Home Cinema Week is almost at an end, and what a time it has been. From our review of the five-star AWOL Vision Aetherion Max projector to a behind-the-scenes look at our AV testing facility, it’s been a treat to dig into all things home cinema-related.

Our monthly Now Showing hasn’t gone anywhere, though, as we have still been beavering away in our test room to review the latest AV products. Each month, we take a look at the best movies and TV shows we have been using to test, as well as new releases that we cannot wait to use.

This can range from a film that puts your sound system’s Dolby Atmos presentation through its paces or challenges a projector screen’s black depth. Let’s take a look at the team’s top picks!

Ponies (2026-)

Words by Joe Svetlik

Cold War thrillers tend to be more po-faced than a Kremlin spokesman, so Ponies is a welcome addition to the genre. Ponies stands for Persons Of No Interest – CIA-speak for the wives of two Moscow-based US spies who die in mysterious circumstances. The men, of course, are Persons Of Interest, but their better halves? Given that neither Russia nor the US used female operatives at the time (in the series, at least), this gives the Ponies scope to fly under the radar and investigate their husbands’ deaths.

If that all sounds a bit gritty, trust me, it isn’t. The pairing of Emilia Clarke (Game Of Thrones) and Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus) lends the show plenty of humour – the former uptight and controlling, the latter a bohemian with an exaggeratedly carefree sashay. And they’re ably supported by Adrian Lester (Hustle) and Artjom Gilz (Das Boot).

The production is dripping with period charm, even down to being filmed in the 3:2 aspect ratio to mimic the feel of a pre-widescreen broadcast – that means vertical black bars either side of the picture, but it’s worth it to add to the vintage aesthetic.

The Russian accents are thick, the tension even thicker. And any series in which a touring Elton John accidentally disrupts a KGB murder plot has to be worth a look.

House Of The Dragon (Season 3)

Words by Lewis Empson

Game Of Thrones has had its ups and downs. While I still resent the ending of the main show over eight years later, the franchise as a whole has been steadily rebuilding since.

House Of The Dragon, a prequel series set roughly 200 years before the main show, has been fundamental in the franchise’s revival, and its explosive third season is broadcasting weekly right now.

After a somewhat weak ending to season two, I was immediately sucked into the third series' action-packed, bloody and emotional first two episodes. And while the pace has since slowed, the show has also tapped into the political-thriller elements of the original to great effect.

As ever with Game Of Thrones, this series also looks and sounds fantastic. Establishing shots of stunning natural vistas and sprawling naval battles are both dazzling in 4K, and with many sequences in dingy and dark castle corridors and chambers, this also happens to be a fairly thorough TV stress test. Shadow detail will be put to the test, and having watched all of this season so far on an OLED TV, I’ve certainly reaped the contrast and black depth benefits.

Your TV’s motion and sound capabilities will also be put to the test by swooping dragons as they launch screeching fire-breathing attacks on warring factions.

I also have an expert tip for watching House Of The Dragon in its best picture and sound quality. My advice is to skip Sky and Now and instead use HBO Max. If your budget allows, the top subscription tier unlocks 4K Dolby Vision streaming and Dolby Atmos audio, which makes the viewing experience a whole lot better.

If you’re already a Sky or Now subscriber, chances are that you already have access to HBO Max and can upgrade your account to access these features.

F1 The Movie (2025)

Words by Robyn Quick

Fast cars, roaring engines and juicy drama: that’s what you expect from a film about Formula 1. Joseph Kosinski’s F1 The Movie delivers on all of this, and it has quickly become a go-to in our test room since the 4K Blu-ray was released in November last year.

It’s one of my current favourites for testing both sound and picture quality and, when using the right system, the film makes for tense viewing.

During fast-paced racing scenes when the vehicles zoom around the course, you should be able to feel the cars move around the soundfield with a good Dolby Atmos audio system. This also calls for an excellent sense of precision, as the crowd calls out and announcements boom from off-screen.

On top of that, the myriad of races in the film are a great way to challenge your system’s motion handling. They must move naturally without looking too juddery or too smooth, which can be a tough balance to strike for premium and budget systems alike.

Widow's Bay (2026-)

Words by Tom Parsons

I came to Widow’s Bay late, mostly because in the remorseless tidal wave of new content, it simply didn’t stand out. The other evening, though, I decided to give it a go, and it’s actually well up there as one of my favourite shows of the year.

The story, about a small, somewhat backwards island community that badly needs an influx of tourists but also might – or might not – be cursed, is brilliantly paced. Fairly gentle but consistently gripping, it's an easy watch that's somehow impossible to stop watching.

The comedy-horror combo is really hard to get right, but creator Katie Dippold and director Hiro Murai (he of Atlanta fame) have absolutely nailed it, with most of the humour coming from the Fargo-like characters, dialogue and setting, and the horror elements used sparingly and effectively.

Apple TV shows tend to have higher production values (and have higher bitrates) than those of rival streaming services, and while that’s not super-evident in the intentionally grainy, Twin Peaks-style aesthetic, it’s abundantly clear in the sound design, which is excellent.

This isn’t a show with loads of jump scares; it’s one where subtle sound effects (often footsteps) are used to create tension and creepiness, and if you’ve got a good Dolby Atmos system, they’re placed brilliantly effectively.

Even if you’re not a horror fan, Widow’s Bay is an absolute must-watch.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Words by Tom Parsons

When the sad news of Sam Neill’s passing was announced, I could have chosen to watch in his memory Jurassic Park, Hunt For The Wilderpeople or Event Horizon, all of which I know and love. Instead, I decided to try In The Mouth Of Madness, which The Guardian boldly proclaimed to be the legendary actor’s best role.

Well, I’m not quite sure about that assessment, but he does play the role of an insurance investigator driven mad by a horror author’s writings with fabulous gusto.

The film is utterly bonkers, exactly as you'd expect from an early-'90s John Carpenter horror steeped in H.P. Lovecraft, but it's schlocky, gleeful fun. There are some great, gory, practical effects, too – one sequence weirdly reminded me of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, but The Thing is, less surprisingly, visible in there.

Not a movie to watch if you’re looking for fancy production values or a serious home cinema demonstration, but a lot of fun if weird horror from the last millennium is up your street.

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Hisense has clearly decided that it’s time to capitalise on its huge success in the lifestyle projector world by launching a shiny, new no-holds-barred flagship model.

Boasting 6000 lumens of brightness, a triple laser lighting system, liquid cooling, a built-in Devialet sound system, an all-glass lens and support for every HDR format in town, the XR10 certainly makes all the right flagship noises.

But can Hisense marshal all these expensive pieces into a class-leading performance?

Price

With Hisense usually found successfully plying its trade in the mid-range lifestyle projector arena, the £5999 / $6000 / AU$9995 price of the XR10 really is a major step up for the brand.

In fact, it will doubtless be a step too far for many home cinema-loving households, and even raises the question of whether a projector that seems from the outside at least to have been designed more as a ‘lifestyle’ model than a serious home theatre machine really makes sense at such a price.

As we’re about to explain, though, we think the XR10 makes all kinds of sense, even at its very high price.

Design

The XR10’s design is nuts in all the best ways. For starters, it ships in a beautifully designed, built-to-measure real leather carry case complete with wheels and an extendable handle that looks like Hisense thinks you’re going to love the projector so much you’ll want to take it on holiday with you.

The projector’s spectacular bodywork, meanwhile, is actually transparent in some places, so that you can marvel at some of the cool things going on under the projector’s hood.

A huge lens aperture sits within a bold bronze-coloured metallic square on one side of the projector’s front, while the left side houses two vertical stripes, one recessed, one not, housing sensors that the projector can use to help it deliver a more effective automatic set-up system.

The projector’s left, right and top edges are finished in the same bronzy colour as the area around the lens housing, while the projector’s shape resembles a larger (and much heavier) version of the sort of roughly cubic designs we’ve started to see dominating the living room projector market in recent times.

The top plate sports a beautifully designed round dial-style volume adjustment, as well as a large ambient light sensor the projector can use to optimise its picture performance to different room conditions.

That volume control, along with the grilles built into the XR10’s left and right edges, reflects the fact that the XR10 carries a built-in sound system deemed powerful enough to enable the projector to be used as a standalone wireless speaker if you so desire.

The various finishes to different sides and even within the front edge of the XR10 ought, by all rights, to make its design look a bit of a mess. Actually, though, it all comes together remarkably well in a vaguely cyberpunk kind of way.

Features

The XR10 is mostly specced to kill.

Its 6000 claimed lumens of laser-delivered peak brightness is huge by serious projector standards, for starters. That’s easily enough to punch through quite a bit of ambient light if that’s what you want it to do; drive a particularly big screen (Hisense claims 300 inches); and/or potentially handle HDR sources better than most projectors can.

Brightness alone can actually be anything but a friend to projector picture quality, though, so it’s impressive to see Hisense backing this brightness up with a healthy claimed native contrast performance of 6000:1. This jumps, too, to a very impressive claimed 60,000:1 courtesy of the projector’s premium lens iris system. As ever, though, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Hisense has gone the extra mile, too, to avoid the sort of rowdy cooling-fan noise you might normally expect to hear from a 6000-lumen projector by integrating liquid (water) cooling into the XR10’s chassis. This is the first time, we believe, that such cooling has been used in an albeit premium living room projector.

Another big justification for the XR10’s price is its use of an all-glass, 16-element lens system that Hisense claims will deliver better light transmission and temperature stability than a plastic system could, resulting in more brightness/contrast and more consistent 4K sharpness.

The colour coverage claimed for the XR10’s laser lighting/DLP optical system is huge too: up to 110 per cent of the massive BT2020 colour space. That’s well beyond the DCI-P3 colour system used for most HDR mastering.

Talking of HDR, the XR10 is one of a very rare breed in the projector world that’s capable of playing all four of the AV world’s main HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It’s even received IMAX Enhanced certification, meaning it has been deemed capable of doing justice to the special IMAX mastering system (which focuses on creating a noiseless look to the image). Basically, the XR10 will take in the best version of any content you feed it.

For all their advantages, setting up premium projectors can often be a pain. Hisense couldn’t have worked harder to simplify the physical aspect of set-up, though. The XR10 carries an industry-first four-8MP-camera and dual Time-of-flight (TOF) intelligent sensing set-up that it can use to correct image size, keystone and focus without you having to lift a finger. Plus, that ambient sensor we mentioned earlier can tie its readings into the calculations of a ‘Smart AI’ auto-adjustment system so that images can auto-adjust to compensate for changing room conditions.

As well as all its sensors and AI brainpower, the XR10 carries an exceptionally wide-ranging 0.84-2.0x optical zoom and bags of vertical and horizontal image shifting. It’s therefore able to (auto) adapt itself to a seriously wide range of different room sizes and layouts – and is also capable of delivering a 100-inch image from a throw distance of just 1.86m.

As we’ve come to expect from today’s lifestyle projectors, the XR10 carries a built-in smart system so that you can stream video without the need for any external sources. Rather than the Google TV system found in most projectors, though, the XR10 turns to Hisense’s own VIDAA system. This is good news, as it’s straightforward and stable to use, and it carries all of the streaming services the vast majority of households will need, including the BBC iPlayer app that’s almost always absent from Google TV systems.

The XR10 is, of course, a 4K projector. It doesn’t have a full 3840x2160 count of digital mirror devices (DMDs) that would be needed for a ‘true’ 4K experience, though. Instead, it features Texas Instruments’ XPR technology to create a 4K image from a lower DMD count using pixel-shifting. The Consumer Technology Association in the US deems the resulting images to be true 4K, though, and as we’ll see, it’s hard to disagree with that stance based on the XR10’s real-life 4K performance.

The XR10’s connections impressively comprise three HDMI ports (one 2.0, two 2.1), three USBs, an optical digital audio output, a headphone jack, an Ethernet port, and the now-expected wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options. Apple AirPlay 2 is included in the projector’s wireless content sharing options, too.

There is one connection disappointment, though, as we couldn’t manage to get even the two HDMI 2.1 ports to handle 4K content at 120Hz from our Xbox Series X. 120Hz is possible at 1440p resolutions with the HDMI ports set to Enhance Mode Pro, but there’s no VRR support in this set-up, and nor can the projector sustain HDR gaming at any refresh rate above 60Hz.

One last premium aspect of the XR10 is its audio. Not only does it carry a 2.1 speaker system that includes a dedicated bass driver and supports DTS: Virtual X playback, but this speaker system has been tuned by acclaimed audio brand Devialet, picking up on a relationship Hisense previously forged for the speaker systems of its high-end TVs.

Picture

We’ve consistently referred to the XR10 so far as a ‘lifestyle’ or 'living room' projector, based chiefly on its appearance and convenient set-up features. It’s worth reflecting before we get into its performance, though, on the fact that Hisense describes the XR10 as being “built for cinephiles who want the big-screen theatre experience without sacrificing design, flexibility or fidelity”.

In other words, Hisense is backing the XR10 to be good enough to satisfy proper home cinema enthusiasts as well as the more casual projection market. And we’re happy to report that it’s absolutely right.

Particularly spectacular and key to its success is its ability to deliver both extreme levels of brightness and some of the deepest, most convincing blacks the HDR projection world has to offer.

Using any of the XR10’s relatively aggressive picture presets, bright HDR images are absolutely radiant, punching through even high levels of ambient light if you’re watching the projector in a regular daytime living room environment. In a dark room, meanwhile, this brightness can be used to deliver HDR with levels of intensity that we’ve only witnessed a handful of times before – mostly on ultra-high-end laser theatre projectors costing way more than the XR10.

Dark room viewing makes it obvious just how good the XR10 is with dark scenes and, even more impressively, scenes that contain a mix of light and dark elements. Provided you’re careful with the settings you use (more on this later), the XR10 can not only deliver dark imagery with much less greyness around than most, if not all, very bright, HDR-friendly projectors, but it also manages to retain all the faint shadow details you want to see if dark scenes are to feel consistent in depth with bright scenes. There’s little if any ‘black crush’ to worry about here.

Even better, the XR10 doesn’t just retain detail in the darkest image areas; it also retains excellent colour tones and saturations in such light-limited areas, avoiding the widespread tendency in both the projector and TV worlds for dark images to become desaturated.

The XR10’s colour performance is more obviously spectacular, of course, with very bright HDR images. Rather than the brightest highlights of HDR pictures starting to look thin or washed out, the XR10’s colour volume just keeps expanding as it’s fed more light.

Colour volumes push into places, in fact, that we haven’t seen before, beyond, perhaps, a couple of Xgimi models. Crucially, though, the XR10 does a substantially better job than those admittedly more affordable Xgimi rivals of making even the most vibrant colours across almost all of its picture presets look balanced and surprisingly natural. Or, at least, extremely believable.

To put it another way, while the XR10 is proud to show off what it can do, it only does so on a foundation of immersive consistency and a constant connection to the source material.

Despite the extreme vibrancy, brightness and contrast of which the XR10 is capable, as you’d hope of such an expensive and ambitious projector, it also cares about the little things in AV life. Its 4K pictures look fanatically detailed and densely textured, for instance – and this is down as much to the almost infinite subtlety of its colour rendition as it is to raw sharpness. The sharpness feels natural rather than forced or processed even in the projector’s most aggressive settings, and motion is handled without smearing or resolution loss.

If you find judder a touch obvious with 24p content, especially during bright scenes, the projector’s Film motion processing option does a pretty smart job of reducing judder without the results devolving into the dreaded soap opera effect.

While many will find it hard to resist the fantastic dynamism and richness of the XR10’s relatively aggressive image presets, film fans who want to see images that look as their creators wanted them to look can rest assured that their needs are catered for brilliantly, too, by the projector’s Filmmaker Mode preset.

This removes a big chunk of the brightness that is one of the XR10’s strengths. But the resulting images look natural, beautifully balanced, full of subtlety and still just excellently watchable despite Filmmaker Mode turning off many of its picture enhancement technologies.

If there’s an issue with the default Filmmaker Mode, it’s that black levels look a bit grey without any of the projector’s contrast enhancement tools in play. Simply setting the projector’s manual iris setting to its ‘One’ level, though, immediately improves black levels, at the expense of a just slightly cooler look to the image.

Aside from some DLP rainbow striping with very extreme contrast content, this set-up suggestion leads us to arguably the XR10’s one major image flaw. Namely, you need to be prepared to tinker with a few of the projector’s settings to get the best from it. It’s not quite the simple 'unbox, switch on and instantly relax deal' you might have been hoping for.

For instance, while the Dolby Vision Bright preset the XR10 defaults to with Dolby Vision content delivers great contrast for such a bright projector, it pushes some colours too strongly. Greens are over-dominant and skin tones look too ripe. The core colour temperature can also fluctuate within a shot if there are significant light level variations to cope with, and you can sometimes see the projector’s dynamic iris system doing its work too obviously.

Setting the manual iris setting to level 1 helps balance colours and eliminates the fluctuating colour tone, but suddenly sees green tones taking on a strangely brownish hue. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this one that simply involves switching to the Dolby Vision Dark preset. This instantly fixes colour balance/consistency issues, delivers natural blacks and skin tones and, if you set the iris feature to ‘0’, leaves the image looking totally stable.

The XR10’s complex iris options include a few presets alongside the multi-step Manual mode. Cinema 1 delivers a nicely judged combination of brightness and contrast, but leaves you having to hit the colour calibration tools to try and stop skin tones and red colours looking too pink, and can also cause some noticeable fluctuations in brightness from the dynamic iris. Cinema 2 delivers some of the best black levels we’ve seen from any projector, but at the expense of huge amounts of the brightness that’s so enjoyable a part of the XR10’s usual picture make-up. Only in a fully blacked-out room is this setting even worth considering, and even then, maybe only the most die-hard accuracy enthusiasts will find the dimness tolerable.

In the end, even where the XR10 offers pre-programmed attempts to provide helpful out-of-the-box feature presets, we ultimately end up reverting to manual intervention via the all-important manual iris setting. A setting which, for better or worse, is kept outside of the picture settings encompassed by the projector’s defined picture presets, so that whatever lens setting you choose applies across every preset for every source until you go back in and change it again.

There are other bits of tinkering we’d recommend too, including turning the sharpness setting to zero but leaving a separate Super Resolution feature active, and braving the projector’s more in-depth colour and white-balance controls, too, if you dare.

The bottom line, though, is that for the most part, making the effort to spend just a few minutes fine-tuning images when you first get the XR10 rewards you with what can be absolutely spectacular but also thoughtful and subtle results. Results capable of adapting, moreover, to pretty much any room shape or ambient light condition.

It’s important to add, too, that the projector responds excellently without manual intervention to the extra picture information provided by the HDR10+ format, making us wish more projectors would adopt this alternative/rival to the Dolby Vision system.

Maybe even more importantly, the XR10’s out-of-the-box dynamic tone mapping system with basic HDR10 content is outstanding. The way it maps the available image data of core HDR10 sources to the projector’s capabilities so that they look dynamic and punchy without succumbing to clipping, unevenness, black crush or colour imbalances is superb, and actually requires less manual intervention than you’d usually expect with most HDR projectors.

The XR10’s automated hardware image correction features work brilliantly, too. So while some of its presets could be better, it’s also actually more helpful than most rivals in other areas of usability and set-up.

One last strength of the XR10 to mention is how incredibly quietly it runs for such a monumentally bright projector. The liquid cooling system Hisense has taken considerable trouble to integrate into the projector proves well worth the effort.

Sound

The XR10’s speakers are capable of pumping out levels of volume and dynamic range that shame many premium TVs. Even at just 50 per cent of its maximum volume, it’s loud enough to satisfy even a quite large room.

Trebles reach high peaks without sounding brittle or warbly, even at high volumes, while at the other end, bass reaches remarkably deep without falling prey to dropouts or crackles, or causing the projector’s metal bodywork to start buzzing. This helps low frequencies avoid sounding overly dominant or distracting, despite how present and deep they are. Similarly, the XR10’s ability to produce high levels of detail in a film or TV mix doesn’t leave busy soundtracks sounding too forensic or ambient effects too bright.

Voices are clean and well-rounded too. The only issue is that they sound a bit trapped inside the projector’s bodywork compared with the rest of the sound mix, which means they also sound rather dislocated from the onscreen action on the other side of the room, and sometimes rather decontextualised from the rest of the soundstage.

Verdict

While it might be the XR10’s startling, beautifully built design that first catches your eye, Hisense’s new showcase projector ultimately justifies its premium price tag with its combination of a startlingly powerful sound system and the best picture quality we’ve seen from any lifestyle or, more accurately, lifestyle/home theatre crossover projector before.

As statements of intent go, it’s hard to see how the XR10 could have served Hisense much better.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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When Sony officially unveiled its 2026 TV range, there was plenty of disappointment that it didn’t include a new OLED model – much of it from me.

These days, Sony tends to work on two-year lifecycles for its TVs, so I wasn’t expecting a successor to last year’s Bravia 8 II; but a replacement for 2024’s Bravia 8 seemed a fairly safe bet – as did a successor to the A90K, which is now an incredible four years old.

The omission prompted some (again, mostly me) to theorise that Sony had in fact turned its back on OLED entirely, and that the Bravia 8 II could be the brand’s last OLED model.

Last month, though, we reported on rumours that Sony was bracing to launch a brand-new OLED TV. And now, those rumours have been all but confirmed by the appearance of this new OLED set on several of Sony’s own websites.

The listings, first spotted by High Def News (thanks, The Walkman Blog), confirm that the new OLED is indeed the Bravia 6. And, if the name wasn’t a big enough hint, the TV’s tagline – “OLED essentials, now within reach” – also confirms that this is indeed an entry-level OLED TV.

Naturally, I’m disappointed that Sony isn’t launching a new flagship OLED at this stage, but if the Bravia 6 is indeed Sony’s most affordable OLED TV yet, as the tagline suggests, that’s rather exciting news in its own right.

Full tech specs are currently absent from the live pages (another suggestion that they have gone live earlier than planned), but there are some nuggets of information to be gleaned.

First, the TV is listed in sizes ranging from 48 inches to 83 inches. That’s a broader range than Sony typically offers for its OLED TVs, but it’s also highly suggestive of the Bravia 6 using LG Display’s new OLED SE panel, which is available in exactly those sizes and notably not in 42 inches.

While it’s not confirmed, we believe this is the panel that is already found in the LG B6, a set we will be reviewing very soon.

Another encouraging detail is that the Bravia 6 sports four HDMI 2.1 sockets. Gamers (myself included) have long lamented Sony’s models being limited to just two HDMI 2.1 sockets, with that limitation even being true of the new flagship Bravia 9 II, so this is very good news.

The listing also confirms that Dolby Vision is supported on the video side, and that Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are present on the audio side.

Unsurprisingly, like every other modern Bravia TV, the Bravia 6 also features the Google TV platform, which can be operated via voice control (though it’s not clear whether this is via a microphone built into the remote control or the TV itself).

We do know the TV includes ambient sensors, with the listing promising automatic picture adjustments based on room conditions.

None of the leaked listings includes pricing, so we don’t yet have any indication of where the Bravia 6 will sit in Sony’s range.

We don’t even know, in fact, whether the Bravia 6 will even come to the UK. Sony has a recent habit of releasing some models in certain regions but not others.

If it does launch the new model in the UK, there’s no guarantee that it will do so in all sizes: I note that Sony Hong Kong is listing the Bravia 6 in 48-, 55- and 65-inch sizes, while Sony Gabon is listing the 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch sizes.

We have approached Sony UK for comment. We don’t expect the company to confirm the Bravia 6 ahead of an official announcement, but with multiple regional Sony websites now listing the TV, that announcement surely can’t be far away.

Stay tuned for more on the Sony Bravia 6 as we get it.

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LG has launched its latest moveable screen display to deliver “a more flexible and enjoyable entertainment experience”.

That comes in the form of the rather clunkily named StanbyME 2 Max (does anyone else have Ben E. King stuck in their head now?), which expands on the first iteration five years after it came out.

The idea is to take the screen with you from room to room, as it features a detachable display that can be mounted on a wheeled stand. You can use it in either portrait or landscape mode, and you can use the screen-mirroring function with your phone.

The previous model was available in 27 inches; the new version bumps that up a little to 32 inches. This display supports up to 4K resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, and Dolby Vision HDR.

There is also a built-in battery that offers up to 4.5 hours of use before needing to be plugged into the mains, so it should last for at least the runtime of Oppenheimer (and then the start of Barbie).

In terms of audio, there is Dolby Atmos support to provide “an enveloping soundscape with richer detail”. The system is also powered by LG’s Alpha 8 AI Processor Gen3, which uses AI to deliver a virtual 11.1.2-channel surround sound.

When not in use, it can display artwork from the LG Gallery+, which will possibly make it less of an eyesore.

We are still waiting on UK or Australian pricing, but it costs $1299 in the US (around £970 / AU$1870). That seems pretty steep for a 32-inch display, even if it can be wheeled around the house.

Whether it will be a practical portable addition to your home or just a bigger screen to doom scroll on remains to be seen, but we are certainly curious to find out.

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If you want a satisfyingly cinematic or sporting experience at home, there really is no substitute for screen size.

The good news is that a big TV needn't cost big money. These days, 65-inch TVs go for much less money than you might imagine, and if you wait for a big sales event, your cash can go even further.

And it just so happens that we're right in the middle of a big sales event – Amazon Prime Day – and I've sifted through all of the deals to find three super-cheap 65-inch TVs that I can recommend as great buys.

• View all the Prime Day deals on Amazon

What do I know about it? I'm so glad you asked!

I've been testing TVs for almost 20 years now, so I know the good from the bad (and the ugly, for that matter). I've also been personally involved in every What Hi-Fi? TV review in probably the last 10 years – and that includes the reviews of the three models I'm recommending here.

Happy with those credentials? Excellent! Here are my three picks, ranked in order of quality.

1. TCL Q6C

Deal price UK: £529 at Amazon
Deal price US: n/a

If you're looking for the best-value 65-inch TV in the Prime Day sales, this is the one I'd buy.

The TCL Q6C impressed us so much in testing that we awarded it five stars and described it as "an absolute steal". That's high praise for any TV, but it's especially impressive when you're talking about a 65-inch set that's currently selling for well under £600.

What makes the Q6C stand out is that it brings technologies normally associated with much more expensive TVs down into the budget category. It uses a Mini LED backlight with local dimming, alongside Quantum Dot colour technology, and the result is a picture that's far more sophisticated than the price suggests.

In our review, we were particularly impressed by the TV's contrast and black-level performance. Dark scenes look surprisingly deep and convincing, while bright HDR highlights have real punch.

Colours are another strong point, delivering plenty of vibrancy and richness without tipping into the sort of exaggerated look that often plagues cheaper TVs.

It's also an excellent option for sport and gaming. Motion is handled confidently, helping fast-moving action stay clear and composed, while gamers get features such as 4K/144Hz support, VRR and low input lag.

No TV at this price is perfect, of course. The sound is merely decent rather than exceptional (something that can be rectified with one of the best budget soundbars), and you'll get the best results by spending a little time tweaking the picture settings. But those are minor caveats when the overall performance is this strong.

Simply put, if your budget stretches to the TCL Q6C, it's the best cheap 65-inch TV I've seen in the Prime Day sales.

2. Amazon Ember QLED

Deal price UK: £600 at Amazon
Deal price US: $710 at Amazon

The TCL Q6C is my top pick, but the Amazon Ember QLED isn't far behind, given its current Prime Day price.

In fact, one of my colleagues recently described the deal on this TV as "impossible to ignore", and it's easy to see why. Amazon has cut the price dramatically, turning what was already a solid mid-range TV into one of the most tempting bargains in the sales.

The Ember QLED is a significant step forward from Amazon's previous QLED efforts. It features a full-array backlight with 160 dimming zones and a panel that's considerably brighter than its predecessor, resulting in a picture that's sharper, punchier and more three-dimensional than you might expect at this sort of money.

During testing, we were particularly impressed by its detail levels and colour performance. Images look crisp and vibrant, while upscaling of lower-quality content is handled well enough that everyday broadcast TV remains enjoyable.

The TV also supports every major HDR format, including Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive, so you're covered regardless of which streaming service you use.

Another advantage over many budget rivals is the sound. Built-in TV audio is rarely worth talking about, but the Ember QLED produces a fuller, clearer and more spacious presentation than most affordable sets manage.

Why isn't it above the TCL? Primarily because the Q6C's Mini LED backlight delivers superior black levels, contrast and gaming performance. The Amazon also tops out at 60Hz, making it less appealing to serious gamers.

Still, if you're heavily invested in the Amazon ecosystem or simply want a big, capable and easy-to-use 65-inch TV for as little money as possible, the Ember QLED is an excellent Prime Day buy.

3. Samsung U8000F

Deal price UK: £367 at Amazon
Deal price US: $400 at Samsung

The Samsung U8000F is the TV I recommend if your budget is as tight as possible.

At £367/$400 during Prime Day, it's substantially cheaper than both the TCL Q6C and Amazon Ember QLED, and that price difference is impossible to ignore. In fact, it's one of the least expensive big-brand 65-inch models you can buy.

Of course, some compromises are inevitable at this sort of money. Unlike the TCL and Amazon models above, the U8000F doesn't have a Mini LED or full-array backlight, and its picture isn't as bright or as impactful when displaying HDR content. Black levels are also less convincing, meaning movie nights won't have quite the same cinematic punch.

That said, Samsung has done a commendable job with the fundamentals. In our testing, we found the U8000F delivered a balanced, natural picture that avoids many of the exaggerated traits often seen on budget TVs. Colours are pleasingly authentic, detail levels are respectable, and standard-definition and HD content are handled particularly well.

Samsung's excellent Tizen smart platform is another big plus. It's packed with streaming apps, easy to navigate and generally feels more polished than many rival smart TV systems.

The biggest reason to choose the U8000F over the TVs above is simple: value. While the TCL Q6C is undoubtedly the better performer and the Ember QLED offers a more advanced specification, both cost considerably more. If spending £500-£600 on a TV still feels like a stretch, the Samsung gives you a huge screen from a trusted brand for comfortably under £400.

No, it's not the best TV in this list. But when price becomes the priority, the U8000F makes a very strong case for itself.

MORE:

Here are all of the best TVs and the best TV deals you can get right now

Don't forget the sound: here are the best budget soundbars

On Monday, I wrote about how tempted I was to buy the 42-inch LG C5, which had dropped to a record-low £649.

I already own what I consider to be the best OLED TV available – the awesome Sony Bravia 8 II – but, at that price, the C5 was well worth buying for use in my spare room, where it could perform gaming and work monitor duties, as well as the odd streaming binge.

But yesterday, I updated that story to point out that the price for the 42-inch had dropped to £623. The previous price that I had thought was unbeatable had been beaten.

And now, would you believe, it's been beaten again: the 42-inch LG C5 is down to just £611 at Amazon.

That's a nuts price for a TV this good.

At £611 from Amazon, the 42-inch LG C5 is one of those deals that feels almost too good to be true.

In our five-star review, we praised its wonderfully balanced OLED picture, excellent motion handling, natural colours and superb contrast, all of which combine to deliver a brilliantly engaging and authentic viewing experience.

It's also among the most comprehensively specified gaming TVs available, with four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets supporting 4K/144Hz, VRR, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming.

The sound is fairly ordinary, but that's a common weakness among TVs at any price and one that's easily fixed with one of the best budget soundbars.

Everything else about the C5 feels premium, making this deal particularly impressive. At £611, you're getting a TV that performs like a flagship for little more than the price of many mid-range rivals.

MORE:

Here are all the best TVs you can buy right now

And here are all of the best Amazon Prime Day TV deals

I am a very lucky guy: the best TV I've ever tested (and I've been reviewing TVs for 19 years) is also now the TV I use at home.

That TV is the Sony Bravia 8 II, and it really is as awesome to live with as I had expected.

• View all the Prime Day deals

Why, then, am I eyeing up another TV in the Amazon Prime Day sales?

Two reasons: I'd love to add an OLED to my spare room for gaming, and this deal is just too exceptional to pass up.

£623 at Amazon is just unbelievable for a TV this good, and it takes it from a super-premium option that would have to be your main TV, to a good price to pay for a second room TV.

My plan for this 42-inch OLED is to use it as a gaming TV and a monitor for work.

Its gaming specs are impeccable: four HDMI 2.1 sockets that all fully support 4K/144Hz, 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM; a superbly implemented HGIG mode for super-accurate HDR in games; and a Dolby Vision gaming mode.

It's great as a monitor, too, with neat, user-created software available that enables monitor-style features such as auto-wake.

Even if you've no interest in gaming or productivity, though, the 42-inch C5 is awesome for TV shows and movies, with a really balanced and authentic performance that makes full use of OLED's perfect blacks and pixel-level contrast control.

Other than the limp sound (which I recommend solving with one of the best budget soundbars), this TV is great at everything it does, and I think it's just irresistible at this price.

MORE:

Here are all the best TVs you can buy right now

And here are all of the best Amazon Prime Day TV deals

Can you believe that there was a time when Samsung didn’t feature a single OLED TV in its range? That all changed in 2022, when it put its spin on OLED by adding a layer of Quantum Dots and launched the excellent S95B QD-OLED TV.

Five years later, the brand is now reaping the benefits of the self-emissive panel technology. It now makes some of the finest OLED TVs around – take the five-star S95F and S90F duo from last year – and its 2026 lineup features more OLED TVs than ever before.

Of course, Samsung was never going to celebrate half a decade of OLED success without taking things up a notch, which is why it has introduced a new, rather unusual flagship model that takes inspiration from one of the brand's other most successful models.

That new flagship OLED is the S99H, a premium QD-OLED TV that oozes style and sophistication, thanks at least in part to its aesthetic similarities to the wildly successful, design-led The Frame LCD range.

Here, though, those smart good looks have been blended with the core abilities of the excellent S95F – with a generous helping of performance upgrades for good measure.

The result? A showstopping OLED TV that blends style and substance, and one that we think could dethrone the current reigning champion of our best OLED TV list: the Sony Bravia 8 II.

Price

We have the 55-inch Samsung S99H before us today, and it’s officially priced at £2499, though in true Samsung fashion, that launch pricing hasn’t stuck around for long. We’re already seeing a £100 decrease across all sizes, which puts the 65-inch version at £3199, the 77-inch model at £4199, and the 83-inch size at £5999.

Now, we need to clear something up regarding model numbers for different regions.

In the US and Australia, Samsung is calling this model the S95H. Despite the different name, it is an identical TV. In these regions, you’ll find the 55-inch S95H for $2500 / AU$3999, the 65-inch S95H for $3400 / AU$5299, the 77-inch S95H for $4500 / AU$7999, and the 83-inch S95H for $6500 / AU$9995.

That's not the end of the story, though. To confuse things even more, Samsung is selling a model under the S95H name here in the UK, too, but it’s a different TV. From what we gather, it is the same TV as the S99H, but without the metal frame-style design. In fact, it looks identical to last year’s S95F.

So, to reiterate, the S99H we're testing here is known as the S95H in the US and Australia, but that is not the same as the UK's S95H TV. Yes, we have given some constructive feedback to Samsung on all of this.

Got all that? Then let's consider the S99H's competition, which primarily comes in the form of Sony’s awesome, Award-winning Bravia 8 II, the 55-inch version of which, after around a year on sale, now costs around £1799 / $2600 / AU$3995. That makes it significantly cheaper than the S99H in the UK, but there's rough pricing parity between the two TVs in the US and Australia.

There’s also the 55-inch LG G6 to consider, which appears to be widely discounted to £1840 here in the UK, but is so far sticking to its $2500 / AU$3995 launch price in the US and Australia, respectively.

Design

We’re confident in saying that this is one of the most unusual-looking TVs to enter our AV testing room.

Samsung clearly took inspiration from its hugely popular The Frame TV when it came to designing the S99H, and while this television’s looks won’t be to everyone’s taste, we’re just pleased to see a TV company that’s willing to push the boat out when it comes to design.

The S99H features a two-layer design, with an OLED screen section mounted onto a slightly larger metal backplate, with a roughly 2cm gap between. Samsung calls this its “FloatLayer” design.

It’s hard to describe, but the effect it gives is essentially a floating OLED panel surrounded by a premium metal frame. Much like LG’s G-series, this TV is designed to be wall-mounted, and while we can’t do that in our testing room, we have seen it wall-mounted at various hands-on events leading up to launch.

In short, the S99H looks like a work of art when it's fixed to a wall, as the floating design becomes really quite striking and effective. Despite the two-layer design, the overall depth is just 2.8cm, which also helps to sell the futuristic look that Samsung is going for.

Unfortunately, the TV doesn’t look quite as suave when it’s set up in its tabletop configuration. Samsung includes two quite cheap-feeling plastic feet with the TV that feel somewhat at odds with the rest of the premium design, and the metal bezel and floating design look less convincing when it's not attached to a wall.

Samsung also includes two remotes in the box: a “traditional” button-heavy number, and a sleeker “smart” remote. The latter includes both a USB-C socket and a small solar panel on the back for easy recharging, though it’s frustratingly not backlit. Then again, neither are the remotes included with the aforementioned Sony or LG TVs, so we can’t knock Samsung too much here.

Features

Samsung’s penchant for cramming (almost) every imaginable feature into its TVs is, once again, evident with the S99H.

We’ll start with the QD-OLED display, which Samsung has managed to squeeze even more brightness out of since we last saw it on the S95F. It can now reportedly reach a whopping 2700 nits in the Movie picture mode, and as you’ll come to find out in the picture section of this review, there are plenty of instances in which we find ourselves being taken aback by how bright this TV can get.

Samsung has also improved its Glare Free coating this year, making it more effective at combating reflections and glare from ambient light. The matte display also makes artwork from Samsung’s Art Mode feature look more realistic for those who want a TV that blends into its surroundings.

In usual Samsung fashion, HDR support comes in the form of HDR10+ (including the Adaptive and Gaming versions), HDR10 and HLG, but not Dolby Vision.

Samsung's answer to Dolby Vision 2, HDR10+ Advanced, is also supported by the S99H. Unfortunately, no content is available in the new format yet, and we don't have a date for its arrival. Amazon is said to be working on adding it to Prime Video in the not too distant future, though.

Hardcore PC gamers will be pleased to learn that the S99H can handle signals right up to 4K/165Hz, as well as the console-friendly 4K/120Hz format, across all four of its HDMI 2.1 sockets. VRR, ALLM and HDR10+ Gaming are also all supported.

All of the connections are built into a side-facing nook in the rear of the TV, which is a departure from the One Connect box that has come with Samsung’s previous flagship OLED TVs.

One Connect does live on, though, and in a quite remarkable way: Samsung is offering an optional Wireless One Connect accessory, which is set to launch in July for £299 / $350 (AU price TBC).

This features four HDMI sockets, and because it connects to the S99H wirelessly, it takes the total HDMI 2.1 socket count to a staggering eight. That’s enough to support all three of the current-generation consoles, a gaming PC, a 4K Blu-ray player, a soundbar or AVR, and a streaming device, and you’d still have one spare.

The S99H also supports Dolby Atmos, both via HDMI eARC and through its built-in 4.2.2-channel 70W sound system.

Samsung offers two simplistic sound modes, Standard and Amplify, but there is also a range of Samsung-specific sound processing features based on its Vision AI platform, including Object Tracking Sound Plus, Active Voice Amplifier Pro, Adaptive Sound Pro, and AI Sound Controller Pro; all of which are fairly self-explanatory.

Q Symphony also returns. This allows you to use the TV’s speakers in unison with those of a connected Samsung soundbar, but it should be approached with caution – we generally find that a good soundbar performs best when the less capable speakers of a TV don't get involved.

AI also steps in to help with picture processing, as Samsung has implemented its 4K AI Upscaling Pro, AI Motion Enhancer Pro and Auto HDR Remastering Pro features, alongside a Real Depth Enhancer contrast enhancement system and Colour Booster Pro.

On the subject of AI, Samsung has applied its “AI for All” mantra in swathes here, as the S99H is positively dripping in artificial intelligence, right down to the AI button on the remote.

A click of this button brings up Samsung’s Vision AI interface, which can recognise on-screen content and provide extra contextual information. This includes related content, cast information and prompts to find out more detailed information about the show or movie.

Scrolling from this page brings us to a more generalised AI interface, from which Samsung allows you to pick your preferred system. Here you can ask for recipes, generate AI wallpapers, or ask general questions. The sky is, hypothetically, the limit.

This is all made possible by the same NQ4 AI Gen3 Processor found in last year’s S95F, as well as Samsung’s Tizen OS platform. The operating system has had a fairly comprehensive refresh for 2026, with a new content bar at the top that splits your apps into categories including entertainment, gaming and art, and the operation feels generally slicker.

App coverage is mostly excellent, with a wide range of international and domestic streaming applications. Currently, the only missing app is BBC iPlayer; we’ve reached out to Samsung, which says that it expects to add iPlayer support soon.

Samsung TV Plus, which features hundreds of free over-the-internet streaming channels, is also included, and gamers are well looked after thanks to the presence of apps for services such as Xbox, Amazon Luna, and Nvidia GeForce Now.

Picture quality

It’s clear that Samsung has been working to tweak and adjust its picture processing over the years in the pursuit of achieving that final pinch of picture quality excellence, and the S99H is evidence that its work has paid off. This is Samsung’s most mature TV yet, and it’s all the better for that.

We opt for Filmmaker Mode as our preferred picture preset, albeit with a couple of tweaks to get the best performance possible: we switch Colour Temperature from its Warm 2 default to Warm 1, and turn the judder and blur reduction settings up to 1.

