Bit the bullet on a 65” Bravia 8. It’s being mounted and installed on Tuesday. Probably should have gotten it before tomorrow for the Super Bowl, but I don’t care about sports much in the first place. Might have shown it off is about it but meh.

Looks tempting. Would you guys bite? Insignia Brand but strictly for the size lovers. 85 inch 4K for a bargain basement price of only $549.99

https://www.bestbuy.com/product/insi...-tv/J2FPJKSVC7

Thats a great deal on such a big TV. It wont be great I bet but 85" is 85". Cant be a bad buy at that price, I dont think. Just dont expect reference quality PQ & processing.

I know OLED is amazing, but I just can't afford that right now.

However, I've had my eye on the 65" Samsung 4K U7900 to replace our current 55" Samsung 4K TV upstairs with a broken coaxial cable so we can't watch OTA local stations. It has gone back and forth in price at $400-$550 and it finally popped up at $349 at our local Micro Center, so I went for it. We'll get it set up later this week.

OLED will be in our distant future, and that's okay. Call me when a 65" is under $500.

Already up to $599.

The choice: a mediocre LG 48" OLED or this 85" monster for the same price?!

I think a better deal / much better PQ would be had with the 75" Q6 series Samsung:
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/75-c...025/JJGRF3CW4Z

for $599.

This is obviously the last year for "cheap" TVs as the tariffs and inflation greed are going to bite us all in the ass.

All of these TVs are ad-infested and castrated (2025 models have DTS-HD audio codec removed, won't play simple .mp2 or .mpeg files any longer, perhaps will not even play .flac audio via built-in USB3 jacks). If you want these features, stick to 2024 models. This has been big news for enshittification of TVs this year. Manufacturers quietly and surreptitiously removed these codecs in order to save a few cents per set. Ridiculous.

I'm a little late with this recommendation, but if your old TV was otherwise functioning fine and the only issue was not getting OTA stations, another option would have been to get an HDHomeRun instead of a whole new TV:
https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/

Then you'd have the added bonus of being able to watch OTA on any TV in your house (and on your mobile devices, etc). I have the 4K Flex and it's fantastic, but the base model is probably fine for most people.

Just my opinion, but TVs should be used as display panels only. Only connect them to the internet temporarily when you need a firmware update and only do so if you need the new firmware for some functional reason. Don't use their built-in app platforms because those are advertising and privacy nightmares that can become obsolete long before the display stops being usable. The best option currently is to get an AppleTV to be your streaming box. It's the least-evil option in terms of privacy and it has a simple, ad-free interface:
https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/apple-...mes-to-privacy

I have some nice Sony Bravia TVs that are completely disconnected from the internet with an AppleTV for each of them and one HDHomeRun 4K Flex in the house for OTA that I can watch via the app on any of the AppleTV boxes. The streaming apps and audio features built into the TVs never get touched. They are strictly display panels.

I agree with you, but I was referring to your being able to plug a memory stick or hard drive with many media files on it (films, etc) into the TVs USB slot and have the TV play the media files directly. That has been castrated in 2025 models, especially with respect to DTS-audio codec.

No apps, no streaming, no walled garden. I would NEVER use a TV with its built-in app / streaming options. I agree all TVs should be "dumb" TVs (with built-in codec support for playing content that YOU provide through USB, not download). I think TVs should not even have a wifi card in them - I've physically removed the wifi card in my current set. This directly eliminates that phone-home and ads.

Might as well do 85 inches if you plan 75 (unless space forbids). Anyways, I considered 65 inches to be micro puny sized, already.

Wow. That is awesome. I'll have to really think about that. Is the non-4K device not in 4K then?

I think about that a lot, too. Our Roku got weird so we've just been using the built-in apps, but I'd rather get a new Roku instead.

Only the 4K Flex device support the ATSC 3.0 standard, which is the OTA standard that includes 4K video support. However, there is still very little OTA content that is broadcast in 4K. 3 local networks in my area have ATSC 3.0 channels but most of the actual content they broadcast is still just HD. Here's more info on all of that:
https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/atsc-3...n-your-2024-tv

Well, we did buy the 4K TV for $349 and while that HDHomeRun is amazing, it's another $100-$200 on top of us waiting and waiting on that other TV. I'll have to think about it. Still, that is a VERY impressive piece of hardware and could be awesome for the entire family.

Entry level 98" TVs have finally (barely) dropped below $1K:

TCL 98" 98Q55K QLED with Google TV (2025) (Best Buy, $999.99)

TCL 98" 98Q51CG QLED with Google TV (2025) (Wal*Mart, $998.00)

TCL 98" 98Q77K QLED with Google TV (2025) (Costco, $999.99)

RTINGS reviewed the Q77K from Costco and gave it a 5.7 overall, with low scores for brightness and black level.