If your Black Friday TV budget is $500, I fully back the TCL QM6K after getting one for myself
SAVE 50%: If you're looking for the best TV under $500 this Black Friday, I recommend the TCL QM6K. All sizes are at new record-low prices, but the 55-inch and 65-inch models are the best deals at 50% off.
$799.99 Save $400
If you're still rocking a plain ol' LED TV that's at least half a decade old, I'm not going to roast you — that was also me up until a month ago. I finally swapped my 2018 Sharp Roku TV for a 55-inch TCL QM6K mini LED, and every person in my household commented on the difference within the first few days.
Take this as your sign that 2025 is your year to finally upgrade, too: The QM6K is majorly on sale at Best Buy and Amazon for Black Friday, with the 55-inch and 65-inch models both being a full 50% off. You can go as big as 65 inches without spending more than $500, or up to 85 inches without spending more than $1,000.
Yes, my old TV was 4K, and 4K is the current standard for most TVs nowadays. But 4K is only referring to screen resolution, which determines how pixelated or not the picture is. It's the "LED" part that's probably making sports and colorful movies look dull, or what's making it feel impossible to see the screen when the sun's out.
Not to get too in the weeds about TV specs (I break that down in a separate TV buying guide), but the TCL QM6K is better than traditional LED in two ways. As a QLED TV, it sandwiches a layer of quantum dots (tiny light-reflecting nanocrystals) in between the screen and the backlight panel. This expands the number of shades the TV can produce, makes those colors more vivid, and boosts brightness by a long shot.
As a mini LED TV, the TCL QM6K's backlight panel has way more lightbulbs than a regular LED panel. The bulbs are also much smaller, making for much more precise variation in contrast across every inch of the screen. I remember the weird little white ring that my old TV would put around bright objects, which ruined a ton of dark scenes. But with the QM6K, small clusters of bulbs can dim or brighten as needed in that scene without messing with the contrast elsewhere. As someone who needs The Price is Right to be as colorful as possible in the daytime but who also watched a scary movie almost every night in October, the TCL QM6K has been such a worthwhile upgrade.
If you do end up making the swap, here's your reminder that most Best Buy locations will recycle your old TV for free.
Topics Black Friday
Leah Stodart is a Philadelphia-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable where she covers and tests essential home tech like vacuums and TVs, plus eco-friendly hacks. Her ever-evolving experience in these categories comes in clutch when making recommendations on how to spend your money during shopping holidays like Black Friday, which Leah has been covering for Mashable since 2017.
