With all of this year’s big TV models now out in Australia, we’ve compared the best of the best to help you decide what should go in your living room.
Buying a new TV can be confusing, with all manner of acronyms and buzzwords to decipher. Using our tips, you’ll know exactly what to look for when visiting the shops. Keen for a big summer of sports viewing? We’ve also got a handy guide on how to choose a great TV for sports.
GadgetGuy tests the locally available TV models in Australia, meaning we review what you can buy off the shelf. Sometimes, TVs share similar model numbers to overseas products which can confuse when reading reviews from international publications. Differences between Australian and international TVs can be subtle or drastically different. That’s why it’s so important to test and provide local information so you can make an informed decision.
These are the TVs we’ve tested and recommend across different categories and budgets. An OLED doesn’t always suit everyone’s needs, for example, so a Mini LED might be a better choice. Read on for a glossary of common TV technologies, including OLED, Mini LED, and LED, to help you find the best TV available in Australia.
Best TV in Australia
- Best overall
- Best OLED
- Best Mini LED
- Best value TV
- OLED vs Mini LED vs LED: which TV should you choose?
Overall best TV in Australia: LG G4 OLED
Price: from $3,695 via JB Hi-Fi
OLED is king when it comes to colour accuracy, viewing angle, and light control, so it makes perfect sense that our pick for the best TV in Australia is the LG G4 OLED. You could throw every superlative under the sun at this TV and it still wouldn’t do it justice.
LG’s cheaper OLED TVs, the B4 and C4, are also excellent, but the G4 is the TV you choose when money is no object. It produces a stunning picture, no matter the source. OLED means it illuminates every image on a per-pixel basis, so cast any fears of blooming or light bleed far from your mind.
Speaking of casting, LG made the positive move earlier this year to add built-in Chromecast functionality to its TVs. Previously, the brand only supported Apple AirPlay natively, so now its TVs let you easily cast videos from your phone or tablet, no matter the brand.
Every year, LG increases the peak brightness of its OLED TVs, especially the premium G4 model. As good as OLED is, it’s not quite as bright as other technologies. This means you might not get the best possible experience in a bright room. However, the LG G4 OLED cranks the brightness up further with its improved Evo panel, stepping out from the shadows, quite literally.
Four HDMI 2.1 ports make it easy to connect your gaming devices, a soundbar, and anything else you want regular access to. Movies, TV shows, sports, video games, you name it; everything looks great on the LG G4 OLED.
Unless your living room basks in an unholy amount of light more often than not, the LG G4 OLED is the best TV you can buy in Australia. If glare and reflections are a major concern, consider choosing a Mini LED instead. Otherwise, this TV gives you the full cinematic experience as the director intended.
Best OLED TV alternative in Australia: Samsung S95D
Price: from $3,999 via Samsung’s website
Yes, the LG G4 is an excellent OLED TV. However, if glare is a concern, Samsung has an alternative in the form of the S95D OLED. It stands out due to its use of a specially designed anti-glare coating made for daytime viewing.
While most TVs come with a glossy finish that catches reflections, the S95D’s matte-like coating is one of the most impressive solutions we’ve seen. Samsung also uses a QD-OLED hybrid technology that helps push brightness levels higher.
The result is an alternative to traditional OLED that reduces the impact of reflections while retaining many of OLED’s benefits. Whether you like the look of the anti-glare coating is a matter of personal preference. Either way, it’s an impressive step forward for TV technology.
Best Mini LED TV: Samsung QN900D
Price: from $6,495 via JB Hi-Fi
Read the Samsung QN900D TV review
Unsurprisingly, the best Mini LED TV in Australia based on our testing is the sequel to last year’s brilliant Samsung QN900C. The 2024 model, the Samsung QN900D is a beautiful TV in all aspects. Like its predecessor, it’s bright and colourful, with an unparalleled level of light control in the world of Mini LEDs.
Let’s get one thing out of the way early: this is an expensive 8K TV. There’s not much native 8K content available, so where does this TV fit? With the QN900D, Samsung has taken its AI upscaling up a notch, so 4K, Full HD, and even standard definition footage look excellent. This TV even avoids the ugly oversharpened look many lesser TV processors manage to conjure up.
Improvements to the QN900D’s dimming zones further close the gap between Mini LED and OLED TVs. Even though OLED takes the win on pixel-perfect precision, Samsung’s TV gets impressively close. Its main weapon is maximum brightness; you can comfortably watch the QN900D right next to an open window and not worry about natural light impacting your view.
Because this TV excels in so many areas, it’s easy to overlook its gaming credentials. With four HDMI 2.1 ports and a refresh rate reaching 240Hz, the QN900D is ready for the latest video games. Impressively, it’s also a top-tier sports TV, even when streaming matches at a less-than-ideal bitrate. Samsung’s processing helps smooth out the action, removing the juddering effect you might notice on cheaper TVs.
If you’ve got the budget and a bright living room in need of a premium TV, the Samsung QN900D is our pick for the best Mini LED.
