7 Of The Biggest Smart TVs Under $500

In recent years, as panels have come down in price, the amount of TV you can get for your money has increased greatly. Take a look at, for example, Best Buy's 2014 Black Friday ad circular. In the sale theoretically featuring the best TV bargains of the year, the most eye-catching deals for the biggest bargains tended to be on TVs with screens measuring 50 inches or less diagonally.  A 50-inch TV certainly isn't small, and it's bigger than what most people would have been rocking in the standard definition era, but for a modern TV, especially at current prices, 55 inches and up is generally what's considered "big."

Yes, there are other considerations to be had, like how much room your living space has for a TV, if your wall can support a bigger TV being mounted, and, if not, if you have room for a bigger TV if you can't wall mount it. But once those concerns are put to bed? You can get a much bigger TV for a lot less money than ever before, and sometimes those TVs are actually good! The rise of companies like Hisense and TCL has pushed the capabilities of budget priced TVs far beyond they've ever been before, complete with features like local dimming to provide contrast that blows away more expensive TVs from a decade ago. With all of this in mind, let's take a look at some of the biggest TVs you can get without breaking the bank.

The best of the budget class of TVs is probably Hisense's U6 series. This is thanks in large part to its inclusion of a more premium feature that's now missing from other budget TVs: Full array backlighting with local dimming, where individual "zones" can shut off their backlights to allow for deeper blacks and thus better contrast. Of the 2024 iterations, only one larger TV comes in under our $500 limit. That's the 55U6N, the 55-inch model, which retails above our limit at $599.99 but can usually be found on sale for about $450.00 at Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart. It has the usual bells and whistles that make the U6 series a particularly strong budget performer, with not just local dimming, but also QLED quantum dot color and low-latency gaming modes to ensure responsive gameplay.

These are new enough that there don't appear to be any formal professional reviews just yet, and even customer reviews haven't piled up in large numbers just yet. Though the U6 series' strong history suggests there should be nothing to worry about, it's better to have some guidance, which we have from Tech Radar, which compares the U6N side-by-side to a Sony TV that sells for $1,000 more. Though the Sony did much better in dark scenes, the cheaper Hisense TV handled reflections better and held its own with color and displaying brightly lit scenes.

One of the best values in TVs is the Hisense U6 series, thanks to its superior contrast and color accuracy relative to other budget models. Hisense has been fine-tuning this series for a few years, going back to 2022's U6H models, and they've long hit the sweet spot between performance and features (local dimming!) on a budget. A 2022 press release even stressed that this was the goal of the series, to "put premium TV options within people's reach." As of this writing, though, the U6H models are over two years old, so they're gone from most stores, but there are exceptions that are in stock, their age making for great deals. Walmart.com still has 2022's 75-inch model for just $498, while Best Buy has a 58-inch Fire TV variation for $419.99.

With how few retailers still have these available, how long this deal can last before selling out is a big question mark, but it's worth exploring. In a head-to-head comparison, RTINGS said that 2023's U6K had better color and contrast than the prior year's U6H, but gave the two TVs nearly-identical ratings overall and also added that the U6H has a wider viewing angle and better black uniformity. The latter means that there's less "blooming" when highlights, like bright white text, pop up on black backgrounds, which RTINGS says counterbalances the U6H otherwise being a little weaker on contrast. For 75 inches under $500, this seems hard to beat.

One of the more oddly intriguing TV deals comes from Pioneer's Best Buy exclusives that run the Xumo TV operating system. When we say "Pioneer," though, we're not talking about Japan's Pioneer Electronics: According to a September 2023 NextTV report, these are made by TCL, which licensed the name for the American market. These go for under $500 even if you manage to not find them on sale, which makes the Xumo line an easy pick for this list. The 65-inch model sells for $329.99 on sale ($499.99 retail), while the 55-incher is $239.99 on sale ($349.99 retail). If nothing else, we have a reliable brand for budget TVs in front of us with surprisingly cheap yet huge TVs under a different name.

How good are they, though, especially since they lack the local dimming of something like the Hisense U6 series? There are no professional reviews to be found, though Best Buy customer reviews average 4.4 stars out of five. Reddit users seem very positive on the picture quality for everyday use, too, albeit a lot more mixed when it comes to the somewhat obscure Xumo TV operation system. The user who started the Reddit conversation noted that it doesn't have an app store per se, which is true: Its interface features an "app ribbon" that lists all possible apps you can install on the platform from a list of approximately 250.

