Best Mini LED TV: super-bright next-gen TVs recommended by our experts

Finding the perfect Mini LED TV for you can feel like a mammoth task. We've seen our fair share of sub-par models, and know how important it is to find a top-quality TV. They are sought after at the moment for their better contrast than standard LED TVs (in the case of good ones, that is), their different sizing options and a good range of prices.

That's why we recommend doing your research before diving in and getting one off the shelf. We've tested as many bad Mini LED TVs as we have good ones – and you really don't want to end up with a bad one.

Lucky for you, our team of expert reviewers has tested every major Mini LED TV launched so far and has decades of experience in testing TVs in general. You can click here to read more about how we test TVs, or you can simply scroll down to find the best Mini LED for your needs.

The Quick List

Written by

Written by

Tom Parsons

I'm What Hi-Fi?'s TV and AV Editor, and I've been testing TVs and home cinema products (as well as hi-fi kit and headphones) for approaching two decades. Mini LED is a relatively new technology, but it has in fact been around since about 2019 and properly started gaining traction in 2021 when Samsung launched its first 'Neo QLED' TVs. I and the rest of the review team have been there from the start and we've seen the category grow from niche and premium to mainstream and (in several cases) much more affordable. Experience tells me that you shouldn't be cowed by big figures for dimming zones or peak brightness – the specs rarely tell the full story and I've reviewed multiple Mini LED TVs that look awesome on paper but severely disappoint in testing.

Best Mini LED TV overall

Full transparency here; we have only reviewed the 85-inch model which is not exactly mini. However, the TCL C805K impressed us so much that we gave it a What Hi-Fi? Award in 2024 and think it's worthy of the Best Overall title.

This TV has such an impressive brightness, providing levels of light both for peak HDR highlights and full-screen bright HDR images on a par with the best mid-range and even some premium smaller LCD TVs out there.

It also handles darkness well, with deep, rich black tones and only a minor hint of greyness to the very gloomiest scenes. We said during the testing process: "Thanks to the Mini LED lighting and, especially, local dimming system, there’s only a slight hint of general greyness hanging over dark scenes – nowhere near enough to ever become distracting. Nor is there much interference to dark scenes from such common LCD TV nemeses as backlight clouding or local dimming-created blooming around stand-out bright objects."

In terms of colour, its Quantum Dot colour system manages to keep strong saturations and vibrant colour expression even in the brightest parts of the brightest images, rather than such extreme areas starting to look washed out or thin. It's great for gaming as well, with high refresh rates providing fluid and immersive motion.

The 2.0-channel speaker system impressed, creating stunning height affects with Dolby Atmos. We said: "Vocal tracks tend to hold up clearly against even the noisiest background racket, too, and we didn’t feel particularly aware of the sort of dislocation – where voices seem to be coming from below the pictures – quite commonly experienced with especially large TVs." We did find, however, that while the midrange is pretty open and far-reaching, the set is not as fulsome with its bass as we’d like.

Read the full TCL 85C805K review

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Best 8K Mini LED TV

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You might wonder what the point of buying an 8K TV is if there’s nothing to watch on it, but there is sound logic behind our recommendation of Samsung’s QN900D: it’s an absolutely brilliant upscaler.

It doesn’t come cheap, but when you see what the QN900D can do with a 4K picture you’ll start making a mental list of what you can sell in order to afford one. The TV’s Neo Quantum 8K AI Gen 3 processor uses artificial intelligence to expertly upscale – i.e. fill in the missing pixels – making textured areas in particular look more detailed and three-dimensional without a hint of artificiality. It really is like witnessing a particularly impressive magic trick.

Of course, that performance is only possible thanks to its Mini LED panel, which uses Quantum Dots and nearly 2000 local dimming zones to produce outstanding colour volume and almost OLED-like blacks. It’s brilliantly bright, too. There can be some inconsistencies when it comes to backlight performance that can be rectified by fiddling with the dimming settings, but that has a knock-on effect in other areas, so it’s not quite a magic bullet.

From a sonic perspective the QN900D is less successful. Despite having 90W of power and eight reasonably sized speakers built into the frame the audio lacks impact and projection, with little in the way of bass. We do like Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound, which positions effects and voices effectively, but overall it’s not a performance that matches the picture.

