Best cheap TVs 2024: affordable 4K televisions for under £500, recommended by our experts

On the hunt for a new TV, but can’t afford a flagship OLED? We’ve all been there. Thankfully, based on our experience testing TVs since the late 1970s, we can confirm it is possible to get a good TV without spending loads. The hard part is finding it. 

We have tested scores of cheap TVs, and the truth is many affordable sets still fail to deliver a watchable, let alone enjoyable home cinema experience. Common issues we encounter include terrible audio, overbaked colours that make actors look like cartoon characters, and atrocious black levels that make dark scenes look distinctly grey.

Here to help you find the diamond in the rough, we have created this guide detailing the best cheap TVs we’ve tested. You can get a detailed description of how we test cheap TVs at the bottom of this page. 

The short version is that every set we recommend has been checked by our team of experts to make sure it delivers the best film, sports and gaming experience possible for a set at its price. 

The quick list

The table below offers a quick look at all the cheap TVs we recommend in this article. Every TV in it has been thoroughly tested by our team of experts in one of What Hi-Fi?'s viewing rooms, so you can trust our advice. 

Written by

Written by

Tom Parsons

I have been reviewing TVs for nearly two decades. This gives me a holistic knowledge of the TV market, including cheaper sets. That’s why, where merited, you will often find me recommending more affordable TVs alongside flagship OLEDs. In this guide I and the wider What Hi-Fi? reviews team check each set in dedicated viewing rooms to ensure it delivers an enjoyable home cinema experience and the best performance possible at its price – so you can trust our buying advice. 

The best cheap TVs of 2024

Still need some convincing or more information? Scroll down and you'll see a detailed breakdown of why we recommend each TV in this list based on our direct experience using it in our dedicated test rooms.

Best overall

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The 50-inch version of the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED is the best cheap TV we have tested and the only product to earn a perfect five stars on this list.

Unboxing it in our test rooms, our reviewers were immediately impressed with the set, with Amazon having cut surprisingly few corners while keeping costs down.

The key selling point is undeniably its QLED panel. The panel uses Quantum Dot technology originally developed by Samsung. It aims to boost picture performance by passing light from the backlight through a layer of Quantum Dots, in a bid to boost colour accuracy and vibrancy.

During our tests, the screen didn’t match the performance of OLED sets in key areas, such as black level and contrast, but it still delivered an immersive home cinema experience that is a cut above all the similarly priced sets we’ve tested recently. 

Whether it was Dolby Vision performance watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, or when we tested peak brightness with Pan, the 55-inch Omni QLED delivered a balanced, consistent picture. This plus its inclusion of ALLM and VRR support for PS5 or Xbox Series X/S gamers led our testers to conclude:

“Budget TVs are hard to get right, but the 50-inch Omni QLED succeeds where others have failed thanks to a consistent, considered performance and impressive feature set.”

We are flagging the 50-inch model specifically, as we found it is the best performer in Amazon’s current fire range. 

The 50-inch model offered better shadow detail during dark scenes when we ran it against the larger 65-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED. 

The smaller 43-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED performed even worse against its 50-inch sibling. The smaller model suffers from a more pronounced lack of black depth and noticeably paler-looking colours.

So when shopping on Amazon, keep in mind we are specifically recommending the 50-inch model in this list for these reasons. 

Read the full Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED review

Alastair Stevenson

Buying a cheap TV is tricky as, while there are plenty to choose from, based on our experience most aren't good enough to deliver a decent home cinema experience. That's why so many of the recent affordable sets to pass through our viewing rooms have scored four or three stars. If the picture and sound on offer are so bad they actively distract you while watching movies, we can't recommend the TV, no matter how cheap it is. The Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED is a rare exception and the main TV I recommend to most buyers on a budget. I'd strongly urge you to consider it if you can't spend more than £500 and don't need a giant 55- or 65-inch set, as a result.

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Best 55-inch

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Samsung isn't the undisputed champ of cheap TVs that it once was, but the 55-inch CU8000 proves that the brand is still capable of producing the odd bargain television.

For starters, it doesn't look like a cheap TV, thanks largely to a super-slim (as in, 3cm), robust chassis. It's got the same app-packed Tizen operating system of Samsung's flagship TVs, too, as well as support for the HLG, HDR and HDR10+ formats of HDR.

Of course, there are no Quantum Dots here. Instead, the CU8000 has an LCD panel with edge LED backlighting, but despite the relative simplicity of its hardware, it puts in a solid performance for the money.

It delivers relatively deep blacks for a TV at this level, as well as surprisingly bright highlights without any significant clouding, and colours are punchy and vibrant but also nicely balanced. Other than some 'clipping' of detail in bright highlights and fairly limited viewing angles, the 55-inch CU8000 is a very solid picture performer for the money.

Sound is fairly crisp and clear but also a bit thin. It's well worth adding a soundbar if you can stretch to one. That's also the case with most premium TVs, though, so certainly not something we hold against the CU8000 unduly. All told, this is a very good TV for the money.