The resulting picture is extraordinary, and it makes any content we throw at it – from Blade Runner 2049, Civil War, Pan and Drive, to No Time To Die and The Batman – shine. We have the S99F set up next to the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II, and despite the tough competition, the Samsung delivers an unflinching visual feast.

Starting with the opening scene of Blade Runner 2049, we find that the S99H serves up oodles of contrast, which results in a deeply three-dimensional picture with superb highlights.

The overhead shot of the solar farm instantly draws us in, thanks to the superb detail levels mixed with the excellent sense of depth. We also approve of how the S99H handles the gloomy, bluish-grey sky, as well as the skin tones of Officer K and Sapper Morton.

In fact, the S99H makes the Sony Bravia 8 II look a bit green in our head-to-head comparison, and skin tones start to look a bit pasty, too. Sony TVs have traditionally leaned towards the cooler side when it comes to colour reproduction, even in Filmmaker Mode, but it’s interesting to see these TVs take a different approach, particularly as they use the same panel technology.

This is most evident in the scene from Pan in which the floating pirate ship enters a cavern; the Samsung runs rings around the Sony when it comes to maintaining low-light colour volume. Skin tones are noticeably warmer and more vibrant on the Samsung in this instance. That being said, the Sony is evidently better at maintaining shadow detail.

In fact, some shadow detail is lost entirely on the S99H, especially during dark sequences in moodier flicks such as Drive and The Batman. In both films, we find facial features and clothing textures occasionally succumb to darkness, while the Sony has no trouble keeping them visible.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Samsung takes the crown when it comes to delivering dazzlingly bright highlights; in fact, we’re adding the S99H to the list of TVs that we’ve had to shield our eyes from physically.

Reverting to the exceptionally bright (and critically dismal) Pan, we find the mix of punchy, concentrated highlights and rich colours stealing our attention away from the Sony entirely.

However, the more conventional-looking Civil War is the perfect test disc to highlight exactly what this TV does well. Everything from the night-time forest fire sequence to a helicopter gliding over a lake and the Charlottesville military camp looks fantastic.

There’s a real sense of nuance here that previous Samsung TVs haven’t always been able to capture. Foliage, for example, is wonderfully textured and detailed without looking over-etched, and while the colours do seem a smidge over-saturated compared with those from the Bravia 8 II, it's not to an extent that looks instinctively wrong.

The sequence that shows the journalists driving through a forest fire seals the deal here. The mix of detail, depth and contrast served up by the S99H is remarkable – the striking, bright flames contrast wonderfully with the dark background, and there is a real sense of intensity and warmth derived from how Samsung's OLED handles highlights.

We fire up the standard Blu-ray of Logan to assess the S99H’s upscaling capabilities, and it's a similar story here, too. Detail levels are superb, and if we weren’t so eagle-eyed, the S99H could almost have fooled us into thinking we were watching a 4K disc.

Colours are also nicely balanced, and motion remains solid, too. This TV excels regardless of what you throw at it.

Sound

It’s not just the picture performance that Samsung has improved. Sound has also been upgraded, which is a good sign after the S95F’s middling delivery.

We stick with Civil War, which highlights everything from dialogue to explosions, and even Dolby Atmos height effects. The rhythmic swooping of helicopter blades is delivered with a strong leading edge, underpinned by a pleasingly controlled dose of bass.

Moving on to the scene in which Lee and Jessie have a heart-to-heart conversation in a wooded area, we approve of how the S99H captures the subtle characteristics of their voices well, and overall, the dialogue is crisp and well-defined. The atmospheric effects, including birds chirping and leaves rustling in the wind, sound pleasingly spacious, too.

There is plenty of height and width to the sound, which is also evident in Blade Runner 2049. The sequence in which Officer K returns to his home from the police precinct is another example of how the S99H captures atmospheric sounds to great effect.

The booming audio adverts are placed with impressive precision and plenty of height, while the S99H somehow manages to beam the sound of the bustling street in a way that creates a fairly convincing sense of immersion.

While we’re on the subject of Blade Runner, we put the S99H through our usual chapter two stress test and find that Samsung has changed its approach. Where many of the brand's previous models have been quite bassy but a little prone to distortion, the S99H digs less deep but proves to be almost entirely distortion-free.

Sony takes a similar approach with the Bravia 8 II (and many other of its TVs), and we ultimately find it to be a sensible compromise. We would of course like more bass weight, but if that has to be sacrificed somewhat to reduce distracting distortion, then so be it.

It’s not all good news on the sonic front, though: like the S95F, the S99H simply doesn't go very loud. Even close to its maximum volume levels, this is an easy TV to talk over. The Amplify setting helps to negate this somewhat, but it does result in some dynamic compression.

The Sony Bravia 8 II also does a better job of organising the sound during scenes with lots of competing effects. The ending battle of Civil War is a perfect example, as the Sony balances dialogue, explosions, and vehicle sounds with care to create a more impactful and immersive soundscape.

With all that said, the S99H is still a big improvement over the S95F where sound is concerned, and it's ultimately a very usable (and even enjoyable) built-in sound system.

Verdict

There’s no other way of putting it; Samsung has knocked it out of the park with the S99H.

With a refined approach to picture tuning, a feature set that (with one key caveat) many TVs can only dream of, and a greatly improved sound system compared with last year’s model, the company’s latest flagship OLED TV takes the title from the S95F as the best TV the company has made to date.

The bold new design might not suit all tastes, and die-hard Dolby Vision fans may be disappointed, but we’re struggling to find reasons not to recommend the Samsung S99H to anyone considering splashing some serious cash on a flagship OLED TV.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony Bravia 8 II

Also consider the LG G6

Read our Philips OLED910 review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

There’s a war going on for your living room. The premium TV technology of choice of the last few years – OLED – is under attack from a new, stunningly bright and vibrant foe – RGB Mini LED.

Every major brand has either launched its first RGB Mini LED TVs or is about to. Hisense launched its first RGB Mini LED models last year, in fact, but those were gigantic, 100+ inch sets, so a long way from a serious proposition for most people.

Hisense is also the first brand to submit to us a proper, mainstream RGB Mini LED TV to review, though – the UR9.

RGB Mini LED TVs are pitched at different levels by different brands, but Hisense is absolutely pitching the UR9 as a rival to flagship OLEDs. The price confirms as much.

So, what better way to benchmark it than against our current favourite flagship OLED, the Sony Bravia 8 II.

That, then, is what we’ve done. Over several days, we’ve tested the Hisense UR9 and Sony Bravia 8 II side by side, feeding all of our favourite discs and streams into both simultaneously, and judging them on picture quality, sound quality, features, usability, design and price.

This might not be a full RGB Mini LED vs OLED battle – the Hisense UR9 doesn’t represent all RGB Mini LED TVs, after all – but it is the opening skirmish in the broader TV tech war. And it's an eye-opening one at that.

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: price

The Hisense UR9’s pricing is interesting to say the least. In the UK, the 65-inch model we tested is priced at £2999, which places it in the same price category as brand-new flagship OLEDs.

In Australia, meanwhile, the UR9’s price of AU$3999 makes it slightly more affordable by local standards.

In the US, though, the pre-launch price of $3500 had dropped vastly to just $2000 by the time the TV actually hit stores.

Things are much more straightforward with the Sony Bravia 8 II, the 65-inch version of which launched at £2999 / $4000 / AU$5295, but can now be bought for £2299 / $2798 / AU$4995.

The inconsistent international pricing of the Hisense UR9 makes it a little tricky to judge this round, but seeing as we’re a primarily UK publication, and that we reviewed a UK sample, we’re going to prioritise the UK pricing and call this it in favour of the Bravia 8 II.

WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: design

The Sony Bravia 8 II and Hisense UR9 are both smart-looking TVs, but they take rather different approaches to design.

Sony has essentially carried over the styling of the A95L, resulting in a TV that looks purposeful, premium and monolithic. While it lacks the ultra-thin glamour of some rival OLEDs, the Bravia 8 II still feels like a flagship product, with its clean lines and understated aesthetic giving it a suitably high-end appearance.

The feet can be installed in either a low-profile position that leaves the bottom edge of the screen sitting just millimetres above your furniture, or a raised position that creates space for a soundbar. The downside is that those feet can only be positioned at the furthest extremes of the chassis, meaning you'll need furniture that's at least as wide as the TV itself.

The Hisense UR9 is a more practical proposition. At 4.5cm thick, it's chunkier than the Sony and doesn't have quite the same premium flair, but it is solidly built and neatly finished, with slim bezels and a restrained dark metallic finish.

Hisense has also made a couple of sensible usability-focused decisions. The centrally mounted pedestal stand occupies a footprint of only around 42cm, making the TV much easier to place on narrower furniture, and it too offers two height positions so that a soundbar can be accommodated beneath the screen.

The UR9's integrated Devialet sound system is more visually obvious than Sony's Acoustic Surface Audio+ setup, with perforations running down the sides of the chassis and across the top edge to house the side- and up-firing speakers. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does contribute to the TV's more functional, engineering-led appearance.

Ultimately, neither of these TVs is likely to be bought primarily for its styling, but the Bravia 8 II's cleaner, more premium design gives it the edge. The UR9 is practical and perfectly attractive in its own right, but it lacks the sense of sophistication that Sony's flagship delivers.

WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: features

The biggest difference between these two TVs is, of course, their panel technologies.

The Sony Bravia 8 II uses Samsung Display's latest QD-OLED panel, paired with Sony's XR processor and a custom heatsink. Because OLED technology is self-emissive, every pixel can be controlled independently, with no need for local dimming zones.

Sony doesn't publish specific brightness figures for its TVs, but the Bravia 8 II is estimated to hit around 1900 nits in small highlights, making it one of the brightest OLED TVs currently available.

The Hisense UR9, meanwhile, uses an RGB Mini LED backlight with 980 local dimming zones. Rather than relying on a conventional white backlight shining through colour filters, it uses separate red, green and blue Mini LEDs to generate colour directly. Hisense claims a peak brightness of up to 3500 nits for the 65-inch model we tested.

On paper, then, these TVs take radically different approaches to creating their images. We're not going to award points for one technology over the other here, though, because what ultimately matters is how those technologies perform in practice. We'll get to that in the picture quality section.

There are other differences in the feature sets of the two TVs worth highlighting, though.

Hardcore gamers are generally better served by the Hisense. All three of its HDMI sockets are full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, with support for 4K/170Hz, 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. It also features a DisplayPort connection, which remains extremely rare on TVs and could prove useful for committed PC gamers.

The Sony supports 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM, too, but still offers only two HDMI 2.1 sockets, one of which doubles as the eARC connection. That limitation remains one of our biggest frustrations with Sony's flagship TVs.

That said, we'd probably take the Sony's two HDMI 2.1 sockets and two additional standard HDMI inputs over the Hisense's three HDMI sockets and DisplayPort arrangement. The latter will be useful to a niche audience, but many buyers are more likely to benefit from having an extra ‘standard’ HDMI connection available.

HDR support favours the Hisense, though. The UR9 supports every major HDR format currently in use, including HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. The Bravia 8 II supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG, but, as is customary for Sony TVs, HDR10+ is absent.

The Bravia 8 II fights back with Google TV, which remains one of the stronger smart TV platforms available and features excellent app support. The UR9's VIDAA operating system is fast and responsive, but there are some notable omissions.

Most significantly, while the Apple TV app is present, it lacks access to the Apple TV Store and users' purchased libraries. That's a genuine disappointment, as Apple's movie store remains the best pay-as-you-go film streaming service available, particularly for 4K HDR movies.

Sony also offers IMAX Enhanced certification, its Studio Calibrated Modes for services such as Netflix and Prime Video, and Sony Pictures Core integration.

Ultimately, neither TV completely dominates on features, but the Hisense's broader HDR support, extra HDMI 2.1 socket and more advanced gaming specification give it the edge overall.

WINNER: Hisense UR9

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: picture quality

This is, of course, the section that really matters.

The Hisense UR9 makes an immediately strong impression. Once switched into either Filmmaker Mode or IMAX Cinema, it produces a rich, vibrant and remarkably composed image that rarely behaves like a traditional backlit TV.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the UR9 is how well controlled its RGB Mini LED backlight is. Throughout our testing, blooming is kept impressively in check, black levels are consistently strong and the TV almost entirely avoids the brightness pumping, flickering and shifting backlight behaviour that often gives Mini LED technology away.

Extra-bright HDR content is a particular strength. Movies such as Pan look spectacular on the UR9, with dazzling highlights and bold colours that comfortably outgun the Bravia 8 II for outright brightness. Sunlight bursting through clouds and glinting off fantasy scenery is delivered with real punch and intensity.

The UR9 is also a very accomplished motion performer, and it combines its brightness with rich colours, excellent shadow detail and a pleasingly cinematic warmth that stops the image from ever becoming gaudy or overblown.

In isolation, it's one of the best backlit TVs we have ever tested.

Direct comparison with the Bravia 8 II reveals why OLED remains the reference technology, though – at least for now.

Despite its impressive brightness and excellent local dimming, the Hisense simply can't match the Sony's pixel-level contrast control. Counterintuitively, some of the brightest highlights against the darkest backgrounds actually appear more impactful on the Bravia 8 II than on the much brighter Hisense, because the OLED can render them without any concern about blooming.

More significantly, the Sony produces a more solid and perceptually three-dimensional image. Objects and characters stand out from their surroundings with greater depth and dynamism, while subtle gradations within shadows, clouds and highlights appear more convincing and refined.

We've observed this extra solidity from OLED many times before, but the side-by-side comparison between these two TVs demonstrates it particularly clearly. Next to the Bravia 8 II, the UR9 simply looks a little flatter and less immersive.

The Sony also has the advantage when it comes to viewing angles. While the Hisense holds up better than many LCD-based rivals, the sweet spot in which it performs at its very best is still relatively narrow. Thanks to its OLED panel, the Bravia 8 II performs consistently from almost any angle.

And while blooming is rare on the UR9, it isn't entirely absent. Difficult scenes such as the bomb-test sequence in Oppenheimer or the opening starfield of Alien: Romulus reveal imperfections that even this highly accomplished RGB Mini LED set cannot completely escape.

The Bravia 8 II, meanwhile, is simply sensational. Its combination of dazzling brightness by OLED standards, vibrant colours, exceptional shadow detail and razor-sharp definition creates an image of astonishing depth and realism.

What impresses most isn't any single strength, but how naturally all of its strengths come together. The Bravia 8 II consistently delivers a picture that feels balanced, authentic and effortlessly cinematic, whether you're watching a pristine 4K Dolby Vision disc or a much more humble SDR stream.

The Hisense UR9 proves that RGB Mini LED can get surprisingly close to flagship OLED performance, and many viewers will adore its combination of brightness, richness and stability. But when viewed side by side, the Bravia 8 II remains the more complete and convincing picture performer.

WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: sound quality

Both the Sony Bravia 8 II and Hisense UR9 are unusually sonically accomplished by modern TV standards.

That's important, because while we always recommend pairing a premium TV with a dedicated sound system, for many buyers that’s either impractical or unpalatable.

The Hisense UR9 certainly doesn't disappoint. Its Devialet-tuned 4.1.2-channel sound system delivers a presentation that is impressively spacious and full-bodied, with particularly convincing width and height effects.

Dolby Atmos soundtracks benefit from a strong sense of scale, while bass is deeper and more substantial than most flatscreen TVs can manage. The overall character is smooth, rich and easy to listen to over extended viewing sessions.

The UR9's audio system isn't flawless, though. Dynamics can feel a little restrained during big action sequences, and dialogue doesn't always have the clarity and expressiveness we'd ideally like.

We also found ourselves preferring the Standard sound mode over the more expansive Theatre setting. While Theatre mode undoubtedly sounds bigger, it can introduce a slightly diffuse and faintly echoey quality to voices that makes dialogue seem less natural than it should.

The Sony Bravia 8 II takes a very different approach. Rather than relying on conventional speaker placement, its Acoustic Surface Audio+ system uses actuators to vibrate the screen itself, effectively turning the display into a speaker.

The result is one of the most cohesive and convincing audio performances we've heard from a TV.

Dialogue and effects are tied directly to the action on screen in a way that traditional TV speaker systems struggle to replicate, creating a stronger sense that sound is genuinely coming from the people and objects you're watching.

Like the Hisense, the Sony also sounds surprisingly spacious, with effects extending well beyond the edges of the screen. Detail levels are excellent, too, and the Bravia 8 II combines subtle dynamic nuance with enough punch to make action scenes engaging and exciting.

Bass depth isn't as generous as it is from the Hisense, but it's impressively controlled, and the overall tonal balance is exceptionally well judged.

Ultimately, these are two of the best-sounding TVs you can currently buy. The Hisense delivers scale, warmth and impressive Atmos effects, but the Sony's superior detail, greater dynamic expression and uniquely direct delivery give it the edge.

WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Hisense UR9 vs Sony Bravia 8 II: verdict

The Hisense UR9 is a hugely important TV.

Not only is it the first mainstream RGB Mini LED TV we've fully reviewed, it's also the first serious attempt to take on flagship OLEDs with a fundamentally different display technology.

And the good news for RGB Mini LED fans is that, in some ways at least, it succeeds.

The UR9 is bright, vibrant and impressively refined. More importantly, it avoids many of the traditional pitfalls of backlit TVs, with excellent black levels, impressively restrained blooming and a consistency that often feels surprisingly OLED-like.

In several respects, it's one of the best backlit TVs we've ever tested.

But while the UR9 proves that RGB Mini LED is a genuinely exciting technology with enormous potential, it also demonstrates just how high the bar currently is at the top end of the OLED market.

Ultimately, picture quality remains the most important factor in any TV buying decision, and it's here that the Sony Bravia 8 II retains a clear advantage. The Hisense has the stronger gaming specification, broader HDR support and spectacular brightness, but the Sony's superior contrast control, greater three-dimensionality and more natural, cinematic image make it the more accomplished performer overall.

This isn't a verdict on RGB Mini LED versus OLED as technologies, and it certainly isn't the last battle in what is shaping up to be one of the most interesting periods in TV tech for years.

Instead, it’s the verdict on the very best OLED TV currently available versus the first mainstream RGB Mini LED model. And while the Hisense UR9 proves that RGB Mini LED is ready to compete with the very best, the Sony Bravia 8 II remains the TV to beat.

OVERALL WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

There’s a new HDR format in town to challenge Dolby Vision and HDR10+’s dominance; but there’s a catch that TV fans should be mindful of.

The HDR10+ Alliance – which, as the name suggests, is responsible for the HDR10+ format we see on countless TVs, projectors and smartphones – has announced Eclipsa Video, with support from two of the biggest technology companies, and one of the biggest media corporations, in the world.

The open-source video format is based on SMPTE 2094-50, a video specification recently developed by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Experts from Apple, Google and NBCUniversal are working to bring this new HDR standard into the mainstream.

Apple has been a keen advocate for Dolby’s picture and audio formats for quite some time, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service is the first service to support Dolby Vision 2. So seeing these companies working on an alternative format is something of a surprise. Opposing HDR formats have, nevertheless, lived in harmony on Philips, Panasonic, Hisense and TCL TVs in the past.

And if that “Eclipsa” name sounds familiar, you may already be aware of Eclipsa Audio. This immersive sound technology is based on the Immersive Audio Model and Format (IAMF) standard developed by Google and Samsung.

Details on exactly what Eclipsa Video will bring to the table are slim as yet, but the HDR10+ Alliance claims that it will ensure “highest-quality video on compatible smartphones and next-generation devices”.

And there is the catch we mentioned earlier: this new video format will be hitting smartphones first, with the first supported devices expected to launch later this year. Other device categories are expected to follow, but there is no specific information as to if and when Eclipsa Video will make its way to TVs.

The good news is that Eclipsa Video doesn’t seem to be replacing HDR10+, and the statement released by the HDR10+ Alliance seems to suggest it will even work alongside it.

It says that “Eclipsa Video seamlessly integrates with the broadly supported HDR10+ standard” and that devices that support it can carry the “Eclipsa Video powered by HDR10+” branding.

With that in mind, it seems as though Dolby Vision and HDR10+ can both breathe a sigh of relief for now, although we’re keeping a close eye on Eclipsa Video to see where it goes next.

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After months of teasers and snippets of information, Sony’s first line of RGB Mini LED TVs is finally here.

The Sony Bravia 9 II and the step-down Sony Bravia 7 II use ‘True RGB’ technology, which the company claims can offer “up to four times the colour volume of OLED” – and outdo the brightness of Mini LED.

Sony follows a host of other brands that have thrown their hat into the RGB Mini LED ring, with Hisense, Samsung and TCL all delivering their own take on the technology.

Some brands use two-diode LEDs for their RGB models. These employ green and blue diodes that shine light through a phosphor layer to generate colours.

But Sony is using independently controlled red, green and blue diodes, which the brand claims will deliver a more accurate image.

The TVs are also powered by Sony’s proprietary RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro, which the company says, “drives each LED with high precision, improving brightness, reducing blooming, and producing purer colour than conventional Mini LED displays”.

The Sony Bravia 9 II is the brand’s flagship ‘True RGB’ model.

It claims to reach the same peak brightness levels as the BVM-HX3110 mastering monitor, which goes up to 4000 nits. No official figure has been given for either new TV model, but if it goes as high as the monitor, we could be in for a very bright picture.

The flagship model is also powered by "RGB Triluminos Max and Luminance Booster Pro", which Sony claims delivers "smoother gradation, and accurate hues at higher brightness levels".

You can see the pricing of both the Bravia 7 II and Bravia 9 II below.

The TVs should launch in late spring with pre-orders available now. And we should have US and Australian pricing soon.

Both TVs offer Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support, which gives a comprehensive set of surround sound options.

While Sony says both models offer a three-dimensional audio experience, the Bravia 9 II has the edge with the inclusion of up-firing beam tweeters. The company says this delivers more cinematic surround sound with "powerful depth and true immersion".

You will find Dolby Vision support with both models but, like all Sony TVs, there is no HDR10+ on the cards.

They both also employ X-Wide Angle Pro technology, which Sony says means “colours stay consistent even at wide viewing angles”.

Only available with the Bravia 9 II is the Immersive Black Screen Pro feature, which aims to reduce screen reflections.

Both TVs have a central ‘mirage stand’ which uses a layer of clever transparent material to conceal wires under the base of your screen. This isn't available with the biggest screen sizes, however.

RGB LED TVs have already been dubbed as a possible “OLED killer” by many because of the higher colour volume and brightness claims.

We’ll have to wait until we get both models into our test room to see if the proof is in the pudding – but you can read our first impressions in our Bravia 7 II and Bravia 9 II hands-on reviews.

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High-end German AV brand Loewe is applying its premium touch to some pint-sized 4K TVs, launching two new models designed to offer a top-notch picture, without taking up too much space.

The We. SEE LCD dc (the dc stands for dual channel) comes in two sizes: 32- and 43-inches. As the name suggests, both sizes feature direct-lit LCD displays with full-array local dimming and 4K resolutions.

Loewe tells us that the 32-inch model features 260 dimming zones. Alongside it, the 43-inch version has 390 zones.

Small, 32-inch, 4K TVs are very rare. Loewe claims the atypically high-resolution panel will let the set deliver picture quality traditionally reserved for larger sets.

The We. SEE LCD is slated to deliver "deep blacks, vivid colours and finely tuned brightness control" according to Loewe. HDR support is also comprehensive, with HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision IQ listed as included formats.

Below the dinky displays, you'll find an integrated 60W soundbar, which also supports Dolby Atmos.

The We. SEE LCD is also compatible with Loewe's Klang wireless subwoofers for those seeking extra bass, or you can bypass the built-in speakers entirely by connecting an external audio device via HDMI eARC.

The TVs are also surprisingly well-equipped for gamers, with two HDMI 2.1 sockets (alongside two HDMI 2.0 ports), which both support VRR and ALLM. The 43-inch model specifically includes 4K/120Hz support. Sadly, the 32-inch model appears to be capped at 60Hz.

Streaming is handled by Loewe's os9 platform, which is underpinned by the VIDAA app store (as seen on Hisense TVs too). App support includes Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and more.

Loewe has also included its dual-channel technology, which takes advantage of the company's SL832 chassis and twin triple-tuner, to let users watch a show while recording another in the background.

You can also expect Loewe's usual combination of premium materials and craftsmanship. The We. SEE sports an aluminium chassis and a solid metal base for a high-quality and robust build throughout.

There are also various options to mount this TV, including tabletop, floor-standing and wall-mounted orientations. Loewe sells a range of stands to accommodate each setup option.

As these new models bear all of the expected markings of a Loewe TV, it should come as no surprise that they carry an equally Loewe-like price tag. At £1145 for the 32-inch model and £1335 for the 43-inch version, the prices put the range in the same ballpark as a 55-inch LG C6 OLED TV.

That price can be a tough pill to swallow for what is essentially a small backlit TV. Nevertheless, the We. SEE LCD dc is available now for any premium buyer who is short on space.

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Here it is, folks: our first full review of an RGB Mini LED TV.

We have previously run extensive hands-on tests of a couple of RGB Mini LED TVs – most notably the huge Hisense 116UX – but, due to their astonishing sizes and prices, we’ve had to do the testing outside our own facilities. In our world, that’s not a full review, so those TVs haven’t received star ratings.

The 65-inch Hisense UR9 we have before us today is designed to address the size and price issues that have until now prevented more people from hopping on the RGB Mini LED bandwagon.

This set, then, is leading the mainstream RGB Mini LED charge. And, while it’s a fair way short of perfect, particularly next to a flagship OLED TV, the UR9 is an impressive TV in its own right and a tantalising glimpse at the technology’s long-term potential.

Price

Price is always a hugely important factor whenever we test a product, but it’s particularly crucial to how the Hisense UR9 will be viewed.

In the UK, the launch price of £2999 places the 65-inch UR9 in the same category as flagship OLED TVs such as the new LG G6 and last year’s Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II.

In Australia, though, the AU$3999 price puts the Hisense UR9 up against step-down OLEDs such as the LG C6.

Most interestingly (and confusingly), while the announced launch price in the US was a super high-end $3500, when the TV actually arrived in shops, the tag was a vastly cheaper $2000, placing the UR9 in an entirely different category, below even step-down OLED models.

Essentially, then, this Hisense is a rather different proposition in each of those three regions. Seeing as we are UK-based and it’s a UK sample we’re reviewing, though, it’s the UK price that we are primarily working with here. And that means the UR9 is going to have to face off against the mighty Bravia 8 II QD-OLED.

Design

The Hisense UR9 is not one of those modern flagship TVs that disappears into your living room.

At 4.5cm thick, it’s decidedly chunky by current premium TV standards, particularly next to the impossibly slim OLED models with which it competes on price.

The rear panel is completely flat, though, which makes the UR9 fairly tidy for wall-mounting, and the overall build feels solid and substantial.

The TV’s general styling is perfectly pleasant, too, though it stops short of being genuinely luxurious. Bezels are slim enough, the dark metallic finish is smart, and the overall aesthetic is clean and restrained, but the UR9 lacks the slick elegance and premium flair of rivals such as the Sony Bravia 8 II and Samsung S99H/S95H.

Hisense has made some nice, practical decisions, though.

The centrally mounted pedestal stand has a relatively narrow footprint of around 42cm, making the UR9 easier to place on narrower furniture than many similarly sized rivals. It also offers two height positions, allowing you either to keep the screen sitting low and tidy or raise it slightly to create extra clearance for a soundbar.

Rows of tiny perforations run down both sides of the set, while larger openings line the top edge. These house the UR9’s side- and up-firing speakers, which form part of its integrated Devialet sound system.

Overall, then, the UR9 is more functional than fashionable – a practical, purposeful TV rather than a particularly glamorous one.

Features and specs

The headline feature here is, of course, the UR9’s RGB Mini LED backlight.

Unlike a conventional Mini LED TV, which uses a white backlight shining through a colour filter layer, the UR9 instead uses separate red, green and blue Mini LEDs to generate colour directly. In theory, this approach allows for both greater brightness and more precise colour reproduction.

Hisense claims peak brightness of up to 3500 nits for the 65-inch model we’re testing here, alongside 980 local dimming zones and a native 170Hz panel, all driven by the company’s Hi-View AI Engine RGB processor.

Gamers are generally very well served – with one unusual caveat. Unlike most premium TVs, which have four HDMI sockets, the UR9 has just three. These are accompanied by a PC-gaming-friendly DisplayPort connection – something that remains extremely rare on TVs.

Is a DisplayPort connection more valuable than a fourth HDMI socket? We have our doubts, but to a small number of very committed PC gamers, it may be very useful.

All three of the HDMI sockets are 2.1-specified, though, with support for 4K/170Hz (and the console-friendly 4K/120Hz), VRR and ALLM. Some brands, including Sony, still offer just two HDMI 2.1 sockets on their TVs.

The UR9’s input lag is decent rather than exceptional. We measured 32.5ms at 60Hz in the standard Game mode, though enabling the Refresh Rate setting reduces that figure to a more respectable, though far from groundbreaking, 24.6ms.

The UR9 supports every significant HDR format currently in use – HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision – plus the intelligent Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive variants that respond to ambient room lighting conditions.

It is also IMAX Enhanced certified, and the UK version of the TV features an anti-reflective, anti-glare screen coating that proves fairly effective at combating bright-room reflections.

Audio specifications are unusually ambitious by TV standards, too. The UR9 features a Devialet-tuned 4.1.2-channel speaker system with dedicated up-firing drivers, plus support for both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks.

In the UK and Australia, the UR9 runs Hisense’s own VIDAA smart platform, while the US version instead uses Google TV.

VIDAA still isn’t the prettiest smart system around, but it’s fast, responsive and logically laid out. App support is broadly very good, too, with all of the major streaming services and UK catch-up apps present and correctly supporting the relevant picture and sound formats.

There are, however, a few frustrating omissions. Most notably, the Apple TV app lacks access to the Apple TV store and users’ purchased libraries, so it can’t be used for movie purchases and rentals. That’s a real disappointment, as Apple’s pay-as-you-go store is the best around.

While far less important for a TV, it’s worth noting that music streaming support is sparse, too, with Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and Qobuz all absent. There are no cloud gaming apps, either.

The inclusion of Freely is welcome, though, as it allows live TV channels to be streamed over the internet without an aerial connection.

Picture quality

The Hisense UR9 makes a superb first impression. In fact, perhaps the most impressive thing about it is just how rarely it behaves like a traditional backlit TV.

Before getting into that, though, some setup advice is required, because the TV’s default HDR settings do it few favours.

When first fed HDR10 content, the UR9 automatically switches into its HDR Energy Saving mode which, despite its name, is surprisingly aggressive. Colours skew cool and bluish, motion processing is overly intrusive, and the overall image looks unnatural and overcooked.

HDR Standard and HDR Dynamic are similarly best avoided, both pushing sharpness, brightness and processing much too hard.

Thankfully, Filmmaker Mode proves far more successful. It delivers the most accurate and balanced picture of the available presets, and it quickly becomes our preferred overall option.

Interestingly, though, IMAX Cinema is also unusually compelling. While its underlying settings appear almost identical to those of Filmmaker Mode, it consistently produces a noticeably brighter and punchier image without obviously compromising balance or naturalism.

As a result, we would stick with Filmmaker Mode for dark-room and purist viewing, but happily switch to IMAX Cinema during the daytime or whenever we fancy a little extra visual intensity.

Once properly configured, the UR9 is an extremely accomplished performer.

Play 1917 on 4K Blu-ray, and the opening logos immediately demonstrate just how well controlled the TV’s backlight system is. Blooming around the bright white text is minimal, black depth is strong, and colours look rich, warm and nicely cinematic.

More importantly, the local-dimming system generally goes about its business without drawing attention to itself. Throughout our testing, the UR9 almost never exhibits the flickering, brightness pumping or visibly shifting backlight behaviour that can make many Mini LED TVs distracting.

That consistency quickly emerges as the UR9’s defining strength. While many bright Mini LED TVs constantly remind you that they are dynamically manipulating a backlight behind the scenes, the Hisense instead achieves a broadly very composed, stable and natural delivery that often feels surprisingly OLED-like.

Blade Runner 2049 showcases this particularly well. Black depth is consistently strong, shadow detail is excellent and subtle blooming is tightly controlled. There’s also impressive richness and stability to colours, especially reds, which look wonderfully pure and saturated without drifting into pink or magenta tones.

Extra-bright HDR material suits the UR9 especially well, too. Pan looks spectacular here, with dazzling highlights and bold, vibrant colours that comfortably outgun the Sony Bravia 8 II for outright brightness in many scenes. Sunlight bursting through clouds and glinting off the fantasy scenery of Neverland is delivered with real punch and intensity.

Crucially, though, the UR9 generally achieves this brightness without sacrificing balance. Skin tones remain natural, and there’s a pleasing cinematic warmth to the image – and it doesn’t drift into gaudiness.

Motion handling is strong, too. The default Film setting is decent enough, but switching Motion Enhancement to Clear results in noticeably smoother pans without introducing the distracting soap-opera effect or processing artefacts that such systems often create.

The notoriously difficult Matera cemetery and chase sequence from No Time To Die is handled particularly well, with impressively little judder to the panning shots and clean rendering of drifting smoke and rapid camera movement.

Dropping down to standard-def and SDR, our Kiss Kiss Bang Bang DVD is reproduced with pleasing warmth, strong detail and impressively clean upscaling. Colours are arguably pushed a touch too hard at times, but the overall presentation remains highly enjoyable and consistently cinematic.

For all of the UR9’s strengths, though, direct comparisons with a top-tier OLED TV still reveal the limitations of even this undeniably refined RGB Mini LED model. Despite its impressive local-dimming system, the Hisense simply cannot match the pixel-level contrast control of the Sony Bravia 8 II.

Extremely bright highlights against deep black backgrounds are sometimes handled slightly conservatively, presumably to avoid blooming. Perhaps counterintuitively, those bright white logos against pitch-black backgrounds appear more intense and impactful on the Sony OLED than on the much brighter, on paper, Hisense.

More significantly, the OLED TV produces a more solid and perceptually three-dimensional image across the board. Objects and characters stand out from their surroundings with greater depth and dynamism, while subtle gradations within clouds, shadows and highlights appear more convincing and refined, creating a more rounded look.

This isn’t a new phenomenon: we have documented that extra solidity you get from OLED plenty of times previously, most notably when we used the Sony Bravia 8 OLED as a comparison in our Bravia 9 Mini LED review. But it bears repeating for those who are choosing between an OLED and a backlit TV.

Viewing angles are another clear OLED advantage. While the UR9’s picture performance doesn’t entirely fall off a cliff when you move off-axis, the sweet spot in which it performs at its very best is surprisingly narrow.

And while the UR9 usually keeps blooming impressively well controlled, especially for a backlit TV, particularly torturous scenes can still expose its limitations.

The bomb-test sequence in Oppenheimer is a great example. From the UR9, there’s a slight general greying to the image, plus some visible glow around isolated spotlights in the darkness. The opening starfield of Alien: Romulus, meanwhile, reveals that the UR9 cannot simultaneously maintain truly inky blacks and perfectly intense star highlights in the way an OLED can.

To be clear, the Hisense performs well in these scenes by LCD standards, and many owners may never notice such shortcomings during normal viewing. But they do prevent the UR9 from truly matching the effortless contrast precision and dimensionality of the best OLED TVs.

Sound quality

Developed in partnership with Devialet, the UR9’s 4.1.2-channel speaker system delivers a surprisingly expansive and full-bodied presentation by TV standards, with particularly impressive width and height effects.

The Theatre sound mode is the most immediately striking of the available presets, producing a presentation that extends well beyond the physical boundaries of the TV and creating a convincing sense of spaciousness with Dolby Atmos soundtracks.

There’s decent bass depth, too, and the UR9 maintains good composure at high volumes, avoiding the harshness and distortion that can afflict many flatscreen TVs when pushed hard.

The overall presentation is smooth and rich in character, which makes the UR9 an easy and enjoyable listen over long viewing sessions.

It isn’t perfect, though. Dynamics are a little stunted, and action scenes lack some of the punch and excitement they deserve, while dialogue could be projected with greater clarity and emotional expression.

The Theatre mode also slightly overplays its hand at times. While its extra spaciousness is undeniably appealing, it introduces a faintly diffuse and echoey quality to voices, along with a slight sense of delay that makes speech sound less natural than it should.

As a result, we find ourselves preferring the Standard sound mode for most content. It still sounds pleasantly spacious and open, but delivers dialogue with greater focus and cohesion while maintaining good weight and scale.

Ultimately, while even a modest dedicated soundbar will comfortably outperform it, the UR9’s audio system is better than that of most TVs, even at this lofty level.

Verdict

In several ways, the Hisense UR9 is one of the best backlit TVs we have ever tested.

Most of the time, you’re not even made aware that it is a backlit TV, so good are its black levels, its control of blooming and its consistent, flicker-free contrast.

While it is possible to trip up the backlight, it’s quite hard to do so, and many buyers may never see an unsightly bloom in their period of UR9 ownership.

But while this first mainstream RGB Mini LED TV is broadly mercifully free of the flaws that generally afflict backlit TVs, it still can’t match the overall picture quality of the best OLED models.

The pixel-level contrast control of OLED brings benefits in several areas. There are the notably brighter highlights on very dark backgrounds that even accomplished backlit sets, such as the UR9, are too cautious to go all guns blazing with for fear of blooming. There are the almost flawless viewing angles, too, which the UR9 is a long way from matching.

The biggest thing, though, is the generally more solid, more perceptually three-dimensional image that OLED provides. Next to the Bravia 8 II, the Hisense UR9 simply looks flatter, less dynamic and less impactful.

Ultimately, as enjoyable and technically impressive as the UR9 is, we can’t think of a good reason you would buy it over a flagship-grade OLED, and that’s the level at which Hisense is pitching it – at least in the UK.

Of course, if you are someone who has a flagship-level budget for their next TV and a general aversion to OLED, the Hisense UR9 should be right around the top of your list.

If you’re a UK buyer, it’s probably a good idea to wait and see if we get a massive US-style discount before placing an order, though.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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Yamaha has announced two affordable new AV receivers, both featuring Dolby Atmos and an anti-resonance feature from the brand's high-end models.

The 7.2-channel RX500A and 5.2-channel RX300A should please gamers – while each model has just four HDMI inputs (a relatively small number by AVR standards), they all support 4K/120Hz (and 8K/60Hz), VRR and ALLM.

Passthrough of Dolby Vision and HDR10+ signals is also supported.

We're promised "exceptionally stable and reliable high-quality playback", garnered from Yamaha's years in AV receiver development.

You also get Yamaha's Anti-Resonance Technology (A.R.T.) Wedge, which is usually only found on Yamaha's high-end models.

This centre-mounted fifth foot works with the four outer feet to disperse vibrations – Yamaha says this creates "exceptional stability, with focused, accurate sound."

Room correction comes as standard, so you can get decent sound no matter how oddly shaped your room is. There are also buttons for Quick Guide (which walks you through setup) and Scene (i.e. custom presets).

The RX500A is network compatible, giving you access to all the big streaming services – Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect and Qobuz Connect – as well as AirPlay 2 and Google Cast wireless tech. It can also unlock digital music stored locally within your home.

The Atmos delivery will be interesting to test, particularly in the case of the 5.2-channel RX300A, which can be switched to a 3.1.2-channel configuration to deliver the 3D audio format. In other words, the surround channels are sacrificed in the name of height channels.

The RX500A can be configured in a 5.1.2-channel arrangement, which is much more common for entry-level Atmos setups.

A heatsink above the HDMI circuitry keeps the heat under control, and HDMI eARC functionality brings audio and video from your TV to the receiver in one cable.

There are Sound Modes to tailor the sound to what you're listening to. Musical purist? You'll want Pure Direct and Stereo modes. Cinephile? Movie mode is for you, as it gives you "maximum cinematic impact". Watching at night? Night mode reduces volume while maintaining the balance, so it won't wake the kids or ruin your enjoyment.

The Yamaha RX300A is out in August for £349 (around $475 / AU$650), and the RX500A is out in September, price TBC.

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Isn't it frustrating when things don't just work?

I'm used to my fair share of software gremlins in the products I test every day, which makes troubleshooting my system at home a bit easier. The usual answer is to turn something off and turn it back on again, but that solution doesn't solve every issue.

The problem I've been having relates to playing Dolby Vision content to my Sony OLED TV via my Sky Stream box, which results in some odd visual artefacts: little white spots flashing up randomly when streaming content in the dynamic HDR format.

Most people, including my housemates, would gladly ignore these, but not me. Instead, I began trawling through the settings of my TV and Sky Box, and swapping between the HDMI sockets to negate the issue.

Nothing seemed to work, and if I used the passthrough HDMI socket on my soundbar, then the picture would cut out entirely.

This is when it dawned on me: is my HDMI cable not up to the task? Scrolling through the Sky forums, I found many users claiming that the Stream puck comes with a high-speed cable, and one post even claimed that it's a better idea to use the cable that comes in the box.

However, being the rulebreaker that I am, I disregarded this advice. One perk of being surrounded by AV and home cinema gear 24/7 is that I am never short of an HDMI cable, and I quickly found a 4K-rated high-speed cable.

I switched the cables around, played the latest episode of the once excellent, now extremely disappointing Euphoria on HBO Max in 4K Dolby Vision, and like magic, the issues were resolved.

It sounds simple and obvious, but I think many of us, myself included, just presume that the cables supplied with our home cinema products should do the job, but that's not the case.

