Best OLED TV 2023: the latest and greatest models, rated and ranked

"All OLED TVs are the same, right?" Wrong! Most OLED TVs do use panels manufactured by LG Display (which is distinct from LG Electronics, by the way), but there are huge differences in performance between final OLED TV models.

That's partly because LG Display now produces several different types of OLED panel (including super-bright MLA OLEDs), but also because processing plays an enormous role in a TV's picture performance, from how it handles colours, contrast, sharpness, detail, motion and more.

On top of that, there's also now another type of OLED panel being manufactured by Samsung Display. These super-bright and vibrant QD-OLED panels are now being used by some of Samsung Electronics' and Sony's flagship TVs.

Away from picture performance, there's also sound quality and HDMI features to consider, and these also vary wildly from TV to TV.

In short, there's lots of variation in the quality of different OLED TVs, as our extensive, independent testing proves. The good news is that we've whittled down all of those reviews in order to recommend only the very best OLED TVs at a variety of sizes and prices. If it's an OLED TV you're after, you'll find the perfect one below.

Written by

Written by

Alastair Stevenson

Alastair is What Hi-Fi?’s editor in chief. He has well over a decade’s experience as a journalist working in both B2C and B2B press. During this time he’s covered everything from the launch of the first OLED TV to the long-awaited arrival of HDMI 2.1 connectivity on tellies. An avid cinema fan he's always hunting for the best picture quality possible and loves nothing more than playing with TV that offers the oh so rare "as the director intended" performance we so rarely see these days.

The quick list

You can see a quick breakdown of all the TVs in this list with a short summary of what they’re best at and why we think they’re worth your money in the table below. Or, if you want more detail you can use the skip links to go to our OLED TVs in-depth entry, where we’ll offer more detail about our experience using it.

The best OLED TVs in 2023

Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best OLED TVs in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.

Best overall

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Why we recommend it

The Sony A80L is the surprise of the year so far. It's based on 'traditional' OLED technology (i.e. it's not a QD-OLED or MLA model) so we broadly thought we knew what to expect, but it stunned us during our extensive test by offering a picture performance with a near-perfect balance of the spectacular and the subtle. It sounds good by TV standards, too, and the feature set will be strong enough for all but the most hardcore of gamers.

Design and features: The A80L looks very similar to the A80K it replaces, which is fine but the design is starting to look a little bland. It's a little thicker than rivals such as the LG C3, but partly that's down to its actuator-based sound system, which vibrates the whole screen in order to generate sound.

Around the back are four HDMI sockets, two of which are HDMI 2.1-spec and support 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. One of these is also the eARC port, and if you use that to connect a soundbar or AVR you'll have just one left for a games console or gaming PC. The TV also lacks support for Dolby Vision gaming, despite Dolby Vision being present for movies and TV shows.

The A80L uses the Google TV operating system, which packs in practically every app you could want, and the Cognitive Processor XR adds a new XR Clear Image feature, which is intended to be a more intelligent form of upscaling that understands content type and quality and applies processing accordingly so that images look closer to native 4K.

Picture quality: The seemingly effortless way it combines the spectacular with the subtle is quite extraordinary. The neon lights and holographic billboards of Blade Runner 2049’s downtown LA pop from the overall gloom of the city in brilliant fashion, but skin tones are handled with realism-boosting nuance and the seemingly hundreds of slightly different shades of grey that make up the bark of the tree at Sapper Morton’s farm are made clear to see.

The TV’s ability to subtly recreate different shades doesn’t come at the expense of dynamism, and contrast extremes such as the intro text at the start of the film emerge brightly from the pure black background. There’s a rare purity to highlights, too, such as Love’s white jacket and the light panels above her head in the records room of the Wallace Corporation.

All of these qualities combine to make an image that’s brilliantly solid and has a lovely three-dimensional feel. On top of all of this, detail is also outstanding, with clothing textures, skin imperfections and complex patterns all rendered crisply but without artificial definition.

Through our extensive suite of tests, our only complaint is that a bit of dark detail is missing when watching SDR content.

