Best TV brand 2022: who to consider when buying a new television

Knowing the best TV brands helps you whittle down that seemingly endless list of TV options. Not that it's hard to parse through the options and pick the very best, but knowing which brands are trustworthy and deliver great quality will save you time and headache when purchasing a new television.

Many big players, including market leader Samsung, are obvious shoo-ins, as they do make many of the best TVs on the market. However, there are also many mid-weight TV brands that are worth checking out. That's especially if you're looking for the best TVs under $500 in which Hisense or TCL dominate, rolling out cheap TVs with some key premium technologies snuck in.

Each TV maker has something about them that makes them a little better (and maybe a little worse) than the competition. Want one of the best OLED TVs, for example? LG, Sony, or Panasonic are the best TV brands for that, with the last two offering superior built-in audio features to deliver the best TVs for sound. 

So, depending on what you're after, this guide will help you find a TV brand that's ideal for you. Or, if you're not too picky, it should narrow down your list of options as well as steer you away from brands that do not deliver great quality. And, as we've tested many TVs over the years, we know exactly which brands to trust and which brands to skip.

We'll run you through all the best TV brands in 2022, and how their offerings tend to vary – from panel technologies and high dynamic range format support to more humdrum considerations like pricing, smart features and more. Naturally, we'll help you get the best TV deals from these brands as well.

The best TV brands 2022

Samsung is a TV brand you’ve almost certainly already heard of, given its position as the biggest seller of TVs worldwide – as well as all kinds of other tech products. The South Korean electronics manufacturer has a large user base for a reason – it offers a wide range of sets at a variety of price points, with a base level of quality above more budget brands. 

Samsung is also a big backer of LED/LCD TVs, with a wide range of mid-price 4K TVs that sees new models every year. It mainly sticks with quantum dot LED (or ‘QLED’) panels in its premium, high-contrast displays – with thousands of nits brightness making for dazzling output. 

While OLED TVs offer stiff competition, breakthroughs like Samsung’s Ultra Viewing Angle technology – and more forgiving pricing – are helping it keep the edge. For 2022, Samsung has made the jump into also offering OLED TVs – specifically a QD-OLED hybrid – that could see Samsung cement its dominance further.

Samsung is also pushing the adoption of 8K TVs, ensuring its flagship QLED each year uses the ultra-ultra-high resolution panel tech, even if the average shopper probably won’t have anything more than 4K in their sights for now.

Samsung is also the only TV manufacturer to have its own in-house voice assistant, Bixby. It isn’t particularly widely used beyond a handful of Samsung devices, unlike Amazon’s Alexa AI or Google Assistant, given Bixby’s lesser capabilities. However, you will find it installed in the best Samsung TVs to allow for voice recognition and navigation of Samsung’s Tizen interface. 

If your eye’s been caught by an OLED television, you can thank LG. The manufacturer makes OLED panels for both itself and competitors, and has enabled the resurgence in OLED years after interest in the technology was waning.

Does that mean LG makes the best OLEDs? Possibly. The LG CX OLED topped our best OLED TVs guide for a while until the company's 2021 range added a new 83-inch size and 42-inch models to go with it, allowing for a wider variety of budgets, sizes and consumer needs. For 2022, the latest LG C2 OLED is now our top OLED pick, and is also the top pick in our guide to the best TVs of 2022 overall.

Why go with an LG OLED? You'll be getting brilliantly vivid colors, strong contrast, gorgeously deep blacks, and LG’s leading webOS smart platform tying the whole experience together. LG sets also tend to have a bit more ‘pop’ to the colors, compared to the restrained tone mapping of sets sold by Panasonic.

LG doesn’t support HDR10+ like Samsung or Panasonic, but you’ll find plenty of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support across the best LG TVs.

Check out our LG promo codes to get the best deal on your next purchase.

Hisense is a name you’ll be hearing a lot if you’re after a bargain TV. The budget TV brand offers premium technologies like 4K/HDR and quantum dots for a decent cut below what you’d usually pay, making the TVs of tomorrow far more accessible for hordes of people. For 2022, it also plans to release Mini-LED models.

Processing issues aren’t uncommon with Hisense sets that don’t quite have the power to maintain smooth images, or the dedicated dimming zones to prevent light blooming – and whether you go with a Hisense TV will depend on how important those visual artefacts are. Some half-baked features in Hisense's Vidaa U smart TV platform, too, show what happens when you cut corners while trying to create a premium experience.

But there’s no denying the sheer value of many Hisense TVs, while the brand has also branched out with some television designs that really push the envelope – like the ultra-thin Sonic One or its L9G Tri-Chroma Laser TV projectors–among the first projectors to offer Dolby Vision HDR. There's also now another OLED TV, the Hisense A9G, which offers a cheap and capable screen above what its predecessor (the O8B OLED) was capable of. 

Heard of TCL? You should have – with around 10% share of the global TV market, this Chinese electronics manufacturer has stormed into our homes over the past few years and sits just behind Samsung and LG in terms of scale.