Read the full Samsung UE55CU8000 review

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Best super cheap

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The 43-inch Hisense A6KTUK is here to prove that you don't even need to pay £500 to get a decent TV. In fact, you can get one for less than half that.

While no super-stylish OLED, this Hisense doesn't look as cheap as it is. It's got some surprisingly up-market specs, too, such as direct LED backlighting and support for Dolby Vision (as well as HDR10 and HLG). It also features the full-fat VIDAA smart platform, which is packed with apps and pleasant to use.

Cheap LCD TVs often suffer from inconsistent backlighting that, in the worst cases, manifests in nasty blotches or 'clouds' (check out our review of the rival Samsung UE43CU8000 for an example of that). Not the Hisense A6K though, which is really even-handed – at least when viewed straight-on.

A TV this cheap is never going to be capable of going super-bright, and in fact there's not much of a brightness difference when you switch from SDR to HDR content, but there's decent overall contrast, thanks largely to the surprisingly deep blacks that the set can reproduce. Colours are balanced and realistic, too, and plenty of shadow detail is revealed.

Inevitably, the Hisense isn't perfect, and images go a bit soft when motion is involved. Viewing angles are limited, too, so when viewing off-axis some mild backlight inconsistencies become visible. Still, for the money, this is a good picture performance.

Add decent sound that balances clarity and spaciousness fairly effectively (though lacks loudness and weight), and you've got a better overall package than really anyone has any right to expect at this sort of price.

Read our Hisense 43A6KTUK review

Also consider

• LG B3: OLED TVs by their nature aren’t cheap – which is why there isn’t one on this list. But if you are determined to get one, the LG B3 is the cheapest model we have tested and can wholeheartedly recommend.
• TCL C745K: If you have a little extra budget and are willing to step up a price point then the TCL C745K is a fantastic entry-level, mid-range, Mini LED TV.

How we choose

Value for money is a key element we consider in our cheap TV buying advice. It holds more weight in this list than others on the site, given its focus on the affordable end of the TV market. We gauge this by comparing the TV with other sets in the same price bracket and creating a median gauge of what we expect it to deliver as a baseline in key areas.

Picture quality is the other main factor we consider, even when talking about cheap TVs. Though cheaper sets often come with performance compromises, including slightly grey black levels, less accurate colours and occasionally issues with backlight uniformity, we still expect them to offer a competitive, entertaining viewing experience.

Sound quality is another key area we check. TVs in general struggle to deliver audio on a par with a decent soundbar, let alone speaker system. If you see our best cheap soundbars guide you will see a selection of cost-effective options that can radically improve your movie watching experience, even when buying a cheap TV. But we still check every cheap TV’s speakers during our testing process, and expect them to deliver a listenable experience.

Features and gaming performance are the final big areas we check before recommending a cheap TV. First we check its app support to make sure it offers all the mainstream services most TV owners want – these include big name services such as Netflix as well as local streaming platforms, such as BBC iPlayer in our native UK. Then we look at connectivity, and gaming support. Most current-generation games consoles need an HDMI 2.1 connection to run all their features, so this is an important factor if you own a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S.

How we test

We test cheap TVs using a constantly evolving methodology we have spent over half a century developing. 

As in all our reviews, we always do comparative testing. This means we always review TVs directly against rivals and similarly priced sets we think readers would also be considering, in controlled conditions. This lets us make direct performance comparisons based on our real-world experience running the sets against one another. We never rely on our testers’ memories when making performance comparisons between cheap TVs.

To further ensure accuracy, every TV we review is looked at and tested by multiple members of staff. We never publish a cheap TV review without at least two members of the team having looked at it and compared notes.

Using this methodology we test picture quality by setting the TVs up side-by-side and splitting the signal using our reference AVR. We then test the picture at various qualities and HDR standards using an ever-evolving library of test 4K Blu-rays and shows/movies on streaming services. We update the specific titles used to ensure we reference the latest movies and TV shows people are watching at the time. 

We also tailor the movie choices to test specific aspects of the TV's picture quality. We may use a scene mastered at an atypically high nit count to check maximum brightness and contrast, for example. Similarly, we would then use a very dark scene to test shadow detail and black level.

We do the same when testing audio. For example, we would use a very bass-heavy scene with rhythmically complex audio to test a TV speaker’s low-end performance and to see if it is prone to common problems such as distortion – a problem we often encounter on cheap TVs that makes them sound horrible at even moderately high volumes.

We check app support by checking the TV’s store and running through a list of services we expect it to offer. We then install all the supported services and check that they run all the HDR standards, resolutions and audio formats they should.

To test gaming performance we test the TV with a current generation Xbox Series X plugged in. As well as checking support for things such as VRR, ALLM and HDR performance we also measure input lag. The latter is a key issue that impacts how reactive the TV is to incoming commands from a controller. 

Latest updates

• Updated 24th April 2024: Updated with new intro and Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED copy to reflect changes in the industry and reference our experience comparing the TVs to new models we've reviewed. How we test and how we choose sections updated to include minor revisions to our review processes.

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