Black Friday Came Early: My Favorite 65-Inch Roku TV Is $400 Off in Time for Thanksgiving Day Football Watching

As someone who has been reviewing TVs and media streaming devices for more than 15 years, I’ve come to really appreciate Roku for its straightforward menu system. It doesn’t push constant content recommendations in your face, show tons of ads, or try to serve as an all-purpose smart home nexus like some other TV platforms. That’s why I recommend it for anyone who wants their TV to be just a TV, and nothing else, especially for less tech-savvy users.

The Roku Pro Series is my top pick for Roku-powered TVs, and the 65-inch model is available for just $798.99 (a 33% discount from its usual $1,199.99 price) as part of an early Black Friday deal. It’s a great-looking TV that earned four stars and our Editors’ Choice award, and is a fantastic bargain ahead of Black Friday.

65-Inch Roku TV Deal

The Roku Pro Series is a QLED TV featuring a mini-LED backlight system, a hallmark of modern high-end models. Thanks to its mini-LED backlight array, the Roku Pro Series has a peak brightness of 1,941 nits. Typically, 1,000 nits is the threshold for a TV to display high dynamic range (HDR) content properly, and nearly twice that is considered excellent. It also features very accurate colors and nearly perfect white levels, covering nearly the full DCI-P3 digital cinema color space. I’ve seen brighter TVs with wider color ranges, like the record-breaking Hisense U8QG, but nowhere as cheap as the Roku Pro Series, especially during Black Friday.

While the Roku Pro Series isn’t laden with extraneous non-media features and lacks a full voice assistant like Alexa, it’s still very well-equipped. It comes with the Roku Voice Remote Pro, which has a far-field microphone array you can use to control the TV (and a handful of first-party Roku smart home devices) with your voice, and a remote finder function that makes it chime if you press a button on the TV itself, so you can locate it in the couch cushions or on a forgotten counter. It also features Apple AirPlay for streaming media from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and gamers will appreciate its 120Hz native refresh rate with VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support.

At its usual list price of $1,199.99 for 65 inches, the Roku Pro Series is already a very good value and the best Roku TV currently available. Currently priced at less than $800 on Amazon, it falls squarely within the budget price range and represents an incredible bargain. Whether you want a simply great-looking TV yourself or are considering a gift for a friend or relative, this is a top Black Friday deal.

65-Inch Hisense TV Deal

If you can increase your budget, the aforementioned 65-inch Hisense U8QG is currently on sale for $997.99 at Amazon, a tremendous deal. It’s officially $2,199.99, but it can regularly be found between $1,200 and $1,400, and this deal slashes the price even further. This is a far brighter TV than the Roku Pro Series, with a built-in 4.1.2-channel spatial audio speaker system. It uses the Google TV platform, which is more visually busy than Roku OS, but includes the full Google Assistant (and by the end of the year, Gemini Home) voice assistant.

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65-Inch LG TV Deal

If you’d like to get really fancy, the 65-inch LG Evo G5 is currently available for $1,946.99, down from its $3,399.99 MSRP. It’s an OLED TV with a much wider color range than either the Roku Pro Series or the Hisense U8QG, and it offers incredible light output for its class. Moreover, it features per-pixel light output control, which is only available from an OLED, eliminating the light bloom (also known as a halo along high-contrast edges) that mini-LED TVs often suffer from. It’s my favorite flagship TV of the year, and worth splurging on.

You can save on more than just TVs this week. Check out our in-depth coverage of all the Early Black Friday deals, steals, sales, and discounts that we’ve found so far!

FAQs

What Should I Look for in a TV?

Whether you’re looking for a premium TV or a budget-friendly model, picture quality is almost everything. There’s no point to a TV if it isn’t fun to watch, and a good viewing experience needs a bright, colorful panel. That’s why every time I review a TV, I use special equipment to measure its light output, color range, and color accuracy. Of course, I also watch movies on them, because numbers don’t tell the whole story. After testing hundreds of TVs, my eyes are extremely good at reading the rest of that story. I share all my findings right here on PCMag to help you find a TV you’ll love.

Is Black Friday a Good Day to Buy a TV?

Yes, though Black Friday isn’t really a single day anymore. Amazon and Best Buy kick off their Black Friday sales on November 20 (while Target and Walmart started even earlier), and the shopping holiday extends throughout Thanksgiving weekend, into Cyber Monday. Many TVs experience some of the biggest price drops of the year during this time, making it a great opportunity to get a new big screen, a second TV for your bedroom or garage, or a really nice gift for someone you love.

Be cautious when you see a particularly good Black Friday deal being promoted, especially if it only highlights the brand. Every TV manufacturer produces multiple TV lines that can vary significantly in price, features, and, most importantly, picture quality. Check the model number, and see if we’ve already reviewed it to get the best sense of how good a deal it actually is.

Where Can I Find the Best TV Deals?

PCMag is a great place to start—we’re scouring all the top retailers and brands, and surfacing the very best Black Friday sales we find. In terms of where you’ll actually get the best price, it’s always good to check multiple retailers. Amazon and Best Buy are obvious choices, but Walmart and Costco often have great deals. If there are reputable local or regional tech stores in your area, don’t hesitate to check them out. When I picked up a new OLED TV this summer, I ended up buying it from New York-based P.C. Richard & Son, which had the TV for the same price as Amazon and Best Buy, while offering more reliable delivery scheduling and cheaper haul-away service for my dying TV.

About Our Expert

Will Greenwald

Principal Writer, Consumer Electronics

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Experience

I’m PCMag’s home theater and AR/VR expert, and your go-to source of information and recommendations for game consoles and accessories, smart displays, smart glasses, smart speakers, soundbars, TVs, and VR headsets. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and THX-certified home theater technician, I’ve served as a CES Innovation Awards judge, and while Bandai hasn’t officially certified me, I’m also proficient at building Gundam plastic models up to MG-class. I also enjoy genre fiction writing, and my urban fantasy novel, Alex Norton, Paranormal Technical Support, is currently available on Amazon.

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