Shopping for a new TV means exposing yourself to some of the best the electronics industry has to offer - then deciding you can’t afford it.
There's no argument that buying the best of the best is a wallet-crushing proposition, but it is completely possible to get a really good TV in a surprisingly large size without having to take out a bank loan.
The TVs at the cheaper end of the market offer a picture that even five years ago would have been considered impossible for the price. Top-end tech like OLED screens and HDR colour reproduction is trickling down to the lower tiers, meaning it’s a better time than ever to upgrade from an LCD set, especially if it’s an older HD Ready model. The difference will be striking.
Buying a new TV is a major purchase, but it’s possible to get a 50-inch, 4K TV with HDR and a variable refresh rate (something owners of the latest games consoles will appreciate) for less than £500, and this means the benefits of higher resolutions and more saturated colours are available to a wider slice of the TV viewing public. Streaming services regularly offer 4K HDR versions of their shows and movies, and being able to watch them in their full glory is only possible if your TV supports the technologies used.
TV sets are measured across the screen’s diagonal, so you’ll have to use a bit of maths or look at the full specifications to find out exactly how wide they are. It’s worth making sure, before you buy a TV, that you can accommodate it in the room you want to use it in - the spacing of the feet of a larger TV can be surprisingly wide, so you will need to be sure the cabinet you’re using can fit it. TVs generally have screw holes on the back for fitting a wall mount, which can be a better option for larger screens, and modern TVs are so thin that mounting them like this can save a lot of space.
With that in mind, here are some of the best budget TVs.
Best cheap TVs at a glance:
- Best for big TV on a budget: Hisense 50E77KQTUK - £429, Amazon
- Best for 4K on a smaller screen: Samsung AU7020 - £299, Amazon
- Best for getting a huge screen: Toshiba Fire TV 65UF3D53DB - £429, Currys
- Best for Roku on a big TV: TCL 55RC630K - £399, Currys
- Best for Amazon fans: Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED - £649, Amazon
- Best for a good balance of quality and price: Samsung Q65C - £545, Amazon
- Best for a smaller alternative: LG 32LM6300 - £199, Amazon
- Best for OLED without the cost: LG A2 - £798, Amazon
Hisense 50E77KQTUK
Best for: big TV on a budget
This is a LED-backlit set with quantum dots rather than an OLED, but don’t let that bother you. What you may lose in brightness you gain in so many other ways, chiefly that you can get a 50in 4K HDR screen for less than £450.
If you shop around you may be able to get something cheaper, but the price to features balance on this model is hard to beat. All of the three HDMI ports hit the 2.1 standard, and one is an eARC for connecting a soundbar. It has Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa on board for voice control, and the VIDAA 6 operating system brings a full range of streaming apps to accompany the Freeview tuner.
Buy now £429.00, Amazon
Samsung AU7020
Best for: 4K on a smaller screen
A 43-inch TV isn’t really small, but if you want to watch 4K movies in full resolution this is about as small as you can go. The screen is available in sizes up to 65 inches, but still doesn’t manage to get above £600.
For an entry-level LCD screen, there's a lot to like here alongside the price, with HDR compatibility and the Tizen smart interface. There are three HDMI 2.0 ports for connecting external sources, and while it’s not going to provide the brightness or colour saturation of other TVs packing more up-to-date technology, if it’s a sharp picture and a stable streaming platform you’re looking for, this budget set could be for you.
Buy now £299.00, Amazon
Toshiba Fire TV 65UF3D53DB
Best for: getting a huge screen
This model from Toshiba measures 65 inches across its diagonal. That’s huge (though smaller sizes are available). It’s an LED-backlit 4K screen with HDR, and comes with Amazon’s Fire smart platform installed. If that’s not enough entertainment for you, there are three HDMI ports for you to hook up Blu-ray players and consoles.
Toshiba's pair of 12W speakers are necked by an internal subwoofer for a more bassy sound, but by using the eARC-enabled HDMI port you can connect up an external system and get audio that sounds as huge as the screen itself.
Buy now £429.00, Currys
TCL 55RC630K
Best for: Roku on a big TV
Another big TV for the money, this quantum dot, LED-backlit 4K screen uses the excellent Roku smart interface to bring you streaming apps. There are three HDMI 2.0b ports (one of them eARC) for connecting external sources (it would have been nice to have seen HDMI 2.1 here, like the Hisense set above) and the screen supports all the common HDR formats.
It’s not the brightest TV available, but picture quality is generally high and contrast levels are good. While there's an automatic low-latency mode for gamers this TV stands on its size and the quality of the Roku platform rather than any outstanding hardware features.
Buy now £399.00, Currys
Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED
Best for: Amazon fans
If you’re already deeply embedded in Amazon’s tech ecosystem, with an Echo in every room and Alexa built into your socks, then this is definitely worth looking at. It’s built around a 4K HDR QLED panel in a variety of sizes up to 65 inches, and has the same Fire TV experience you’ll know if you’ve ever plugged a Fire streaming stick into any other telly, along with the ambient display that shows pictures when in standby and Alexa widgets too. There are mics built into the TV so you can use voice control directly, without relying on a remote or nearby Echo device, but you’re very much locked into the Amazon experience here, as you might expect.
There are four HDMI ports, but only one hits the 2.1 standard, with the others lagging behind at 2.0. This means you’ll need to be careful which port you plug into if you want to use the newer features with an external device.
Buy now £649.00, Amazon
Samsung Q65C
Best for: a good balance of quality and price
Samsung’s Q range includes the Q80 and Q95 TVs which show the Korean company operating at the top of its game. This Q65 lives a little further down the hierarchy, as reflected in its price, but still allows you to enjoy a 50-inch QLED set with Samsung’s trademark sharp and contrasty picture quality.
Around the back, you’ll find tuners for both Freeview and Freesat, plus three HDMI 2.1 ports ready for games consoles or other external boxes, with one eARC port to connect a soundbar to. There's Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support on board, and Samsung’s Tizen smart platform brings the full range of streaming apps.
Buy now £545.00, Amazon
LG 32LM6300
Best for: a smaller alternative
This is a 1080p, or Full HD, set rather than a 4K one, but it’s also only a 32-inch screen, so you’ll still get a sharp picture if you need to scale back on the size to fit in a bedroom or anywhere else a 65-inch TV might be inconvenient. It’s an LED-backlit model with HDR and LG’s WebOS, plus Freesat and Freeview tuners and three HDMI 1.4 ports (it’s a 1080p screen, so no need for anything higher).
Buy now £199.00, Amazon
LG A2
Best for: OLED without the cost
LG’s OLED TVs are some of the best you can get, with its mid-range C series being particularly well-regarded. This is a 2022 model from the cheaper A series, but with a 48-inch HDR 4K panel, three HDMI inputs and LG’s WebOS smart platform, it still has a lot to offer at a more reasonable price.
As the ports are only to the 2.0b standard, they don’t support game-centric features such as variable refresh rates. There is a low-latency mode that gamers may appreciate, though, and the punchy colours and OLED contrast levels will make this an attractive budget buy for anyone, regardless of what they do with their telly.
Buy now £798.00, Amazon
Verdict
The best new TVs can be really expensive, so it’s good to see that the budget lines from top-rank manufacturers can bring a satisfying viewing experience without having to shell out over £1,000. In fact, as TVs like the Hisense, Samsungs and LGs on this list show, you only need to spend a few hundred pounds to get a really great TV, and as new features and tech moves down the hierarchy every year, our reasonably priced screens are getting larger, brighter and better to watch all the time.
