has hit the market in the US and UK courtesy of Hisense, and we've seen what the future RGB TV lineups from Samsung, LG, TCL and Hisense will look like. (Sony will launch a TV this year, but hasn't revealed a final version yet, only prototypes.)

Samsung and LG are both calling the tech 'Micro RGB', while Hisense and TCL both call it RGB MiniLED – so far, at least.

So here's what you need to know about the tech behind RGB TVs, and what to expect from the big TV makers vying to get these new models onto our coveted list of the best TVs – and we'll hear even more details during CES 2026 in January.

What is 'Micro RGB' LED?

Regular LED and mini-LED screens work by shining a bright light of a single color through a grid of color-filtering pixels, which turn this light into the correct colors that each individual pixel needs to show, creating the final image you see.

Generally, the backlight is blue (through it's occasionally white, or a mix of two tones), and each pixel uses liquid crystals to turn it whatever hue it needs to be. Quantum dots are also often used for changing the color.

The difference between LED and mini-LED is purely – as the names suggest – the size of the LED lights shining through the pixels. Smaller LEDs means you can have more of them – creating brighter and more evenly illuminated colors – as well as aiding the ability to selectively dim precise areas of the light, to help with improving contrast between light and dark section of the picture.

RGB LED TVs work just like other mini-LED TVs, in that a layer of tiny lights shines through a grid of color-changing pixels – but this time, the LEDs aren't a single color. Each mini-LED has red, green and blue elements (hence the name), and can combine them to shine in basically the right color for that section of the screen even before the light hits the color-filtering pixels.

The pixels then still filter the colors to the precise final hue, but they're doing much less work than in the older kind of mini-LED tech.

What are the benefits of this? First, it means a wider range of colors can be created by the TV. RGB TVs promise to be able to show way beyond 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is the coloring system used for HDR movies and TV, meaning they'll show truly everything that creators could want you to see. Not only that, but they'll also hit 100% of the BT.2020 color gamut, used for professional work.

It should also be more efficient than previous tech. Whenever you filter colors, you lose some energy in the process, reducing brightness. That's partly why quantum dots are used – they lose less energy in the process than standard LCD pixels.

But if you don't have to filter the colors as drastically, as is true in RGB TVs, you lose less energy. This means that these TVs can be even brighter than current TVs, or could hit the same brightness but with lower energy use.

And Sony told me that the tech should also help with bringing mini-LED's handling of stark contrast areas even closer to what OLED can do. People love the best OLED TVs because each pixel generates its own light, and can be dimmed to total blackness, meaning true black can be one pixel away from dazzling brightness in the on-screen picture.

LED TVs struggle to match this because they have a big light shining behind the pixels – light leaks from the bright area into the dark areas, creating gray 'halos' where there should be total blackness.

But when the light shining behind the pixels changes colors, it's less likely to leak – different light wavelengths are absorbed differently, so RGB TVs may get closer to the 'perfect' contrast of OLED.

What are Samsung's Micro RGB TV plans?

• Main story: Samsung's enormous micro-RGB TV is coming to smaller screen sizes, and it borrows one great feature from Samsung OLED TVs
• Three Micro RGB models coming: MR95H, MR90H and MR85H
• Available in 55, 65, 75, 85, 100, and 115-inch sizes

Samsung showed me the first RGB TV I ever saw – a prototype at CES 2025 – and said that it planned to launch a TV before the end of the year. It met that aim with time to spare, launching a 115-inch RGB model in August – but it's what's coming next that's most interesting, of course.

It appears that Samsung will launch multiple Micro RGB models, aimed at different budget levels: the MR95H will the highest-end, the MR90H will be premium but not as premium, and the MR85H will be the most affordable. How affordable, you ask? We've no idea yet, and probably won't until spring 2026; however, when I first saw the Samsung prototype, the company told me the tech shouldn't be much more expensive to produce than current mini-LED tech. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the first models are priced like Samsung's current highest-end mini-LED TVs.

Samsung promises that the TVs will hit 100% of the BT.2020 color gamut, and will feature a new Micro RGB AI Engine Pro image processor to make the most of the tech.

Notably, at least some of Samsung's TVs will stand out by offering the company's Glare Free screen coating – this is a matte finish on the screen, turning mirrored reflections to just a light haze to remove distractions in bright rooms. We loved this on the Samsung S95F OLED TV this year.

What are LG's Micro RGB TV plans?

• Main story: LG reveals Micro RGB evo TV with bold claims of perfect color
• The MRGB95 has been announced, with two more models reportedly coming
• 75-inch, 86-inch, and 100-inch sizes promised so far

LG has revealed that it's releasing a pretty high-end-focused 'Micro RGB evo' model of TV, with the model name MRGB95. Just like Samsung, the set promises 100% BT.2020 color coverage, but also 100% Adobe RGB color support.

It's available in larger sizes only – 75, 86 and 100 inches – and promises "more than a thousand dimming zones" for local dimming, though current high-end mini-LEDs often have much more than that – though with RGB LED, maybe that won't be necessary any more.

The TV will use a new-gen Alpha 11 Gen 3 processor – the most advanced in LG's line-up to date – and will run webOS 26, its next generation of smart TV software.

LG has only announced one model, but FlatpanelsHD reports that two more are in the works: the MRGB9M and MRGB85. This could make its line-up look just like Samsung's, with super-premium, premium and more affordable options. We'll have to wait for the official word to find out more – including pricing.

What are Hisense's RGB MiniLED TV plans?

• Main story: Hisense’s new RGB mini-LED TVs tease what to expect from affordable versions of the next-gen screen tech – but will they fix our biggest issue with it?
• Hisense unveils E8S Pro RGB MiniLED range in China in 75, 85 and 100-inch sizes
• Hisense already launched the Hisense UX116 RGB TV

Hisense hasn't revealed its official plans for the US and UK yet, but so expect more to come – but it's already announced its first RGB MiniLED line-up in China, so we know the core specs to anticipate when it brings the tech elsewhere.

It revealed the Hisense E8S Pro line-up in sizes that match LG: 75, 85 and 100 inches. Hisense promises over 6,000 nits of peak HDR brightness – not too different from current mini-LED TVs, but probably requiring less energy to achieve it.

Unlike Samsung and LG, we have some kind of price guidance to rely on here: the Chinese prices convert to around $2,335, $2,955 and $3,940 respectively – and for TVs of those sizes, that's pretty affordable, though obviously prices might look quite different in the TVs for other countries.

Hisense is also notable here because it released a 116-inch RGB MiniLED this year, so our Hisense UX116 review is the first complete test we've done of one of this kind of TV. It impressed us in many ways, but fell short in one of the key areas we expected to see improvements: it had some problems handing dark areas. We'll very interested to see if Hisense (and other companies) improve on this in 2026.

What are TCL's RGB MiniLED TV plans?

• Main story: TCL confirms it will launch two next-gen RGB mini-LED TVs, raising hopes the new tech will be affordable
• TCL unveils Q10M Ultra and Q9M RGB TVs in China
• Sizes from 65 inches to 115 inches

Much like Hisense, TCL has unveiled its RGB models for China, but not the UK and US yet. But again, we can learn basically what to expect from these models, and they're pretty juicy.

There will be two models: the Q10M Ultra, and the Q9M. Based on TCL's standard naming conventions, we can assume that these are both pretty high up in TCL's range – the TCL QM9K is its highest-end regular mini-LED in 2025, while there is a quite specialist TCL X11K above that.

The Q10M will be available from 85 to 115 inches, while the Q9M will come from 65 inches to 98 inches.

However, the Chinese price for the smallest version of the Q9M (65 inches) converts to just $1,150, while the Q10M Ultra starts from $3,935. That's a very interest price for the cheaper model, though we'll have to see if it translates elsewhere.

TCL says that there's a potential 9,000 nits of brightness from the Q10M Ultra, with over 16,000 dimming zones in the largest size (putting LG's claim of "more than a thousand" into perspective).

The Q9M will hit around 2,000 nits of brightness, and has up to 2,880 dimming zones. Both TVs will – and I don't want to shock you here – apparently hit 100% of the BT.2020 color gamut.

What are Sony's RGB TV plans?

• Sony has shown its RGB tech prototypes multiple times to us
• A launch is planned in 2026, but don't expect it at CES
• No word on size, specs or anything else yet – but True RGB seems to be the name

We know Sony is planning to launch an RGB TV this year. I've seen an early version of it in action and grilled Sony execs about it. In the image above, you're looking at Sony's backlighting panel for this TV (I wasn't allowed to take photos of the set itself).

But what will the final TV look like? When will we see it? What features will it have? The answer is: who knows! Sony has trademarked the name True RGB, though, so that's something.

It appears that Sony isn't planning to launch its TV at CES, which is no surprise – it didn't last year. A spring announcement is more likely.

The interesting question is whether Sony will hit a brightness of around 4,000 nits. The company has told us multiple times since it launched its 4,000-nit studio monitor used for mastering movie HDR that it wants to deliver 4,000-nit home TVs so that you can have as close to the studio reproduction as possible.

And we know from Hisense and TCL's TVs that mini-LED can achieve this… but Sony has a history of limiting the brightness of its TVs in order to nail better accuracy, so it'll be interesting to see if this TV can be bright enough and accurate enough.

Your smart TV may be a little too smart. A Texas lawmaker is suing five major TV manufacturers, claiming they're surveilling what you watch to build profiles and serve up advertising...or to do worse.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a suit on Monday against Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and Hisense, claiming in a press release that they "have been unlawfully collecting personal data through Automated Content Recognition ("ACR”) technology."

