I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering TVs and other AV equipment. In addition to this guide, I oversee Wirecutter’s guides to LED/LCD TVs , budget 4K TVs , media streaming devices , and several others. I have reviewed TVs since 2012, and I have ISF Level III training and calibration certification. There are more TV stands in my house than there are people.

For the latest version of this guide:

• I tested six 2024 OLED TV lines that met our minimum requirements for inclusion.
• I consulted hardware engineers, scientists, and the Universal Display Corporation regarding subjects such as panel life, power efficiency, and the future potential of Organic Vapor Jet Printing .
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards .

If you’re picky or passionate about picture quality—if you find yourself wishing that shadows or letterbox bars were truly black (rather than a kind of charcoal gray) when you’re watching movies or playing games in the dark, or if you’re frustrated by your TV’s lack of vivid yet realistic colors—you might consider building your living room or home theater around an OLED TV.

You can read more about OLED’s performance advantages over LCD in this article .

The major drawback of OLED TVs is that they don’t come cheap: Even the smallest, most humbly appointed models will still run you at least $1,000 at this writing. Typically, you pay around 10% to 20% more than you would for an LCD TV with otherwise similar specifications. At screen sizes bigger than 65 inches, the price disparity is even larger.

You have fewer OLED TVs to choose from in comparison with LCD/LED TVs. The main manufacturers are LG, Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic (which just returned to the US TV market in late 2024). In deciding on which TVs to test, we looked for the series from each manufacturer that seemed likely to offer the best combination of performance, features, and value.

To evaluate OLED TVs, we used a combination of objective measurements, subjective viewing, and side-by-side comparisons. Our measurement equipment consisted of Portrait Displays’s Calman Ultimate software , a C6 HDR colorimeter, and a VideoForge Pro signal generator. For subjective testing, we used source material from streaming apps, Blu-ray discs, contemporary gaming consoles, and HDR benchmark discs. Read more about Wirecutter’s TV testing methodology for details.

Important specs

The LG C4 Series stands out for its combination of great picture quality, a robust feature set, and availability in a large range of screen sizes—for prices that are more affordable than those of most of the OLED TVs sold today.

It delivers a terrific OLED picture without a terrifying OLED price tag. The C Series is one of the more affordable series in LG’s OLED lineup. Only the B Series is cheaper, and it’s more limited in brightness, features, and screen sizes.

OLED TVs are renowned for their perfect black levels, which allow them to produce excellent screen contrast, commendable color purity, and much wider viewing angles than similarly priced LCD TVs can provide. In addition to checking off those boxes, the C4 is a good bit brighter than previous C Series models, peaking around 1,300 nits—on a par with last year’s top pick, the Samsung S90C .

The C4’s total color volume—the full range of billions of colors it can create—doesn’t match that of our upgrade pick , which uses quantum-dot technology , but its extra brightness helps it achieve splendidly rich hues when displaying HDR video. This TV can really pack a visual punch, even if it’s not as bright-room-capable as some of the competition.

Where the C4 looks best is in the traditional OLED realm of a dim or darkened viewing space, where it can show off its flawless black levels. When you set it to the Filmmaker Mode picture mode, you can expect anything you watch or play to look rich and accurate.

Gamers have loved the C Series for years, for good reason. The C4 offers low input lag, terrific response time, a great collection of gaming features, and four HDMI 2.1 inputs. While that last item is not a strict necessity, it’s always nice to have more than two HDMI 2.1 ports, because one of them may be taken by an eARC-compatible soundbar.

While testing the C4 with our Leo Bodnar input-lag tester, during 4K 60 Hz gaming we measured around 12 milliseconds of input lag, which is very good. You can expect about half of that while gaming in 4K at 120 Hz.

Because the HDMI 2.1 inputs support auto low-latency mode (ALLM), the C4’s excellent Game Optimizer dashboard turns on by default when you connect a game console. Game Optimizer shows you information about your frames per second (fps), aspect ratio, VRR format (such as AMD FreeSync), and so on. I found it very useful to view and tinker with my gaming settings while playing Star Wars Outlaws on the PlayStation 5—which looked gorgeous on this TV, for the record.