Like Hisense, it specializes in low-cost televisions, hoping to bring an equivalent picture of more expensive mid-range sets while cutting corners in the right places. The processing and picture quality may take a hit, but not nearly as much as you'd think – and for what you get at the price point it's hard to complain much.

TCL’s most out-there TV designs tend to be reserved for its home turf in China, but its 5-Series and 6-Series TVs in the US are some of the best you can get on a budget, especially with the Roku smart TV platform in so many of its sets. 2021 saw the arrival of the cheapest 8K TV ever made, too.

It's not quite as big in the UK, though the introduction of the C71 and C81 QLEDs in 2020 increased its presence there.

Sony makes some truly breathtaking TVs, with sets like the A90J and new-for-2022 A80K OLED models delivering great picture quality with stunning design to match.

Possibly to be expected from a brand so involved with music – through, you know, Sony Music – these sets really deliver on audio technology. High-end sets feature Sony’s proprietary Acoustic Surface Audio+, which uses strategically placed drivers to emit sound from the TV panel itself, rather than through downward, rear, or upward-firing speakers, and they have built-in woofers for extended bass.

The direction of the audio is tricky when the visuals need to be front and centre, and while other TV brands have figured out some workarounds – such as the TV stand on the LG C Series, which funnels downward-firing audio towards the viewer – Sony definitely has a unique solution.

Like Samsung, Sony has made the leap in 2022 to selling hybrid QD-OLED sets. These hold the promise of even-better brightness than its latest OLED models, along with an enhanced color range and even wider viewing angle than what current OLED tech offers.

Angling after a Panasonic TV? While this Japanese brand doesn’t sell commercial sets in the North America – or Australia these days – its incredible JZ2000 TV is used as a monitor for professional Hollywood colorists, given its high-contrast output and custom OLED panel. It’s really that good – which it's why it's currently on our list of the best TVs of 2022 – and speaks to the cinematic quality of Panasonic’s displays and the power of its HCX Pro Intelligent processor.

For those in the UK, Europe or Canada, though, Panasonic sets offer a huge array of advantages, from their accurate color mapping to extremely wide HDR format support – including HLG (hybrid log gamma) broadcasts, and both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision dynamic HDR, even on mid-range LED sets like the Panasonic HX800.

Panasonic's OLEDs are also unique in their focus on cinematic sound, with the range scaling up in price as the Dolby Atmos speaker system increases from a reasonable 30W to a massive 140W system – that will probably require 2-3 people to safely lift onto a counter at home. Panasonic’s hand in camera manufacturing also led to the introduction of an HLG Photo Mode on new Panasonic TVs, giving budding photographers a way to see their images in HDR quality up on a TV screen.

Another TV brand that isn’t licensed to sell its sets in the US – but Philips has plenty to recommend it. Its high-end OLED TVs focus a lot on sound quality, with Bowers & Wilkins powering built-in soundbars in its premium sets – and support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision meaning Philips’ premium sets don’t slack in the HDR department either.

But possibly the most unique thing to Philips TVs is their Ambilight technology, which projects onscreen colors onto the wall behind the television when in use. It may not change what’s happening in your favorite TV shows, but boy is it immersive – with sets that use three-sided or four-sided Ambilight depending on how fancy you go.

Our top-recommended Ambilight TV is currently the Philips OLED 806, which we called "a good-looking, well-made OLED TV with an absolute stack of functionality, a unique selling point and periodically splendid picture quality. And it’s done all this for a real-world price."

Get the best deal on Philips products with our Philips coupon codes.

Vizio is a brand that’s enjoyed great popularity in the US due to its wide range of TVs in terms of screen size, features and prices. The company’s P-Series Quantum X models are its top TK offerings, and they pack all of the high-performance features you’d expect from a flagship TV. Stepping down, there are the P-series, M-series, and V-series 4K models, followed by budget sets that are limited to regular HD resolution.

Vizio also sells OLED TVs in 65- and 55-inch screen sizes that, in keeping with the company’s value-oriented ethos, are priced below OLED TVs from LG and Samsung. The latest Vizio TVs are its MQX-series. These sets are endowed with a wide range of gaming-friendly features such as 120 Hz display, VRR, and ALLM. They are also very affordably priced for what you get.

Depending on where you shop, you’re likely to see some different logos on your television. Polaroid (UK or US) and Sceptre (US) are two TV brands you’ll find on sale in supermarkets such as Walmart or Asda, offering television displays at a truly minimal price. 

You won’t get the picture performance of most brands on this list – you get what you paid for – but their low price and ability to be put in a shopping cart along with your groceries naturally translate to strong sales. Be wary of any of these sets that promise high-end features like Dolby Vision HDR, though, as the processing is often not advanced enough to really deploy them as intended. For cheap and low-resolution small TVs, however, it’s definitely an option – with some Ultra HD models like the Polaroid 4K TV being surprisingly capable for the price.