Best 55-inch TVs of 2024

The best 55-inch TVs are the middle-child of TV sizes. These days, larger 65-inch models are all the rage, and 40-inch displays are still the go-to for kids' rooms, so 55-inch TVs find themselves in a no-man's land. Turns out, though, that being the middle-child comes with some perks: These displays often offer the same performance as larger screens with a similar sticker price to those aforementioned 40-inch models. If you ask me, I think 55-inch TVs offer the best of both worlds. 

As someone who's spent more than a decade testing TVs, I've written and edited over 100+ TV reviews, keenly assessing these screens for contrast, brightness, color saturation, color accuracy, motion processing and dozens of other metrics. Tom's Guide has a dedicated TV lab where we test TVs with specialized equipment before bringing them into our own homes for further testing. 

So which 55-inch TV is the best of 2024? Right now, look no further than the Hisense U8N Mini-LED TV. As the name implies, the U8N leverages Mini-LED backlighting on a quantum dot panel for superior brightness output, which we measured at a whopping 3190 nits. And then there's the QN90C, a well-rounded QLED with a sub-$1,000 asking price that's perfect for hardcore moviegoers.

The quick list

The best overall

For two years straight, the Hisense U8 Series has held the top spot on our list. It's here because it delivers outstanding performance for its price. Yes, OLED TVs are going to offer better black levels, but this Mini-LED can get twice as bright while still giving you beautiful colors and a truly fantastic smart platform. 

So why didn't it score a perfect 5 out of 5 in our review? Well, two main reasons. We love that it offers a 144Hz refresh rate when connected to a gaming PC (120Hz for sports and movies), we measured its input lag at 13.1ms. That's a few milliseconds higher than the LG OLED TVs below. Also its color accuracy does require a bit of fine-tuning, as some scenes can look a bit oversaturated right out of the box. 

When taking it for a spin at home, I was thoroughly impressed by the TV's contrast and black levels. The black bars on the top and bottom of the screen offered nearly OLED-levels of black while still maintaining a bright and colorful picture in the middle of the screen. Vivid mode was a bit too harsh for my tastes, so I recommend going for the Cinema Day or Cinema Night HDR picture modes, as they'll balance color saturation with the TV's 2,000-nit peak brightness. 

Yes, a proper OLED TV (like our next pick, the LG G4 OLED) is going to look better when you're looking at them side-by-side, but for the price, this is the best TV in the world, and getting anything else close will cost twice as much.

Read the full Hisense U8N review.

The best premium TV

You might have come into this guide expecting to see a 55-inch OLED TV at the top of the list — and look, if the Hisense U8N wasn't such an incredible value, the G4 OLED would be the top pick. It's just a little pricey to be our overall winner. 

That said, if you aren't put off by its $2,400 price tag, the LG G4 OLED offers cinema-like performance at a living-room size. It's one of the brightest OLED TVs on the market thanks to its 2024 LG Display MLA panel, and it offers some really impressive AI features that improve picture and audio quality. Under the hood it's running LG's new α11 AI Processor 4K processor that makes upscaled content look better and motion look sleeker (once you turn off TruMotion, that is). 

In our lab tests, the LG G4 OLED put out close to 1,500 nits in HDR with a color accuracy of 1.4041 (lower numbers are better here). Compared to the U8N, the G4 can't get as bright, but the colors are much more accurate right out of the box. Also remember that the contrast of the G4 is going to be outstanding, as an OLED's pixels can reach pitch darkness when turned off. 

You're paying a premium here for the G4 OLED, there's no denying it. For a lot of folks looking to invest in a TV that's going to look great for years to come, I think the G4 OLED is a great option. It's just a hard sell when you can get around 80% of the same performance for under $800. 

Read the full LG G4 OLED review.

The best budget TV

When I picture a TV that costs $500, I'm expecting to see a name like Insignia or Onn. But the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV is so much better than those historically bad TV brands. It offers surprisingly good picture quality and sound, two things that are usually the first to go with budget sets. 

