The What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 are fast approaching which means as well as our usual review testing, we’re also taking a fresh look at all the five star products we’ve currently reviewed that are still on sale.
Why? So we know the Best Buy winners we announce in October are actually the best, having run them head-to-head will their latest and greatest rivals in our dedicated viewing and listening rooms – rather than just relying on memory.
As a part of that, the process means I’ve spent the last few months with constant back pain, in and out of our windowless TV testing space, swapping a multitude of OLED TVs along with the rest of the home cinema team.
And while I’m very glad I’ve been granted a reprieve and allowed back upstairs into the daylight, one big benefit of the experience is that the team and I have identified three completely new OLED TVs worthy of a place in our best OLED TV buying guide.
Here’s what you need to know about them.
The Sony Bravia 8 II is the ultimate option for cinephiles
The flagship OLED TV market is a very interesting place right now, with LG Display’s new Primary RGB Tandem OLED replacing MLA as QD-OLED’s main rival.
Both of these have the same goal – boosting brightness levels while simultaneously improving colour volume and accuracy.
It’s also in a state of flux because a new top-end rival, in the shape of RGB Mini LED, is set to taking OLED on next year – and based on senior staff writer Lewis Empson’s experience looking at early prototypes and samples at the IFA tradeshow, that will be a very interesting fight…
But if you’re shopping right now, the Sony Bravia 8 II is our new recommended premium OLED. Featuring a QD-OLED panel, while its colours can very occasionally look a little cool for our liking, the set offered the best holistic performance of any of the top end sets we’ve tested.
In fact its stellar motion processing, incredible ability to retain dark detail lost on rival sets and punchy, but never overused, peak brightness let it offer one of the most immersive movie watching experiences we’ve had on an OLED, period. Hence our verdict:
“Several little improvements combine to make the Bravia 8 II significantly better than the awesome A95L, and that makes it one of the very best TVs that money can buy.”
The LG C5 continues the firm’s hot streak – at least at 55- and 65-inches
The LG C-series of OLEDs have been a common sight both in our best TV guide and yearly list of Award winners.
Last year alone the 42-inch LG C4 and 48-inch LG C4 picked up a total of three Awards in the TV category.
Which is why it’s kind of funny that this year it’s actually the larger 55- and 65-inch LG C5, not its smaller 48-inch LG C5 sibling, that impressed us the most.
The larger options offer the best mid-range performance for any step-down OLED we’ve tested this year.
Despite not having a heatsink, or an upgraded Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, like the one sported on the LG G5, the 55-inch C5 we tested was noticeably brighter than its sibling and rivals.
But, despite this, it manages to offer warm, authentic colour temperatures, even during low light scenes – an area many modern OLEDs struggle with.
Add to this its stellar gaming specifications, which include four full-speed HDMI 2.1 inputs, excellent app and HDR support and competitive price, and it’s an easy five-star recommendation.
We have a new recommended small OLED TV
But why not the smaller LG C5? Cards on the table, it is a very impressive small-ish OLED – hence the reason we gave it a five-star rating.
But, as we’ve said before, smaller TVs, even ones from the same series, perform differently to larger ones. There are a lot of reasons for that, including pixel density, the size of the drivers used in the sound system and more.
And while the smaller C5 retains a lot of its larger siblings’ strengths, it also exacerbates a lot of its weaknesses.
Its colours aren’t quite as accurate and it was a little aggressive with its brightness during certain scenes when we tested it. These issues were particularly noticeable thanks to a key rival we tested it against, the 48-inch Panasonic Z90B.
Where the 48-inch LG C5, and to be fair to it 48-inch Samsung S90F we also tested recently, have an overt focus on going very bright, the Z90B goes in the other direction, valuing consistency and balance above all else.
This meant that, though it doesn’t have the oomph you find on rivals when it comes to certain test scenes, its colours always maintain a pleasing authenticity and it never distracts from what’s playing out on screen by aggressively raising its peak brightness, the way its rivals do.
This made it a fan favourite among every member of the test team helping review this year’s 48-inch sets. It’s also why the Panasonic Z90B is our new recommended small OLED and we reported in our review:
“Thanks to its ongoing focus on colour accuracy and delivering an 'as the director intended' experience rather than razzmatazz, the 48-inch Panasonic Z90B is the best TV at its size that we have tested.”
If you have any questions about any of the TVs mentioned in this feature drop them in the comments section below and one of our testers will do their best to answer them ASAP! Otherwise, happy OLED hunting!
MORE:
These are the best 65-inch TVs we’ve tested
We rate the best Dolby Atmos soundbars
Our picks of the best 40-inch TVs
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