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A great game TV deal
2022 was the year cheaper TVs got HDMI 2.1 features like 120 Hz display and variable refresh rate (VRR), along with Nvidia G-Sync and FreeSync Premium Pro support. Among them are sets from Samsung’s Q80B series, which are the company’s best QLED models with a standard LED backlight.
In our Samsung Q80B review, we noticed the full suite of gaming features, including the company’s new Game Hub, which serves as a portal to cloud gaming services from Xbox, Utomik, and Twitch. Just add a wireless controller and you’re good to go! Other than that, the Q80B offers good overall image quality for the price, which is now $200 off Best Buy Black Friday dealbringing the price of a 65-inch model to $999.
A Samsung TV with these features for less than a grand is a deal you don’t come across every day, so give it a look. You’ll get better brightness by switching to one of Samsung’s mini-LED-backlit Neo QLED models, which top our list of the best Samsung TVs, but you’ll also pay quite a bit more, even with the current Black Friday Deals.
Buying Tips: Does Mini LED Matter?
Al Griffin – Senior Editor, TV and Audio
An LED backlight in a TV was once a high-tech feature, but now even regular sets use LED backlights. Less common is mini-LED backlighting, which uses a series of small lights to illuminate the TV’s LCD screen.
As with quantum dots, different TV brands use different terms to indicate the presence of mini-LED backlighting in their sets. For example, Samsung calls its mini-LED models “Neo QLED”, while LG, Sony, TCL and Hisense all just use the term mini-LED.
An important advantage that mini-LED offers over regular LED TVs is that the smaller lamp modules used in the backlight allow finer control over local dimming. This is a process where the individual modules are grouped into zones and dimmed according to the brightness level of the image on the screen. For example, the LED zones in shadowy areas of the image are dimmed or completely switched off, while bright, highlighted areas are fully illuminated.
With a higher density of LED modules scattered around the backlight, mini LED TVs can also deliver higher overall brightness, with some sets such as The QN95B from Samsung with twice or more measured light output than regular LED backlit TVs. That Samsung model is the company’s premium Neo QLED offering, but even more affordable mini LED TVs like the Hisense U8H series can provide almost as high peak brightness.
Where that extra light output is important is whether you are going to watch in a well-lit room, for example watching sports during the day. But it can also help bring out the full level of highlight detail in HDR sources by reducing the need for tone mapping, a process where the TV scales the brightness range of programs to meet maximum light output.
In short, mini-LED can make a difference when watching in rooms with bright lights, and it also adds a welcome level of visual power when watching movies and TV shows with HDR. It’s a feature you pay extra for, but for some people it’s worth it.
Don’t miss this 65-inch LG C1 deal!
This is an incredible Black Friday OLED TV deal, especially for gamers, as well as movie buffs. You can now use the 65-inch LG C1 OLED TV for just $1,197 (opens in new tab)(opens in a new tab) at Amazon, the lowest price ever.
Amazon has listed the previous price as $2,499, which isn’t really accurate – that was the launch price. It recently cost about $1,500, which was the lowest it’s ever been, so we’re still getting a 20% drop from the previous record here.
The LG C1 is a 2021 model, and when we tested it we gave it five stars and were excited about the image quality and future-proof technology. There is now a newer version (the LG C2) that improves the image quality even further… but at a higher price. At just $1,200, this catapults the LG C1 back to being an excellent value.
Welcome to Black Friday, TV lovers!
The day of the big deals is here! Thank you for joining us for our live coverage of the latest Black Friday TV deals.
We’ve been tracking the deals all month, so we’ve been tracking great deals that are still live, and new deals that have launched before Black Friday itself.
Our team of AV experts have done the sale, looking for discounts on TVs that we rate the most (or that are so big and juicy that we to have to tell you about them), and we bring them to you today.
And don’t forget the streaming services! There are some great deals there too, so we’ll be looking into those too, and why we think they’re worth buying right now.