Now, I know that discussing digital cables is a contentious subject. Many of our readers have expressed disdain towards the pricey "snake oil" HDMI cables that make all sorts of claims and can run you hundreds (sometimes thousands) of pounds, and to be honest, I'd recommend steering clear of those too, unless you are the most die-hard home cinema enthusiast with money to burn.

But your run-of-the-mill certified high-speed HDMI cable is the real deal, and one of those doesn't have to cost all that much. I've spotted plenty on Amazon for anywhere between £5 and £10, and they can be a quick, cheap and effective way to solve issues in your home cinema set-up.

And for troubleshooting needs, it's surprising how often a picture-related issue can be fixed by double-checking that you're using the correct HDMI cable and socket.

While I'm at it, some TVs require you to select the correct setting for your HDMI sockets; for instance, my previous Philips OLED907 and current Sony A80L TVs required me to go into the input settings and select "enhanced format" to unlock some HDMI 2.1 features, including VRR and 120Hz gaming.

These are simple fixes that often get overlooked, so if you're dealing with picture problems of your own, do yourself a favour and check your cables before you start spiralling in the settings menus.

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Check out our picks for the best OLED TVs

As well as the best streaming devices

And read our full Sky Stream review

TCL has announced its latest answer to the art TV craze, and it's packing an upgrade that could see it produce a better quality picture than most of its rivals.

The A4000 Pro NXTVISION blends style and substance, with a frame-like chassis that challenges Samsung's super popular The Frame and Hisense's Canvas TV.

It's designed to blend seamlessly into your living room environment, and when paired with the Art Gallery mode (which features curated artwork and AI-generated content) and included walnut woodgrain frame, it doubles as a versatile piece of wall art when not in use.

Sounds familiar so far, right? Well, TCL hopes to set its offering apart by bringing the picture quality up to standard, as some of the frame TVs on the market sacrifice panel tech for the sake of design.

Not TCL, though, as it has included its precise QD-Mini LED backlight on this TV, and paired it with a matte HVA panel, which should improve viewing angles. That's quite a step up over Hisense's edge-lit QLED Canvas TV.

TCL claims to have included up to 488 dimming zones (presumably this refers to the largest 75-inch screen size), and the A4000 Pro also supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

Furthermore, this TV can support gaming signals up to 4K/144Hz over HDMI 2.1, with VRR and ALLM supported, making this a solid choice for gamers and home decor aficionados alike.

TCL has also included the Google TV smart platform and an Onkyo-tuned 2.0 channel sound system, which supports Dolby Atmos and DTS Audio. It says that "dialogue is clear and immersive without requiring an external audio set-up" on the A4000 Pro NXTVISION, which will appeal to minimalists who don't want trailing cables.

This TV comes in four sizes, starting at 43 inches, and it undercuts both of the rivals we've mentioned above. The 55-inch model starts at £899, which seems like a bargain compared to the equivalent Hisense, which we reviewed at £1099.

Samsung's 2026 Frame Pro (which is also billed as a Mini LED art TV), comes in at a staggering £1699 for the 55-inch model, which makes the TCL also look like a steal by comparison.

The TCL A4000 Pro NXTVISION is set to launch later this year, and you can see pricing for all sizes below:

• 75A400 PRO-UK – £1,399
• 65A400 PRO-UK – £1,099
• 55A400 PRO-UK – £899
• 43A400 PRO-UK – £599
  

MORE:

Read our full Hisense Canvas review

Check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

And read our full TCL C7K review

It’s early days for 2026 TVs, with some brands (Sony, for one) yet to reveal their full ranges – but I’ve already spotted a front-runner for TV of the year, and it’s probably not the model you’re expecting.

The model I’m talking about is the Philips OLED951.

In picture terms, this is Philips’ flagship TV for 2026, and while many brands seem to be taking a fairly evolutionary approach to their OLEDs this year, Philips is really pushing the boat out.

On paper, it ticks almost every box: picture performance, gaming features, spectacular flourishes and future-proofing.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the on-paper promise will translate to real-world perfection, and we’ll have to conduct a full review before we can deliver our verdict on that.

But, having now briefly seen it in action, I think there’s a good chance the OLED951 can really deliver.

Here, then, are seven reasons I think this Philips flagship OLED could end up being the TV of 2026.

It’s an OLED

An obvious one this, but the Philips OLED951 is… well… an OLED.

That’s a good thing in my book. The RGB Mini LED invasion is upon us, and there are some very good RGB Mini LEDs already out and on the way (including one from Philips), but I’m yet to see any evidence that the technology’s various strengths are a match for the pixel-level contrast control of OLED.

Perfect black pixels next to bright white or coloured ones make for unbeatable contrast, which has benefits right across the picture, particularly in terms of solidity and perceived three-dimensionality.

An OLED-beating RGB Mini LED TV might one day materialise – I’m open to that – but I predict that in 2026, at least, the best TV will be an OLED.

Brighter than the LG G6

We’ve written plenty of times about how brightness is a long way from the most important thing for a TV to deliver.

Still, lots of brightness headroom can be useful for a TV to deliver the goods in a brightly lit room. It also adds a degree of future-proofing, just in case Hollywood suddenly starts mastering lots of movies to 4000 nits (something I see very little evidence of, for what it’s worth).

Brightness isn’t going to be an issue for the OLED951, though, because Philips claims it can hit a peak brightness figure of 4500 nits, and a full-screen brightness of 400 nits.

Those are improvements over last year’s already very bright OLED950 of 800 and 50 nits, respectively.

Those figures, if achieved, will also make the OLED951 a good deal brighter than the LG G6, which shares a ‘Meta 4.0’ Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel with it – something that Philips says is down to its unique picture engine.

But will those figures be achieved? Having seen the OLED951 running against the OLED950 (see the photo above), it certainly looks like it. The OLED951 looked so much brighter that the figures given actually seem conservative.

And this isn’t just brightness for the sake of brightness, either, because, as we’ve seen in our own testing, when increased brightness is combined with OLED’s perfect black and pixel-level light control, the result is even greater contrast, which, as mentioned above, tends to make images look more solid and three-dimensional.

That was certainly the case in the side-by-side demo – the OLED951 really popped.

Four HDMI 2.1 sockets and custom settings for every game

Finally, Philips’ flagship OLEDs (and most of its other models, in fact) will have four HDMI 2.1 sockets.

These will all be able to accept gaming signals of up to 4K/165Hz, complete with VRR and HDR, including in the Dolby Vision format.

Sure, LG and Samsung have been offering OLEDs with four HDMI 2.1 sockets for years, but when combined with everything else the OLED951 offers (more of which I’ll get to), that still makes it a tantalising proposition for gamers.

Another feature that will appeal to gamers like me is the ability to customise settings for individual titles.

These settings can be designed to improve the picture (extra brightness and vibrancy for Rocket League, perhaps, and a darker, broodier presentation for Alan Wake II), give you an advantage over online rivals (through an onscreen crosshair or enhanced shadow detail, for instance), or deliver geeky gaming info such as the current frame rate.

If you’re a gaming picture quality obsessive, that’s very neat.

Ambilight and AmbiScape

Look, I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, and I certainly don’t think it makes sense for all content, but Ambilight – which extends the onscreen action onto the wall around the TV in the form of coloured light – remains a spectacular feature.

And now your room lights can be synchronised with what you’re watching more easily, too. This isn’t an entirely new feature, but previously, you needed Hue bulbs.

Now, thanks to the new AmbiScape feature, lights that conform to the Matter standard will be supported – and there are loads of those. That will make it far more affordable and flexible to get your lounge lights in on the Ambilight action.

Again, this won’t be an upgrade for all content, but play the aforementioned Rocket League, and it’s impossible not to get an extra thrill when a goal creates a flash of brilliant colour right across your room. It works brilliantly for colourful animated movies, too, such as the Spider-Verse series.

Dolby Vision 2

Will Dolby Vision 2 be a big deal in 2026? There’s a strong possibility it won’t be, as we’ve still had no news on actual content in the format.

It is coming at some point, though, and our first looks at it in action have been very impressive, so if you’re buying a TV this year, it’s well worth considering going for a model that supports the format.

That makes Philips’ new OLED951, OLED911 and OLED811 particularly appealing, because they will be the first OLED TVs to support Dolby Vision 2. In fact, they will also support the even more advanced Dolby Vision 2 Max, which adds, among other things, the very interesting Authentic Motion feature.

The Dolby Vision 2 and 2 Max support will be added via a post-launch software update (October is the current ETA), but don’t go thinking that 2026 OLEDs from other brands will follow suit: Dolby Vision 2 also needs to be baked into the hardware, and based on what we’ve been told so far, this hasn’t been done in the case of, for example, LG’s new models.

Excellent anti-reflection tech

Fighting reflections is a key theme in current TV development.

It’s probably fair to say that Samsung is best at it: its top OLEDs suppress reflections incredibly effectively.

But it does this by using a matte panel, and that tends to make blacks look quite grey in a well-lit room.

The new Meta 4.0 OLED panel from LG Display, though, suppresses more reflections than the previous version while still retaining the glossy finish that allows it to produce almost perfect blacks, even in strong ambient light.

According to official figures, the reflectance has been reduced from 0.6 per cent to 0.3 per cent. That doesn’t sound like a huge change, but in reality, it makes a clear difference.

We first saw this new anti-reflection tech in the G6, which massively impressed us with its combination of reflection suppression and deep blacks, and it looked equally excellent in the demo of the OLED951 against last year’s OLED950.

This is one of those things that really comes down to taste, with some people being perfectly happy with the matte look of the Samsung models. I personally prefer the glossy look, though, and the new panel in the LG G6 and Philips OLED951 strikes the best balance of anti-reflectivity and black performance that I’ve so far seen.

Dual Engine picture processing

Those already in the know about Philips’ 2026 TV lineup might be wondering why I’m getting all excited about the OLED951 rather than the OLED911.

After all, everything I’ve written so far also applies to the OLED911, and the OLED911 also has a Bowers & Wilkins sound system that, if form is to be believed, will make it one of, if not the, best-sounding TV in its class.

The reason is that the OLED951 has the Dual Engine version of Philips’ new 10th Gen P5 AI processor, whereas the OLED911 has the single-chip version. This unlocks some extra picture processing features that should further improve certain things, such as bright details and banding suppression.

The difference perhaps won’t be huge – we’ll need to fully test both models to find out – but as someone who subscribes to the ‘all TVs should be partnered with a dedicated sound system’ philosophy, I’ll always choose the potential for better picture quality over a better sound system.

You may feel differently, of course, and that’s fine. If that’s the case, I strongly recommend you read Lewis Empson’s Philips OLED911 hands-on.

That also looks like an excellent TV – but on paper (and from what I’ve seen of it so far), the OLED951 is the one that ticks every box for me.

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Could Sony's True RGB be the RGB Mini LED tech to beat OLED?

April is usually when practically every TV manufacturer has officially unveiled its lineup of TVs for the year, and I've had the pleasure of seeing almost every new model in the flesh.

From new Primary RGB Tandem OLED flagships, to game-changing RGB Mini LED sets, and even affordable mid-range models (both Mini LED and OLED), the 2026 TV market is officially in full swing after a busy string of launches.

I started my year at CES, where Samsung and LG stole the spotlight with flagship OLED TVs, and from there I've attended hands-on events with Panasonic, Philips, Hisense and TCL to see each company's respective new TV ranges.

While we're still yet to hear from Sony about what it has up its sleeve (especially in the wake of its partnership with TCL), it's looking like a majority of the big players in the TV world have locked in their lineups.

I've selected the five that have caught my eye most at these events, and even included a bonus option which boasts some major improvements over its disappointing predecessor.

1. Philips OLED911

Kicking things off with Philips, the OLED911 is a sequel to one of my favourite TVs of 2025. The OLED910 offered up a picture experience that truly rivalled the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II, and there was no competition when it came to sound performance.

Its sequel, the OLED911, was unveiled at Philips' Unboxed Event in Berlin last month, and it stole the spotlight at the showcase.

It sports a second-generation Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel with an even higher claimed brightness figure than its predecessor and improved anti-reflective qualities to combat glare from ambient light.

Furthermore, it features a major upgrade for gamers: four HDMI 2.1 sockets (all of which support up to 4K/165Hz with VRR and ALLM), and it is also the first OLED TV in the world to support Dolby Vision 2 Max.

Rounding things off with the improved 81W Bowers & Wilkins sound system, which includes a slimmer rear-mounted subwoofer with four passive radiators, and dedicated left, right and centre channels, all of which feature dual 45mm midrange glass-fibre drivers alongside a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter.

This TV is feature-packed, and it comes in a slick new design as well, which makes it one of my top TVs to watch out for in 2026.

Read our Philips OLED911 hands on review

2. TCL C7L

While the pricey OLEDs are unquestionably the more eye-catching sets I've seen at these events, I've also been on the lookout for some of the more affordable options, which are guaranteed to shake up the mid-range TV market in 2026.

Case in point, the TCL C7L, which is a follow-up to the Award-winning C7K. Spotted at the company's Nxt Home launch in Paris last month, the C7L stood out thanks to its new Super Quantum Dot Mini LED (SQD-Mini LED) display, which promises more dimming zones, higher brightness figures, and better colour accuracy.

It's got big shoes to fill, but the TCL C7L promises to make some big picture upgrades over its five-star predecessor, which was enough to get me excited during my brief hands-on time with the new Mini LED set.

Read our TCL C7L hands on review

3. Samsung S99H/S95H

If we were giving out an Award for the luxurious TV of 2026, then Samsung's new S99H (S95H in the US) would have already won.

This new flagship OLED TV sports a brighter QD-OLED panel (Samsung claims there's a 700 nit upgrade in the TV's movie picture mode), and there have also been reported improvements to colour reproduction and banding visibility in lower-quality content.

Samsung has also made some changes to the One Connect system. The TV sports four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets housed within the main chassis. However, there is also an optional wireless One Connect box, which expands this to a whopping eight HDMI 2.1 sockets.

These upgrades sit inside a new, premium chassis that incorporates a Frame-style metal bezel, on which the QD-OLED panel sits to create a floating effect. I've seen this TV wall-mounted, and paired with the matte display finish, it really does look like a work of art.

I was treated to an early sighting of this TV at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea, and was there to see its official unveiling at CES 2026. Despite being severely jet-lagged in both instances, this TV was an absolute showstopper at both events.

Read our Samsung S95H hands on review

4. Hisense UR8

2026 is a big year for backlit TVs, as the next generation of Mini LED panel technology is here.

RGB Mini LED was introduced on a handful of 2025 TVs, namely a 115-inch Samsung model and a 116-inch Hisense. It should come as no surprise that these gargantuan TVs with their first-generation panel technology are wildly expensive.

Thankfully, that's all about to change in 2026. Hisense isn't the only company to welcome the new panel technology into its line up this year; however, it wants to be known as the RGB Mini LED brand, and the UR8 is just one of its new models.

With promises of high brightness figures and rich, pure colours, Hisense is really going all-in on the new panel technology, which hopes to succeed Quantum Dot Mini LED.

Interestingly, I've opted for the cheapest RGB Mini LED in the range, which I came face-to-face with in Munich, Germany, last month.

This is mostly because I, and many others, presumed that a new panel technology would equal huge introductory price tags, and yet Hisense claims that this step-down model – which comes in 55-, 65- and 75-inches – will hit the market at a "competitive" price.

Read our Hisense UR8 hands on review

5. Panasonic Z86C/Z85C

Speaking of step-down TVs, Panasonic has only announced one new OLED TV this year, and it's unfortunately not a successor to the excellent Z95B from 2025. Instead, Panasonic (which is now producing its European TVs in collaboration with Chinese AV brand Skyworth) unveiled the Z86C (Z85C in Europe) at its event (also in Munich) earlier this year.

This entry-level OLED TV sports LG Display's new OLED SE panel technology, which removes the polariser to cut back on costs. This will, of course, reduce the TV's ability to combat glare and reflections, but for dark-room viewing, the Z85C should be just fine.

With its 120Hz refresh rate, supported by two HDMI 2.1 sockets, the Z86C is also a solid choice for gamers. In my brief experience with the TV, I found that even at this entry-level point with a stripped-back panel, the contrast and black depths that OLED brings to the table were unquestionably great, even if this TV didn't quite rival its Award-winning Z90B counterpart.

Read our Panasonic Z86C hands on review

Bonus: Sony Bravia 3 II

I'm sneaking in this TV as a bonus option, and I'm even breaking my own rules here as it's not a TV I've seen in the flesh. It's no secret that the Sony Bravia 3, which I reviewed last year, was a bit disappointing, especially by Sony's usually excellent TV standards.

It ultimately came down to the hardware limitation; the Bravia 3 featured a 60Hz direct-lit LED panel with no QLED layer, which made it feel quite expensive, especially considering it outpriced the Award-winning TCL C7K (which featured a 120Hz QD-Mini LED display).

I have to give credit where credit is due though; Sony has come back with a MKII refresh which directly addresses my gaming-focused concerns, and it even brings something new to the table for Sony TVs.

While we don't get Mini LED or even QLED here, it does now feature a 120Hz panel and four, yes four, HDMI 2.1 sockets to support gaming features.

Better yet, the Bravia 3 II now comes with Sony's XR processor, which has worked wonders in its more expensive TVs, especially when it comes to enhancing the sharpness and solidity of the image.

While I feel as though Sony could (and probably should) have crammed in another upgrade or two, these are certainly steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, this TV isn't currently slated to come to the UK yet, meaning we'll have to wait to see if this TV is an improvement over its predecessor.

Find out more about the Sony Bravia 3 II here

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Read our full LG C6 65-inch review

Check out our picks for the best OLED TV

As well as the best Mini LED TV

Soundbars and soundbar systems with subwoofers and surround speakers are pretty great home cinema sound solutions. But, however well they perform, they aren’t the real deal.

To get serious home cinema sound, in a dedicated space, it is still very much the case that a full separates system has to be the way to go.

By that, we mean a (necessarily) expensive true 4K projector, backed up by a top Blu-ray player and video streamer, and a sound system comprising a hefty AV amplifier and separate loudspeakers.

Which – who would have thought it? – is what we have for you here. This is a premium home cinema system intended for the serious enthusiast and housed as a permanent fixture in a dedicated screening room.

The one we have all been secretly yearning for, in other words.

The system

• Projector: Sony Bravia Projector 8 (£15,999)
• Blu-ray player: Panasonic DP-UB9000 (£999)
• Streaming box: Apple TV 4K (£149)
• AV amplifier: Marantz Cinema 30 (£3499)
• Speaker system: KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 (£2549)
• Total system price: £23,995

The projector

We lead things off with the magnificent Sony Bravia Projector 8 (VPL-XW6100ES). This native 4K laser projector is a worthy successor to the Award-winning XW7000ES.

Sony’s strength with its projectors has always been contrast, and the Bravia 8 is exceptional in this regard.

It delivers stunning black depth – a rarity in the projector world – and ensures that dark scenes, such as the night sky of Gotham in The Batman, are deep and imposing, and refrain from straying into the murky grey seen on many rivals – even some at this price.

The new XR Processor, a version modified from Sony’s high-end OLED TVs, brings features such as XR Dynamic Tone Mapping and XR Deep Black to further enhance light control and detail.

Detail levels are a standout, presenting complex patterns and textures with remarkable fidelity. Colour rendition, too, is superb.

As we say in our review: “skin tones are balanced and well-judged, resulting in a lively yet not overcooked presentation across a range of pigments.

"They’re exceptionally balanced and realistic, too, while also having the necessary punch to draw the eye.

"Speaking of which, the eye at the beginning of Blade Runner 2049 features a stunning array of blues and greens, with a rich presentation that blends the colours in a smooth gradient.”

This projector is great for gamers too, with an improved 2.1 specification on both HDMI sockets. It supports 4K/120Hz signals with Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), and it has an impressively low input lag of 12ms.

This is truly a projector that delivers on the promise of a premium, large-screen experience.

The AV amplifier

At the heart of any great home cinema is an AV receiver capable of both refinement and brute force, and the Marantz Cinema 30 delivers in spades. This is a premium unit that justifies its price with an equally premium performance.

The amp’s ability to place sounds precisely in three-dimensional space combines with a knack for producing an absolutely huge and enveloping soundscape.

Detailed sound effects – crumbling plaster, dripping water, an electrical short and a high-pitched alarm – appear from all around you and together fill the room. Importantly, you hear the sounds, not the speakers.

Marantz has tuned this 11-channel amplifier to work beautifully with music as well as movies. A switch to Pure Direct means we can listen to just the front stereo channels, and the delivery is far superior to most AV amplifiers.

It’s quite likely that in a set-up such as this, the amplifier will be hidden away, to do its thing out of sight. If it does find itself out on display, however, this is a rather attractive unit by AV amp standards, with its small ‘porthole’ display.

More importantly, it is very well specified, with a whopping seven HDMI 2.1 inputs that support 4K/120Hz. It would be nigh-on impossible for even the most ardent enthusiast to run out of sockets to plug things into.

The speaker system

And making the most of the Marantz amplifier’s impressive abilities, we have the Award-winning KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 Speaker System.

This stylish package is headlined by a pair of five-star Q Concerto Meta standmounts, with support from the Q1 Meta surrounds, the Q6 Meta centre channel, and the formidable Kube 12 MIE subwoofer.

For the full Dolby Atmos experience, a couple of pairs of KEF Q8 Meta Dolby ‘toppers’ will set you back an additional £599 a pair. And in this system, that is certainly a worthwhile investment.

We’re treated to a muscular and rich, yet agile presentation from the Q Concerto Meta system.

This system sounds big and bold, enveloping us in engaging sound from all angles, but it refrains from losing focus and becoming sluggish as a result.

There is plenty of low-end punch, with the subwoofer delivering its gut-punch of low end while remaining in total control. And there’s no flab or waffle here; the KEF Kube 12 MIE delivers a powerful and dynamic low-end kick.

Voices are conveyed with clarity and texture, underpinned by an impressive handling of low-level dynamics. This results in a truly natural and realistic representation of voices with excellent projection, which is aided by how forthright and crisp this centre channel sounds.

It manages to remain well integrated into the system as a whole while it does it, which is impressive indeed. The left, right and centre speakers mesh seamlessly, and these in turn gel with the surrounds, leaving no noticeable gaps in between the channels.

The system’s brilliance, then, lies in its stunning sonic cohesion.

The Blu-ray player

To make the best of the superb projector and the powerhouse (yet subtle when appropriate) sonic package, you will need the best when it comes to sources to feed it.

As ever, we recommend physical media for this whenever possible – a wired connection will pretty much always provide a more stable connection than anything being passed through the air.

That means 4K Blu-ray. Enter the Panasonic DP-UB9000.

The Blu-ray player market has struggled over the past five years or so, with the dominance of video streaming. New players into the market are few and far between. So it’s a good job that the old-timers that are still hanging around are such stunning performers.

The UB9000 offers supreme picture quality, and is a machine that will give sterling service for many years.

The streaming box

It is unrealistic to expect any home cinema to rely on physical media alone, though. Video streaming is here to stay, and picture quality is improving all the time.

The very best, most consistent quality, though, comes from Apple’s remarkably good Apple TV 4K.

We find it to be clearly the best performer compared with its many rivals – which is why it so merits its place in this brilliant home-cinema set-up.

These are the best projectors and best AV receivers you can buy right now

We rank the best surround sound systems

TCL ruled the affordable TV roost in 2025.

The 65-inch C8K is the best premium TV that we've seen from the brand to date, and the genuinely cheap 50-inch C6KS took home a What Hi-Fi? Award thanks to its excellent picture quality and diminutive price tag.

However, the sweet spot from the Chinese AV giant's 2025 range is the C7K. We called it the "performance-per-pound champ" thanks to its "super-aggressive pricing, much-improved Mini LED backlighting and expansive Quantum Dot colour"; it should be pretty clear why we like this TV as much as we do.

So, you can imagine our delight when we came face-to-face with its successor, the C7L, during the company's Nxt Home event in Paris. While our first encounter was fleeting, the claimed upgrades are enough to pique our interest.

We have a few initial thoughts and some impressive specs to share, but our complete review will come further down the line, once we've fully tested the C7L in our dedicated AV testing facility.

Price

TCL hasn't shared pricing information for the C7L yet, but it promises that it's coming soon. As long as it can get the price on par with the C7K, we'll be happy.

We reviewed the 65-inch version of that TV at £899 initially; however, at the time of writing, it can be snagged for just £749. That's mind-boggling value for a TV of this size and ability, so we hope TCL is equally aggressive with this sequel.

Design

As you'll see from our hands-on pictures, TCL opted to showcase the C7L by mounting it on a wall. That makes judging the build quality and design fairly tricky.

We have seen photographs of the TCL C7L with its stand attached, though, and it looks almost identical to the C7K.

That means we can expect a fairly substantial centrally mounted pedestal stand and slim bezels surrounding the screen; that said, the pictures we've seen suggest this TV may be slightly slimmer than its predecessor.

If we're being honest, the build wasn't exactly the highlight of last year's C7K. It's quite a chunky and plasticky TV, though (as we mentioned in our full review), that's to be expected for "a premium TV being sold for a barely even mid-range price".

Features

Here's where things get exciting.

TCL is introducing the next generation of its Quantum Dot Mini LED panel technology this year, and it sounds like the C7L will be among a handful of models (including the C8L and X11L) getting a superpowered upgrade.

The new panel technology is called Super Quantum Dot Mini LED (or SQD-Mini LED for short), and it incorporates a few key picture upgrades.

TCL highlights its new Deep Colour System, which it claims will help to reduce colour bleed between light and dark areas, so colours remain natural and authentic in scenes with challenging contrast.

Furthermore, TCL says that there has been a 33 per cent improvement in colour gamut performance and a 69 per cent improvement in colour dot accuracy, which should result in richer, more authentic colours and enhanced subtlety and precision, respectively.

On top of this, TCL is touting better light control as part of its new SQD-Mini LED panels. It has blooming in its sights, and it says that it aims to "effectively minimise" the presence of the halo effect through its All-Domain Halo Control System.

Realistically, we're not expecting an OLED-level experience here, but TCL is promising a "more natural and immersive" experience when it comes to the most challenging hurdle for most backlit TVs.

Speaking of the backlight, TCL has been very forthcoming with the C7L's number of dimming zones and claimed peak brightness figures.

The 55-inch model will reportedly sport 800 precise dimming zones, the 65-inch version will have 1152 dimming zones, the 75-inch model will feature 1352 dimming zones, the 85-inch version will have 1624, and the 98-inch screen size will cram in an impressive 2176 precise dimming zones.

Brightness-wise, TCL says that the 55-inch model will max out at 2700 nits, whereas the other models (65- to 98-inches) will feature a slightly higher peak brightness figure of 3000 nits. For reference, the 65-inch C7K that we tested had a claimed peak brightness of 2600 nits.

TCL is also outfitting the C7L with its HVA 2.0 Pro Panel technology, which should supposedly support wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees, and greatly reduce reflectivity, even in high-brightness environments (making this, on paper, ideal for daytime living-room viewing).

As is the case with its existing range, the C7L continues the company's HDR agnostic approach. This means it supports Dolby Vision (with Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Vision Gaming), HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG. Sound is also covered thanks to Dolby Atmos support, and this TV is among a select few to natively support Dolby Atmos FlexConnect.

We'll quickly touch on built-in audio, too. TCL is continuing its partnership with Danish high-end hi-fi brand Bang & Olufsen, and this TV (like its predecessor) sports a sound system that's been tuned by B&O.

TCL didn't go into much detail regarding driver configurations or power output, but we expect something similar to the C7K's sound system.

Gamers should also feel right at home on the C7L.

The TV sports a native 144Hz refresh rate with VRR, although TCL's Game Accelerator feature will reportedly allow you to double the refresh rate to 288Hz (at Full HD resolution rather than 4K), while also retaining VRR.

TCL also claims that it has reduced latency on this new model for improved response time, and ALLM is also supported.

Finally, the C7L will support Google TV for a wide range of streaming apps. Based on our experience with the C7K, we expect it to carry the version that supports all of the terrestrial UK streaming platforms, alongside the ever-expanding list of global streaming apps.

Picture quality

As is the case with many of the TVs that we see at these hands-on events, the C7L featured a looping roll of demo content that doesn't entirely represent real-world content.

Furthermore, it looked as though the C7L wasn't in one of its most authentic picture modes, but that's to be expected, as TCL wants to show off this TV's new brightness and colour capabilities to their fullest.

This seems to have worked, as the C7L was mounted on a wall with several other TVs, and yet it stood out the most among the bunch. This is mostly due to the rich, vibrant colours exhibited by the set, paired with the improved brightness.

While this did throw up some over-saturated colours – notably in the case of some concerningly neon foliage – we're fairly sure we could wrangle these colours back into a more natural state by switching over to Filmmaker Mode.

One of the demo shots simply showed a white TCL logo on an all-black background, and while it's early days, we were impressed by how deep the blacks looked for a backlit TV.

The blooming control around the TCL logo was fairly impressive too: while there was unquestionably a white glow around the company's logo, it seemed fairly localised and controlled.

We'll need to test the C7L further, in a more accurate picture mode, to further assess colour accuracy, motion and detail levels with real-life content, but we can certainly see where TCL is going with this SQD-Mini LED panel tech from this brief introduction.

Sound quality

Disappointingly, TCL didn't demo the C7L's built-in sound system. Despite it carrying the name of a notable high-end hi-fi manufacturer, we didn't get to hear it at TCL's event, so we'll have to reserve judgment for this section until our full review later this year.

What we can say is that the C7K sounded pretty good during our testing, so we hope that TCL continues this trend. We commended its clean, detailed sound, which conveyed an open mid-range and impressive treble, which covers much of the day-to-day listening requirements.

However, we found that it held back slightly when it came to producing low-end frequencies, which left the sound feeling somewhat unbalanced, especially when it came to dense cinematic soundtracks.

On our wishlist for the C7L is more bass, which should help to round out an already impressive sound system nicely.

Early verdict

We'll need to test the C7L in our dedicated home cinema testing space to reach a final verdict, but this is so far shaping up to be another impressive mid-range TV.

With a souped-up panel and a long list of specs to suit cinephiles and gamers alike, the C7L could be another compelling Mini LED TV – so long as TCL gets the pricing right.

MORE:

Read our TCL C8L hands-on review

As well as our TCL X11L hands-on review

And check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

Samsung’s old dominance of the budget TV market has been severely challenged in recent years, most notably by the likes of Hisense and, especially, TCL.

Can the 65-inch U8000F do enough within its measly price to make the Korean brand the king of TV value once more?

Price

In the UK and US, at least, being able to bag a 65-inch Samsung U8000F for £469 / $430 really does look like a potentially huge bargain.

It’s perhaps not quite such an eye-catching deal in Australia, but when all is said and done, even AU$1299 hardly looks excessive for a 65-inch TV with the usually dependable Samsung name attached.

There are, as we’ll come to later, plenty of reasons why this TV is so affordable. These reasons don’t, though, include anything that might automatically disqualify it from being a potentially good performer for its money.

Not surprisingly, in today’s TV world, the strongest competition for the U8000F comes from TCL – in particular from the C7K and C6KS models, the 65-inch versions of which cost in the UK £829 and £479 respectively. The latter model actually adds local dimming and Mini LED lighting to the equation, despite costing more or less the same as the Samsung U8000F.

Design

The 65-inch U8000F is predictably built predominantly from fairly lightweight plastic. This makes it easy to move around, though, and actually, its bodywork still feels decently rigid and robust. That’s helped, perhaps, by the use of some attractively integrated ribbing in parts of the rear panel.

It’s fairly chunky around the back by today’s TV standards, making it a slightly awkward-looking wall hanging option – but you don’t notice its depth so much when it’s mounted on its pair of included feet.

These feet handily just slot and lock into holes on the screen’s underside, without the need for any screws. They’re positioned quite wide apart, however, meaning you’ll need a fairly wide TV stand to accommodate the TV.

The U8000F’s bezel tastefully sits more or less flush with the screen it holds, and is narrow enough when viewed head-on to prevent you from spotting the bodywork’s fundamentally plasticky nature.

The TV ships with two remote controls. One is an old-school looking chunky affair with a full button count, while the other is a much sleeker number with a nice polished finish and much reduced button count. It doesn’t carry a solar panel like the ‘smart’ remotes you get with Samsung’s premium TVs, but it’s comfortable to hold and easy to use.

Features

The panel at the 65-inch U8000F’s heart is understandably fairly basic by Samsung LCD standards. It’s lit by big ol’ regular-sized LEDs rather than Mini LEDs, and its backlighting doesn’t benefit from any sort of true local dimming system. It’s only a native 60Hz panel, too, which may limit its appeal to gamers with 120Hz (or more) consoles or PCs.

Most surprisingly of all, it doesn’t get a colour system built around Quantum Dots. Instead, as with all of Samsung’s U series TVs of the past few years, it gets something called PurColour, backed up by a Crystal 4K processor that’s a good few notches down in power and sophistication from Samsung’s Neo QLED processors.

If this PurColour system can still map colours accurately and subtly, though, it could still be enough to help the U8000F stand out from the budget TV crowd.

The TV supports high dynamic range video, including in the premium HDR10+ format. There’s no Dolby Vision, though; it seems like hell will need to freeze entirely over before Samsung joins most other TV brands in bringing Dolby Vision to its TVs.

The U8000F’s smart features and interface are provided by Samsung’s home-grown Tizen OS. This would normally be fine; Tizen now carries basically every streaming and catch-up TV service almost anyone could want, bar Freeview Play and Freely. You can operate the TV and find content by talking to it, too, via Samsung’s Bixby system or an external Alexa device. It maintains a dedicated Game Hub screen from which you can access streamed gaming apps or any game consoles or PCs you have connected.

Unfortunately, though, the 65-inch U8000F struggles with the demands of the latest Tizen system, typically running very sluggishly when it comes to opening menus, and booting up apps and streaming services.

While the U8000F’s lack of 120Hz support for gaming is unfortunate (if hardly surprising for such a cheap TV), it does have a few other gaming tricks up its sleeve. These include ALLM switching, VRR support and the HGiG system, whereby the TV essentially passes HDR output control to your Xbox or PlayStation console.

The set also takes just 9.7ms to render graphics when running in its Game mode – one of the lowest such figures we’ve measured.

Picture settings, meanwhile, include a Filmmaker Mode, raising hopes of an easily accessible route to accurate picture quality for AV enthusiasts, as well as Samsung’s suite of Picture Clarity tools for making pictures look cleaner and sharper. The Picture Clarity options here, though, do not include a blur reduction system as you get with more premium Samsung TVs; there are only noise reduction and judder reduction components to play with.

The U8000F’s sound is delivered by a fairly basic 2 x 10W sound system, bolstered by Samsung’s Q Symphony and OTS Lite features. Q Symphony lets the TV’s speakers join forces with those in Samsung soundbars, while OTS Lite uses nifty audio processing to try to make specific sounds appear to be coming from the correct part of the screen.

Connections on the U8000F, finally, comprise a trio of HDMI ports, a single USB-A port, an Ethernet port, the RF jack, a CI slot and, of course, wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options.

Picture

The U8000F is very much a tale of two picture settings, looking very respectable for its money in its Standard mode, but struggling to meet the demands of AV enthusiasts with its Filmmaker Mode.

Starting with the good news, the Standard mode’s pictures immediately look surprisingly bright by budget TV standards. There’s a very clear step up in brightness between SDR and HDR content, as well as a mild expansion in the HDR image’s colour range. Enough in both cases to make HDR look convincing and surprisingly natural – helped by the presence of a surprisingly effective dynamic tone mapping system (a feature that’s by no means a given at the sort of price level the U8000F is operating at).

The TV’s brightness in Standard mode sits alongside some quite respectable black tones for such an affordable TV. This makes dark scenes comfortable to watch, and creates a degree of contrast that again helps to sell the idea that this is a more HDR-friendly TV than most of its similarly priced rivals.

We should stress that we’re not talking about depths of black in dark scenes of the sort you’d get with an OLED or premium LCD TV – there’s always a hint of grey to remind you that you’re watching a fairly affordable LCD screen – but the impact of this is mild by cheap TV standards.

Dark scenes contain plenty of shadow detail on the U8000F, too, avoiding that flat, hollow look so commonly encountered with budget TVs. Especially budget TVs that are as focused on producing a convincing black tone as this Samsung model seems to be.

The U8000F’s pictures are also sharp enough to look definitively 4K – and thanks to some crisp upscaling, this feels pleasingly true with HD sources as well as native 4K.

The sharpness does dip, though, due to some resolution loss over moving objects that none of the available Picture Clarity settings can completely fix (though choosing a Custom setting with Judder Reduction set to level four or five can at least reduce the impact of the screen’s quite strong native judder with 24fps sources).

There are a couple more Standard mode niggles to report as well. First, very bright picture areas can clip a little, meaning they lose subtle shading information and end up looking so stark that they draw too much attention to themselves (though this reduces with Dynamic Tone Mapping active). Second, colours in relatively dark scenes can ‘clump’ a little, so that very detailed areas such as grass or leaves become a bit rough and ill-defined.

You can also sometimes notice a slightly distracting lag between the backlight system dimming and brightening during scenes that feature abrupt cuts between dark and light shots, and finally, there’s a narrow stripe of light leakage running down the left and right sides of the picture – though this is only generally visible in the black bars above and below 21:9 and similar-ratio films. It’s typically too faint to appear where there’s any sort of picture information other than pure blackness on the screen.

While it’s good to find a very affordable TV that is ambitious enough to carry a Filmmaker Mode, unfortunately, that mode isn’t much fun to watch on the U8000F.

Clipping, for instance, becomes quite extreme without any Dynamic Tone Mapping in play, while motion looks both juddery and soft.

Colours feel flatter in Filmmaker Mode, too, and the image generally lacks impact. Perhaps the biggest issue with Filmmaker Mode, though, is that for some reason, perhaps due to its reduced brightness and contrast, dark scenes suddenly reveal multiple areas of backlight clouding at various points across the screen. You can reduce the impact of this if you watch in a little ambient light, but it’s a shame this feels necessary.

Dark scenes look generally a little greyer in Filmmaker Mode, too, and this greyness can also sometimes take on a slightly green or blue tint.

Not everything about the Filmmaker Mode is a bust. Colours look slightly more even-handed and nuanced, which contributes in particular to a touch less colour clumping in densely textured areas. Shadow detail is still strong, too, despite the extra clouding. Ultimately, though, the Filmmaker Mode’s slightly more nuanced feel in some areas isn’t enough to make it the sort of instant cinematic hit that movie fans might have hoped for.

There’s one more issue to mention, too, that actually affects all of the U8000F’s picture settings: viewing angles. View the TV from really any sort of angle, and the VA panel design causes contrast to take a substantial hit, with parts of the picture that should be black taking on a vivid blue-grey tone. Basically, if your room layout requires lots of people to routinely watch this TV from the side, it’s probably not the TV for you.

Sound

The first thing to say here is that we recommend pretty much always turning the U8000F’s Amplify sound mode on. Without it, the sound tends to feel small and trapped inside the TV.

Even with Amplify mode on, the U8000F’s sound doesn’t exactly shake your foundations. There isn’t much bass depth or presence, and volume levels, even set to maximum, are hardly going to burst your eardrums.

While we might have wished for the U8000F’s sound to give us a bit more, though, what it does give us is actually quite clean and engaging – at least to the extent that the TV seems to understand its speakers’ limitations.

So, bass, while not heavy, seldom distorts or crackles. Treble, while not particularly extended, doesn’t tend to sound harsh or forced. Voices are quite well-rounded and contextualised, and surprisingly, given there are only two speakers in play, the OTS Lite system places voices and spot effects decently accurately in the right place on the screen.

This all makes the sound quite clean and therefore immersive by budget TV standards, making it surprisingly easy to live with.

Verdict

The 65-inch Samsung U8000F is overall a solid TV for its money. It’s up against some stiff and only slightly more expensive competition, and it’s certainly not without its limitations, but provided you aren’t a die-hard cinephile desperately on the hunt for a good Filmmaker Mode, the U8000F’s Standard picture setting actually serves up a cleaner, more balanced, more punchy and above all more consistent performance than most rivals in its class.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the TCL C7K

Also consider the TCL C6KS

Read our Mitchell & Brown QLED1811 review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

If you’ve spent any time at all reading the TV reviews here on What Hi-Fi?, you’ll know that panel technology alone does not make a TV.

Even televisions that use the same panel can look vastly different from one another, and that’s before you consider all the other things – such as features, design and sound quality – that might sway a buying decision one way or the other.

When the LG G5 was released last year, it sent the Micro Lens Array (MLA) tech that had been behind its flagship panels for the last two years packing, and replaced it with new, cutting-edge Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel technology.

A few other TVs also bought into this tech – notably the Panasonic Z95B and the Philips OLED910 – and since we’ve already put the LG G5 and the Z95B up against one another, it’s high time we considered how the Philips OLED910 compares with its panelmate too. Let the battle begin.

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: pricing

Considering the LG G6 is currently prepping itself for the shelves, the LG G5 is now much cheaper than it was at launch (though perhaps not as cheap as it will be in a couple of months).

This price would have brought it much closer to the original price of the Philips OLED910 if a recent price drop from Philips hadn’t widened that gap once again. That is, of course, if you live in the UK or Europe – Philip OLEDs aren’t available in the US or Australia.

We tested both of these TVs at 65 inches, and currently you can pick up that size of the LG G5 for around £2499, while the OLED910 is available for as little as £1799.

