I was amazed at how good these budget TVs were

When setting up these TVs, I was impressed to see Movie Mode on two of these TVs (Samsung and Hisense). As the closest thing the industry gets to standardization, this mode helps ensure some consistency when watching TV and movies. In comparison, the Fire TV has a Movie Dark and Movie Bright option (brighter rooms) while the Roku has its own Movie mode.

I tested TVs for streaming movies, using Fandango at Home, including It and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. These two movies are the test of any TV — the ability to display dynamic, vivid scenes (It) or the bright colors of a comic book (Spider-Man.) In general, I found the Hisense to have the best contrast and color saturation, while the Fire TV and Roku shine in movie modes.

Using its opening scenes, as Georgie descends the stairs, I found that the Roku had the poorest shadow detail of the four, with intricate wood detail and the wall under the stairs crushed to a blue/black.

At the time, it was the Hisense that had the best shadow detail — with most of the under-stairs visible in these few frames. Hisense had a solidity to its image that other TVs lacked. As Georgie walked into the basement the room looked real, while the other TVs turned into a gray fog with furniture no longer visible in the body In addition, the dark areas of the picture — even in the black bars at the top and bottom — were really black and not blue-black or gray like the Samsung and Fire TV.

As with last year’s Samsung TV — the red areas of the U8000’s picture aren’t waterlogged, and this was especially noticeable during Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. At 32.48, during the memorial service for the old Spider-Man, the Spidey suit looked a little too busy on this TV compared to both Fire TVs with a bright red color. Finally, the Roku looked lifelike in its red and green rendering of Spiderman, but the image looked a little 2D and flat. The Roku picked up a bit during the fiery collider sequence, with the sharpest image of the four, but the Hisense had the best contrast.

I got one when I was testing the Roku, because its off-axis response wasn’t great at all. Even when I was sitting dead in the center of the screen at a distance of six feet I was never on-axis for the entire screen — there was always a part that just went off-axis.

In terms of light room performance, they all had some degree of light reflection, although some were better at rejecting direct light sources than others. I flashed my mobile phone at each TV in turn and found that the Hisense was the best here, with a bright center but less corona. The next three were similar to each other, although the Fire TV’s display was dull, and the Roku and Samsung had brighter displays.