Paxton goes on to label ACR as "an uninvited, invisible digital invader," and in one of the five separately filed suits, he calls Samsung TVs "a mass surveillance system."

What is ACR? The now more than a decade-old technology has a long history dating back to Shazam's use in 2011 and another company, Samba TV, which patented its own ACR tech that same year. Most of the early uses revolved around sound and music recognition. The technology ultimately added image or snapshot collection (and image recognition) and eventually made its way to 4K smart TVs.

What ACR does and why you might worry

Companies like LG, Hisense, Samsung, and others apparently now use ACR to identify what you're watching and connect you with relevant content, marketing, and advertising.

Paxton's suit claims that these ACR systems can capture screenshots of viewing habits as often as every 500 milliseconds and that the TV manufacturers "transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent."

Generally, though, data specific to who you are, like name, photos, address, etc, are not part of that delivery. Instead, third-party partners get information about content interests, and TVs or TV companies act as middlemen, delivering related content recommendations and advertising.

This is not the first time ACR systems have run afoul of the law. Back in 2017, Vizo paid a $2 million fine to the FTC to settle a claim that it was monitoring viewing histories without proper consent.

There is no question that these systems exist. On a test LG TV in our labs, we spent some time navigating to a well-hidden Live Plus setting.

Live Plus is LG's version of ACR, and, as LG describes it, when you enable it, "the content displayed on your TV can be recognized, and the viewing information may be used to provide you with an enhanced viewing experience and personalized services including content recommendations and advertisements."

We never enabled Live Plus, and it appeared to be on by default. However, it's also possible that during setup, the TV may have asked if we'd like "an enhanced and personalized viewing experience." Who wouldn't say yes to that?

Paxton's concerns, though, go beyond mere advertising and marketing. He notes that some of these TV companies, like TCL and Hisense, are based in China. "Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” said Paxton in the release.

What's next

When we contacted the manufacturers for comment, TCL told us it "does not comment on active litigation." Sony told us, "it does not comment on pending legal matters." Hisense told us, "Hisense stands by the high quality of its products. Per company policy, we are unable to comment further on topics of a litigious nature." LG told us, "As a matter of policy, LG Electronics USA does not generally comment on pending legal matters such as this." We have yet to hear back from Samsung.

Whatever happens with this lawsuit, it might be a good time to check on your smart TVs ACR settings, see if they're enabled, and perhaps turn them off if you don't want one of these companies watching what you're watching.

Most reports we read, said that disabling ACR turns off all communications between the TVs and ACR servers. Just remember, the next ads and TV show recommendations you see on your smart TV may have little to do with your interests.

• Hisense launches 75, 85 and 100-inch RGB mini-LED TVs with 6,200 nits of brightness
• Currently only available in China
• Roughly $2,335, $2,955 and $3,940 before tariffs and taxes

Hisense makes some of the best TVs, and that means the launch of its new, relatively affordable RGB mini-LED TVs is important: the tech promises the brightness of mini-LED, but with contrast closer to the best OLED TVs, and color depth beyond what either tech has been able to achieve in the past.

The new Hisense E8S Pro is now on sale in China, Notebookcheck.net reports, where it's available in three models: 75-inch, 85-inch and 100-inch. All three models are 4K with a 170Hz refresh rate, integrated virtual surround sound, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. For gamers, there's variable refresh rate, auto low latency mode, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.

These models are priced aggressively, coming in at roughly $2,335, $2,955 and $3,940 – although of course tariffs and taxes will take those prices upwards in other markets. And while Hisense hasn't promised to bring the new TVs to the US just yet, it already has an RGB mini-LED in the form of the Hisense 116UX – we've just been waiting to see what models the company would release in 2026 that are a little more, shall we say, realistic than that one. (We've already seen an 85-inch Hisense RGB model, but even that's a bit niche.)

Here's the thing, though: we've tested the Hisense 116UX TV, and there's a big concern about it that these new models need to address.

What we'd like to see in these RGB Mini-LEDs

When our lead TV reviewer James Davidson spent time with the 116UX, he was impressed – but he also noted that the first-gen tech had some issues. Like the flagship 110UXN mini-LED, which James had reviewed in depth, it suffered from backlight blooming and screen uniformity issues, which are the kinds of things we expect RGB tech to improve.

The 110UXN is a mini-LED, not an RGB mini-LED. But the newer tech in the 116UX RGB mini-LED had the same visible issues in dark movies such as Alien: Romulus and The Batman. Those movies are a tough test for any TV – The Batman in particular is mastered at a low brightness – but it's a test that OLED TVs pass.

Hisense's RGB TV showed a 'clouding' across dark parts of the screen near lighter parts in some modes, making the black tones look gray, and losing the subtletly of the movies' contrast.

The new TVs that Hisense has just unveiled are relatively affordable for something with next-gen screen tech, but they're far from budget buys – and that means we'd expect premium performance. So I'm really hoping that these newer models have banished the blooming and clouding that we experienced in the first-gen spec.

Here's hoping, because the specs here are very good: between 4,200 and 9,360 local dimming zones depending on the size you choose; up to 6,200 nits of peak brightness; a very low reflectivity rate and a very wide viewing angle of 178º; and 100% coverage of the BT.2020 color gamut.

In addition to the aforementioned Dolby Vision there's HDR10+, IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Mode.

The TechRadar team is delighted to present the winners of the TechRadar Choice Awards 2025! These are our biggest awards ever, honoring the best products of the last 12 months in the major tech areas, while bringing in hot new categories such as open earbuds, and making sure we still have price-conscious categories, to represent how people are really buying gadgets today.

As always, the TechRadar Choice Awards are chosen by a combination of our expert judges' verdicts based on their experience with the products, with votes from you, the TechRadar readers. The vast majority are awards are voted on by the public, to make sure that products that people really love in the real-word are represented.

Our first category is our Readers' Choice Award, which is the award chosen 100% by reader votes, then we have our Editors' Choice Awards, which are selected solely by our expert judges. After that, every winner was picked by a 50/50 combination of the votes of our readers with the scores from our judges.

Readers' Choice Award

Editor's Choice Awards

Phone of the Year

Camera of the Year

Laptop of the Year

Gaming device of the year

TV of the Year

Streaming Service of the Year

Headphones of the Year

Health and Fitness Device of the Year

Home Device of the Year

One to Watch

Brand of the Year

Phones category winners

Phones Brand of the Year

Best Value Phone

Best Mid-Range Phone

Best Folding Phone

Best Flip Phone

Best Camera Phone

Best Gaming Phone

Best Phone Accessory

Best Tablet

Best AI Phone

Best eReader

Best Writing Tablet

Cameras category winners

Camera Brand of the Year

Best Beginner Camera

Best Mid-Range Camera

Best Professional Camera

Best Video Camera

Best Instant Camera

Best Action Camera

Best Dash Cam

Best Camera Lens

Best Compact Camera

Best Camera Accessory

Best Drone

Computing category winners

Best computing brand

Best value laptop

Best Chromebook

Best AI laptop

Best gaming laptop

Best gaming PC

Best computing innovation

Best processor

Gaming category winners

Gaming brand of the year

Best mobile gaming accessory

Best PC Gaming Handheld

Best console accessory

Best gaming service

Best gaming controller

Best Gaming Keyboard

Best Gaming Mouse

Best Gaming Headset

Best Gaming Monitor

Best Gaming Chair

TV category winners

Home Entertainment Brand of the Year

Best Gaming TV

Best TV for Sound

Best OLED TV

Best Mini-LED TV

Best Mid-range TV

Best Value TV

Best Projector

Best Portable Projector

Best Ultra Short Throw Projector

Best Gaming Projector

Best Soundbar

Streaming category winners

Best Streaming Service for Movies

Best Streaming Service for Documentaries

Best Streaming Service for TV Series

Best Streaming Service for Value

Best Free Streaming Service

Best Live TV Streaming Service

Audio category winners

Audio Brand of the Year

Best Wireless Headphones

Best wireless earbuds

Best Open Earbuds

Best Value Headphones

Best Value Earbuds

Best Value Open Earbuds

Best Wired Headphones

Best Wired Earbuds

Best Bluetooth Speaker

Best Wireless Speaker

Best Portable Audio Player

Best Turntable

Health & fitness category winners

Health and Fitness Brand of the Year

Best Smartwatch

Best running watch

Best fitness tracker

Best smart ring

Best Fitness App

Best electric toothbrush

Best connected fitness tech

Best electric bike

Home tech category winners

Home Tech Brand of the Year

Best Smart Lights

Best Home Security Camera

Best Video Doorbell

Best Air Fryer

Best Blender

Best Coffee Machine

Best Robot Vacuum

Best Vacuum

Best Hair & Beauty Tech

It can be a real headache looking for a new TV, especially with similar-sounding model names from rival brands touting the same features and technologies for almost identical prices.

Browsing the best TVs on the market comes down to one major thing: which TV is going to give you the best bang for your buck? Buying one of the best OLED TVs like the awesome LG G5 or Samsung S95F flagships would be great, but they come at a premium price, often exceeding $2,000 / £2,000 for a 65-inch model.

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend these premium prices to get an excellent TV that should cover all your needs, especially for movies and gaming. Nowadays, TVs from more ‘budget’ brands such as Hisense and TCL compete with major brands when it comes to both features and performance.

As TechRadar’s TV tester, I’ve picked three models that do bang for your buck better than any other TVs.

TCL QM7K/C7K

The mid-range model in TCL’s 2025 mini-LED TV lineup, the 7-series, referred to as the QM7K in the US and the C7K in the UK, has a robust list of features and delivers great performance for the price.

