

That might be a surprise if you're new to the TV buying game and just paying attention to brands - wait, a TCL looks better than a Sony? - but if you look at their underlying technologies, it makes perfect sense. In my side-by-side comparison of the three in CNET's TV test lab, the Samsung looked slightly better overall than the Sony, with superior brightness and contrast, while the TCL totally trounced them both. In early summer the X80K costs about the same as the Samsung QN60B and the TCL 6-Series. More expensive than competing TVs with better picture quality.

