If you’re going to buy someone a TV as a gift this holiday season, good for you. You are a very generous gifter. You also have great timing: Every Black Friday, manufacturers mark down their TV prices to some of the lowest levels you’ll see all year. (Right before the Super Bowl can be a good time, too.) Just remember that not everything is a deal. Some manufacturers take advantage of our retail excitement by creating one-off, Black-Friday-only TV models. They may look like great deals, but they’re actually low-quality sets that you don’t want to buy.
The good news is that you won’t find any of those TVs here. Every television set listed below is vetted by Strategist editors, who have been tirelessly searching this year’s sales to find you not only the best prices on TVs, but the best prices on good TVs that will make you happy. Maybe you’re looking for a spendy top-of-the-line OLED from LG. We know we are, since this is one of the few times each year that the price gets anywhere close to affordable. Or maybe you’re looking for the newest 4K HDR TVs from Sony, Samsung, Vizio, and more. We’ve got you covered. If you don’t know what any of those terms mean and just want something you can watch The Crown on, we’ve got you covered too.
We’ll be rounding up all of the best Black Friday deals on TVs here all day. You can also follow us on Twitter. The holidays are here! With Strat, you don’t have to face them alone.
The best OLED TV Deals
OLED TVs have the best picture available, with the highest contrast and darkest blacks. Since they don’t need backlights, they’re also the thinnest screens available. You’re going to pay a premium for that compared to other types of TVs, but it can be worth it. This is the lowest price we’ve seen for the 55-inch C9. There are also sales on the 65-inch version and an enormous 77-inch model.
The B9 is step below the C9, but the difference will be imperceptible for most people. The 55” model, which is still plenty of TV, is also marked down to $1,096 at Walmart.
The Best LED LCD TV deals
Need a TV for your kitchen? Or your bathroom, closet, or a drawer that, although infrequently visited, could stand to be more entertaining when you peek in? For this price, you can buy a TV for anywhere you wanted.
This is the perfect basement TV. You you won’t get as vivid of a picture as you would from a brand-name set, but it’s a good enough TV for most situations. And it’s 50% off. For a TV this size, $200 is incredible.
A beautiful 4K picture with 120 Hz refresh rate, so quick-moving objects won’t look blurry. The 55-inch version might be the sweet spot for most viewers: plenty of TV size for an incredibly reasonable price of $548. If you want to feel like you have a movie theater in your home, the 82-inch version is also on sale for 44 percent off.
Compared to the 8 Series above, the 7 has one fewer HDMI port and a refresh rate of 60 Hz instead of 120 Hz. Those numbers matter only if you you’re hooking up more than three components like cable boxes, streaming devices, and gaming consoles, or if you’re very concerned about getting a slight blur when things move quickly across the screen.
Samsung’s QLED TVs are similar to their LED TVs, but QLED uses smaller quantum-dot technology for a sharper image and more saturated colors. The Q60 is QLED’s entry-level tier, so it’s about a quarter of the price of the highest-end Q90s, which come with full-array backlighting — a way of turning on and off particular parts of the screen for better black levels.
TCL provides an excellent balance between price and quality. And it has built-in Roku, which our expert called “one of the best interfaces.”
Sony makes great TVs, and the price typically reflects that. This 65-inch set is 50 percent off and, like the Samsung QLED above, has full-array backlighting for incredible contrast and clarity.
You won’t be blown away by the sharpness of the set, but you won’t be disappointed either — especially since you’re getting 70 inches of screen for only $550. Plus, everybody loves Roku’s interface for streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu. It’s easy to use and well designed.
What’s that? You wanted a TV the size of a movie screen (with a picture to match) for under $2,000?
If money is no object and you just want the best picture technology out there, Samsung also sells an 8K TV — that’s right, twice as many pixels as 4K — that’ll keep your TV from becoming obsolete for a very long time. No one broadcasts in 8K right now, but when they do, you’ll be ready.
The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
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