With high brightness (over 3,000 nits!) and bold, vibrant colors, the QM7K/C7K also has effective local dimming, which produces deep blacks and strong contrast. Textures look realistic on 7-series TVs, and detail is refined. I was seriously impressed with the QM7K/C7K’s picture quality when I tested it, and while not perfect, it’s a real improvement over previous TCL mid-range TVs.

The QM7K/C7K is also one of the best gaming TVs you can get in its price bracket. With 4K 144Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, Dolby Vision gaming and ALLM all supported, plus a respectable 13.5ms input lag time for smooth performance, there aren’t many better gaming TVs at this price.

I've seen the 65-inch QM7K selling for as low as $799 and the 65-inch C7K for £799 / AU$1695. For what this TV offers, those are staggeringly low prices.

Hisense U8Q

The Hisense U8Q is one of the flagship models in Hisense’s 2025 mini-LED TV lineup. Its predecessor, the Hisense U8N, was one of the best mini-LED TVs of 2024, so the U8Q had some big shoes to fill, and it does just that.

The U8Q delivered staggering brightness when we tested it, hitting 3,337 nits. Its superb backlight control also delivered powerful contrast in challenging scenes from TV shows such as The Last of Us. Colors were rich and vivid and the U8Q’s higher brightness gave them that extra level of pop.

The U8Q is also an excellent gaming TV. Its three HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K 165Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, ALLM, and Dolby Vision and HDR10+ gaming. Plus, it has an ultra-low 9.9ms input lag time for snappy, responsive gaming performance.

For what it offers, the U8Q is brilliant value. It costs $1,099 for the 65-inch model in the US, and has been as low as $999 before. In Australia, it’s priced at AU$1,895. Those are fantastic prices for a flagship TV with this level of performance.

In the UK, the U8Q’s value isn’t quite as good, with the 65-inch model costing £1,699. Still, given the specs, that price is very competitive.

LG B5

The LG B5 is the latest entry in LG’s B-series of OLED TVs, which sell at a cheaper price than most OLEDs.

The B5 delivers all the picture quality highlights expected from an OLED TV. It has deep, inky blacks, vibrant color and 3D-like detail. It doesn’t have the brightness of more premium OLEDs, clocking in at 668 nits, but its picture still has punchy contrast and looks fantastic.

It’s also a superb gaming TV, with a full suite of features supported across four HDMI 2.1 ports, including 4K 120Hz, AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, HGiG, Dolby Vision gaming and ALLM. An ultra-low 9.2ms input lag time (in the TV’s Boost mode) makes for fast-paced and ultra-responsive gaming, as I discovered when playing Battlefield V on the B5.

Buying the B5 is the cheapest way to get a 2025 OLED TV. The 65-inch model costs $1,099 / £1,349 / AU$2,295, and while that's more than what you’ll pay for mini-LED models from Hisense and TCL, it’s a brilliant price for an OLED. For the 65-inch step-up LG C5, you’d be paying $1,399 / £1,799 / AU$4,295!

Honorable mention: LG C4

OK, so this is a cheeky honorable mention. The LG C4 sat at the top of most of our best-of lists for the past 12 months as it delivers exceptional picture quality and brilliant gaming features and performance for a very competitive price.

Now that we’re in the latter part of 2025, however, the C4 has become difficult to find. Where available, it's currently getting great discounts, so if you see this TV listed, it’s absolutely worth buying!

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Hisense 116UX review: Two minute review

The Hisense 116UX is the brand’s flagship 4K TV, and it introduces RGB mini-LED technology to the world in a 116-inch screen size. Some elements of its picture rival the best TVs, and it has a wide array of features, but its appeal is limited by key shortcomings.

With a launch price of $29,999 / £24,999 / AU$39,999, the Hisense 116UX is an expensive TV that will exceed most budgets. And while it features exciting new RGB mini-LED tech, Hisense will also be introducing RGB mini-LED in 100- and 85-inch models in the future, and more buyers are likely to gravitate to those.

The 116UX’s bold, vibrant colors take mini-LED to the next level. Textures are crisp, and the high brightness gives pictures a strong level of punch. Contrast and black levels are mostly good, but backlight blooming and inconsistent backlight control lead to a clouding effect in some dark scenes that hamper what would otherwise be a remarkable picture. Even with the TV’s large size, viewing angles are limited, with pictures losing contrast when viewed from off-center seats .

A 6.2.2-channel sound system delivers mostly solid performance, with immersive effects, impressive accuracy and clear dialogue. Bass has good impact, but the 116UX’s soundstage isn’t as wide as I’d hoped for. A screen this size deserves one of the best soundbars to match, ideally a premium option like the Samsung HW-Q990F.

The 116UX is great for gaming, with 4K 165Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming all supported across three HDMI 2.1 ports. While its 14.6ms input lag time is higher than the best gaming TVs, its overall gaming performance is good enough for an enjoyable experience on a big screen.

This TV’s high price is hard to ignore, and even though the 116UX features an RGB mini-LED panel and has a gargantuan screen size, you can build a truly great home theater system with some of the best 4K projectors at this price. The 116UX will deliver better value when its price drops, but right now, it’s a big ask.

Hisense 116UX review: Price & release date

• Release date: September 2025
• Price: $29,999 / £24,999 / AU$39,999

The Hisense 116UX, Hisense’s flagship 2025 TV, uses a new RGB mini-LED panel. It sits above the Hisense 110UX, U9Q, U8Q, U7Q and U6Q mini-LED TVs and is priced at $29,999 / £24,999 / AU$39,999.

Although the 116UX had only been available for a few weeks at the time I reviewed it, the price has dropped to $24,999 in the US. I expect the TV's price will drop even further over the coming months.

Hisense 116UX review: Specs

Hisense 116UX review: Benchmark results

Hisense 116UX review: Features

• RGB mini-LED panel
• Hi-View AI Engine X processor
• Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ and IMAX Enhanced support

The 116UX features Hisense’s RGB mini-LED panel, which uses RGB mini-LEDs to produce a wider, more refined color gamut. HDR support includes Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+, as well as the HDR10 and HLG formats. It also supports IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Mode.

Hisense’s flagship TV comes equipped with a 6.2.2-channel speaker system, totaling 110W in power. It supports Dolby Atmos, but not DTS. Alongside the usual sound presets - Standard, Movie, Sport - it also has AI sound, which adapts the sound and dialogue based on both the content showing onscreen and the viewing environment.

The 116UX’s gaming features include 4K 165Hz, VRR including AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, Dolby Vision gaming and ALLM support. All features are supported across the TV’s three HDMI 2.1 ports.

Hisense’s smart TV platform varies by region. Google TV is used in the US, while Hisense’s own VIDAA smart TV platform features in the UK and Australia. I reviewed the UK version, so I used VIDAA, which has access to popular streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video, and also UK apps such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX. If you want a review of the Google TV smart TV platform, check out our Hisense U8Q review.

• Features score: 4.5 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Picture quality

• High brightness and brilliant color
• Refined detail
• Black uniformity issues

The 116UX’s peak HDR brightness hit 5,441 nits and fullscreen HDR brightness was 1,090 nits, with both measured in Filmmaker Mode. That peak brightness result is over twice what I measured on the Hisense 110UX, a TV that uses a standard mini-LED panel.

The 116UX’s measured HDR color gamut covered 99.3% of the DCI-P3 color space, which is an excellent result for a mini-LED TV. Its BT.2020 color gamut coverage was even more impressive at 92.64%, which is the highest amount we’ve measured on a TV to date.

I first started my testing with some SDR content, beginning with an HD stream of Fight Club on Disney+. I chose Filmmaker Mode but set brightness and local dimming to medium as the picture was too dim at the default settings. I was impressed by the 116UX’s effective upscaling of textures, which gave the picture a crisper look. Even at a 116-inch size, the image was clean. Lower resolution content on YouTube didn’t fare as well, with the image looking blocky on the large screen.

Color is where the 116UX shines – literally. Watching Elemental on Disney Plus in Dolby Vision IQ picture mode, reds and oranges were vibrant and punchy, with the 116UX’s brightness adding real pop in a scene where Ember makes a vase. In Wicked on 4K Blu-ray, pink flowers in a tree in the ‘Wizard & I’ scene had a bold look, as did the greens of the Emerald City.

As I’ve discovered with most Hisense TVs, motion handling requires a bit of setup. I watched a stream of a soccer game on Prime Video and found that most motion presets worked, but either Standard or Custom, with Blur set to 3 and Judder set to 5, produced the smoothest image. This was also true for movie viewing, as a scene from No Time To Die where a camera pans across a rocky hillside looked much smoother with the above settings.

Textures looked consistently crisp and realistic on the 116UX, with close-up shots of people’s faces showing fine details such as marks or hair. Clothing was also true-to-life and given a 3D look.

Watching black and white scenes from Oppenheimer on the 116UX, whites looked bright and there was a good range of gray tones. Blacks were slightly raised, but they still looked solid. The 116UX also delivered good shadow detail in darker scenes, such as objects against dark walls in a scene where Strauss and Oppenheimer are in an office after their first meeting.

Dark scenes ultimately were a mixed bag on the 116UX. Blacks appeared rich and deep in some instances, such as the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray’s demo footage, but they came across as more of a dark gray in movie scenes from The Batman and Alien: Romulus. While contrast was also strong in these movies, there was a clouding effect across the screen in dark sections of the image. Strangely, one exterior space shot in Alien: Romulus demonstrated good accuracy in the blacks, but another in a dark tunnel revealed the clouding effect at its worst.