The 65-inch G5 has gone as low as £1899 in the past, but we've never seen it available for less than the OLED910.

If 65 inches doesn’t suit your space, you’ll have more choice on size with the G5, which is available in 48, 55, 77, 83 and 97 inches – though it’s worth noting that the 48- and 97-inch sets do not use the Primary RGB Tandem panel, and so therefore will not reach the same brightness levels.

That, perhaps, makes the fewer size choices of the Philips OLED910 less of an issue, with the 55- and 77-inch options, alongside the 65-inch set, most likely covering the screen sizes most people want – and at considerably lower prices.

When it comes to pricing, then, the Philips takes an easy win.

Winner: Philips OLED910

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: design

Whatever design you prefer is the right answer to which is best, but we’d argue there is more to like about the design of the Philips OLED910 over the LG G5.

The Kvadrat fabric covering the under-screen speaker gives it a stylish, furniture-esque look, and four-sided Ambilight only adds to its flair.

The G5, by comparison, is as slim (2.4cm) and attractive as its predecessors – but it’s a design that has gone unchanged since the G1.

It feels ready for a makeover, but there’s absolutely nothing to dislike here otherwise. The Zero Gap wall mount makes for a super flush fit if you are looking to mount it, but if not, be sure to look out for the version that comes with the tabletop stand – in the UK, that’s currently only available for the 55- and 65-inch versions.

Slim and sleek is all well and good, but we have to pay the OLED910 its dues for its greater aesthetic consideration.

WINNER: Philips OLED910

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: features

We already know that the LG G5 and the Philips OLED910 share the same super-bright Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, with peak brightness claims of up to 4000 nits, but what in their feature lists separates them?

For a start, behind those panels are, of course, two different processors – the Philips 9th Gen P5 and LG’s Alpha 11 AI Processor Gen 2. Both are the companies’ most powerful TV chipset, with AI smarts on board that claim to offer a helping hand when it comes to making the picture and sound the very best for what you’re watching.

In the G5, that includes AI Picture Pro and AI Sound Pro, the former covering off a range of picture enhancements, such as AI Perceived Object Enhancer (which aims to boost the three-dimensionality of the picture), AI Super Upscaling and OLED Dynamic Tone Mapping.

LG has also installed an AI chatbot into the G5, which is on hand to help you get your picture how you want it, or solve issues with your TV. For those who don’t feel confident trawling through a settings menu, you can say things such as “my TV isn’t bright enough” to have the settings automatically adjusted.

For the OLED910, the on-board AI helps to classify what it is you’re watching and adapt the picture quality to suit. It also offers similar AI-judged improvements to things such as sharpness, colour vibrancy and contrast, though as always you can turn these off if you prefer.

Elsewhere, the Philips OLED910 continues its commendable commitment to supporting all four of the current HDR formats – that’s HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, alongside the basic HDR10 and HLG.

The G5, by comparison, only supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. That covers off the majority of content, in honesty, but the additional support on the OLED910 does keep you covered for absolutely everything, and futureproofed too.

Where the Philips really loses ground is in its connectivity, and this has a particular impact on gamers.

On the LG G5, you have four full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets, all capable of handling 4K/165Hz signals with VRR and ALLM (which covers off the 4K/120Hz max for consoles and 4K/144Hz for fancy PCs), while the OLED910 only has two, with a maximum limit of 4K/144Hz.

One of the HDMI 2.1 sockets also doubles as the eARC port, so you’ll be reduced to just one for your gaming machines if you need it for a soundbar or other sound system. That's not the end of the world if you don't mind any further devices being limited to 4K/60Hz, but it will be an annoyance to many gamers.

We’d also lean towards the LG G5’s webOS platform over the OLED910’s Google TV platform. For us, webOS wins on ease of use and speed, but it also offers a more comprehensive selection of streaming apps, with BBC iPlayer currently missing from Google TV.

It’s closely run in this section, with some wins on both sides. But we think the TV with the best, most impactful features for most users is the LG G5.

WINNER: LG G5

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: picture quality

Given that both of these TVs received five-star reviews, you can imagine there’s little to grumble about in the way they handle pictures. However, even with the same panel behind them, there are differences in their delivery that might sway your buying decision.

Thanks to that new Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, the G5 and OLED910 are noticeably brighter than their predecessors, and – most importantly – handle their additional nits well.

Philips does seem to put HDR levels of brightness behind SDR content on all of its picture modes though, which is something we wish was optional, even if it doesn’t impact the overall picture performance.

Colour handling is excellent on both, with punchy and vibrant pictures that clearly benefit from the additional colour volume afforded by this panel. There’s the occasional oversaturation of skin tones in some scenes on the Philips OLED910 that we don’t notice as much in the G5, but overall both sets balance vibrancy and accuracy with few complaints.

Both offer Filmmaker Mode alongside a whole host of other picture options – it’s the picture setting we recommend, since it is the most accurate and usually switches off all additional processing. However, we actually found the OLED910 leaves some of it turned on, mostly for helping the TV to look its best at various levels of ambient lighting.

It’s worth experimenting here and deciding for yourself if there’s any positive impact, but if you’re particularly against any form of added processing, some extra care will be required in the OLED910’s menus to make sure it’s all off.

You can expect sharp, detailed and insightful pictures from both TVs. If pushed, we’d say the Philips gets closer to the solidity and three dimensionism of the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II, which is also helped by the OLED910’s better handling of dark scenes – there’s a slight black crush from the LG G5 that means you lose some shadow details in the darkest parts of a picture.

Overall there are some pros and cons for both TVs, but both offer a superb picture with lots to like. We’re chalking this one up as a draw.

Winner: draw

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: sound quality

While these TVs might come close in picture quality, when it comes to sound quality, there is a clear winner.

The LG G5 offers a 60W 4.2-channel system, while the Philips OLED910 has a 3.1-channel 81W system, produced by B&W, that sits underneath the screen like a soundbar.

Overall, the G5’s performance is disappointing. Even with our preferred Cinema preset, it just isn’t able to dig deep and deliver much bass at all, nor is it very assured with low-level dynamics, meaning dialogue often sounds lifeless and dull.

It’s a really unexciting sound, which means, without a doubt, you’ll need to add to the G5 by way of a soundbar or surround sound system.

However, the Philips OLED910 proves that not all TV sound has to be bad, and manages to deliver a wide, detailed sound, with good effect placement (even with Atmos sounds), impressive weight and a really lovely tonal balance by TV standards.

Dynamics are impressive for a TV too, and there’s a much better handling of low-level dynamics, meaning voices have realism and character, while bigger volume changes are handled well too.

There’s a little softness to deep bass, but you’ll be hard pushed to find a TV that sounds better.

Of course, a good soundbar will be even better, but you’d need to invest in something around the level of the Sonos Arc Ultra for a significant upgrade on what this TV can do.

WINNER: Philips OLED910

Philips OLED910 vs LG G5: verdict

As always, there can only be one winner, and given how close these TVs come in key areas such as picture quality, the value offered by the Philips OLED910 is hard to ignore.

Throw in nice-to-haves such as Ambilight, a pretty great built-in sound system and a living room-friendly design, and that saving over the G5 starts to look even tastier.

However, this particular head to head isn’t cut and dried by any means, and if gaming is a key consideration for you, we might be inclined to recommend the LG G5 because of the additional HDMI 2.1 ports.

The better smart system and full complement of catch up apps is also a mark in the G5’s column, as is that stunningly slim wall-mounted design, which might be worth the additional outlay.

Still, the Philips OLED910 is to be applauded for how much it offers at such a great price.

Getting a 65-inch TV with a performance this good for well under the £2000 mark is nothing short of a bargain. If you choose it as your next TV, we think you’ll be very happy indeed.

OVERALL WINNER: Philips OLED910

MORE:

Read our full Philips OLED910 review and LG G5 review

Here are all of the best TVs you can buy right now

Now this one is a bit bonkers, really.

A full Dolby Atmos home cinema with, practically, a 100-inch screen for three grand? If you had asked me for an estimate on the overall cost of that lot a decade or so ago, I would have had to double that price. At least.

And ease of use? Forget it. This was the realm of the full home cinema projector (with a decent screen) and a good multichannel amplifier with a full surround sound speaker system to go with it – and hours of painstaking set-up to go with it.

Not with this system. Just three components (one of which is really only a bonus) that are a doddle to set up together are all you need for a stunning, cutting-edge home cinema.

The system

• TV: TCL 98C7K (£1999)
• Sound system: Samsung HW-Q990F (£849)
• Console: Sony PlayStation 5 (£400)
• Total system price: £3248

The TV

TCL seems intent on finishing off the projector business – in the home at least – as quickly as possible.

To get this screen acreage on a TV for less than £2000 was complete science fiction a few short years ago. To get it today, and for it to have the performance capabilities it does, is astonishing.

Yet here we are. How TCL has managed to deliver so much TV for so little money is, frankly, beyond us.

The 98C7K is an all-out assault on the super-sized screen market. And it achieves the seemingly impossible: a 98-inch 4K Mini LED TV for a price that would make many 65-inch sets blush.

The raw cinematic impact of a 98-inch picture never grows old, but this TV is far more than just sheer acreage. It is built on a foundation of spectacular picture quality, driven by its Mini LED backlight and Quantum Dot colour system.

TCL claims a mighty 3000 nits of peak brightness, which, when married to more than 2000 separately controlled local dimming zones, results in a picture that is dazzlingly bright and contrast-rich.

Small HDR highlights, such as the glint of metal or the gleam in an eye, look bold and lifelike, while bright daylight scenes maintain much more brilliance than even the best OLEDs can muster up.

TCL’s new ‘Halo Control’ technology is the ace up its sleeve. This impressive tech focuses on greatly reducing the unwanted light halos that can plague local-dimming LCD sets.

While subtle, deliberate clouding is occasionally introduced to disguise potential blooming, the overall result is a beautifully handled performance with contrast, with deep, convincing, neutral black tones and a vibrant, subtle colour palette.

The picture also feels sharper and denser than previous models, holding up nicely even with motion, and the set supports every major HDR format: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.

The console

Crucially, for the modern living room, the 98-inch C7K is a superb gaming hub.

It supports 4K/144Hz, VRR (including AMD FreeSync Premium Pro), and ALLM, with an input lag of just 13.1ms at 60Hz.

It’s an enormous, responsive window into your gaming worlds – which is why we suggest you include a PS5 in this set-up, and connect it to one of the TV’s two full HDMI 2.1-capable ports.

Gaming on this scale needs to be experienced to be believed, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of the TCL’s talents in this area.

Besides, you can also use the PS5 as a Blu-ray player while you’re saving up for a dedicated machine for your amazing new home cinema.

The sound system

While the enormous telly boasts (or tries to boast, at least) a 6.2.2-channel sound system, designed in conjunction with Bang & Olufsen no less, our usual advice with a big-screen TV holds true, even with one as big as this: invest in decent sound to make the most of your lovely big picture.

And with Samsung’s Award-winning HW-Q990F soundbar system currently available in UK shops for vastly less than the £1699 price at which we believed it worthy of not only five stars, but also a Product of the Year gong for 2025 – our choice of sound booster was clear.

The HW-Q990F is last year's iteration of Samsung’s exemplary all-in-one solution. And it has taken an already spectacular package and turned it into an exemplary one.

The Q990F is an 11.1.4 system, boasting 23 drivers across the main bar, the wireless rear surrounds, and the sub. It supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and it sounds terrific.

Dialogue sounds excellent, with natural and detailed voices that carry plenty of subtle inflexion.

This carries forth to sound effects, and, as we say in our review: “We have to commend the Q990F’s delivery of Dolby Atmos effects. The ‘bubble of sound’ that we look for in any Dolby Atmos system is well and truly present here, and it’s not just the impressively placed height effects that we like. It's the way that the soundbar and surrounds are so tonally well matched, while the audio processing ensures that sounds move organically between the channels, that truly seals the deal for us.”

The real star of the show is that new subwoofer. Samsung has swapped from a tall, narrow unit to a much more compact, rounded-cube design. Don't be fooled by its smaller dimensions compared with the sub that comes with the Q990D; this one packs an almighty punch.

We find the Q990F’s bass to be rich, powerful, and, most importantly, controlled and dynamic. It’s a huge step up from the previous model. There is a newfound sense of tonal variation in the low-end, making the bass feel more organic and seamlessly integrated into the system as a whole.

The TCL 98C7K and the Samsung HW-Q990F work so well together. The TV’s only real weakness – the inevitable shortfall in sonic ability – is surgically corrected by the soundbar’s greatest strength: its class-leading, controlled, and deeply textured low-end from the new subwoofer.

The verdict

The TCL 98C7K delivers a picture that is utterly dominant and absorbing, with intense brightness and deep contrast, and it does a great job of replicating the look of a premium, high-end cinema display.

The Samsung HW-Q990F soundbar system then adds the scale and immersion to the sound that the picture deserves. The 11.1.4 system’s superb delivery of Dolby Atmos effects – the precise placement of height effects, the organic movement of sound – wraps the enormous visual in a convincing, three-dimensional audio landscape.

You get a full 98 inches of bright, sharp, detailed, and colourful 4K images, backed by a dynamic, cohesive, and deeply immersive surround sound performance – all without the hassle and cost of a separate AVR and countless passive speakers.

Now that, for us, is the definition of a fuss-free cinema. Just make sure your room is big enough for that telly…

MORE:

Read the full TCL 98C7K review and Samsung HW-Q990F review

Here are all of the best TVs and best soundbars you can buy right now

If you’ve been eyeing up the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II for your next TV, but don’t have the budget to stretch to it, taking a look at the other models in the Sony range might feel like a good starting point.

There’s always the hope that the more affordable models have retained some of the flagship greatness at a lower price – but at the very least, that they’ve strived for the same goals when it comes to getting the best picture performance bang for your buck.

However, despite their similar naming conventions, the Bravia 5 and the Bravia 3 are not only completely different panel types to the OLED-packing Bravia 8 II, but also different from each other – so it’s important to step with caution.

While our star rating is always a great indicator of the products we recommend, when you’re comparing two models at quite different prices, it’s good to understand what the differences are between them, and what you’re getting for the extra outlay. Allow us to explain all.

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: pricing

Right now, you can pick up the 65-inch Bravia 5 that we tested for around £1299 / $1000 / AU$2695. That’s not a bad price at all for a Sony-branded Mini LED TV with local dimming, and a nice saving from the launch price of £1699 in the UK.

The Bravia 3 is considerably cheaper, and at the time of writing is available for around £849 / $650 / AU$1399. That’s pretty close to its launch price of £899 in the UK (US and Australian savings on RRP are slightly heftier), but we have known this screen size to go as low as £749 during big sales periods.

We'll tackle the question of value through the course of the review. This round is all about which option is cheapest, and that's comfortably the Bravia 3.

WINNER: Bravia 3

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: design

It’s fair to say that neither of these TVs are going to be the best choice if you're hoping to wall mount.

In our review, we noted that the Bravia 5 has a rear panel that sticks out further than its competition, which could make it feel a bit clunky and awkward for wall hanging.

When you consider that the Bravia 5 measures 5.8cm deep, and the Bravia 3 measures in at 7.2cm, we’d say that both of these sets lend themselves best to life on a TV stand.

As you might expect for the price difference, the Bravia 5’s overall aesthetic is a little elevated compared with the Bravia 3. Both have relatively slender bezels, but the Bravia 5 sports a tasteful dark grey brushed metal effect finish, whereas the Bravia 3 is unashamedly black plastic.

It feels all the more lightweight when you’re putting it together too, and at least for our taste, the feet on the Bravia 3 lack some of the sophistication of those on the 5.

We do appreciate Sony’s no-screw mechanism on both TVs though, which allows the TV to just slot onto the stand, saving fuss and making setup out of the box really straightforward.

The Bravia 3 does score points over the Bravia 5 for its two-way stand, which allows you to set the feet into either narrow or wide positions to suit your furniture or soundbar requirements.

The Bravia 5’s feet only have one position, but thankfully that is relatively narrow to allow you to place it on most stands without issue. If you have a soundbar though, you’ll just want to check that it can fit in front of the stand – the Bravia 5 does adjust to two different heights to make sure the screen isn’t blocked by adding one.

Overall, although the two-way stand on the Bravia 3 is a nice addition for soundbar owners, we much prefer the design of the Bravia 5, and think it can accommodate a soundbar in the majority of situations.

WINNER: Bravia 5

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: features

One of the biggest differentiators between the Bravia 5 and the Bravia 3 is their panel technology – the Bravia 5 is a Mini LED TV with local dimming across 240 zones, whereas the Bravia 3 is a direct-lit LED TV without any local dimming.

That’s going to have a fair impact on its picture quality capabilities, but we’ll come on to that in the next section.

Elsewhere, the processing chip that runs the show is different between the two models, too.

Given the price difference, it’s not surprising that the Bravia 5 has the more sophisticated of the two – Sony’s flagship XR processor, which also powers the Bravia 8 II.

The Bravia 3, on the other hand, uses the older, midrange 4K HDR Processor X1.

What that means in isolation is hard to quantify, given the TVs’ differing features elsewhere. The XR is clearly a more powerful processor that can draw out more by way of picture subtlety and colour accuracy, but how much that would be as noticeable on a direct-lit LED screen with no local dimming is questionable.

In other words, going for a lower-power processor in the Bravia 3 feels like the right choice for its price and capabilities.

As these are both Sony TVs, their HDR capabilities are the same – they both support HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, and don’t support HDR10+.

However, of the two, only the Bravia 5 is IMAX Enhanced certified, and it’s also the only one that offers a range of ‘Calibrated’ picture modes to get the best picture quality from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Sony Pictures Core.

Both have Dolby Atmos and DTS:X spatial audio support, though the Bravia 5 has a better sound system to deliver it on.

The Bravia 5 offers 40W of sound across four speakers (two full-range drivers and two tweeters), compared to the 20W across two full-range drivers on the Bravia 3.

If you’re keen to hook up a games console to your TV, the Bravia 3 wouldn’t be the best pick of the two due to its 4K/60Hz panel, with the 4K/120Hz panel on the Bravia 5 making it a much better choice.

The Bravia 5 also has VRR on two HDMI ports, as well as ALLM on all four of them, whereas the Bravia 3 only has ALLM. That makes the Bravia 5 a clear winner for gamers.

Both TVs use Google TV for their smart features, offering a good selection of streaming apps, along with the addition of YouView in the UK for the catch-up services that Google doesn’t offer.

Using Google’s interface also means that both TVs have access to features such as Google Assistant and Chromecast, as well as AirPlay 2. While we did notice a few small glitches initially in the Bravia 3’s handling of the UI, overall, both TVs work smoothly and without issue.

The Bravia 5 also has the compatibility to work with the Bravia Cam, to control the TV by gesture – something the Bravia 3 does not offer.

We don’t particularly value the extra tricks the Bravia Cam adds to the TV-watching experience, particularly considering its £199 / $200 / AU$149 price tag, but if you do, the Bravia 5 is the only set out of the two to get it.

All things considered, it’s not exactly surprising that the Bravia 5 has better features than the Bravia 3, given its higher price tag. However, it’s when you look at the wider market that the winner becomes clear.

The Bravia 5 shoots above its pay grade in many respects, including by being one of Sony’s XR Backlight Master Drive panels. That’s a premium feature found on many of its much pricier TVs that aims to boost picture quality and reduce power consumption by improving local dimming performance.

However, when you consider the Bravia 3 against other competitors at its price, its specs are disappointing. There are similarly priced TVs that use better panel technology and have local dimming and better gaming features.

For those reasons, the Bravia 5 takes the win here again.

WINNER: Bravia 5

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: picture quality

That feeling of the Bravia 5 delivering value for money only continues when it comes to picture performance.

It might be the cheapest Mini LED model in the Bravia lineup, but the picture quality doesn’t feel compromised by its more affordable ambitions – the Sony DNA runs clearly through this set.

In particular, that XR Backlight Master Drive panel does exactly what we’ve seen it do elsewhere, in that it maximises the performance of the backlight, meaning we get impressively bright and well controlled pictures for this price category, with even and consistent blacks and minimal blooming.

It means the Bravia 5 really holds its own in the contrast stakes, which ensures – when combined with its well-judged shadow detail – that both bright and dark scenes look as natural and cinematic as each other.

All this greatness only starts to become compromised in extremely complex HDR shots, or when you watch the Bravia 5 from much of an angle, when its more affordable local dimming mechanism might become more apparent. Overall though, this is a great performer at its price.

Unfortunately, the Bravia 3’s handling of contrast and shadow detail is not such good news. What strikes us most is how the entire picture has an almost grey hue, which means it lacks solidity in blacks from the get go, and makes dark scenes almost unwatchable.

The panel almost seems to glow in darker sequences, losing a lot of detail in the process, but even in scenes with lots of light, the image lacks contrast. This means Sony’s calling card of excellent three dimensionality is largely lost, which is a big hit on our overall picture enjoyment.

Thankfully, the Bravia 3 manages to look much more like a Sony TV when it comes to colour.

As long as you switch from the out-of-the-box settings to Professional mode, colour performance is pretty good, looking balanced and natural, while retaining a degree of believable richness.

The Bravia 5 has a little more flexibility on its presets, thanks to its more sophisticated processing, but ultimately also manages a great mix of punchiness, shading subtlety and balance, even retaining an impressive amount of colour saturation during darker scenes.

Both TVs manage to show off Sony’s talent for motion processing, with sweeping panning shots handled admirably by the Bravia 3. The XR processor in the Bravia 5 will arguably push motion handling that little bit further, by way of subtlety and realism, but there’s no reason for complaint with either set here.

Despite this, the overall picture quality is a clear win by the Bravia 5 – even at the set’s individual price points.

Once again, the Bravia 5 punches above what we might expect at this price, giving 4K images a sense of density, texture and clarity that we are more used to seeing in Sony’s more expensive TVs.

While some of Sony’s famous picture processing is still evident in the Bravia 3, its poor backlight control leads to a loss of contrast and shadow detail that’s hard to forgive. This is an easy win for the Bravia 5.

WINNER: Bravia 5

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: sound quality

While we all know that a soundbar or surround sound system will always make your new TV sound its best, both models do a pretty good job for built-in TV audio.

Even with the pretty modest speaker set-up in the Bravia 3, Sony manages to provide impressively clear dialogue alongside a decent sense of low-level dynamics.

Sound even has a good sense of height to it, giving more space to big effects such as explosions or planes flying overhead. Bass could be heftier, but to be honest, the Bravia 3 already outperforms what we have come to expect from a TV at this price.

The Bravia 5 is equally impressive. No elements in a mix pass the Bravia 5 by, yet the processing is also sophisticated enough to ensure no detail takes on more significance than it should.

The four drivers here create a spacious soundstage that offers a good sense of height, with both dialogue and sound effects placed accurately within it.

There’s power to the sound too, but also a level of precision that ensures sound is never distorted.

Like the Bravia 3, it’s lacking a little bass, but we would always take that over too much, and overall find the sound to be precise and immersive. We’re calling this one a draw.

WINNER: Draw

Sony Bravia 3 vs Bravia 5: verdict

From the get-go, this head-to-head might have looked like a shoo-in for the more expensive, better specified, and better reviewed Bravia 5.

But even when you consider both of these TVs’ positions within their respective markets and price categories, it’s hard for us not to recommend – if you are truly torn between the two – that you try to save up the difference and opt for the Bravia 5, or consider a different TV at the Bravia 3’s price instead.

The Sony Bravia 5 follows in the footsteps of the other five-star TVs from Sony’s most recent TV lineup, offering impressive features for its price, a formidable picture performance and a pretty decent sound performance to boot.

By comparison, the Bravia 3 is lacking the features we might expect at this level, and delivers a picture performance we find almost unrecognisable as a Sony TV.

For anyone considering these two TVs, hoping to get Sony’s famed picture processing on a bit of a budget, the clear winner is the Bravia 5. From everything we have seen so far, it’s the clear value proposition in Sony’s current TV lineup.

OVERALL WINNER: Bravia 5

MORE:

Here are all of the best TVs you can buy right now

Hisense wants to be the RGB Mini LED brand. It came out swinging with the 116-inch UXQ last year to kick off its new range with a bang, and now it's bringing a duo of more reasonably sized models with the next generation panel tech to the market.

The UR9 sits at the top of its conventional TV lineup, and it aims to offer movie fans a brighter panel and a better sound system, so you'd think that would be what caught my eye during a trip to Munich, Germany, with the brand. But, at the event I found myself gravitating towards the step-down model instead.

Upon announcing the new panel technology, I began gearing myself up to report on sky-high prices that echo the early days of OLED and QLED, and yet, Hisense is determined to bring this new panel tech to the masses, and I think the UR8 will be the TV to do just that.

The TV sits below the two flagship RGB Mini LEDs mentioned above, and yet it offers a lot of the same features and on-paper performance benefits. My brief run-in with the TV left a strong first impression, and while we'll need to test it in our dedicated AV testing facility to settle on a final verdict, I do have a few early thoughts to share.

Price

Pricing hasn't been revealed for the UR8 quite yet, but we're under the impression that it will be fairly competitive. Hisense promises that pricing information should come soon, and the TV itself is currently slated to launch in the first half of this year.

It'll be available in five sizes when it launches, including a few more "average" living room-friendly ones, such as 55- and 65-inches. XL TV fans are, of course, still catered for, with Hisense also offering this TV in 75-, 85- and 100-inch sizes.

In terms of competition, it looks as though the UR8 will be going up against Philips' new mid-range RGB Mini LED, the MLED981, and Samsung is slated to launch a step-down RGB Mini LED model later this year, too.

Build

The UR8 isn't the flashiest TV I've ever seen, but the build is solid, stylish and slender at just 58mm in width. That's fairly slick by backlit TV standards.

Furthermore, it features a centralised pedestal stand, meaning you won't have to worry about obtaining a wide media unit to accommodate this TV. We saw the UR8 in its 75-inch screen size, and it featured this style of stand; however the very largest screen sizes may differ.

Hisense has also bundled in its button-heavy solar-powered remote. While it may look a little old school next to the slick minimalist remotes included with most TVs these days, we actually appreciate that every function has a dedicated button rather than having to remember a bunch of short cuts and long presses to access simple things like the input menu.

Features

It should come as no surprise that the headlining feature of the UR8 is the new RGB Mini LED panel technology. Hisense says that it delivers purer and more vibrant colours, and the Chinese AV giant has even achieved certification from colour-validating powerhouse Pantone.

Brightness is also a key benefit of the RGB Mini LED panel technology, and Hisense claims that the UR8 can reach a peak brightness of 3500 nits. That's below the 4000 nit figure quoted by Hisense for the UR9 step-up model, but it's still an impressive figure.

This new panel is being driven by the company's HiView AI Engine RGB processor, which has been specifically designed with the RGB Mini LED panel technology in mind.

Furthermore, this has to be one of the best-equipped TVs for gamers that we've ever come across. The UR8 sports a 180Hz panel, which tops the 165Hz limit we've seen on recent sets from LG, Samsung and Philips. On top of that is the inclusion of four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets, all of which support VRR and ALLM, with one socket doubling as HDMI eARC.

Hisense hopes that you won't need to use that HDMI eARC socket, though, as the built-in 2.1.2 channel speaker system, which supports Dolby Atmos, has been tuned by Devialet to reportedly deliver punchy, immersive cinematic sound.

Vidaa remains on board for all of your streaming needs, and while this isn't our favourite operating system on the market, we find that it covers a majority of the available streaming apps, based on our experience from using it on other Hisense TVs and projectors.

Last, and by no means least, the UR8 will be among the first Hisense TVs to gain Dolby Vision 2 support. Despite being announced as a launch partner back at IFA 2025, Hisense doesn't seem entirely sure when Dolby Vision 2 is coming to its TVs; however, it insinuated that it will be added via an over-the-air update after the TV's launch. It will also support HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG.

Picture

Unfortunately, Hisense didn't demo any real-world content on the UR8, but we did see a looping demo in the TV's dynamic picture setting.

While that's not ideal for assessing what the TV is like when watching movies and TV shows, it did give us a good idea of what the RGB Mini LED panel technology is capable of.

Furthermore, the content shown seemed fairly low-resolution to my eyes, which introduced some unfair banding and haloing around bright and colourful content on black backgrounds.

I will therefore reiterate that these hands-on impressions won't reflect the verdict from our future full review of the UR8.

That all being said, Hisense seems to have delivered on its promise of delivering rich, pure and vibrant colours based on this early look, as every shade pops on this display.

Reds, blues, greens, yellows, pinks and purples all appear rich and vivid, and while this will likely be reining in for an authentic cinematic experience, it's an eye-catching demonstration of the capabilities of RGB Mini LED.

These look especially effective against dark backgrounds, as the UR8 seems to deliver some seriously convincing black levels for a backlit TV. This is thanks to the RGB Mini LED system's more advanced backlight control, which should address the my, and the wider What Hi-Fi? team's, biggest issue with "traditional" Mini LED sets.

I couldn't test other crucial picture performance aspects, especially including motion, during this session, so you'll have to wait until our full review to discover if the UR8 can nail the majour pillars of picture performance.

Sound

I'll keep this short and sweet. Despite highlighting the UR8's Devialet-tuned 2.1.2 channel sound system, Hisense didn't actually demo it during the event.

However, based on the team I's experiences with last year's U8Q, we have fairly high expectations. We found that the U8Q delivered a powerful, spacious and cinematic sound, and while the bass could have been a bit more controlled, we ultimately deemed it to be a rather impressive built-in sound system.

Early verdict

It's too early to decide on a verdict for the UR8, but this TV is certainly worth watching out for based on what I've seen so far, combined with the on-paper specs.

It touts the latest panel technology. superb gaming specs, a high-spec sound system and plenty of software smarts, so as long as Hisense can nail the price, it could be on to a winner.

As a team, we're eagerly awaiting both of Hisense's RGB Mini LED models to land in our home cinema testing room, so check back soon for a full review.

MORE:

Read our full Hisense U8Q review

RGB Mini LED: everything you need to know

Check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

2026 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for OLED TVs. Two Japanese AV stalwarts, Sony and Panasonic, have entered strategic partnerships with huge Chinese corporations to ensure their respective TV businesses can flourish in these uncertain times. And we can't ignore the fact that RGB Mini LED is knocking on OLED’s door as the latest challenger in the panel technology arena.

Nevertheless, this hasn’t deterred European heavyweight TV manufacturer Philips from swinging for the fences with its 2026 TV range, which encompasses a wide range of panel technologies. OLED is still the reference choice in its eyes, but that hasn't stopped it from also launching RGB Mini LED, Mini LED and QLED TVs.

That being said, there was one TV from its range that stole the spotlight at Philips’ (and its parent company TP Vision’s) launch event that we attended in Berlin this week.

The Philips OLED911 is the sequel to the five-star OLED910, a brilliant TV which gave the Product of the Year-winning Sony Bravia 8 II a run for its money when we tested it last year. The new set continues Philips’ close partnership with legendary British hi-fi company (and recent inductee into the Harman International family) Bowers & Wilkins.

With a fresh design, beefed-up panel, and surprising new feature set, could the Philips OLED911 be the TV to watch in 2026? It might just be…

Price

As is often the case with our TV hands-on reviews, pricing hasn't been confirmed for the OLED911. However, we can take an educated guess from the price of the OLED910, which launched at a surprisingly competitive £2199 for the 65-inch model.

You'll notice that we are mentioning only UK pricing; this is because Philips unfortunately doesn't sell this range in the US or Australia. You will find Philips-branded TVs in these markets, but they are manufactured by another company, not TP Vision.

Back to that £2199 price tag. We actually reviewed the OLED910 at £1799, as the TV's price dropped almost instantly it came out; and it has remained there ever since.

Other flagship OLEDs, including the Sony Bravia 8 II and LG G5, have both dropped to similar prices as of late, so this sector of the TV market really is a hot spot.

We are hoping that Philips takes a similar pricing strategy with the OLED911, as some competitors, such as the Panasonic Z95B and, probably, the Sony Bravia 8 II, will be sticking around for the foreseeable future. Price cuts, then, are inevitable.

Build

Philips has a tendency to switch up the looks of its TVs on a yearly basis. Considering that it has a tendency to make the best-looking TVs around from a design standpoint, we take no issue with this.

The OLED911 is no exception; upon first impressions, this TV is a sight to behold.

It takes the established bottom-mounted speaker-bar and dual-feet design of its predecessor, and refines it to look even smarter and more premium. That chin-mounted “soundbar” no longer spans the entirety of the TV's bottom edge. It now takes on the shape of an elongated pill, which stops just short of the full width of the screen, giving the illusion of a trimmer build overall.

The bar comes in two sizes, depending on whether you get the 48- or 55-inch, or the 65- or 77-inch model, respectively. You'll notice that we mention a 48-inch model here: the OLED911 will be the first in this range to come in the smaller screen size.

The metal pill-style feet of the previous model return, and while they aren’t placed at the very ends of the TV, they are still spread fairly wide, meaning a media unit of decent width will be necessary to support this TV.

That, of course, is if you don't wall mount it. And we wouldn't be surprised if a lot of prospective OLED911 customers take this route. Philips has managed to shave this set down to an impressively slender 39.9mm, down from 47.3mm. Marry that slim frame with the four-sided Ambilight system, and you could well say that this TV was practically made to be wall-mounted.

Features

Speaking of Ambilight, the OLED911 has a new trick up its sleeve for fans of the reactive lighting system, which mirrors the action on screen. Philips is introducing AmbiScape, which allows its new Ambilight-equipped TVs to interface with smart light bulbs from various manufacturers (including Philips Hue, Nanoleaf and IKEA) and sync up, turning practically your entire room into an immersive Ambilight landscape; hence, AmbiScape.

Ambilight might not be for everyone, but we’re fairly sure the new second-generation Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel will be to most people’s preferences. Philips claims that this TV can reach a staggering peak brightness of 4500 nits, while the improved reflectivity-reducing qualities of this display (baked in by its originator, LG Display) will help to mitigate more than 99 per cent of on-screen reflections.

Furthermore, this RGB Tandem OLED 2.0 panel can now reach refresh rates up to 165Hz with VRR – and this is where we get onto the OLED911's next best feature. Philips has opted to equip this TV with the slightly less powerful MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset rather than the Pentonic 1000.

That sounds like a downgrade on paper, but it actually means that the OLED911 has four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets, all of which support 4K gaming at high refresh rates with VRR and ALLM. This catapults Philips into the best gaming TV conversation with the likes of Samsung and LG.

Philips has achieved this by moving away from Google TV, and instead opting for Titan OS on its entire 2026 range. This operating system was developed in Barcelona, and Philips has been a key player in bringing it to market as an alternative to Google’s operating system. With this streamlined and less demanding OS, the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset becomes more than powerful enough, and the gaming benefits speak for themselves.

Picture processing, however, is handled by Philips’ own 10th Gen P5 AI processor. As the name suggests, AI is integrated deeply into the picture processing here, with some examples including AI HDR tone mapping, and a new AI HDR expansion/restore feature that uses “frame-by-frame analysis to measure the incoming HDR signal and restore the original light output of the content, matched to the peak light output of the display.”

And, if you thought the Philips OLED911 had run out of sleeves up which to hide its tricks, here's where we reveal that this is the world's first OLED TV to support Dolby Vision 2 Max. HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ are also on board, making this among the most versatile TVs around when it comes to HDR format support. The inclusion of the hotly anticipated Dolby Vision 2 makes this one of the most exciting OLED TVs of 2026.

Dolby Vision 2 Max supports the likes of Authentic Motion and Light Sense, on top of the benefits of “standard” Dolby Vision 2. The former adjusts motion in real time to ensure judder is minimised without introducing the soap-opera effect, whereas the latter will take the ambient light of your viewing area into consideration and adjust the picture accordingly.

Last, but by no means least, is the built-in sound system. This is probably the most “hi-fi adjacent” built-in TV sound system we have seen, which makes sense as it comes from legendary British speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins.

The new sound system features dedicated left, centre and right channels, each of which features two new 45mm midrange glass-fibre drivers alongside a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter and a slimmer 75mm subwoofer supported by four force-cancelling passive radiators.

If that built-in woofer doesn’t deliver enough bass for your liking, you can directly hook up an external subwoofer to the TV for more low-end punch.

In total, this system features a combined power output of 81W, with eight dedicated channels of amplification powering each speaker.

Picture

Our time with the Philips OLED911 was mostly spent watching a short clip from the beginning of A Quiet Place: Day One via an Apple TV 4K alongside some of Philips’ bold and punchy demo-reel content. Still, we were able to make some preliminary assessments based on our fairly limited time with the TV.

Our findings here, though, certainly don’t reflect our final verdict on this TV. You’ll have to wait for our full review for that.

Still, the TV appeared to look fairly balanced and cinematic during our demo of A Quiet Place (this clip was played more to highlight the audio capabilities of this TV, which we'll come to), with rich colours that didn’t look oversaturated.

The yellow coat and orangish-red of Lupita Nyong’o’s character, Samira, had a nice touch of vibrancy against the mostly grey backdrop of New York City. The mix of sharpness and contrast also seemed to give a very solid sense of three-dimensionality to the picture.

That being said, during a sequence in which a lot of what appeared to be smoke or dust is kicked up, there was some fairly severe banding on display. This could be due to the lower bitrate of the streamed content, but it caught our eye nonetheless.

Moving on to Philips’ punchy demo content, while we hesitate to call the panning shots of nature and cities particularly natural-looking, they did a great job of highlighting this TV’s capabilities when it comes to delivering punchy colours and dazzling brightness.

The argument that OLEDs aren’t capable of reaching Mini LED levels of brightness is slowly becoming redundant, and the rich, luscious colours mixed with this intense brightness sure do make for a show-stopping debut performance from the OLED911.

Sound

Few TVs on the market can boast the same sonic credentials as the Philips OLED900-range. As we have established, the TV’s sound system was developed by Bowers & Wilkins, and representatives from the British audio company gave us an in-depth look (and listen) at the OLED911’s new speaker setup.

It’s too early to tell if this sonic hot streak will continue with the OLED911, especially with the redesigned speaker enclosure and slimmed-down subwoofer. We will certainly need to test this TV’s sound system thoroughly in our own AV testing room. The early signs, however, are promising.

We saw the 55-inch model, which features the slightly smaller speaker lozenge, yet the sound it produces is anything but small. During that brief demo with A Quiet Place: Day One, we found the sound to be superbly atmospheric, with a spacious sonic field that placed sound effects with impressive accuracy.

A helicopter passing overhead was placed with impressive height, and the sound of a police car’s siren speeding past in the background of the shot moved dynamically from right to left, and extending past the confines of the screen to provide a sense of cinematic scale that we don't often hear with built-in sound systems.

Bowers & Wilkins also demonstrated the OLED911’s sonic capabilities with music, playing Ezra Collective’s God Gave Me Feet For Dancing (feat. Yazmin Lacey). The track’s lively energy was presented with a solid sense of rhythmic drive, while the vocals were clean and clear.

While the overall sound from the OLED911 seemed to be big, bold and crisp, we felt voices lacked a touch of warmth perhaps, although we should stress that the listening space was by no means ideal. Once again, final judgement must wait for when we test this set in our dedicated home cinema room.

Early verdict

In a year with potentially fewer flagship rivals than before, Philips could easily have rested on its laurels and delivered a modest follow-up to the excellent OLED910. We're pleased to see that the company has done the exact opposite.

With a super-bright OLED panel, superb gaming specification, an upgraded sound system, a sleek new design and a bold new take on Ambilight, the OLED911 is shaping up to be a TV that could truly steal the spotlight from the superb Sony Bravia 8 II, as well as, potentially, the upcoming LG G6 and Samsung S95H.

MORE:

Read our full Philips OLED910 review

As well as our Philips OLED760 review

And check out our picks for the best OLED TV

Disney+ has been added to Sky's Ultimate TV package, which can be accessed through Sky Stream or Sky Glass at no extra cost.

Sky Q customers can also access Disney+, provided they have the Sky Signature or Sky Entertainment package, and Sky Essential subscribers who have the Sky Cinema upgrade applied get access to the streaming service for free.

As is the case with Netflix, the version included with Sky TV is the 'Standard with Ads' tier, although customers can upgrade to the Premium tier for £4/month. Cinephiles will likely want to upgrade, as the Premium tier unlocks 4K streaming with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

Activating the bundled Disney+ subscription is easy. There is currently an icon on the Sky OS home page prompting users to activate their new subscription, and it takes merely a few clicks to get up and running. Sky has also implemented a "get Disney+" voice command, which will also guide you towards the activation process.

But what if you already have Disney+? Existing subscribers can move their current subscription (including their watch history and profiles) over to Sky TV through a linking prompt, which is shown during the sign-up process.

Furthermore, Disney+ content will now be better integrated into the Sky OS platform. Content watched on Disney+ will now show up in the 'Continue Watching' rail for the first time on Sky Stream and Glass, and Sky Q users will notice Disney+ content in the 'Today's Top Picks' and 'Continue Watching' rails.

This is the first phase of Sky TV's streaming expansion, as HBO Max and Hayu will join Disney+ when they launch later this year.

MORE:

Read our full Sky Stream review

I replaced my Apple TV 4K with Sky Stream

Check out our picks for the best streaming devices

Amazon’s original Fire TV Omni QLED TV launched nearly three years ago, and while it feels like yesterday that we were evaluating if the e-commerce goliath could make a TV worth its weight in cardboard Prime delivery boxes, the truth is that an update has been sorely needed for quite some time.

