Buying guide for Best 50-inch TVs
In the world of televisions, 50-inch TVs occupy a sweet spot. They’re big enough to look impressive but can easily fit in an apartment or cozy living room. They usually boast many of the features of flagship TV models, but they often cost less.
When shopping for a TV, you’ll come across terms like OLED, QLED, QNED and LED. These refer to the technology a TV panel uses to display images.
According to our tech expert, OLED is the best technology overall. QLED and QNED are almost as good and have vivid color and brightness, and LED is the basic technology. Most 50-inch TVs are LED, QLED, or QNED.
Note: While 4K has become standard for most TVs, 8K TVs do exist — there’s just very little content that comes in 8K yet.
If you want a smart TV with built-in streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, or Paramount+, you should consider how easy a TV’s software and menus are to use. Gamers will want to know about refresh rate, or how quickly the screen updates, and whether a TV supports the advanced HDMI 2.1 connections of top game consoles. If you plan on using a TV with soundbars or other accessories, you should also check how many ports a TV has — especially HDMI ports — and whether they support connections like eARC (enhanced audio return channel).
We tested and evaluated a 50-inch TV for picture quality, ease of use, gaming specs, and setup process, and we chose eight models we think are worth your while. Our top pick is the Samsung QN90B Series for its overall excellence in picture quality, features and specs.
Best 50-inch TVs
Samsung’s QN90B series TV gets our top ranking for all-around picture quality and features. It has an anti-glare QLED (quantum dot LED) screen with a color-emitting “quantum dot” layer sandwiched between an LCD layer and an LED backlight. This provides vivid, saturated color and contrast that often looks brighter than real life and enhances everything from live sports to nature shows.
The QN90B offers 4K resolution, with HDR32 as its high dynamic range video standard, and a refresh rate that goes as high as 120 Hz. (The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the onscreen motion.)
Our tech expert does note that all of this motion smoothing can lead to an unpleasant “soap opera” effect on movies and TV programs. (Fortunately, it can be turned off.) The QN90B is elegantly thin in cross-section and offers four HDMI 2.1 ports for connecting to high-end accessories. Some find Samsung’s Tizen OS hard to use, but if you’re looking for a great all-around 50-inch TV, the QN90B is it.
TCL is known for affordable smart TVs that run on Google TV or Roku platforms. The TCL 5-Series Roku TV sports a QLED screen with variable contrast zones for a more vivid picture and 4K resolution. It supports both major standards in HDR, HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Customer reviews agree the picture quality is fantastic for the price.
This model also impresses us with its solid game-playing features at a bargain price. Gaming TVs need specs like a fast or variable refresh rate (VRR), low input lag, and the ability to automatically switch to low latency mode (ALLM) when signaled by a game console to keep up with fast gameplay like Modern Warfare 3 or Ragnarok. Using the Roku OS makes this TV feel familiar and easy to use.
Retail giant Amazon makes its own TVs that use its Fire OS and Prime Video streaming service, such as this 50-inch TV from its higher-end Omni series. It’s a 4K TV with a good 60 Hz refresh rate and support for HDR10 for brighter whites and darker blacks. When we tested this TV, we found that its LED screen doesn’t match the kind of picture quality you get from a QLED or equivalent display, but we still think it makes a good buy for anyone who isn’t a stickler for picture quality or plays high-end games.
The Fire Omni makes the most of its integration with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, letting you control a slew of features and functions by voice. It can also connect to Amazon’s Echo speakers for wireless audio output. We think its Alexa integration is this TV’s crowning feature. Amazon TVs also support non-Prime content like Apple TV+ and Netflix.
The LG QNED80 series TV implements what LG calls a QNED screen — essentially similar to a QLED screen plus LG’s NanoCell technology (the “N” in QNED) — which absorbs unwanted wavelengths of light. This promises an even better image than QLED and with wider viewing angles, and customer reviews agree on its excellent picture quality. Like the Samsung QN90A, the LG QNED80 uses mini LEDs for backlighting, promoting finer detail than regular LEDs.
The QNED80 offers good gaming specs, such as AMD FreeSync Premium VRR and low latency, accessible via a special dashboard control interface. HDMI 2.1 allows for connection to consoles and sound output. It supports HDR10 but not Dolby Vision. As for smart TV functions, it implements webOS as its interface. While this might be unfamiliar to those used to Roku or Amazon Fire, customers are impressed.
When Samsung debuted The Frame, it made it to the top of our recommended picks, and it remains a top-ranked model thanks to this killer feature: When not displaying video, it can show a work of art. With its matte-finish screen, flush-to-the-wall mounting, and swappable frame bezel, it can make you feel like you’re looking at a high-quality art print as it hangs on a wall in your home.
