10 cheapest ways to upgrade your TV setup

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Unless you're a hardcore AV nerd (sorry, "enthusiast"), you probably don't make changes to your TV or its surrounding setup all that often. Like many other household appliances, a TV is the sort of thing you buy and then use until it stops working.

However, unlike a fridge or a vacuum cleaner, TVs have been advancing in leaps and bounds over the past few years. This means that the TV you currently own might be significantly less advanced than more modern models.

But replacing a TV isn't exactly cheap. While there is a smart TV for every budget, you may not necessarily need to replace your entire TV just yet. Even if you do, you probably don't have to spend the modern equivalent of what you paid for your current TV to get a satisfactory upgrade. There are many ways to upgrade your TV setup without spending a fortune, and they all represent a significant return on your investment.

Read more: 4 Reasons You Should (And 4 Why You Shouldn't) Mount Your TV On The Wall

Rethink your perception of brands

When it comes to home appliances, brand has always played a powerful role in the perception of quality, performance, and reliability. In decades past, brands like Panasonic and Toshiba were highly regarded, but although these brand names persist today, the companies behind them are completely different.

It's a common story in the world of consumer electronics. For example, you might not realize that many of the most famous audio brands are now owned by Samsung. Toshiba, which we just mentioned, is 95% owned by Hisense. All of which brings us neatly to brands like Hisense and TCL.

These are major Chinese TV brands that have slowly but surely built a name for themselves in the rest of the world over the past few years. At first, just like Samsung and LG in the early days, TVs from these brands were often considered off-brand and really only for those on a tight budget. However, today a Hisense or TCL TV is both affordable and packed with the latest technologies, great image quality, and decent (or better) build quality for the price. The latest Mini LED technology, high refresh rates, HDR, variable refresh technology, and all the other bells and whistles of modern TV tech are present and correct. TCL and Hisense landed sixth and fourth in our list of the top smart TV brands by customer satisfaction, so don't feel compelled to restrict yourself to the likes of Sony, Samsung, or LG.

Add a cheap soundbar

While retro enthusiasts love CRT displays, the rest of the world celebrated moving to thinner, lighter TVs with much bigger screens. Yet one major thing we gave up with our slender, wall-mountable TVs is really good audio quality. There isn't much room in a flat LCD or OLED TV for decent speakers, so you'll find that many TVs these days have rather thin and unsatisfying audio.

This is one big reason that we've seen the rise of the soundbar, but you might have balked at the price tags some of these flat little speaker units command. The thing is, you don't actually have to spend a lot of money on a soundbar in order to upgrade your TV setup. In fact, practically any soundbar will likely be an improvement over the sound that's built into your TV. If you buy a soundbar with a separate, dedicated subwoofer, the uplift in audio quality is virtually guaranteed.

And, while soundbars are great for TVs because of their slim design, tuning, and sound stage, they're not the only option. As long as your TV has the right output (e.g., 3.5-millimeter analog audio jacks or stereo RCA), you can use pretty much any external speaker solution. Bookshelf speakers are a great option, or you can just grab a decent used Hi-Fi from the online classifieds. There are few things that improve immersion like better speakers, and there's no budget-related reason to live with those tinny TV speakers.

Calibrate your TV

Every display has a limit to its abilities to show you a pretty picture, but that doesn't mean it's giving you its best out of the box. While some sets come with a degree of calibration from the factory, the display settings that will give you the best picture that your TV can deliver depend on the context of what you're watching and your own preferences. The lighting and layout of your entertainment space also have an effect on what settings your TV should have.

Getting a professional calibration done, or doing one yourself, ensures that your TV shows color as accurately as it can. That may sound like a minor improvement, but your TV's color accuracy is more important than you think. Not only does it show you what the movie or show you're watching was supposed to look like, but it also improves the perceived quality of your image. That means you might not need a TV upgrade, and you've been sitting on a much better TV than you knew.

Even better news is that you can calibrate your smart TV without any fancy tools. You can use a test pattern and a little eyeballing to make things better. It won't be as good as proper calibration, but it will be better than nothing, and it will also cost you nothing but time and effort. If you have an Apple TV 4K and an iPhone with Face ID and iOS 14.5 or later, you can actually use its camera to do a calibration for the 4K input channel of your Apple TV.

Buy a TV stick or streaming box

If you bought a smart TV a good few years ago, you may have noticed that over time, it's become slower and slower. The operating system and apps keep getting updated, but instead of becoming more efficient, they become more bloated. Now there are new animations all over the place, video previews play without end, and scrolling through app menus has become a slog.

Smart TVs are notorious for not having the snappiest hardware even when new, but the experience can quickly become bogged down as the set ages. However, if you're perfectly happy with the image and motion performance of your TV, can you really justify replacing the whole thing just because everything that happens in between shows is an unpleasant experience? Probably not!

There are so many options for streaming boxes and sticks at every budget level that it's often better to simply pick up whichever is the latest model at the lowest price you're willing to pay. You can opt for a premium option like the Apple TV 4K and never have to think about the issue again for years, or, alternatively, grab an Amazon Fire Stick 4K Select for $40 and get an instant upgrade for your TV. There's no need to succumb to the planned or unplanned obsolescence of the now not-so-smart computer guts of your smart TV.

Add a bias light

If I told you that you could immediately improve the visual quality of your TV's image by sticking a few LED lights on its back, you might think it was an elaborate prank, but that's exactly how bias lighting works. It doesn't do anything to the actual image on your screen, but relies on certain quirks of biology and psychology to improve how you perceive that image.

Bias lighting is most effective when watching TV in a dark environment. It reduces eye strain by preventing your pupils from having to rapidly and dramatically adjust to bright flashes on the screen in total darkness. Because there's constant light around the TV, your eyes can adjust to a comfortable medium.

