The best 65-inch TVs are the middle ground of the TV world, which is something I never thought I'd say. With screens now reaching over 100 inches, 65-inch TVs are the place where you get the best bang for your buck. It's the screen size that gets the best performance per dollar, and it's the right size for most living rooms.
So what should you look for when buying a new 65-inch TV? When we're testing them in our labs, our reviewers look for ones that come with HDR support, 4K resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, at least two HDMI 2.1 ports, Wide Color Gamut and VRR. We then run tests that measure the TVs' color accuracy and peak brightness, as well as their overall color saturation and input latency.
The results are recorded here on this page for our readers so you can make the best possible decisions when buying a new TV.
That being said, our top recommendation at the moment is the Hisense U8K Mini-LED that is, frankly, undercosted for its performance. It delivers exceptional brightness, color saturation, and contrast for around half of what you'd pay for a comparable Samsung, LG or Sony TVs you'll find lower on the list. Each model on our list is a good fit for someone, though, so be sure to read through the full guide before making a decision.
The Hisense U8K holds the top spot on a number of our lists, including the best TVs overall, for good reason. It's a Mini-LED TV with incredible contrast and peak brightness, plus it delivers wide color gamut (the highest of any TV outside of the Sony A95L OLED down below) for under $900 after some recent discounts.
In terms of specs, the U8K is rocking two HDMI 2.1 ports that support 4K/144Hz gameplay and two more HDMI 2.0 ports that will work for streaming devices like the Apple TV 4K or a 4K Blu-ray player, as well as support for Dolby Vision IQ that will automatically adjust the picture when it detects changes in ambient brightness. It also comes with an ATSC 3.0 tuner for NEXTGEN TV support.
In our lab testing, the Hisense U8K crushed pretty much every single metric. For color saturation, the U8K covered groundbreaking 80% of the Rec2020 Color Space, and reached a peak brightness of over 2,000 nits. It had slightly higher input lag than we'd like to see (13.2ms) but it was still very much under the 20ms needed for smooth gameplay. Finally, its color accuracy out of the box wasn't the best of any TV, but that's fixable with a few tweaks.
If you want an affordable, well-rounded 65-inch TV, the U8K is our top pick.
The 65-inch Samsung S95C elevates OLED technology to a new level. You know you're going to get the best black levels. You know it's going to give you the best contrast. You know it's going to offer some of the best color saturation and color accuracy out of the box. But now you can add better brightness to the list as well.
The Samsung S95C OLED is a new breed of QD-OLED TVs, a combination of quantum dot and OLED that take the best of both worlds. In our lab tests, the S95C was able to reproduce about 141.5% of the Rec 709 color space in standard mode. That's not quite as impressive as the Hisense's 80% of Rec2020, but still exceptional. In terms of color accuracy, the S95C is almost dead-on with a Delta-E accuracy score of 1.4 (with closer to 0 being best) in Filmmaker mode.
At the 65-inch screen size, the S95C is a really exceptional TV with a lot of great features and strong performance, and was one of the top-scoring TVs of 2023.
If you do a lot of digging around other sites, you'll see them recommending the TCL QM8 as the best 65-inch TV. And while we agree that it's one of the top TVs, the U8K has a few more advantages going for it, including the ATSC 3.0 tuner, better sound quality and more consistent picture quality. That's not to say the QM8 is a bad TV, because at this price point it's a steal, it's just up against some tough competition.
So why is it #3 on the list? In our tests, the QM8 delivered incredible results. In 5%, 10% and even 25% window sizes the QM8 could hit over 2,000 nits of peak brightness. It can cover around 80% of the Rec 2020 color space. And it comes with two HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K/120Hz gameplay. It's a very similar TV to the Hisense U8K in pretty much every metric, even the not-so-good ones. Like the U8K, the QM8 had an out-the-box Delta E score of 4.4614, which means you'll have to do some tweaking.
Again, nothing's a deal breaker here, and if you want an alternative to the U8K made by TCL, the QM8 is a very solid second choice.
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