Best TV brands to consider this Black Friday or Cyber Monday

Panasonic led tv If you’re buying a new television, chances are you’ll be looking for a certain TV brand over the others. But which really is the best TV brand, and should be looking further afield?

It’s easy to grow accustomed to the kind of TV you’ve used before, especially given the way that different makes vary in their smart TV platforms, format support, audio capability, and the underlying panel technology within the display.

There are also large market forces determining which TV brands are available in your local retail stores, shown to you in online advertisements, or just sound vaguely familiar when you’re in the throes of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.

But if you want to make sense of which TV brand is which, and the important differences between them, here’s our definitive list of the major players and their distinct offerings.
Provided by Future Publishing Ltd.&#; Best TV &#; Samsung: great all-rounder TV brand
Samsung is a TV brand you’ve almost certainly already heard of, given its position as the biggest seller of TVs worldwide.

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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 K TVs that sees new models every year.

Unlike some of its competitors, too, Samsung doesn’t make the jump to OLED for its high-end sets, sticking 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, while plans for QD-OLED hybrids could see Samsung cement its dominance further.

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

Samsung is also the only TV manufacturer to have their 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 fewer capabilities. However, you will find it installed in high-end Samsung TVs to allow for voice recognition and navigation of Samsung’s Tizen interface.

Provided by Future Publishing Ltd.&#; Panasonic TH-GZ&#; Panasonic: a truly cinematic TV brand

Angling after a Panasonic TV? While this Japanese brand doesn’t sell commercial sets in North America, its incredible GZ TV is used as a monitor for professional Hollywood colorists, given its high-contrast output and custom OLED panel. It’s really that good 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 Australia, 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 HDR+ and Dolby Vision dynamic HDR, even on mid-range LED sets like the Panasonic GX.

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.

Provided by Future Publishing Ltd.&#; LG C OLED K TV&#; LG Electronics: an OLED TV cheerleader

If your eyes’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 C OLED is in first place on our best OLED TV guide, with the ‘floating’ glass display of the LG E not far behind. That’s thanks to brilliantly vivid colors, sharp 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 HDR+ like Samsung or Panasonic, but you’ll find plenty of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support across its high-end TVs.