To say the Samsung QN900D isn’t for everyone is putting it mildly, but if you can afford it, and you’re not bothered that what you’ll be watching won’t be native 8K (at least for the foreseeable future) it’s still a hugely impressive TV on multiple levels.

Read the full Samsung QN900D review

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Best huge Mini LED TV

Sony went all-in on Mini LED with its 2024 TV line-up and, at its best, the Bravia 9 is sensational. The problem is that it’s not at its best all of the time.

Sony is targeting movie lovers with the Bravia 9, leaning heavily on its experience in the editing booths of Hollywood, and the influence is clear when you watch a movie such as Top Gun: Maverick or Oppenheimer. Colours are well balanced, blacks are very good by backlit TV standards, and there’s not a hint of judder. When this TV is behaving it’s a stunner, but a distracting bug that affects the local dimming and some small compromises with every picture mode mean that the performance is just a little too inconsistent to be considered great. Fortunately, these are issues that should be solvable through software updates and we understand that Sony is working on these.

Things are much better when it comes to audio. Unlike Sony’s recent OLEDs, which vibrate the entire screen to generate sound, the Bravia 9’s display is surrounded by speakers, with 70W of power to push them. The result is a TV that sounds noticeably better than most, with height speakers that improve the sense of space and give the sound a solid sense of direction. The bass still lacks a little weight, though, so while it’s a cut above the norm, it would still benefit from the addition of one of the best soundbars.

From a connectivity perspective you’re only served with two HDMI 2.1 sockets that support 4K/120Hz gaming and VRR, with one doubling as the eARC for your aforementioned soundbar, so keen gamers may want to look elsewhere. The other two HDMIs max out at 4K/60Hz, but all of them support ALLM. When it comes to wireless connections, you get wi-fi, which includes Apple AirPlay, Apple HomeKit and Google Chromecast, plus Bluetooth 5.3 and LE.

It all adds up to make the Bravia 9 a somewhat frustrating TV. At its full potential, though, it’s brilliant, so if Sony can fix those issues it’ll be one of the best around.

Read the full Sony Bravia 9 review

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Best Mini LED TV for gaming

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If you have multiple current-gen consoles you want to connect to your Mini LED TV you should pay particular attention to its HDMI ports. It’s not just about how many the TV has, but what spec they are – and Samsung’s QN95D has all your gaming needs covered.

In order to get the best out of your PS5, Xbox Series X or gaming PC, you need HDMI 2.1 sockets that support 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. Most TVs have two at best, but all four of the QN95D’s HDMIs can handle the necessary bandwidth, so you don’t have to worry about running out if you have an eARC soundbar to connect as well.

Even if you don’t have any consoles to plug in, the QN95D’s Game Hub, plus the ability to connect Bluetooth controllers, means it works as a standalone games console in its own right thanks to the selection of gaming-focused streaming services, including Xbox, Amazon Luna, GeForce Now and more.

Of course, none of that means anything if the performance isn’t up to much, but there’s a lot to like about the QN95D’s picture. It’s crisp, bright, and fairly well-balanced, with naturally vivid colours, well-judged skin tones, and excellent shadow detail.

That’s the good stuff, now for the not so good. In certain scenes, a blue halo effect is visible around particularly bright objects, while there are also some issues with blooming that at their worst can really spoil a sequence.

Sound is also middling at best, with underwhelming bass, poor projection and a lack of dynamism. Dialogue is clear and higher frequencies sound fine, but the absence of low-end nuance means the finer aspects of an actor’s delivery do suffer.

If you’re a hardcore gamer who’s intent on owning a Mini LED TV it’s hard to pick holes in the Samsung’s feature set, but there are elements of its performance that show plenty of room for improvement.

Read the full Samsung QN95D review

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Best Mini LED TV for value

Though we fiddled around with the settings for a while to get our desired balance, the Hisense U7N provides solid picture quality for a bargain price.