Dolby Vision support makes the C4 an especially good choice for movies and video games. Unlike any of Samsung’s comparably priced OLED TVs, LG’s C4 offers compatibility with the Dolby Vision HDR format, in addition to supporting basic HDR10 and the broadcast-based HLG formats. Although we don’t think the absence of Dolby Vision compatibility is an outright dealbreaker, its presence is definitely a huge plus—and we’ve received feedback from many readers who say that it’s essential on a high-performance OLED.

Most 4K Blu-ray discs look their absolute best in the Dolby Vision format, and it’s also essentially the default form of dynamic HDR for streaming apps—the alternative being Samsung’s HDR10+, which is much less common. While Prime Video hosts content in both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, apps such as Disney+, Max, and Netflix support only the Dolby Vision format, so having a compatible TV is important.

Additionally, Xbox gamers can, for a one-time fee, enable Dolby Vision for Gaming on Xbox Series S and Series X consoles, making AAA games look better than ever.

This OLED TV is definitely a jack-of-all-trades. From a bird’s-eye perspective, the C4 isn’t the absolute best OLED TV for any one thing. It isn’t as bright or as colorful as some of the pricier models (like our upgrade pick ). It isn’t as good at mitigating ambient light as Samsung OLED screens that have a matte finish. And it isn’t calibrated as accurately as Sony’s Bravia 8 out of the box, nor is it quite as good at upscaling lower-resolution content as that TV.

But unlike all those other TVs, the C4 has no serious flaws or sticking points, and it’s available in a wide range of screen sizes: The 42-inch model could work as an office or gaming monitor on a desk as easily as the 83-inch model could be the centerpiece of your home theater setup, offering versatility that most OLED TVs only dream of.

The C4’s carbon fiber construction ensures that even the largest sizes are durable and safe from warping yet light enough that you can easily carry your TV by yourself (though that might not be advisable with the largest sizes).

Features such as Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, and an integrated 2.2-channel speaker system add a welcome degree of flexibility, especially now that the webOS smart-TV platform supports Chromecast. The C4’s speaker system won’t outperform a good soundbar, but it’s still a good sight better than what the average TV delivers in that regard.

The webOS smart-TV platform has everything you need. LG’s webOS smart-TV platform is not our favorite smart-TV platform. (We gave that award to Google TV , which is more customizable and has fewer annoying ads). But webOS is fine. At least it’s no longer missing major apps like ESPN+ and Twitch, and on the C4 it’s very responsive and quick to load, even on Wi-Fi.

My longstanding complaint with webOS has more to do with the navigation experience, but it’s too subjective to be called a flaw. Some people may love using the infrared-based Magic Remote to select and click with an on-screen cursor (like using a Nintendo Wii), but it’s not for me. You can still use directional buttons for navigation, but if you wiggle the clicker too much, you’re right back in cursor mode. I just don’t like it.

However, if your intention is simply to watch stuff on apps like Max, Netflix, or Prime Video, webOS won’t slow you down.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The C4 doesn’t offer the best possible color performance. Our upgrade pick, the Sony A95L, uses a QD-OLED panel, which employs quantum dots . Last year’s top pick, the Samsung Q90C, had a QD-OLED panel as well. And all of our LCD TV picks have quantum dots. Noticing a pattern?

Quantum dots go a long way toward giving TVs—whether they’re OLEDs or LCDs—a big boost in color saturation, which is especially important when they’re displaying 4K HDR content that has a wider color gamut than standard HDTV content. Because the C4 is an OLED TV, it offers naturally good color coverage, but it doesn’t have quantum dots and thus isn’t as vivid as a QD-OLED display in head-to-head comparisons.

You can’t watch 4K over-the-air broadcasts without an additional device. The C4 is equipped with an ATSC 1.0 tuner instead of a newer, ATSC 3.0 tuner (also called NextGenTV). In fact, none of LG’s 2024 TVs have ATSC 3.0 tuners.

