Club Benefits
The best 85-inch TVs are a great investment if you enjoy watching movies with your family or inviting friends round to catch live sports together. These larger displays make it easy to gather from all angles and still get a good view of the action.
Plus, the extra space means manufacturers can pack in more tech, so you often get brighter performance, more ports for gaming and peripherals and upgraded (or at least larger) speakers, giving you far more than just a bigger screen.
The best 85-inch TVs available right now
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Best 85-inch TV overall
So, look: I get that this is a bit confusing, but my pick for the best 85-inch TV is actually the 83-inch LG C5. And this is probably doubly confusing since not only is this option two inches smaller, but it's also last year's model now that the LG C6 exists in the wild.
But my main reason for recommending the C5 is that it's an incredible TV — there's a reason it's also our best TV overall — and it's also a lot cheaper than it was when LG first released it to the world, and far less expensive than the newer model.
It's very close to the performance of the C6, but you'll save almost $2,500. And from the moment we turned on the C5, the image was vivid, colorful, well-contrasted and bright — everything you could want from one of the best OLED TVs.
And because it's bright, you can easily put the 83-inch TV in a large open room filled with sunlight and still see what's happening on the screen. But if nighttime movie nights are more your thing, we found the Dark Room Mode helped lower the brightness to more appropriate levels.
Plus, if you're looking for a versatile TV that can handle all types of streaming, from movies and TV shows to sports, and pull double duty as a gaming TV, the C5 is a great option with its four HDMI 2.1 ports for consoles and gaming PCs, 120Hz refresh rate, and dedicated Game Optimizer mode to improve your experience.
While reviewing the LG C6 was an incredibly fun experience, the biggest difference to the C5 was that the unusual remote has a new design which makes it a lot easier to use. It's a good change, but definitely not worth the extra money.
- Read our full LG C5 review
Best value 85-inch TV
One of the most incredible things about the Hisense QD7 is how cheap it is (relative to other 85-inch TVs, of course). It went on sale in early 2025 for $1,400 and has since dropped easily below $1,000 and can often be found for around $800. And even aside from the price, it has so few compromises, it's almost too easy to recommend.
One of the things we liked the most about it while testing was how the set handles colors. The QD7 has quantum dot crystals in the display which absorb some of the backlight and re-emit it as red and green light to make the image more vibrant, and it does this very well. Plus, the LEDs are individually controllable to improve dimming.
This sounds a bit abstract (also it's the TV that controls the LEDs, not you), but the upshot is that when we tried watching "Stranger Things" and "Dune" — franchises known for dark and shadowy scenes — we could actually pick out the detail in each scene, even though with the deepest blacks.
The combination of good contrast and local dimming also makes it a good, affordable choice for live sports. Often you have one part of the pitch in sunlight and the other in shadow, and these two features work in tandem to make sure you can actually see what's going on, even when you have sunlight and shade in a single image.
In fact, the only real downside to this model is that it runs Amazon's Fire TV interface, which is our least favorite smart TV software. But it still works, and you can install all your streaming apps just like you can on other TVs. So it's more of an annoyance than a problem, and shouldn't put you off this otherwise incredible value TV.
- Read our full Hisense QD7 review
Best 85-inch TV under $1,500
While the Hisense QD7 could also fall into the best 85-inch under $1,500 category, the TCL QM7K easily deserves its place here, and not just because it runs Google TV over Amazon's Fire TV software (although that is genuinely a part of it).
Google's interface is a lot easier to navigate, with a personalized For You home screen filled with recommendations of what to watch next. And with a software update in early 2026, it became one of the first TVs to support Google's Gemini AI app.
These AI apps aren't actually very useful, and I wouldn't recommending buying a TV on the basis of these features, but it shows that Google felt that the QM7K was important enough to upgrade, and I think a lot of that has to do with its performance.
We threw quite a varied selection of movies at the TV, from the dazzling action scenes in the latest "Misssion: Impossible," through to high-contrast Marvel movies, and the bright cartoonish fun of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie," and each one looked incredible.
We gave it the deeper blacks and shadowy moments in "Dune: Part Two" and it handled these scenes well enough that we could pick out details in the darkness. And TV shows like "Andor" and "The Pitt" were as gritty and dark as you'd hope.
The only area is struggled a bit was with reflections in particularly bright spaces. The TV does have a low-reflective film on the display, but it didn't manage to prevent glare, especially when watching darker scenes in a sunlit room. So position the TCL QM7K out of the brightest spots, or use it for visually moodier content in the evenings.
- Read our full TCL QM7K review
Best 85-inch TV for gaming
The Hisense U75QG is another affordable 85-inch TV, but where it shines (sorry) is its brightness, vivid and popping colors, and well-equipped gaming setup that's a rare find in a set at this price running Google TV.
Though what impressed us the most was how much fun gaming was on this TV. It is getting more common for cheaper TVs that have gaming features, but the U75QG's setup, with four HDMI 2.1 ports and 165Hz refresh rate is rarer. Consoles top out at 120Hz, so the higher refresh rate means it's also a great option for gaming PCs.
