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Technology.

24 June 2021

Top five best 49 and 50-inch TVs

You can now find affordable 49 and 50-inch TVs with features once reserved for only the most expensive sets. Here are the best from our tests.

Martin Pratt

With many models boasting exceptional picture quality and prices gradually coming down, it isn't surprising that so many of us are investing in TVs capable of delivering a real wow factor in our homes.

From reasonably priced mid-range sets from top brands, such as Samsung and LG, to the very best they have to offer, you’ll find something for your tastes in this size bracket.

But price isn’t everything. We’ve named TVs costing as much as £700 as Don’t Buys. Equally, we’ve seen Best Buys for as a little as £450 outperform models two or even three times the price.

Only logged-in Which? members can view our recommendations in the table below. If you’re not yet a member, join Which? to get instant access.

Best 49 to 50-inch TVs

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78%
£1099.00
This is the best TV in this size bracket. The level of detail is fantastic, and colours look vibrant. It sounds great, too.
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72%
£569.00
This 49-inch marvel is one of the cheaper Best Buys that comes close to matching some of the top-tier OLEDs and QLEDs from 2020. There's very little this excellent set does wrong.
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71%
£599.00
Samsung's QLED sets tend to score best, but there are some winners in its LCD line-up, too, and this is one of them.
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69%
£899.00
Other high-end LCD TVs do better, but there's still a lot to like particularly when it comes to detail and sound quality.
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68%
£799.97
We don't feature this brand's LCD TVs in these tables often, but this high-end 49 incher really impressed us with its picture quality.
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Not found the product for you? Browse all our TV reviews

And here are three 49 to 50-inch TVs to avoid

Marketing jargon should always be taken with a pinch of salt. We ignore the hype, testing every TV in real-world conditions and watching the same footage over and over again to ensure we unearth the very best sets. Our picture and sound quality experts have been left disappointed by TVs promising the latest TV technology – here, we round up some the worst-offending sets.

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52%
£395.00
The lower resolution picture is cold and boring, and it sounds thin, too.
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44%
£379.00
It's one of the cheapest 50-inch sets around and for good reason. The sound is dreadful and motion is the antithesis of smooth.
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How to choose the best 49 or 50-inch TV

According to our research, 49-inch TVs are the most popular size. More visitors to the Which? website look at 49-inch sets than any other screen size.

Smaller 43-inch 4K TVs are available and of course there are bigger ones, too. 49 inches is far from the biggest size but it could still be too big or too small for your room. We recommend sitting nine or 10 feet from a 49-inch TV. Sit closer and you should probably choose a smaller TV, or a bigger one if you sit further away.

Use our TV screen size tool to work out the size of TV that will best suit your room.

If this is the right size for you, here are some key things to look out for:

4K ultra-HD: Due to its sharper picture and superior HD quality, this higher resolution features on all of our Best Buy TVs, especially those of this size. We strongly recommend choosing a 4K TV to make sure you don’t miss out on top-quality content in years to come.
Sound quality: There’s a huge disparity in sound quality across modern flatscreen TVs. While a Best Buy sound bar will improve your experience of any TV, the sound shouldn’t be so bad that you’re forced to splash out on one. We test every TV with both music and dialogue to ensure our Best Buys not only look great but sound great, too.
High Dynamic Range: You’ll now find this picture technology on most 4K sets. It should give deeper blacks, brighter whites and more subtlety of tone in between, but you need HDR content to make use of it. Hundreds of hours of HDR content is available on streaming services and pricier 4K TVs will have more advanced formats. These aren't necessarily must-haves though. Our reviews always detail the HDR formats supported and how well they are utilised.