1. The list in brief
2. Best OLED TV
3. Best QLED TV
4. Best LG TV
5. Best mid-range TV
6. Best value TV
7. Best outdoor TV
8. How to choose
9. How we test
I love the best 65-inch TVs because they offer the best technology. This is the screen size that manufacturers put most of their R&D budget in, which means this is where you'll be able to find the cutting-edge OLED, Mini-LED and QD-OLED models.
In short, 65-inch TVs are where the innovation happens.
Look for 65-inch TVs that come with HDR support, 4K resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, at least two HDMI 2.1 ports, Wide Color Gamut and VRR. Also try and stick to name-brand manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, TCL and Vizio.
Why trust us? We put this list together after well-over 100 hours of lab testing and eyes-on viewing with the TVs you see below. To help you find the best 65-inch TV fast, we've put together a mix of value options and some premium models, all of which we can highly recommend to you.
My name's Nick and I look after our guides to the best TVs, best OLED TVs and best 4K TVs. Most of my day is spent watching and evaluating new screens from LG, Samsung, Sony, Hisense, TCL and Vizio. I have 10 years of experience in AV, and before I joined Tom's Guide I was formerly the Senior Editor, TV and AV at TechRadar. I love helping people find the perfect TV, so please feel free to reach out over email or tag me on Twitter and I can help you out.
The best 65-inch TV: a quick list
Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.
The quick list
Here's a quick overview of the best 65-inch TVs you can buy right now based on our testing and reviews. And keep up on scrolling if you want to see our in-depth analysis of all the top TVs for every budget.
The best overall TV for your home cinema
The Sony Bravia A95K absolutely floored us in a way no other TV had previously this year. If we only had the time and space to recommend one 65-inch TV this year, the Sony A95K would be it.
The best QLED TV you can buy
The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV is the premium QLED set to get. With best-in-class brightness, a clever design and every feature you need from a smart TV, the QN90C is tough to beat.
The LG C3 OLED is the best TV for gamers
The LG C3 OLED is a fantastic OLED model that doesn't break the bank. With some of the lowest input lag of any TV on our list, this is a great pick for gamers.
The best mid-range TV
The Hisense U8K Mini-LED TV is all about bringing high-end features to a mid-level price bracket. Its peak brightness exceeds any TV around that price, and its color reproduction is as good as some of this year’s best TVs.
The best value TV
The Roku Plus Series doesn't offer all the fancy features of the other models on our list, but with a good smart interface and HDR color and sound capabilities unusual for its class, it’s a surprisingly good budget buy.
The best outdoor TV
As far as outdoor TVs are concerned, the SunBriteTV Veranda 3 stands above the competition by offering a performance that's worthy of plenty of indoor 4K TVs. It's not cheap, but if you're after a 4K outdoor TV, look here first.
Best OLED TV
By any standard, the Sony Bravia XR A95K OLED is a remarkable TV — and often, it’s far better than that. This set, which sits at the top of Sony’s expansive TV lineup, unites the industry’s defining technologies and Sony’s own groundbreaking processing and picture enhancements to deliver superlative performance in every area. And our own test results back this up.
The color and brightness on the Bravia XR A95K are dazzling. Unexpected but genuinely useful smart features transform everything from how you interact with the screen, how you make picture adjustments, and even what you do if you lose your remote control. Perhaps most important, this Sony OLED TV looks and sounds like a dream, no matter what you watch on it, making everything a transcendent viewing and listening experience.
The question with the A95K, then, isn’t whether it’s one of the best TVs you can buy. It’s whether it is the best TV you can buy. In our opinion? Yes, yes it is.
Read our full Sony Bravia XR A95K review.
The best QLED TV
When looking for a 65-inch TV that offers great performance without a super-steep price tag, the Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV is the QLED TV king thanks to best-in-class brightness and impressive performance across most content genres.
Powered by Samsung’s high octane Mini-LED panel, the QN90C promises excellent performance across the top genres. For those who aren’t familiar, Mini-LED backlighting delivers high levels of brightness while maintaining realistic color and gradations of luminance. And though the QN90C Neo QLED isn’t the most premium of all the 4K Samsung 2023 TVs, it’s the one that you’ll probably be most tempted to buy.
Its gorgeous 1-inch-thick design contains a huge array of smart features, potent Dolby Atmos sound and HDMI 2.1 connectivity for gamers that measured in at an impressive 9.8-millisecond lag time in our testing.
Read our full Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV review or browse our Samsung promo codes
The best Gaming TV
If the top-tier Sony is a little too expensive and the ultra-vivid Samsung hurts your eyes, the LG C3 OLED can be a perfect compromise for gamers.
What makes this the top gaming TV? Features like Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), which you’ll find on many newer TVs equipped with HDMI 2.1, as well as tweaks such as black and white stabilization, blue light reduction, Dark Room mode, and more. The C3 is rated as Nvidia G-Sync Compatible, and it supports AMD FreeSync Premium. You can even specify the genre of your game, and the C3 will apply settings designed to optimize its picture for it.
The LG OLED C3 easily lives up to its predecessors’ hype and presents a compelling case for itself as part of the newest generation of TVs. No matter what you want to watch, this set will make it sparkle and if you’re a gamer, you’ll benefit from its performance and dizzying selection of dedicated features.
Read our full LG C3 OLED review.
The best mid-range TV
The Hisense U8K is a very strong performer for the price. It offers great features and immaculate performance for just over $1,000. Competitors like TCL and Samsung have shown that they can get high brightness from similarly specc’d TVs, but only Hisense has mastered the art of colorful pictures and high brightness at a reasonable price.
