The best TVs under $500 is a sort of promised land for TV buyers. We all want something incredible for our money, but often $500 isn't enough to get you a cutting-edge OLED TV or a high-end QLED from Samsung.
While the sub-$500 TV market isn't as rich in high-end models as we'd like, there's no shortage of perfectly fine TVs that deliver great picture performance for the price. For example, our top picks, the Roku Plus Series and TCL 5-Series QLED TV, combine the category-leading color and brightness of QLED with easy-to-use smart TV interfaces. Both come highly recommended.
Below we've rounded up the best TVs under $500 that manage to find the balance between cost and performance, giving you better-than-basic features and above-average performance. We've even highlighted the best TV under $400 and the best TV under $300, too, alongside the best deals going on right now to give you options that stretch your dollar a bit more.
The best TVs you can buy under $500
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What if we told you that there's a 55-inch 4K HDR TV that offers surprisingly good picture quality and sound for just $499? You'd be surprised, right? Well, let us introduce you to the Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV. It marks the streaming giant’s first foray into sets after long focusing on software and set-top and plug-in devices — and the move is a successful one.
Despite its price, the Plus Series does not look cheap: A gray, metal bezel surrounds the screen on all sides, measuring less than an eighth-inch on the left, right, and top, and about two-thirds inch on the bottom to allow for a front-and-center chrome Roku logo.
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. Picture vibrancy does start fading as you move away from the center of the screen, but it took a fair distance for the display to look unbearable.
All in all, the Plus Series is well-suited to watching just about anything except super-fast action such as sports, thanks to the panel’s limited 60Hz refresh rate.
Read our full Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV review.
Of course, not everyone is going to want a Roku TV. If you find yourself in that camp, check out the TCL 5-Series Google TV. This one wowed us with its combination of smart TV features, solid performance and great value for your dollar. Building on the foundation of the already-good 5-Series, the move to Google TV gives the affordable 4K smart TV a more premium smart TV platform, one that offers personalized and customizable suggestions, a huge assortment of smart features, and deep Google Assistant integration that makes it a viable center for the entire home of connected gadgets.
But it also offers a step up in other aspects of the TV. As we found in our extensive testing, the 5-Series Google TV is a more polished version of the 5-Series TV when it comes to everything from color quality to lag times. And as well as delivering an excellent QLED 4K display, you also get a slick remote control, and a surprisingly wide array of gaming features for a 60Hz TV. For a smart TV that sells for under $500 for most size options, it's easily one of the best TVs on the market.
Read our full TCL 5-Series Google TV (S546) review.
Sony’s entry-level line of TVs might not seem to offer a lot to the discriminating shopper, but the Sony Bravia X80K ($449 as tested) punches above its price. With fine picture quality and backed by Sony’s cagey technological innovations and sharply honed attention to fit and finish, the X80K is, in most ways, better than you might expect.
If you don’t need or want a TV with outlandish performance, you don’t have to pay for it — and you can still get a respectable TV. You get a lot for your $449.99 with the Sony Bravia X80K, as far as the picture, input lag, and the quality of Google TV and the remote. Comparably sized models of the Samsung Q60B and the Vizio M-Series Quantum better the Sony in some ways, but cost more.
For a simple TV at an affordable price, the Sony X80K is an attractive and effective compromise candidate. Just keep the volume down.
Read our full Sony Bravia X80K TV review.
For a great value on a 50-inch TV, the Hisense U6H (50U6H) has plenty to offer. For a TV that costs as little as this one does, its brightness and color are above-average, and it has appealingly low input lag for gamers.
Additionally, Google TV is one of the most powerful smart TV interfaces out there, and the U6H is all the better for its inclusion. The U6H may not get quite as bright as its splashier siblings, the U7H and the Hisense U8H, but for its class, it fares pretty well. Its SDR brightness as measured in Filmmaker Mode (the mode that most closely matches out-of-the-box calibration) lands at 537 nits — decent but not spectacular, but enough to win against competitors such as the Amazon Fire TV Omni, the Samsung Q60B, the TCL Series-6 Roku TV, and the Vizio M-Series Quantum.
The Hisense U6H might be faced with some stiff competition, but in the end it’s able to deliver a result that exceeded our expectations for a TV that costs under $400.
