It’s a new year which means another round of TVs coming to your living rooms. As usual, they’ll boast of improvements big and small over their predecessors to give you more reasons to part ways with your money.
But what can you expect from TVs in 2025? We’re not expecting any new breakthrough tech as such, and more a case of trends continuing from previous years into 2025.
We don’t think there will be big advancements or new tech we haven’t already heard of, but here’s the direction of travel and trends we think TVs will continue with in 2025, as well as one direction we don’t think will be getting much attention.
An emphasis on bigger TVs
TV brands have been pushing bigger and bigger TVs on customers over the last few years, and market trends indicate that it’s not a fad. 2024 saw prices decrease and big-screen TVs become more popular.
Leading the charge are the Chinese TV brands such as TCL with an 85-inch TV we reviewed in 2024 selling for £2299, while there’s a Hisense 75-inch model where the price has now fallen to £999. These less expensive prices will give the likes of Samsung and LG a headache, but quality can vary too with these models.
We expect brands will continue to sell bigger TVs, but that the prices might stabilise to avoid them getting too cheap.
OLED TVs will get brighter
A common criticism of OLED TVs has been they’re not as bright as their Mini LED cousins, which means they can’t reach the same level of performance (in some ways).
However, the only way is up, and OLED TVs will continue to get brighter in 2025, though it’ll be a case of whether you can afford to purchase these brighter TVs as we expect only the premium models to have a big jump in brightness.
Mid-range models such as the Sony Bravia 8, LG C4, and Philips OLED809 were brighter than their predecessors, but not by an extravagant amount, and we’d expect the same for any new mid-range OLEDs released in 2025.
We’re expecting the Samsung S95F (or whatever it’s called) to be above the 2000 nit mark, and the same goes for the LG G5 OLED. Perhaps Sony will join them if they release a successor to the A95L.
And Mini LED TVs will be even brighter
There’s something of a brightness crusade going on in the TV industry led by Mini LED screens. In 2024, Sony’s Bravia 9 Mini LED was close to 3000 nits, as was the Hisense U8N. We see these levels of brightness increasing for 2025, with some perhaps pushing past 3000 nits. CES 2025 will give us the first indication of which models these could be.
Our argument is whether such levels of brightness are really needed for the living room, giving how relatively little content is mastered at this brightness. While there are films that have 4000 nit peaks or are mastered at 4000 nits of brightness, does the average person care about this? We’re not sure but we’re open to being proven wrong.
AI will have even greater presense
If you thought the integration of AI into everyday devices would slow down, then unfortunately we think you’re wrong. If anything it’s only going to become more prevalent.
AI will be used to improve picture quality (especially upscaling), but we also think more TV manufacturers will use it to improve dialogue clarity too. We saw a tech demo from DTS at IFA 2024 about its Clear Dialogue tech, and it’s likely it’ll ship with TVs this year.
Looking into our crystal ball, we also see AI infiltrating and powering more general features on TVs, though we can’t reveal yet what we’ve been briefed on. What we can say is that AI isn’t going anywhere.
Lifestyle TVs will lift off in 2025
Here’s our biggest punt for 2025. You’ll be seeing more ‘lifestyle’ TVs from manufacturers.
What is a lifestyle TV? Well, some would describe them as TVs where “design meets technology”. We’d describe them as TVs that aren’t designed to look like conventional screens, and meld into a room easier.
Samsung has led this surge with its Frame and Serif models, but now we’re seeing other TV manufacturers join. LG has always dabbled in interesting designs with its StanByMe series and Objet collection, but for 2025, its Transparent OLED will go on sale.
Hisense launched its Canvas TVs, which are similar to Samsung’s Frame models. TCL’s NXTFrame launched at IFA 2024, so there’s a growing interest in these types of TVs that fit better into a home. We only see that becoming greater in 2025.
There will not be much interest in 8K TVs
Here’s one where we don’t think will be taking off in 2025. 8K TVs.
Samsung still produces several 8K TVs, and LG has a smattering of models but there is industry-wide apathy in 8K TVs. Sony hasn’t released a new 8K model for years, the likes of TCL, Panasonic, and Philips have avoided them (even though we’ve seen a couple of prototypes over the years).
While Hisense rejoined the 8K Association, and there’s speculation the next HDMI specification will have a big impact on 8K, we’re not expecting 8K TV sales to pick up. That’s a shame as we think they’re very good.