The 116UX also demonstrated some backlight blooming around bright objects against dark backgrounds when viewed from off-center. Plus, the clouding issue became more apparent when viewing from more extreme angles.

I reached out to Hisense regarding dark scene viewing and the clouding effect and it said it was aware of and looking into it, but couldn't provide a fix at this time. If there are any updates, I'll be sure to add them to this review.

• Picture quality score: 4 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Sound quality

• 6.2.2-channel speaker array
• Clear, expansive, accurate sound
• Only average soundstage

The 116UX comes with a built-in 6.2.2-channel, 110W Devialet sound system that supports Dolby Atmos, but not DTS. It has subwoofers built into the rear of the screen, with two speakers running down each side of its frame and height speakers positioned on the top of the TV.

Watching the Batmobile chase scene from The Batman, the 116UX accurately connected the sound to the action on screen. The overall sound was punchy with clear dialogue. The 116UX’s sound was also immersive at times, going beyond the borders of the screen and making Dolby Atmos effects, such as rain in The Batman, feel as if they’re overhead.

While the 116UX’s built-in sound system is good, at times it felt restrained. Bass in particular lacked fullness. And while there was some suggestion of surround effects, I expected a sound system like this to produce a wider soundstage.

Some people will be happy with the 116UX’s sound, but I feel it deserves a sound system to match its gargantuan, cinematic picture.

• Sound quality score: 4 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Design

• Sleek, modern design
• Weighty and cumbersome
• Basic support feet

At 116 inches, the 116UX requires a large space. Its big screen will be too cumbersome for most living rooms and, unlike retractable projector screens of a similar size, it will dominate a space.

Hisense has done its best to make the 116UX appear as sleek as possible while still housing a substantial built-in sound system. Its frame is trim, and it’s made of a premium-looking black metal. As a result, the 116UX is an incredibly weighty 239lbs (108kg), meaning you’ll need to carefully consider installation, although there are two carry handles on the rear. The TV is supported by two metal feet, which, although plain, are expected for a TV this size.

The 116UX comes with Hisense’s solar remote, which is reminiscent of Samsung’s SolarCell remote and can be charged using the rear solar panel or by USB-C. It has a nice design with a burnished steel finish and feels more premium than Hisense’s standard TV remotes.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Smart TV & menus

• Google TV (US), VIDAA (UK & Australia)
• Good number of picture settings
• Performance can lag at times

Like all Hisense TVs, the 116UX’s smart TV platform will be different based on your region. In the US, it uses Google TV, and in the UK and Australia, it uses Hisense’s own VIDAA smart TV platform. I reviewed the 116UX in the UK, so I will be focusing on VIDAA. Check out our Hisense U8Q review to read about a Google TV Hisense model.

VIDAA has access to all major streaming services such as Netflix and Prime Video, and all UK-based streaming services such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX. It also supports Freely, a service in which you can watch live TV over Wi-Fi with no need for an antenna or satellite connection.

There are a good number of picture settings on the 116UX. VIDAA’s overall look is plain and not as user-friendly as LG’s webOS, and the 116UX’s overall performance during navigation suffered from lag on occasion. VIDAA could do with a visual overhaul, as it does look dated in some of its menus.

• Smart TV & menus: 4 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Gaming

• 4K 165Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium
• 14.6ms input lag
• Three HDMI 2.1 ports

The 116UX has impressive gaming features, such as 4K 165Hz, VRR including AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming, and these are all supported on three HDMI 2.1 ports. There is also a 288Hz game booster mode for PC gaming and a Game Board pop-up menu that displays useful information such as frame rate and VRR, as well as settings that can be adjusted, such as Dark Detail.

Gaming performance on the 116UX is generally smooth and responsive. Playing a demo of Dynasty Warriors: Origins on PlayStation 5, the action felt fast-paced and chaotic as expected at both 60Hz and 120Hz. I noticed during gameplay that the frame rate varied a lot in the 120Hz Performance mode, but I chalked this up to the game itself, due to its rendering of many enemies on screen.

The 116UX’s measured input lag is 14.6ms, which is higher than rivals like Samsung and TCL, but still under the 15ms threshold most gamers look for.

• Gaming score: 4.5 / 5

Hisense 116UX review: Value

• Expensive
• Similarly priced to big-screen OLED TVs
• Much pricier than the 110-inch 110UX

At $29,999 / £24,999 / AU$39,999, the Hisense 116UX is a pricey, premium TV. It may come with an exciting, new RGB mini-LED panel that produces superb brightness and color, but that’s still a lofty price, even for a TV this feature-packed.

At this price range, you can pick up some of the best projectors on the market, such as the JVC DLA-NZ800 ($15,999 / £15,999 / AU$24,999). It won’t have the 116UX’s brightness, but it will still produce an excellent picture. Plus, you can build an entire home theater system around it with the same budget.

The 116UX is also much pricier than the step-down 110UX ($14,999 / £18,999 / AU$24,999), and while it delivers better performance and picture quality, that's still a significant price gap.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Should you buy the Hisense 116UX?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Hisense 116UX

• Tested in light controlled testing room
• Tested SDR and HDR sources for picture quality

I tested the Hisense 116UX in a light-controlled demo room at Hisense Europe HQ in Leeds, England.

I first established which picture modes I would use for my testing with some casual viewing. For my critical viewing, I used several reference scenes from both SDR (broadcast TV and streaming) and HDR sources (4K Blu-ray and streaming). I tested the 116UX's picture for brightness, color, shadow detail and contrast, screen uniformity, upscaling and motion. I also used these same sources to test the UX116's audio performance. To play 4K Blu-rays, I used the Panasonic DP-UB820 4K Blu-ray player.

I also tested gaming performance and features using a PlayStation 5.

Measurements for the Hisense 116UX were taken by my colleague Matthew Murray, Head of Testing at Future, at a separate event in the US.

These tests included peak (10% window) and fullscreen (100%) SDR and HDR brightness, measured on a white window test pattern.

HDR color gamut was also measured, examining the DCI-P3 and BT.2020 color spaces. Color and grayscal accuracy were measured using Delta-E values (the margin for error between the test pattern signal and what's shown on screen).

Finally, the TV's input lag was measured using a Leo Bodnar 4K HDMI Input Lag Tester.

For a more detailed explanation of how we test TVs at TechRadar, check out the link.

• First reviewed: September, 2025
• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

• Hisense P1T is a RGB laser with 3,000:1 contrast
• 80-100 inches and 2,500 ANSI lumens
• $2,999 / already discounted to £1,799 in the UK

Hisense has launched a brand new triple-laser projector that's designed for home theater lovers "who care more about performance than about frills", and it's priced very competitively.

The PT1 Triple Laser Cinema is designed to project images from 80 inches to 150 inches, and because it's an ultra-short throw projector it can do that from just a few inches away. It delivers 2,500 ANSI lumens of brightness and has a contrast ratio of 3,000:1.

The PT1 is available in both the US and the UK. The UK model runs VIDAA U7.6 OS rather than the Google TV of the US model, but is otherwise identical.

Hisense PT1 Triple Laser Cinema: key specifications and pricing

The core of the PT1 is Hisense's Triple Laser Light, which as the name suggests uses a trio of lasers – red, green and blue – to deliver 110% of the BT.2020 color space, which is beyond the capability of conventional TV.

There's support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+, plus IMAX Enhanced certification, with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround sound for immersive audio. And naturally, there's an AI upscaler to bring lower-res images up to 4K. There's compatibility with both Google Assistant and Alexa in the US version.

One of the most appealing features of the PT1 Triple Laser Cinema is its price tag: $2,999. In the UK, the official price is £1,999 but retailers are already listing it for member prices as low as £1,699, which is very competitive among the best ultra short throw projectors.

The P1T's price makes it considerably more affordable than the same firm's very impressive L9Q Laser TV, which is roughly twice the price in both markets. That triple-laser projector is brighter – 5,000 lumens to the P1T's 2,500 – and can go larger, with a maximum recommended size of 200 inches. But if you're not living in a massive mansion with sunlight streaming in from all directions, the P1T is likely to be a better fit for both space and budget.

The P1T is available now from Hisense and authorized retail partners.

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IFA is always an excellent place to check out the latest bits of tech, from cool concepts to the latest innovations on the market. Projectors is one area that has received a lot of love at IFA 2025, particularly the 4K portable market.

When you're thinking about the best projectors, you're looking for bold brightness, solid contrast, and accurate colors. And in today's world, it'll ideally be smart too.

Thankfully, at this year's IFA, there was no shortage of brilliant beamers, and from what we can see, there's a theme of big brightness housed in a portable size. Here are the 6 coolest projectors we saw at IFA 2025.

1. Xgimi Horizon 20 Max

Starting off strong is the Xgimi Horizon 20 Max. The most premium model in the Horizon 20 lineup, the 20 Max is a 4K, triple-laser RGB projector that supports Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced, and Filmmaker Mode. It's said to have a staggering 5,700 ISO lumens of brightness, far brighter than other 4K projectors such as the Hisense PX3 Pro, which has 3,000 lumens. It also carries an excellent list of features, especially for gaming, boasting a 1ms input lag time, up to 240Hz refresh rate, and VRR.

It also carries a useful digital lens shift tool that means picture adjustment is not only easy but accurate as well, resulting in no frame loss. The same is true of its optical zoom feature, which can zoom in without detail loss.

From what I saw of the Horizon 20 Max in person at IFA, it's impressive. A demo of Assassin's Creed: Shadows shows just how smooth and responsive the 20 Max is with intense gaming sequences. Its brightness, detail, and color are all superb as well, delivering a brilliant image. I even saw the lens shift and optical zoom tools in action, and they work surprisingly well.

