How to Pick the Right TV Size For Your Living Room

Black Friday seems to be creeping up earlier this year, and as always, a brand-new 4K television is probably going to sit at the top of many a shopping list—especially since a nice TV can be a major source of joy during the never-ending quarantine. However, there’s a hitch: Depending on your living room layout, you might not benefit from 4K’s increased resolution at all.

You can figure out pretty quickly whether you’ll notice the increased detail 4K brings to the table by measuring the distance between where you plan to watch your TV and the screen. After that, it’s just a little math: According to Samsung, the right TV size is the viewing distance (in inches) divided by two.

So, for example, if your couch is set up 120 inches from your TV, or 10 feet, you’ll want to get a TV that’s at least 60 inches big—the diagonal measurement, that is.

Of course, Samsung makes TVs, and it’s very incentivized to sell you the largest screen you can possibly afford. I find its measurements far too simple and generally incorrect. Instead, I prefer to go with the finer measurements from Reference Home Theater, whose sole writer, Chris Heinonen, is Wirecutter’s TV mastermind. Here’s his chart:

Credit: Reference Home Theater

What do these numbers mean? As he describes:

This is based on 20/20 vision, and the viewing range for each resolution is the distance you can sit from that TV and see more detail than a lower resolution, and are not close enough to see the extra detail in a higher resolution screen. So with a 50" 1080p display, if you are closer than 9'9" you will see more detail than a 720p display, but if you are more than 6'6" away, you couldn’t see any more detail on a 4K display.

So, using that same example from before with a 60-inch 4K TV, you’re going to want to make sure you’re sitting within seven feet, ten inches of the screen. Any more, and you won’t see the extra detail. As you’ll see, that’s a bit off from Samsung’s measurement (10 feet), which would mean that you wouldn’t be enjoying the fine details on the fancy-new 4K TV you just purchased.

If this is a bit confusing, I also often refer to this chart to make sure I’m purchasing the right-sized TV for my space. It’s even more strict about how close you have to sit to your new TV to really enjoy the full detail of the picture. Basically, you don’t want to be more than five feet away from a 4K TV for the most detail unless you’re rocking some crazy-huge, 85-inch-or-more screen. (And if so, can I come over to your house?)

Does a 4K TV’s size even matter?

Credit: Kaspars Grinvalds - Shutterstock

Here’s the thing. If you’re now balking about buying a 4K television because you checked the chart and your couch is too far away, don’t worry about it. First off, 1080p TVs are now the niche, not the norm. Most TV manufacturers are only focusing on 4K across a wide number of price points. Sure, you can still find a 1080p—likely an older model—if you really want, but it’s not worth the investment no matter where you’re sitting.

This is because 4K isn’t just about resolution. If you’re shopping for an OLED, you’re going to enjoy incredibly rich contrast, much more so than any previous LCD TV you’ve ever had. If you pick up a new 4K TV with local dimming and HDR support, the quality of the image you’re viewing on supported content will be leagues better than your SDR setup. Go for a TV with a 120Hz refresh rate, and you’ll enjoy judder-free moving images. And, of course, a new 4K TV might come with all sorts of tech built into it, like a Roku interface and Google TV, that means you won’t need to connect all kinds of dongles and external boxes to stream whatever content you want from your favorite services.

All those features have nothing to do with the raw resolution of a 4K screen. And they’re features that not every 4K HDTV might have—or do a good job with. I wouldn’t stress a ton about a 4K TV’s resolution, nor the distance you’re sitting from the screen. Acknowledge it, change it if you can, but also keep in mind all the other upgrades that a great 4K TV can bring to your existing setup.

You probably get everything that makes a 4K TV great from in a cheap $300 Black Friday 4K TV. Were I you, I wouldn’t upgrade simply because you don’t have 4K. Mind your pennies, enjoy the TV you have right now for a little while longer, and pick up a great 4K TV that will give you all the key features worth having in the next five years or so.

This story was published in January 2018 by Emily Price. It was rewritten in November 2020 by David Murphy with new math, recommendations, and images.