Finding a cheap TV isn't hard, but finding a decent-quality display that doesn't break the bank? That requires a bit more work.
There are plenty of budget big and small screens around from major brands including LG, Samsung and Sony, and a few lesser-known brands you may want to avoid. Ever heard of a Konka TV? Exactly.
At the end of the day, even the best quality budget models aren't going to match the quality of a more expensive TV. Here we help you identify the things to look for in a cheaper model, issues to avoid, and how to get a great deal on something a little more upmarket.
And, exclusively for ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳members, we reveal our picks for the best quality budget TVs from our tests.
On this page:
- How much should you spend on a budget TV?
- Budget vs expensive TVs – what's the difference?
- What makes a good budget TV?
- What's the best budget OLED TV?
- How to save money on an expensive TV
- The ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳pick for best budget TV
How much should you spend on a budget TV?
TVs can get expensive – like, really expensive. We've tested models that cost as much as $7000 and even they don't come close to the most expensive models on the market. Some manufacturers sell consumer-grade TVs that cost over $10,000.
The budget range is a little more financially forgiving. TVs in this category cost anywhere from around $200 to around $1500. You can find some really solid 55–65 inch 4K TVs in the $1000–1500 price range. Most (but not all) models below $1000 have smaller screens of 32–55 inches.
Budget vs expensive TVs – what's the difference?
Picture and sound are the key points of difference when looking at TVs on the opposite ends of the pricing scale. Budget TVs can still look quite good, but picture quality tends to lack the 'wow' factor that you get from high-end models. They're a bit more functional and you won't get the cinematic, impactful and highly-detailed pictures you can expect from a high-end machine.
A good-quality, expensive TV should also be able to get the most out of standard and high definition (SD and HD) content by upscaling the video. Sound quality on a cheaper TV, on the other hand, usually ranges from OK to downright unlistenable. Sure, you're probably not chasing an audiophile experience if you're on a budget, but some low-cost TV speakers sound no better than a smartphone. That's not an exaggeration.
There are five key areas where you'll notice a difference between expensive and budget televisions:
- Picture quality
- Sound quality
- Upscaling capabilities
- Screen size
- General performance
Keep these in mind when shopping around as they can help you figure out where you're happy to make some concessions to stay within your budget. We go into more detail on each of these factors below.
Banding (circled) gives colour gradients a blocky, broken appearance.
1. Picture quality
The first thing to look for is colour quality. At lower price points, it really comes down to what you feel comfortable watching rather than the colours being strictly accurate, but there are some persistent issues that you may find distracting.
Colours may not look quite right, and some scenes may be too bright or too dark, creating an unbalanced, blotchy and perhaps even fluorescent look.
And high dynamic range doesn't always process correctly, which can cause other colour issues. Some particularly egregious examples from our tests have turned yellows into greens, for example.
It's always best to trial a TV in store before buying. Keep an eye on the overall picture quality and look for these specific issues:
The excessive brightness on the left obscures detail and makes the colours appear unnatural with some blotchiness around the bottom right on this screen.
- Washed-out colours: The picture can look faded, bland and lifeless, especially in brighter scenes. Dark scenes can look flat and dull.
- Oversaturated colours: Colours look too vibrant and over the top, almost cartoonish. Though this is eye-catching at first, an oversaturated picture obscures detail, can be exhausting to watch and looks unrealistic.
- Excessive contrast: This is a lazy way to try to make the picture 'pop' that actually eliminates detail in blacks and shadows, oversaturates colours and looks fake.
- Smearing: TVs eliminate grain (aka noise) on their default settings. This can create a smeared appearance if the noise reduction software is sub-par. You can really notice it during rapid motion such as action scenes, car chases and sports.
- Grey-looking blacks: Cheaper screens (aka panels) don't display blacks very well and often end up looking like various shades of grey. This can negatively impact immersion and picture quality when watching scenes shot in dark environments or at night.
- Banding: Budget TVs often struggle to blend colour shades as parts of the scene get brighter or darker – e.g. from a dark blue to light blue sky. Instead, they display distinct lines, shades and blocks which can be very distracting.
- Artifacting (aka fragmenting): The image temporarily breaks up and looks blocky in certain fast-moving portions of the scene. For example, if a character is spinning a sword, the character will look fine but the sword can break up and appear fragmented.
You can sort out some of these issues by selecting different picture modes. Filmmaker mode, for example, turns off most of the post-processing software that may be the source of picture problems.
Here, excessive contrast gives the sky an unnatural, cartoonish look while removing all details in blacks around the buildings.
2. Sound quality
After years of TV testing, we've found that budget models tend to skimp on sound quality, especially in the smaller units (under 55-inches). It's not uncommon for budget TVs with reasonable picture quality to earn poor or very poor scores in our sound quality tests.
Audio can be, among other things, harsh, tinny and lacking bass. Dialogue is often difficult to understand and some of the worst examples have occasional to persistent distortion sounds, such as crackling, hiss or a general fuzziness.