With a $2,999.99 / £2,599.99 launch price, it's at the premium end of the portable market. But, from what I've seen, it could be a real winner.

2. Valerion VisionMaster Max

The Valerion VisionMaster Max is a 4K, RGB laser projector with up to 3,500 ISO lumens of brightness. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, IMAX Enhanced, and even AI picture features. Where the VisionMaster Max makes its biggest claim is that it's 'rainbow-free', meaning you're getting rich, accurate black tones.

From what I saw, the VisionMaster Max does indeed deliver deep black levels and strong contrast, even in the bright IFA showroom. It also demonstrated solid brightness and bold colors, with some white waves of the ocean delivering a nice, vibrant punch.

Due for release in October 2025, the Valerion VisionMaster Max will launch for $,4999.99, putting it at the top end of the 4K projector market. We'll be eager to get our hands on it to see if it's worth the money.

3. Anker Nebula X1 Pro

We've actually tested the Anker Nebula X1 and we loved it, awarding 4.5 stars out of 5 in our review, thanks to its crisp, 4K picture and high brightness, as well as its easy setup. We also rated its sound quality highly when the optional surround speakers were added.

Well, Anker decided to add a full sound system to the Nebula X1 that now makes it look like a party speaker. Introducing the Nebula X1 Pro. The resulting 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system features useful detachable speakers that can be added back into the body of the main unit for easy storage. The unit also delivers 3,500 ISO lumens of brightness.

From what I saw (or heard), the X1 Pro delivers impressive sound with plenty of power that will work for decent-sized rooms. And, as expected, the X1 Pro's picture was great too, with plenty of detail and brightness.

The X1 Pro is set to launch on Kickstarter at the end of September for $,2999.99.

4. Dangbei S7 Ultra Max

The Dangbei S7 Ultra Max is another 4K beamer that supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+ HDR formats. What really caught my eye with this projector, though, was its brightness: 6,000+ ISO lumens, which Dangbei claims is class-leading. Not to be outdone by Xgimi, Dangbei has gone that little bit brighter.

In person, the S7 Ultra Max delivered solid brightness in the brightly lit showroom, as well as bold colors and accurate textures. Even its black levels were pretty good.

The S7 Ultra Max is due for launch first in China and will then be heading to the US in January 2026. Dangbei hopes to bring it to Europe several months after this. We don't have pricing for this model yet, but I'll be keeping a close eye on this one.

5. TCL PlayCube

Probably one of the most eye-catching projectors at IFA is the TCL PlayCube. An ultra-portable, 1080p projector, the cubed design of the PlayCube is unique. Its body can even be moved around like a Rubik's Cube.

TCL touts this as a projector designed for camping trips. The PlayCube delivers 750 ISO lumens of brightness, roughly what you get from the best portable projectors such as the Samsung Freestyle Gen 2 and LG CineBeam Q. While not the most mind-blowing picture, it appeared solid enough in the demonstration, but really, it's the PlayCube's design that earns it a spot on this list.

Set to launch at €799, (roughly $930 / £693), it's not a cheap portable projector, but we're still curious to give this one a go.

6. Hisense M2 Pro

Next up is the Hisense M2 Pro, the brand's most portable 4K projector to date. Capable of displaying up to a 200-inch picture, the M2 Pro has 1,300 ANSI lumens, and Hisense believes it'll make an excellent projector indoors and outdoors.

The most exciting news here actually comes for our UK readers as it'll be one of the first devices to receive tuner-free Freely support. No cable required, with totally cable-free Freely support. This is set to also come to other projectors in the form of a software update at a later date.

Launching at $,1299.99 (roughly £960), it's a competitively priced 4K portable projector and another we'll be eager to test.

Honorable mention: Hisense HTP80 Tri-Chroma

Now for something completely different. It was hard not to see the Hisense HTP80, a tri-chroma projector display in Hisense's showroom, because it's 300 inches. Yep, a 300-inch image.

Not only was this image massive, but it was bright, and HTP80 is said to deliver an eye-watering 15,000 ANSI lumens via its triple-laser light source. Colors were also very bold, with footage from various soccer games showing off the display's color profile.

There wasn't any pricing or release date info about this, but I couldn't leave it out of the list. I mean, it's massive!

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• If this cheap portable projector is as impressively bright as promised, it could be a serious rival to Xgimi, Samsung and Anker

We may be deep into 2025, and most major TV brands have already released their full lineups, but that doesn't mean there can't still be surprises, and that was the case at IFA 2025.

I've tested some of the best TVs of 2025, but I'm always keen to see more, and IFA has provided a few cool concepts. And who knew portable TVs were a growing market? Here are the 5 coolest TVs we saw at IFA 2025.

1. Samsung micro-RGB 115-inch TV

We've already seen Samsung's $30,000, 115-inch micro-RGB TV, but I got an extended hands-on with the ultra-premium TV at IFA. Similar in concept to RGB mini-LED TVs, Samsung's micro-RGB uses micro LEDs to provide high brightness, bold color and deep black levels.

Seeing Samsung's micro-RGB in person at IFA, I was blown away by its colors. Reds, greens, yellows – you name it – looked vibrant. It also delivered excellent brightness and contrast. Samsung even had it set up next to a rival RGB mini-LED TV and the Samsung beat it in one key area: local dimming precision.

I found when I tested Hisense's 116-inch RGB mini-LED TV that it struggled with dark movie scenes, with black areas taking on a cloudy gray look. In the demonstration I saw, the Samsung had better backlight control, meaning there was almost no blooming to be seen.

2. Hisense 85-inch RGB mini-LED TV

Speaking of RGB, we also got to see Hisense's RGB mini-LED TV in action, only this time in a new, 85-inch size. While that's still a big screen, it's more accessible than the larger 116- and 100-inch models.

From what we saw of the 85-inch RGB mini-LED at IFA, it delivers the same gloriously vibrant colors, high brightness and rich black levels as its bigger brothers. A shot of a blue gemstone showed that it had the eye-wateringly bright, vivid color you'd expect from RGB mini-LED.

While we didn't get a more in-depth look at the 85-inch model, it gives us hope that RGB mini-LED isn't just reserved for large screen sizes and that we'll be seeing it in even more living room-friendly sizes soon.

3. Samsung The Movingstyle portable TV

Next up is the Samsung Movingstlye, the brand's first foray into portable TVs. Following the lead set by LG's StanbyME and StanbyME Go TVs, Samsung has created its own small TV, complete with a carry handle that can also be used as a kickstand.

Spec-wise, the Movingstyle isn't groundbreaking, with tech that's closer to an LED monitor. It is a touchscreen display, but what most impressed us is just how portable it is. While on the weighty side, it's probably the best example of a portable TV we've seen. It can be attached to a wheel stand, which can be easily wheeled around and detached, and it carried with its handle easily as well.

The Movingstlye is one of those fun, unique TVs we look forward to seeing at events like IFA, and although it won't be joining the ranks of the best Samsung TVs, it's still a cool concept.

4. Vestel Nekst TV

The Vestel Nekst TV is one of those models that was born to feature at a trade show. Why? Because it's a transparent TV! Tech fans will know that transparent TVs, such as the LG OLED T, are a regular feature at shows like CES and IFA, and the Nekst is Vestel's IFA 2025 offering. (A bit of research revealed the Nekst is an OLED TV.)

In truth, it wasn't the easiest to find as it was actually in the health section, acting as a display for some health gadgets.

Transparent displays conjure up images of futuristic sci-fi movies like Minority Report and Blade Runner, and every time we see these displays, we hope one will come to market. Admittedly, the LG OLED T is available, but at $59,999.99, it's staggeringly pricey. Could we see this Vestel TV make its way to market? It'll likely still be pricey as it is a transparent OLED, but here's hoping we see the price move in the right direction.

5. Toshiba OLEDs – concept and actual models

Toshiba, the legendary Japanese manufacturer, doesn't feature on our site often and when it does, it's usually smaller 32-inch and 43-inch LED or QLED models. This time, however, it's a Toshiba OLED.

The TVs shown above are OLEDs with designs focused on sound. Both TVs have external speakers, with one powered by Onkyo, the same as the speakers found on the Panasonic Z95B and Philips OLED909. While the speakers weren't being used, they were certainly eye-catching. The taller model with its own stand looks like something out of a 1960s 'idea of the future' home, and the other has its huge speaker to stand on.

While these are concepts, there were two numbered OLED models nearby in the Toshiba IFA showroom: the XF9F and the XV9G. Both models support all the bells and whistles we expect from the best OLED TVs: Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X as well as 120Hz for gaming. Watching recurring footage of Fantastic Four: First Steps, the colors and contrast reminded me of the LG B5 OLED, and that's not a bad thing.

It's good to see more brands embracing OLED, and we'll be looking to get one of these models in for testing. The XF9F is available in a 65-inch model for £1,199, which is a great price.

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Hisense's RGB mini-LED TVs caused a stir when they were unveiled earlier this year, and while the 116-inch model they introduced isn't the most accessible size, the company said it intended to bring the panel tech to smaller-sized models in the future. Well, at IFA 2025, it's done just that.

RGB mini-LED TVs deliver richer, deeper colors than normal mini-LED ones by using red, green and blue LEDs (hence RGB) instead of standard blue LEDs in the backlight.

I've already tested the 116-inch model, the Hisense 116UX, and was blown away by its dazzling colors, consistently strong brightness, razor-sharp textures and upscaling. While backlight control seemed to be an issue, black levels and contrast were still impressive. However, at $29,999 / £29,999 / AU$39,999, it's not the most affordable tech.

