Top Picks

Top Pick of the year

LG 55EC9300 OLED HDTV
(December) At the end of 2013, we were saying goodbye to Panasonic’s plasmas as the company pulled out of the market, to be followed eventually by both Samsung and LG, leaving what we were certain would be an enormous gap in flat-panel image quality as we prepared to wait years for an affordable OLED to come along. Then, in August, came LG’s 55EC9300, a $3,500, 55-inch model that offered up the best image quality we’ve ever tested in an HDTV. Yes, we do need bigger screen sizes that are similarly attainable, and no, we still can’t be 100 percent sure at this early stage about OLED’s long-term reliability. But what we can say is that LG stepped up in 2014 and pushed hard into a new market that still has the other TV makers spooked, dropping the price of a 55-inch OLED from $15,000 to $3,500 in a matter of months, and giving a huge boost to all us folks who truly care about image quality. A well-deserved honor. $3,500, lg.com