3. Upscaling SD and HD to 4K
Instead of just stretching lower resolution content to fit a high-res display (which looks awful), upscaling essentially generates extra pixels on the fly. This helps fill the gaps between SD, HD and 4K, so that SD and HD look as good as possible on an ultra-high definition screen.
Budget TVs aren't always very good at this. On a medium- to high-end 55-inch TV, SD video can look good, while HD often looks very good to excellent. But more affordable models only deliver HD footage that's passable to OK, while SD often falls below that benchmark.
Keep this in mind if you like to watch older movies or shows that haven't had the 4K treatment. Also note that a number of Australian TV stations, such as 7flix, 9GO! and 10 Peach Comedy, only broadcast in standard definition.
4. Screen size
Budget big screens rarely look good, as the size only serves to emphasise shortcomings in picture quality. Regardless of your budget, it's important to try to match the TV size to your room, not just to improve the viewing experience, but to limit the impact of issues like eye and neck strain.
At the smaller end of the scale, you may be tempted by a good deal on a 32-inch TV, but it's going to cause all sorts of issues if the couch is more than a couple of metres back.
5. General performance
There are two display issues which, while present in some expensive TVs, are much more common in cheaper models.
- Light bleed: the TV's backlight excessively illuminates areas around the edge of the screen, which causes blooming effects (inconsistent blotches of white light). It can be very distracting especially when you're watching widescreen movies with black bars at the top and bottom.
- Narrow viewing angle: the picture quality starts to degrade as you sit further to the left or right of the screen. Really cheap screens start to look bad if you're more than a metre or so to the left or right of centre.
Cheaper TVs can also feel a bit slower, or less responsive, overall. Apps can take longer to load, streaming quality may look a little rough or juddery (when slow pans don't look smooth), and there can be a noticeable lag between pressing a button on the remote and the action occurring on screen, such as when scrolling through a list of apps.
An easy, low-cost way to avoid these issues is a streaming device. These plug into an HDMI port and tend to deliver much better streaming performance than budget TVs.
What makes a good budget TV?
Our advice when shopping for a budget TV is to prioritise a balanced picture over everything else. You don't want something that's too bright at times and too dark at others, with colours that don't look quite right. Even if the picture doesn't 'pop' as much as an expensive TV, balance still makes for a nice viewing experience.
Try to avoid TVs that look washed out and too bright or oversaturated. Dark or night scenes can be really hard to watch on TVs like these as blacks turn grey and just look ugly.
A budget TV ($1500 or less for a 55-65-inch 4K model) could be a suitable purchase for you if you can live with OK sound quality and some general performance issues such as input lag. It's also possible to fix these problems with a decent soundbar and streaming device, with budget options available for those as well.
What's the best budget OLED TV?
If you're in the market for an OLED TV, start saving or wait for a sale. Most of these TVs don't fall within the budget category in Australia.
Budget models tend to have LCD screens. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are some differences to be aware of.
LCD screens are typically brighter than OLED, which makes them a better option for rooms with lots of natural light. But colours tend to be not quite as rich or vibrant, and dark scenes can look a little grey. This is because LCD screens can't display true blacks. Instead, they try to get as close as possible by using very dark, dim greys.
How to save money on an expensive TV
Just because you're shopping on a budget doesn't mean you have to miss out on your dream TV. Plenty of mid-range and high-end models have steep discounts applied during sales periods such as end of financial year and Black Friday – sometimes as much as 40%.
Apart from these major sales periods, there's another opportunity around March each year to pick up a bargain, specifically on the previous year's stock. Major manufacturers such as LG, Samsung and Sony announce their new TVs at the beginning of the year, with products generally available for purchase here in Australia from around March onwards Local retailers then start shifting their remaining old stock at a price that's usually lower than the standard sales periods.
There's another opportunity around March each year to pick up a bargain, specifically on the previous year's stock
Granted, the TVs will be a year old at this point, but that shouldn't be a deal breaker. While TV tech used to change a lot from year to year, improvements have become much more incremental. Unless you absolutely need the latest tech, last year's model will tick all the boxes.
The catch? TVs sold during this period are in short supply and unlikely to be restocked. Your dream TV may have already been discontinued – or sold out – by the time these clearance sales roll around.
So if there's a model you really have your heart set on, you might be better off picking it up during the major sales, like Black Friday, rather than waiting till the following March or April for the bargain-basement runout sales.
The ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳pick for best budget TV
We've tested plenty of TVs that cost less than $1500 across a range of screen sizes. Budget models that range from 32- to 65-inches have come through our labs, including 17 models that are currently available in retailers.
Most of these didn't score highly enough to be recommended, and some really cheap models are among our lowest performers. But some models may still be worth considering if you're working with a limited budget.
Of all the TVs in our test, one in particular rose to the top to be the cream of the low-cost crop.
Only ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳members can access our detailed testing data. If you're not yet a member, join CHOICE to get instant access to all our expert, independent reviews, from coffee machines and grinders, to kettles and cots, toasters and TVs, and more.
Or log in to unlock this article and find out our experts' top pick for a budget TV and a list of the best TVs under $1500, $1000 or $500.
Unlock this article and more
- Information you can trust
- See the best brands
- Avoid the worst performers
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
