Best QLED TVs of 2026

Where our top pick is a 55-inch set chosen for its backlight, this Samsung is chosen for its footprint: 75 inches of screen, which is where most people land once they decide they want a big TV in the living room. From the sofa, the jump from a mid-size set is obvious — a wide landscape or a football game fills your view in a way a smaller panel simply can't.

It's the best set here for a bright room, and that's the reason to buy it. Samsung rates the panel at 1,000 nits, and the Quantum HDR tone mapping earns the number: daytime sport and bright studio shows hold their color instead of washing into gray. The lighting behind the panel is the compromise — edge-lit rather than zone-dimmed, so a starfield or a set of end credits shows a soft halo around bright objects against black. With lamps on and blinds open you won't see it. In a basement, you will.

Tizen is quick to load and generous with free channels, and setup is genuinely a twenty-minute job with two people. The speakers are the place this set asks for help — 20 watts across two channels is fine for dialogue and thin for anything with a soundtrack, so plan on a bar. The remote is the other weak spot: it's slim to the point that the volume rocker takes aim, and it's the piece we most want Samsung to rethink.

The number to start with on the T7 is 144 — the native refresh rate of the panel, not a processed motion figure. That's what makes it our pick for anyone splitting their time between a console and live sport. Feed it a 120Hz signal from a PS5 or a gaming PC and the panel can actually show the extra frames, so a camera pan across a pitch stays readable instead of smearing into mush.

TCL gets the format list right too. Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG all pass through, and both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are supported, which widens the field of soundbars that will talk to it. Four HDMI inputs is one more than most sets here, and Google TV moves quickly on this hardware — apps open without the pause we expect from cheaper smart TVs, and the settings menu keeps up with the remote.

What it isn't is a dark-room set. The backlight is direct-lit without zone-by-zone dimming, so black levels are good rather than deep. The 20-watt speakers are ordinary, and this is a TV that wants a soundbar on the same shopping trip. The one thing to watch is stability: this model can shut itself off at random, so update the firmware before you settle in and lean on the return window if it happens in the first month. What you're really paying for is the smoothest motion in this group.

Eighty-five inches changes a room, not just a TV. At this size the screen becomes the wall: you plan furniture around it, and you need a surface that can take 92 pounds of television plus a mount rated for the load. What you get for the trouble is the most cinematic picture in this group.

Samsung rates this panel at 2,000 nits with a 4,000:1 contrast ratio, and it's the set that walks into a sunlit room without flinching. HDR10+ tone mapping keeps highlights from clipping, and the 120Hz panel with Motion Xcelerator holds a broadcast together when the camera sweeps. Four HDMI inputs cover a console, a soundbar, a streaming box and a disc player without a switcher.

Sound is better than a big TV usually manages, with a 2.2-channel system most people will be content with for everyday viewing. Setup is straightforward, with on-screen steps that walk through pairing and apps, and the slim cabinet sits close to the wall. Alexa pairing is the fussy part, so sort it on day one rather than week three.

Our read: this is the set for a room where the screen is the point — a basement theater, a big open wall, a house where movie night is a ritual. If your room is ordinary-sized, the 75-inch Q7F costs a good deal less and gives you most of the brightness. The extra ten inches and the 120Hz panel are what the money buys.

If you want Dolby Vision on a 65-inch screen without paying Samsung or TCL money for it, this is the set that answers. Hi-QLED color, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG, DTS Virtual:X processing and Roku's interface in one package — and the Roku part matters more than the badge, because it's the platform a whole household already knows how to use.

At 29.1 pounds it's light for a 65-inch set, which makes a two-person wall mount far less nerve-racking than the 85-inch Samsung. Sound is 20 watts across two channels with DTS Virtual:X processing: serviceable for news and sitcoms, thin for anything with a score, so a soundbar belongs on the list if you watch films at volume.

Where we slow down: the picture comes from a standard direct-lit LCD behind the quantum-dot layer, so it won't match our top pick in a dark room, and this is the newest set here with the least history behind it. Treat the first month as the audition — keep the box and the receipt until you've run it through a few long evenings.

This is the least expensive route into a 4K QLED in this group, and for a spare room, a dorm or a first apartment it's the one we reach for. Forty-three inches, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, a Fire TV interface with Alexa in the remote, and a cabinet 37.9 inches wide that weighs under 15 pounds — small enough for a dresser and light enough to move alone.

The picture is the pleasant part. Hi-QLED color with Dolby Vision gives it contrast and punch that doesn't read as budget on a 43-inch screen, and the AI light sensor adjusts brightness to the room, which is exactly the feature a bedroom TV needs at 11pm. The Fire TV side asks for patience: the interface can lag behind the remote, apps take a beat to open, and voice search is more dependable than clicking through menus. A wired connection helps if your Wi-Fi is marginal.

We take it over the TCL below for a bedroom, because the light sensor and the color processing suit dim rooms and casual viewing; we take the TCL when a console is involved. Neither is a set to build a living room around. Both are very good second televisions, and this one leaves the most money in your pocket.

Forty-three inches is the compromise here, and TCL doesn't pretend otherwise — the F7D is the small set that kept the format list. Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG on the picture side; Dolby Atmos and DTS:X on the sound side; Motion Rate 240 processing and an auto game mode that drops into low latency when a console wakes up.

For a desk-side or guest-room set, the reasons to pick it over the Hisense 43 come down to formats and motion: a console gets automatic low-latency switching and an on-screen game bar, and Dolby Vision material is handled properly rather than approximated. The reason to think twice is the sound — the built-in speakers are the thinnest of any set here, and this is the one where we plug in a soundbar without a second thought.

There's a speed caveat as well. The interface can feel sluggish out of the box, and the first half hour — while apps download and update — is the wrong moment to judge it; once everything settled, navigation kept up. If you want a small QLED for a room that mostly streams, this is more television than the money suggests. If it's going into a bright sunroom, buy on brightness instead.