Best Affordable TV: Most big TV companies focus on making the best top-of-the-line TVs, and they’re starting to move away from making cheap TVs for people just starting out. Some companies still make them, and you can find a decent 4k TV for less than $300, but it won’t have many features and the picture quality won’t be great, and it will probably be smaller. These are good as second TVs in bedrooms or kitchens, but they aren’t the best for watching 4K movies or playing games on your main TV.
Here are our top selections for the greatest TVs you can buy for less than $300 after we purchased and evaluated more than 380 different models. Check out our picks for the best smart TVs, best budget TVs, and best Televisions under $500 if you have a little extra money to spend. Vote for the models you want us to purchase and test first as the majority of brands will shortly begin publishing their 2023 lineups. To find out more about the new models, see our page on the 2023 TV lineup.
Best TV Under $300
1. TCL 4 Series/S455 2022
The best TV for less than $300 is the TCL 4 Series/S455 2022. The 43-inch and 50-inch models cost less than $300, and if you want something bigger, the 55-inch doesn’t cost that much more. Overall, it’s a good TV with a great picture that looks great in a dark room thanks to its high contrast ratio and amazing black uniformity. There’s no blooming around bright parts of the screen, which can be distracting. It does a good job of handling reflections, so if you have a few windows or lights on, it can also handle a bit of glare, but it’s not very bright.
It uses the Roku OS smart interface, which has a wide range of streaming channels, many of which are free, so it’s easy to find your favourite shows. It even supports HDR, but as you might expect from a cheap TV, HDR doesn’t add anything and most content won’t look better than SDR even if it does.
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Decent reflection handling.
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Incredibly low input lag.
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Displays chroma 4:4:4 properly for clear text.
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Low peak brightness.
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Colors aren’t displayed properly, even after calibration.
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Distracting dirty screen effect.
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Best Gaming TV For Under $300
2. Hisense A6H
The Hisense A6H is one of the best TVs for gaming that you can get for less than $300. At this price, you can get either the 43-inch or 50-inch model. Like the TCL 4 Series/S455 2022, the 55-inch is just a bit more expensive if you’re willing to go a little over budget. It has a lower picture quality than the TCL, but it has a lot of good gaming features, like the ability to change the refresh rate to stop the screen from tearing.
It comes with the most recent version of the Google TV interface, which has new features to make it easier to use than older versions. It has the same app store, and the mic for voice control is built into the remote. The picture quality isn’t the best because it has a low peak brightness. This makes it less good in rooms with a lot of light, but better in rooms with less light. It has no trouble scaling up lower-resolution content, and the accuracy right out of the box is great.
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Image doesn’t degrade significantly at an angle.
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Low input lag.
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Clear text is rendered with chroma 4:4:4.
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Relatively slow response time
Best Kitchen TV Under $300
3. TCL 32S327
A 32-inch TV like the TCL 32S327 is a good choice if you want a small TV for a kitchen or guest bedroom. The S327 model has a resolution of 1080p, but make sure you get that model and not the S325 model, which has a lower resolution of 720p. It’s a good TV for streaming because it has Roku TV built in. Roku TV has a lot of apps you can download, so you won’t need to connect any other boxes to watch your favourite shows.
It has no trouble upscaling content with a lower resolution, which is important if you watch cable TV. It also has great accuracy right out of the box. This means that the colours are accurate without any calibration, which is great since you can’t calibrate the TV. As an entry-level 1080p TV, it doesn’t support HDR and doesn’t have the best picture quality, but it’s fine for watching cooking shows while making lunch or dinner.
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Very low input lag.
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Excellent pre-calibration image accuracy.
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No HDR support.
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Cannot get bright.
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Doesn’t support 4k.