Putting a subtle light like this behind your TV also tricks your brain into seeing the image as more vibrant with better contrast than it really has. If you set your bias light to a natural daylight temperature, perceived color accuracy can be better, too, since you have a natural-looking light as a reference. Some bias light systems, like the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite, use a camera and RGB lights to analyze what's on-screen and dynamically generate a complementary bias light that increases immersion, making it feel like the picture extends beyond the limits of the frame. At under $100, it's a fairly affordable upgrade, and you really need to experience it firsthand to see how much of a difference it can make.

Move your TV to the correct height and distance

The placement of your TV is crucial to getting the most out of it. If it's too far away, you can't see all the detail you're paying for. If the TV is too high, you'll strain your neck or get a worse image because the viewing angle is too far off-axis.

This seems straightforward enough, but what are the actual correct height and distance numbers? The truth is that your TV is probably mounted too high. If you visit Reddit's r/TVTooHigh, you'll see an endless stream of examples where people mount TVs in a way that looks reasonable but is far too high.

A good rule of thumb for height is that when you're sitting down, your eyes should naturally fall on the center of the screen. This can result in some larger TV sizes being much closer to the floor than you'd expect. If you tilt your head up during viewing, such as in a recliner, then the TV can be mounted higher, but you'll also want a mount that can be tilted down so you're still looking at the screen dead-on. Yes, there's annoying math involved, but it might mean the difference between sticking with the TV you have and buying a larger TV you didn't actually need.

Switch from Wi-Fi to Ethernet

Wi-Fi is incredibly convenient for a smart TV, allowing you to just put the set wherever you like and know the wireless signal will reach it. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi can also be notoriously unreliable. It's not just that the peak speed you can achieve with Wi-Fi isn't always great. It's that Wi-Fi can be fine one minute and not the next.

It's this instability that makes it a poor general solution for video streaming. Thanks to excellent streaming technology, services like Netflix will keep the show going regardless of network conditions, but that does have a significant effect on your viewing experience. If your Wi-Fi keeps fluctuating, then you might be looking at a high-bitrate 4K image only half the time and a low-res, blocky mess the rest of the time.

Ethernet is usually faster than Wi-Fi, but even more importantly, it's far more stable. If you can run an Ethernet cable from your router to your TV, you can expect a better streaming experience overall, and it will only cost a few dollars. If it really isn't practical, consider a powerline Ethernet kit. This uses your home's electrical wiring to send Ethernet signals. The speed is far more than you need for streaming, and it can offer the same consistency as regular Ethernet. Alternatively, if you already have the coaxial wiring for cable TV installed, you can use a MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) kit to convert that to Ethernet.

Change your room lighting

So far, we've looked at adjusting your TV to match the room it's in or adding special lighting to bring out the best in your set. However, these solutions can only go so far. If the room's lighting overpowers your TV, you're going to struggle with glare and reflection issues.

The good news is that you have a few options to deal with those issues. Controlling the level of light in the room is the first line of defense. Switching to thicker curtains (or even blackout curtains) gives you the option of darkening the room in the day if you need to. Likewise, switching to dimmable smart lights allows you to create a preset where you don't have to watch TV in total darkness, but can reduce the light in the room to a level where you don't see glare and reflections.

In some cases, you're going to have to reorient your TV to avoid a bright object across from it reflecting on the screen during dark scenes. Some TVs let you save custom picture modes or have separate daylight and night-viewing modes, which can help reduce glare and reflections. If your TV has an automatic brightness mode using a light sensor, consider activating it to see how well it deals with the changing light conditions in the room. If you can eliminate glare and reflections, your TV experience will receive a massive improvement, but getting there is up to you.

Buy a new TV stand

Unless you've chosen to mount your TV on your wall, you're most likely using the TV stand that came in the box. In most cases these days, that means a pair of plastic or metal feet that slide into peg holes in the TV and do nothing more than prevent your TV from falling over. Which, really, is the bare minimum you expect a stand to do.

However, there's a whole universe of aftermarket stand solutions that improve on these stock options in every way. In most cases, these upgraded stands use the same VESA mounting holes that your TV wall mount does. For example, there are rolling stands that make it easy to move your TV from one room to the next. You could also choose a universal stand that won't let your TV wobble every time someone walks across the floor and can include features like tilt, swivel, and height adjustability.

Having a stand with the right design and set of features for your needs can transform how you use or experience your TV. It's especially great if you live somewhere that wall-mounting isn't possible or isn't allowed. Now that you know this restriction doesn't mean you have to settle for those awful stock stands, what are you waiting for?

Install acoustic panels

Just like treating the light in your TV room can improve the picture, treating the acoustics of that room can upgrade its perceived sound quality. What are we trying to avoid? You don't want sound from your TV reflecting in a way that detracts from the audio, nor do you want a room that is completely dead with no acoustic reflections at all.

For home theaters, the rule of thumb is usually around 20-30% coverage, but for upgrading your TV experience, you might only be trying to take the edge off a room with poor acoustics. That means you can probably get away with less. After all, we're trying to spend as little as possible to upgrade the experience, and the cost of acoustic panels can add up quickly.

Acoustic panels on the rear wall opposite the TV will help tame unwanted echo, and bass traps in the corners will reduce unwanted booming and rumble if you have the volume turned up and a decent subwoofer. If you have a bare, hard floor, consider adding a throw rug to reduce sound reflection, and if you're going to put in darker curtains anyway, there are some options that also act as sound dampeners. Again, don't go overboard with home-theater-grade acoustic treatments, but be strategic and shop around for reasonably priced panels.

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