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Trusted Reviews Awards 2021: Find out the TV and home cinema winners

The Trusted Reviews 2021 Awards is here and we’re celebrating the best of the best in our television and home cinema categories.

Our list is filled with premium TVs to budget efforts, soundbars, projectors, video streamers and receivers.

All of these products were tested within the last year, with the eventual winners decided by our team of experts, which includes TV and Audio editor Kob Monney.

Trusted Reviews Awards 2021 TV shortlists

Here are all winners for the TV and home cinema awards at the Trusted Reviews Awards 2021.

Best TV


The Best TV award for 2021 goes to the LG OLED65G1 for its super slim design, excellent SDR and HDR picture and comprehensive range of gaming features.

The other nominees were:

Samsung QE65QN95A
Sony XR-55A90J
Philips 65OLED+935
Panasonic TX-55JZ2000

Best affordable TV


The Best affordable TV award for 2021 goes to the Samsung UE50AU9000, a TV that offered excellent 4K picture quality and well-thought out smart features.

The other nominees were:

Hisense R50A7200GTUK Roku TV
Toshiba 43UL2063DB
TCL 55C715K
TCL Roku 55RP620K

Best Gaming TV


The Best Gaming TV award for 2021 goes to the LG OLED65C1. This mid-range OLED put in a belting all-round performance, in particular its gaming features.

The other nominees were:

Samsung QE65QN94A
Panasonic TX-55JZ2000
Panasonic TX-48JZ980

Best 8K TV


The Best 8K TV award for 2021 goes to the Samsung QE75QN900A, as Samsung continues to bush the boundaries of 8K.

The other nominees were:

Sony KD-75ZH8
LG 75QNED99

Best projector


The Best projector award for 2021 goes to the Sony VPL-VW790ES, a superb effort that produced spectacularly bright HDR images.

The other nominees were:

Samsung Premiere LSP9T
Sony VPL-VW590ES

Best outdoor projector


The Best outdoor projector award for 2021 goes to the XGIMI Horizon, which offered good picture quality, smarts and an impressive sound for a small projector.

The other nominees were:

Anker Nebula Capsule Max
XGIMI Halo

Best streaming box/stick


The Best streaming box/stick award for 2021 goes to the Apple TV 4K (2021). While not a massive upgrade, it remains the best overall video streamer with its excellent picture quality and wide app support.

The other nominees were:

Roku Express 4K
Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa voice remote (2020)
Chromecast with Google TV

Best soundbar


The Best soundbar award for 2021 goes to the Samsung HW-Q950A. This soundbar offered the most immersive experience we’ve yet heard from a soundbar system.

The other nominees were:

Philips Fidelio B97
JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam
LG SP11RA
Samsung HW-S61A

Best amp/receiver


The Best amp/receiver award for 2021 goes to the Denon AVC-X4700H, a dynamic and capable effort that’s perfect for those looking to create their own home cinema and music hub.

The other nominees were:

Marantz NR1711
Rotel A11 Tribute

What are the Trusted Reviews Awards 2021?

The Trusted Reviews Awards are a yearly celebration of the best products, companies and services in the world of tech, split into reader-voted and editor’s choice categories.

Our team of experts pick the best products from many categories, including mobile, TV/Audio, Cameras and more and celebrate the best of the best.

With the pandemic still taking place we’ve had to make a few changes to this year’s format and take the whole event online. You’ll be able to follow the awards as they’re announced across the week.

Thoughts from the TV & audio editor

It’s been a jam-packed year, so much so that a number of products failed to come in just before our awards deadline hit. But that doesn’t make this list of winners any less worthy. We’ve seen brighter OLEDs, projectors capable of producing better HDR performance and soundbars that offer more immersive and expansive sound. It’s been a very good year in light of the circumstances.

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

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Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

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Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

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