Hisense recently revealed it is bringing RGB mini-LED to a 100-inch model as well, but despite a growing 98-inch-plus TV market, that's not the most accessible size, and a $19,999 price tag is still a tough pill to swallow.

At IFA, an 85-inch RGB mini-LED TV was on display in the Hisense area. And the best news? It's not just a concept, but is planned for a launch next year. While no pricing has been confirmed, the $10,000 difference between the 116 and 100-inch models suggests a promising downward price trend.

Still bright, still bold

The worry when adapting a tech to a smaller size is that picture quality sacrifices have to be made. With RGB mini-LED, a tech that some say will beat the best OLED TVs in years to come, the concern is that its big brightness and bold colors will take a hit to accommodate a smaller screen size.

Seeing the 85-inch RGB TV in action, my concerns were laid to rest. It delivered the same staggering colors as its larger sibling, with a close-up shot of a ring with a blue gemstone looking rich, vibrant and detailed. A shot of a red flower also looked vivid with plenty of color depth.

The 85-inch model also demonstrated seriously deep black levels that rival those of an OLED. Although I found the 116-inch model struggled with screen uniformity, with some clouding visible in darker movies such as The Batman, it still showcased rich blacks, and the 85-inch model did the same. It also exhibited great backlight control with almost no blooming: a shot of a pink tree against a star-filled sky was an excellent demonstration of this.

RGB TV: the future of TV?

RGB TVs are a growing trend in the TV world. LG introduced its Primary Tandem RGB OLED panel in the LG G5, and that same panel is also used in the Panasonic Z95B, two of the best TVs of the year in 2025.

Hisense isn't the only brand with RGB mini-LED on its mind, as we saw Sony's own RGB TV in action and were impressed with its accuracy and backlight control. Samsung has also introduced a $30,000 115-inch micro-RGB TV to the market, and from what we saw, it will take RGB to the next level.

While the tech isn't very affordable (in mini-LED and micro-LED formats at least), it's already on the path to becoming more accessible, and the Hisense 85-inch is the first step in that direction. And with Hisense's RGB mini-LED TVs set to be the first to support Dolby Vision 2, RGB mini-LED just became that much more of a contender.

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• Hisense to launch models from 55 inches to 100 inches
• From €1,499 (about $1,759 / AU$2,680)
• TCL and Sony models expected in similar sizes

It's fair to say that we're a bit excited by RGB mini-LED TVs such as Hisense's massive 116UX and Samsung's and Sony's take on the tech. The promise is OLED-level picture quality with exceptional brightness, accuracy and longevity.

At the moment, such TVs are very big and very expensive, so the conventional wisdom is that it'll be years before the supposedly OLED-killing technology becomes more practical and affordable.

Maybe not. Hisense has confirmed that it'll be bringing the same backlighting tech to much smaller – but still entertainingly large – LED TVs next year for much less money than you might expect.

Hisense's more affordable RGB LED TVs are coming in 2026

As FlatpanelsHD reports, Hisense France has confirmed to two different media outlets that their 2026 range of U9 model TVs, which we're expecting to see in mid-2026, will have RGB LED models as small as 55 inches.

Hisense's branding for the tech will reportedly be RGB-MiniLED TriChroma, and the prices look incredibly low. Even the 100-inch model is very keenly priced.

The prices for each size in Europe will be:

• 55" – €1,499
• 65" – €1,799
• 75" – €2,499
• 85" – €2,999
• 100" – €4,999

That's a price range from around $1,759 to $5,869 / AU$2,680 to AU$8,938.

By comparison, Hisense's current RGB-MiniLED TVs are $19,999 for 100 inches and $29,999 for 116 inches.

FlatPanelsHD says that the new TVs are expected to have Hisense's Hiview AI Engine X, refresh rates of up to 165Hz and new anti-glare coatings. The big reveal is planned for CES 2026 in January.

Hisense isn't the only manufacturer working on a broader RGB LED line-up. In late August, Omdia research director David Hseih said that his firm expects Sony and TCL to compete in 2026 with RGB LED TVs of 50 inches and up. It looks like 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the RGB LED.

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When Hisense announced its 116-inch RGB mini-LED TV at CES 2025, the TV world took notice.

RGB panel technology had already been realized in LG’s new Primary Tandem RGB OLED panel, with the promise of bolder, richer colors than had previously been seen in a TV. But combining that with a super-bright mini-LED backlight in a cinema-sized screen was an equally exciting prospect.

Hisense makes some of the best TVs, with the new Hisense U8QG scoring highly in our Hisense U8QG review and finding its place on several of our best-of lists. But the new 116UX is mini-LED TV tech taken to the next level.

I got the chance to test the Hisense 110UXN in December 2024, and it earned four out of 5 stars in my Hisense 110UXN review. Its color and brightness were two highlights, but the $15,000 / £20,000 price was tough to overlook, especially given the TV’s backlight blooming and screen uniformity issues.

The major difference between the Hisense 110UX and the 116UX is the latter’s RGB mini-LED backlight (the 110UX uses a standard mini-LED backlight). My colleague Matthew Murray, Head of Testing for Future, did his own hands-on test of the 116UX. But I got to spend more time with it doing real-world testing.

A new world of color and detail

From the minute I streamed Elemental, one of my movie choices for testing color, on Disney+, it was clear that the TV’s RGB LEDs (all 20,000 of them) added another layer to the experience. Even with the TV in Dolby Vision Dark mode, colors looked spectacular. The oranges, reds and purples of Ember’s flames and the glass vase were displayed with a real vibrancy. Switching to Dolby Vision IQ made colors look even brighter and bolder, but I preferred the more natural picture with Dolby Vision Dark.

I next moved to Wicked on 4K Blu-ray, again in Dolby Vision Dark mode. As Elphaba stood under a tree with pink flowers, the flowers looked rich and bright, with bold highlights, and Elphaba’s green skin was vivid. This was hardly surprising since in our measurements, we found that the 116UX covered a staggering 99.4% of the UHDA-P3 color gamut, matching the color performance even of the best OLED TVs of this year, such as the LG G5 and Samsung S95F.

Watching demo footage on the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray in HDR10 format, a field of red flowers had an eye-popping punch and plenty of depth. A parrot’s yellow and blue feathers shimmered, looking vibrant and colorful.

This footage uses the BT.2020 color space, and when we measured the 116UX, its BT.2020 color gamut coverage was 92.64% – a phenomenal result and the highest we’ve ever recorded for a TV. Once again, it’s no wonder the 116UX’s color looks so good.

Throughout my testing, I also noticed that textures and details were incredibly realistic, which gave people, objects, and landscapes depth, clarity and a real lifelike presence. Close-up shots of faces, such as those in The Batman and No Time to Die, revealed every pore, hair, and scar with a staggering level of detail. Even the 116UX’s upscaling was impressive, with the textures in an HD stream of Fight Club on Disney+ getting a real uplift.

Room for improvement

The 116UX had seriously impressed me with its color and detail, but it was now time to move on to darker movie scenes, something mini-LED TVs can struggle with. Watching the same Spears & Munsil demo footage, but focusing on studio sequences with objects against dark black backgrounds and night scenes, the 116UX displayed deep, rich blacks. They did look slightly raised in places, but they were still impressive for a mini-LED TV, especially one this bright. I did see some blooming around bright objects, which was more apparent when viewing from an off-center position, but the TV’s performance here was pretty good overall.

So all good news, right? Not quite. Watching other dark scenes in Dolby Vision Dark mode revealed some screen uniformity issues with the massive 116UX. In Alien: Romulus, a scene with an alien nest in a tunnel showed significantly raised black levels along with a clouding effect.

The same was true for The Batman. In the opening crime scene sequence, black levels looked raised, and there was the same blooming around characters and bright objects. Also, the clouding effect I saw in Alien: Romulus could be seen here.

Admittedly, The Batman is an extremely challenging movie for TVs due to its low mastered brightness (400 nits compared to the standard 1,000 nits). And the clouding effect wasn’t as bad with Alien: Romulus, but it was still present. For a TV at this price, I’d expected it to do a better job. The 116UX won’t be beating the best OLED TVs any time soon.

A big price to pay

The Hisense 116UX is set to launch in September for $24,999 / AU$39,999 / €28,999 (roughly £25,000 based on the European price). That price is going to outstretch almost everyone’s budget.

I also found during my testing that while its built-in sound system is impressive, with plenty of bass rumble, the sound felt constrained to the screen. A screen like this deserves sound to match, so you’ll need to take the price of one of the best soundbars into account, too.

While you can’t get an OLED TV at this size, you can buy a 97-inch LG G4 or LG G5 OLED for roughly the same price at $24,999 / £24,999. You can also get a top-end 4K projector, such as the JVC DLA-NZ800, with a decent screen and sound system to match for a similar price. When you consider that, the 116UX suddenly looks a little pricey.

The 116UX isn’t a perfect TV, but it is an impressive step forward for mini-LED tech. Despite its shortcomings, its color, brightness and upscaling are all superb. With improved local dimming and a more reasonable price tag, RGB mini-LED could become a real threat to OLED TVs.

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When picking a TV for gaming, you'll want to make sure that it not only comes with essential gaming features – mainly 4K 120Hz, VRR, ALLM and HDR gaming support – but that it has the performance and picture quality to match.

Whether it’s a premium OLED powerhouse or a more affordable mini-LED TV, the best gaming TVs deliver all of this, and there are plenty of options for gamers to choose from.

