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While Black Friday and Cyber Monday TV deals are months away, that doesn’t mean you can’t score a top-rated TV without breaking the bank. In fact, there are a slew of entry-level and wallet-friendly smart 4K TVs on the market priced under $600 that perform almost just as well as their $1,000+ peers. We tried two economy-priced 4K smart TVs from TCL and Hisense, so you don’t have to. Read ahead to see our thoughts on each and find out why it’s no longer necessary to shell out $1,000 for a top-tier smart TV.
TCL has brought some high-tech features to the beginner-to-mid-range 4K TV game. Its Q7-series models allow you to immerse yourself in total high-definition while enjoying a slew of high-end features on par with more premium TVs. I searched high and low for a TV that made the most sense for my space and ultimately landed on this model because of its overall value.
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Picture and Sound Quality
Right off the bat, what is most noticeable about this TV is the outstanding picture quality. The sleek and slender design of this Q7 TV does not sacrifice the HDR performance in the slightest. A key feature that I found out after I got the TV was its ability to upscale the pixels in older TV shows and movies. It gives an incredibly high-definition picture in post-production of this content that we grew up watching on rounded-out CRT screens.
When I was searching for what I wanted in a TV, gaming features were at the top of my list. The Q7 comes fully equipped for the gamer in mind with 4K Ultra HD resolution that supports up to 144Hz panel refresh rate and an auto-game mode that detects when I switch to my gaming console. The four HDMI ports allow me to have more than one gaming system hooked up (because who just needs the one?) and an eARC HDMI port for an optimized audio connection with my soundbar. It brings together a beautiful picture with excellent sound quality that I never imagined I’d have in my home. Not to mention, it comes standard with Dolby Atmos to give a concert-hall experience in your living room.
Operating System
My last TV was a TCL Roku TV, and I have to say, switching over to a Google TV feels like a major upgrade. The TCL Q7 comes equipped with Hands-Free Google Assistant, which instantly lends points for ease of use. Simply pick up the remote and say, “Play Led Zepplin radio on Spotify” or “Search YouTube for Best of Drew Barrymore Show highlights,” and boom, it plays! Plus, it also works with Android casting, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Airplay, so you can stream content directly to the TV with ease.
Cons
Overall, most of the premium features listed are great, and for the cost, this TV is hard to beat. However, I do feel some of the offered features aren’t perfectly situated. The upscaling and Dolby Vision are great at times (almost all the time), but occasionally, it can display this soap opera lighting effect on non-HD content (aka Motion Interpolation).
Now, this is a matter of personal preference, so I can’t say I hate it because I don’t—but I can imagine that it doesn’t serve everyone. Also, this may be my experience, but the remote itself is highly sensitive—I’m talking a-feather-from-the-couch-pillow-touching-it light, and suddenly, we are on the home screen again. Is this a deal breaker for me? Absolutely not. I have to be more careful than just throwing the remote down after scrolling through four streaming apps to only pick something I’ve watched already sixteen times.
Overall, I am pleased with this TV and would recommend it to a friend who was in the market for a new one.
— Reid Webb
Despite being a frequent TV and movie watcher, I’m not really a tech fanatic or someone who continually upgrades to the newest, sharpest, thinnest, biggest (or smallest, as the case may be), or fastest appliance. My refrigerator doesn’t connect to the Internet, my blender is ‘dumb,’ and I haven’t bought a new TV in about ten years.
It’s this last fact regarding my almost decade-old 42-inch TV of an unknown brand that made me curious about a potential upgrade. Even just since the manufacture of this contextually ancient but still unblemished old TV (2014), there have been major advances in TV technology. Without getting lost in the weeds of color in bits per pixel (bpp), refresh rates, and different connectivity standards and features, it was pretty clear that although my TV still turned on and off and didn’t have any dead spots or non-functioning ports, I had recently started to wonder why every TV I saw at my friends’ places seemed so much more captivating than mine. Unwilling to spend a fortune on a TV, I landed on the Hisense 55-inch Class U7 Series 4K UHD Smart Google TV, and now I can’t imagine ever returning to that postage stamp of a TV ever again.
Picture and Sound Quality
Hisense’s FFM line of SmartTVs comes in a range of sizes and with a whole host of unique features at a fantastic price point while garnering a consistent smattering of positive, value-conscious reviews. While its image projection technology may not be breaking boundaries of time and space or winning awards in screen-tech innovation, the quality Hisense’s line of televisions brings into your living room is impressive—especially for the price. Even at the setup menu, the responsiveness and bright beauty of the LED-powered UHD screen were apparent.
The TV color presents brilliant images, and the LED and UHD technology onboard make the picture sharp and clear, with a visible reduction in blurred lines, distortion, and discoloration, allowing for a ‘truer-to-life’ effect. This TV is also equipped with Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10 technology, which yields vivid image quality and an immersive sound experience. Although I haven’t stayed current with the most updated tech, I do consider myself somewhat of a discriminating audio-sensitive consumer. When using my TV for listening to music through Spotify or YouTube, I had previously used the optical out connection of my old TV to connect it to my larger and much better sound system because its native speakers were awful, and I didn’t want to buy a soundbar for a TV hanging directly above my nice stereo system. With Hisense’s DTS audio technology, I’ve virtually forgotten the two are even connected. Even on its own with no soundbar or dedicated subwoofer, music, film scores, TV themes, and everything in between sound sufficiently loud and rich.
Many Hisense models also have a feature I’ve fallen in love with: Filmmaker Mode for reproducing movie content as the director intended. Many modern TVs are too ‘smart’ for their own good: they will cram a bunch of proprietary video processing and effects, but many times, this is achieved by things like frame or motion smoothing to give the appearance of smoothness. Unfortunately, these features oftentimes actually end up distorting, changing, and altering the images as they were intended to be shown by the producers, directors, etc. Filmmaker mode uses metadata from the content (when available) to set the color, frame rate, aspect ratio, and contrast of the unit to match those specified by the content creators. By turning off all these other bells and whistles, Filmmaker Mode will let you see everything as it was intended.
Operating System
As a Google TV and Chromecast dongle user previously, I was already accustomed to the Google TV experience, which serves as the ‘Home’ and primary OS/interface for this line of Hisense models. The Google TV platform on the Hisense TV was easier and smoother than ever, running natively on the Hisense unit rather than all from the Google Chromecast dongle, with the additional benefits of not having multiple remotes anymore and freeing up an HDMI port.
Cons
Although the Hisense model is the best TV I’ve ever owned, there are always some particulars that can’t satisfy everyone: for example, I don’t see the necessity of a dedicated Disney+ button featuring the service’s logo (same for Tubi). But these slight idiosyncrasies aside, the Hisense stakes out a strong claim to being the best ‘budget’ 4K LED UHD TV on the market today.
— Mia Maguire
Overall, if you’re looking for a premium smart TV with upgraded features on par with prestige models from brands like Samsung and LG but don’t want to shell out over a grand, it turns out you really don’t have to.
