Guide to buying the best gaming TVs: Welcome to TechRadar, which lists the best 4K TVs for PS4 and Xbox you can buy for any budget in 2019. The truth is, the more quality you spend on your Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, the more It is important that you have a superior monitor. Yes, you can fully connect your game console to any older 720p or 1080p monitor while playing your favorite games. But any gamer worth the name will know that a 4K TV can make all the difference. At the time of the launch of the current range of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, HD-ready machines had everything they needed to showcase their games in the best possible light. But fast forward to 2019, when mid-cycle hardware upgrades gave us consoles capable of both 4K resolution and high dynamic range (HDR) for all your video and gaming needs. While this is good news for the quality of your gaming experiences, your TV is under more pressure than ever to keep up with what your gaming machine can do. After all, a console can have all the power in the world, but it's useless to use if it's connected to a TV that can't harness this enhanced power and get the most out of it.
Unlock the potential of your console.
So what can a TV do these days to unlock its full gaming potential? Let's start with the most basic requirement: 4K. Revolutionary resolution: The Xbox One S produces all your games in 4K, thanks to an amazing upconversion. The PS4 Pro also launches games in 4K, combining upscaling and upscaling. Meanwhile, the Xbox One X has been designed with enough power to handle more games than ever before with native 4K support built right into the game engine. Yes, you can still get non-4K consoles for the Xbox One and PS4, and the Nintendo Switch doesn't care for 4K either. And yes, non-4K games will need to be upscaled with a 4K TV, so don't be totally "pure". However, the update is remarkably good on the best 4K TVs and can be achieved without a significant delay in the time it takes to render images on a TV. 4K resolution can be transformative, especially on large screens. And basically, 4K exactly matches where it is today (in the gaming world as it is in the video world), so not being set up for that with your new TV just doesn't make sense.
Modify your range: High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology sits alongside 4K technology. This produces images with a much wider range of light than the standard dynamic range images we've been living with for decades to ensure that the images we see on our screens are closer to what our images look like. The eyes perceive the real world. The Xbox One S supports HDR in some of its games and through some of its streaming apps. The same situation applies to both PS4 and PS4 Pro, and of course, Xbox One X will also offer HDR. Most people would say that HDR done right packs more punch than 4K, especially on smaller screens. The only problem is that HDR puts a lot of pressure on a TV because it requires much more brightness than SDR and better contrast so that the extra brightness and deeper blacks can share the screen at the same time. In fact, HDR done poorly can look worse than SDR done right; What to think if you plan to buy a very cheap television. Let there be light! One of the most important elements of good HDR performance is brightness. Many movies and games aim for around 1,000 nits for their brightest elements. So, if your TV is less bright, it won't realize the full potential of HDR. Especially in a gaming environment, where the graphics can be more contrasting than "real life". It's perfectly possible for TVs to produce beautiful HDR images without going above 1000 nits and brighter. This is especially true with OLED screens, for example. But the darker a screen is, the more effort its processing has to work to understand how to resolve image information in HDR areas beyond its capabilities.
Offset? Lame! If you're a very serious gamer, especially when it comes to reaction-based online gaming, you have to worry about input lag – the time it takes for the TV to render the image data. Received in your inputs. You're obviously looking for low numbers if you don't want to get shot in the face by an opponent your TV hasn't even shown! Again, manufacturers do not tend to provide lag figures on the specifications provided. However, we usually measure input offset on the TVs we test. Additionally, I have provided input offset measurements for all of our recommended TVs. Roger, It's Over: Sound design has always been an integral part of an exceptional gaming experience. However, with the advent of surround sound gaming, things are moving to another level these days. In fact, Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles even support Dolby Atmos: the most advanced Dolby audio system to date, introducing height channel and "object-based" precision to the sound scene. With impressive timing, LG is poised to roll out support for Dolby Atmos over HDMI to its 2017 OLED TVs (some of which come with built-in soundbars) any day now. Also, while built-in Atmos support has yet to be found elsewhere, this year the TVs feature extremely powerful sound systems. So unless you invest in an external sound system, you'll certainly want to consider sound and picture quality when shopping for your gaming TV. Pay attention to whether the speakers are facing forward (this will almost always give you a more direct and clear sound); output power rating; if there is a dedicated subwoofer (often present on the back of the TV); integrated sound bars; and the number of individual speakers used.
Our selection of the best TV games.
Okay, now that the essential buying tips have been established and you are an audiovisual expert, let's now select our pick of the best gaming TVs you can buy today, combining price and quality.