While Amazon did update the range with the four-star Fire TV Omni Mini LED last year, it has taken until now for the company to update the mid-range QLED model.

With a slew of under-the-hood upgrades promised and a Prime Day price to keep in mind, could this TV offset the onslaught of formidable budget TVs from the likes of TCL and Hisense?

Price

The 65-inch Amazon Fire TV Ember QLED launched at £1050 / $850 (roughly AU$1970 in Australia, where the TV isn't sold directly). You’ll notice that’s a £50 / $50 increase over the first-generation Omni QLED. In the grand scheme of things, this is a fairly moderate bump considering how volatile TV pricing has been since 2023.

Nevertheless, the Ember QLED faces fierce competition from the likes of TCL and Hisense. The Award-winning TCL C7K undercuts the Ember QLED here in the UK at £899 / AU$1595, though it’s significantly more expensive stateside.

Hisense’s four-star U7Q Pro is a similar affair at £899 / AU$1695, making it noticeably cheaper in the UK, but far less comparable in the US.

The Ember QLED does, however, have a trick up its sleeve. Amazon holds frequent – and we mean frequent – sales events throughout the year, including various Prime Days, Big Deal Days and Black Friday events, and here is where you can expect to pick this TV up at a colossal discount.

For instance, when we first ran this review, Amazon's Spring Deal Days were live, and the 65-inch Ember QLED was available in the UK for £ 690.

Even better, at the time of this update, there are lots of early Prime Day deals available, and this model is down to just £600 / $710.

In short, pounce at the right time, and the Ember QLED is really something of a steal.

Design

The Ember QLED is a smart-looking and well-built TV. While it still sits within the budget to mid-range sector of the market, Amazon hasn’t cheaped out on the build.

It’s constructed from a smooth and solid plastic, with a crosshatch design adorning the rear. It’s not too chunky by backlit TV standards, and it actually looks quite sleek next to the fairly bulky and plasticky-looking TCL C7K.

The sleek silver trim below the screen adds a touch of class, and the metal feet are surprisingly premium compared to the plastic ones supplied with the recently reviewed Sony Bravia 3.

On the subject of the feet, they are frustratingly placed at each end of the TV (127.2cm apart to be exact), and there is no option to fit them into a narrow configuration; so be sure to measure up your media unit before buying this TV. The good news is that the stand sits quite high, and the width should accommodate a full-sized soundbar.

Amazon also bundles the expanded Fire TV remote with the Ember QLED. If you haven’t come across this handset before, it’s basically a Fire TV Stick remote that’s been stretched and had a smattering of extra buttons added, including a number pad and TV guide button.

Interestingly, Amazon appears to be offering this TV in just three sizes this year. We have the 65-inch model in for review, but there are also 50- and 55-inch options, with the 43- and 75-inch versions no longer featuring on Amazon’s product page.

Another note on those sizes: we found that the performance greatly differed between screen sizes with the previous generation Omni QLED, so this review only pertains to the 65-inch model.

Features

Amazon’s mid-level Fire TV certainly isn’t the most feature-packed TV on paper, but for what it's worth, we think Amazon has mostly cut the right corners here.

This is a direct-lit LED TV with a quantum dot layer to boost colour vibrancy; hence the “QLED” in Ember QLED. While TCL is implementing Mini LED backlights at the price, Amazon reserves that panel technology for the step-up Omni Mini-LED model.

The good news is that this is a greatly improved panel over the previous Omni QLED, according to Amazon. It reportedly features double the dimming zones compared to its predecessor, meaning it makes a significant jump from 80 zones to 160 zones. This, in theory, should provide a significant boost to contrast, and while it won’t work miracles, it should also rein in blooming.

Furthermore, Amazon quotes this TV as being 60 per cent brighter than the first-generation Omni QLED; that’s a substantial jump. While it hasn’t provided specific figures regarding the brightness level, we did note that the original Omni QLED didn’t feature “pure peak brightness to provide a dazzling rendition of the latest and greatest HDR movies”.

Furthermore, Amazon has retained its agnostic approach to HDR formats, meaning that this TV supports HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ. The suffixes attached to each of the dynamic HDR formats mentioned here relate to their ability to tap into the built-in ambient light sensor to adjust HDR brightness levels based on the light levels in your viewing space.

Unfortunately, that holistic view only extends to the picture, as the audio features are a little bit less impressive. This TV supports Dolby Audio via the Dolby Digital Plus codec, but it does not directly support Dolby Atmos. You can pass Dolby signals through the TV via the HDMI eARC socket (we’ve reached out to Amazon to confirm if this includes Dolby Atmos), and there’s also an optical socket for legacy and/or entry-level audio devices.

The lack of native Dolby Atmos support may sound like a setback, but the 65-inch Ember QLED supports two 12W drivers for a combined audio output of 24W. These are bottom-firing units, so the concept of achieving Atmos height effects is fairly outlandish to begin with, and as we’ll come to discover, we’re actually pleasantly surprised by this TV’s audio capabilities.

On the subject of HDMI sockets, we can quickly mention the gaming specs, or the lack thereof. The Ember QLED features one HDMI 2.1 socket (which is the aforementioned eARC socket) and three HDMI 2.0 ports, which may sound like an issue until we realise that this TV sports a 60Hz panel. Therefore, 4K/120Hz gaming is out of the question, though the single HDMI 2.1 socket does support VRR, ALLM and Dolby Vision Gaming.

Either way, serious gamers should probably look towards the TCL C7K, as it supports gaming at 4K/120Hz with VRR and ALLM included.

Now, onto the bread and butter of this TV: streaming. Amazon threw its hat into the streaming ring early with its first batch of Fire TV devices launching in 2014, and Amazon Prime Video, originally Amazon Instant Video, introduced internet video streaming in 2011 – so we presume that it must feel fairly confident in this space by now.

Much like the other hardware in Amazon’s Fire TV lineup, the Ember QLED runs the Fire OS platform, which is a very solid operating system when it comes to app availability. We didn’t run into any notable gaps when it comes to the available app library, and the system runs smoothly when scrolling through the home page.

Advertising is fairly prominent throughout, and there is a tendency for the TV to prioritise content from Amazon – be that Prime Video content or products you can purchase from the web store – but that’s somewhat expected.

Another Amazon-specific feature that’s front and centre with the Ember QLED is Alexa. There are microphones built into a protruding section of the chin bezel of this TV, which can thankfully be disabled by a physical hardware switch for those who don’t want Mr Bezos listening into their everyday conversations.

Having these mics always running, however, allows us to use this TV as a super-sized Echo speaker, meaning it can control smart home appliances, answer questions and play music, movies and TV shows via a voice search function. This works nicely with Amazon’s Ambient Mode, which shows information and/or artwork on the TV screen when it's not in use.

Even with the on-board microphones disabled, there is an option to chat with Alexa via the remote’s microphone and Alexa-summoning button.

Overall, the Ember QLED sits between the TCL C7K and the Sony Bravia 3 in the budget TV hierarchy in terms of features. It has more to offer than the Sony, thanks to the inclusion of quantum dots and local dimming, but the TCL is a clear step-up thanks to its improved gaming specs, Mini LED backlight and Dolby Atmos-capable sound system.

Picture

We were quite complimentary of the first-generation Amazon Fire TV Ember QLED’s picture, and we find that this latest edition enhances a few of its best qualities. Unfortunately, it also seems to carry forth a few of its shortcomings.

We’ve paired the Ember QLED with our trusty Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, and raided our physical media collection for a handful of reference discs, including Alien Romulus, Civil War and Blade Runner 2049. We’re also using Apple TV to test the Dolby Vision performance, with F1: The Movie being our weapon of choice. The TCL C7K is also on hand as a side-by-side comparison.

Through much trial and error, our preferred settings for this TV are to stick with its Filmmaker mode, but to adjust a few settings – and we stress “a few” as the Ember QLED takes the decisions out of our hands in many cases by greying out a lot of the advanced picture settings.

Turning the local dimming up to medium and HDR tone mapping up to its middle settings yields the best results. Both of these are off by default in Filmmaker Mode, but without them, the picture is noticeably lacking in contrast and punch. We also turn sharpness down to 10, as we find the picture to look a little over-etched at the default setting of 20.

With the TV tuned in, we begin with Civil War, and it quickly becomes apparent that this TV is capable of producing an image that is overall nicely balanced, and it clearly doesn’t try to achieve more than it can based on the hardware limitations.

There is a nice sense of sharpness and definition to the outline of subjects, which, when paired with the improved contrast thanks to the inclusion of double the dimming zones, creates a solid, three-dimensional effect.

The helicopter that skims across the top of a lake towards the Charlottesville Military Base is nicely rendered, and the sense of sharpness and detail extends to skin and clothing textures, too. This sequence features a lot of foliage, and the trees are also packed with detail and texture, making for a convincingly bushy look.

Colours are mostly a success on the Ember QLED’s screen. We approve of the general richness of colours and find that they’re balanced in most scenarios aside from some occasionally overblown greenery. Skin tones are also generally handled well, with some tonal variation which adds some warmth to the characters’ cheeks, although we could accuse the Ember QLED of looking a bit pale at times in this regard.

We also find that highlights are handled admirably on the Ember QLED, and our eyes are often drawn to them over the (on-paper) brighter TCL. During the sequence in which the group of journalists drive through a forest fire at night, there is an impressive intensity to the flames, even if the TCL is better at revealing detail and colour variation within these highlights.

What’s most surprising about this TV is its ability to dig up considerably more dark detail compared to the Mini LED-touting TCL. During the opening scene of Alien Romulus, we find that the details are much more visible on the spaceship as it emerges from the depths of space, and there is also more definition to the Xenomorph fossil, too.

The trade-off here is black levels. The Ember QLED leans towards the grey end of the spectrum when it tries to deliver large swathes of black, meaning that space isn’t quite as deep and infinite as we’d hope it to be. The TCL is a clear winner here, as the improved black levels and more granular contrast control allow stars to punch through with a bit more intensity.

However, the Amazon wins back some ground here, as its backlight seems to be much more consistent during these low-light sequences. We notice that the TCL continuously raises and lowers its backlight to compensate for the small bursts of light through this mostly dark sequence, whereas the Amazon remains much more controlled and, therefore, less distracting.

One area where we have to point out a flaw in the Ember is with motion. The TV doesn’t allow us to adjust its motion settings, or “Action Smoothing” as it calls it, when it's in the Filmmaker Mode setting, and in the Movie preset it's set to the maximum level of 10.

Regardless of what setting we land on, there always seems to be something slightly off with the motion. Soldiers striding in the background of a shot in Civil War look floaty and over-smoothed (almost jelly-like in some cases), and there are some general oddities and visible artefacts to fast-moving objects.

With this in mind, we stick to Filmmaker mode, which seems to either tone things down drastically or turn it off completely, for the best, albeit still compromised, experience.

Switching to Apple TV for some Dolby Vision testing, the gap between these TVs widens, and the TCL begins to show what the extra money goes towards. The intro sequence to F1: The Movie looks good on the Amazon, with the rich colours and sharp details transferring over from our 4K Blu-ray testing, but the TCL introduces some serious pop to the image that steals our attention away from the Ember.

Headlights glow, and fireworks burst with more brightness and vibrancy on the TCL, and the additional contrast earns the TCL a bit more three-dimensionality here as well. Out of the two, the TCL appears to be clearly more competent with Dolby Vision.

Finally, we spin the Blu-ray release of Logan to see how the Ember handles upscaling, and it's surprisingly good news in this regard. Colours seem to be overemphasised, but detail levels and the general picture sharpness are both excellent, to the extent that the TCL can look slightly soft.

This is an especially promising sign, as this streaming-focused TV will undoubtedly be used to access a lot of lower-resolution content from various services, so a considered approach to upscaling is encouraging.

Sound

We’ve already hinted that the Ember QLED’s speakers aren’t the most technically advanced on the market, and they appear to be far behind the TCL’s Bang & Olufsen sound system on paper. The truth is that Ember QLED actually beats expectations in many ways.

Using our tried and tested chapter two stress test from Blade Runner 2049, we find some immediate flaws in the bass performance. The Amazon distorts heavily here, and while we presume that the Bass Enhancement sound mode may help here, it actually makes things worse. That being said, while the bass is quite waffly and flappy, it does dynamically build slightly better than the TCL, which can sound quite one-note in this regard.

Thankfully, when the baseline test begins, we find that the Ember QLED is more within its comfort zone, providing a fairly smooth and balanced approach to dialogue. There isn’t oodles of low-level dynamics on display here, but there is more richness and emotion to voices than the TCL, which can sound quite coarse and, at times, unpleasant.

Both TVs struggle when it comes to reaching high volumes; however, the Amazon sounds less strained when pushed to its maximum, all while sounding a touch more powerful and fuller too.

We’ve established that the Amazon doesn’t try to extend beyond its means by attempting any fancy Dolby Atmos processing, and we feel as though it's all the better for it.

While there isn’t a grand display of cinematic scale on show here, there is a nice breadth to the sound, and while height effects don’t extend beyond the limits of the screen, we get the impression that the Ember QLED is doing its best to place height effects with some verticality.

This is a prime example of a TV not trying to push the boundaries when it doesn’t have the capabilities, and while we’re all for being ambitious, we find that the Amazon Fire TV Ember QLED creates a smoother, fuller and much nicer sound to listen to as a result.

Verdict

Amazon has delivered another compelling, affordable TV with the latest generation Fire TV Ember QLED. While it's not a massive upgrade over the original model, the upgraded panel leads to an impressive picture performance, and the unassuming built-in sound system proves that sometimes less really is more.

While the TCL C7K remains our preferred choice at this price range, thanks to its Mini LED panel and better gaming specs, the Fire TV Ember QLED is a solid alternative. And if you can hold out until one of Amazon’s many sales events, this TV will be well-worth considering thanks to its substantially reduced price.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the TCL C7K

Also consider the TCL C6KS

Read our Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini LED review

Our pick of the best TVs for every budget

Next week, Apple is hosting a series of “special experiences” across the globe, and that’s exciting for two reasons.

First, because it’s a different approach to Apple’s usual live stream format for events. What that specifically means we don’t yet know, but it’s always nice to shake things up every now and then.

Second, because we’re expecting a wealth of new hardware, ranging from an affordable (by Apple standards) iPhone 16e to a new HomePod speaker.

But the big ticket item according to the rumour mill is a new Apple TV 4K. Why is this important? Well, on the one hand its because the current Apple TV 4K remains the best streaming box you’ll find for serious movie fans.

Hence its ongoing place in our best video streamers buying guide, despite being a bit long in the tooth. So any upgrades, even to basic performance metrics, would be awesome.

But it's mainly because there’s one key upgrade for which Apple’s new streaming box would be the perfect launchpad: Dolby Vision 2.

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to What Hi-Fi?’s homepage recently (shame on you), Vision 2 is a new HDR standard that Dolby haphazardly unveiled at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin last year.

I say haphazardly as it kinda came out of the blue – to the point its supposed launch partner Hisense, and pretty much every other TV maker we chatted to at the time seemed as “surprised” as we were by the announcement.

But, since then, as more information about it has become available, it does sound very interesting and has a lot of potential. The cliff notes are that the new standard is split into two tiers: Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max.

Both aim to offer filmmakers much more powerful and granular control over their movies, and TV makers the ability to deliver a “more authentic” experience that matches the director's vision.

Key upgrades include more accurate bi-directional tone mapping, for improved image-accuracy on compatible hardware, and new tools for the directors making films and TV shows.

The most interesting of the latter is the Max tier’s Authentic Motion service, which will let filmmakers manually adjust motion processing when required, to help reduce judder and make things like panning shots generally look more realistic.

All very cool, even if I’m not convinced that having so many different HDR tiers, which all heavily overlap, will be a hit with non-cinephile movie fans (simplicity is king here). But, that aside, as I’ve said before, there are two big hurdles that need to be overcome, ideally concurrently, for this to work and fpr Vision 2 to become “the future of home cinema” as Dolby claims it will.

To sell the standard, you need TVs capable of recognising and playing Dolby Vision 2 or Max signals, and content mastered in it that will work together to show the new tech’s benefits – the proof is in the pudding and all that.

And while we’ve seen plenty of TV makers confirm new sets will support Dolby Vision, there’s still very little word on what specific movies, shows and their ilk will be shot and mastered with it. All we know so far is that Peacock will be the first to adopt it, and Canal+ is an official partner.

And it’s at this point that I think Apple should step in, as, truthfully, outside of Amazon, which owns MGM, and maybe Sony, it’s the only company I can think of that controls every element of its entertainment and hardware ecosystem.

Think about it. While I’m still yearning for Apple to make an actual, full-sized OLED TV, it makes lots of hardware designed for media consumption – iPhones, iPads, and of course its Apple TV streamer.

It also has its own digital movie store and streaming service, in the shape of Apple TV+, and commissions, shoots and provides a lot of the hardware used to make the exclusive shows on it.

Editor’s Note: The team and I are still obsessed with the latest season of Shrinking. If you haven’t watched it already, definitely do. It’s the new Gilmore Girls / feel-good show we all need.

It’s also already shown its ability to leverage this control of the user’s entire experience to launch some nifty new home cinema tech, albeit at a smaller scale.

Take a look at the cool haptic feedback tech it added to its F1 movie trailer as an example. Terrible movie, awesome experience that was reportedly watched 845 million times and a clear example of Apple’s power to champion new tech and experiences on its platform.

I mean, it literally shook the industry with the F1 trailer.

And for me, if it did that again, unveiling a new movie, or show mastered in it, to launch concurrently, or even bundle free, with a new Dolby Vision 2-ready Apple TV 4K, well, wouldn’t that be something…

MORE:

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Our picks of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

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Panasonic has just unveiled its 2026 TV range, and it's not what we were expecting.

While there is a new OLED model, it's not a replacement for the flagship Z95B, or even the step-down Z90B. Both of those models will continue through 2026.

Instead, it's an all-new Z86C model (Z85C in mainland Europe), which Panasonic says features "a new OLED panel".

Our working theory is that this new panel is the budget-oriented OLED SE panel that LG Display introduced last month at CES.

When we put that to a Panasonic representative, they said, “LG display has launched a new panel; this is that panel”, which feels like confirmation to us.

The use of an OLED SE panel would position the Z86C as an entry-level OLED. Perhaps even at a similar level of affordability as last year's Philips OLED760 and Toshiba XF9F.

We're working on getting pricing information out of Panasonic.

The Z86C has a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support, so it could be a good option for gamers, though the number of HDMI 2.1 sockets it has is yet to be confirmed.

All flavours of HDR are supported, so that's HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos is also on board.

Amazon's Fire OS provides the Z86C's smarts, whereas mainland Europe's Z85C features Google TV.

Both TVs will be available in 55- and 65-inch sizes.

QD Mini LED sets galore

While there's just one new OLED TV on the way from Panasonic this year, there is an onslaught of Mini LED models – but they're not all coming to the UK.

The Mini LED range starts with the flagship W97C and W95C, which differ only in the colour of their casework. These models are limited to mainland Europe.

They feature a 144Hz panel, "more than" 1000 dimming zones, and a claimed peak brightness of 1500 nits.

They also feature what Panasonic is calling "Glare Free Ultra", which is designed to reduce reflections and improve viewing angles.

The W97C and W95C will be available in sizes ranging from 55 to 86 inches.

Definitely destined for UK shores is the W94C, which will come in 55-, 65- and 75-inch sizes.

This looks on paper to be very similar to the W97C and W95C, thanks to its 144Hz panel and Glare Free Ultra anti-reflection tech, but it isn't clear whether it has the same number of dimming zones or brightness.

The W94C does feature the Amazon Fire OS, though, whereas the W97C and W95C are Google TVs.

The final UK-bound Mini LED model in Panasonic's 2026 range is the W91C. Interestingly, this is a Roku TV, rather than a Google or Amazon-powered one.

This model has just a 60Hz refresh rate, but it does feature the Glare Free Ultra tech, HDMI 2.1 sockets and support for VRR and ALLM.

All of Panasonic's new Mini LED sets feature Quantum Dots for added colour vibrancy, but there is also a range of QLED TVs with non-Mini LED backlights, too, as well as some entry-level LCD models.

Our man on the ground, Lewis Empson, will be getting hands-on time with some of Panasonic's new TVs later today, so stay tuned for his first impressions pieces.

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Here are the best TVs you can buy right now

Panasonic's sister brand Technics has also just announced a new turntable

It's been quite eventful in our AV test rooms so far this year. We have reviewed a huge range of home cinema kit, from the five-star Sony Bravia Theatre System 6 to the affordable Wanbo Vali 1 projector, which achieved a solid four-star rating.

But to challenge these AV systems, we need some excellent film and TV content to put them through their paces. Whether it's for their picture offerings or its Dolby Atmos sound, we have crafted a top-tier list of discs that we reach for time and time again.

That's where this here Now Showing column comes in, as we highlight some of the best discs we have been using during testing each month.

Without further ado, let's check out what the What Hi-Fi? team have been watching.

Taxi Driver (1976)

There are few movies as iconic as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Telling the story of a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran in New York named Travis and his descent into madness, it remains a quintessential piece of cinema that stands up to this day.

Which is fairly impressive considering the fact that it turned 50 earlier this month. Eager to celebrate its birthday, I chose to finally revisit the film and watch the 4K, Dolby Vision remaster that’s available on Blu-ray and numerous streaming services. And boy am I glad I did.

Masterfully shot and with captivating performances from a young Robert DeNiro and Jodie Foster, the film’s bleak narrative and oppressive, isolated feel creates a captivating, but haunting viewing experience.

And while there’s no denying some shots are showing their age, the addition of Dolby Vision HDR breathes new life into the film, offering a punchier viewing experience with an added layer of depth on the old DVD copy I’ve owned since my student days.

Which is why, whether you’ve seen it before or not, I’d strongly suggest any movie fan take a look at the legendary masterpiece this month to celebrate its ongoing relevance 50 years on.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Stream Taxi Driver on Apple TV

Buy Taxi Driver on Blu-ray at HMV

Payback (1999)

This gritty thriller is retro through and through – not only are all the telephones and guns old-style (rotor dial and revolvers, respectively), it also has a kicking soundtrack, featuring James Brown, BB King, Dean Martin, Vic Damone, Jimi Hendrix and Lou Rawls (ountry legend Kris Kristofferson even puts in a turn as a mob bigwig.) But that’s hardly surprising, given it’s based on the novel The Hunter by Richard Stark – aka Donald Westlake – which was also turned into the Lee Marvin classic Point Blank.

That’s quite some pedigree. But Mel Gibson’s movie goes in a different direction. While Point Blank had European influences, making it borderline arthouse – is the whole film the fever dream of a dying man? – Payback is much more of a crowd-pleaser. It’s not quite James Bond, but it’s more straightforward (despite the colossal flashback sequence), and there’s almost a comic book quality to the effortlessly dispatched violence and dry one-liners.

Its grey-blue tinge (achieved by tinting the film using a bleach bypass process) also gives it a detached, almost chilly feel. On the one hand, this makes it harder to get attached to the characters. But on the other hand, it makes it easier to enjoy the punch-ups.

Director Brian Helgeland’s original cut was more faithful to the source novel, and while the theatrically released version has the same final twist as Elmore Leonard’s Freaky Deaky, it does make for a more satisfying ending. If you’re after a cold-blooded thriller that doesn’t take itself too seriously (and that will seriously test your TV’s black levels), check out Payback.

Words by Joe Svetlik

Stream Payback on Apple TV

The Running Man (2025)

Boy, I’m not looking forward to the future. Insane wealth inequality; massive tech corporations monopolising resources and controlling information; constant state surveillance; a gaudy celebrity culture that pits vulnerable people against one another; an increasingly blurring line between digital fakery and genuine truth.

Hang on a minute…

The social-political commentary lurking behind Egar Wright’s reasonably enjoyable remake of The Running Man – during which contestants on America’s hottest reality show must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins – is about as subtle as a Babybel on a cheese board, but thankfully, so is the movie’s overall aesthetic.

Shiny neon lights contrasting starkly against a grimy urban backdrop is a perennial theme of most dystopian or cyberpunk fare (see Blade Runner, CyberPunk 2077, Dredd, Deus Ex), with The Running Man once again giving you a perfect opportunity to see how well your screen can bring out those contrasting flavours.

It’s also a movie which makes a similarly unsubtle use of colour, with searing reds being the most obvious example. There’s Glen Powell’s natty red hoodie, the gaudy red electronic banners of the network’s all-consuming advertising campaigns, the red lights of glowing attack drones, and, of course, the occasional splash of red each time a contestant fails to evade those mean old hunters.

C’est la vie.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Pre-order The Running Man in 4K Blu-ray at HMV

Stream The Running Man on Amazon Prime Video

Unbroken (2014)

If you have read any of our reviews on soundbars or speaker packages, you may well be aware that Unbroken is a regular visitor to our trusty 4K Blu-ray player.

That's because the Dolby Atmos disc's excellent sound design manages to challenge multiple aspects of a piece of audio kit, from cheap and cheerful models to premium entries with up-firing speakers.

Directed by Angelina Jolie, the film follows a former Olympic runner (played by Jack O'Connell) who becomes a WWII pilot. When his plane crashes into the sea, his battle to survive intensifies when he's captured.

There is only one scene you need to watch from Unbroken that proves its chops as a brilliant test disc.

It opens with an ethereal choral score that slowly gives way to the hum of an approaching squadron of bombers in the sky, with each propeller given an individual dimension as the rotor blades buzz past. The enemy's plane swoops all around the listener, followed closely by rattling machine gun fire spiralling after them.

Despite the roar of the wind and the mechanics of the plane, sounds such as the gunner's chair, the creaking of an old leather jacket and radio dialogue are all detailed and brought in and out of focus as the dog fight unfolds.

If you want to give your home cinema system a proper challenge in terms of its Atmos performance, then Unbroken is the one for you.

Words by Robyn Quick

Buy Unbroken on Blu-ray at HMV

Stream Unbroken on Apple TV

Sky’s Glass TV concept has been a roaring success so far. At various times since the original Sky Glass TVs launched in 2021, in fact, Sky’s own-branded integrated TV solution has been the UK’s best-selling TV.

Part of the Sky Glass’s success has undoubtedly been down to how affordable it is – especially if bought in monthly instalments with a Sky subscription plan.

That didn’t stop Sky, though, from revealing when it launched the second generation of Sky Glass in 2025, that it was also preparing to release a new ‘budget’ Sky Glass TV option, the Sky Glass Air.

The Air models are now here – and it really is mind-bogglingly affordable. Especially, again, if you pay for it monthly as part of a Sky subscription premium.

It still lets you access Sky’s full subscription channel packages via streaming, too, and still carries the same renowned Sky operating system you get with the Sky Glass 2.

All of which raises one simple question about the 65-inch Glass Air sat on our test benches: what’s the catch?

Price

As you might expect of a TV created by Sky specifically to host its subscription broadcasting platform, the price situation with the Sky Glass Air is more complicated than usual.

While you can buy the 48-, 55- or 65-inch versions of the Sky Glass Air for a simple up-front price, you can also buy them on a monthly subscription basis. Though in both cases, the pricing really is remarkably low.

At the time of writing, the 43-inch Sky Glass Air is £225 up front, or as little as £4.25 a month over 48 months; the 55-inch version is £377 up front or £7.25 a month over 48 months; and the 65-inch model we’re looking at is £481 or £9.50 a month, again over 48 months.

All three TVs can also be bought over 24 months if 48 months sounds like a drag, with the 43-, 55- and 65-inch screens costing £8.50, £14.50, and £19 a month respectively under that two-year deal.

Note, though, that you can only get these prices if you also take on a Sky TV streaming subscription, which starts at £15 p/m for new customers. Plus, there’s also a one-off £20 up-front fee with all of the monthly payment options.

So, while the TV itself really is remarkably affordable, the all-in monthly cost, once the TV subscription (which can quickly balloon once premium movie and sports channels are added) is accounted for, can still be quite high.

It’s also worth noting that the above prices are potentially limited-time offers. So we’ll also quickly mention the at-launch pricing in case they revert to that: £309 up front and from £6 a month for the 43-inch Sky Glass Air; £509 up front or from £12 a month for the 55-inch model; and £649 up front or from £13 a month for the 65-inch version.

Oh, and before you ask, this isn’t some sort of rental agreement. If you pay monthly for your Sky Glass Air, it is yours to keep once the final payment has been made.

Design

While the Sky Glass Air doesn’t benefit from the boldly industrial, metallic, speaker-bar-adorned design delivered so strikingly by the Sky Glass 2, it’s still easier on the eye than the vast majority of similarly affordable TVs.

Its bezel is reasonably narrow and enjoys a tasteful matte, almost powdered-effect finish, and its screen sits stylishly low down on an unusually wide desktop base (unless you pay for Sky’s optional wall mount).

While the lack of any gap between the screen and its stand adds to the TV’s style factor, though, it could be a problem for people thinking of adding a soundbar to their set-up.

The sides of the Sky Glass Air are much slimmer than those of the chunky Sky Glass 2. Though this is down in no small part to the fact that they don’t house the potent edge-mounted speakers that the Sky Glass 2’s do.

Also, parts of the Glass Air’s rear stick out quite some distance by modern TV standards – especially at the bottom, which accommodates the TV’s hopefully potent speakers.

We’ve cunningly left the coolest aspect of the Sky Glass Air’s design to last: namely, the fact that all three sizes are available in a choice of three colours: Carbon Grey, Cotton White and Sea Green.

We have samples to hand in both the Carbon Grey and Sea Green finishes, but we’ve seen all three side-by-side, and while the Carbon Grey colour looks a bit ‘standard’, the Cotton White and Sea Green options really do help to further disguise how affordable these TVs are.

Each Sky Glass Air ships with one of Sky’s distinctive remote controls, tastefully finished in the same colour as the screen it partners.

Features

Despite how affordable it is, the Sky Glass Air has a native 4K resolution and supports high dynamic range video. The HDR support extends beyond the HDR10 and HLG basics to Dolby Vision, too.

Like the Sky Glass 2, the Air also benefits from a VA panel rather than a contrast-challenged IPS one, and a Quantum Dot colour system capable of delivering more than a billion colours.

However, where the Glass 2 gets a backlighting system with local dimming, the Glass Air only features global dimming, where the entire backlight adjusts its output en masse in response to changes in the content.

As we’ve hinted at already, the Air doesn’t get the seven-speaker, 3.1.2-channel audio system of the Glass 2. In fact, the Glass Air features just a 2.0 stereo arrangement, with 15W available to each channel.

The Dolby Atmos decoding available on the Glass 2 doesn’t carry down to the Air, either – though the cheaper model can still handle Dolby Digital+.

The Sky Glass Air’s connections comprise a trio of HDMI 2.1 ports, an optical digital audio output, a 15W USB-C port, a 5W USB-A 2.0 port, both Bluetooth and wi-fi wireless support, and an RF tuner port that you’ll probably never use.

The wi-fi support is particularly important to the Sky Glass Air, of course, as it provides access to the streamed version of Sky’s expansive subscription-based TV service. There’s no need for any dish fitted to your house here.

The streamed version of Sky does away, too, with the whole hard drive recording thing associated with the classic Sky Q system. With Sky Glass Air, everything is stored on Sky’s unimaginably colossal servers, so you just have to find an episode of something or a film you want to watch in Sky’s menus, hit play, and it will start to stream directly to the TV.

Most of the time, this works really well, but when you live with a Sky Glass or Sky Stream device, you do encounter rare occasions when this system fails. This is particularly true of non-Sky content.

For example, we have encountered times when motor races on TNT Sports have been ‘Playlisted’ (so, in theory, recorded) and have been available to watch from any point during the live broadcast, but have then disappeared from our Playlist after the race has finished, making it impossible to resume from where we left off – or even start from the beginning again.

We have also had a ‘recording’ of a Formula 1 race, broadcast by Sky itself, cut off a few laps from the end, seemingly on account of a rain delay that the system hadn’t accounted for.

Instances such as these are mercifully pretty few and far between, but they’re hugely frustrating when they occur, and simply wouldn’t be a problem if Sky Q-style recording to built-in storage was supported.

On the plus side, on top of the huge range of Sky channels, Sky’s unique OS (more on this in a moment) also carries a healthy range of third-party streaming/catch-up apps, including Netflix, Discovery+, Disney+, Paramount+, YouTube, the BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 and My5.

The way all these sources, channels and on-demand shows and films coalesce in the Glass Air’s Sky OS menus blurs the lines between on-demand and linear content to the point where they pretty much disappear. It’s all just content.

This is the result of years (and years) of refinement by Sky’s in-house OS design team, and as such feels like the most truly bespoke OS in the TV world.

For the most part, this OS handles the presentation and organisation of Sky’s vast amounts of content and channels extremely well, while its ability to recommend content that actually feels relevant to you based on analysis of your viewing history is outstanding.

Props are due, too, to Sky’s voice recognition system, which impresses in both how well it responds to relatively natural speech, and how deep its research results go.

The uniqueness of the Sky OS extends to some extent to the TV’s rather non-standard picture set-up options – with not entirely successful results.

The set of picture presets available, for instance, features quite an unusual bunch of relatively out there and very restrained options – though the Glass Air is actually less extreme with its preset ‘takes’ than the Glass 2 is.

The provision of straightforward Bright and Dark settings for both basic HDR/HLG and Dolby Vision content is a positive, and it’s good at this price level to find white balance and colour management tools.

But frustratingly, it’s not possible to store different picture set-ups for different sources; whatever picture preset or custom set-up you’ve selected applies to every source until you change it.

The most aggravating issue, though, is the way the Glass Air won’t let you make adjustments to any of its picture presets bar the Custom one.

So if, say, you’re watching the Extra Vivid preset but feel like you’d like to nudge its brightness down a bit to reduce dark scene noise and bright highlight clipping, you can’t. The moment you adjust anything, the TV switches to its Custom mode – a mode with default picture values radically different to those of the Extra Vivid mode.

So if you’d like a slightly tweaked Extra Vivid mode, you’re forced to try and recreate the mode’s look under the Custom preset.

The Sky Glass Air doesn’t fix a couple of frustrating gaming shortcomings of the Glass 2, either.

For one, while the screen can detect when a game source is playing thanks to HDMI’s ALLM feature, it doesn’t give you any onscreen indication that it’s switched into its low-latency mode.

Nor, worse, is there any way to manually put the TV into its fastest response mode. So if your console or PC doesn’t support the ALLM feature, there’s no way of manually switching the TV into low-latency mode.

This issue also prevents us from using our Leo Bodnar input lag test device to measure the screen’s input lag, so all we can say on that is that Sky claims Glass 2’s low latency mode gets input lag down to just under 20ms.

It’s honestly baffling that Sky hasn’t fixed these limitations yet, given the huge number of feature-adding software updates it’s rolled out to its Glass system over the years.

One last point gamers should take note of is that the Glass Air’s screen is only a 60Hz panel with no dual-line gate technology (which enables some brands to sacrifice resolution to double their screen’s refresh rates). So 120Hz gaming just isn’t an option on the Glass Air. There’s no support for VRR, either.

Picture

While the 65-inch Sky Glass Air’s pictures aren’t as bright, contrast-rich or generally intense as those of the Sky Glass 2, they’re really not bad at all for a TV that can be had for just a few quid a month.

For starters, in the Vivid and Extra Vivid presets (or a Custom mode set-up to largely mimic those presets), images look surprisingly bright. This is the case, too, with both full-screen bright HDR content and small bright highlights, despite the Glass Air not having any local dimming controls at its disposal.

Colours are surprisingly vibrant too – again in the Vivid and Extra Vivid presets – with the brightness highlighting the Glass Air’s colour intensity rather than causing it to wash out, as can happen with TVs that have more brightness than their colour systems can really cope with. Take a bow, Quantum Dots.

Colours in Vivid and Extra-Vivid mode arguably look better – or more natural, at least – than they do on the Sky Glass 2. Thanks, ironically, to the more limited capabilities of the Glass Air’s panel preventing it from pushing some colour tones a bit too hard and losing subtle details in very vibrant areas.

The Glass Air’s combination of decent brightness and vibrant colours means its pictures remain very watchable in its two Vivid modes, even in quite bright environments.

The Glass Air’s sharpness and detail are also better than we’d expect to see from such a cheap TV, leaving you in no doubt that you’re watching a native 4K screen. The sharpness doesn’t fall away badly when there’s motion to handle either, despite the lack of motion processing options, and even the set’s upscaling of HD sources is perfectly respectable.

The Glass Air retains lots of shadow detail in dark areas too, giving depth to dark scenes and helping to disguise the fact that its delivery of blacks falls some way short of the Glass 2.

Brightness is generally more stable than it is with the Glass 2 as well. The Air’s global dimming system can occasionally overreact, drawing attention to its machinations, but there’s no sign of the occasional local dimming zone ‘artefact’ you can get with the Glass 2. The extra intensity of the Extra-Vivid mode also really helps to disguise limited black level and faint clouding issues we’ll come to later.

In fact, the Glass Air’s freedom from many of the sort of overt distracting glitches and over-eager picture ‘boosters’ that many more expensive TVs can suffer with helps it deliver an overall unexpectedly natural, consistent and, as a result, immersive picture that’s rare to see for so little money.

Normally, TV presets with names such as Vivid and, especially, Extra-Vivid would be the ones we’d be most likely to avoid. On the Glass Air, though, they’re quite comfortably our favourite options. In fact, with SDR and HDR10/HLG, Extra-Vivid is our ultimate favourite, as it avoids a rather strong green tint that the Vivid mode introduces.

There are two issues with the Extra-Vivid preset’s appeal, though. First, it’s partly our favourite because the other presets just don’t seem to have been well thought through. They tend to make blacks become much more of a washed-out grey, reduce brightness and leave colours looking more flat and pallid.

The other issue with the Extra-Vivid preset’s appeal is that, while it’s the most watchable and enjoyable picture mode on the Glass Air, it can clip subtle shading and details out of the brightest parts of HDR pictures, and can bring out too much shadow detail in dark areas, leaving such areas looking a bit noisy.

And since you can’t try to fix these issues by simply adjusting the Extra Vivid settings, you’re basically forced to set up a Custom mode that looks like Extra-Vivid minus the clipping and dark-area noise issues.

One bit of very good and mercifully straightforward news in all this picture preset shenanigans is that the Glass Air responds very well to Dolby Vision content, with this premium HDR format’s extra image controls and information yielding a great balance of contrast, brightness and colour right off the bat.

Getting back to reasons the Glass Air is so affordable, its black level response is certainly a fair bit down on that of the Glass 2. Dark scenes look greyer, even in the most dynamic Vivid/Extra-Vivid modes, and there’s also occasionally evidence of backlight clouding in the image’s corners. Fortunately, this is faint and undefined enough not to become a major distraction. Especially if you leave some light in your room.

In fact, our attempts at dark room movie nights ultimately lead to the conclusion that the Glass Air is more watchable in all sorts of ways if you keep a little light in the room, as this helps hide many of its limitations without impacting its strengths. This is more a word of advice than a criticism, to be clear, given how watchable pictures remain in such room conditions.

Another tip would be to not place as much faith in the Glass Air’s Auto picture mode as you can in the Glass 2’s Auto picture mode.

On paper, the two modes should achieve the same aim – namely adjusting the picture to compensate for changes in ambient light conditions as well as the type of content (primarily sport or not-sport) being played.

While the Glass 2’s Auto mode did a good job of balancing out the screen’s otherwise sometimes over-enthusiastic extremes, though, the Glass Air’s mode tends to deliver rather dull, flat-looking results that quickly had us heading back to the Extra-Vivid mode (or our tweaked-to-look-like Extra-Vivid mode Custom preset).

One final limitation of the Glass Air’s pictures is that its viewing angles before black levels take a big hit are very limited. There’s also one final strength, though, which allows us to finish on the positive note the TV deserves; namely, that the Glass Air’s screen does a better job than most budget TVs of suppressing on-screen reflections.

Sound

The Sky Glass Air’s sound joins its pictures in outperforming the TV’s price point. It can go surprisingly loud, for starters, yet even at its maximum volume, it doesn’t sound strained or brittle, and we never manage to find a soundtrack moment extreme enough to elicit any buzzing or humming from the TV’s bodywork.

Despite the Glass Air only having a stereo speaker set-up, it manages to create a fairly convincing soundstage, even with complicated mixes. So, for instance, the piano at the start of It Chapter One on 4K Blu-ray sounds as though it’s coming from just outside the TV’s bodywork, while the rest of the mix seems to be coming from the screen. Voices seem to be coming from the onscreen action too, rather than from somewhere beneath or behind it.

Fine audio details are presented reasonably well, and high-pitched effects only sound harsh if they’re isolated in the mix, with no bass to counteract them.

Talking of bass, while there’s a limit to how deep the Glass Air’s speakers can go, that limit doesn’t prevent low frequencies from having respectable impact and presence for such an affordable TV. Yet the limit also cunningly kicks in just in time to stop even the most dramatic bass rumbles causing crackles or dropouts.

Dialogue can sound a little sibilant, and the Glass Air inevitably can’t rival the Glass 2 when it comes to Dolby Atmos soundstaging or general power. The Glass Air’s sound seldom does anything wrong enough to distract you from what you’re watching, though, adding to the TV’s surprisingly immersive qualities.

Verdict

While some of Sky’s picture set-up decisions and options are a bit odd (to say the least), the Glass Air is overall an excellent expansion of Sky’s TV hardware offering.

