Best Amazon TV Deals and Sales for August 2021

If you’re shopping for a new television, don’t make the mistake of overlooking Amazon TV deals during your hunt. Everybody knows this online retailer sells everything from tech gadgets and entertainment media to clothes and even groceries now, but when it comes to big items like televisions and furniture, many people still grab their car keys and head off to their local big-box stores.

With these Amazon TV sales, however, you don’t even have to leave your couch to shop some great 4K TV deals (or even 8K TV deals if you like to live on the bleeding edge of technology). And we can give you an even bigger edge over other shoppers because we’ve already put together a hand-picked list of all the best Amazon TV deals available right now. If your home theater could use an upgrade, read on:

Today’s best Amazon TV deals

Should you buy a TV at Amazon?

Amazon sells about every product that can be purchased online, but somewhat surprisingly, this online retail giant can be a little hit-and-miss when it comes to pricier tech such as laptops. However, that’s generally not the case with TVs. This is to say that you should definitely consider buying a television here, as there are always some solid Amazon TV deals on tap.

In fact, Amazon TV sales are usually every bit as good or even better than Walmart TV deals and Best Buy TV deals, and it’s not uncommon to see the exact same bargains that you’ll find in big-box stores also just a mouse-click away on Amazon. Amazon is increasingly competing with brick-and-mortar retail stores while those same big-box outlets are trying to compete more aggressively with Amazon’s dominant online presence, with the real winner of this contest being you, the savvy shopper.

Amazon is a particularly great place to find Fire TV deals. Although the retailer doesn’t yet make its own branded televisions (its Fire TV streaming devices notwithstanding), a couple of TV brands make sets that use Fire streaming software, and they go on sale on Amazon a lot. If you’re a Prime member who streams a lot of Prime Video, or if you already use a Fire device and want a TV that shares this software ecosystem, then Amazon TV sales should be the first ones you check out.

Of course, Amazon carries almost all the popular brands of 4K and 8K televisions, so your selection is hardly limited here. If you don’t quite know what you’re looking for yet and need some more info before you set off to find any Amazon TV deals, though, then read on for some buying advice.

How to choose a TV

Pretty much all of the big TV brands — LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL, Hisense, Toshiba, and Vizio, among others — can be found on Amazon, so you’ve got a lot of options to choose from when shopping for Amazon TV deals. Before you jump in, though, it’s a good idea to decide on a budget and familiarize yourself with today’s smart TV market, which will help you to find the right set for your needs as well as make it easier for you to get the most bang for your buck. The first thing you should do is figure out what size TV is best for the room you plan to put it in. Then, it’s time to start looking at different panel types and resolutions.

Ultra HD, more commonly known as 4K (referring to its horizontal pixel resolution), is the industry standard now, although newer 8K televisions have also started hitting the market lately. These 8K panels offer 4x the resolution of 4K, just as Ultra HD boasts 4x the resolution as 1080p. However, 8K TVs are still pretty cutting-edge, and as of 2021, they’re incredibly expensive. That’s not to say you shouldn’t buy one — but our advice is to wait a while for prices to come down.

If you want an upgrade over standard 4K UHD, then you might instead want to consider looking for QLED and OLED televisions among these Amazon TV sales. These are more advanced LED technologies that enhance (or replace, in the case of OLED) traditional backlighting. Typically, LED panels — be it a flat-screen TV or computer display — are illuminated from the back and sides by “backlights” placed inside the television frame. This design is simple and effective but sometimes inefficient. You can see distracting light bleed and artifacting during darker scenes, and black will often look more like dark gray because the screen is lit up as long as the TV is on.

QLED (quantum-dot light-emitting diode) and OLED (organic LED) attack these problems in unique ways. QLED panels feature tiny nanoparticles that capture light, amplifying it to produce greater contrast and more vibrant colors than standard LED displays. They can’t fully recreate true black contrast, however, but OLED does. In lieu of traditional backlighting, OLED screens utilize individual particles that light up independent of one another, allowing parts of the panel to be completely unlit even when the TV is on. This makes OLED TVs capable of recreating truly dark colors (such as during nighttime or space scenes) without the washing-out and artifacting you often see with standard LED displays.

As you might expect, these technologies come at a premium. QLED TVs are more expensive than LED TVs, and OLED TVs are the most expensive of the three. Prices have come down a bit in recent years, though, and you can even find some sub-$1,000 QLED televisions among these Amazon TV deals nowadays. For an OLED television, you can still expect to pay four figures. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with good old LED TVs, and these provide a lot of value if you’re not the type who needs (or wants to pay for) the latest bells and whistles. Brand-name 4K LED TVs from trusted makers will still deliver great picture quality and viewing enjoyment for streaming and gaming even if they don’t offer the most refined dynamic contrast and the absolute best color accuracy. For most people, particularly those on a budget, these more common 4K LED sets will do just fine, with the added benefit of being considerably cheaper than their QLED, OLED, and 8K counterparts.

We’ve so far assumed that you’re looking for a 4K TV, but if you’re specifically in the market for something on the smaller side, there are still 720p HD and 1080p full HD sets on the market, and you’ll definitely see those when shopping through any Amazon TV sales. For anything over 40 inches, we strongly recommend sticking with 4K, but full HD is viable for a screen that’s in the 30- to 40-inch bracket (720p is a little long in the tooth in 2021).

Finally, don’t get too hung up on what pre-loaded software your smart TV comes with, whether it’s Roku, Android, Samsung Tizen, LG WebOS, Fire, or something else. All of these can run the most popular streaming apps and services, so you won’t get locked out of your content libraries. Only let this guide your search for Amazon TV deals if you already have a smart streaming software ecosystem you really like and want to stick with.

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