Key to the U8K’s success are the Mini-LED Pro with Full Array Local Dimming panel that helps the TV retain good black levels in scenes with higher levels of brightness and a quantum dot layer that allows the TV to cover a groundbreaking 80% of the Rec2020 Color Space. It might be a party in the front, but it’s all business in the back of the screen.
If you’re looking for a high-end TV without the high-end sticker price, the U8K absolutely delivers the goods.
Read our full Hisense U8K Mini-LED TV review.
The best value TV
Not that long ago, you got what you paid for with budget TVs. But that’s all changed within the last generation or two, with sets like the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV increasingly performing well outside their price range.
The Plus Series uses quantum-dot LED technology to produce more and more vivid colors and increased brightness. And in everything we watched, we found that the TV lived up to Roku’s claims. Compared against its more expensive rivals, the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV is an outstanding bargain that doesn’t let you down.
That doesn’t mean the Plus Series is going to supplant higher-end TVs, however. Its brightness leaves something to be desired, and the restrictions of a 60Hz panel and no HDMI 2.1 ports mean it has a distinctly last-gen feel to it. But if you want to get a good value screen, there’s no question that the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV is one of the best TVs you can buy.
Read our full Roku Plus Series review.
The best outdoor TV
The new SunBriteTV Veranda 3 didn’t need to do much to build on the line’s concrete foundation, as the previous model already had impressive-for-the-category 4K HDR picture and sound quality to accompany its sturdy construction aimed at outdoor use (in the shade). But in addition to adding smart features by way of Android TV, it also gained an even better display and good, caveat-free remote control as part of the bargain.
These improvements do not come cheap. Veranda 3 models start just shy of $2,900, which is hundreds of dollars more than the other Verandas. Is it worth it? If you want one of the best outdoor TVs you can buy… then, yeah, it is. It’s worth celebrating — and maybe even laying down the cash — when a good thing gets even better. Provided you have a place to put it, of course.
Read our full SunBriteTV Veranda 3 Outdoor TV review.
How to choose the best 65-inch TV for you
How to choose the best 65-inch TV for you
If you're in the market for a new TV, you'll want to consider a few factors before you spend your money. Our TV buying guide breaks down the fine details of what features matter and what distinguishes a great TV from one that's just okay. For a 65-inch set we strongly recommend going with 4K resolution. There are a few older 1080p models still available, but they simply aren't a good value today. And while 8K TVs are hitting the market in the 65-inch size, it will still be some time before 8K resolution gets mainstream support.
Size and space: For a 65-inch 4K TV you'll want to sit between 8 to 9 feet from the screen to hit the sweet spot of being close enough to enjoy all the sharp details, but not so close that you'll be able to make out the pixels that make up the picture.
Price: A basic 65-inch 4K smart TV will range between $800 and $2,300, depending upon how premium your tastes run. The TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) is the best budget model we've seen in this screen size, but if you want the best picture available, the LG CX OLED is our top pick for its combination of stellar picture quality and deep feature set.
Features: For the best picture, we recommend getting a set that offers high dynamic range (HDR) support. HDR10 is the base standard, while Dolby Vision is a higher-caliber format, and we recommend opting for Dolby Vision support when you have the choice.
Ports: Port selection is another chief concern. More HDMI ports will let you connect more devices, like game consoles and satellite boxes. And if you have a soundbar, you'll want to connect it using an HDMI port with eARC.
Software: Finally, you'll want to find a smart TV platform that you like. Companies like Samsung and LG use their own proprietary software, but many use more broadly available software, like Android or Roku TV. The biggest issue is app selection, as some specific apps you may want won't be available on every smart TV platform, or there may be a months-long delay for a new service to come to some smart TVs after launching on others.
But you'll also want to look into more advanced features, like smart home control, video conferencing capability, and other features that may be brand exclusive, or at least unevenly distributed between premium and budget sets.
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 OLED TVs | Best QLED TVs | Best 8K TVs
The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-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.
How we test the best 65-inch TVs
How we test 65-inch TVs
When it comes to evaluating TVs, we're serious about getting it right. That's why every TV we review is put through a rigorous testing process that measures key standards of picture quality and performance.
Our lab tests involve testing for color accuracy and color gamut using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, an AccuPel DVG-5000 video test pattern generator and SpectraCal CalMAN Ultimate calibration software. These tools are relied on by professional calibrators throughout the industry, and we've paired them with custom workflows to gather the information needed for our reviews. These measurements are taken first in standard mode to simulate the average watching experience, and then taken again in other display modes to find the top color and brightness performance offered by each set.
Our testing measures contrast and maximum brightness, as well as lag time. Using a Leo Bodnar Video Signal Input Lag Tester to test video signal delay, we time how long it takes for content to travel from the original video source to the screen, measured to the millisecond. Shorter response times equate with faster gaming performance, letting us objectively know which TVs are better for gaming.
We use all of these objective test results to make comparisons about quality and performance between different TVs, but our evaluation doesn't end there. We also spend hours with each set, watching shows and movies, and using carefully selected video samples to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each set and help us tell you which TVs look and sound the best in a real home viewing environment.
And there's more to today's TVs than just viewing, so we also check out the smart TV functions and evaluate everything from the interface to the remote control design. This lets our reviews speak to the technical capabilities of today's smart TVs and how they fit into your connected home.
- Smart TV FAQ: Everything you need to know
- The best gaming TVs for consoles old and new
