The Best 8K TVs for 2020

The best 8K TVs for 2020

If you're looking to spice up your TV and movie watching experience in 2020, then getting one of the best 8K TVs is a great way to do it. These TVs sport some of the latest technologies to deliver the most detailed pictures ever available to mainstream TV viewers and come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and budgets, offering a wide range of options to the discerning 8K TV buyer.

8K technology is still new, though, which means that some of the best 8K TVs are expensive, others lack certain features, and some just aren't quite ready for prime time. Here's how to sort the wheat from the chaff to find a great 8K TV for the right price.

The best Samsung 8K TVs

Samsung is one of the world's most popular TV manufacturers, and it's at the forefront of developing 8K TV technology. While early Samsung QLED 8K designs did not support top-of-the-line bandwidth features and standards, the latest models are as fully featured as you can get in 2020.

The new for 2020, Q900TS is an astounding Samsung QLED 8K TV, sporting everything you could want in a new-generation television. It's available from $5,000 at 65-inches and goes up to 85-inches if you have space and budget for it. But whichever size you pick, its edge-to-edge viewing design means that there's barely a bezel to be seen; just an amazing picture.

As well as supporting native 8K content, it can upscale existing 1080p and 4K movies, TV shows, and games to look that bit crisper using Samsung's AI engine. It also enjoys support for visual features like Quantum HDR 32x, 100% of various color gamuts using quantum dot technology, and up to 120Hz refresh rate for improved smoothness when gaming.

Both it and the slightly-higher-end Q950TS support HDMI 2.1 to handle native 8K streams, though they also support older HDMI cables and standards, should you be more interested in lower resolutions while 8K content becomes more readily available.

Thanks to an external set-top box with all additional connections, the Q950TS remains sleek and lean, even in its cabling. That lets you hide away any Cable Matters HDMI cables from connected devices for a cleaner look when wall-mounted or when using its attractive stand.

Best LG 8K TVs

LG is another major TV manufacturer that has been testing the waters with 8K televisions in recent years, and 2020 could be the year it really doubles down on that investment. Its best 8K TV right now is the LG ZX Signature OLED TV. Winner of a variety of awards at this year's CES show when it was first unveiled, it's a monstrously expensive TV, but one that gets you as close to the pinnacle of visual entertainment as you can get.

The OLED panel gives it amazingly deep blacks for fantastic contrast across its full 8K resolution panel, with excellent viewing angles, and support for a super wide color gamut. It supports a variety of 8K codecs for various streaming options, all handled over Wi-Fi 5, or the local HDMI 2.1 connection.

If you can't find the content you want to enjoy on it in 8K, there's an excellent built-in machine learning processor for intelligent upscaling, and gamers can benefit from its Nvidia G-sync technology for a gaming experience that's free of screen tearing and stuttering.

The cheaper LG NanoCell 99 Series set is a great alternative too and was part of the first wave of LG HDMI 2.1- equipped TVs. It does lack HDR10+ support, though, and its inability to wall mount could be a turn off for those who want to keep this still-expensive display away from kids and pets. Its HDMI 2.1 connection is fast enough for 8K but doesn't have quite the full 48Gbps bandwidth of the ZX model.

This 8K TV price is around $20,000 for the larger models, so it may be better to opt for the newer ZX at a comparable cost, but the Z9 does at least offer an alternative for LG 8K TVs.

Best Sony 8K TVs

There is no extensive line of Sony 8K TVs as there is with Samsung 8K ranges or even LG's alternatives, but Sony does still have a great 8K TV in the ZG9 Master Series full array LED TV. It has all the usual bells and whistles of an 8K TV, including fantastic viewing angles, and excellent color support, but its HDR is otherworldly. With a peak brightness of 3,600 nits, this TV can light up a room like nothing else when the explosions start blowing, making this an amazing TV for bombastic movie nights in a darkened room.

That works well even in older SDR content too, with the fantastic X1 Ultimate processor's ability to not only upscale content to higher resolutions but inject HDR-like bright and dark spots for added contrast and realism.

It does only have one HDMI 2.1 port (and you'll want the latest firmware update to make sure it's running at peak speed) but an HDMI 2.1 splitter or hub could alleviate that problem.

At under $8,000, it's one of the lower 8K TV prices for a set this size, too.

If you feel you can get away with HDMI 2.0, then the older Sony Bravia KD85ZG9BU is another good Sony 8K TV worth considering. It can be found for as much as $1,000 less, and it comes in the same monstrous sizes, with all the same great color support, and even gets a little brighter at 3,700 nits peak brightness.

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