But, since there are so many choices, it can be tricky to cut through all the noise and find the best TV that’s going to work for you. But as one of TechRadar’s main TV reviewers who happens to be an avid gamer, I’ve chosen four TVs you can buy right now that I strongly recommend for gaming.

1. LG C4

Sitting at the top of pretty much every best TV list at TechRadar, the LG C4 is the best TV you can buy right now, and not just for movies, but for gaming as well.

The C4 is jam-packed with gaming features with 4K 144Hz, VRR (both AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync), HGiG, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming all supported. And it has four HDMI 2.1 ports for those with multiple gaming consoles plus one of the best soundbars.

The C4 also delivers on gaming performance. In Game Optimizer mode, the C4’s input lag can be dropped to an ultra-low 9.2ms – perfect for fast-paced and competitive gaming such as racing and First Person Shooters (FPS).

The C4 also has outstanding picture quality, delivering rich colors and contrast, inky black levels and refined textures with plenty of depth. That's all great news for movie fans, but gamers will be delighted with how the C4's picture quality carries over for video games.

Right now, the C4 is at an all-time low price. You can now pick up the 65-inch model for $1,199 / £1,199 on average, and we expect prices to drop even further. If you want a smaller size, you can also get the 48-inch C4 for as low as $899 / £799! For what the C4 offers, those are phenomenal prices.

2. Hisense U7N

The Hisense U7N is the mid-range model in Hisense’s 2024 mini-LED lineup. Now over a year old, the U7N is available for a cheap price, especially for what it can offer.

While the U7N doesn’t provide the most complete suite of gaming features, it does support 4K 144Hz, VRR (AMD FreeSync Premium Pro), ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming, and it has a respectable 13.3ms input lag time. There are only two HDMI 2.1 ports, but the U7N still has a very good list of features for its price range.

Picture quality is also solid on the U7N, with bold colors, balanced contrast and natural-looking textures. It’s not going to give your games the same picture quality boost as you'll get from a premium mini-LED or OLED TV, but for the money it’s hard to argue against.

Just how much does the U7N cost? You can now pick up the 65-inch model for $699 / £799, which is a ridiculously low price for what this TV can do. You’ll have to make some sacrifices in terms of features, but the U7N's gaming performance is great for the price.

3. LG G5

The LG G5 is the flagship model in LG’s 2025 OLED TV lineup, and is equipped with LG’s new Primary Tandem RGB OLED (also known as 'four-stack') display panel.

As you’d expect from a flagship OLED, it has every gaming feature you could want, including four HDMI 2.1 ports with support for 4K 165Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, Nvidia GSync, HGiG, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming. Plus it delivers the same 9.2ms input lag as the LG C4.

But, it’s not just features, but the G5's staggering picture quality that earns it a place on this list. With unprecedented levels of brightness (we measured it at 2,268 nits HDR peak brightness in Filmmaker Mode) and spectacular color, games look vibrant on the G5. Plus, its ultra-deep black levels and powerful contrast give pictures a realistic look. It’s no wonder the G5 earned a spot in our best OLED TVs guide.

As it’s a 2025 model, the LG G5 is not cheap. Priced at $2,999 / £3,099, this is a premium TV. But you more than get what you pay for as the G5’s outstanding brightness and overall performance make it a must for those seeking the ultimate OLED gaming experience.

4. Samsung QN90F

The Samsung QN90F is the flagship model in Samsung’s 4K Neo QLED (mini-LED) TV lineup, and it comes with a Glare Free screen, a feature first introduced on the Samsung S95D, Samsung’s flagship 2024 OLED TV.

As with other Samsung’s TVs, the QN90F is stacked with gaming features. Its four HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K 165Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium, and, for the first time, Nvidia GSync, as well as HDR10+ gaming. It also clocked an ultra-low 9.5ms input lag time in Game mode when we measured it.

Where the QN90F proves most useful is for bright room gaming. Yes, its 2,086 nits HDR peak brightness in Movie Mode isn’t as high as that of the LG G5, but its fullscreen brightness clocks in at 661 nits, making it perfect for daytime gaming. Also, the QN90F's Glare Free screen is effective at nullifying distracting mirror-like reflections, while still letting it deliver rich contrast and deep black levels.

As a flagship 2025 TV, the QN90F is pricey, although there have been discounts since its launch in March 2025. The 65-inch model is now available for $1,999 / £1,999, a price drop of roughly $500 / £500 since its release. That's still a premium price, but if you’re looking for the best TV for gaming in bright rooms, you can’t do much better.

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• "Up to" 8 years of software updates for Hisense TVs
• Only applies to TVs running VIDAA smart TV platform
• Most of Hisense's TVs sold in the US use software such as Google TV or Fire TV instead

When you're spending big bucks on a new TV – or even small bucks – you want to be sure that your purchase is going to last: while we tend to change our phones every year or two, most people stick with the same TV for nearly a decade. So it's great to see Hisense promising to deliver eight years of software updates to its TVs.

Kinda.

There's a bit of ambiguity here, and the announcement is also specific to Hisense's TVs running Hisense's VIDAA operating system. In the US, most Hisense TVs run other software: where there are currently 11 VIDAA models listed on the Hisense USA site, there are 157 models running Android TV, Fire TV, Google TV or Roku TV.

So what's really being promised here, and how does it compare?

What is Hisense "up to"?

The news comes via FlatpanelsHD, but Hisense actually made its promise at the beginning of this year in a press release. According to the firm, it was "setting a new industry standard by offering up to eight years of updates for its smart TV viewing platform."

It went on to explain that by eight years of updates, it meant:

• Enhanced Security: Regular updates protect personal data and maintain platform integrity in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
• App Compatibility: You can keep streaming services and entertainment apps current with the latest features and functionality.
• Performance Boosts: You'll be sure to benefit from new features and refinements that improve your viewing experience over time.
• Longevity & Value: The lifespan of your TV will consequently be extended without the need to undergo hardware upgrades.

And that's all good, but of course the devil is in the detail: the term "up-to-8-year updates program" was used by VIDAA product VP Tal Bone, and "up-to-8-year" is not the same as eight years for everyone.

Hisense is basically right when it says it's setting a new industry standard, because its eight years is longer than the seven years offered by Samsung on its Tizen TVs and the four webOS upgrades promised by LG (which basically equates to five years of upgrades if you buy a TV in the same year it launches).

But as I mentioned above, there are caveats here: it will apply much more broadly in Europe than in the US, we don't know which sets might get fewer than than eight years of updates, and it doesn't specify whether it applies only to new 2025 TVs or to older models too.

Still, it's something we're happy to see the company committing to – any improvement in making sure that the smart TV side of today's models lasts as well as the picture-creating side is welcome.

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Hisense C2 Ultra review: Two-minute review

The Hisense C2 Ultra is an impressive 4K projector that delivers sensational visuals, boasts impressive sound output and features a user-friendly operating system that provides access to the best streaming services. While it requires mains power, it’s small and light enough to be considered portable, which means not only can it be considered one of the best 4K projectors, but one of the best portable projectors too.

Key to the C2 Ultra’s success in projecting excellent images is its triple-laser projection system, which combines red, blue and green light sources. This system can not only go incredibly bright – Hisense says it’s rated for a peak brightness of 3000 ANSI lumens – but also covers a wide color spectrum, 110% of the BT.2020 color space, to be precise. Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG HDR formats are all supported, and it's IMAX Enhanced.

The results are outstanding, with content appearing vibrant and punchy, and contrast levels are good too, giving images great depth. It’s not only in bright, colorful scenes where the C2 Ultra excels though, as it also serves up deep blacks and is more than capable where shadow detail is concerned. If you were ever of the notion that a projector still isn’t a genuinely viable alternative to a TV, particularly outside of home movie nights, then the Hisense C2 Ultra bucks that trend in a big way.

What took me most by surprise upon my first use of the C2 Ultra was the audio performance from the built-in 2.1 channel speaker system tuned by JBL. I had the unit set up in my spare bedroom on a stand, just to the right of the bed and my viewing position. When I was watching movies, the sound appeared to be coming from the opposite wall and not blasting straight in my ears as I had expected, resulting in a much more immersive experience. The speaker system can go loud while still retaining a good amount of detail. Dialog comes through clearly, while the subwoofer can go low, which helps a lot during high-octane scenes such as explosions or rumbling car engines.

I think it’s a good-looking unit too and one that’s impeccably built. The main projector housing can not only be moved around a full 360º to suit your specific viewing position, but it can also move upwards to a maximum of 135º to project images onto higher surfaces.

The C2 Ultra’s Vidaa OS is by far the most accomplished projector operating system I’ve personally come across. Not only is it intuitive to use right out of the box, but it also provides access to virtually all of the main streaming apps you’re likely to want. Android-based projector systems can often fall foul of not offering such wide support and often require workarounds to get some of the more popular apps. Hisense’s OS also offers a number of picture adjustment settings to help you achieve the best overall image.

Finally, it’s a great option for gamers. Not only is it ‘Designed for Xbox’ certified, but it features a 240Hz gaming mode to help with particularly fast-paced gaming action.

Its list price may initially make you think it’s expensive, but considering its capabilities rival most TVs and the fact it can project an image up to 300 inches in size, then it suddenly presents itself as a certified bargain.

Hisense C2 Ultra review: Price & availability

• Release date: October 2024 (March 2025 in Australia)
• Price: $2,999 / £2,499 / AU$4,499
• Can already be found with discounts

The Hisense C2 Ultra was announced in October 2024 and went on sale in the US and UK at the same time, but didn’t arrive in Australia until March 2025. At launch, it was listed at $2,999.99 in the US, £2,499 in the UK and AU$4,499 in Australia.

