I spent a few hours with the world's cheapest OLED TV — what I like (and don't)

Sansui’s under $1,000-OLED TV on a living room table

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Some of the best OLED TVs come with an exorbitant price tag, making them a tough sell for folks who want premium TV tech without a premium sticker price. It’s why we tend to suggest nabbing an LG C3 OLED TV or snagging that 48-inch LG B4 OLED from Best Buy for $699. Short of those two outliers, most OLED TVs are expensive.

But what if OLED TVs could be cheaper? What if you didn’t have to spend over $1,000 to get the best cheap OLED TV deals — or, at the very least, get something like the 42-inch LG C4? That’s what Sansui aims to amend with its new 55-inch OLED TV that has a sticker price of just $799.

Sporting Google TV and a buttery-smooth 120Hz refresh rate — perfect for the PS5 Pro — Sansui’s cheaper OLED TV takes on a market of true powerhouses in the likes of Sony, LG, and Samsung. And I’m happy to report it’s got some major legs in a price bracket largely dominated by Mini-LED offerings.

Expert design choices with minor caveats

At $799, you’re expecting some sacrifices to be made on Sansui’s design, but there’s actually very few issues here and, surprisingly, there's a lot that's done right. For example, Sansui thought ahead and gifted this OLED a pedestal stand, making initial setup an absolute breeze and it means you can place the TV on practically any sized-surface.

You'll still want an extra hand when first putting this display together, but it’s quite easy and took me no more than 45 minutes before it was setup and I was watching content.

Speaking of shows and movies, I gave it quite the run of content, throwing anime like “Dan Da Dan” and “Tokyo Swindlers” and Amazon's "Rings of Power" and "Spy Games" its way.

One major gripe I noticed immediately was its high reflectivity issues. We don’t yet have official numbers on the Sansui OLED, but brightness probably doesn’t get too high on this more value proposition — but stick to Tom’s Guide for a more thorough look into its performance metrics. Right from the outset, though, colors and HDR content look fantastic. It doesn’t have HDR10+ support, which is a slight drag, but the Sansui OLED TV still comes equipped with Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG.

A console gamer's dream?

When it comes to the best TVs for gaming there's not a whole lot of value options for OLED models. Sure, you can get the LG C4 OLED, which we list as our best 144Hz option, but you're paying $1,800 for that TV — $1,299 on discount.

Although it might just have two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which relegated to eARC, the Sansui OLED TV does have a 120Hz refresh rate that's perfect for PS5 and Xbox Series X gamers. At 144Hz, the C4 OLED is better for players wielding some of the best gaming PCs as you won't be hitting over 120Hz on a current gen console.

And after just a few hours of gaming on the Sansui OLED, I'm fairly impressed with its potential. Again, we don't have official input latency numbers — but I'm willing to bet they're better than some Sony OLED TVs, which often have high latency, like the Sony XR A95L OLED TV and its 16.1ms.

I played the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign and zombies on the Sansui OLED, plus a bit of Star Wars Outlaws and Silent Hill 2 Remake. It performed amazingly in each and while its issues with reflections are a tough sacrifice, I love its audio quality. You're still going to want one of the best soundbars, but its 40W output is nothing to sneeze at.

I know I already said the Panasonic Z95A OLED TV is one of the best TVs for the PS5 Pro, but if price is your biggest concern, here's an OLED TV that's exactly the same price as the new Sony console with a stand and disc drive. That's a full gaming set up for under $2,000 — and really the one complaint you might have is size.

Is this the new budget OLED TV to beat?

I've genuinely enjoyed my time with the Sansui OLED so far. That said, the LG B4 looks like the reigning champ of the budget OLED TV market and it's tough to beat.

Working against the Sansui OLED is that it tops out at 55-inch and it's unclear if it plans on making additional sizes in the future. I'd hope so as, personally, I'd love to see more competition in this value OLED space.

I'm holding off on forming my final opinions until after we get the final test data in from the labs. However, from what I've seen of it so far, I think the Sansui is a decent alternative to the LG's best budget OLED and one that I can't wait to test further.

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Ryan Epps is a Staff Writer under the TV/AV section at Tom's Guide focusing on TVs and projectors. When not researching PHOLEDs and writing about the next major innovation in the projector space, he's consuming random anime from the 90's, playing Dark Souls 3 again, or reading yet another Haruki Murakami novel.