Best budget TVs of 2026: I was surprised at how much you can get for the money

When setting up these TVs, I was impressed with their vision Output mode On two of these TVs (Samsung and Hisense). Since this mode is the closest thing to industry standard, it helps ensure some consistency when watching TV and movies. In comparison, the Fire TV only has a Movie Dark and Movie Bright option while Roku has its own Movie mode.

I tested the TVs by streaming movies with Fandango at Home, including It and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. These two films are tests of any TV – the ability to display moody, high-contrast scenes (It) or the bright colors of a comic book (Spider-Man). Overall, I found the Hisense to have the best contrast and best color saturation, while the Fire TV and Roku are brighter in movie modes.

Using the opening scenes of It, as Georgie comes down the stairs, I found that the Roku had the poorest shadow detail of the four, with the intricate woodwork details and the wall below the stairs powdered to a blue/black color.

Meanwhile, it was the Hisense camera that had the best shadow detail – with more bottom area visible above those few frames. The Hisense had a solidity to its picture that other TVs lacked. When Georgie moved downstairs, the room seemed real, while the other TVs turned into a gray haze with disembodied furniture. Additionally, the black areas in the image — even on the black bars at the top and bottom — were truly black and not dark blue or gray as with the Samsung TV and Fire TV.

As with last year’s Samsung TV, the red areas in the U8000’s image are slightly desaturated, and this was most noticeable during Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. At 32.48, during the memorial service for the old Spider-Man, Spidey’s suit looked a little tattered on this TV unlike the two Fire TV’s which were more vibrant red. Finally, the Roku looked vibrant in its rendition of Spiderman’s reds and blues, but the image looked a little two-dimensional and flat. The Roku snapped a bit during the very bright collider sequence, with the brightest image of the four, but the Hisense had the best contrast.

I found one when testing the Roku that had very poor off-axis response. Even when I was sitting in the middle of the screen at a distance of six feet, I was never on axis for the entire screen — there was always a portion directly off-axis.

In terms of bright room performance, they all had some level of reflectivity although some were better at rejecting direct light sources than others. I shined my cell phone’s flash on each TV individually and found the Hisense to be the best here, with a bright center but low halo. The next three were similar to each other although the Fire TV’s reflections were faint, then the Roku and Samsung had the brightest reflections.