When you want to watch a TV show or movie, its 4K QLED screen performs as well as any top Samsung TV. It’s got a good 60 Hz refresh rate, HDR10 support, ALLM capability for gaming and four HDMI ports supporting HDMI 3 for advanced connectivity options to compatible accessories. It can also rotate vertically if you need it to. Although on the pricey end of 50-inch TVs, it makes a big statement.
Sony’s X90J 50-inch TV maintains the company’s long track record of quality. Its screen is a full-array LED, meaning its LED backlighting is distributed across multiple zones of the panel, allowing for more defined illumination compared to regular LED lighting. The X90J uses Sony’s own XR Triluminos technology for displaying and enhancing color while it implements the Dolby Vision standard for HDR.
Not surprisingly for the company behind the PlayStation gaming platform, the X90J is tailored to work with PlayStation consoles with a low 8.5-millisecond input lag and the ability to run its 4K resolution at a fast 120 Hz refresh rate. Sony has chosen Google TV as its smart streaming OS, but it’s also compatible with Alexa, and it runs the popular streaming services built in.
The LG UQ9000, or Q9, is a more affordable entry in the 50-inch TV class from LG. Like the Amazon Fire Omni, it uses a non-quantum-dot LED screen for its display — although in the Q9, the difference in quality from QLED and QNED is less noticeable. It looks good, in other words.
The Q9 offers 4K resolution and HDR10 for dynamic range and an automated brightness control that brightens or darkens the screen depending on ambient light. It uses webOS for streaming popular services like Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and so on, and it has a gaming control dashboard for one-stop access to things like frame rate and latency, although it has a single 60 Hz refresh rate.
One thing it shares with other LG TVs is a remote that can act like a handheld mouse and also does voice control. Some people like this a lot, while others don’t.
Although it’s technically a 48-inch TV, we included the LG C2 Series as an example of an OLED panel. OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, is widely considered to be the top display technology available — and our tech expert agrees. Unlike the layers and backlights of LED, QNED and QLED screens, OLED screens have pixels that light up individually in whatever color necessary, producing outstanding accuracy, contrast and detail.
OLED tends to be more expensive than other technologies. It can’t get as bright as LED backlights due to heat concerns, and it can have issues of a stationary image “burning in.” Nevertheless, for pure picture quality, OLED is hard to beat, and LG’s 48-inch C2 series TV is a great option if you want OLED picture quality and performance without moving to a bigger size class.
How we tested
After researching the most popular 50-inch TVs on the market, we narrowed our list down to the top eight above and put the 50-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni Series to the test to see how it did in the following areas.
Ease of use
- Setup: We looked at how easy it was for a single person to set up the TV, from taking it out of the box and assembling it to personalizing its streaming OS and installing apps.
- User interface: With smart TVs, we rated how intuitive or confusing it was to navigate the user interface, especially the streaming menus and apps.
- Remote and voice assistant: We tested how easy it was to use the TV’s remote control, and if applicable, how it responded to various voice assistants like Alexa for both basic and advanced functions.
Quality
- Picture: We tested picture quality by watching multiple TV programs and videos with a variety of lighting, including news and sports, both with the TV alone and in comparison with other TVs.
- Audio: We listened to the TV’s built-in speakers and studied its speaker settings as well as how it connected and performed with external speakers, both wired and wireless when possible.
Advanced features
- Screen mirroring: We tested how easy it was to connect to devices like smartphones, tablets and computers via wireless connections for casting and screen mirroring.
- Gaming: We evaluated the TV’s performance with games, including how fast it reacted to action and how well it worked with a game console.
Accessibility
- Features: We tested the TV’s accessibility features, including the screen reader, screen magnification and closed captioning. We also tested how easy those were to activate.
FAQ
Q. How far should you sit from a 50-inch TV?
A. The optimal distance to sit from a 50-inch TV is between 3.2 and 7 feet, with 5 to 6.5 feet the most commonly advised distances. Authorities suggest a TV screen should fill around 30 degrees of your field of vision so you can see the whole screen at once yet still avoid distractions. If you have a 50-inch 4K TV, you can sit as close as 3.2 feet without discerning individual pixels, making the image seem almost lifelike.
Q. What size room is good for a 50-inch TV?
A. Given that around 6.5 feet is the average recommended distance, a room that’s about 10 by 10 feet would be a good size for a 50-inch TV. You don’t want a TV that dominates a room unless it’s specifically a home theater, nor should you get a TV that gets swallowed up by a room much bigger than it is. How you mount your TV, on a wall mount or stand, can also affect how big it feels in relation to a room.
Q. How much should you pay for a 50-inch TV?
A. Solid 50-inch TVs cost around $500, with some models as low as the $350 to $400 range. Top-tier 50-inch TVs with the best picture quality and up-to-date technologies can go for around $1,000 to $1,200.