Of the bigger TVs in this price range, one where it seems widely agreed-upon that it's pretty good is 2023's TCL Q6 series. On the negative side, the backlighting is direct lit instead of having full array local dimming for improved contrast, making it a step down from comparably priced Hisense models and the 2022 TCL models that it replaced. Otherwise, though, as long as you understand the limitations of it being direct lit without any "zones" that can turn off their backlights for deeper blacks, it seems well agreed upon that this is an excellent TV for the price. As of this writing, Amazon still has them in stock at very good prices, with the 55-inch model at $369.99 and the 65-inch model at $479.99.

As professional reviews go, there are a bunch, and they're all pretty positive. Wired was among the most effusive, citing the TV's color accuracy in a review saying, "It's bright, affordable, looks great, and is easy to mount and use. What's not to like?" Wired also liked how, if you're not wall mounting the Q6, its included legs can be adjusted to sit at different positions. Tom's Guide praised its "Well-rounded performance," while RTINGS and Wirecutter singled out its gaming features with particularly low input lag.

If you absolutely want the biggest TV you can get for under $500, it's important to remember that quality may or may not be a priority. Case in point: Toshiba's C350 series. If you were a fan of Toshiba's TVs in the past, it's not steering the ship anymore. Since 2017, these are just rebadged Hisense TVs, and in this price range, below Hisense's more "premium" budget line, they're not the good ones. Regardless, as of this writing, you can get a 75-inch C350 for $449.99 at Best Buy or Best Buy's Amazon store. It typically retails for $649.99, but has generally sold for around $500 or less.

This TV is direct-lit, so you won't get the best possible contrast available with LED backlighting, and though there are reviews around for past model years, there are none available online for the 2024 version. Going by past years, though, this doesn't seem like a good option at all given what else is available. RTINGS reviewed the 2023 revision, writing that while color accuracy was excellent without needing calibration, contrast and black uniformity were "terrible," judder was visible in 24 frames-per-second sources, and the TV's smoothing of lower-quality content was below par. 

Insignia is Best Buy's generic, private-label brand of TVs, and in this case, there isn't much information about who actually makes them. But if you want a gigantic TV at a low price, Insignia is definitely one of the more visible options. In its F30 series, the 75-inch model that first hit stores in 2022 currently sells for $489.99 at Best Buy and Best Buy's Amazon store, with sub-$500 pricing having been consistent since late March 2024.

RTINGS gave it a detailed review in February 2024 to a unit manufactured in September 2022, and judged it "passable for mixed usage" with a 6.1 out of 10 score. Though RTINGS praised it for its image remaining consistent in off-angle viewing, the plaudits ended there. Contrast ratio was described as "very bad," flicker was spotted at almost all brightness levels, and it has a complete inability to remove motion judder from any playback source. There was a massive caveat given, though: RTINGS tested the 65-inch model with an IPS display panel but noted that the 70-incher (still available for $399.99 at Best Buy and its Amazon store) "uses a VA panel and has much better contrast and better black uniformity but a worse viewing angle." It's unclear if the same applies to the F30's 75-inch model, but if you want to split the difference size-wise, it seems like the 70-inch version is an okay deal.

If all you're looking for is the biggest screen possible for the smallest amount of money, quality notwithstanding, then there's one choice that stands clearly above all of its competitors. That's Onn, Walmart's house brand, which, in its LED series (as opposed to its more expensive QLED series), has a 65-inch TV for $298, a 70-inch TV for $398, and a 75-inch TV for $448. Based on how they're listed at Walmart.com, those are explicitly the every-day prices, so they could theoretically go down on sale, but even as they sit, they're the cheapest options available.

The best assessment available online of Onn TVs comes from a free article on Consumer Reports' website. Walmart refused to tell Consumer Reports who makes Onn's TVs for them, but it was noted that, per the warranty terms for Onn's Roku TVs, warranty service is provided by Element, which does not exactly have a reputation for making high-quality or even high value TVs. In summarizing its reviews of various Onn TV models, Consumer Reports adds that Onn's displays are inconsistent at best, with solid nuts and bolts picture quality while also having poor HDR performance and noticeable issues with off-angle viewing. This doesn't make all Onn products junk, as their Google TV boxes are widely considered excellent bargains, but that level of quality doesn't seem to extend to the brand's TVs.