Despite being available for a monthly sub equivalent to just a couple of Friday night cocktails, it delivers surprisingly balanced, refined and thoughtfully tuned picture and sound – as well as a full version of Sky’s renowned operating system. All wrapped up in a premium-looking design that even gives you a trio of colour options to choose from.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sky Glass 2

Also consider the TCL 65C6KS

Read our Samsung U8000F review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

A British TV brand? As unlikely as that might seem in 2026, that is precisely what Mitchell & Brown is.

Created in Bolton in 2016 as an offshoot of the family-owned TVD Group, which these days is primarily a supplier and installer of AV kit for businesses but began life as an electronics shop in Lancashire, Mitchell & Brown is the brainchild of Matthew and Daniel, the sons of TVD founder Jim Brown.

The brand is, in fact, a tribute to Jim, with the name combining his surname and his mother’s maiden name, and all of the TVs featuring his initials and birthday (1811).

Said TVs are actually designed and manufactured by “Europe’s largest TV manufacturer” (Vestel), but they’re built to Mitchell & Brown’s specifications and the Brown brothers claim that each model goes through “intensive testing and rigorous quality control processes”.

The company backs up this quality claim by supplying the vast majority of its TVs with a seven-year warranty.

If you’re naturally sceptical about such things, you might be impressed to learn that a trust fund backs the Mitchell & Brown warranty, so cover should remain even if something unfortunate were to befall M&B itself, and that all warranty work is handled either by the high street retailer that sold you the TV, or Mitchell & Brown in Bolton. The customer service department is in the UK, too.

That all seems very impressive, but it’s obviously all for nought if the TVs aren’t up to scratch. After all, a rubbish TV with a seven-year warranty is still a rubbish TV.

Thankfully, while the QLED1811 we’re reviewing today has its flaws, it does enough right make it a solid budget TV choice – assuming you get it for the right price…

Price

The 55-inch Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 has an official price of £650. At the risk of jumping ahead, that’s a price that its performance struggles to justify.

It’s good news, then, that Richer Sounds is offering the TV for £499, where it becomes much more appealing.

The obvious competition at that level comes from budget TV overlord TCL, with the 55-inch version of the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning C6KS coming in at £429, and the C6K at £499. Our review of the second of those is yet to be published, but the TV has been tested and was on hand for comparisons with the Mitchell & Brown.

Design

The QLED1811 is a little fiddlier to put together than most rival TVs, and the endeavour isn’t helped by the rather unclear diagrams.

On that subject, the instruction manual is also written in the smallest text imaginable. An A4 version is available via the Mitchell & Brown website, but we wonder how many buyers won’t realise that and will persevere with the borrower-sized manual in the box.

It’s a shame more attention hasn’t been paid to these details, as they create a slightly negative first impression.

Still, once put together, the QLED1811 is a fairly smart-looking TV, at least when viewed from a typical viewing distance, from where the plasticky nature of the materials is less obvious.

Unlike most modern TVs, much of the QLED1811’s chassis is silver rather than black, which will appeal to some potential buyers.

The stand allows the set to swivel, too, which is handy for getting the best viewing angle and accessing the side-mounted connections, and while the TV is pretty chunky compared with more premium sets, its 6.6cm depth is fairly typical of budget models (the TCL C6K is 5.6cm deep).

Features

At least some of that thickness is likely down to the use of a direct LED backlight, rather than edge lighting. Edge backlights can open the door to slimmer designs, but they usually bring with them consistency issues.

But while the QLED1811’s backlight features LEDs facing directly outwards, there’s no local dimming, which will likely limit its contrast. Admittedly, local dimming is fairly rare at this sort of level, but it is something that TCL’s C6K and C6KS both offer.

Another potentially contrast-limiting factor is the use of an IPS rather than VA panel. IPS usually brings with it advantages to viewing angles, though, so this is a trade-off that could pay off. It’s also worth noting that the use of Quantum Dots (hence the ‘QLED’ in the name) should result in greater colour vibrancy than you would get from a standard LCD TV.

The panel is limited to a refresh rate of 60Hz. Again, that’s typical of TVs in this price bracket, but TCL has gone above and beyond by fitting the 55-inch versions of both the C6K and C6KS with 120Hz panels.

This limitation means 4K/120Hz gaming is off the menu, but the QLED1811 does have a dedicated Game mode (which it automatically switches to when required, thanks to ALLM support) that drops input lag to an imperceptible 15ms, so most gamers need not be put off.

Besides, Mitchell & Brown’s target audience is likely more interested in watching TV and movies, and here the QLED1811’s features are more impressive.

For starters, it has TiVo as its smart platform. While this does lack some of the slightly less mainstream apps that we like to see (Paramount+, Now and Discovery+, for example), the most popular bases are covered, including Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and all of the UK’s terrestrial channel catch-up apps. A dedicated Apple TV app is absent, but you can at least get Apple TV content via Prime Video these days.

Freely is also on board, so you can stream live terrestrial TV via the internet rather than an aerial, if you so wish.

HDR support is good, too. HDR10+ is missing, but this isn’t much of a loss, and HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision are all on board. Disappointingly, Dolby Vision wouldn’t work within the Disney+ app during testing (all HDR content instead played in the standard HDR10 format), but this is hopefully a temporary bug, as Dolby Vision worked in all of the other apps that it should.

HLG works fine in the BBC iPlayer app, at least, so those lovely nature documentaries and shows such as The Night Manager play in HDR as they should.

TiVo is very user-friendly and impressively intelligent when it comes to content recommendations and search results, so it’s a bit of a shame that Mitchell & Brown has bundled the QLED1811 with such a cheap, uncomfortable and occasionally unresponsive remote. The buttons are fairly well-spaced and clearly labelled, at least.

Interestingly, during initial set-up, we were asked to pair the remote to the TV using Bluetooth, which is required for voice control. However, the remote that came with our sample lacks the buttons we were asked to press, and seemingly has neither Bluetooth nor a microphone. Mitchell & Brown should remove this step from the otherwise slick installation process or (even better) bundle the QLED1811 with this apparently more fully featured remote control.

In terms of connections, the Mitchell & Brown offers three HDMI sockets, one of which doubles as the eARC port in case you want to connect a dedicated sound system, plus an optical out and a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a couple of USBs.

Picture quality

The Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 is capable of delivering good picture quality, but you won’t get it unless you dip into the settings menus.

During set-up, you’re asked to choose between the Natural and Dynamic picture presets, and neither is nice. Dynamic is what we’ve come to expect from such modes – everything pumped up to the max in a hyper-unrealistic way.

But Natural is ironically unnatural, too. Too cool, too bright, too sharp and with unpleasant motion processing, it’s more like the overenthusiastic Standard modes found on some rival sets.

Thankfully, there is also a Cinema preset that can be selected in the menus after initial set-up. While this isn’t perfect by default, either, it is the best of the presets, and it can be made better by dropping Sharpness to 0 (this fixes the default over-sharpening) and MEMC (motion processing) to Low or Off.

The one significant issue remaining is the clipping out of details and shading in bright HDR highlights, and this unfortunately can’t be fixed in the Cinema mode. Peculiarly, this HDR clipping is less of an issue in the Natural preset, but that has a very odd way with contrast that itself can’t be fixed, so our preference is to stick with Cinema and put up with the clipping, which is less readily noticeable.

For example, when we play No Time To Die on 4K Blu-ray in HDR10, while the bright clouds over the cemetery in Matera look much flatter than they should, they don’t look obviously incorrect, so don’t spoil your enjoyment of a presentation that is otherwise rather nice.

This is a very crisp and detailed delivery, even with the Sharpness dropped to 0. Edges are smartly drawn without looking fizzy or over-etched, and the QLED1811 digs up the texture of Bond’s lovely suit and the imperfections of his perfectly characterful face without anything looking forced.

In fact, the Mitchell & Brown’s delivery is impressively solid and three-dimensional-looking, and those traits remain even in motion – a traditional area of weakness for most budget TVs, which often have slow, smeary panels. With MEMC set to Low, though, the QLED1811 remains composed with both the slow panning shots across the Italian cliffs and the face-punching, rope-swinging, car-smashing action scene that follows.

The only time during testing that we manage to foil the M&B’s motion processing is with Blade Runner 2049. As Officer K’s flying cop car passes behind a series of towers on its way to the LA precinct, there’s some fluttering as the TV struggles to discern automobile from skyscraper.

With this sort of issue being so rare, our preference remains MEMC set to Low, but you can turn it off entirely if you prefer total consistency and are prepared to accept a bit of judder and blur to get it.

Blade Runner 2049 does highlight another of the Mitchell & Brown’s limitations, though – a lack of black depth. Full black and mostly black screens simply are not that. Instead, they’re a not-very-deep grey.

That probably sounds damning, and it’s not a good thing, for sure. But it’s really not apparent as often as you would expect. The studio logos and opening text of Blade Runner 2049 expose the issue, but during the film proper, where every shot is a complex mix of shades, the lack of black depth isn’t readily apparent.

This is possibly helped by the surprising brightness and pop of the QLED1811’s picture. The best budget Mini LED models (yes, we’re again talking about the TCL C6K and C6KS) offer better outright brightness and contrast, but the Mitchell & Brown is engagingly punchy.

The TV’s colours help entice the eyes, too. There’s some subtle oversaturation to reds that isn’t entirely authentic, but it does add a very pleasant warmth and richness without looking overblown.

Switching from HDR10 to Dolby Vision with The Rip from Netflix, we find that the Dolby Vision Dark preset works well by default, though we do change the MEMC setting from Off to Low.

Surprisingly, given the very dark presentation of Affleck and Damon’s corrupt cop movie, the Mitchell & Brown’s compromised black performance rarely stands out, and the slightly over-saturated reds once again add to the richness of the picture. All told, this is a nicely balanced, crisp, detailed and altogether very pleasant Dolby Vision delivery.

Drop down to HD, and the QLED1811 continues to put in a decent performance for the money. The HDR-less picture of our Logan Blu-ray looks a touch washed-out with the more vibrant TCL C6K running alongside it, but the upscaling is clean and controlled – qualities that also benefit live TV from Freely and Freeview.

A final note on viewing angles. As with all backlit TVs, there is some loss of colour vibrancy and contrast as you move off-axis, but the IPS panel helps to ensure that the sweet spot isn’t too narrow and the drop off isn’t too severe.

Sound quality

In terms of sound quality, the Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 is reasonable for its price tag.

There’s a small amount of width and height to the delivery with The Rip (just enough so that it doesn’t feel trapped in the screen), and the TV can go relatively loud while still delivering reasonable dynamics. Dialogue doesn't get buried in the rest of the action, either.

But while the dialogue is always clear, the rest of the presentation is rather muffled. Effects such as gunshots lack an impactful leading edge, and as action scenes and soundtrack moments get busier, sounds start to blend into one another.

For a cheap TV, there’s a reasonable amount of bass, though. This isn’t the generally thin, harsh delivery that you often get at this level. And the set remains fairly composed, too – there’s a bit of fuzz and hum with Blade Runner 2049’s super-deep bass, but much less than we usually get, even with many more premium TVs.

Verdict

Whether you care about Mitchell & Brown’s Britishness is, of course, entirely up to you. The seven-year warranty and UK-based customer service department are also hard to put a price on. Importantly, though, the JB-55QLED1811 is a decent budget TV regardless.

This isn’t on a par with TCL’s best budget models, but frankly, nothing is. Instead, it’s a TV that works effectively within the relative limits of its hardware to deliver an enjoyable viewing experience – as long as you’re prepared to put a little effort into the picture settings.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the TCL C6KS

Also consider the Sharp GK4245K

Best cheap TVs: affordable sets tried, tested and recommended

Way back in September, I wrote that there was one specific feature of Dolby Vision 2 that I was particularly excited about.

That feature is Authentic Motion, which is designed to reduce judder in movies in a more natural way, by smoothing motion only when required, and without introducing the dreaded soap opera effect.

I theorised that this would work in a similar way to TrueCut, which is a cinema-only technology that increases the frame rate of movies beyond the usual 24 frames per second so that extra frames are available in scenes when smoothing is required.

It turns out, though, that Authentic Motion works within the traditional 24fps limit of movies.

According to Dolby’s spokesperson, “Authentic Motion does not require content to be encoded or distributed in a higher frame rate. 24fps works well.”

It seems that it is designed to work rather like the motion processing that is already found in the vast majority of modern TVs, but the decision of what to smooth and what to leave untouched will be down to the movie makers rather than the TV manufacturers.

“The way [Authentic Motion] works is that the creative intent for motion is embedded in the content as metadata. You can think of this as creatively determined insight about the judder proneness of the content, which can change dynamically from shot to shot.”

So, the creator looks at the content, judges which bits will benefit from smoothing, and adds metadata to the Dolby Vision 2 signal that tells the TV to handle it accordingly.

Crucially, though, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, because Dolby Vision 2 will also adjust its delivery based on the TV you’re watching it on. This is how Dolby’s spokesperson explains it:

“The other critical part of Dolby's solution is to take into consideration the judder proneness of the display used for playback. After all, a large and bright TV has much higher judder proneness than a small and dim one, even when playing the same content.

“Any motion solution that applies the same amount of dejudder on all displays is either applying too much dejudder on some displays or not enough on others, or a combination of both.

“During Dolby's test and approval process for licensed TVs, we characterise TVs to know their judder proneness (among many other things).”

It’s this combination of knowing what the content requires and understanding how the display performs that apparently makes Authentic Motion special:

“During playback, the appropriate amount of dejudder is then applied in real-time, based on the insights about both content and display.

“This allows Authentic Motion to always apply the minimal amount of dejudder, while eliminating egregious judder when it's really needed, delivering an experience that is spellbinding and authentic.”

But wouldn't it be even better with more frames?

This all sounds very impressive, but I can’t help but wish that it were combined with the high refresh rate technology that I presumed it would be.

Every modern TV is capable of handling at least 50 or 60 frames per second (which of those depends on where in the world you live), and many TVs can now go to 120fps and beyond.

But while those higher frame rates have long been leveraged by the gaming industry, they’ve been largely untouched by movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pining for a new era of Hobbit-style films in constant 48fps HFR, because I agree that looks really weird. But I do think that this contextual use of motion smoothing that Dolby is introducing with Dolby Vision 2 could potentially be even more effective if it had extra frames to play with.

Of course, Dolby could be entirely correct – perhaps Authentic Motion really doesn’t need to go beyond 24fps. What Hi-Fi? Senior Staff Writer Lewis Empson was certainly impressed when he saw a demo of the tech at CES 2026.

I’m very excited to see Dolby Vision 2 and its Authentic Motion feature myself, of course, and I’ll be approaching it with an open mind. On paper, though, it just doesn’t sound quite like the technological step change that I was hoping for.

MORE:

Here's everything you need to know about Dolby Vision 2

These are the best TVs you can buy right now

You know what they say about OLED TVs: you wait your whole life for a cheap one to come along, and then two arrive at once.

So, hot on the heels of our review of Toshiba’s XF9F OLED TV, we have Philips’s take on the budget OLED, the OLED760.

It currently costs just a little more than the Toshiba model, but the OLED760 is still remarkably affordable for an OLED. It also boasts better specs and fancy Ambilight, and is, perhaps crucially, the product of a brand with almost a decade of experience in the OLED TV game.

So, can it succeed where the Toshiba struggled?

Price

The 65-inch Philips OLED760 launched at an impressively low price of £1499, but its current £1099 asking price makes it potentially one of the year’s biggest TV bargains.

OLED TVs – especially those equipped, as the OLED760 is, with an eye-catching supporting cast of Ambilight technology and strong gaming support – just aren’t supposed to be this cheap. Yet here we are.

Not surprisingly, the other screen sizes of the OLED760 keep the value flag flying, with the 55-inch costing £899 and the 77-inch costing £1599.

Philips’s website lists a 48-inch OLED760 model as well, but at the time of writing, we couldn’t find anywhere in the UK selling this model. Philips OLEDs unfortunately aren’t available in the US or Australia.

Cheap though it is by OLED standards, the Philips OLED760 can, remarkably, be beaten for price, with the recently reviewed Toshiba XF9F OLED currently available for just £999 in 65-inch form.

The cheapest 65-inch OLEDs from more established brands such as Samsung and LG, meanwhile, start at around £1500.

Design

Far from being the lump of boring plastic we would expect such a budget-conscious OLED to look like, the OLED760 is actually rather glamorous. It combines a remarkably narrow, premium-feeling black screen trim with a chassis so slim at the outer edges that it gives your credit card a run for its money.

The TV does bulk out a fair bit over its more central rear portion – all of its connections, processing, speakers and the like have to go somewhere, after all – but you won’t notice this chunkier bit unless you’ve hung the TV on the wall or you’re watching it from a really severe angle.

Even the little blade-style feet supplied with the screen enjoy a quite premium ‘satin chrome’ finish.

Then there’s the OLED760’s most eye-catching claim to design fame: its three-sided take on Philips’ Ambilight technology.

This, if you’ve somehow never come across Ambilight before, uses an array of LEDs arranged down the back of the screen’s left, right and top edges to produce a pool of coloured light on the wall behind and around the TV.

This pool of light can be purely ambient, set to a colour of your choice, or set to have the LEDs constantly mirror both the tone and the position of specific colours of what you’re watching.

We realise Ambilight perhaps sounds a bit much when just described in writing like this, but while we would advise toning down Ambilight’s brightness and responsiveness from its default settings, it really can enhance the viewing experience. As well as making for a fun dinner party talking point.

Features

You would expect a £1099 65-inch OLED TV to be stripped back to the bare bones in terms of features. The OLED760, though, is having none of that.

Gamers will be delighted, for starters, to find the set capable of supporting 4K/120Hz feeds, complete with VRR in the generic, AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync formats. Even more impressively, these features are supported across all four of the TV’s HDMI sockets, rather than being limited to just a couple.

When the TV’s receiving a game source, you can call up a dedicated game menu that shows both information on the incoming game feed and a small selection of gaming aids.

The screen takes just 13.1ms to render 60Hz graphics in its Game preset, too – and that drops to only around 6ms with 120Hz sources. There’s even a special Game Mode setting for the Ambilight system.

The OLED760 can also play all four of the current TV HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. In other words, it will take in the best version of any content you feed it.

A Filmmaker Mode is provided for AV fans looking for an instantly accurate picture mode, though there’s also extensive Calman calibration support if you want to pay for a professional calibrator to come in and further optimise the set.

The OLED760 even retains a version of Philips’ P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine processor.

This isn’t the latest, most powerful, most feature-packed version of this processor, but it still has elements working on the core five aspects of picture quality referred to in the ‘P5’ part of its name: colour, contrast, sharpness, motion and source detection/recognition. This means it’s still got way more about it than the processing systems found on most high-value TVs.

Smart features are provided by the relatively new Titan OS platform. This isn’t the most dazzlingly presented smart service around, but it does carry the vast majority of the streaming services most UK TV buyers will want, including Disney+, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer.

In fact, it even carries the new Freely service, via which you can live stream (as opposed to receive through an aerial) most of the channels found on the Freeview HD terrestrial broadcast service, and enjoy subscription-free access to tens of thousands of hours of on-demand content.

Bluetooth 5.2 and Apple AirPlay are built in, too, and it also works with both Apple Home and Google Home, while Amazon Alexa voice control is built in and accessed via a microphone built into the remote control. The one major app that isn’t available during testing is Apple TV – but you can these days access Apple TV content through the Prime Video app, albeit at a lower bitrate (and therefore quality).

While the OLED760’s 2 x 10W sound system isn’t the result of one of Philips’s collaborations with audio brand Bowers & Wilkins, the set still supports playback of both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks, as well as providing a few handy audio features including bass enhancement, dialogue enhancement, room calibration, a graphic equaliser, a night mode, and even the option to establish specific individual hearing profiles.

In these days when all OLED panels are very much not equal, we need to wrap this section up by stressing that the panel inside the OLED760 does not boast the MLA, ‘Evo’, Quantum Dot or Primary RGB Tandem technologies found in various of today’s mid-range and premium OLED TVs.

Instead, it’s a basic OLED panel without any significant brightness-boosting or colour volume-enhancing tricks up its sleeve (beyond anything Philips’ P5 processor can bring to the table). Even a pretty basic OLED panel still has the potential to rock the mid-range TV world, though…

Picture quality

While the OLED760’s pictures don’t hit the same HDR-hungry heights that the premium likes of the LG G5, Samsung S95F and Panasonic Z95B do, they’re anything but a disappointment for the set’s money.

But let’s get the downers, such as they are, out of the way first. The most obvious one is that the OLED760 isn’t nearly as bright as this year’s top-level OLEDs are. This applies both to full-screen bright HDR content (which looks to be around half as bright as this year’s boldest OLED performers) and the intensity of small bright peaks.

Motion is also less assured here than it is on Philips’ more premium TVs these days. Judder with 24p film sources is a bit stark with no motion processing active, but then some motion settings leave images looking a little soft and blurry, while others that clean this softness up push too far in the other direction, leaving motion feeling too fluid to still feel natural.

While we never quite find a perfect solution for the screen’s slight motion niggles, though, the brightness issue is really just part and parcel of equipping the OLED760 with an OLED panel affordable enough to hit its budget-conscious retail price. And it comes with plenty of healthy mitigating factors in tow.

For instance, since the OLED760 naturally retains OLED’s unique ability to have each and every self-emissive pixel produce its own light and colour independently of even its closest neighbours, local contrast is still super-impressive compared with any LCD TVs available for the same sort of money.

The OLED760 can, after all, produce an image’s deepest black pixels right alongside its brightest whites, contributing to a degree of contrast and intensity that provides more than ample compensation for the screen’s relatively limited core brightness.

Those deepest black pixels really are black, too, revealing none of the greyness that you get to some degree with even the strongest mid-range LCD TVs.

Nor is there any instability in the OLED760’s portrayal of dark scenes; baseline brightness levels always look rock solid, even with dark shots that contain multiple subtle shifts in their overall light balance.

Plus, of course, since this is OLED technology, there’s no backlight clouding or blooming to worry about.

The OLED760 improves over its predecessors in Philips’ TV range by also managing to reveal impressive amounts of shadow detail in even the darkest image corners.

We don’t find ourselves troubled, either, by any major green or mauve undertones while watching dark scenes, even when watching the screen from a wide angle. In fact, watching the OLED760 from an angle merely reminds us of OLED’s innate advantage in this area over the vast majority of LCD TVs.

The exquisite degree of light control the OLED760 provides, albeit within a constrained light range, feeds into its colour performance. There’s never any trouble with significant colour striping or posterisation with HDR feeds, and shading even in the most vibrant areas remains present enough to avoid the flat and cartoonish look such areas can exhibit with lesser TVs.

Philips has very much learned over recent years how to cater for a range of picture quality tastes, and this underrated talent continues even with a TV as affordable as the OLED760.

A Filmmaker Mode is provided and works very nicely for people who want an accurate but relatively flat, ‘laid back’ picture that thrives on subtlety and nuance. Philips’s default Crystal Clear setting, though, is also on hand to deliver an eye-catching demonstration of how intense and vibrant the OLED760 can look, despite the OLED panel’s limited brightness.

While this default setting initially feels a bit too strong and aggressive, especially if you’ve watched the Filmmaker Mode first, it’s surprising how much its extra vibrancy starts to grow on you as you tune into it. Especially as it’s actually much more consistent, balanced, nuanced and faithful to the feel of the original source material than some of Philips’ previous default picture presets have been.

There’s a relatively simple way to take the edge off this mode’s most aggressive instincts, too, if you really can’t tune into them, in the shape of a Colour Content Adaptation setting. Just switching this to Balanced from its default (in Crystal Clear Mode) Vibrant setting can calm the picture down without losing too much of that enjoyable extra brightness and punch that the Crystal Clear mode is designed to provide.

It’s worth adding, too, that the OLED760 provides an HDR Movie preset that gives you (with minimal tinkering) an image that feels nicely positioned between the relatively dark, subdued Filmmaker Mode and the exuberance of the Crystal Clear mode.

The OLED760 effortlessly adapts its talent for subtlety and finesse to SDR content too, as well as, finally, delivering a crisp, clean, responsive gaming performance that’s way better than we’d expect from such an affordable 65-inch OLED TV. Not least because it also largely avoids (especially with 120Hz sources) the slight motion inconsistencies and flaws noted during video playback.

Sound quality

The OLED760’s trend of punching above its price weight continues with its audio. It can get surprisingly loud for a TV with such a thin (at the outer edges, anyway) chassis, but at the same time, it manages to retain excellent levels of detail and clarity even when pushed to volume levels that would have many TVs’ speakers crumbling.

These details are well placed, too, creating an effective sense of 3D space with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X mixes that includes making dialogue sound locked to the screen.

The sound also projects forward quite nicely, and there’s nothing harsh or thin about even the most trebly details. At the other end of the frequency spectrum, meanwhile, the OLED760 manages to deliver a pretty solid bass showing, despite the slenderness of so much of its bodywork.

The midrange sounds spacious too, with enough headroom to cope with substantial sound mix expansions during action scenes without starting to sound thin or boxed in.

The movie world’s most bonkers bass drops and sustained rumbles can instigate a little humming interference from the TV’s chassis, and/or cause the stereo drivers to succumb to some minor and short-lived booming interference.

The auto calibration system doesn't make as much difference to the TV’s sound profile as we would like, and we also find we have to add an audio delay of around 30ms to our sources to stop the OLED760 suffering from the occasional lip-sync slippage.

Overall, though, as with its pictures, the OLED760’s audio strengths easily overwhelm its weaknesses – though, as ever, a dedicated sound system is highly recommended.

Verdict

While we’ve seen one or two previous OLED TVs venture down into the same sort of price territory the OLED760 occupies, no similarly affordable 65-inch OLED TV before it has delivered anything like the same level of features and performance that this Philips set does.

As such, it’s a potential value-driven game changer, the likes of which we were starting to think the OLED TV world would never give us.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the TCL 65C7K

Also consider the LG OLED55C5

Read our Samsung S90F review

Best OLED TVs: the 3 Award-winning sets our experts recommend

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of the Sony Bravia 8 II. It did, after all, take home the TV Product of the Year gong from the most recent What Hi-Fi? Awards.

To win that prize, Sony’s flagship OLED set had to defeat not only the Samsung S95F, with which it shares its QD-OLED panel, but also the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B, which both feature cutting-edge Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel technology.

All four of those TVs are utterly awesome, so for the Bravia to come out on top was quite the achievement.

But there was one rival that didn’t make it in time for our Awards-deciding flagship OLED shootout – the Philips OLED910.

This features the same super-bright Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel tech as the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B, but it combines it with super-sexy European styling, a B&W sound system, dazzling Ambilight and super-aggressive pricing.

So, is all of that enough to unseat our current Award-winner? We directly compared these two flagship sets over several days, using all of our favourite discs and streams, to find out.

Spoiler alert: it’s a mighty close contest.

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Pricing

Philips went super-aggressive with the OLED910’s launch pricing, releasing it to the market for £2199 at 65 inches and £3399 at 77 inches.

Even though rival sets, including the Bravia 8 II, had been on sale a while and been discounted, the OLED910 was cheaper out of the gate.

It’s dropped in price now, too, with the 65-inch model currently available for £1799, and the 77-inch version for £2799.

The Bravia 8 II has been further discounted, too, but the 65-inch model still currently costs £2199. There’s no 77-inch version, but unlike the Philips, there is a 55 incher, which is £1799 at the time of writing.

So, in the 65-inch size in which both sets are available (and which we directly compared), there’s a big £400 price difference. That’s extremely hard to ignore, and means the OLED910 takes first blood in this face-off.

WINNER: Philips OLED910

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Design

The Sony Bravia 8 II is a smart-looking TV, but it’s barely any different in appearance to the preceding A95L, which launched back in 2023. A design refresh to match the ambitious performance upgrade would have been nice.

Still, this is a very purposeful-looking, monolithic TV that looks particularly neat when the feet are installed at their default low–profile setting, which keeps the bottom edge of the TV within about a millimetre of the surface upon which it’s placed.

Those feet can alternatively be installed in a taller setting that creates a gap of a few centimetres between TV and furniture, into which you can slot a soundbar.

The Bravia 8 II does, of course, have an integrated sound system (a good one at that), but thanks to the technology it uses, it’s completely invisible from the front, contributing further to the stylishly clean appearance of the TV.

The Philips OLED910 is a very different aesthetic proposition. The integrated sound system includes front-facing speakers, but these are incorporated into a slim bar that’s wrapped in grey Kvadrat fabric and has nicely rounded corners, giving the set a softer, more appealing appearance.

Like the Sony, the Philips OLED910 has feet rather than a pedestal, but these feet are installed further towards the centre of the bottom edge of the TV, rather than the furthest points as they are on the Bravia 8 II. In other words, while the Sony can only be placed on top of furniture that’s at least as wide as the TV, the Philips will be happy on something narrower.

And, unlike the Sony, which has a fairly uniform thickness of about 3.4cm, the Philips combines its fairly chunky 5.6cm section with super-thin panel sections at the sides and top of the chassis. To our eyes, that makes it more visually striking, but beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.

On that note, we have to mention Ambilight here. This is Philips’s unique bias lighting system, which features coloured LEDs around four sides of the OLED910’s rear. These can dynamically extend the on-screen image onto the wall around the TV in the form of coloured light.

Ambilight isn’t for everyone and isn’t a bonus for all content, but it does look spectacular, and for bright, colourful movies and games, it can really add something special.

All told, while the Bravia 8 II’s monolithic styling will certainly appeal to many, the OLED910’s softer, more living room-friendly appearance and (at least occasionally) thrilling Ambilight mean it wins this round.

WINNER: Philips OLED910

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Features

On paper, the Sony Bravia 8 II and Philips OLED910 take notably different approaches.

The Bravia 8 II uses Samsung Display’s latest QD-OLED panel, paired with a custom heatsink and the XR processor. Sony claims this enables a 25 per cent brightness increase over the preceding A95L and a 50 per cent uplift over the Bravia 8 W-OLED, alongside improved colour volume and better dark gradation.

Philips, meanwhile, has stuck with LG Display technology but upgraded from MLA to Primary RGB Tandem OLED. Philips quotes eye-catching brightness figures of up to 3700 nits for small highlights and 350 nits full-screen – numbers that should translate into a more dynamic image than the preceding OLED909, even in restrained picture modes.

Processing is a major talking point for both sets. Sony’s XR Processor introduces a new AI scene recognition system, which analyses content in real time and adjusts picture parameters for greater realism.

Philips counters with its 9th Gen P5 AI Engine – a powerful processor packed with features including Machine Learn Sharpness, AI Smart Bit Enhancement and AI Perfect Reality, all designed to optimise sharpness, colour and contrast depending on what’s on screen.

HDR support is one area where Philips holds a clear advantage.

The OLED910 supports all four HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision and HDR10+. The Bravia 8 II, meanwhile, supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG, but, as ever with Sony, HDR10+ is not supported.

The Sony does, however, boast IMAX Enhanced certification, and leans heavily into its Studio Calibrated Modes, with dedicated Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Sony Pictures Core presets designed to present content as the creators intended.

On the subject of Sony Pictures Core, the Bravia 8 II also comes with credits that can be used to ‘buy’ movies from Sony’s exclusive streaming service, which delivers content in almost 4K Blu-ray quality.

Gaming support is broadly similar. Both TVs offer 4K/120Hz, VRR, ALLM and a Dolby Vision game mode, though the Philips also supports 4K/144Hz, which will appeal to hardcore PC gamers with super-serious rigs (current consoles can’t go beyond 120Hz).

Frustratingly, both sets are limited to two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which doubles as the eARC socket, potentially leaving just a single 4K/120Hz input once a soundbar is connected.

Sony adds its ‘Perfect for PlayStation 5’ features, but these are a little less grand than they sound – only the HDR Auto Tone Mapping does something beyond the capabilities of other sets, such as the OLED910, and while this is useful for getting a fairly accurate HDR performance out of most PS5 games, it isn’t quite 100 per cent accurate.

Both TVs use the Google TV smart platform, which is pretty good these days, but while Sony has sought to fill in Google TV’s terrestrial catch-up app gaps through the addition of YouView, the Philips OLED910 is missing BBC iPlayer.

We’re not going to factor the two different OLED panel technologies into the round, as it’s the actual picture performance that matters, and we’ll cover that in the next section. That leaves the two TVs fairly evenly matched on the features front: the Philips has HDR10+ and 4K/144Hz support, but the Sony has IMAX Enhanced, Sony Pictures Core, and the BBC iPlayer.

Ultimately, we’re calling this a draw, but you can call it a win for one or the other TV based on which of those feature differences matters to you.

WINNER: draw

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Picture quality

Both the Sony Bravia 8 II and Philips OLED910 deliver genuinely excellent pictures, but when viewed side by side, it becomes clear that they prioritise slightly different strengths.

The Bravia 8 II sets the benchmark for balance and effortlessness. Straight out of the box, its core presets – Dolby Vision Dark and Professional – deliver a beautifully judged image with no need for tweaking.

Peak highlights are brighter and more piercing than those of Sony’s previous OLEDs, colours are richer without exaggeration, and improvements to dark gradation reveal noticeably more shadow detail.

Crucially, all of this combines to create an image with exceptional solidity and three-dimensionality: objects have weight, people feel rounded and lifelike, and backgrounds possess genuine depth.

That sense of realism holds across all content types. HDR movies benefit from punchy highlights and immaculate tone mapping, animation bursts with colour without tipping into garishness, and even standard-definition material is upscaled with impressive cleanliness, sharpness and restraint.

Nothing ever feels forced or over-processed, and the Bravia 8 II consistently presents content in a way that feels authentic and natural.

The OLED910, by contrast, can take more work to get right, but rewards that effort with a thrilling, high-impact image.

Once switched into HDR Filmmaker Mode and properly dialled in, it delivers bright, punchy HDR with excellent sharpness, fluid motion and a strong sense of vibrancy.

OLED’s perfect blacks are paired with strong shadow detail and consistent colours in dark scenes, and motion handling is a particular highlight, striking a rare balance between smoothness and cinematic integrity. In fact, we’d go as far as to say it’s a match for the Sony in terms of motion processing – something we absolutely hadn’t anticipated.

Where the Philips falls slightly short of the Sony is in absolute accuracy and subtlety. Reds can occasionally appear a touch over-emphasised, particularly in skin tones, and while this is rarely obvious in isolation, it becomes more apparent when compared directly with the Bravia 8 II’s more natural colour handling.

In HDR10 content, the OLED910 gets impressively close to the Sony overall, but the Bravia has the edge in terms of contrast control, three-dimensionality and overall image cohesion.

Dolby Vision performance on the Philips is excellent in Filmmaker Mode, though blacks can appear slightly raised in very dark scenes – again, something that’s most noticeable next to the Sony.

SDR content, meanwhile, is significantly over-brightened in all picture modes. It looks great, with oodles of punch, but having at least one preset that tracks SDR brightness accurately would have been nice.

Ultimately, the OLED910 is a superb picture performer and one of the closest challengers to Sony’s flagship. But the Bravia 8 II remains the reference, delivering a more natural, solid and consistently cinematic image across all formats, with less effort required from the viewer.

WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Sound quality

Both the Sony Bravia 8 II and Philips OLED910 rank among the very best-sounding TVs available, but they go about their audio delivery in notably different ways – and in this case, the Philips ultimately comes out on top.

The Bravia 8 II uses Sony’s Acoustic Surface Audio+ system, with actuators vibrating the screen itself to produce sound, supported by twin subwoofers.

This creates an unusually strong sense of cohesion between picture and sound, with voices and effects locked precisely to their on-screen positions. Dialogue is clear, detailed and warm, and there’s enough dynamic subtlety to convey emotional nuance in performances, as well as enough punch to handle larger shifts without flattening out.

Spaciousness is also impressive by TV standards. Effects stretch well beyond the edges of the screen, creating a soundstage that feels wider and more immersive than most integrated systems can manage.

Bass depth isn’t class-leading, but it’s controlled and weighty enough to underpin action scenes convincingly, without unwanted distortion or boom. Overall tonal balance is excellent, making the Bravia 8 II one of those rare TVs that doesn’t immediately demand the addition of a budget soundbar.

The OLED910, though, raises the bar further. Its Bowers & Wilkins-tuned 3.1-channel system delivers a sound that’s bigger, weightier and more room-filling than the Sony’s, with excellent width, precise effect placement and impressive dynamic range.

Dolby Atmos soundtracks are handled with confidence, producing a convincing sense of scale and height, particularly when the Entertainment mode is engaged.

Low-level detail is a real strength, with subtle background sounds and musical elements placed clearly and naturally, while dialogue remains full-bodied and expressive. Dynamics are handled with assurance, too, from quiet conversational moments to louder, more demanding sequences.

Deep bass is a touch soft, but crucially remains clean and distortion-free – and there’s much more of it from the Philips than there is from the Sony. Compared directly, the Philips sounds more powerful, more immersive and more expansive than the Sony.

While both TVs will still benefit from the addition of a dedicated sound system, the OLED910 noses ahead if you’re determined not to go down that route. If you are prepared to add discrete sound, you need to be looking at something on the level of a Sonos Arc Ultra before you’ll hear a clearly worthwhile improvement on either TV.

In short, the Bravia 8 II delivers excellent, finely balanced sound with superb picture-to-audio cohesion, but the OLED910 sets a new benchmark for built-in TV audio at this level, edging ahead as the best-sounding TV of the two.

WINNER: Philips OLED910

Sony Bravia 8 II vs Philips OLED910: Verdict

This is one of the closest TV head-to-head battles we’ve seen in some time, and the fact that the Philips OLED910 gets so close to the Sony Bravia 8 II is a huge achievement – particularly given its lower price, more adventurous design and genuinely outstanding built-in sound.

The OLED910 wins convincingly on value, and edges the Sony on design flair and audio performance. It also delivers a thrilling, high-impact picture once properly set up.

If you want a premium OLED that looks and sounds spectacular, and you’re keen to avoid adding a separate sound system, the Philips makes a hugely compelling case.

But picture quality remains the deciding factor – and here, the Bravia 8 II still stands apart.

Its image is more natural, more consistent and more three-dimensional across all formats, with none of the small compromises that occasionally creep into the Philips’s delivery.

Just as importantly, it achieves this with less effort from the user, delivering reference-level results straight out of the box.

That combination of accuracy, balance and cinematic realism is why the Bravia 8 II earned its Product of the Year crown – and why it keeps it here.

The OLED910 pushes it harder than almost any rival we’ve tested, but when it comes to the overall best TV you can buy right now, Sony’s flagship remains the one to beat.

OVERALL WINNER: Sony Bravia 8 II

Sometimes an Adventure in AV can involve a short trip into our TV's settings menu to discover something new. Other times it involves physically trekking halfway around the world.

In my case, it's the latter, as I kicked off my year in Las Vegas, Nevada, scouting out the latest innovations in the world of home cinema at CES 2026.

As expected, the show was nothing short of overwhelming, with countless new releases and announcements that will shape the AV landscape for the year to come.

While the RGB Mini LED TVs and new OLED sets stole the show, two specific demonstrations stood out, as they will remain relevant well beyond the end of 2026.

The first showed Dolby Vision 2, and although it didn't launch at CES specifically, I now have a much clearer picture of what it is actually capable of.

It was initially revealed at IFA 2025; but it was shrouded in mystery and confusion, and every TV manufacturer I quizzed on the subject seemed almost as confused as I was.

The second demo was for HDR10+ Advanced, which I had a sneak peek at during a trip to Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea, back in October of 2025.

The Samsung team offered somewhat of a more complete answer, though they showed me simulated footage rather than actual working HDR10+ Advanced, so I had to take their word for the claimed performance upgrade.

The good news is that both Dolby and Samsung had major presences at CES 2026, and each showed their new respective dynamic HDR formats working in action. So I now have a much clearer picture of what the future of HDR will look like.

I'll start with Dolby, which showed me three examples of Dolby Vision 2 running on a beta-software build on a high-end, mid-range, and entry-level TV.

They all appeared to be bright and punchy Mini LED TVs, and while Dolby wouldn't specify the brand, the primary launch partner for Dolby Vision 2 is Hisense; I'll let you connect the dots there.

Dolby's demonstration truly wowed me. It showed an intense boost to brightness that transforms dark content to dig out detail that I presumed was simply lost to shadows indefinitely. It had regular Dolby Vision TVs set up alongside the Dolby Vision 2 versions in some instances, and the differences were practically night and day.

Digging up more detail in the dark areas did not come at the cost of lifted black levels, however, as it still looked natural to my eyes, and (most importantly) Dolby assured me that the system can recognise what is intentionally meant to be shadow details and not over-brighten those sections.

Dolby stressed how closely it works with directors and editors to ensure that their work is presented in a true-to-life manner.

There is a more advanced set of metadata underpinning Dolby Vision 2, which comes straight from the creatives themselves. And it results in enhanced brightness (and more) without the loss of detail and authenticity.

The need for this brightness-boosting version of Dolby Vision is rooted in the launch of super-bright Mini LED and RGB Mini LED TVs, which can far surpass the capabilities of the current version of Dolby Vision; this makes the super-bright TVs that we've seen crop up over the past couple of years even more compelling, as there is now a feature that can properly take advantage of their specifications.

Not to be outdone, Samsung showed a live demo running its new HDR10+ Advanced format on beta software, running on the new R95H RGB Mini LED TV.

Once again, the results were impressive, especially as Samsung had a “normal” HDR10+ TV running alongside the demo of the new format. Colours seemed more vibrant while remaining natural and balanced, and there was unquestionably more depth and contrast to the image.

