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The TCL 6-Series, our pick for the best overall Roku TV of 2020 Credit: Reviewed.com / Jackson Ruckar

The Best Roku TVs of 2024

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed's editors. Purchases made through the links below may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

The TCL 6-Series, our pick for the best overall Roku TV of 2020 Credit: Reviewed.com / Jackson Ruckar

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Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.

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Editor's Choice Product image of TCL 55R635
Best Overall

TCL 55R635

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The TCL 6-Series is one of the most value-packed TVs, offering a bright, colorful picture, a built-in smart platform, and a host of gaming-centric features. Read More

Pros

  • Quantum-dot brightness and color
  • Built-in Roku
  • Great choice for next-gen gaming

Cons

  • Garden-variety design
  • Lackluster internal speakers
2
Product image of TCL 65R648

TCL 65R648

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The TCL 6-Series 8K is a phenomenal TV with excellent performance and an array of features, but given the dearth of easily accessible 8K content, its main selling point feels more like a parlor trick. Read More

Pros

  • Incredible contrast and color
  • Built-in Roku smart platform
  • Future-facing gaming features

Cons

  • 8K content is still hard to come by
  • Poor 1080p upscaling
  • Limited off-angle viewing
3
Editor's Choice Product image of TCL 55S535

TCL 55S535

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The TCL 5-Series is a dependable TV. Its quantum-dot display, sensational price, and built-in Roku smart platform will satisfy most bargain hunters. Read More

Pros

  • Dependable performance
  • Built-in Roku smart platform
  • Sensational value

Cons

  • Doesn't get very bright
  • Limited viewing angles
4
Editor's Choice Product image of TCL 50S425

TCL 50S425

3.6
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For budget TV shoppers, the 2019 TCL 4 series is a great option. At a low price point, It includes 4K resolution, HDR10 compatibility, and the Roku smart platform. Read More

Pros

  • Easy-to-use smart platform
  • Includes 4k resolution
  • Affordable

Cons

  • Average performance
  • Best Overall TCL 6-Series
  • How We Tested Roku TVs
  • What You Should Know About Buying Roku TVs
  • What Is A Roku TV?
  • What Are The Benefits Of A Roku TV?
  • Other Roku TVs We Tested
  • More Articles You Might Enjoy

Virtually every TV you can buy these days is a "smart TV," but built-in smart platforms don’t always offer the snappiest or most intuitive experience. Since Roku makes our favorite streamers, our usual recommendation is to upgrade your smart TV with a Roku device. But a great TV with Roku built right in? Now that’s what we call smart.

If you want the best Roku TV for your money, we strongly recommend the TCL 6-Series (available at Amazon) . It's a great, affordable 4K/HDR set that uses quantum dot technology to achieve an extra bright, colorful picture with excellent contrast and, of course, Roku built-in. But you can't go wrong with any of these TVs for the money, including the surprisingly affordable 4-Series. All of the TVs in this round-up are currently from TCL, but for good reason: In our experience, TCL makes the best Roku TVs money can buy, and

TCL 6-Series (2020)
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

The 2020 TCL 6-Series offers a taste of quantum dot performance for a price most people can justify.

Best Overall
TCL 6-Series

Our favorite Roku TV right now isn’t the best-performing Roku TV money can buy, but it nevertheless looks fantastic and is offered at an enticingly low price.

The 2020 TCL 6-Series (available in 55-, 65-, and 75-inch variants) is one of the most value-packed TVs of the year, thanks to a robust offering of features and a picture that punches well above its weight. All told, the 6-Series performs better than just about every TV in its price range, making it a great pick for folks looking to maximize their dollar.

The TCL 6-Series produces a bright, colorful 4K picture for both SDR and HDR content, thanks in part to the TV’s quantum dots. In our lab, we consistently clocked the 6-Series at around 800-900 nits of brightness while receiving an HDR signal. This makes the 6-Series a fantastic option for folks whose living rooms receive a fair amount of ambient light. The inclusion of quantum dots also makes for rich, well-saturated colors, particularly during HDR content.

Gamers will be thrilled with the 6-Series’ native 120Hz refresh rate (up to 1440p at 120Hz) as well as the addition of something called THX Certified Game Mode, a suite of enhancements that includes VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) to adjust to the different frame rate of gaming content.

And of course, the TCL 6-Series comes equipped with our favorite streaming platform right out of the box. Its software is sleek, easy to use, and offers access to a vast library of apps. In terms of pure performance, the 2019 TCL 8-Series is a better all-around TV, but it's far pricier and lacks the gaming-centric features offered by the 6-Series.

Pros

  • Quantum-dot brightness and color

  • Built-in Roku

  • Great choice for next-gen gaming

Cons

  • Garden-variety design

  • Lackluster internal speakers

Buy now at Amazon

$698.00 from Walmart

How We Tested Roku TVs

Credit: Reviewed

Our lab is outfitted with much of the same equipment you would find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates televisions.

The Testers

Reviewed has been testing TVs since some of its current employees were in middle school. While many proud TV testers have come and gone through Reviewed's labs, the current Home Theater team consists of Michael Desjardin and Lee Neikirk. Michael is a senior staff writer and a six-year veteran of the Reviewed tech team. A film enthusiast and TV expert, he takes picture quality seriously but also understands that not every TV is a good fit for everyone.