Sound: Through our tests, we find that the A80L sounds a bit bass-light, but that does mean that it stays composed even through our Blade Runner 2049 stress test. That slight lack of bass depth aside, the A80L sounds really rather good by TV standards. Put it in the Cinema sound mode and the spaciousness of the delivery is very impressive, yet this spaciousness combines with the sort of focus that can really only come from having the sound literally coming from the screen.

While flagship sets with discrete speaker systems will sound even better, for a step-down model the A80L sounds very impressive. This should be a strong consideration for anyone with this sort of budget who is determined not to combine their new TV with a dedicated sound system.

Value for money: The A80L is the step-down OLED in Sony's 2023 TV range and is quite aggressively priced for a brand-new TV. It's also been heavily discounted since launch, to a degree that's quite uncharacteristic of Sony. It will still likely cost you £100 or so more than the equivalent LG C3, but we feel it's more than worth that.

Read our Sony XR-55A80L review

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Best cheap

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Why we recommend it

LG's C-series OLED TVs are always the company's most popular, and the 42-inch C3 is the baby of the 2023 range. It's got a slightly less bright panel than the larger C3 models and it doesn't feature MLA or QD-OLED tech (which hasn't yet made it down to this sort of size), but it does boast the same exceptional feature set as well as the best overall picture quality available at this size. It's cheaper than its rivals, too.

Design and features: The 42-inch C3 has a different design to its larger siblings that makes it look more like a monitor or bedroom TV. This makes sense as LG markets it directly to gamers and those living in smaller spaces. 

The big design difference between it and its siblings is that it has two blade-like feet that take up less desk space rather than a pedestal. The positive is that these are easy to move around and take up less space; the downside is that we found there’s less room to place a soundbar under it.

Outside of that, it retains the same core features we love about the C3 range as a whole. Specifically, it features the same Alpha 9 Gen 6 processor as the 65-inch C3 and G3, and identical connectivity, with it sporting four PS5 and Xbox Series X/S-ready HDMI 2.1 ports that support 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. It can also handle Dolby Vision gaming (right up to 120Hz, in fact) and an HGiG mode for more accurate HDR gaming.

Picture quality: The OLED42C3 features the same panel as other 42-inch OLED TVs such as the Sony XR-42A90K. This panel is less bright than the one used for the best and brightest larger OLED TVs, and that's before you even consider the new MLA and QD-OLED technologies.

That said, it's still more than bright enough for almost all scenarios, and the perfect blacks and pixel-level contrast control make the image exceptionally dynamic. What's more, there is an inherent advantage that 'small' 4K TVs have over their larger brethren – pixel density. Because the pixels are more tightly packed, sharpness is increased, and the crispness of the OLED42C3’s delivery actually makes its 65-inch sibling look a bit soft.

Even against other 42-inch OLEDs that have the same inherent picture traits, the C3 comes out on top. This is a bold, impactful TV that delivers images with superb solidity and dynamism, but it's also very consistent and never makes you aware of the picture processing in play. It's also an absolute doddle to get looking its best – just use Dolby Vision Cinema Home for Dolby Vision content and Filmmaker Mode for pretty much everything else and you're pretty much sorted (though do by all means tweak further to taste).

Sound: LG’s 2023 OLED TVs have generally been very disappointing in terms of sound quality, and the omens weren't good for the 42-inch C3 when you consider that small TVs tend to sound weaker than their larger counterparts.

Sure enough, the small C3 is much less bassy than the 65-inch version, and it goes significantly less loud, too. On the plus side, that does make it less readily provoked into bassy distortion. That makes the Dolby Atmos mode more useable, which is good because it creates a nicely spacious sound, particularly for a TV this size, while also projecting voices effectively.

Unfortunately, the 42-inch C3 still suffers from a rather dull delivery. It's perfectly fine for everyday TV, but it doesn’t have the punch, weight or dynamic range to satisfyingly deliver a movie soundtrack. A soundbar is a must.

Value for money: The 42-inch C3 launched at a higher price than the equivalent C2 did last year, and given its very marginal upgrades, that made it look like slightly poor value for money. However, the C2 has now been discontinued and, conveniently, the C3 has been pretty heavily discounted. The price can fluctuate somewhat, but we have seen it as low as £999, at which price it's superb value. Anything below £1099 is good, particularly when the 42-inch Sony A90K, which is a year older, still regularly costs almost £1500.

