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) *Source: ZDNET — “The top 6 TVs our readers bought this year (no. 1 isn't a Sony or Samsung)”* When a mainstream audience piles into a handful of TV models, it’s consumer behavior. When a technically literate audience does it—and does it at scale—it’s a roadmap. ZDNET’s aggregated purchase data for 2025 so far (as reported in their original guide) shows six TVs dominating reader checkouts: LG’s G4 OLED, TCL’s QM8 and QM7, Hisense’s U8 and S7 Canvas, and Samsung’s QN90D. It’s an affiliate-powered snapshot, yes, but one sourced from a readership that skews more technical than typical big-box foot traffic. Strip away the shopping gloss, and a pattern emerges that should interest display engineers, GPU teams, game developers, streaming platform architects, and anyone shaping the device ecosystem: the living room is becoming a calibrated, low-latency, high-refresh, AI-adjacent endpoint. And it’s doing so faster, and more affordably, than many roadmaps assumed.

1. OLED is still king—when it earns its silicon

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) At the top of ZDNET readers’ preferences sits the LG G4 OLED, a model that isn’t even the newest G-series anymore. Key technical signals:
  • Self-emissive OLED with deep blacks and high contrast, still the reference for film and high-end gaming.
  • Dolby Vision + Dolby Atmos support as table stakes.
  • VRR via AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync compatibility.
  • Tight integration with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit.
For a technical audience, the G4’s popularity is less about brand loyalty and more about predictable behavior under demanding workloads:
  • For game developers: the G4 represents the baseline many of your most engaged players are targeting. If your HDR, 120Hz, and VRR implementations don’t look right here, they won’t look right to the enthusiasts who file GitHub issues, evangelize (or roast) you on socials, and run the benchmarks.
  • For streaming and codec teams: it reinforces that high-fidelity HDR mastering and robust tone mapping paths are not a niche concern—LG OLEDs are effectively QA hardware for your most exacting viewers.
Developers building for consoles, UHD Blu-ray workflows, and premium streaming tiers should treat "works beautifully on LG G4-class OLED" as a non-negotiable acceptance criterion.

2. Mini-LED’s rise: when 5,000 nits becomes normal

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) The TCL QM8’s strong traction with ZDNET readers is arguably the most important engineering story in the list. Device characteristics that matter:
  • Up to 5,000 nits peak brightness.
  • Thousands of local dimming zones targeting near-OLED black levels.
  • 120Hz native, up to 144Hz for gaming.
  • AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support.
Technically, the QM8 demonstrates how far Mini-LED backlights and local dimming algorithms have come. For content and game developers, this has two big implications:
  1. The "HDR lottery" is shrinking. High brightness with fine-grained dimming is no longer exclusive to flagship OLEDs and $4,000 monsters. A broad slice of users now owns sets that can faithfully render aggressive HDR highlights, subtle shadow detail, and fast motion without catastrophic blooming.
  2. 144Hz in the living room changes expectations. PC-style frame rates have arrived in mass-market TVs. That invites a future where:
    • Consoles push higher VRR ranges.
    • Cloud gaming platforms exploit higher refresh on supported clients.
    • UI and OS-level animations can be tuned for smoothness instead of 60Hz assumptions.
If you’re building rendering pipelines, anti-bloom tone mapping, or UI frameworks, the QM8 cohort is your new real-world testbed.

3. Hisense U8: midrange is the new "good enough to be demanding"

The Hisense U8 sits in the sweet spot: Mini-LED, strong brightness, aggressive pricing, and up to 165Hz refresh. Why this matters to a technical audience:
  • 165Hz panels in a TV form factor indicate panel and driver maturity that will spill over into monitors and hybrid displays.
  • VRR plus high refresh in the midrange means more users will actually see the benefits of your frame pacing, netcode smoothing, and motion interpolation choices.
In practical terms, devs can no longer treat 24/30/60fps pipelines as "safe" for the mass market and reserve higher responsiveness for esports monitors. The mid-tier television is catching up, and your software will be judged on it.

4. Samsung QN90D: QLED refuses to go quietly

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) Samsung’s QN90D, a Neo QLED Mini-LED flagship, remains a top pick—and an instructive one. Notable technical points:
  • High brightness and refined local dimming for strong HDR.
  • Object-tracking sound and rich app ecosystem via Tizen OS.
Three signals worth flagging for builders:
  • The OS layer is strategic: Samsung’s smart TV platform continues to compete directly with external HDMI devices. If you ship streaming apps, game streaming clients, or ML-enhanced video workflows, Tizen remains a critical deployment surface.
  • Multi-vendor HDR behavior is still fragmented: QLED, OLED, Mini-LED each respond differently to metadata, and Samsung’s choices emphasize why rigorous cross-panel testing isn’t optional.
  • Audio is becoming spatial by default: object-based mixes (Dolby Atmos or equivalents) are no longer "home theater geek" territory. Your spatial audio design, downmix behavior, and dialogue clarity now face mainstream scrutiny.