There are some sacrifices to make here (a full array of HDMI 2.1 ports just aren’t in the cards here and you are limited to a 60Hz panel), but you don’t have to make many more compromises. In our tests we were blown away by its high-quality HDR color and unusually good sound, plus its quick and efficient Roku TV smart platform.

If you're dead set against spending more than $500 on a new 55-inch TV (and we don't blame you), the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV is an outstanding bargain that won’t let you down.

Read our full Roku Plus Series TV review.

The best QLED TV

If brightness is your biggest issue, then you should definitely consider this 55-inch QLED TV from Samsung. The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV delivers outstanding HDR brightness, placing it easily in the top five brightest TVs we've tested in the last 12 months. Powered by Samsung’s high octane Mini-LED panel, the QN90C promises excellent performance across the top genres. 

Why is it better than the competition when it comes to brightness? Basically Mini-LED backlighting puts thousands of LEDs into more compact clusters that can deliver high levels of brightness while maintaining realistic color and gradations of luminance. With better control means less light bleeding and haloing, too.

Yes, there are more premium Samsung TVs out there (like the Samsung QN900C 8K QLED TV) but the QN90C is our favorite for its reasonable price tag.

Read our full Samsung QN90C QLED review or browse our Samsung promo codes

The best OLED TV

If you have a fully loaded bank account and you just want the best possible 55-inch TV without worrying about sticker price, then the Sony Bravia A95L OLED is going to absolutely blow you away. It's one of Sony's first QD-OLED TVs (the A95K from 2023 was technically the first) and its panel makes it both brighter than other OLED TVs and more colorful. 

As it's built on OLED technology, the A95L has perfect blacks, infinite contrast, and intense colors, and its post-picture processing tech is second to none. If you watch SD/HDR content a lot, the A95L uses its Cognitive Processor XR to intelligently and accurately upscale the image, and its motion processing is the best in the industry.

In terms of extras, it also comes with the polarizing (but optional) Sony Bravia Cam that can be used for at-home video conferencing, and some credits to Sony's BRAVIA CORE streaming service that streams content at up to 80Mbps. 

It's the reference standard in Hollywood for a reason.

Read our full Sony Bravia A95L OLED review.

The best TV for gaming

Shopping for the gamer in your life? As far as gaming TVs go, you can't do much better than the 55-inch Samsung S90C OLED. It's technically a QD-OLED screen, which simply means that it combines a quantum dot filter for better color saturation with an OLED panel for better contrast. Though most manufacturers have explored this partnership, few have gone as far as Samsung — and even Samsung has never made as good a case for it as it has with the S90C.

For gamers, features like a low input lag (9.2ms), HDMI 2.1 allowing for VRR, ALLM, and up to 144Hz refresh rates are all crucial. The fact that you can actually stream games to the TV using a number of game streaming services is just icing on the cake.

While we couldn't resist trying Starfield on it when we reviewed it, it's also a great TV for streaming movies from Netflix and Max. In all of the above scenarios, the S90C demonstrated outstanding color reproduction, wide color gamut coverage and above-average brightness. It's all-around awesome, but gamers are going to love it even more than the rest of us.

Read our full Samsung S90C OLED review.

Also tested...

At Tom's Guide, we test a lot of TVs and not all of them make it onto our guides. They're not here because we don't feel that they beat out the top picks, and should only be considered after you've read about the picks above. Still, we want to make sure that you know we've tested more TVs than the ones here, and we want to make those reviews available to you in case you want to check them out. Here are the other 55-inch TVs we've reviewed that didn't make the list:

LG UR9000: Scoring just a 2.5 out of 5 in our review, the LG UR9000 doesn't reach the same level of performance that other models on our guide hit. It's fine in certain specific circumstances, but we recommend the models you see above more.

Samsung Q70C QLED: Samsung's mid-range Q70C tries to be the jack of all trades but ends up the master of none. At $849, it's a bit too pricey to count as a budget pick and lacks many of the premium features you can find on the Hisense. 

