Now is a great time to buy a new OLED TV, but not a 2025 model

I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that I get very excited indeed during new TV season.

I'm lucky enough to get embargoed video previews of many of each year's new sets in the November of December of the previous year, then see them in the flesh at CES in the January. After that, we often get more detailed in-person briefings before the mad scrabble to get review samples into our test rooms right around the time the finished TVs make it into shops.

We're in that last phase now. Most brands (Sony is the most notable exception) have now announced and shown off most of their new 2025 TVs, and we're in the process of arranging our reviews. Our LG C5 review is already live and the G5 won't be far behind. Samsung, meanwhile, has just held its dedicated European launch event (check out our hands-on impressions of the new Samsung QN990F), so review samples should be imminent.

LG's new models are available to order now, too, and Samsung's will be soon, and it can be very tempting to let excitement get the better of you and click the 'buy' button – especially when you read how good sets such as the C5 are.

Believe me, I'm at least as excited as you are about these new OLED TVs, but buying one of them now would be madness – madness, I tell you – because they're just so darn expensive.

New versus 'old'

Let's go ahead and use the LG C5 as an example, not just because we've reviewed it but also because it's excellent and a worthwhile upgrade on the preceding C4. Below, you will see the current (at the time of writing) prices for both the C5 and C4.

As you can see, there's a huge difference in price between the heavily discounted C4 and still-full-price C5. At 65 inches, you're talking about a gap of well over a thousand pounds/dollars. As much as I like the C5, it's not that much better than the C4.

This is a theme that we will see repeated as every new TV launches, with the old model undercutting it by a huge margin.

Stick or twist?

So, you wait for the new models to come down in price, right? That's an option, for sure – they will come down and the discounting will start sooner than you might imagine – but by the time a TV such as the C5 is down to the price that the C4 is now, the C6 will be available and you'll have to reckon with this whole conundrum again.

The C4 on the other hand, isn't going to get cheaper than it is now – at least not by much – and it won't be available for much longer, either.

In other words, now is a great time to buy a new TV, but if you care at all about value for money, it's one of last year's best TVs you should be looking at rather than one of the brand-new models.

And, if it is the C4 you're interested in (it's absolutely the TV I'd personally buy myself), you'll find the latest and lowest prices below.