1. Samsung Q9FN QLED TV series
The best gaming TV? Could be! Spectacular HDR image quality Its powerful and harmonious. Advanced Game Features Limited Viewing Angles This high-end 65-inch set from Samsung offers a number of unique benefits for gamers. For starters, unique screen filters mean images are virtually unaffected by ambient light. And trust us: being able to play in daylight and enjoy photos with contrast as vivid, bright and rich as in a dark room is nothing short of a revelation. The set also handles 4K resolutions majestically, while its robust build quality allows it to produce quite powerful, distortion-free audio performance (although it apparently has no visible speakers). If all of that wasn't exciting enough, the QN65Q9FN is blowing the competition away with an exceptionally low 12ms input lag when using its gaming mode. That said, the QN65Q9FN can have some slight blackout issues when shooting HDR footage in high contrast, and it's also, unfortunately, extremely expensive. Read review: Samsung Q9FN QLED TV
2. LG E8 OLED series
The E8 is LG's best OLED. Beautiful images rich in contrasts. The integrated sound bar is excellent. The B7 has the same panel! While the LG E8 OLED doesn't have as much HDR-capable brightness as Samsung's Q9FN range, its brightness is surprising, delivering deep blacks and rich colors. Unmatched, without any of the issues that LCD TVs suffer from. Also, while OLED still can't achieve as measurable brightness as an LCD, how the darkest pixel in an OLED image can be positioned close to the brightest, without any contamination. between the two, it gives OLED55E8 images a particularly effective light quality gaming setup. In the meantime, gamers will be pleased to learn that unlike its two predecessors, the OLED E8 no longer reduces image brightness significantly when running. In its low latency HDR gaming mode. It also supports 120 frames per second at HD resolutions, full 4:4:4 PC color, and an extremely low response time of less than 20ms. Read review: LG E8 OLED
3. Sony XBR-X930E / KD-XE93 series
If you've already invested in today's 4K consoles, here are the best 4K gaming TVs you can buy right now. Excellent picture quality Compact design Approximately 38ms input offset The Sony XE9305 range is unique in the world of LCD TVs by the use of two light guide plates. Essentially, this gives you twice the control over the amount of light reaching different parts of the screen than with other LCD TVs with built-in lighting. As a result, the 55-inch 9305XE55 - XBR-55X930E in the US - can display extremely bright HDR highlights (up to 1400 nits and higher) on screen along with deep blacks more effectively than any other LCD display. till the date. Thanks to Sony's Triluminos treatment, colors are incredibly rich and vibrant. No brand handles movement as easily as Sony. Sometimes you can see "blocking" the light trails around exceptional HDR objects, but most of the 55XE9305's images are a dazzling game of nirvana. The only drawback is the 55XE9305's input lag of about 38 ms. It's a bit higher than we'd have seen ideally, and sometimes momentarily slips to 52ms. Read the full review: Sony XBR-X930E / KD-XE93 Series
4.Samsung NU8000 Series
With beautiful colors and ultra-fast response times, the NU8000 is a true gaming TV. HDR+ mode Brilliant, beautiful colors. Bixby motion problems hurt more than help Everyone loves a high-end television. LG's latest OLED, extremely bright Samsung QLED, and Sony's extraordinary LED LCDs are being hailed year-round for their incredible performance, imaging technologies, and technical prowess. Too bad it's not TVs that most people buy. If you're looking for a mid-range TV with all the basics for playing 4K HDR games without skimping on the visuals, check out the Samsung NU8000 series. It might not be as bright as some of the competition on this page, but give its HDR+ mode a shot, and you'll be surprised at what this stranger can do. Read the full review: Samsung NU8000
5. Panasonic TX-EX750 series
The 50-inch 750EX50 is a surprisingly affordable 4K TV that delivers crisp, sharp images and a fast response time. Improved digital backlight 10 ms input lag ... ... but only in game mode Panasonic's latest LCD TV may not be as bright as most of its competitors, but it does pack a neat trick: new backlight technology digital camera that adjusts the angle of each pixel to reduce fogging problems associated with LCD technology. . This gives the game's dark scenes a greater smoothness, helping you stay more immersed in the action. The 50EX750 also sets itself apart from other gamers with its 10ms input lag when using its gaming mode. Frankly, you get the best image quality out of the 50EX750 if you use its dynamic image adjustment, but you can always stick to Dynamic for most of your games and switch to Game mode only when you're playing somewhere where reaction times are really important.
6. LG OLED B7 Series
Beat the rest with the affordable entry-level LG OLED B7 Stunning HDR pictures Unexpected sound A bit of backlight 'bloom' & # 39; Color banding in HDR mode Although the OLED55B7 doesn't feature the ultra-glam design and built-in sound bar of the LG OLED55E7, it offers the same level of contrast-rich picture quality, for much less. The input offset is just as important, only 21 ms. While it's important to stress again that the OLED's 740-niche peak brightness limits the impact of your HDR images, it also allows deep black to settle down to one pixel. Read review: LG OLED B7
7. Sony KD-XE85 Series
Powerful 4K images and smart features meet aggressive pricing in this range of multi-use TVs and games Strong picture quality Attractive design Fight for brightness Input offset can slip to 50ms. One of our latest recommendations for a gaming TV is another big one. This gives us a chance to make one last point about gaming on current consoles and PC compared to previous generations: you really do have to think big to get the best gaming experience. This is partly due to the fact that you need a relatively large screen to get the most out of 4K resolutions, but also because major TV brands only build color performance Contrast and brightness that are truly HDR-compliant on their TVs. relatively high cost and unfortunately expensive. Even a 55-inch Sony model struggles a bit for brightness to make 4K HDR imaging relatively affordable. However, thanks to Sony's Triluminos processing engine, color performance is remarkable thanks to its remarkable black level for such an affordable, edge-lit LCD model as well. It also only suffers from an average of 21ms of input lag, though strangely the lag sometimes slips around 50ms for one or two images.