Read our full Hisense U6H Quantum Series review.
The TCL 4 Series Roku TV, is one of the best TV values you'll find in any size. This 4K TV often sells for less than you’ll find bargain 1080p TVs, and the 43-inch model comes in at less than $300. It has good color accuracy and supports HDR10 — but not Dolby Vision — for improved contrast. It uses Roku’s system software, which provides one of the best smart TV experiences available and has plenty of apps to choose from. With a low lag time of 14 milliseconds, this set also will handle fast-paced gaming well.
In exchange for the great price, the TCL 4 Series is missing a few features that more expensive TVs deliver. It lacks local dimming, so the HDR performance isn’t as good as it could be. It also has weak speakers, with little bass and limited power. If this is going to be your main TV, consider adding a soundbar to overcome the sound issues.
Read our full TCL 4-Series Roku TV (S435) review.
The Toshiba C350 Fire TV is the 2021 addition to the small family of Amazon-powered smart TVs, offering good features and decent performance for its extremely affordable price. It's a decent example of the Fire TV template, combining good-enough 4K picture quality, impressively short lag times, and Amazon's great Fire TV smart features, like built-in Alexa voice control, a pretty big app store and (of course) an interface that puts Amazon's Prime Video service front and center. With even the largest 55-inch model selling for less than $500 (and likely much less during sales events), it's one of the smartest affordable TVs you can get.
The C350 doesn’t come with the latest bells and whistles, such as HDMI 2.1 or Dolby Atmos support, but it does Dolby Vision and HDR10 — though not very well. But with excellent color accuracy, low lag time and a good looking design, it's still a solid TV for the price, and better than many Fire TV models we've seen in the past.
Read our full Toshiba C350 Fire TV review.
How to choose the best TV under $500
Scoring a TV for less than $500 means giving up some of the nicer features and design touches for a more affordable price. But you can still get some excellent features without blowing the budget. Here are a few things you can still easily find in your price range.
4K resolution: 4K resolution is so affordable, and the quality so much better than 1080p or 720p, that we always recommend going for 4K. Unless you're on a shoestring budget, getting a proper 4K TV won't even save you much money, but you will notice the difference.
Screen size: You may not always be able to score a premium 65-inch TV for under $500, but you can still get a decent 55-inch model, so don't settle for some dinky 43-inch set unless it's the right size for the space.
HDR support: If there's one feature we recommend, it's high dynamic range (HDR). Even basic HDR support provides better color, brighter highlights and richer shadows, giving you a better picture in every respect. If you can find a set with Dolby Vision, that's even better, but you may pay more for that feature.
Connectivity: More HDMI ports are always better, so you don't find yourself having to awkwardly swap plugs on the TV every time you want to fire up a Blu-ray or jump into a game.
Gaming: For affordable gaming TVs, we recommend looking for sets with higher refresh rates of 60Hz, but the latest Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles can actually go higher. Lag time is another concern, so check out individual reviews to find sets that have a lag time of shorter than 20 milliseconds for the best performance.
What features are worth paying more for?
While budget-friendly TVs are pretty good, there's no denying that spending more will get you some features that you just won't be able to find for less than 500 bucks. If any of the below sound like a must-have for your new TV, consider spending a little bit more.
Screen size: If you're lucky, you will find one or two 65-inch TVs selling below the $500 mark during sales events. And going larger than that will always cost more. If you want something like a 75-inch TV, the only option is to pony up more money.
Picture quality: 4K resolution is great, but today's premium TVs have taken picture quality to new levels of excellence with better color, brightness and contrast, not to mention super-smooth motion handling. If you want the best picture quality, you'll want to consider paying more for technologies like quantum dots, mini-LED and OLED.
Sound quality: Today's budget TVs do a lot of things well, but sound quality usually isn't one of them. We recommend pairing your new TV with one of the best soundbars to get better audio than the tiny speakers crammed into a thin TV chassis could ever produce.
Interested in a specific TV 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 | Best HDMI 2.1 TV | Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 | Best TVs with Chromecast
The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-inch TVs | Best 65-inch TVs | Best 70-inch TVs | Best 75-inch TVs | Best 85-inch TVs