There also seemed to be more in the way of detail levels, although (much like Dolby Vision 2), this was most noticeable in dark sequences.

Samsung also assured us that creator-derived metadata would underpin the changes coming to HDR10+ Advanced, which means that authenticity was also at the top of its priority list.

Furthermore, both companies dug deeper into Dolby Vision 2 and HDR10+'s ability to handle motion. Traditionally, HDR formats haven't really played much of a part in motion processing; however, both Dolby and Samsung make a good point on this.

The (frankly tragic) reality is that most people out there will never open their TVs' settings menu. Some because they don't know how the settings work, others because they fear permanently messing up their TV by adjusting the wrong settings.

I sympathise. A TV settings menu can be daunting to the less technically inclined; and Dolby and Samsung's answer is simply to handle the motion processing themselves.

It's a bold move, and we'll need to test it more to confirm our feelings, but both formats showed promising signs during the demonstrations I attended.

Dolby in particular stood out with its Authentic Motion system, which can dynamically shift motion processing based on the content.

Therefore, minimal motion-processing can be applied during slower scenes, such as conversations, whereas fast-paced action scenes or panning shots can be aided by a pinch more.

It never looked unnatural or oversmoothed to my eyes, and it could solve the conundrum of judder being visible when using a TV's most accurate and authentic picture mode (in which motion processing is often switched off).

I will certainly need to do a lot more testing with both of these HDR formats to come to a conclusive opinion, but the good news is that both looked to be working as intended during CES.

This left me with a sense of hope for the future of HDR; it could be a bright and smooth year for the picture technology.

Samsung has already confirmed that HDR10+ Advanced will be coming to its mid-range and premium models sometime this year, and Amazon Prime Video will be the first service to offer select titles with the standard included soon.

Hisense, TCL and Philips TVs will launch with Dolby Vision 2 this year, and Dolby Vision 2 Max should also be supported on the higher-tier models within each of these manufacturers' lineups.

MORE:

Read our Hisense 116UXS hands on review

As well as our Samsung S95H hands on review

And our LG C6 hands on review

Somehow, we are almost a month into the new year. And, although the concept of time passing could make us crawl into a little ball, we are choosing to see the bright side of things. After all, a new year means new test discs to have in our test rooms!

Whether that's revisiting familiar films or experimenting with fresh entries, there are plenty of exciting movies and TV shows that are more than capable of putting home cinema systems through their paces.

In our first 2026 edition of the monthly Now Showing column, we take a look at what discs have already been challenging a range of systems as well as which ones we can't wait to get our hands on. Let's dig in...

Bladerunner 2049 (2017)

As a huge fan of Blade Runner (1982), directed by the legendary Ridley Scott, I had high expectations for its sequel, but seeing as it had been 35 years since the original’s release, I was concerned it would wind up being a carbon copy. Fortunately, my concerns were completely unfounded because Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is a superb sci-fi film in its own right.

It’s paced differently to the original, but just as thought-provoking. The wonderfully gritty neo-noir feel of the original also remains, aided by the dank yet neon backdrop of Los Angeles in the year 2049. The film won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects, and BAFTAs in basically the same categories (one BAFTA was for Best Special Visual Effects), which should give you an idea of just how good it looks visually and how those visuals enhance the storytelling.

When I first watched the film, Ryan Gosling’s performance was also surprising for all the right reasons. Prior to Blade Runner 2049, I hadn’t seen him in a role like this, but he’s absolutely brilliant as the ‘blade runner’ K. Any WWE or Guardians of the Galaxy fans will know who Dave Bautista is and his cameo, which I won’t spoil, also results in one of the best scenes in the film.

But despite my adulation for this classic, I’ve not actually seen it since its 2017 cinema release. So, it’s about time I fixed that and the best way to do so is to get it into our testing rooms, where I can fall in love with it all over again.

Words by James Cook

Buy Blade Runner 2049 on 4K Blu-ray

Stream Blade Runner 2049 on Apple TV

28 Years Later (2025)

Last year, I was particularly enamoured with Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel to 28 Days Later, which in my mind is one of the most iconic zombie films in recent history.

The film continues the story of the first film, chronicling the fate of a family of survivors 28 years after a virus that turns people into zombies ravaged the UK.

Why am I putting it on this list again when I already penned an ode to its expert use of surround sound in a previous Now Showing column?

Because this month, with its sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, set to come out, I wanted to rewatch it.

Despite being directed by Nia DaCosta, not Boyle, The Bone Temple is a direct continuation of the story that was shot back-to-back with its predecessor, so I really want every single detail of 28 Years Later fresh in my mind right now.

The difference this time around, though, is that I saw 28 Years Later from the comfort of my own home, rather than the edge of my Picturehouse Central cinema seat. And boy, was it night and day a different experience.

My JBL Bar 1300 Dolby Atmos soundbar system performed well, but didn’t quite bring the same “oomph” as the cinema’s setup, and the image projected from the Hisense PX3 I used wasn’t as big. Sure, it’s still a stellar film, and I liked the experience, but it just didn’t feel as epic and immersive.

This reminded me why, as a film aficionado, I always endeavour to see the movies I care about on the big screen, before streaming them in my lounge.

Being at the cinema just hits different, with the extra screen real estate, (hopefully) more powerful sound, and shared experience just making it more fun.

One of the biggest frights I got at the cinema was the “enthused” reaction given by the person next to me when a now-famous, well-endowed zombie first appeared on screen. You can’t replicate those moments at home watching alone.

Which is why, despite taking a lot of pride in my home setup, I’ve already booked my ticket to see The Bone Temple properly at the cinema.

Here’s hoping it’s good enough that I’m here reporting how much I loved the experience in our next Now Showing column…

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Buy 28 Years Later on 4K Blu-ray at HMV

Stream 28 Years Later on Amazon Prime Video

Logan (2017)

I've been feeling pretty disillusioned by the state of the superhero genre for the last few years. While there have been a few standouts, namely Amazon Prime's Invincible and the surprisingly fun Thunderbolts from Marvel, not many have managed to capture my imagination.

So, when I decided to dig out Logan from our huge collection of test discs, I was reminded of what the genre can be. For the uninitiated, the film follows Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, but his glory days as part of the X-Men team are far behind him. With his health failing, the dying hero finds himself begrudgingly protecting a young Mutant, played brilliantly by Dafne Keen, who shares his powers.

To match this rather unorthodox take on the character, Logan employs a dark, gritty colour palette that challenges even the brightest TVs and projectors to capture the detail in those dark scenes.

It's still got plenty of nail-biting action scenes in true superhero fashion, of course, with Wolverine's silver claws tearing through countless baddies. The dynamic camera work in scenes like this challenges the motion handling of a system, as it must appear slick but not overly smooth.

Apart from being a great test disc, the emotive plotline and unique portrayal of a superhero make it stand out as one of the best in the genre for me.

Words by Robyn Quick

Buy Logan on 4K Blu-ray at HMV

Stream Logan on Disney+

The Studio (2025 –)

First, an apology to my colleague, What Hi-Fi? Senior Staff Writer Lewis Empson. He told me this Apple TV series was brilliant months ago, and I completely ignored him.

Actually, that’s not true. What I did is put it on my never-ending list of ‘stuff wot I might watch one day’, and promptly forgot about it.

Until, that is, a couple of weeks ago, when the stars aligned, I scrolled deep enough into my list to come across it again, and my wife and I were both in the mood to give it a go.

Well, Lewis was right: The Studio is absolutely brilliant. Each episode is a meticulously crafted 30-min slice of Hollywood insider heaven.

It tells the story of Matt Remick (played by Seth Rogen, who’s also listed as one of the show’s creators, writers and directors), a movie exec who’s suddenly promoted to studio head and quickly finds there’s room for neither his passion for movies nor moral integrity at the top of the Hollywood tree.

There’s enough reverence for movie-making to satisfy any cinephile, but the show also tears into the utter ridiculousness and excess of an industry that spends billions on franchise dross but won’t greenlight even the most interesting-sounding indie nugget.

There’s cringe, slapstick, puerile humour, and the most extraordinary cameos imaginable (the Martin Scorsese opening episode is incredible), yet there’s also drama, commentary, pin-sharp satire and a pure love for cinema. And, somehow, none of this jars – these seemingly juxtaposed parts all blend into something whole and unique.

It looks utterly gorgeous, too, partly because of Apple TV’s higher-than-typical bitrate and glossy production values, but also because of the varied and ambitious filming techniques that are used, often as an illustration of or companion to the theme of the specific episode.

Words by Tom Parsons

Stream The Studio on Apple TV

Fallout: Season 2

The bleak, bizarre and often baffling world of Fallout is back for a second season on Amazon Prime Video, and I’ve been waiting for this show to return ever since I finished the excellent first season back in 2024.

The dystopian action comedy series starring Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins and Kyle MacLachlan is darkly witty and gruesomely gory, and it's one of the very, very few video game adaptations I will actually endorse watching. This is mostly because it actually reflects the source material well, especially in its erratic, non-linear pacing, which often sees the characters whisked away on side quests while trying to complete the main objective.

Anyone that's played the Fallout games will resonate with this greatly. Speaking of the games, this second series takes inspiration from the best of the bunch: Fallout: New Vegas. Lucy and The Ghoul’s mission is to make it to the dilapidated, post-nuclear war version of Sin City, which will undoubtedly be filled to the brim with danger and rogues.

As of now, five of the eight episodes from season two are available to stream in 4K, with Dolby Vision HDR or HDR10+ supported depending on your TV, projector, or mobile device. Dolby Atmos audio is also available, which is ideal when bullets start flying.

It’s not ideal for family viewing, especially when limbs are liberated from their respective bodies by high-powered weapons, but the action and dark comedy blend wonderfully, and it’s certain to appease sceptical Fallout fans who thought an adaptation would never work.

Words by Lewis Empson

Stream Fallout: Series 2 on Amazon Prime Video

OLED panel tech has dominated our best TV buying guide and yearly list of What Hi-Fi? Award-winners for close to a decade. The only constant complaint we’ve had is that OLED TVs tend to have high price tags, making them luxury items, even among home cinema fans.

Enter the catchily named Toshiba XF9F, an aggressively priced TV designed to offer movie fans with regular-sized pockets a seat at the OLED table. And, packed with all the key hardware and specifications most fans will want, it’s certainly an enticing proposition.

But is that enough for it to succeed against veteran heavyweights such as LG, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung?

Price

The Toshiba XF9F is available in 55- and 65-inch options in the UK. Sadly, it hasn’t made its way to the US or Australia yet.

The 55-inch model we have in for testing (the 55XF9F53DB, to give its full, super-sexy name) launched with a competitive £999 price tag, while the larger 65-inch model would cost you £1299 at that time.

To put that pricing in context, at launch, the entry-level 55-inch LG B5 would have set you back £1699 and the 65-inch model an even heftier £2499.

Since then, both series have seen hefty discounts, but the Toshiba continues to be the cheapest OLED of its size. At the time of writing, numerous retailers are offering the 55-inch XF9F for £799, and the 65-inch model for £999 – and it was cheaper than that during Black Friday.

This is the first time we’ve seen a new OLED in these sizes so cheap – to the point the price places the XF9F as more of a direct rival to Mini LED sets, such as the Award-winning TCL C7K (£629 and £799 for 55 and 65 inches respectively), than any of the recent OLEDs we’ve reviewed.

Build

The Toshiba has a utilitarian but generally solid build.

The set’s central metal stand is easy to attach using the eight included screws and is suitably sturdy.

The only minor design embellishments are a tiny sensor and power indicator bolted onto the bottom of the TV and an incredibly shiny finish on the back. This shiny finish is an absolute fingerprint magnet, but you shouldn’t be touching the TV much once it’s in place.

The remote is also a basic plastic affair. We would have liked a backlight or USB charging, but it is functional, having intuitive shortcuts for most of the apps you’ll need, and also for the TV's various settings, littered across it.

Features

The Toshiba XF9F is a reasonably well-stacked OLED, considering its price. For starters, it has three HDMI 2.1 inputs. Most of the OLEDs we test, outside of those from LG and Samsung, only have two full-fat HDMI 2.1s, which are required to run current-generation consoles at full speed (4K/120Hz).

And while one of the Toshiba OLED’s three HDMI 2.1 inputs does still double as the eARC connection, so will very possibly be taken up by a soundbar or other audio system, the added connectivity is a welcome inclusion we weren’t expecting.

The HDMI 2.1 inputs will handle 4K/120Hz and VRR, and there’s a dedicated low-latency game mode which ALLM will automatically switch to.

While PC gamers may sniff at the 120Hz refresh rate (144Hz has become common on most step-down OLEDs, including this year’s LG C5, Samsung S90F and Panasonic Z90B), this won’t be an issue for the vast majority of potential buyers, as consoles can only run at up to 120Hz, and only the most powerful of PCs will run top titles at framerates beyond that with acceptable-looking graphics.

The only downside is that it doesn’t have any other HDMI inputs. So, while it’s well-stacked for current-generation console gamers with a Dolby Atmos soundbar, it’s a little limited for people with lots of older boxes, such as old DVD / Blu-ray players, retro consoles or media PCs.

At the XF9F’s heart, a custom TRU Picture Engine CPU runs the show. This handles picture processing elements such as upscaling and motion processing, and we’re pleased that there isn’t lots of ‘AI’ branding to be wary of.

HDR support is also excellent, with the Toshiba promising to understand and play nicely with all four of the current formats used for movies, TV shows and games. So, that’s the dynamic Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats, as well as the more standard HLG and HDR10.

Finally, app support is excellent thanks to the XF9F’s use of Amazon’s Fire OS. Ad-heavy and slightly confusing in terms of what’s actually yours and what’s behind a paywall, sure, but Fire OS also supports pretty much every streaming service you can think of, including Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix, Now, Paramount+ and Prime Video, as well as niche ones, including Shudder, Crunchyroll and the like.

In the UK, Freely and local catch-up services BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, and 5 are all present and working correctly.

So, from a pure specifications perspective, the XF9F is more than competitive, especially compared with similarly priced rivals.

Picture

But how good is its picture? This is where things get a little more complex.

Out of the box, the benefits of OLED compared to LED are immediately apparent as we watch a demanding scene from our Civil War 4K Blu-ray.

The flames in the nighttime forest hold serious intensity and wonderfully bright hues of red and orange, giving them a life missing from many Mini LED TVs. Blacks are also inky deep in a way that only OLED, with its pixel-level light control, can deliver. There’s a nice sense of depth to the picture, which feels immersive and, in most ways, delivers the impact the scene deserves.

By comparison, the similarly priced TCL C7K looks a little soft, and though it has more dark detail, the image isn’t as defined or three-dimensional on account of its good, but not perfect, blacks.

But there are big issues with the Toshiba TV’s picture. Transitioning to a bright daytime scene in a military camp, the XF9F’s motion handling is far too heavy-handed. Helicopters’ movements are too smooth, and the cast look like marionette puppets as they float through the camp.

Colours are oversaturated, with greens and reds feeling artificial, and the set oversharpens to an extreme, making everything look slightly wrong.

Going into the settings, there’s no Filmmaker Mode, and even the Movie and Custom settings are fairly heavy-handed. It is, of course, possible to manually tweak individual settings within these presets, but even the lightest touch adjustments have a big impact on the picture, and not often in a beneficial way.

Even in their lowest settings, the motion handling and sharpness are far too aggressive. We also find it impossible to get the colour balance and contrast right, regardless of how much we tinker with the settings.

Colours feel either too warm or too cool, and while the Dynamic Contrast setting does boost dark detail as Civil War transitions to a night-time battle, allowing us to see details on the soldiers' uniforms and parts of characters' faces that previously were pure black, it comes with a big compromise.

Even in its lowest setting, Dynamic Contrast introduces picture noise, and parts of the picture, particularly faces, become too defined, giving the picture a slightly cel-shaded quality.

Eventually, we settle on the Custom picture setting with all processing features turned off and the sharpness control set to zero. The TV is still far from perfect when set like this, but it is as good as we’re able to make it.

Moving to our Alien Romulus test disc, the menacing space’s blacks are deep, and the ship emerging out of the darkness holds a solid three-dimensionality, with every rivet and detail standing out – at least in the parts we can see.

But entire parts of the picture that we can see on the TCL C7K are missing entirely on the Toshiba, coming up as pitch black. The issue repeats on dark-skinned characters, who at times become entirely faceless, thanks to the loss of dark detail.

The issue also makes bright white peaks over dark elements, such as the stars and even reflections on characters’ skin, appear too defined and a little distracting.

With our Dune: Part 2 disc, things pick up, with the panel dealing with the bright desert battle fairly well, especially compared to other TVs in the same price bracket.

The slightly over-etched characters don’t ruin the experience, and the picture still looks solid and nicely three-dimensional. There’s even a decent amount of detail and life in the characters’ skin tones, which, while slightly too warm, otherwise look fairly realistic and are far from the worst we’ve seen on an OLED.

It’s only when we move to our Brightness stress test, Pan, that the set once again struggles. The picture isn’t anywhere near as bright as any other recent OLED we’ve tested, let alone the C7K. This isn't a great surprise, given the XF9F's claimed peak brightness of just 500 nits, but it combines with some seemingly quite unsophisticated tone mapping to produce highlights that lack impact and bright detail.

It’s just a shame that the flies in the ointment around black crush and motion keep popping up, distracting from the perks of the picture. It’s this inconsistency that is ultimately the Toshiba’s undoing, with the issues appearing often enough to prevent us getting fully lost in what is playing out on the screen.

Running our final, demanding SDR stress test, via our old-faithful Blu-ray of True Grit, history repeats. The set instantly struggles with the incredibly difficult, nighttime opening.

Though the lanterns look great, the entire porch remains pitch black, missing details that are clearly visible on rivals. A fuzziness creeps into the falling snow and continues as the film moves to a daytime town scene, adding noise the director definitely didn’t intend.

This all adds up to make the Toshiba a frustrating set that is capable of doing things that similarly priced rivals can’t, but that lacks the finesse to do them consistently.

Sound

The XF9F features a 2.1, 24W sound system “with sound by Onkyo”. While no upfiring drivers are included, which is to be expected at this price, it also supports virtual Dolby Atmos.

And, as in-built speakers go, it delivers a just about passable performance. During the Civil War nighttime battle, the TV manages to suitably separate dialogue from the background gunfire and explosions. And while they’re a little thin and lack the heft to make it sound truly immersive, there’s a vague sense of directionality from left and right as the tracer rounds fly across the night sky.

But the low end is underpowered and occasionally tries to punch above its weight. During a particularly big explosion, distortion creeps in, and there’s an unpleasant acidic quality to the sound of a helicopter minigun.

The TV's loudness capability isn't great, with our testers being able to easily converse, even with the volume set to 85. Any higher and their composure completely falls apart, with the low end taking on a flabby quality and distortion frequently rearing its ugly head.

Moving to our new test disc of Wicked, the speakers struggle with the admittedly demanding music, lacking the dynamics to do the singers’ vocals justice. It’s still enjoyable, just nowhere near as good as the performance we’ve enjoyed on cheap-ish soundbars, including the Sonos Beam (Gen 2).

Verdict

The Toshiba XF9F is the cheapest large-sized OLED we’ve tested, and one that comes loaded with all the features most gamers and movie fans will need.

That’s undeniably something we want to applaud, but the constant black crush, a lower-than-average peak brightness and aggressive processing rear their heads too many times to make us able to recommend the set.

This is especially true right now when there are a number of stellar, similarly priced Mini LED sets and smaller step-down OLEDs available that offer a holistically better experience.

If Toshiba could combine the XF9F’s raw materials with some more careful and considered processing and settings, it could be on to a winner. Here’s hoping that’s what we get next time.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 3
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the 65-inch TCL C7K

Also consider the 48-inch LG C5

Read our 48-inch Samsung S90F review

Best OLED TV: the 3 Award-winning sets our experts recommend

The RM9L represents TCL’s first and most high-end foray into the suddenly oh-so-popular world of RGB Mini LED technology.

As such, it's the model that we would have expected to be TCL’s flagship TV for 2026. At CES 2026, though, the brand announced that the flagship title is in fact going to its ‘Super QLED’ X11L.

We went into some detail in our TCL X11L hands-on to explain just why TCL has gone against the current TV industry grain with this unexpected hierarchy, but we’ll try to sum it up more succinctly again in the course of this hands-on with the RM9L, which has left us with a very positive first impression despite its sub-flagship status.

Price

Unlike the X11L, the RM9L was not made available to order following its unveiling at CES 2026, and no price information has so far been provided.

All we can confidently say at this stage is that it will cost at least a little less than an equivalent-sized X11L.

Prices for the X11L, to give at least a little context, have been confirmed for the US at $7000 for the 75-inch version, $8000 for the 85-inch model, and $10,000 for the 98 incher.

There’s no UK pricing available for the X11L yet.

Design

The RM9L sticks out substantially further around the back than the X11L does.

The result isn’t ugly or even really cumbersome, though. In fact, TCL can even just about get away with its description of the design as “slim and integrated”. It just doesn't look quite as slender and elegant when hung on a wall as the X11L does.

Build quality and finish seem high, though, and TCL leaves you in no doubt about what technology is inside the RM9L by stylishly incorporating a badge saying 'Premium RGB MiniLED' into the screen’s right-hand edge.

There’s no repeat on the RM9L of the soundbar along the bottom edge that you get with the X11L – though a Bang & Olufsen logo in the bottom corner confirms that the premium Danish brand has again been involved in this new QD model’s sound design.

Features

TCL essentially claims in its 2026 TV range information that its new ‘Super’ class of QLED TV is capable of delivering more colour brightness, more local dimming precision and more colour precision than the RGB Mini LED can.

The X11L certainly did a compelling job of selling these claims during our hands-on with that model, but, on paper at least, the RM9L really doesn't come up far short of TCL's SQD flagship set.

Set to be available in 85-, 98- and a monster 115-inch screen size, the RM9L is claimed to cover ‘up to’ 100% of the massive BT.2020 HDR colour spectrum.

TCL also claims that the RM9L is capable of hitting a mammoth 9000 nits of peak brightness (only 1000 nits down on the peak brightness of the X11L), while control of all that light is delivered by a pretty epic 16,848 claimed local dimming zones (a drop of just under 4000 from the unprecedented claimed dimming zone count of the X11L).

As with the X11L, the RM9L is built on TCL’s new WHVA 2.0 Ultra panel. It also shares a bunch of other features, including native 4K/144Hz gaming support (or HD 288Hz support via TCL’s Game Accelerator system), Google TV smarts, playback of both the Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ premium HDR formats; and playback of the IMAX Enhanced system supported by most Marvel films on Disney+.

There’s also the Bang & Olufsen-designed speaker system capable of playing Dolby Atmos sound that we alluded to earlier.

TCL’s new AiPQ Pro processor is provided, finally, to help continually optimise pictures to the screen’s emphatic capabilities. Though you can also choose a more ‘as the director intended’ look for movie nights if you prefer.

Picture quality

Looked at in isolation, our early 85-inch RM9L's picture quality looks seriously, in some ways next-generationally, impressive.

The ‘next-gen’ bit comes from its phenomenally intense colours, which are delivered with a level of richness and purity – at least with the majority of TCL’s predictably extreme demo footage – that’s arguably even more easy on the eye than the vast colour scapes achieved by the first two RGB Mini LED and Micro RGB TVs we got our eyes on last year.

The ‘out there’ contrast and colour range of most of TCL’s demo footage would have represented a substantial challenge to lesser TVs, but the RM9L's light controls handled everything as if it were the easiest job in the world.

We were blown away, for instance, by how spectacularly bright pictures typically looked, despite the screen also being able to deliver black levels that often appeared almost OLED-like in their depth and freedom from clouding and instability.

The screen’s colours don’t degenerate/fade away in the most vibrant areas either, and the brightness is especially impressive with relatively complex colours involving a mixture of the panel’s core red, green and blue components.

Colours hold up excellently well with wide-angle viewing, too, and aside from clipping a little subtle shading in the brightest HDR highlights, the amount of subtle shading that’s retained in richly coloured picture areas is generally outstanding.

While the RM9L looks genuinely sensational when viewed in isolation, though, side-by-side comparisons with TCL’s flagship SQD X11L TV does reveal one or two limitations.

The RM9L's pictures aren’t quite as bright, for one thing, especially in picture areas containing an expanse of fairly pure red, green or blue content. This brightness disadvantage applies to HDR peaks as well as general baseline and full-screen bright HDR content.

To be clear about this, though, this brightness ‘limitation’ is only evident against the insanely bright X11L. Against pretty much any other TV around today, it’s still blazingly bright.

The remarkable colour saturation advantage so evident with relatively pure red, green and blue image content on the RM9L reduces somewhat with the rare moments of more natural, less extreme moments in TCL’s content reel.

There’s also a touch more greyness around bright highlights when they appear against black backdrops than there is on the X11L, especially if you’re watching the TV from a severe angle.

This blooming and clouding difference seemed fairly small under the show floor lights, though, and certainly never turned into aggressively obvious backlight clouding or blooming.

We didn’t feel troubled, either, by potential colour crosstalk problems during the play-through of TCL’s demo reel, though the starkness of this content versus regular video may have played in the demo screen’s favour in this respect.

The RM9L's pictures aren’t quite as crisp and sharp as those of the X11L – but, again, it’s a small difference, really, and doesn’t stop the RGB Mini LED model from looking every inch a native 4K TV.

While the RM9L's pictures don’t achieve as much intensity and impact or quite as much general picture consistency as the X11L's, they still look outstandingly promising versus most of the rest of even the premium TV world – and let’s not forget that the RM9L will likely be more affordable than the X11L.

Sound quality

The RM9L's sound appears to be a more substantial step down from the X11L than its pictures.

While Bang & Olufsen was still involved in the TV’s speaker design, there’s no forward-facing speaker ‘bar’ hanging from the screen’s underside, so all of this TV’s sound depends on speakers built into its sides and rear – a fact that immediately makes the set’s sound feel less direct and impactful. Bass sounded significantly more limited during our demo session, too.

Subtle effects were still presented quite cleanly, though, with a good balance , and we were impressed by how the sound seemed to exist right across the screen area, rather than only emerging from its edges and leaving a ‘gap’ where the pictures are.

There was none of that sense of an empty audio space between the left and right edges that you can get with other big-screen TVs.

Early verdict

While the RM9L we hung out with during CES wasn’t quite as all-round explosively impressive as TCL’s flagship X11L, it still delivered a premium performance, especially with relatively pure colours, that’s got us salivating for the finished product.

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TCL’s flagship TV for 2026, the X11L, is a real tale of the unexpected.

For starters, unlike the top tier of TCL’s 2025 range, it looks as though UK buyers will actually be able to buy the X11L if they fancy it.

It also delivers a technical surprise, though, in that it's sticking with Quantum Dot technology rather than boarding the RGB Mini LED / Micro RGB bandwagon being so enthusiastically embraced by most other TV brands this year.

This isn’t to say that TCL isn’t doing RGB Mini LED at all in 2026 – the brand actually has more than one RGB Mini LED TV range waiting in the wings – but it’s definitely a twist to find ‘QLED’ still sitting at the top of TCL’s new TV pile.

Of course, TCL has long leaned into Quantum Dots more than most, from small touches such as the QD LED badges it incorporates into many of its TV designs, to the epic quantities of QLED panels it produces from its own factories.

Its extensive QLED history, though, is not the only reason TCL has decided that QDs still reign supreme versus RGB Mini LED. The brand also believes that QLED TVs can still be the best performers.

Especially when, as with the X11L, they’re packing TCL’s new Super QLED technology…

Price

Unusually, TCL actually had the X11L ready to buy in the US on the same day it was announced at CES 2026, with prices set at $7000 for the 75-inch screen, $8000 for the 85-inch version, and $10,000 for the 98-inch model.

UK pricing has yet to be confirmed, however.

Design

It's the 85-inch version of the X11L that we were able to spend time with for this hands-on, and the first thing that struck us about it was how slim it is.

Its monolithic shape is just two centimetres deep – substantially slimmer than the bodywork of TCL’s most premium RGB Mini LED TV, the RM9L (hands-on coming soon).

This is actually one reason why TCL favours its Super QLED screens over RGB Mini LED for flagship status, as the latter technology needs more depth in order to minimise the potential for its different red, green and blue LEDs to bleed into each other. We’ll get into this in a bit more detail later.

The slender side panels of the X11L have a premium-looking dark metallic finish, while the bezel around the screen, as you sit looking straight at it, is remarkably slim considering the screen sizes in question.

Build quality appears excellent too, and the design is elevated by a couple of unusual touches: a logo embossed down the screen’s right side saying 'Premium SQD-MiniLED', and the unmissable addition of a full-width integrated ‘soundbar’ that adds two to three inches of grilled elegance to the screen’s height.

This speaker enclosure sports a Bang & Olufsen logo, confirming that it’s the latest result of the TV sound design relationship TCL established with the premium Danish audio brand in 2025.

The X11L’s slim, monolithic shaping makes it ideally suited for wall mounting, but it can also be placed on a pair of large, metal-finished feet if you prefer.

Features

TCL’s new Super QLED TVs do not, sadly, wear capes or have laser eyes. They do, though, feature two significant new hardware innovations that TCL claims take QLED TVs to a whole new level.

First, their QD layers feature a new generation of Quantum Dots developed using new, more excitable (which in TV speak means responsive and efficient) crystal substances.

Second, TCL’s SQD MiniLED TVs use a new super high ‘Ultra’ colour filter.

Put together, TCL says these new innovations deliver five key claimed advantages: a wider colour gamut (TCL claims that the X11L can cover 100% of the world’s most extreme BT2020 colour gamut); the potential to use more local dimming zones than RGB MiniLED screens can due to the relative compactness of Super QLED’s single blue or white (rather than RGB) LED light source; enhanced brightness; slimmer designs than you get with TCL’s current RGB Mini LED technology; and, last but not least, immunity to the colour crosstalk issues it seems that RGB Mini LED displays can suffering with.

This crosstalk issue – which we’ll be on the look out for in our hands-on with TCL’s most premium RGB Mini LED model, the RM9L – is caused by the way the red, green and blue colours emitted by the three LEDs in an RGB Mini LED lighting ‘zone’ can end up scattering and spilling across one another, causing areas of coloured clouding.

For instance, if the light from a red LED crosses over into an area that already contains light from a neighbouring green LED, then you could see brown clouding as the two stray colours mix.

Such crosstalk troubles can apparently be reduced by increasing the RGB LED ‘throw distance’ (i.e. making the TVs thicker), but it isn't an issue for SQD Mini LED TVs in the first place, hence the potential for slimmer designs.

The higher brightness TCL claims for SQD Mini LED screens vs RGB Mini LED is explained by the fact that for the vast majority of the time, not all of the red, green and blue LED chips involved in an RGB Mini LED array will be fully activated at the same time.

For instance, with a relatively pure green hue, the red and blue LEDs will be pretty much dormant. This results in lower overall screen brightness, at least with content that uses fairly stark and pure colours, compared with the SQD Mini LED approach, where every LED ‘chip’ is effectively always fully illuminated by the white or blue LED.

Using a single LED to light each picture zone rather than an RGB LED trio is also the reason, according to TCL, that it’s possible to fit more separately controlled local dimming zones into an SQD Mini LED screen than it is with a same-sized RGB MiniLED screen, resulting in potentially finer light control.

Putting some numbers on all of this, TCL claims that the X11L can hit a huge peak brightness of 10,000 nits, and that it features 20,736 dimming zones – the highest such figure we’ve seen from a consumer TV. Even Hisense’s 116UX RGB Mini LED debutante had 'only' 3584 dimming zones.

Other key features confirmed for the X11L so far include a new Pro edition of TCL’s AiPQ processor, designed to ensure that even today’s relatively limited content can potentially make use of the full range of the TV’s capabilities; native 4K/144Hz gaming support that can be switched to HD/288Hz support via TCL’s Game Accelerator feature; Google TV smarts; support for both of the premium Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ HDR formats; support for the IMAX Enhanced format that most Marvel movies are available in on Disney Plus; and support for Dolby Atmos sound.

Picture quality

It took no time at all during our hands-on with the X11L before we started noticing its pretty remarkable picture quality charms.

Its killer combination of 10,000 claimed nits of brightness and more than 20,000 dimming zones delivered a truly spectacular contrast performance, for starters, where inky blacks share the screen with bright highlights that erupt off the screen with an intensity that its RM9L RGB Mini LED stablemate just couldn’t match.

In fact, we can’t recall seeing an equivalent level of brightness from any other screen, bar some of the crazily expensive Micro LED displays that pop up at technology shows every year. Not even the uber-expensive Hisense 116UX gets beyond 8500 nits.

It wasn't just the X11L’s raw brightness that impressed, though. The way it was able to retain most if not all of that peak brightness even when a bright highlight appeared against a near-black backdrop (something that TCL boldly allowed to happen a lot in its X11L demo footage) was incredible to behold – especially as it was achieved while throwing up remarkably little sign of the sort of haloing, blooming or zone ‘flickering’ issues that we’d normally expect to see with a local dimming TV delivering contrast even a fraction as intense as that of the X11L.

The brightness also held up outstandingly well with HDR images that filled the whole screen with bright content, providing a stark reminder of this advantage that LED currently retains over even the latest and brightest OLED screens.

The incredible contrast also held up remarkably well even when looking at the X11L from a wide viewing angle – though there was some mild colour shift from wide angles, and backlight haloing/blooming became a bit more noticeable.

In all of the above image areas, the X11L outperformed the RM9L screen next to it. The only area where the RM9L consistently outperformed (kind of) the X11L was with very pure colours.

Rich red flowers or bright green meadows, for instance, enjoyed purer saturations on the RM9L. A simple side effect, we guess, of the X11L having to mix QD colour filters with a single-colour LED backlight, rather than colours being crafted from pure red, green and blue LEDs as happens with the RM9L’s RGB Mini LED lighting system.

It certainly seemed to us, though, that as predicted earlier, the RM9L’s greater single-colour purity comes at the expense of some brightness versus the X11L.

Perhaps because of its extra dimming zones and brightness the X11L’s pictures also looked slightly sharper and more detailed than those of the RM9L.

Sound quality

The full-width integrated B&O ’soundbar’ attached below the X11L's screen carries left, centre and right channels, while two more speakers in the chassis fire sideways to left and right, and a pair of large, gold-finished rear-mounted woofers provide low frequencies.

The sound produced by all these speakers really did sound excellent in the admittedly highly imperfect surroundings of CES. The soundstage sounded really detailed, but also had a lovely, rounded, harshness-free tone, even at high volumes.

The way the sound was propelled towards us from the forward-facing integrated soundbar created a much more immediate and impactful sound, too, than anything we heard from TCL’s 2025 B&O-toting TVs, while the new woofers deliver seemingly more low-frequency heft than those of any 2025 TCL model, too.

If you really want to take the bass to properly cinematic levels, though, you can add TCL’s new Z100-SW wireless subwoofer.

In the demo session, this extended both the impact and depth of the bass substantially, but did so impressively seamlessly, enjoying a good tonal match with the TV’s integrated sound system and avoiding any obvious frequency response ‘gap’.

Early Verdict

We’re going to need to spend much more time with a finished, production sample of the X11L and our own favourite real world content before we can deliver a final judgment on TCL’s surprising new flagship screen. But the signs so far are looking auspicious to say the least.

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Philips’ 2026 OLED TVs will feature Dolby Vision 2. We had heard the news previously from Dolby, but now Philips has confirmed it along with more detail.

That means Philips joins Hisense and TCL as the only TV makers offering Dolby's next-gen HDR tech. LG has proved the surprise holdout, which could give Philips a key advantage, for this year at least.

Philips doesn't usually announce its TV range until a few weeks later into the year, so Dolby's reveal may have forced its hand.

The company says that the DLED 9001 will be its first with Dolby Vision 2, followed by the OLED811 series. It will subsequently come to its “premium Mini LED and DLED [Direct LED] TVs”.

The new models will run MediaTek's Pentonic 800 with MiraVision Pro chip, the first to integrate Dolby Vision 2.

The more premium of these TVs will offer Dolby Vision 2 Max, which is designed for the “highest performing TVs”. As well as elevating picture performance through smarter processing and improved tone-mapping, Vision 2 Max will unlock premium capabilities only possible with the higher-end screen technology that comes with pricier TVs, such as an evolved ambient-aware system, creator-guided motion handling, and new tone-mapping logic that harnesses flagship-class brightness and colour volume.

Dolby Vision 2's key sell is ‘Content Intelligence’. This optimises your TV to produce a “more captivating picture” based on what and where you’re watching. For example, Precision Black improves clarity in dark images without sacrificing black levels, while Light Sense 2 detects the ambient light around the TV and fine tunes the picture based on that information.

It also promises higher brightness, sharper contrast and more saturated colours. And it's not all about HDR – Dolby claims that its Authentic Motion feature will make scenes feel more cinematic by reducing judder on a shot by shot basis.

However, there's a fair amount of suspicion surrounding Dolby Vision 2, with critics wondering whether it's needed yet, given what standard Dolby Vision is capable of. The need to buy a new TV in order to experience it has also proved controversial.

LG has proved the surprise holdout over Dolby Vision 2 (the firm supported the original Dolby Vision from the start). Sony and Panasonic are yet to announce whether their 2026 TVs will support it, while Samsung is launching HDR10+ Advanced as a rival technology this year.

Will the addition of Dolby Vision 2 influence which TV you buy? Let us know in the comments.

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Dolby Vision 2, the somewhat controversial new HDR format, was announced last year with Hisense listed as the only TV partner at the time.

Now, though, it's been confirmed at CES 2026 that two further TV brands will be supporting the format this year.

The first of those is TCL. This should come as little surprise after the brand whacked a 'Dolby Vision 2.0' logo on its stand at IFA in September – much to the confusion of everyone, including TCL's own staff.

We now understand that the brand's new SQD Mini LED range, including the new flagship X11L model, will get Dolby Vision 2 support via a post-launch software update.

Dolby also claims it will be added to TCL's mainstream C-series, presumably including the successor to last year's What Hi-Fi? Award-winning C7K – we've approached TCL for comment on that.

And while Philips hasn't even announced its 2026 TV range yet (that's not expected for a few weeks), Dolby has already revealed that several new models, including the (again, as-yet-unannounced by Philips) OLED811, OLED911 and flagship OLED951 will support Dolby Vision 2.

So that's Hisense, TCL and Philips all confirmed (at least by Dolby) to be supporting Dolby Vision 2 this year.

But what about the rest?

Sony and Panasonic

It's no surprise that we have no Dolby Vision 2 news from Sony or Panasonic.

Sony no longer announces its new TVs at CES, choosing instead to reveal new models around March or April each year. We're expecting a similar timeframe this year, so if Sony is going to support Dolby Vision 2, that's when we'll find out.

Panasonic, on the other hand, does usually announce its new flagship TV during CES. This year, though, it hasn't done that. It could be a while until we get any 2026 TV news from Panasonic (its overall range is usually announced around May), including whether Dolby Vision 2 is on the cards.

Samsung

It's also entirely unsurprising that Samsung hasn't been mentioned in relation to Dolby Vision 2, because Samsung has never supported Dolby Vision at all.

In fact, Samsung created HDR10+ as a rival to Dolby Vision, and it's launching HDR10+ Advanced this year as a rival to Dolby Vision 2.

LG

Now this is the surprising one: LG has long been regarded as one of Dolby Vision's keenest advocates, having supported it from the start on as many models as it possibly could, yet we've been told that the brand has "no plans to support Dolby Vision 2 in 2026".

That's a direct quote from David Park, LG’s Director of Product Strategy and Marketing in the US, who is very much a man who's usually in the know, yet he seemed surprisingly in the dark about Dolby Vision 2 in general, including whether it might be possible for it to be added to its 2026 TVs at a later date.

Will a lack of Dolby Vision 2 be enough of a factor to put prospective buyers off LG's new W6, G6 or C6 OLEDs, which otherwise all look very appealing? It's hard to say, but the fact that several other brands will be offering it this year, while LG won't be, will certainly provide pause for thought.

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Cheaper TVs are getting good, and good TVs are getting cheaper.

That’s the trend we’re beginning to see, particularly from TCL, which is now regularly producing five-star and even Award-winning TVs that comfortably sit in the three-figure price range.

But what happens when a long-standing player, such as Sony, attempts to take these manufacturers head-on?

Well, we’re about to find out, as before us today we have the 65-inch Bravia 3 – a TV that’s aimed at the same budget-conscious crowd but has greater brand cachet and a claim to more considered tuning.

So, is the result a dream budget TV? Unfortunately, no.

Price

At £899 / $800 / AU$1645, the 65-inch Bravia 3 looks like a relative bargain compared to the rest of Sony’s 2025 TV lineup. We’ve seen it drop to as low as £749 in the UK recently, but pricing seems to have settled at the £799 mark.

Interestingly, the Bravia 3 launched in the US and Australia last year as part of Sony’s initial Bravia relaunch, but it’s taken until May of this year for it to be released in the UK.

The Bravia 3 comes in the same 43-, 50-, 55-, 65- and 75-inch size options as its X75L predecessor, as well as a new 85-inch option. Prices start at £479 / $240 / AU$999 for the smallest size, and reach £1499 / $1600 / AU$2300 for the 85-inch version.

We expect the performance to differ substantially across sizes, so this review should only be considered as counting for the 65-inch model.