This isn’t a major problem because 4K broadcasts aren’t available everywhere in the US yet, and it’s not one of the more common ways to watch 4K content. But the older tuner does harm the C4’s future-proofing to a small degree. If you want to be able to receive 4K broadcasts, you need to buy a separate ATSC 3.0 tuner .

You may see tinting during wide off-angle viewing. Like all OLED TVs, the C4 provides excellent horizontal and vertical viewing angles—much better than LCD TVs can muster. However, at some wider viewing angles, the C4’s OLED panel makeup can sometimes introduce a greenish tint.

Some viewers have reported seeing this tinting only while watching from extreme angles, while some have stated that they don’t see it at all. I’ve primarily watched the C4 in the Filmmaker Mode picture mode, and I haven’t noticed this tinting myself, but buyers and other reviewers have reported it enough that it’s worth mentioning as a potential flaw.

Recommended settings

If you want the C4 to look as accurate and cinematic as possible, use its Filmmaker Mode, preferably in a dimmer or darkened room. If you’re watching in a brighter room, we recommend the ISF Expert Bright picture mode, which maintains a lot of Filmmaker Mode’s accuracy while adding more general brightness from scene to scene.

Whichever mode you’re watching, you should also turn off the TV’s TruMotion and Motion Eye Care settings (if they’re not already off) to avoid introducing the soap-opera effect . I also advise turning off LG’s various AI settings (AI Brightness, AI Acoustic Tuning, and AI Recommendation) and setting things like OLED brightness and volume level yourself.

Important specs

Despite debuting in 2023, the Sony A95L is still the TV to get if you want the best OLED that money can buy. It combines stellar QD-OLED picture quality with impressive brightness, a robust speaker system, premium video processing, and accurate out-of-the-box color.

This is the best-looking OLED TV overall. Equipped with a QD-OLED panel, the Sony A95L uses quantum dots to increase the saturation and vividness of its colors. But the A95L also offers slightly higher brightness than our top pick, boasting around 1,400 nits with HDR video.

While most higher-priced OLEDs excel in contrast and color performance, the A95L takes things a step further. During testing, I directly compared the A95L with LG’s G3 and Samsung’s S95C . They were all fairly even in brightness and basic performance, but the A95L was superior in crucial areas such as color-temperature accuracy, upscaling non-4K content, and other video-processing functions.

Most high-end OLED TVs excel when playing the latest 4K HDR content, but the A95L proved to be the best choice for displaying older, lower-bit-rate, or non-4K content. For example, when displaying Mad Men in 1080p on Blu-ray disc, the LG and Samsung TVs showed some off-tint banding at the edges of lamps, while the A95L’s better processing helped it avoid such aberrations.

Finally, the A95L claims an edge in displaying HDR content thanks to its built-in ability to adjust tone mapping between a “dark room” setting that favors shadow gradation and a “bright room” setting that favors brightness. When I had the TVs display Iron Man in a room with the lights on and the windows open, the other higher-end OLED TVs still sometimes lacked the needed brightness, but changing the A95L’s tone-mapping setting made this TV easier to watch in a bright room.

You could get by without a soundbar. The A95L uses a technique called Acoustic Surface audio, in which the speakers are arranged behind the screen and play audio through it. A good soundbar would still sound better, but in contrast to OLED competitors, generally the A95L provides a decent balance of bass, midrange, and treble frequencies. And it offers better separation of sound elements, such as dialogue and background music, compared with TVs that have more-standard speaker setups.

You can install the A95L’s wide-set feet at two height positions: one to keep it closer to the tabletop and one that allows more space to accommodate a soundbar. Just note that with either position, the feet are set all the way at the edges of the screen, so you should confirm that your TV stand is wide enough.

Google TV is an excellent smart platform. Google TV is our favorite smart-TV platform , and its implementation here was generally snappier and/or less replete with ads in comparison with the proprietary smart platforms that LG and Samsung use. This TV also supports Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit.

There were moments when the A95L’s menu software was sluggish. Though this was a small nuisance to encounter on such an expensive TV, it wasn’t a dealbreaker.