Best value TV: TCL C855
Price: from $1,995 via JB Hi-Fi
In terms of picture quality, features, and sheer versatility, it’s tough to look past the TCL C855. TCL’s mid-range Mini LED is super bright, reaching more than 3,000 nits at its peak, so it’s great at tackling glare during the day. You can also find the C855 for less than $2,000 during sales, making it the best TV in Australia in terms of value.
Cross-platform compatibility is one of the C855’s biggest strengths. With the Google TV operating system installed, it supports a huge range of streaming apps, giving you plenty of viewing options. In the event you can’t find an app on the TV, the TCL C855 supports both Apple AirPlay and Chromecast without the need for an external dongle. It makes casting videos or photos from an iPhone or an Android handset effortlessly easy.
With a 144Hz panel, the TCL C855 excels as a well-priced gaming TV. Regardless of genre, picture details look crisp while the motion stays smooth. Game consoles that support high refresh rates, like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, are right at home here. The only drawback is that the C855 only has two HDMI 2.1 ports, so you might need to juggle devices if you also want to connect a gaming PC, for example.
Its colours also look deep and vibrant, making the visuals pop from the screen. The factory default settings skew a little too vivid, which is fairly common, but it’s nothing a bit of manual tinkering can’t fix.
Blooming isn’t too much of an issue with the TCL C855 thanks to its decent light control. Roughly 1,300 dimming zones keep a lid on any unwanted halo effects, although it can get a little too aggressive at times. Subtitles occasionally fade at the edges against dark backgrounds, so it’s not quite as precise as an OLED TV.
At this price, however, it’s extremely good value.
Honourable mention: Hisense U8NAU
A close runner-up, the Hisense U8NAU is almost on par with the TCL C855 in every way. Compared head-to-head, Hisense’s mid-range Mini LED TV is slightly dimmer and has marginally fewer dimming zones. Otherwise, it offers a similar set of features, including a 144Hz panel replete with gaming-centric features.
It pairs nicely with Apple devices too, supporting built-in Apple AirPlay connectivity. TCL claims the advantage here because it also supports Chromecast for Android devices as part of its Google TV operating system. Meanwhile, the Hisense U8NAU adopts the bespoke VIDAA platform which works well with a bunch of apps, but isn’t quite as open a platform as Google TV.
Both TVs are great though, so it’s mainly a question of which one you can find for the cheapest. If your budget doesn’t quite stretch this far, consider either the Hisense U7NAU or the TCL C755. Both models have similar features, albeit with fewer dimming zones
OLED vs Mini LED vs LED: which TV to choose?
With so many buzzwords, acronyms, and tech-heavy jargon to sift through, choosing a TV isn’t easy. One of the biggest points of difference to look out for is a panel’s backlight technology. To help demystify things a bit, let’s explain three of the most prominent TV technologies currently available.
Starting with LED, or light emitting diode, TVs with this type of backlight tend to be the most affordable. They’re cheaper to manufacture and therefore get used in most entry-level models.
There tends to be two main types of LED TVs: edge-lit, and full-array. Edge-lit, as the phrase suggests, sees the LED backlights positioned around the edges of the display.
TVs like the LG QNED81 use this technology, which helps keep the cost down. It does mean you encounter blooming, where a halo-like effect appears around a bright subject against a dark background. Meanwhile, full-array LEDs are spread more evenly across the panel, producing a more consistently lit picture.
Mini LED
Mini LED is the next step up, and is currently the brightest mass-market TV technology. These TVs use thousands of rice-grain-sized backlights to produce an image. This creates a greater level of control based on the number of dimming zones a panel has.
Generally speaking, the more premium a TV is, the more dimming zones it’ll have, minimising blooming in the process. Mini LED’s brightness makes it the perfect option for living rooms with lots of natural light and glare, particularly during daytime viewing.
OLED
At the top end is OLED, short for organic light emitting diode. Unlike other technologies, OLED doesn’t rely on dimming zones or individual backlights. This is because it lights up on a per-pixel basis, producing the most precise image of any mainstream TV. There’s little to no blooming on an OLED TV because it can switch pixels on and off as needed.
The drawback is that OLED is more expensive than other types of TVs. It’s also not as bright as Mini LED, which can make things tricky in a well-lit room. Once upon a time, there were fears about OLED burn-in, or image retention issues, where visible image artifacts remained on the screen after prolonged use. These days, the technology has progressed to imperceptibly shift the lit pixels regularly, so it’s only a risk in extreme edge cases.
OLED TVs also consistently have the best contrast, colour representation, and viewing angle. If you want to watch something as the director intended, you’ll likely get the closest depiction on an OLED. On some other TVs, if you miss out on the best seat and watch from an angle, you’ll likely notice a loss of colour and distorted lighting. OLED, on the other, hand produces an almost identical picture no matter where you’re sitting.
With all that in mind, there’s no ‘correct’ TV to choose. Each one has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. Above all else, the two most important things to consider are price and what your main use will be. Keep these factors in mind and you’ll be happy with whichever TV you pick.
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