The best TVs to play and get the most out of your PS5 or Xbox Series

You buy a television thinking you’ve hit the nail on the head and suddenly your friend tells you that it’s not good for gaming. That if your screen offers 60 Hz, that if it does not have HDMI 2.1, that the future is in the cloud and the television does not support it… But what is all this? What TV should I buy to have a good experience with PlayStation and Xbox consoles? We’re going to get technical, but we’re going to explain in detail what each thing is so that now you can hit the nail on the head with your purchase.

What is necessary to squeeze out the features of the consoles

4K, Full HD or HD resolution. The most important thing when choosing a TV, as long as we do so to take advantage of the features of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Xis that its screen offers 4K resolution. This should not be a problem if we choose a television larger than 40 inches, since this is normally the resolution that has become the standard for a few years. Although they are gradually disappearing, there are televisions below that diagonal, especially less than 30 inches, that offer Full HD resolution or, where appropriate, HD. In this case, we recommend that beyond 40 inches it be 4K to have better visual quality, so as not to notice the pixels as much.

To make everything clearer, both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X offer:

• Resolution up to 4K.
• Support for a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz.
• HDMI 2.1 support.

Hertz and the relationship with fps. The second most important thing is that the television is capable of offering a refresh rate of at least 120 Hz. But be careful, not all video games offer a 4K/120 Hz ratio, so you have to pay attention here. In many cases, games allow us to choose various quality/performance modes, which is usually 4K/30 fps or Full HD/120 Hz.

But… am I confusing hertz (Hz) with Frames per Second (FPS, frames per second)? It is not the same, but it is closely related. Stay with this: if the console offers 120 fps, but the TV only has 60 Hz, we will only take advantage of the fluidity of 60 fps. On the other hand, if the television offers a rate greater than 120 Hz, we will take advantage of 120 fps.

While fps is the amount of images that the console can generate, Hz is the frequency with which the TV updates the image. For this reason, they are different concepts, but they are closely related.

HDMI 2.1 or HDMI 2.1b. When buying a television, we should pay attention to the version of its HDMI ports. The consoles are compatible with HDMI 2.1, so the ideal is that we choose this same version if we are looking for the best experience. Now, you may come across a similar version called HDMI 2.1b. It is more designed for very large televisions or screens, such as those in shopping centers, since they offer compatibility with a higher resolution. Keep these differences:

• HDMI 2.1: supports 8K at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz.
• HDMI 2.1b: Supports 8K at 60 Hz, 4K at 120 Hz and 10K at 120 Hz.

There are more differences, but in practice they are not usually taken advantage of, at least on consoles. Do not buy a television prioritizing this HDMI 2.1b standard, especially if it is more expensive. The important thing here is that it at least has HDMI 2.1 and not HDMI 2.0, which in the latter case offers a lower resolution/hertz ratio, so you would not take advantage of the features of the consoles.

HDMI 2.1 at 60Hz. Although the ideal is that we opt for a television that offers 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz and that has HDMI 2.1 ports, this is not always the case. My example: I have a TV with HDMI 2.1 and a 4K display, but its refresh rate is 60 Hz. I don’t get the most out of my PS5, so I wouldn’t recommend this TV for gaming. Depending on the prices we see on televisions, it is advisable to spend a little more to have a good resolution/hertz/HDMI 2.1 ratio.

Latency or input lag. Although this is something that is usually looked at more closely with monitors, here it is advisable that we take a look at the specifications of the televisions to know what the response time is. In some cases, brands may not mention it, but if they do, at least this latency is less than 5 ms. In this way, when you press a button on the console controller, the video game character will move practically instantly. The higher the latency, the more we will notice the “delay” between pressing the button and the character moving.

As a summary, in this table we leave the essentials with a brief explanation of what each thing is:

The functions and technologies that are a good addition

We have already talked about the essentials, now we are going to give way to those functions or technologies that only add.

Variable Refresh Rate. The VRR It is a technology that allows us to adapt the refresh rate of a television or monitor to the fps rate of the game we are running. This ensures a smoother experience. But it does not do it alone, but through two technologies:

• AMD FreeSync via software.
• Nvidia G-Sync via hardware or Nvidia G-Sync supported via software.

Without going into too much detail, for a television to have VRR means that it at least comes with one of the two technologies. Either AMD or Nvidia. This is interesting to have the best possible experience on the consoles, especially in relation to the fluidity of the images transmitted to the television.

Game modes. Some televisions do not limit themselves to offering the specifications that we have mentioned above, but go a step further by including modes aimed at video games. They do this to compensate, for example, for low latency or resolution. It is optional and we may not notice the difference in some video games.

Cloud Gaming Support. The video game industry seems to want to take us towards online services. What Cloud Gaming allows is to be able to play a video game without a console, and it does so over the Internet. This can be an advantage, but it can also lead to higher latency or lower resolution than desired. It depends a lot on the connection we have. PlayStation Plus is a Cloud Gaming service, but it is not usually found on televisions. For its part, Xbox Game Pass offers greater compatibility. I wouldn’t really choose a television based on this feature, since if we buy a TV and eventually want to play in the cloud, we can do it through a Fire TV Stick (4K Select, 4K Plus or 4K Max).

Anti-glare screen. If you are going to buy an expensive television, perhaps this feature may interest you. Some screens come with an anti-reflective coating that prevents sunlight from preventing us from seeing the content we are watching on TV. This is very noticeable if we are between the television and a window. The good thing is that it is very useful, the bad thing is that this feature generally raises the price of televisions quite a bit, which is why they are usually seen in high-end models.

As these are optional features and functions, in the following table we are going to explain the good and bad of each of them:

We put the essential and the optional face to face

So that you can see everything much more clearly, in the following table we have placed everything that is essential and everything that is optional:

In summary:

👉 Choose a television based on its 4K resolution, that its screen offers a refresh rate of 120 Hz and that it incorporates HDMI 2.1 ports. If it also has VRR, much better.

Recommended models

TCL Q6C

If what we are looking for is a television with a good quality-price ratio that has the essentials, the model TCL Q6C It is our recommendation, especially in the 65-inch configuration. Its screen offers 4K resolution, its refresh rate is 120 Hz and it is compatible with Dolby Vision IQ.

To all this we must add that the TCL TV is compatible with VRR through AMD FreeSync and that it includes a Game Master mode for video games. In addition, it includes an HDMI 2.1 port and its speakers are compatible with Dolby Atmos (and are signed by Onkyo) and offer a power of 20W.

Samsung QN74F

The television Samsung QN90F It is quite attractive, especially in its 55-inch configuration, both for what it offers and, above all, for its current price. It comes with a Neo QLED panel that offers both 4K resolution and a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz.

It supports HDMI 2.1 and also VRR via AMD FreeSync. It also incorporates a Game Motion Plus mode for video games and its panel is anti-reflective. And we cannot forget its audio section, because it comes with a Dolby Atmos-compatible speaker system that offers a power of 60W RMS.

Do you want to see more models?

If you are not convinced by these two televisions, you can consult our purchasing guides on the best televisions in value for money.

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Images | Juan Carlos LopezSamsung, TCL

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