Buy a midrange LCD TV if:

You want quality for a reasonable price: The good ones offer excellent picture quality, solid preset image modes, easy on-screen navigation, and plenty of inputs for under $1,500.

Buy another type of TV if:

You want the best image quality possible: An OLED TV will provide a clear, truly lifelike image with perfect blacks and bright highlights, but you’ll have to pay for it.

An OLED TV will provide a clear, truly lifelike image with perfect blacks and bright highlights, but you’ll have to pay for it. You’re on a tight budget: If you’re willing to compromise on image quality to save some money, consider our budget pick.

If you’re willing to compromise on image quality to save some money, consider our budget pick. You don’t have very much space: If you’re looking for a TV to fit in the corner of your small bedroom or dorm, get a 32-inch model.

Why we like it: The Sony X950G 4K TV is our favorite LCD performer to date. It offers a great contrast ratio thanks to its full-array local-dimming backlight, which allows the TV to produce deep blacks, along with a 120 Hz refresh rate for cleaner, smoother motion. It supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision high dynamic range content with bright peak highlights, as well as a wider color gamut that lets you see more (and richer) colors in Ultra HD content. Its superb video processing makes your streaming content look better, with fewer artifacts than we saw on competing TVs. The X950G comes in 55-, 65-, 75-, and 85-inch screen sizes. The two smaller sizes offer better contrast ratios, while the larger ones offer better viewing angles, but we recommend all of them. The Android smart-TV interface is better than on past Sony TVs, but the X950G doesn’t include some of the newer HDMI 2.1 features that are good for gaming.

Flaws but not dealbreakers: The X950G’s two legs are spaced pretty far apart, so this TV won’t fit on a compact tabletop. The legs do have cable routing in them to help hide the cables, but we still prefer a central stand. Almost every TV we looked at this year has this design, and some legs are spaced even farther apart than the X950G’s.

The only HDMI 2.1 feature that the X950G supports is eARC. Several new TVs we’ve tested include HDMI 2.1 gaming features like variable refresh rate and automatic low latency mode, which make it easier to get the best gaming performance.



Available sizes: 55, 65, 75, 85 inches

HDMI ports: four

Smart OS: Android TV