The gap between premium and budget TV brands is quickly closing

For all the time that I’ve been covering technology, there’s been a hierarchy when it comes to TV brands. The big three — Sony, Samsung, and LG — have been on top for a while. Pioneer and Panasonic were up there with plasma TVs, and Panasonic is getting back in the game in the States. Hisense, TCL, and Vizio battled it out as midrange tiers for years before Vizio pivoted from hardware profits to an ad-centric model under Walmart, leaving the other two to one-up each other by offering the most bang for the buck. But over the past couple years, both TCL and Hisense have made impressive strides in performance, bringing them closer and closer to Sony, Samsung, and LG. And it’s not just that they made incremental improvements; both companies have been innovating and leading with technology. Hisense was the first company to debut an RGB LED TV last year (other companies were developing the technology, but Hisense showed it first). And this year TCL’s X11L leads the way as the first TV with reformulated quantum dots and a new color filter. There are still things done by the big three that set them apart a little. Sony, for instance, has for years had extraordinary processing that other companies haven’t yet reached, and LG’s OLEDs have contrast that mini LED can’t compete against. But Hisense and TCL have put themselves firmly into the conversation. When TCL released the QM9K last year, it was a pretty clear statement that they’re ready to fight with the big boys. Then there’s the art TV category. What once exclusively belonged to Samsung and really set their brand identity apart has now grown to include models from nearly every manufacturer. This CES saw announcements from Amazon with its new Ember Artline TV and for LG’s Gallery TV. All of the TVs use similar edge-lit technology, have magnetic frames to make them look like a picture frame, include some form of art store (either with or without a subscription), and hang flush to the wall. While there are minor differences among them — brightness, matte screen effectiveness, and connectivity, for example — the experience from one to the next is remarkably similar. A category that once had a singular option is now saturated with them without a wide margin of differentiation. There’s also LG’s Wallpaper OLED TV, which LG brought back this CES and could be lumped into the art TV discussion. But while it has an extremely slim profile that lays flush against the wall, includes art store support, and uses a wireless connection to eliminate wires (except for power), it has more in common with its sibling the G6 than any of the art TVs. Even as the gap in performance across technologies continues to shrink, and TVs from all the manufacturers get closer to parity, the challenge for TCL and Hisense shifts from creating incredible, competitive products to altering perception. Both companies have long been in that second tier. And even as their market share of sales increases, it seems like the public perception is that they’re still midrange TV manufactures as opposed to top tier. Some of that likely has to do with Hisense and TCL’s pricing, which is generally lower than LG, Samsung, and Sony. We still need to wait and see if that continues to be true with all of the new models announced at CES, but if it is, and the level of performance is comparable across brands, the big three will have to respond by bringing their pricing down or risk losing sales. The next step forward for TCL and Hisense will be breaking that second-tier public persona down and rebuilding as innovators. Is 2026 the year that happens? Very well could be. Now that the underdog brands have achieved similar performance, it’s up to their marketing teams to do what they can to shift perception.