6 Best TV Brands—Tested and Reviewed by the Esquire Editors

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Samsung—which has been the world's best-selling TV brand for quite some time now—wins top honors with its balance of function and form. Whether you need a centerpiece for your living room, an upgrade for your gaming hub, or a TV that decorates your wall like a work of art, Samsung has it all covered.

Functionally, Samsung TVs are amongst the most show-stopping out there. Samsung TVs are bright and sharp, the defining characteristic of QLED. The colors are deep, and the images feel real enough to reach out and touch. It's like it's 1896 all over again and that train is coming to get us! Even when the viewing angle isn't so great, or on models with lower contrast, these TVs are the attention-getter at the center of a room. For those concerned about viewing angle and contrast, Samsung has built its OLED lineup for exactly that reason. Now those are some stunners. The Samsung OLED S90D is one of our personal favorite TVs for gaming and watching 4K movies.

What pushes Samsung into the Best Overall category is its lifestyle TVs—models made for specific tastes and situations. The Frame acts like a piece of art when it's off. We are obsessed with that one. The Terrace can be outdoors in full sunlight and still provides top-of-class picture quality. The Serif is a minimalist TV along with a sleek built-in stand that's easy to move around as you please. All throughout the catalog, Samsung considers how TVs fit certain lifestyles, versus how great the picture is. Sounds simple, but no other brand does it this well.

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Funnily enough, we've always found Samsung's closest rival to be the other massive brand from South Korea, LG. Not Sony, which started in Japan, and frankly doesn't make TVs as good as it used to. Instead, LG has carved out the top spot in the OLED market, making TVs with big colors and sharp contrast.

The downside is that OLED is the only category we've found LG to be the winner. For creative solutions and practical day-to-day TVs, Samsung is the winner. For vibrant colors further down in a lineup, it's Hisense. LG TVs are often best-in-class, but only at the highest price points. So it's kinda trapped there. Looking for an 8K OLED? Sure, go for it. Otherwise, maybe look elsewhere.

So who should actually buy an LG? Someone who needs OLED. If your TV is in a bright room, and you do a lot of daytime watching, the contrast is really going to help you out. If you game on your TV, OLED is the preferred display format for gamers worldwide and often what's used in high-end gaming monitors. But for anyone else, we'd say stray away. You'll get better value elsewhere.

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A lot of visual fidelity nerds really like the value proposition offered by Hisense. Up and down the lineup, there are some really, really great TVs. But the middle of the road is where Hisense's tech really shines. The mid-tier models in the Hisense lineup are really good TVs—sharper colors and smoother motion compared to other displays in that $400-$800 range.

The brand does things its own way, which we respect. I mean, clearly it gets results. It also gets confusing. Hisense has its own proprietary style of LED called ULED, which they insist is separate from OLED or QLED. (Buying a TV is so easy!)

The short version of it is that ULED is not that different from QLED. U and Q sound very similar, so that makes some sense. Hisense touts a lot of its patents on ULED, but it's not revolutionary. It's all just enhancements that make colors brighter, contrasts sharper, motion smoother, and prevent burn-in. A bunch of near-imperceptible changes that a lot of other TVs have.

But don't get us wrong! We're not bad-mouthing Hisense. The brand makes some incredible TVs at great prices. The brand's mid-tier options, like the U6H featured here, are just a step above other options in the price range.

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When we get to real budget territory, TCL beats out Hisense. (Though at this price, Hisense is still your second-best bet.) For around $300, a 50- or 55-inch TCL is the best place to spend your money. And we mean that last sentence very literally. Unless you never watch TV or play video games, there are few better values for $300 than a TCL 4K Roku TV. They get the job done, are super user-friendly, and have reliable app support (looking at you FireTV!).

TCL just makes really good 4K TVs. Nothing fancy, no extra quantum dot whatever, whatever. The 4-Series, featured here, is where the brand starts its 4K models, and you've got the option of Google, Android, or Roku-ready versions. These are perfect for normals. But the 5-Series is where you want to shop if you really care about TVs on a nerdy level but don't have access to much capital.

And if you're on an even tighter budget, the brand is one of the few still dedicating proper attention to manufacturing anything below 4K resolution. A TCL 40-inch 3-Series runs you $200. A great deal for a 1080P TV, though we really suggest just paying the extra $150 to go 4K. If you're not concerned with nuances like refresh rate and pixel depth, you can't beat this brand.

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It seems to go that whenever certain products hit a level of popularity on Amazon, the company realizes it might be able to save money and make its own. Often, these products are not the most impressive. Previously that was the case with the Fire TVs, but not anymore.

By partnering with Insignia, TCL, and other TV makers, Amazon has been crafting TVs in-house for a few years, to pretty mild fanfare, but every year the selection gets more impressive. Most recently, Bezos & Co. has added QLED to its lineup and we have to admit we've been impressed by the ones we've tried and tested.

At this price point, Hisense still makes a better TV, but we've been impressed with how quickly Amazon has carved out a section of the budget market. Most TV manufacturers don't bother to make anything smaller than a 43-inch screen because of the dominance of 4K resolution. Amazon offers a number of options for 24- and 32-inch TVs with displays ranging from 720P to 1080P.

The real draw of course is the Fire TV capabilities. If you use a FireStick as your connected TV device, switching to a Fire TV is painless. And for buyers, that's the only time we'd suggest turning to Amazon over other models.

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With the three regular price ranges talked about, let's talk about the crazy shit. The luxury shit. No one is doing luxury TV like Bang & Olufsen, at the moment.

The Danish brand has deep roots in electronics, but has settled into the niche of sound products; Soundbars, headphones, and speakers, B&O is best-in-class in all of them. A recent partnership with LG has launched the brand back to the top of the television world.

LG televisions (which, full disclosure, are narrowly behind Samsung in our estimation) are paired with built-in Bang & Olufsen audio. The sound is incredible, and the LG screens are as good as anything else on this list. But the real draw is the look of the TV itself. These things are beautiful, and the use of organic materials makes them a real standout in the tech world. As a piece of decoration, they are the only TVs to rival the Samsung Frame.

And yes, the price point is insane, but the brand is part of a fascinating Cradle to Cradle certification. This isn't a lifetime warranty, but it's a way that the company is showing it cares about its customers. Essentially, every Bang & Olufsen product with this certification is future-proofed. These TVs will last years—decades with proper care—but if new designs or tech innovations happen, the products are totally modular and allow new parts to replace the old. It's not a fix to tech's circularity crisis, but it's the start of an interesting solution.