5. Hisense S7 Canvas: "The Frame" goes platform

The Hisense S7 Canvas (a clear swipe at Samsung’s The Frame) earned a spot not just as décor, but as a signal of a new display category: lifestyle endpoints that must also behave like serious panels. Key aspects:
  • Swappable bezels and art modes.
  • QLED panel bright enough for daylight.
Why engineers should care:
  • Persistent displays invite persistent software. Art modes, ambient canvases, smart home dashboards—these are all long-running apps with power, burn-in, and privacy implications.
  • UX for "ambient" states is still immature. There’s opportunity in:

    • Smarter scheduling and brightness adaptation.
    • Low-bandwidth, cache-friendly art and data delivery.
    • Local ML to select content without constant cloud calls.

The S7 Canvas class of devices is where display tech collides with interior design and low-friction smart home experiences. Treat it as an emerging platform, not a novelty.

6. TCL QM7: midrange with opinions

The TCL QM7 rounds out the list as another Mini-LED-driven midrange workhorse with 144Hz, Dolby Vision IQ, and integrated Bang & Olufsen-branded audio. It reinforces three trends already visible above:
  • 120–144Hz and VRR are effectively expected features above the bargain-basement tier.
  • Branded, more capable audio systems push developers to care about dynamic range management, not just "make it loud."
  • Dolby Vision IQ-style intelligence (ambient-aware HDR) means more devices are algorithmically altering image output based on room conditions; content creators and engine developers must anticipate variable EOTFs and still preserve intent.

Beyond the shopping list: what this means for builders

Treat ZDNET’s ranking not as affiliate fluff, but as a live dataset reflecting what technically aware consumers actually buy when they see the whole spec sheet. For developers, engineers, and tech leaders, several actionable themes emerge:

  1. HDR is mainstream, so broken HDR is inexcusable.

    • Assume users have HDR-capable panels (OLED or quality Mini-LED).
    • Test against at least one LG OLED and one bright Mini-LED (TCL/Hisense/Samsung) and validate tone mapping, subtitles, UI contrast, and highlight detail.

  2. High refresh and VRR are now part of the living room contract.

    • Games: 40fps/60fps modes are no longer the endgame; support VRR ranges and stable frametimes.
    • Streaming and UX: reconsider 24fps-locked thinking. Smooth scrolling, animations, and responsive overlays matter on 120Hz/144Hz surfaces.

  3. The TV OS is a first-class compute environment.

    • Samsung (Tizen), LG (webOS), Google TV, Roku, and proprietary layers on Hisense/TCL are capturing workloads once reserved for consoles and sticks.
    • This affects where you deploy:

      • Native smart TV apps vs. casting vs. HDMI-attached compute.
      • Lightweight local ML (recommendations, upscaling, noise reduction).
      • Security models for always-connected display endpoints.

  4. Lifestyle and ambient modes are the next UX frontier.

    • TVs are "on" more, doing more than playing video.
    • That means new opportunities—and responsibilities—for low-power rendering, privacy-preserving personalization, subtle notifications, and smart home integration that doesn’t feel like ad tech.

  5. Price-performance pressure will shape your assumptions.

    • With aggressive discounting (as highlighted in ZDNET’s coverage), yesterday’s premium specs drop into mass reach quickly.
    • Don’t architect your next-gen visualization, streaming, or gaming features around a mythical future panel. The hardware is in carts now.

A living room worth building for

If you zoom out, the six TVs ZDNET readers actually bought this year tell a coherent story:

  • OLED sets the reference.
  • Mini-LED closes the gap at scale.
  • 120–165Hz, VRR, and robust HDR are normalized.
  • Smart TV operating systems are credible platforms, not afterthoughts.
  • Aesthetic, ambient, and always-on use cases are no longer speculative.

For engineers and product teams, this isn’t just a merchandising curiosity—it’s your deployment environment.

The next time you’re deciding whether to invest in better HDR metadata, smoother rendering paths, smarter TV-native apps, or power-aware ambient experiences, remember: your most technical users have already weaponized their wallets. The hardware is here. The question is whether your software is good enough for it.