The Best Roku TVs of 2026

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 . 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

How We Tested Roku TVs

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.

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?

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?

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).

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Other Roku TVs We Tested

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