Reviewed's Home Theater Editor, Lee doesn't do as much testing these days. However, he designed the company's current TV testing methodology after receiving calibration certification from the Imaging Science Foundation.

A TV tester measuring a TV's contrast
Credit: Reviewed / Chris Snow

We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue, and so on.

The Tests

It'd be an understatement to say that we're serious about TV testing. The lab in our Cambridge location is outfitted with much of the same equipment you'd find at a factory that manufactures and calibrates television.

On the hardware side, we've got things like a Konica Minolta CS-200 tristimulus color meter, an LS-100 luminance meter, a Leo Bodnar input lag tester, a Murideo Seven 8K signal generator, and more Blu-rays than we can keep track of. For software, we use Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate color calibration software, the industry-standard in taking display measurements and calibrating screens to specifications.

Our testing process is equally complicated and has been honed over many years to gather data that is marginal enough to satisfy curious video engineers, but also relevant to the average person's viewing experience. We measure things like peak brightness, black level, hue and saturation for primary and secondary digital colors, the accuracy of the TV's electro-optical transfer function—you get the idea, it's complicated.

Weighting for our performance tests is based on how the human eye prioritizes vision, which means we put "brightness" data (monochromatic eye based on light sensitivity) higher than colorimetry, which is also scaled by the eye's sensitivity, and so on.

Outside of the strictly technical tests, we also spend a lot of time just watching and using each TV, getting a feel for the at-home experience of doing things like dialing up streaming video service, connecting a Blu-ray player and watching movies, using the smart features, and checking out the TV's ports, remote, and on-set buttons—anything and everything that might be relevant.

What You Should Know About Buying Roku TVs

While everyone has different eyes, generally, our vision all functions the same way: we prioritize dynamic information and bright, compelling colors over subtler hues and resolution (sharpness). Generally, a TV can be considered a good TV when we forget that we're watching a TV. We don't see pixels creating mixes of red, green, and blue to simulate colors; we see the real world, lit and colored as it is, in fluid motion.

In simpler terms, this means a TV that can get very bright and dark without obscuring details; produces accurate colors (compared to various color standards designated by the International Telecommunication Union); possesses proper bit-mapping and the right codecs and decoders for video processing; and can properly play the various types of content thrown at it without judder, blurring, and so on.

Note that specs alone (pixel count, measured brightness) aren't automatic indicators of quality, much like intense speed is not automatically an indicator of a good car.

What Is A Roku TV?

TCL 4-Series Roku TV
Credit: Reviewed / Michael Desjardin

These days, most Roku TVs are manufactured by TCL.

To put it simply, a Roku TV is a TV that features Roku software. To put it not-so-simply, here's a quick summation:

Most TVs—including entry-level, budget-friendly models—feature some selection of smart features, even if they're limited in scope. While not all TVs are blessed with a full array of apps and features, even the most affordable ones typically offer the other usual suspects like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTubestreaming services like Amazon Prime Video.

Then there's the external streaming device: a household gadget whose present-day ubiquity is undeniable. Be it a stick or a box, a great outboard streamer is something we recommend almost every TV owner buys—even the ones who've just recently bought their TV. The reason? Most built-in smart platforms don't perform as well or offer the same level of flexibility as an external streaming device. And, of all the available external streaming devices, we like Roku the best.

A Roku TV, therefore, is the best of both worlds: a TV with software that features all of the benefits of an external Roku device without the need for a box or a stick plugged into one of the TV's HDMI ports. It's the only smart platform we don't necessarily think our readers should replace with some other external streaming option because there's really nothing better to put in its place. In addition, Roku’s platform makes basic navigation of your TV settings simple.

What Are The Benefits Of A Roku TV?

Roku Remote Control
Credit: Reviewed.com / Jackson Ruckar

Every Roku TV comes with a Roku remote control.

1. Simplicity/ease of use

Roku streaming devices are well known for their simple, easy-to-navigate user interfaces and zippy response time. The Roku software featured in Roku TVs is, for the most part, no exception—the apps, inputs, and menu options are neatly arranged, and cycling through the Roku menu options couldn't be easier.

In many ways, given its speed and simplicity, the Roku experience is one that can be appreciated by both television neophytes and folks like myself, who spend hours a day bickering about TV specs online. Roku software might not be as flexible as, say, the Android OS on a high-end smart TV, but it's easy to comprehend within seconds of picking up the remote.

2. Roku functionality

Every Roku TV comes with a Roku remote control. Depending on the Roku TV, your remote might feature dedicated app buttons, a headphone jack (for personal viewing sessions), and, in some cases, a microphone for voice control. Newer Roku TVs can also be synced with the Roku app for iOS and Android, which allows users to control their TV via mobile device.

3. Apps

Called "channels" by Roku, the platform offers thousands of apps with very few holes in its available library.

4. Affordability

Roku TVs typically—but not always—carry a budget-friendly price tag. This means that, regardless of the manufacturer and the screen size, current-generation Roku TVs are priced competitively (the TCL 8-Series being an exception).


