The biggest sports day of the year is upon us, and it’s a terrific opportunity to upgrade your living room—especially if you’re in the market for a larger-than-life screen to entertain a crowd. Buying a new TV specifically for the Super Bowl might seem like an excessive indulgence, but consider this: Nearly all of the newest TVs are on sale right now, making this a great time to invest in a new model. You can upgrade for the big game and set yourself up for years of big-screen action.
We spend the entire year testing and reviewing the best TVs on the market, so we’re well equipped to set you up for Super Bowl Sunday and beyond. No matter your budget, there’s a big-screen TV for you.
1. TCL 5-Series (75 inches)
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Reviewed / John Higgins
The TCL 5-series is a great option for game day due to its easy setup and solid performance for the price.
If you’re shopping for a big TV on a budget, you don’t have to sacrifice on picture quality in order to secure ample screen real estate. The newest TCL 5-Series isn’t the best-looking TV on this list, but it’s nevertheless a cool performer at an excellent price point. For most people—especially those upgrading to 4K for the first time—the 5-Series is a dependable, simple solution.
Its simplicity begins with its built-in Roku smart platform, which makes streaming sports, movies, and TV shows a cinch. Its easily digestible interface and library of apps will have your back on Super Bowl Sunday and beyond. While it’s not as bright and colorful as higher-end TVs, it sports a clean, vibrant picture and decent HDR support. For average-lit living rooms, it gets the job done.
The TCL 5-Series offers only a small sampling of gaming features, so folks in the market for a TV that will compliment a gaming hobby might want to spend up on something a little more accommodating for multiple next-generation consoles. But if all you need is a good-looking, budget-friendly option for the Super Bowl and beyond, the 5-Series is a fantastic fit. Just set it up, turn it on, and you’re good to go. Right now, the 75-inch 5-Series is on sale for about $700—a wildly good price for a TV of this size.
2. Hisense U6H (75 inches)
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Reviewed / Tim Renzi
The Hisense U6H will offer you rich, saturated and accurate color, perfect for your favorite team’s jersey.
The Hisense U6H is similar to the TCL 5-Series in several ways: Its 60Hz, full-array LED panel is equipped with color-enhancing quantum dots, and while it isn’t bright enough for sun-drenched rooms, the picture is punchy enough for most settings. It comes with Google TV instead of Roku, but we find the new version of Google TV to be a fast, flexible platform, if not a bit ad-heavy.
Like the 5-Series, the U6H arrives with a moderate amount of gaming upside for football fans who spend the offseason with a controller in their hands: Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) are available right out of the box. One thing that sets the U6H apart from the 5-Series are its settings—the U6H offers more ways to tweak the audio- and picture-related settings than its TCL counterpart.
We recommend choosing the U6H over the 5-Series if you want a bit more flexibility when it comes to customizing the overall experience.
3. TCL 6-Series (75 inches)
Credit:
Reviewed / Tim Renzi
Similar to the 5-series, the TCL 6-Series has a built-in Roku OS which is perfect for streaming content if you don’t have cable.
If the simplicity of the Roku TV experience is enticing but you’d prefer a TV with more horsepower than the 5-Series, consider the higher-end TCL 6-Series. This impressive, mid-range TV combines the easy-to-use software of Roku with a bright, colorful picture. Not only is it a better fit for bright rooms than the 5-Series, but it’s a better performing TV across the board, from contrast to color accuracy.
The secret of the 6-Series’ success is its mini-LED backlighting, which offers brighter highlights and tighter contrast control than the 5-Series. In other words, bright elements get brighter while darker elements stay dark. The 6-Series also features a higher native refresh rate than the 5-Series, which means the fast-moving action of a football game will likely look smoother even if you have its motion-enhancement settings disabled.
And, if you plan on spending the long and winding offseason with a gaming controller in your hands, the 6-Series is better suited for your habits than the 5-Series or the Hisense U6H; it features two HDMI ports capable of 4K gaming at 120Hz and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro in addition to basic ALLM and VRR functionality.
Think of it as the best of both worlds: It’s a great way to watch the Super Bowl in style without breaking the bank. It’s currently on sale for about $1,500—about twice as much as the 5-Series and the U6H, but justifiably so, given its performance.
4. Samsung QN90B (75 inches)
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Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
An outstanding feature from the Samsung QN9oB is its 120Hz native refresh rate and excellent motion handling.
For some folks, the biggest game of the year calls for a truly top-shelf experience. If you’re ready to splash out, fewer TVs deliver as eye-popping an experience as the Samsung QN90B.
The QN90B is one of Samsung’s top Neo QLED TVs of the year. Like the TCL 6-Series, it combines mini-LED backlighting with a layer of brightness- and color-boosting quantum dots. But the QN90B delivers better HDR color than the 6-Series, features better contrast control than its rival, and offers the best local dimming we’ve seen from a mini-LED TV to date. In fact, the QN90B’s superb contrast makes it our current pick for the best bright-room TV you can buy.
Its 120Hz native refresh rate and excellent motion handling ensures that all of the gridiron action comes through with nary a judder; it’s a fantastic pick for sports fans. And although it’s the only TV on this list that lacks Dolby Vision support, it does support HDR10+, a similar dynamic HDR format. The QN90B is also a gaming powerhouse thanks to four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, all of which support 4K gaming at 120Hz, ALLM, VRR, and AMD FreeSync Premium.
Simply put, the QN90B isn’t just a stellar TV for gameday, it’s a stellar TV, period. Everything from daytime talk shows to late-night movies will look fantastic. Right now, you can land the 75-inch model for $2,288—a steep asking price, but one that’s sure to pay off long after the Vince Lombardi Trophy is hoisted into the air.
5. LG C2 (77 inches)
Credit:
Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
To say that display visuals are better on the LG C2 OLED TV would be a massive understatement.
The LG C2 may not be as bright as the Samsung QN90B, but it offers a better overall picture thanks to its incredible contrast. The C2 is an OLED TV, which makes it the only TV on this list that doesn’t rely on a traditional backlight. Instead, every pixel on the C2 is self-illuminating, allowing it to produce perfect black levels—a benefit that has far-reaching effects on the rest of the picture.
With incredible contrast, an OLED TV’s visual expression is clean, crisp, and marked by a certain depth that’s difficult for LED TVs to replicate—even high-end mini-LED TVs like the QN90B. OLED TVs also offer the most accommodating viewing angles in the industry, so if you’re hosting a Super Bowl party, you can rest easy knowing that you and your room full of guests all have the best seats in the house.
The C2’s color production is among the best available, too, and its 120Hz native refresh rate is a great fit for fast-moving football action; the field will be verdant and the ball will always sail smoothly.
Compared to high-end mini-LED TVs like the Samsung QN90B, the LG C2 does not get nearly as bright, which means sports fans with sunny rooms are better off splurging on the Samsung Neo QLED. But if your TV room gets an average amount of light (or if you do most of your viewing in dark-room conditions), the C2 delivers a better-looking, more-rounded picture. If you’re looking for an even brighter LG OLED, the higher-end LG G2 (also available in a 77-inch model) is the brightest, best-performing LG OLED we’ve seen to date. Bear in mind, however, that it’s designed to be wall-mounted.
The 77-inch LG C2 is on sale for $2,445 right now. It’s the priciest option on this list, but it’s also the best of the bunch; an investment not just for this year’s Super Bowl, but for many yet to come.
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Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.