8 Philips 65PUS7601
The combination of Ambilight, attractive pricing for a 65-inch UHD / HDR display, and a dedicated HDR gaming mode adds this TV to our list.65-inch: Philips 65PUS7601 Excellent backlight control Very good price for the image quality. Complex image setup. It doesn't provide a full HDR experience The 65PUS7601 is probably one of the more aggressive gaming items on this list, in the form of its Ambilight system. Ambilight uses LED lights positioned along the rear left, right and top edges of the TV to emit colored lights that are permanently adjustable in terms of the hue, intensity and even location of the colors in the image you see. look. The result is a vastly improved connection to what you're watching, which is especially useful for gaming. The Ambilight system even includes a dedicated game mode, designed to react faster than normal to changes in your game's graphics. The 65PUS7601 also offers generally solid 4K and HDR image quality (at a relatively reasonable price), and can get input lag down to around 30ms if you take care to set it up. The suite also includes a dedicated HDR game mode that adjusts the HDR rendering to the relatively dark and accurate look of the game's graphics compared to "natural" video.
A few shopping tips for the road...
If you want to learn more about buying gaming TVs, then we've added some information below. Read on to improve your audiovisual skills! Bits and BOBs: Connected to the HDR point, think about the bit depth of your gaming TV. The best HDR experience requires a 10-bit display capable of supporting 1024 values of each RGB color; otherwise you'll get lower color rendering, possibly including banding of colors where you should see subtle blending. Today, most high-end HDR TVs are in the 10-bit format, but they're far from being bought into the relatively affordable TV market. Xbox One S and PS4 consoles automatically evaluate your TV's bit resolution and select the optimal HDR video output accordingly. The Xbox One S even provides an overview of your TV's features under 4K TV Details in its Advanced Video Settings menu. The Xbox One X will probably do the same. To be clear, it's quite possible for an 8-bit TV to offer good HDR color performance if it has a powerful video processing engine. But 10-bit panels certainly have an immediate advantage. Another point to add here is that some TVs, including Samsung's higher-end models, support 12-bit color processing/handling, even though their panels only have a native 10-bit resolution. The Xbox One S and, presumably, the Xbox One X provide Color Depth areas in their video fidelity settings that allow you to select the maximum bit rate for your TV. Color Purity – Another advanced parameter, but an important item to consider for the best in-game visuals is chrominance subsampling. This video compression term refers to the purity of the colors of a television. It is usually written in 4:4:4 and 4:2:0. These numbers reveal the number of color pixels sampled in the top and bottom rows every two lines of four pixels. So with 4:2:0, for example, the color is sampled from two pixels in the top row, and no pixels in the bottom row. As a result, the higher the numbers, the purer the color rendering, since there is less of an "approximate" of what the colors should look like. The problem is that full 4:4:4 color support requires a lot of additional image data and therefore cannot be handled by HDMI connections or all TV processing. < p class="bordeaux-image-check">
In reality, the differences in image quality between 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 and even 4:2:0 are usually not large. However, they can be more pronounced with gaming graphics than video, so it's worth checking to see what kind of TV it can support, even if it's not information that regularly shows up on the charts. TV specs. The latest consoles detect the reduction of optimal chrominance that a television can support quite well, automatically adjusting their outputs. However, some TVs can cause troublesome "handshake" issues. As a result, Xbox One S and PS4 Pro now offer subsampling "limiters" options in their video output menus ("Enable 4:2:2" on Xbox One.S and 2160 YUV4:2:0 on PS4 Pro). ). Frame rate management: Now that Xbox One X is almost there and promises native 4K resolution at 60fps, make sure the TV you buy has the latest HDMI outputs as per the specs. If you do not have at least one HDMI connector that is compliant with the v2.0a specification, you will not be able to receive 4K resolution at a resolution greater than 30 frames per second. Thankfully, many more 4K TVs this year are equipped with HDMI 2.0a sockets than in years past, but it's still something to double-check, especially if you buy a particularly cheap TV. The new HDMI 2.1 standard will no doubt become the benchmark for high-end gaming over time, but we've yet to see it implemented in commercially available sets.