However, it’s already received discounts worldwide, so you can now feasibly expect to pay around $2,499 / £2,299 / AU$3,999. I’ve also spotted select retailers offering the option of a free projector screen with the purchase of a shiny new C2 Ultra, should you wish to go down the ‘full’ home cinema route.

The C2 Ultra is more expensive than two of our favorite portable 4K projectors, the BenQ GP520 and Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser 4K. However, the Hisense machine is objectively brighter than either of its competitors, offers greater gaming and HDR support and is more forgiving in where it’s positioned thanks to its gimbal design.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Hisense C2 Ultra review: Design & features

• Semi-portable design
• Excellent Vidaa OS software
• Good selection of connections

The Hisense C2 Ultra is the replacement model to the C1, but you would only really know that based on the model number. Design-wise, the two projectors are worlds apart. Where the Hisense C1 was a boxy affair, the C2 Ultra is much sleeker with rounded corners and a circular base that plays home to the speaker system’s subwoofer.

The main projection unit is mounted onto a gimbal stand that allows you to move and tilt it in virtually any direction you wish. Hisense says it can tilt up to a 135º angle, but technically it can swing to a full 180º and still project an image. I can only assume the company doesn’t expect owners to want to look directly above them to view content, with the 135º angle being more comfortable.

It is a portable projector, although the term portable should be used loosely. Not only does the C2 Ultra rely solely on mains power to work (the cord integrates a power brick too), it is still quite a sizable unit. At least, it’s sizable when compared to truly portable lifestyle projectors such as the Xgimi MoGo 3 Pro and Samsung The Freestyle, which both adopt a much smaller, cylindrical design that allows them to be slipped into a bag.

The main projector housing measures 9.7 x 7.1 x 9.7 inches (24.7 x 18.3 x 24.7 cm), but with the stand included, the total height increases to 11.3 inches (28.6cm). And coming in at a relatively lightweight 6.3kg, I can’t see many people having too much issue moving it around.

The whole unit is finished in a gun-metal gray color that shines pleasantly in the light. It features a number of ventilation panels on the front, sides and underside, while a large grille dominates the rear of the unit to help ensure everything remains cool when the projector is in use. The ventilation system certainly works as I noticed barely a murmur from the fans during use.

Sitting above the rear ventilation grille is a series of connections, including two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which supports an Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and eARC for connecting to an external soundbar or home theater system. The other can be used to connect, say, a media streaming device. You’ll also find 2x USB-A 3.0 inputs, a 3.5mm audio out and a digital optical audio out, along with an Ethernet port for a more stable, wired internet connection. However, thanks to Wi-Fi 6E support, I never had any major issues streaming wirelessly.

On the front is where the true magic happens. The projector lens is protected by a thin layer of what I presume to be glass, helping to prevent the lens itself getting covered in dust and debris. You will still, however, likely want to give this protective layer the occasional wipe to keep it clean – there’s no motorized cover as you’ll find on the likes of the Xgimi Aura 2.

There are also a few sensors to aid with autofocusing and to facilitate an eye-protection feature that will automatically switch the light off when it detects someone in front of it to prevent it shining into their eyes. It’s incredibly sensitive, which you may or may not think is a good thing. I ultimately left it turned off during my testing and made a conscious effort to not look into the light whenever I walked past it.

One of the standout features of the lens is its optical zoom capability, which promises to retain image quality if you zoom in or out – making the image smaller or larger – without needing to move the main unit. If you have the projector set up at a far distance opposite your projection surface, for example, which would naturally cause the image to be large, you can zoom in to decrease the size while not affecting the quality.

For the most part, I imagine the majority of owners will simply rely on the autofocus and auto-keystone adjustment settings (and potentially the manual adjustment settings) to get the best picture. I was projecting onto a white wall but, whenever I ran the auto keystone adjustment, the results were less than satisfactory. The image was totally skewed, meaning I had to go into the manual four-point adjustment settings to fix things up. I would like to believe that the same issue wouldn’t occur if you’re projecting onto a dedicated screen, but I didn’t have one to test this out.

Hisense’s Vidaa OS is used on the C2 Ultra, which I found to be exceptional. It was also a pleasant surprise, considering the company’s own, rather excellent PX3-Pro uses the Google TV OS instead. The home page is clearly laid out, albeit chock full of ads, and all the major streaming apps are supported, along with a plethora of others for those who wish to seek out less-mainstream content.

The Hisense C2 Ultra has impressive high dynamic range support, including Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and IMAX Enhanced. It also supports 3D images and audio, but you’ll need optional 3D eyewear to take advantage.

Full control of the C2 Ultra is done via the remote control. The previous C1 did have onboard buttons, but they’ve seemingly been dropped this time around. The remote is a good one, boasting a satisfying weight and premium feel. Buttons are clearly laid out, although I would have preferred the settings button to feature the more widely used cog icon, as opposed to what could be mistaken for a shopping list. It supports voice control and features quick keys for Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and Disney+.

• Design & features score: 5/5

Hisense C2 Ultra review: Picture & sound quality

• Excellent color and brightness
• Comprehensive HDR support and 240Hz mode for gamers
• Superb sound output

The Hisense C2 Ultra produces fantastic images from its tri-color laser projection system that will not only give you a true home cinema experience, but which can comfortably rival many of the best TVs to make it your sole media viewing device.

Despite it claiming a peak brightness of 3,000 lumens, it naturally performs at its absolute best when the room is as dark as possible, but I found that even with some ambient light coming into my test room, I was still able to watch unaffected.

I even turned the overhead lights on to see how it fared, and while color and contrast took an obvious knock, the image was still bright enough for me to be able to watch. I wouldn’t expect many people to use the C2 Ultra in such bright conditions, but it’s good to know it is truly capable of holding its own against pesky light.

The C2 Ultra’s vast array of HDR support options makes recently released movies such as Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and even older, remastered movies such as Blade look fantastic in Dolby Vision, as well as TV shows such as Fallout in HDR10+. It will even support IMAX Enhanced content from Disney+, but I wasn’t able to test this since I don’t have a subscription – the price increases became too much to justify!

I was especially impressed with animated movies – the triple-laser system in combination with the C2 Ultra’s wide color support meant they were presented with outstanding color. I should note that the images included with this review don’t quite do the picture quality justice – you have to see it in reality to be impressed. The images are plagued by a peculiar pink hue that’s definitely not present in the image projected onto the wall.

The C2 Ultra supports screen sizes from 65 to 300 inches and I managed approximately an 80-inch image for my testing. The larger the image gets, the higher the likelihood of a drop in picture quality. This is where the optical zoom can come into play, allowing you to make easy adjustments rather than having to physically move the whole unit closer to the screen or rely on digital zoom, which can often not yield good results.

Gamers also have reasons to get excited about the C2 Ultra as it features a dedicated game mode to help lower input lag, and it can enable a 2K/240Hz mode for super-smooth gameplay. It’s also ‘Designed for Xbox’ – the world’s first mini projector to lay claim to the title, says Hisense – meaning it will automatically apply optimum settings regardless of game genre when it detects a signal from an Xbox console.

I don’t own an Xbox, so I couldn't test this, but I was able to enjoy smooth gameplay from my PS5, with the fast movements of Spider-Man 2 being handled with expert authority.

Audio performance is another highlight in the C2 Ultra’s repertoire. Its 2.1 channel JBL system kicks out a surprising amount of bass, vocal clarity and immersion, aided by the fact it supports Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual:X 3D sound formats. If the content you’re watching is encoded with Dolby Atmos, then you won’t get a true reproduction, owing to the lack of physical channels, but the performance is better than what I’ve heard from many TVs. Just note, while I was certainly impressed with the overall performance considering the projector’s size, it’s not the widest soundstage, nor is there a genuine sense of height – compared to other projectors I’ve tested, however, it comes out on top.

Of course, owners wanting a more authentic home cinema experience will want to add a fully-fledged theater system or one of the best soundbars, but casual users should find little to fault.

• Picture & sound quality score: 4.5/5

Hisense C2 Ultra review: Value

• Versatile with placement
• Pricey, but packed with features

The Hisense C2 Ultra isn’t the most affordable projector at $2,999 / £2,499 / AU$4,499, but given the fact I’ve already seen it come down in price since launch, I think it makes for a compelling investment. It’s more affordable than Hisense’s own PX3-Pro, although that projector has the benefit of being an ultra-short throw model, potentially making it easier to place in your room.

However, given the C2 Ultra’s default, relatively short 0.9:1 throw ratio, you can get a decently large image from a short distance. Plus, the fact it has an optical zoom and a wealth of picture adjustment settings should make it easy for anyone to set up in their room.

Then factor in its comprehensive HDR support, truly stunning images, impressive audio delivery and an intuitive interface, and there’s no doubt that it’s not only a remarkable projector, but a worthy rival to TVs.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Hisense C2 Ultra?

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How I tested the Hisense C2 Ultra

• Tested at home in a variety of real-world viewing conditions
• Watched a variety of content including streaming and 4K Blu-ray

I tested the Hisense C2 Ultra at home in a variety of real-world conditions, which saw it being faced with in-room lighting, natural light coming into the room and with no light at all. It was tested against a bare white wall for the duration of the review period, with an 80-inch image being achieved. I also tested the optical zoom function to see if and how it affected image quality.

I watched a range of 4K HDR and HD content from built-in streaming services, as well as using the 4K Blu-ray player in the PS5.

First reviewed May 2025