Cheapest place to buy a TV in the UK

Televisions are the category where cross-retailer comparison is deliberately hardest.

Updated 2 September 2026 · 3 min read

The model number problem

Television manufacturers commonly produce variants of the same television for different retailers, distinguished by a letter or two in the model number. The panel and the main specification are often the same or near-identical; the stand, the port count, the remote or the bundled features may differ slightly.

The commercial effect is that a like-for-like comparison becomes hard to perform, because the exact model at one shop does not exist at another. It is not deception — the model numbers are printed plainly — but it does make the market less comparable than it looks.

Size pricing is not linear

Price per inch does not rise smoothly. Certain sizes in a range are high-volume and priced competitively; the sizes either side can cost disproportionately more. It is quite normal for a larger set in the same series to cost less than the size below it, simply because one is a volume seller and the other is not.

Worth checking both neighbouring sizes before settling on one.

What actually drives the price

• The annual model cycle. New ranges land in spring; the outgoing range drops through the year and is heavily discounted once replaced. Last year's upper-tier set very often beats this year's mid-tier at the same money.
• Panel technology tier, which matters far more to picture quality than screen size does.
• Sale events. Televisions are one of the categories where large sale events do produce genuine reductions.
• Delivery, wall mounting, and recycling of the old set — real costs that frequently differ more between retailers than the television price does.

The model number encodes which shop it was made for

Across most major brands the trailing characters of a television model number denote the retailer the set was supplied to. The panel is frequently identical while the stand, the port count, the remote or a software feature differs slightly. The consequence is that the exact set one shop sells genuinely is not sold by another, so a true like-for-like comparison often does not exist — which is the single most important thing to understand about buying a television.

What actually differs between the tiers

• Panel technology — standard LED, quantum dot, mini-LED, OLED — is the real divide, and it determines how the set behaves in a bright room.
• Native refresh rate, not the processed figure in the marketing, and it matters for sport and gaming.
• HDMI 2.1 port count varies between otherwise identical sets and matters for a current console.
• Last year flagship versus this year mid-range is usually won comfortably by the older flagship.

The bundle is where retailers compete

Margins on televisions are thin, so shops attach wall brackets, installation, extended warranties and streaming credit rather than cutting the price. Price the set alone, then value each extra at what you would pay for it separately — a bracket you will not use is worth nothing, and an installation you genuinely need is worth a great deal. That arithmetic reorders the retailers more often than the headline prices do.

Before you buy

1. Note the full model number, including the trailing letters.
2. Search that number, then search the series without the suffix to find the variants.
3. Check the size above and below — the pricing is rarely linear.
4. Add delivery, installation and old-set removal into the comparison.
5. Check whether the previous year's equivalent is still in stock.