Plus, the results from our lab tests show found that it is more than four times brighter than the Hisense QD7 in SDR and four times brighter in HDR than the TCL QM7K. The Hisense U8QG is the only TV we've tested that outshines it, and that's a lot more expensive.
So if you plan to put your new 85-inch TV in a bright room or in a space bathed in sunlight, the U75QG makes a great choice. I'd still recommend keeping it out of sun spots though, as the anti-glare coating helped, but did struggle a bit in direct light. It wasn't a problem, but did make it harder to see details on the screen.
And the colors really popped and looked impressively colorful (as they should) in “The Super Mario Bros Movie," while the darker hues of "The Batman" really felt like staring into the abyss. We also put on "Blade Runner 2049" which is a blend of dystopian darks and futuristic colors, which looked vibrant in all the right places.
- Read our full Hisense U75QG review
Best 85-inch TV for bright rooms
If you're after a cheap 85-inch TV, the Hisense U8QG definitely isn't it (and I'd recommend checking out the Hisense QD7 or TCL QM7K instead). But what you get of your money is one of the brightest and best sounding 85-inch TVs we've tested.
The Hisense U75QG is bright for the price, but the U8QG is actually just the brightest according to our lab testing. There's no need for any qualifiers, as it just outperforms all the other TVs on this list, so if you want something that'll shine, this is it.
It handled pretty much everything we watched with ease, from shows like "Reacher," "Andor," and "Lazarus," through to movies like "Tenet," "Barbarian," and "Ghost In The Shell." Pretty much every scene, whether the deepest blacks or most colorful moments, really popped. Even shadows looked crisp and detailed.
This was also because the color volume and accuracy on the U8QG is remarkable, especially in daylight scenes with rolling hills and crashing waves looking particularly breathtaking. And the futuristic scenes in the animated show "Lazarus" felt grand and immersive.
Partly, this was also thanks to the sizeable 72W, 4.1.2-channel audio setup. It's not often we test a TV where we actually like the sound, but the U8QG bucked that trend, as every bit of audio was detailed, and the volume appropriate in all the right places, aided by the TVs AI Sound feature, which boosts dialogue and sound effects.
Strangely, Hisense has been a bit tightfisted with HDMI ports, adding just three in place of the more standard four. All three are HDMI 2.1 though, so it makes a good option for PC and console gamers with its 165Hz refresh rate, as we found while playing Death Stranding and then Armored Core 6 on a gaming PC.
- Read our full Hisense U8QG review
How we test the best 85-inch TVs
One of the most difficult parts of buying a new TV is working out how it actually performs outside of the store's artificial lighting or away from the press shots included at online retailers. That's why we put the best 85-inch TVs to the test before we recommend any with our two-part reviewing process.
Each model gets delivered to our lab for detailed performance testing. You can read more about how we test TVs, but the short version is that we use specialized technical equipment to measure the output of each set, including brightness, input lag and color accuracy to get an objective take on the television.
This allows us to more readily and accurately compare the performance between models and for when the brand releases a new version of the TV so we can see how much has really changed. It also makes it easier to check that the manufacturer's claims really stack up.
Once we have the data safely in our spreadsheets, we put the set through its paces in just the same way that you would — by watching TV shows, movies, sports and playing games. This sounds like a fun way to pass the day, and it often is, but we do this to see how the model performs in real world conditions, like in bright rooms.
Some sets score highly in brightness tests, but struggle when in direct sunlight. While others seem like they'd struggle in the daytime, but are fantastic options for movie nights or evening gaming sessions. So this dual-review means that we can actually recommend the TVs that would work the best for you in your home.
How to choose the best 85-inch TVs
Before you start researching mounts or stands for your new television, it's worth taking a moment to consider why, specifically, do you want an 85-inch TV?
Maybe you've looking at our guide to choosing the perfect TV size for your room and landed on the larger display, or perhaps it's because you know you enjoy hosting and need a set that'll allow a group to gather and still see all the action.
The best 85-inch TVs often have the top mix of hardware, especially compared to smaller models like the best 43-inch TVs, which are power-limited and not as bright. Larger TVs usually come with the best selection of HDMI and USB ports too.
Not to state the obvious, but they're also a lot bigger than the best 65-inch TVs, which is the most common TV size. So you'll need a space that can accommodate the larger device and enough room to sit further back and get the best experience.
As you climb the TV sizes, you often don't get higher resolution after 65 inches, so a 4K TV in 65 inches will also be 4K in its 85-inch variety — get too close, and the image will look more pixelated and not as clear than the smaller model at the same distance.
Since the TV is larger, there's also more space for better, or at least bigger, speakers. In our experience though, TV speakers still leave a lot to be desired, even at this size and price. So you'll likely always be better off with one of the best soundbars too, but 85-inch TVs generally give better audio performance than their smaller counterparts.