Read our LG OLED42C3 review

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The best premium OLED

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Why we recommend it

The A95L is the successor to the A95K, arguably the best TV of last year if you don't take price into account. One of the two first QD-OLED TVs launched, it trumped its Samsung S95B rival by deploying its brightness-boosting, vibrancy-adding Quantum Dots in a more considered and authentic fashion – and by offering a far superior sound system to boot.

The promise of second-generation QD-OLED panels is an even brighter and more efficient performance, but we were just as excited to find out how the team at Sony could refine the performance further with an extra year of experience with the new panel technology. Having now put the Sony A95L up against pretty much every other TV you might be considering, we can safely say that it is, with very little doubt, the very best TV you can currently buy.

Features: The second-generation QD-OLED panel allows the A95L to go twice as bright as the A95K it replaces. Sony says that to the QD-OLED panel it’s added its own heat diffusion sheet (also known as a heatsink) and bespoke thermal analysis via the set’s Cognitive Processor XR.

There are upgrades on the gaming side, too, but they don’t go as far as some people will have hoped. For starters, the A95L still has just two HDMI 2.1 sockets and yes, one of those two sockets is also the eARC port, so if that is needed to connect a soundbar or AV receiver, you'll have just one top-spec HDMI socket left.

Thankfully, the two HDMI 2.1 sockets do support 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM, and while Sony doesn't have a specific HGiG setting for more accurate HDR tone-mapping in games, you can turn HDR tone-mapping off in the TV's menus to achieve a similar result. The A95L doesn't support Dolby Vision gaming out of the box, but Sony says this will be added in the future.

Also missing at launch are the UK's catch-up apps. Again, Sony says these will be added but hasn't confirmed when. The Google TV platform is otherwise well appointed, with all of the major streaming services correctly represented.

The A95L is also the only model in the new range that comes bundled with the Bravia CAM camera (it's an optional accessory for the other TVs in the range). This clips to the TV's top edge and unlocks a host of smart features, including video calling, automatic power saving and picture and sound optimisation based on the specific spot in the room that you're sitting in. During testing, we found little use for the Bravia CAM, but some of its features may be useful in a home environment.

Picture quality: Playing the super-bright Pan 4K Blu-ray, the A95L's additional brightness and colour vibrancy over the step-down Sony A80L and even the MLA-boosted Panasonic MZ2000 are immediately clear in the first scene's streetlamps and headlights, which are reproduced with a more intense and accurate yellow glow. The moon over London, meanwhile, is not only brighter on the A95L, but it also has some subtle pink shading and lots of texture detail that is missed by rivals. This is precisely the sort of picture element that QD-OLED is designed to excel at.

There's no loss of black depth, though, with the grimy streets of Victorian London being both oppressively dark and packed with shadow detail. What's more, the A95L also reproduces colours expertly in these darkest parts of the picture so that skin tones remain accurate and lifelike where other TVs allow them to go a bit pale.

The extra contrast afforded by the brighter highlights helps to reinforce edges and textures, giving everything an even more solid and three-dimensional appearance, yet this is also masterfully combined with an even greater degree of subtlety. The lights shining on a tiled wall reveal all sorts of subtle shades on the A95L, and as Peter peers into a bottle in Mother Barnabus's office, the little ship inside is resolved with fabulous fine detail and excellent solidity.

What's perhaps most impressive is the way that the A95L achieves all of its pop and dynamism without eroding subtlety or authenticity in the way that Samsung's S95C QD-OLED is occasionally guilty of.

While less-bright HDR movies and SDR content don't show off the A95L's advantages quite as strongly, it's still a cut above its rivals with everything we watch during testing, particularly in terms of colour vibrancy and accuracy.

Sound: The A95L uses a very slightly tweaked version of the 2.2-channel actuator-based sound system of the A95K. Two actuators vibrate the whole screen in order to produce sound, backed up by two regular woofers that add bass. This results in a level of directness that other TVs can't match, with dialogue that literally comes from the screen.

What's surprising is the way this sound system also extends the sonic presentation far to the sides and above the set, creating a very impressive pseudo-Atmos effect. On top of that, the sound is crisp, clear and detailed. Some extra bass weight and depth would be nice, but this is still very good sound by TV standards.