Competition-wise, the 65-inch variant that we have in our testing room today is most closely matched to the Award-winning TCL C7K, which launched at £899 / AU$1595, but can now be found for a more comparable £749 / AU$1200.

We’ll dig into the features shortly, but it must be said that the Bravia 3 looks quite expensive considering its on-paper specification. That said, specifications are never the final word on performance, and we’ve reviewed many TVs that exceed the expectations set by their spec sheet.

Build

The Sony Bravia 3 is a well-built if unremarkable-looking TV. It’s 100 per cent plastic, down to the slightly cheap-looking (and feeling) legs.

Interestingly, Sony does not refer to this TV being constructed of its SORPLAS recycled material, which leads us to believe that this is made of your garden variety plastic rather than the company’s eco-conscious material.

We appreciate that there is an option to fit the feet in a narrow or wide option to suit your media unit, or to leave space for a soundbar. Better still, assembly is super quick and easy, as all you need to do is slot the feet into place; no screws required.

The bezels are fairly slim around three sides of the screen, with a slightly more pronounced chin, giving this TV a fairly minimalistic look from the front.

Furthermore, Sony gives the Bravia 3 a slightly more premium feeling by including the same remote as it does with its more premium models, including the Bravia 8 II.

This remote unfortunately isn’t backlit, though, as Sony seems to have stopped producing the backlit version of its control, which is a shame. Still, this part is made of recycled plastic and features a “find my remote” function.

Features

Sony has clearly made some omissions to reach this price point, and it’s most evident when we look at the feature set. The Bravia 3 uses a direct-lit LED panel, and Sony has opted not to include any sort of local dimming control.

It doesn’t feature Quantum Dots either. However, Sony tries to regain some ground here by including its Triluminous Pro technology, which uses a combination of the available hardware and software smarts to boost colour reproduction, but we’ll reveal how effective this is in the picture section of this review.

Furthermore, this is a 4K/60Hz panel. This will likely be disappointing to gamers hoping to squeeze the maximum performance out of their Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, but it’s worth noting that the majority of console games still max out at 4K/60Hz rather than 4K/120Hz anyway.

The lack of VRR is another shame, but all four of the Bravia 3’s HDMI sockets do at least support ALLM, with one socket doubling as an HDMI eARC port.

Sony does make some headway when we move away from gamers and focus on the features catered towards movie-lovers. Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG are all supported here, and Dolby Atmos audio is also featured via HDMI eARC.

Speaking of audio, the 65-inch version sports a two-channel speaker system with a combined 20W of output (10W per speaker). The speakers use Sony’s X-Balance and Bass Reflex speaker technology.

In layman's terms, this means that the drivers feature an unconventional non-circular diaphragm for a larger surface area, which reportedly produces deeper bass and enhanced vocal clarity.

Much like the rest of Sony’s lineup, Google TV is built in, meaning the Bravia 3 has access to a wide variety of domestic and international streaming apps. We don’t find any noticeable gaps in terms of app compatibility in our testing, and aside from a few hiccups (mostly after we first turn the TV on), we find that the TV handles the operating system fine.

On paper, it’s hard to deny that the specs are quite disappointing, especially when we look at the rival TCL C7K, which features a Mini LED-backlit panel with 1008 dimming zones, Quantum Dots and a 144Hz refresh rate.

We do, however, have to consider Sony’s picture pedigree. The Japanese giant is renowned for creating TVs that are greater than the sum of their parts, thanks to clever processing and careful, considered tuning.

Understandably, the Bravia 3 does not feature Sony’s flagship Bravia XR processor, but the 4K HDR Processor X1 can handle a few of the same features, including the aforementioned Triluminous Pro colour processing, as well as versions of the Live Colour and MotionFlow features found on the pricier Bravia models.

Picture

We always go into a TV review hoping for the best, and considering Sony’s recent five-star run, which includes the Bravia 7, Bravia 8 and Bravia 8 II, it’s fair to say that we have high hopes for the Bravia 3’s picture performance.

As you can probably tell from the star rating, these hopes are unfortunately not met, but that doesn’t mean the Bravia 3 is a complete write-off by any means.

We start in the TV’s out-of-the-box settings, and find that (as expected) the picture isn’t particularly subtle. Colours are punchy and rich, and there’s a solid sense of three dimensionality, but motion is oversmoothed.

Switching to the Professional picture mode, which is the Sony TV equivalent of Filmmaker Mode, we find that the Bravia 3 looks a lot more balanced and natural. Colours retain their richness, but look warm and more balanced in Civil War, with foliage in particular looking lush and verdant without veering into overblown.

Motion is also greatly improved in this setting, as evidenced by the jets flying overhead at the Western Forces military base in Charlottesville, Virginia. There is minimal judder here, and yet the oversmoothed out-of-the-box mode is also avoided.

Generally speaking, Sony’s picture-tuning DNA can be spotted in various aspects of the picture, but that’s not enough to make up for its various shortcomings.

What strikes us most is how the entire picture is covered in a grey wash, which robs it of some solidity and makes dark sequences borderline unwatchable. The panel seems to glow in sequences that demand blacks, which results in an overwhelming amount of detail being lost in darker scenes.

Take, for instance, the scene in Civil War in which the journalists drive through a burning forest at night. There is decent intensity and richness to the flames, but the rest of the image is robbed of detail, making the car and the occupants inside very difficult to see.

Even in scenes with plenty of light, we find that the image lacks contrast, meaning that Sony’s usually excellent presentation of three-dimensionality is compromised.

Switching to Oppenheimer, there are a few redeeming qualities to the Sony, especially when compared to the TCL C7K, which we have on hand for reference.

The black and white sections of the movie appear considerably better on the Sony, with a richer, more cinematic warmth to the whites that makes the TCL look a bit blue in comparison.

Furthermore, the sweeping panning shots throughout the introduction to the Los Alamos scene are handled admirably by the Sony, once again demonstrating how capable its motion processing is.

Unfortunately, though, we encounter similar issues when it comes to dark details. Characters with dark hair or clothing suffer from a lack of defined details, resulting in parts of the picture that look a bit rudimentary.

Finishing our picture testing with Gravity on Blu-ray, we can assess how this Sony TV handles SDR content. Overall, it doesn’t do a terrible job here, as the picture has a degree of naturalness that helps boost immersion.

The film grain featured in this film also looks more intentional on the Sony, whereas the TCL seems to present it in a way that makes it look like picture noise.

However, the lack of black depth ultimately makes the expansive void of space look less convincing from the Sony, and we find that highlights, such as the sun reflecting off the horizon of Earth below or stars in the background, look a tad dull.

The TCL features more convincing blacks and brighter highlights. It’s both a technically more impressive and better-performing TV for the money.

Dark details are preserved with much more finesse here, and while it is not an OLED, we find that the TCL’s handling of black and control of blooming make the C7K a much better option for watching anything with dark sequences.

Sound

While the Bravia 3 doesn’t nail the picture performance test, it does a much better job when it comes to sound.

Despite its fairly modest built-in speakers, the Sony manages to provide impressively clear dialogue that is underpinned by a decent sense of low-level dynamics.

This gives voices a much-needed injection of emotion – we once again revert to Civil War, where we find that softer heart-to-heart discussions and more volatile emotional outbursts are presented with genuine impact.

We also find that the sound has a decent semblance of height to it, meaning that larger effects, such as explosions or the jets flying overhead, sound surprisingly spacious.

It’s not perfect by any means – the bass is a bit light, which hinders the building of tension in the Gravity soundtrack – but we find it preferable to the TCL’s speakers.

In comparison, the TCL sounds slightly thin, and we have to crank the volume up quite high for it to match the Sony in terms of loudness, which leaves us with a fairly forced and shouty sound from the C7K.

As expected, a soundbar will still be a huge improvement to the Bravia 3’s built-in speakers, but the integrated sound system is better than we have come to expect from TVs at this price.

Verdict

The budget TV market is a whole different board game from Sony’s usual stomping ground of high-end OLEDs and Mini LEDs. While the Bravia 3 makes an attempt to challenge the likes of TCL and Hisense using Sony’s existing picture-tuning pedigree, its shortcomings are simply too obvious to overlook.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 4
• Features 3

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CES 2026 is officially underway, and with it comes a wealth of announcements from countless TV and AV companies.

And there’s exciting news in the world of streaming – Peacock claims it will be the first platform in the industry to support Dolby Vision 2 HDR and Dolby AC-4.

That means it has pipped many big-hitting competitors to the post, including Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV.

It says the “first-of-its-kind technology integration” is anticipated to launch later this year, giving users access to a range of content, including live sports and Peacock Originals in both Dolby Atmos and the new iteration of Vision.

The company says, “Dolby Vision 2 is designed to meet the evolving expectations of today’s viewers and unlock the most out of your television.”

This mirrors Dolby's original claims about Vision 2, which was unveiled at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin last year. The tech is a follow-up to the original standard, designed to offer key things, including more accurate tone mapping.

There's also nifty new powers for directors, including the ability to adjust the frame rate of films and TV shows. The only downside is that we know the tech has specific hardware requirements.

This raises a wider question around what TVs will be able to support Dolby Vision 2 and truly get the most out of the technology.

At CES, LG has already announced that none of its TVs released in 2026 will support Dolby Vision 2, for instance. That includes its flagship OLED TV for the year, the LG G6, as well as the cheaper LG C6. This doesn't necessarily mean LG TVs from this year will never support the technology, but it's currently up in the air.

Samsung's approach is more complicated, as it recently announced the development of HDR10+ Advanced, which is a direct competitor to Dolby Vision 2. This will be supported in the company's 2026 TV lineup, with no news on how this will work with the Dolby technology.

We are expecting other companies to release their own plans on how their products will integrate Dolby Vision 2 and, with our senior staff writer Lewis Epson on the ground at CES, we will keep you updated as soon as we learn the latest information.

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LG has lifted the lid on its flagship OLED TV for 2026 – the predictably named G6.

If you thought this was going to be a year of OLED stagnation, you might be surprised to learn that LG claims the G6 is capable of going 20 per cent brighter than the G5 it replaces (and is pictured above).

The brand wouldn’t be drawn on whether this increase applies to small highlights or full-screen brightness (I suspect the former), but a figure this large is pretty surprising, and is seemingly made possible by a second-gen version of the Primary RGB Tandem panel found in the G5.

Interestingly, it has been confirmed that the new C6 also features a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, but only in its 77- and 83-inch screen sizes. While currently unconfirmed, it's also believed that the C6's panel is the same as that in last year's G5, rather than the second-gen version in the G6.

The G6's increased brightness is one of several elements that feed into what LG is referring to as “Hyper Radiant Colour Technology”.

Another element is an improvement to black levels and colours when the TV is viewed in a room with ambient lighting.

According to LG, the TV will deliver blacks deeper than 0.24 nits in a room with 500 lux of ambient light. That’s the sort of light that is recommended for tasks such as reading and sewing, so pretty bright.

This black performance in bright rooms has been achieved through a new polariser that improves reflection handling. The “Reflection free Premium” feature has apparently reduced reflections to less than 0.5 per cent.

According to LG, the anti-reflection technology of an unnamed competitor OLED (presumably the Samsung S95F) reduces reflections only to 1.5 per cent and can’t deliver blacks below 1 nit.

These are very small numbers, of course, and it will be fascinating to see how the different anti-reflection approaches look to the human eye.

The final element of the Hyper Radiant Colour Tech is the new Gen 3 version of LG’s Alpha 11 processor, which is significantly more powerful than the Gen 2 version in the G5 and is claimed to improve processing across the board, but particularly in relation to the upscaling of sub-4K content.

Unlike last year, when the G5 had a more powerful processor than the C5, this year's C6 will feature the same Alpha 11 Gen 3 processor as the G6.

Gaming features haven’t really changed for the G6, but that’s probably largely due to the LG G5 already being a beast in this regard.

So, as before, you will get four HDMI 2.1 sockets, all capable of handling gaming signals up to 4K/165Hz and all variants of VRR.

4K/120Hz cloud gaming via GeForce Now was added to the G5 and C5 a few months ago, too, and this will naturally also be supported by the new G6.

The G6 will also benefit from Bluetooth Ultra Low Latency support for game controllers. LG says this is a world first, and it should help to make cloud gaming feel more responsive.

One disappointment, at least to me, is that the design hasn’t changed for the G6. The ‘Gallery’ design has barely changed in years, and to my eyes it’s starting to look a little tired, particularly next to Samsung’s super-sleek and stylish flagship models.

Still, those intending to wall-mount their new TV will be pleased to read that all sizes of the G6 (as with the G5, it will be available in 55-, 65-, 77-, 83- and 97-inch versions) will be available with a “Zero Gap” bracket in the box.

Presumably, as before, some sizes will be available with a pedestal stand as an alternative, but we haven’t yet had this confirmed.

One interesting thing to note is that the G6 will not support Dolby Vision 2. LG stated during its CES pre-briefing that it has no plans to support Dolby Vision 2 in 2026.

In fact, I was rather taken aback by how little David Park, LG’s Director of Product Strategy and Marketing in the US, seemed to know about Dolby Vision 2, including whether it might be possible to add it to TVs via software update or whether it would need to be built in from the off.

Perhaps Dolby Vision 2 is simply much further away than we thought – or perhaps Dolby is at this stage working only with its launch partner, Hisense, on the new format. With any luck, we will find out more about this in the coming days.

MORE:

Here's everything we know so far about Dolby Vision 2

LG is also launching an RGB Mini LED TV, the MRGB95

Here are the best TVs you can buy right now

The Philips OLED910 really surprised me when I tested it right at the tail end of last year.

It's a TV that combines the latest and brightest Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel technology with a Bowers & Wilkins sound system, great styling, and delightful Ambilight.

It's the best-sounding TV you can buy right now, and it gets close to the awesome Sony Bravia 8 II for picture quality, all while costing a lot less.

In fact, not only did the OLED910 launch for significantly less than rivals such as the Bravia 8 II, LG G5 and Samsung S95F, but it's been discounted further, too, so you can now pick up the 65-inch model for just £1699 at Richer Sounds.

That's almost £300 less than the equivalent Bravia 8 II, which is currently £1979 at Richer Sounds.

Right out of the box, the OLED910 looks and feels like a high-end television: a slim, elegant screen framed by a clean, understated design, and finished off with Philips’ signature four-sided Ambilight.

This isn’t a gimmick – the ambient lighting genuinely enhances immersion, framing movies and games with dynamic light that dances with the action on screen. It's not necessary for all content, but with bright, colourful movies and games, it's stunning.

Under the hood, Philips has chosen a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel (the same panel that's found in the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B) and its P5 AI processor, giving you bright, vivid images with punchy highlights and rich shadow detail.

Unlike the LG G5, Samsung S95F and Sony Bravia 8 II, the OLED910 also supports all major HDR formats, including Dolby Vision and HDR10+, so you’re set up for the best possible streaming, disc and gaming content.

One of the OLED910’s standout features is its built-in Bowers & Wilkins 3.1-channel sound system. By TV standards, this is exceptional: full, detailed, and spacious enough to fill a room.

A premium soundbar such as the Sonos Arc Ultra will sound even better, but if you're determined to stick with your new TV's built-in speakers, the OLED910 is the best-sounding model you can buy right now.

There are a couple of small compromises – slightly raised blacks in Dolby Vision, over-brightened SDR and just two full-fat HDMI 2.1 ports – but these are minor caveats given the overall package.

At this price, you’re getting a super-premium OLED picture, class-leading integrated audio and a stylish, feature-rich package – making the OLED910 arguably the best performance-per-pound flagship OLED available right now.

MORE:

Read the full Philips OLED910 review

And here's our Sony Bravia 8 II review

These are all of the best TVs you can buy right now, and the best TV deals

It’s easy, when looking for a bargain set-up, whether it be home cinema or hi-fi, to get a little too distracted with driving the price down, rather than looking at the quality you might be getting. If it’s cheap, after all, there must be some leeway for a few performance foibles, surely?

Often, of course, that simply has to be the case. But not always.

With this pairing, we are confident that, as well as spending a remarkably little amount of money for what you get, you are also getting almost unreasonable performance for your pound.

Fifty-inch televisions may be par for the course nowadays, but for most living rooms it’s a size that is plenty big enough to bring a cinematic sense of scale to proceedings.

The system

• TV: TCL 50C6KS (£419 / AU$590)
• Soundbar: Hisense AX5125H (£249 / $350)
• Total system price: £668

The TV

And the 50in TV we have for you here is, quite simply, a revelation. For years, the premium panel technologies – Mini LED and OLED – remained firmly in the territory of flagship pricing. TCL has shattered that barrier with the 50C6KS. It’s a 50-inch slice of visual excellence that makes you question how much money you need to spend to get a truly bright, punchy, and detailed picture.

The core strength of the TCL 50C6KS lies in its Mini LED backlight. The set’s ability to control local dimming zones is far more sophisticated than anything else we’ve seen anywhere near this price. And it translates immediately into the real-world performance: excellent brightness and contrast that fundamentally elevate all content you throw at it.

Watching high dynamic range (HDR) content, especially from Dolby Vision or HDR10+ sources, is where the magic truly happens. Sunsets blaze with intensity, streetlights pierce the inky blackness of a night scene, and explosions have a genuinely searing quality.

The black levels, while not reaching the absolute, pixel-off-perfection of a true OLED panel – this is a £350 50in TV remember – are deep and satisfyingly dark, particularly when viewed in a moderately lit room. Critically, we found very little evidence of a common pitfall for lesser LED TVs – blooming or light haloing around bright objects against a dark background.

The picture has depth and dimension, and avoids the flat, washed-out look that plagues so many budget rivals. Its colour palette is rich and vibrant, offering nuanced shades of green and red that bring nature documentaries to life.

There are, inevitably, some minor foibles. The most noticeable compromise is in motion handling. It’s generally perfectly competent, particularly for standard TV viewing; but watching fast-paced cinematic action can occasionally reveal an over-smoothing effect.

While this can be mitigated somewhat by tweaking the motion settings, out of the box it can lead to a slight soap-opera effect on fast pans and camera moves.

The other key limitation to be aware of, particularly for the enthusiastic gamer, is connectivity. The 50C6KS lacks the full suite of HDMI 2.1 features. This means the latest generation of consoles – the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X – will be limited to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. For the casual gamer or those who prioritize cinematic picture quality over extreme frame rates, this is a perfectly acceptable trade-off.

For most of the people, most of the time, the TCL 50C6KS offers a picture that is, in its own way, “even better than its specs suggest”. This is a television that simply loves light and is desperate to share it with you.

The soundbar

To pair with the television, we have a rare product indeed. A sub-£500 Dolby Atmos soundbar system that actually performs brilliantly for its price – indeed, it’s the first of its type to merit the full five stars (and a Best Buy Award) from What Hi-Fi?’s necessarily strict reviewing team.

Two top-value products, then, that bring so much more than you should expect for the less than £550 you will have to pay for them.

If the TCL is the visual bargain of the year, the Hisense AX5125H is without doubt its audio equivalent. This system is a certified winner, and it represents a genuine landmark: it’s the first truly good and incredibly affordable Dolby Atmos system What Hi-Fi? has reviewed.

What’s more, the Hisense is not simply a soundbar: this is a complete 5.1.2-channel system in a box. That means you get the main soundbar unit, a dedicated wireless subwoofer, and, crucially, two dedicated wireless surround speakers.

The system supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and the soundbar incorporates upward-firing drivers (the ".2" in that 5.1.2) to bounce audio off your ceiling, creating the true height and immersion that defines the Atmos experience.

And, when we had the system in our test room, we were stunned by the sheer scale and spaciousness of the sound it produces. Explosions don't just happen in front of you; they feel as though they are detonating across the entire room.

Aircraft fly overhead, and rain seems to fall from above. The soundbar itself handles dialogue and the front soundstage with a cohesive and detailed grip, ensuring that even in the most chaotic action sequence, you can still clearly hear the actors' voices.

The star of the show, though, is the wireless subwoofer. It delivers a room-filling, sofa-shaking exuberance that is addictive, providing a proper foundation for the sound, lending weight and dramatic scale to action movies and giving music a satisfyingly deep beat. This is bass that you don't just hear; you feel it in your chest, instantly transforming the sense of immersion.

The fact that you can get this sonic quality for 200 quid (at the time of writing) is, quite frankly, absurd.

The verdict

The beauty of pairing the TCL 50C6KS and the Hisense AX5125H lies in their complementary strengths.

The TCL is focused almost entirely on delivering a stellar image, one that is bright, contrast-rich, and detailed. Its internal audio, while more powerful than many rival TVs, is still, ultimately, TV audio. Which is to say, not ideal in a home cinema context.

The Hisense AX5125H steps in not just as an upgrade, but, as it turns out, as the ideal partner to the TCL's visual prowess. It solves the TV's one key limitation – the need for serious audio – and does so with an authority and completeness that is rare.

Where the TV draws you in with its stunning use of light and colour, the sound system holds you captive with its enveloping sonic landscape.

MORE:

Our pick of the best TVs we tested in 2025

Are 4K Blu-ray discs better quality than streaming?

Subwoofers have been the MVPs of 2025; here are three examples of subs that wowed us this year

2025 set the foundation for a Dolby Atmos revolution – here's hoping it ignites in 2026

I started reviewing TVs way back in 2007, and I genuinely think that next year could be one of the most interesting for televisions in a really long time.

Why? There are three main reasons: the controversial introduction of two new HDR formats; a new, compelling challenger for OLED's top TV tech crown; and, on the other hand, the arrival (finally) of more affordable OLED TVs.

Let's look at those in turn...

Dolby Vision 2 vs HDR10+ Advanced: the battle nobody asked for

Back in September, Dolby announced that it was working on a new version of Dolby Vision, called, predictably, Dolby Vision 2.

The news was met with a… sceptical reaction.

We asked our own readers for their opinions and checked out some of our regular Reddit haunts, and while some people did respond positively, many seemed downright annoyed about the Dolby Vision news.

There were people arguing (fairly, in my opinion) that most TVs can't take full advantage of Dolby Vision as it is; others posited that the new format is just a ruse to force them to buy a new TV; and a few suggested that Dolby Vision 2's AI processing will actually make picture quality less true to what the director intended.

I understand all of those takes, and I continue to feel a little wary of Dolby Vision 2 myself, but the more I've read about it, the more I have come around to the idea.

The important thing for me is that it's all tied into the studios mastering the movies and TV shows we're going to be watching in the years to come. Dolby Vision 2 is, according to Dolby, all about empowering studios to tailor their content to the TVs we have at home, and enabling us to get a more accurate picture.

There's still a lot that needs answering. Are the studios actually on board with all of this? Are the enhancements genuinely intended to improve accuracy? Which manufacturers are getting on board?

Here's hoping we get a lot of answers at CES 2026 in January, because I've been shocked by how little the people I've been speaking to in the TV industry know about Dolby Vision 2. Frankly, they seem to be as much in the dark as you and I are.

If Dolby Vision 2 has an uphill struggle to convince us of its merits, Samsung's rival HDR10+ Advanced has a mountain to climb.

On paper, it's designed to do much of the same stuff – improve motion, contrast and colours with the help of AI, and take advantage of new, brighter display technologies – but Samsung doesn't have the links to movie studios that Dolby does, so the idea that these improvements are in the service of more accurate picture quality is even harder to swallow.

Of course, I'm not going to judge either of these new technologies before I've seen them in action (neither has been demonstrated in anything other than 'simulations' so far), and it will be genuinely fascinating to test and compare them.

Perhaps one or both of them will defy the cynics and usher in a new dawn of at-home picture quality. Here's hoping.

The RGB Mini LED onslaught

2026 is going to be the year of RGB Mini LED, of that there can be little doubt – but what does it mean for OLED?

Honestly, that's hard to tell. While some manufacturers have already officially unveiled RGB Mini LED TVs, most have not, and even those that have are rumoured to be keeping further models behind the curtain until CES at least.

It seems to me that different manufacturers have different plans for the new panel tech, with some pitching it as the new, all-conquering flagship TV technology and others seeing it as a step-down from OLED.

My take? I think the range of quality will be absolutely huge, much as it is now with 'normal' Mini LED TVs.

Let's not forget that RGB Mini LED TVs are still backlit, so elements such as the number of dimming zones and the processing that controls them will be incredibly important to the final picture quality.

Some TVs will have more LEDs and dimming zones, others will have better processing, and it's probably only those that combine both that will mount any sort of challenge to the best OLED TVs.

Even those that do will have their work cut out for them if the goal is actually to beat OLED.

I'm inclined to believe that no amount of tiny, coloured LEDs in a backlight will match the pixel-level contrast control of OLED, but I live to be surprised; I was certainly very impressed indeed when I saw Sony's prototype RGB LED TV way back in March of this year, and I expect the final version of that set to launch in 2026.

Ultimately, I do think RGB Mini LED will be a game-changer – I just don't know whether it's the mid-range TV game it will change, or whether it's the flagship TV game that OLED is currently winning. I'm sure excited to find out, though.

Cheaper OLEDs, finally?

In 2026, we saw, for the first time, a 55-inch OLED TV launch for less than £1000.

Said TV is the Toshiba XF9F, and while it's unfortunately not particularly good, what it represents is very exciting indeed.

We have long pined for and predicted the arrival of more affordable OLED TVs – and we might even have got them by now were it not for several significant global events that I won't mention here – but it feels as though they might, finally, be right around the corner.

If it were just the Toshiba XF9F, I wouldn't be so sure, but Philips also launched its 55-inch OLED760 model for £1199 this year – and, at the risk of spoiling our upcoming review, that's a genuinely great TV for the money.

In 2026, I can imagine Toshiba having another crack at the budget OLED and it being more polished. I can also imagine Philips going even more aggressive on the pricing of its affordable model.

My imagination even stretches as far as seeing the likes of LG and Samsung looking at these new, affordable OLEDs and deciding that they need to go cheaper with their entry-level models.

I'm not saying that there will be lots of sub-£1000 55-inch TV launches, but I do think that base-spec OLEDs will launch for less than ever before in 2026, and thanks to discounting, those people with a £1000 budget who want a large OLED TV will be almost spoiled for choice.

Won't that be a fine thing?

MORE:

Here are the best TVs and best OLED TVs you can buy right now

This is everything you need to know about Dolby Vision 2

Confused about the new panel tech? You won't be once you've read our RGB Mini LED explainer

Cables, eh. What a pain they are, ruining the clean lines of even the loveliest TV designs with their tangles of demonic spaghetti.

They’re just so 1980s, honestly. If only there were a way to enjoy perfect pictures and sound without them, we’d have consigned them to the bin of TV history years ago.

Cue LG’s M5 OLED: a TV so successful at dodging the cable bullet that we almost wish it shipped with a bin to put said now-redundant cables in.

LG wasn’t terribly keen to send a sample of the M5 to us for review in our test rooms, but was happy to host a testing session in its UK offices. Given our enthusiasm for the concept, we naturally accepted.

This means, however, that we couldn’t check the M5 over in the full range of carefully controlled conditions we normally apply to TV reviews, or feed it quite as expansive an array of testing equipment and content as we usually would – so we haven’t quite given it our full review treatment here or, therefore, a star rating.

That said, the location we found ourselves looking at the M5 in could be fully blacked out, and also featured an artificial light system bright enough to at least simulate the sort of light levels you might get in a sun-drenched living room.

Plus, we were left entirely to our own devices for many hours to do with the TV exactly as we pleased – so we feel what follows can be considered representative of what anyone who buys an LG M5 OLED will experience in their own homes.

Price

The 65-inch LG M5 launched for a very premium price of £3799, but it can now be bought for a significantly discounted £2799.

There are also 77-, 83- and mammoth 97-inch versions of the M5, which currently cost £4099, £6299 and (oof) £24,999 respectively.

We’ve only been able to find the 77-inch version of the M5 in the US, where it currently costs $3800. The full range is available in Australia, though, priced at AU$5995, AU$6199, AU$8199 and AU$39,999.

The UK prices mean the M5 models command premiums of £300 to £500 over the equivalent G5 sets in the 65-83-inch sizes – though the price hike at the time of writing between the 97-inch M5 and G5 models is a rather inexplicable £5000.

The 97-inch price becomes even harder to swallow when you consider that this set doesn’t benefit from the latest generation of ultra-bright Primary RGB Tandem OLED screens that the smaller versions of the M5 have.

With those smaller screen sizes, though, the M5 price difference really doesn’t seem unreasonable at all for the extra tech and design purity you’re getting.

Design

The M5 looks pretty sweet. Shorn of the need to carry the usual bank of connections and internal image controls and processing systems, its strikingly monolithic design is only 24.3mm deep from front to back, while the width of the bezel around the screen has also been kept to a pretty bare minimum.

We’re not quite in ‘pictures from nowhere’ territory, perhaps, but it’s pretty close. Especially as the only cable running into the TV is the power cord – a single cable that would be relatively easy to channel into the wall beneath the TV if you really wanted the ultimate minimalist look.

Of course, the screen isn’t the only part of the LG M5; it also ships with the rather important external Zero Connect Box. Named for the fact that it’s claimed to deliver its wireless picture and sound to the screen without any significant lag/delay, the chunky black Zero Connect Box is considerably less sleek and easy on the eye than the screen it feeds.

It’s a fair bit smaller than its predecessor from 2024, though, and since its wireless range is now rated as capable of delivering lossless picture and sound quality over a range of up to 10 meters, you can hide it pretty much anywhere in your room.

This year’s Zero Connect doesn’t even require a direct line of sight with the screen as its predecessor did – though LG does state that some materials, especially metal, could interfere with the signal, as could placing it fully inside a cabinet.

The M5 ships with one of LG’s classic ‘Magic’ remote controls. These feel a bit plasticky as partners for such premium TVs, but their rounded-off and well-balanced shape makes them comfy to hold. Plus, they famously add both ‘point and click’ wand-like functionality and a spinning vertical menu navigation wheel beyond the usual remote control options.

Features and specs

The two star attractions of the LG M5 are its completely wireless picture and sound capabilities, and the fact that its screen uses LG’s latest Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology.

Regarding the former, remarkably, LG states that 4K video at frame rates up to 144Hz can be transmitted from the Zero Connect box to the TV, along with soundtracks up to and including Dolby Atmos, without any compression or other loss of signal quality.

The latest OLED panel, meanwhile, uses two blue-emitting layers to separately illuminate the red and green layers, drastically improving the brightness LG’s new premium OLED screens can achieve without causing colours to thin.

On paper, then, there’s precious little reason why the 65-inch M5 should perform differently to the 65-inch G5 we tested a while back.

The only clear spec difference in performance terms, assuming the wireless transmission system actually performs as LG claims it should, is that the M5’s frame rate support tops out at 144Hz versus the G5’s 165Hz. This seems to be down to limitations of the wireless transmission system rather than differences in the actual OLED panel capabilities, though – and 4K/165Hz gaming is, of course, very niche at this point.

The Zero Connect box does feature, though, a connectivity downgrade from the G5, in that it only carries three HDMI ports rather than four. These are all high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, though, capable of supporting up-to-the-minute features such as 4K/120Hz (actually, 144Hz), VRR (including both the AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync systems), and ALLM switching.

The HDMI 2 socket supports eARC, too, so that you can pass sound up to lossless Dolby Atmos out via HDMI cable to a soundbar or AV receiver.

Other connections include a pair of USBs, satellite and RF tuner inputs, a LAN port, an optical digital audio output, and an IR Blaster jack so that you can add a remote control extender. There’s wireless support, too, for Google Cast and Apple AirPlay streaming.

As with the G5, the M5’s self-emissive OLED panel is powered by LG’s latest Alpha 11 processor – a processor amusingly claimed to be so much more powerful than its Alpha 9 predecessor that LG had to skip the expected 10 denomination.

Key among the claimed new tricks of this processor are much-expanded AI and machine learning capabilities aimed at further improving picture and sound quality. So, for instance, it’s reckoned to achieve much better upscaling of low-res and low-quality source images by applying much deeper and more contextualised real-time analysis of the incoming video signals.

New options have been provided, too, to allow calibrators and confident/competent end users to customise LG’s dynamic tone mapping system for optimising HDR sources to the OLED panel capabilities.

The Alpha 11 processor’s advanced pixel colour and light control is also claimed to be key to unlocking the brightness potential of the M5’s new panel design – which is why LG’s marketeers prefer to describe its newfound brightness talents under a Brightness Booster Ultimate moniker rather than expressly talking about the Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel.

On the sound front, Alpha 11 is capable of upmixing all audio formats, even stereo, to a virtual 11.1.2 surround mix. Though the TV’s actual speaker set-up is only a 4.2-channel affair, driven by a decent 60W of claimed total power output.

An AI-based acoustic tuning system is onboard too, to optimise the TV’s sound to your room set up, while LG’s WOW Orchestra feature means the M5 can ally its own speakers with those in an LG soundbar, rather than the soundbar just taking over all sound duties by itself.

The tendrils of Alpha 11’s AI elements extend into the latest incarnation of LG’s webOS smart system, too.

In fact, the remote control now features a dedicated AI button that provides instant access to a whole suite of AI-driven features including AI Voice ID (for automatically recognising who in your household is using the TV so the TV can switch to their individual user profile); an AI-bolstered content search engine; an AI Chatbot that functions as a sort of automatic customer services call line; an AI Concierge feature that provides a simple ‘how can I help you today’ pathway into the TV’s more advanced AI features; and AI Picture and Sound Wizards that optimise the TV’s performance to your tastes based on your responses to a series of multiple choice picture and sound samples.

Inevitably, for a modern smart TV, the M5 supports voice control, including a far-field mic so that you can operate your TV without needing the remote control.

The latest webOS platform provides a comprehensive lineup of video streaming services, including the catch-up apps for the UK’s main terrestrial broadcasters, plus Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ and Apple TV+. Also, as hinted in the previous paragraph, webOS 25 supports multiple individual user profiles so that the TV can present personalised content recommendations based on each user’s viewing habits.

There’s a Home Hub screen to help you monitor and access all your connected (both physical and wireless network) devices, too, while a Game Hub screen brings together your connected game devices and all the game streaming services LG supports – including 4K/120Hz streams via Nvidia GeForce Now.

The M5 also supports the LG Gallery+ subscription service that gives you access to more than 4,000 digitised artworks to use as screensavers when you’re not watching the TV in earnest. This feature, which essentially turns your TV into an artwork, works particularly well with TVs as specifically designed for wall mounting as the M5 is.

We did notice while exploring the M5’s smart features that its menus could become a bit sluggish at times, suggesting that they’re putting a lot of strain on the TV’s processing core. But there’s certainly no questioning the scope and ambition of LG’s latest webOS efforts.

One last feature of the M5 to report is that, as well as carrying a Filmmaker Mode designed to deliver a particularly pure and accurate picture, in keeping with all LG OLED TVs, it supports the HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision high dynamic range formats, but not HDR10+.

Picture quality

We had expected to be able to pretty much boil the picture quality part of this hands-on report to a simple ‘it’s basically the same as the G5’ and move swiftly on. Actually, though, things didn’t turn out to be quite so straightforward.

We arranged for a 65-inch G5 to be set up right alongside the 65-inch M5, and fed the same signals into each TV using an HDMI splitter. Our main intention for doing this was to check that the M5’s wireless transmission system really does deliver pictures and sound with no reduction in quality versus the hard-wired G5, but what the head-to-head actually revealed was differences between the pictures of each screen that didn’t appear to have anything to do with their wired and wireless delivery.

In fact, on the wireless quality point, the M5 passed with flying colours. Try as we might, we couldn’t spot any signs that its pictures were being affected by their journey over the Wi-Fi airwaves. There’s no extra picture noise, no evidence of compression blocking or mosquito noise, no extra softness, no smearing or frame rate stuttering.

In fact, if anything, the M5’s pictures looked slightly sharper and more detailed than those of the G5.

This unexpected and actually slightly puzzling difference in the M5’s favour (which was achieved with every picture option on both the G5 and M5 set exactly the same) alerted us to look closely for more. And we actually found quite a few.

For one thing, the M5’s pictures carried a slightly browner overall colour tone across all presets than the G5, which tended towards a greener look to things. The G5’s colours could look generally a touch richer than those of the M5, especially with skin tones – chiefly, we think, because of the wireless screen’s slight red leanings. The M5, though, exhibited slightly less posterisation than the G5, especially in Filmmaker Mode.

Neither screen was as completely free of this slight colour banding effect during complex sequences containing lots of subtle colour blends (such as the aerial spinner shootout and subsequent watery gun-fight as Agent K rescues Deckard towards the end of Blade Runner 2049) as we’d ideally like, but it’s good that the M5 seemed slightly better in this respect.

With extremely dark shots, black levels looked deeper and more neutral on the M5 when the red tinge didn’t get in the way, but a little subtle shadow detail could go AWOL compared with the G5. With mid-dark shots, though, the G5 hit deeper blacks in the darkest parts of the picture, but suddenly suffered with slight shadow detail crush.

Since there’s no reason why a physical versus wireless delivery system should deliver such differences, our best guess as to what was going on is that we were seeing differences in the two TVs’ out-of-factory panel conditions. Certainly, we were able to get the screens looking a bit closer together by spending time with their advanced colour and white balance management tools.

It’s also more than a little important to stress that while the out-of-the-box conditions of the G5 and M5 screens were more different than we would have expected, both sets, in their slightly different ways, still looked spectacularly good by the standards of the TV world at large.

They hit levels of peak brightness that we once thought OLED could never achieve, for instance, surpassing by some margin the intensity of brightness peaks with HDR content that last year’s then-groundbreaking premium LG OLEDs managed. Partner this with the screens’ stellar black level performance and pixel-by-pixel lighting, and you’ve got pictures that enjoy both an amazing contrast range and some gorgeous luminance-based insight and subtlety.

Both screens also retained more brightness with full-screen bright HDR content than previous generations have, too, making for a more consistent HDR experience, and colour saturations in the Standard and Cinema presets were gorgeous, with really no trace of the washing out effect that was once thought to be an issue with making LG’s OLED technology as bright as it is here.

It’s important to stress, too, that the way LG’s new OLED panel technology works should ensure that the extra brightness is delivered without the screens becoming more likely to suffer with the permanent image retention issues that were once such a problem for OLED technology.

The M5’s pictures joined those of the G5 in adapting beautifully both to the relatively accurate look of their Cinema and, especially Filmmaker Mode presets, and the punchier look of the Standard preset that many users will find it hard to turn away from once they’ve experienced it.

Viewing angles were still exemplary versus the vast majority of screens that use LCD technology instead of OLED, and while there was a slight difference in sharpness in the M5’s favour, both TVs actually looked properly 4K with native 4K content, and enjoyed LG’s cleanest and most detailed-looking upscaled HD pictures to date.

LG even has a motion processing mode now in the shape of its Cinematic Movement option that can take the edge off OLED’s hardware judder with 24p sources without leaving the results either looking so smooth they turn big-budget movies into cheap TV soap operas, or being ruined by distractingly obvious processing artefacts.

Both screens reacted spectacularly to being fed Dolby Vision sources, provided we stuck with their Dolby Vision Cinema or Dolby Vision Filmmaker Modes (the Dolby Vision Standard option could flicker a bit), and finally, the M5 joined the G5 in being a superlatively vibrant, crisp and responsive gaming display.

If you’re the sort of gamer for whom literally every millisecond counts, we found that the wireless transmission system of the M5 model did cause a tiny extra 1.3ms of delay in rendering 60Hz images than the 12.9ms of input lag recorded using the G5’s wired connection. While generally interesting, though, this tiny difference seems irrelevant considering any input lag of less than 20ms is considered more or less imperceptible.

Sound quality

Despite its trimmer design versus the equivalent G5, the M5 delivered a pretty much identical audio experience, complete with all the same strengths and weaknesses.

Starting with the weaknesses, the default Dolby Atmos setting felt muted, trapped in and lacking in dynamic range, projection and general impact. It also tended to fall away when the loudest movie moments hit rather than rising to meet their challenge, and everything sounded as though it was happening behind the screen.

Deep bass sounds caused a little crackling distortion, too, while very dense, layered soundtrack moments started to become congested and slightly muffled.

Fortunately, LG’s AI Sound Pro mode improved things. Activating this instantly increased both the M5’s potential volume reach and sound stage scale, with sound effects spreading much further beyond the edges of the screen.

This enhanced projection created a more convincing sense of the placement of specific effects and the 3D sound field effect that we look for with Dolby Atmos mixes – especially as the acoustic processing involved with AI Sound Pro also created a more pronounced sense of sound coming forward towards us. We even felt a slight sensation of sound effects stretching down the sides of our seating position with AI Sound Pro active.

Dialogue was clear and sounds quite accurately positioned on the screen with AI Sound Pro active, too. That said, sometimes this mode’s ambitions reached a little far, causing the occasional rich, detailed sound stage to feel a little incoherent and/or harsh.

AI Sound Pro is still far preferable to the ‘locked in’ sound you get without it, but ultimately, a TV this impressive needs to be partnered with a dedicated audio system.

Verdict

While the performance of our M5 test sample wasn’t quite identical to that of the G5, the differences weren’t related to the M5’s wireless technology – and, crucially, they didn’t stop it from being, in its own slightly different way, every bit as beautiful to watch with both video and gaming sources as its sibling.

The LG M5 is a truly premium performer, genuinely uncompromised by its cutting-edge convenience features.

A few super-hardcore gamers may be deterred from the M5 by its lack of 165Hz support and slightly higher input lag versus the G5.

For many home cinema fans, though, especially those looking for a TV to hang on a wall, we reckon the relatively small extra cost of the M5 will feel like money very well spent.

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