LG B3 OLED: The LG B3 OLED is a solid lower mid-tier OLED TV that offers a lot of what makes the LG C3 OLED so great at a lower price tag. Unfortunately, though, it's not cheap enough to make this list, as it's still around $1,300 for a 65-inch model. The C3 is still the stronger TV, because although it's more expensive, we feel the performance uptick is worth the extra cash.

Hisense U7K: The Hisense U7K is a lot like the U8K listed above and comes very close to unseating its slightly pricier sibling. Our tests showed that the U7K couldn't quite reach the 1,000+ nits of HDR peak brightness that the U8K can, and it scored relatively low when it came to color accuracy right out of the box. It's a great budget pick, but not among the best 55-inch TVs money can buy.

How to choose the best 55-inch TV for you

How to choose the best 55-inch TVs for you

Our TV buying guide breaks down the key factors that should go into purchasing a new set, as getting a TV is an investment. It’s a piece of tech you’re likely to own for several years, which is why you want to make sure you’re picking the best 55-inch TV for you. 

Size: First figure out whether you’re locked into a 55-inch set. Just because it’s the biggest size that fits on your wall or TV stand doesn’t mean that it’s right for the room. Similarly, consider if a 65-inch TV would better suit your space. 

Price: Expect to pay about $500 for a good 55-inch 4K TV. The Insignia 55-inch 4K Fire TV Edition above is the absolute cheapest we’d recommend based on our catalog of TV testing. But if you have a tighter budget, check out our best TV deals for some alternatives. Keep in mind performance will take a hit in lower price ranges, though. 

HDR: If you want the most colors, get one of the HDR sets with Dolby Vision compatibility above. This technology is able to deliver more colors, more contrast levels and increased brightness. It could make a set a bit more costly, but it guarantees you’ll still be satisfied with TV as the Dolby Vision format seems to be gaining momentum.

Ports: Another thing to consider is port offerings. Some of the sets above sport 3 HDMI ports, while some have 4. In general, more ports is better, especially if you have a collection of input devices like soundbars or game consoles.

If you've narrowed down your TV shopping by brand, price range or screen size, check out our picks for the best TVs in each.

Best TVs | Best 4K TVs | Best smart TVs for streaming | Best TVs for gaming

The best TVs under $1000 | The best TVs under $500

Best TV brands | Best Samsung TVs | Best TCL TVs | Best LG TVs | Best Roku TVs | Best Google TVs | Best OLED TVs | Best QLED TVs | Best 8K TVs | Best HDMI 2.1 TV | Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 | Best TVs with Chromecast

The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-inch TVs | Best 65-inch TVs | Best 70-inch TVs | Best 75-inch TVs | Best 85-inch TVs 

And don't forget to watch out for the latest TV reviews.

Best 55-inch TV test results

What are we looking for in our testing? 

Peak Brightness: The highest level of brightness (measured in nits) that a TV can sustainably put out in a 10% window.

Delta E: A measurement of how accurate colors are right out the box in its Calibrated or ISF Modes. The lower the number, the more accurate the colors are.

DCI-P3 Color Volume: This metric measures the total coverage area of a TV's color output. A higher percentage means better color expression. We also measure a TV's color output against the Rec2020 color space as well. 

Input lag: An important metric for gamers, input lag measures the total time it takes for a signal that passes through the HDMI port to appear on the screen. 

How we test the best 55-inch TVs

How we test the best 55-inch TVs

Testing the best 55-inch TVs is a thorough process. We put every TV through our custom lab test, measuring color gamut, color accuracy and brightness to objectively see which sets are the best for these key indicators. We also test for lag time, measuring to the millisecond how long it takes for content to travel from the original source to the screen. We use these results to make numbers-based comparisons about color and display quality.

To do this, we run all of these TVs through a series of technical tests designed to determine their performance on a quantitative level. We perform these with an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman calibration software that measure and charts the TVs' performances.

In addition, we spend hours with each set to see how our lab results translate into anecdotal performance. We also compare competing sets using a range of content across several sources. With that information, we can tell you which TVs look best, sound best and offer the best viewing experience.

Of course, we also consider the smart TV functions and apps for each TV, looking at everything from the remote control design to the voice interaction. 

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