This isn’t the best OLED TV for gamers. Compared with our top pick, as well as higher-end LG and Samsung OLED TVs that we tested, the A95L has higher input lag and fewer HDMI 2.1 inputs. It’s still a fine TV to game on overall, but our other picks are better for dedicated gamers.

Recommended settings

Unlike with most TVs, almost all of the A95L’s picture modes are accurate and well calibrated out of the box. Although this TV lacks a Filmmaker Mode, we found that (whether in SDR or HDR) the Professional picture mode is best for a very dim or dark room, while the Cinema mode delivers a lot of accuracy for a brighter room.

When watching HDR, use the HDR tone mapping option in the picture menu to select “gradation preferred” in a darker room or “brightness preferred” in a brighter room.

If you have a particularly bright room and don’t need Dolby Vision support: The Samsung S95D may be better equipped to compete with bright-room light sources such as sunny windows and standing lamps than any OLED TV to come before it. Technically, the S95D is brighter than our upgrade pick , peaking a little above 1,600 nits for HDR, and it also boasts a slightly larger color volume, so it can boost its light and color presentation to fend off incoming ambient light without creating major picture inaccuracies. But the S95D’s real secret weapon is its matte screen: Whereas most TVs have a glossy or semi-glossy finish, the S95D—much like Samsung’s Frame TV —has a matte finish that does an excellent job of dispersing and reducing glare from ambient-light sources.

However, the S95D still falls behind our upgrade pick, the Sony A95L, in certain performance areas: It isn’t nearly as accurate without special calibration, it lacks Dolby Vision support, it has worse onboard speaker performance, and it can’t quite keep up with the A95L’s video and motion processing. On the other hand, the S95D is slightly more affordable in particular sizes, and it’s the better choice if you watch a lot of TV during the day.

If you want to have better color without spending a bundle: While the 42- and 48-inch models are becoming difficult to find, our 2023 top pick—the Samsung S90C —can still be found in its 55-, 65-, and 77-inch sizes, all of which use QD-OLED panels like our upgrade pick but are much less expensive. This TV is equal in brightness to our top pick , the LG C4, and offers more vivid colors, which can look especially good with video games and HDR video. If you go for the S90C, just note that it doesn’t support the Dolby Vision HDR format.

LG’s 2025 OLED line includes the Gallery G5 Series in 48- to 97-inch sizes, while the C5 Series will be available in 42- to 83-inch sizes. The entry-level B5 Series has also been confirmed, but so far the only screen sizes are 77 and 83 inches. All of LG’s 2025 OLED models will use webOS 25, the latest version of the webOS smart platform, and include LG’s new AI Remote. We hope to test the G5 and C5 in the coming months.

Panasonic confirmed one new OLED series for 2025: the Z95B. The Z95B will be available in 55-, 65-, and 77-inch sizes and will continue to use Amazon’s Fire TV OS for its smart TV operating system.

Samsung’s 2025 OLED line includes two QD-OLED TVs—the S95F and S90F —and a traditional OLED (WOLED) series, the S85F . As in 2024, the flagship S95F will be available in 55-, 65-, 77-, and 83-inch sizes, and all but the largest size are guaranteed to use QD-OLED panels. The step-down S90F is looking again like it may be an unpredictable mix: Last year we avoided reviewing its predecessor because Samsung couldn’t guarantee whether buyers would get a QD-OLED or WOLED panel, and that may be the case again in 2025. The S90F will be available in sizes from 42 to 83 inches. Lastly, Samsung’s S85F will use panels sourced from LG Display, which means they’ll be WOLED rather than QD-OLED. All of Samsung’s 2025 OLED models will continue to use Samsung’s Tizen-based Smart Hub OS. We’re eager to test them.

Sony is adding one new OLED model in 2025: the Bravia 8 II QD-OLED , which replaces our upgrade pick, the Sony A95L (although the A95L will continue to be sold in its 77-inch size). The Bravia 8 II is currently available for preorder in 55- and 65-inch sizes for $3,500 and $4,000, respectively. Like the rest of Sony’s TV lineup, it features the Google TV smart platform.