We find that skin tones look remarkably realistic and movements are nicely natural. While watching Blade Runner 2049 on 4K Blu-ray, we found: "Though there’s noticeable blooming around the explanatory text overlaying the intro’s otherwise black background, the U7N throws up a wonderfully three-dimensional image as Officer K flies into a dusty protein farm. As K enters the farmhouse some shadow detail is lost in the absolute darkest parts of the picture as the set raises the contrast, but the TV’s solid control over its dimming zones otherwise shines. A pot on the stove picks up the stray reflections of a window in the background of the scene, as well as the primary light source next to it, separating it from the background and giving the film a nicely three-dimensional feel."

In terms of sound, the 2.1-channel audio sounds remarkably decent for a TV. With Blade Runner 2049's soundtrack, the audio remains controlled and the speakers never try to overreach. Though the sound lacks heft, distortion and sibilance never creep in.

This is a Mini OLED TV for a great price without sacrificing quality.

Read the full Hisense U7N review

How to choose the best Mini LED TV for you

After settling on how much you have to spend and how much space you have to fill, which only you can decide (although we have something to help with the latter here), we would normally advise you on the pros and cons of each panel type, but as you have found your way to the Mini LED page we’ll assume you’ve already made that decision. In short, it tends to deliver the brightest and most vibrant pictures.

A lot of people plug third-party boxes into their TVs to handle all the streaming apps that so many of us now rely on for our entertainment, but if you just plan to use whatever the TV’s operating system provides, make sure it has all the apps you want.

If one of those boxes you plan to plug in is a current-gen games console or gaming PC, it’s also worth checking that the TV in question supports all the latest gaming features, otherwise your games won’t look their very best. What you’re looking for here is 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM, which require higher-bandwidth HDMI sockets. If gaming is your top priority, you’re probably better off perusing our best gaming TVs guide.

It’s an unfortunate fact of life that the majority of TVs you can buy today are much better to look at than they are to listen to. If you plan to add a soundbar or speaker system to your new TV there’s no real need to worry about its audio performance, which is why we always advise people to take that into consideration when budgeting, but if that’s not an option for you it’s vital to take sound into consideration. There’s nothing worse than having a brilliant picture spoiled by a flat, weedy audio experience.

How we test Mini LED TVs

Testing a new Mini LED TV is a time-consuming and involved process that requires long hours in one of our test rooms, thoroughly examining every aspect of a TV’s performance.

That mostly involves feeding it a variety of sources, from 4K Blu-rays and Ultra HD streams to standard-def DVDs, and comparing all aspects of its performance to that of one of our reference models using an HDMI splitter.

As well as fully evaluating picture and sound quality, we will also check that each streaming service is fully supported by the television. All major apps will output both audio and video in certain formats, including the various HDR and audio codecs, so we actively check each one to ensure that it’s performing as advertised.

Every TV arrives with its default factory settings in place, but we never assume that it can’t be improved by some judicious tweaking in the menus. While we don’t go as far as getting a sample professionally calibrated (that shouldn’t be necessary for us or you) we will spend many hours adjusting the settings and changing the picture modes until we’re satisfied we’ve seen the best a TV has to offer.

When it comes to gaming performance, input lag is tested using a Leo Bodnar device, while each individual HDMI socket will be tested to determine which ones (if any) support today’s more advanced gaming features, such as 4K/120Hz, VRR, ALLM and HGiG.

We also dedicate plenty of time to testing the sound quality of every Mini LED TV. That includes everything from the clarity, tonal balance and detail to spaciousness and dynamics, although it’s almost unheard of for any television to perform well enough from a sonic perspective that we wouldn’t recommend adding one of the best soundbars or, if space and budget allow, a dedicated AV amplifier and speaker package.

All of our TV testing takes place in state-of-the-art testing facilities in the UK, by an expert team that has decades of combined experience in the industry, so you can be sure that our reviews are fair and consistent. When you choose a product from one of our buying guides you can be confident that you’re getting something we would be happy to spend our own money on.

Mini LED TV FAQ

Useful links

• Looking for a bargain? Here are the best cheap TVs
• Hardcore gamer? These are the very best gaming TVs
• Need a certain size? We've rounded-up the best 55-inch TVs
• Need something bigger? What about the best 65-inch TVs
• Want a future-proof TV? Here are the best 8K TVs