The Best TVs of 2026, According to the Reviews

Buy the LG C5 if the room is dark, the Hisense U8N if it is bright, and read the model number twice either way. The C5 is the only set here all three outlets scored full marks, and the U8N is the only one that costs a fraction of that while being unanimously good.

The three, at a glance

	Review consensus	Panel	Suits	The catch
LG C5	10.0 — unanimous	OLED (WOLED)	Dark rooms, film	Reflections in a bright room
Samsung S90F	9.3 — one outlet dissented	QD-OLED	An OLED without Dolby Vision	No Dolby Vision; the split score
Hisense U8N	8.0 — unanimous	Mini-LED LCD	Bright rooms, tight budgets	Blooming on dark scenes

Consensus is the average of three published star ratings converted to a ten-point scale. The “suits” column is ours — it is our reading of what those reviewers found, not something any of them ranked.

Two of these are 2025 models, and that is deliberate. A 2026 buying guide does not have to mean 2026 hardware. Last year’s set with unchanged reviews and a year of discounting behind it is frequently the better purchase, which is the entire reason the U8N is here.

The pattern matters more than the ranking

Look at the nine scores together and something becomes obvious: reviewers are grading the category, not the individual set. Both OLEDs took fives. The mini-LED took fours, at every outlet, with nobody dissenting.

That is not laziness. It reflects a real hierarchy — a self-emissive panel does something a backlit one cannot — but it means an averaged score tells you which technology you are buying and very little about which set.

Which is why the single disagreement on this page is the most informative thing on it.

The one set they argued about

Samsung’s S90F took five out of five from TechRadar and What Hi-Fi, and four from Tom’s Guide.

A full point, on the same television. That is worth more than a consensus, because it means the set is genuinely divisive rather than safely good — and if you are buying without seeing one, a set two outlets loved and one marked down is a different proposition from one nobody argued about.

Before you buy any of them: the model number

This is the part that undoes everything above if you skip it, and it applies in North America more than anywhere.

US retailers commission their own variants. The panel may match the reviewed set exactly, with a different stand, a different port count, a changed local-dimming implementation — and a model number that exists in one chain’s catalogue and nowhere on the manufacturer’s own site.

The reviews above describe the manufacturer’s models. Check the number on the box against the maker’s own website before you assume any of this applies to it. If it is not there, you are looking at something else. What separates a $400 TV from a $1,200 one covers the rest of the specification traps.

What to actually do

• Decide on your room before your budget. Dark room, OLED. Bright room with a window, the mini-LED will be easier to live with regardless of what it scored.
• Take the previous generation in a sale. The U8N is on this list precisely because being a year old is what makes it cheap, and the reviews did not get worse when the successor shipped.
• Do not pay for Dolby Vision you will not use — and do notice that Samsung’s OLEDs do not have it, if that matters to you.
• Check the price against last month, not against list. US electronics discounts peaked at 30.9% off listed price last season, and list is not what anything sold for in October.