One of the biggest problems with narrowing your choices to a single TV is the sheer number of specs. To make your job a little easier, two of the biggies, refresh rate and contrast ratio, are safe to ignore. Refresh (or response) rate, the speed at which your TV's panel refreshes its image, is expressed in hertz (60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz, 480Hz, or 600Hz). The theory is that a faster refresh rate results in a smoother image. But in reality, there are several reasons this simply isn't true, and it's not worth paying more for a set with a faster response rate. In many cases, 60Hz is just fine for films and TV, and 120Hz is plenty for video games and sports (though you should probably turn off those higher refresh rate modes when watching most shows and movies to avoid that jarring soap opera effect). Also, keep in mind that numbers above 120Hz (except for a few Samsung TVs with gaming monitor-like 144Hz refresh rates), tend not to indicate a panel's native refresh rate; they're usually numbers produced through various backlight flickering and other image processing tricks. Contrast ratio, meanwhile, is the difference between the darkest black and the brightest white a panel can display. In theory, the highest contrast ratio possible is desirable since dark blacks and bright whites contribute to a high-quality picture. There isn't really a standard way for manufacturers to measure this spec, though, and vendors are all vying to come up with the highest ratios so their TVs seem more appealing. Previously, OLED TVs were the only models we've tested to actually produce an "infinite" contrast ratio with a perfect 0 black level, but recently mini LED backlight systems have enabled some TVs, like Samsung's flagship LED models, to also offer perfect black levels with no noticeable light bloom. We measure contrast ratios with a consistent process across all TVs, so you can trust our numbers.