Sansui sent us the 65-inch variant of its new Google TV–equipped OLED TV, which launched in late 2024. The 55-inch model (S55VOUG) retails for $800 but has been $700 on sale, which made this model attractive to us as a possible budget pick. However, while the S65VOUG proved to be a solid entry-level OLED TV, it was too dim to offer much flexibility outside of a dedicated viewing environment, and its processing was frustratingly sluggish at times, causing even the normally streamlined Google TV platform to hiccup and hitch. Although it’s a decent enough TV, especially for the price, it ultimately seemed too undercooked to make the grade as our budget pick. Sansui representatives informed us that the company would be releasing a follow-up model in 2025 to address this model’s shortcomings, and we plan to test it.

Panasonic made its return to the US OLED TV market late in 2024 and sent us two OLED TVs for evaluation—the flagship Z95A and step-down Z85A . While both TVs are excellent, they don’t jostle our current picks loose from placement. The flagship Z95A uses the same MLA-based panel as LG’s G4, meaning that while it delivers excellent picture quality—and higher brightness, better processing, and more reliable upscaling than our current top pick, the LG C4—it doesn’t best the Sony A95L (our current upgrade pick), which uses a QD-OLED panel that gives it improved color saturation and better maintenance of color vivacity at high brightness. The step-down Z85A boasts many of the same advantages as the flagship Z95A, but its peak brightness is limited (even compared to the LG C4) at less than 1,000 nits. Both TVs are held back a bit by Panasonic’s Fire TV OS. While that smart TV platform is functional, I found it to be disappointingly sluggish.

After concluding testing on LG’s G4 OLED , we think buyers looking to spend that amount of money will be better served by our upgrade pick, the Sony A95L . We conducted extensive testing on the G4 alongside the new Samsung S95D . Like the S95D, the G4 boasts four HDMI 2.1 inputs, low input lag, highly accurate picture modes, and very high HDR brightness for an OLED TV—over 1,600 nits. However, the S95D is the better choice for gamers and fares better in a bright viewing environment, while the A95L remains the top choice if you want a premium, Dolby Vision–capable OLED TV that boasts advantages such as better onboard audio and sub-4K upscaling. The G4 is an excellent TV, but it doesn’t stand out amongst the OLEDs in this price range.

After testing the Sony Bravia 8 (and comparing it directly with the LG C4 ), we’ve determined that our top pick is a better value for most buyers. The C4 is available in a wider range of sizes, and at this writing it’s more affordable in the sizes it shares with the Bravia 8 (55, 65, and 77 inches). In addition, the C4 is capable of higher brightness during HDR playback, it provides slightly better onboard audio, it has a more comprehensive game dashboard, and it comes with four HDMI 2.1 inputs while the Bravia 8 has only two. Like most Sony TVs, the Bravia 8 is more accurate out of the box, and we prefer its Google TV smart platform to LG’s webOS. But we think that most viewers—especially those watching in brighter rooms—will prefer the LG C4.

We have chosen not to test the Samsung S90D (the 2024 version of our 2023 pick) because of Samsung’s decision to manufacture the series with both QD-OLED and WRGB OLED panels, effectively making it a toss-up as to which technology you get upon purchase. We strongly believe that the inclusion of quantum dots is the primary strength of Samsung’s OLED line, and with no way to predict which kind of panel buyers will receive when they purchase the S90D, we do not feel comfortable recommending the series this year.

Upon testing Sharp’s FS1 Aquos OLED TV , we found it to be overpriced for what it offers. It’s one of the very few OLED TVs available that are equipped with the Roku smart TV platform, and it’s a rather solid performer overall, but it falls well short of our top pick in core aspects such as peak brightness and color volume, despite the fact that it costs several hundred dollars more at this writing. Unless you’re especially committed to having a Roku TV, you’d be better served by one of our picks.

This article was edited by Adrienne Maxwell and Grant Clauser.