Other Roku TVs We Tested

Product image of TCL 65R648
TCL 6-Series 8K

If you’re in the market for some cutting edge hardware to impress friends and family, the TCL 6-Series 8K (available in 65- and 75-inch sizes) is worth a look. As the name suggests, this version of TCL’s 6-Series is sporting an impressive 8K resolution (7,680 x 4,320)—four times the pixel density of 4K displays.

Its resolution isn’t the only impressive thing about it, either. The 6-Series features some impressive display hardware, including mini-LED backlights with full-array local dimming for excellent contrast, quantum dots for increased color volume, and enough horsepower to climb as high as 700 nits in HDR.

Gamers will certainly appreciate the 6-Series’ 120Hz refresh rate, its support for VRR and ALLM, and that two of the TV’s four HDMI ports are of the HDMI 2.1 variety to connect a new PS5 or Xbox Series X console. If you plan on gaming over the next several years—especially 8K gaming—the 6-Series has your back.

The biggest drawback here is the 6-Series’ cost relative to the amount of 8K content you can reasonably expect to encounter in the wild. There just isn’t a lot of native 8K content out there right now, save for some sizzle reel-style short films on YouTube. 8K games might be in development, but we’re probably not going to see any on shelves for at least a few more years.

In addition, our TCL 6-Series 8K often struggled to upscale 1080p content from Blu-rays and streaming platforms. It would seem as though there’s still work to be done on the image processing side of 8K TV manufacturing, as this is something we’ve noticed on more than one 8K display. If you watch a fair amount of cable TV, keep this in mind.

In a world dominated by 4K TVs, the 8K 6-Series is a neat piece of technology to show off (particularly if you go through the trouble of finding native 8K content to put up the screen). Still, it’s worth asking yourself if you really want to pay a premium for this exciting new tech before the 8K era even begins.

Pros

  • Incredible contrast and color

  • Built-in Roku smart platform

  • Future-facing gaming features

Cons

  • 8K content is still hard to come by

  • Poor 1080p upscaling

  • Limited off-angle viewing

$1,798.00 from Walmart
Product image of TCL 55S535
TCL 5-Series

The TCL 5-Series isn’t the most robust Roku TV on the market, but what it lacks in performance it makes up for in value: This is a budget-friendly quantum dot TV with commendable picture quality and it won’t break the bank. Plus, being a Roku TV, it features a terrific, easy-to-use smart platform built right in.

While not nearly as bright and colorful as the rest of the mid-range and high-end QLED TVs we reviewed this year, the TCL 5-Series is nevertheless brighter and more colorful than most of the slightly cheaper, entry-level TVs that occupy the same store shelf.

Its motion handling and viewing angles aren’t particularly impressive, and it won’t net you any up-and-coming features like VRR and ALLM, but the 5-Series is a better performer than you might expect given its price.

If you’re looking for a bargain but you want to avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel for the cheapest possible TV, the TCL 5-Series is worth the minor price hike over the lower-tier options like the 2019 TCL 4-Series. It’s packed with value and will look great to most folks’ eyes.

Pros

  • Dependable performance

  • Built-in Roku smart platform

  • Sensational value

Cons

  • Doesn't get very bright

  • Limited viewing angles

Buy now at Amazon

$428.00 from Walmart
Product image of TCL 50S425
TCL 4-Series

The 2019 TCL 4-Series is one of the most affordable Roku TVs on the market today, which makes it a great pick for folks who are looking to spend as little as possible on a new Roku TV without sacrificing much in the way of picture quality.

This may be last on our list, but for many, it will be the first choice due to its incredibly low price. In other words, it’s affordable enough for nearly everyone, and it doesn’t cut so many corners that you’re left with notably bad performance.

Available in six screen sizes, you'll get 4K resolution, HDR10 compatibility, the Roku remote, and more. Not bad specs for a TV at this price point.

In fact, the TCL 4-Series is one of the most affordable 4K TVs we've seen to date—with or without Roku software. And it's one of the first TVs we recommend for folks with a few hundred dollars to spend. Although its performance isn't remarkable, the 4-Series gets the job done for a ridiculously low price tag.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use smart platform

  • Includes 4k resolution

  • Affordable

Cons

  • Average performance

Buy now at Amazon

$349.99 from Walmart

Meet the testers

Michael Desjardin

Michael Desjardin

Senior Staff Writer

@Reviewed

Michael Desjardin graduated from Emerson College after having studied media production and screenwriting. He specializes in tech for Reviewed, but also loves film criticism, weird ambient music, cooking, and food in general.

See all of Michael Desjardin's reviews
Lee Neikirk

Lee Neikirk

Former Editor, Home Theater

@Koanshark

Lee was Reviewed's point person for most television and home theater products from 2012 until early 2022. Lee received Level II certification in TV calibration from the Imaging Science Foundation in 2013. As Editor of the Home Theater vertical, Lee oversaw reviews of TVs, monitors, soundbars, and Bluetooth speakers. He also reviewed headphones, and has a background in music performance.

See all of Lee Neikirk's reviews

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