Value for money: The A95L is a super-premium TV with a price to match. It will likely come down a bit in time, but we don't expect the A95L to drop as low as rivals such as the G3. It is much better than these rivals, though, and worth paying for if you can afford it.

Read the full Sony A95L review

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Best 8K

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Why we recommend it

To be clear, broadly speaking we don't recommend that you invest in an 8K TV at the moment. There's practically no 8K content that's worth watching – and none even confirmed as being on the way. But, if you want to use 8K and OLED in the same sentence when describing your TV to friends, the LG OLED77Z2 is the set to get. Featuring a giant 77-inch OLED screen, the Z2 is the only 8K OLED TV we’ve tested – Samsung’s competing QE75QN900B uses a Mini LED panel instead.

Design and features: If you’re looking for a show-stopper TV that screams “I’m the future” and causes envious glances the moment people enter your home, the Z2 isn’t it. In fact, it looks a lot like the LG G2 featuring plastic casework over the panel’s rear and a very utilitarian front with a slightly thicker frame around its screen. The main design difference is that, unlike the G2, the Z2 features attachable feet.

Under the hood, it’s also a different beast to LG’s other models. Though its chip is based on the a9 Gen 5 AI processor seen in the G2 and C2 OLED Evo models, LG says it’s a 'modified', more powerful, 8K version. The set also comes with unique picture algorithms and custom heat dissipation technology – though LG declined our request for details about how exactly that works and is different from the ones seen in its other OLED sets.

Connectivity-wise it is fully stacked. LG’s loaded it with four HDMI 2.1 sockets that are capable of supporting 8K/60Hz signals, should 8K sources ever appear. Like LG’s other sets the inputs also support 4K/120Hz signals from the Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and high-end gaming PCs. Support for VRR and ALLM is also included. 

Picture quality: While there's no worthwhile native 8K content doing the rounds, our testers were very impressed with the Z2’s overall picture quality.

Watching The Batman 4K Blu-ray in Dolby Vision, dark scenes were full of subtle detail lost on many of the cheaper OLED sets we’ve tested. The bright video billboards of Gotham Square also retained their detail and sparkled over the otherwise dark cityscape. Overall the results delivered lovely depth and solidity to the picture.

Running the 4K Blu-ray of Drive, the Cinematic Movement motion processing option handled the film's multiple panning shots with finesse, with our testers reporting no additional artificiality to the picture.

Colours were also well-handled throughout our tests. The only minor issue our reviewers noticed throughout testing was a very gentle boost to the greens of the fields and hills of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, streamed in 4K HDR10 via the Apple TV app, which makes the picture 'just a smidge less authentic' than the results we got on the Sony A95K we ran it against. 

Sound: On paper, the Z2 has the same audio system as LG’s G2. Specifically, it comes loaded with a 60W, 4.2-channel, down-firing arrangement. But bizarrely, actually using it in our test rooms, our reviewers found the Z2 sounded miles better than the G2.

Stress testing it with the bassy opening to chapter two of Blade Runner 2049, in which K flies over LA to the police precinct, the Z2 offered much weightier audio than the G2. This was indicative generally of the extra detail, clarity and directness that made watching movies on the Z2 noticeably more engaging.

Value for money: The LG Z2 is a fantastic TV that offers wonderfully punchy, immersive picture and audio quality. It’s also the only OLED on the market that supports 8K resolutions. But if you were to ask us if it’s good value, our honest answer would be not at the moment. The premium 8K adds makes it the most expensive set on this list, and hard to recommend to anyone but early adopters, due to the shortage of content mastered at its max resolution. But, if you really want 8K and OLED, then it’s the best, and only, option at the moment.

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Best 48-inch

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Why we recommend it

At larger sizes, LG's C3 range has struggled slightly against a raft of seriously impressive new rivals, but at 48 inches (and 42 inches, for that matter) the C3 is king. You don't get fancy MLA or QD-OLED tech at this size, but what you do get is a thrilling and dynamic performance as well as flawless gaming specs, all at a now heavily discounted price.

Design and features: The 48-inch C3 differs in