How to choose the right TV size
- Measure from where your eyes will be on the sofa to the wall where the TV will hang, and enter the distance. Or switch modes and enter a TV size to find where to sit.
- Choose the resolution and what you mostly watch: mixed TV, movies or gaming and sports.
- Read the recommended screen size (rounded to common sizes), the field of view each size gives, and whether you would be close enough to see pixels.
Field of view, not rules of thumb
Industry guidance is based on how much of your vision the screen fills. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommends a horizontal viewing angle of at least 30° for a good experience; THX recommends about 40° for an immersive, cinema-like feel. At 2.5 m (about 8 ft), a 30° angle calls for roughly a 61-inch TV, so a 65" is a natural choice; for 40° you would go to about 82 inches. Many people find their first big TV feels huge for a week, then perfectly normal.
Resolution sets how close you can sit before seeing the pixel structure. With 20/20 vision (one arcminute), the individual pixels of a 65-inch 4K TV disappear beyond about 1.3 m, while on a 1080p set of the same size you need about 2.6 m. That is why 4K makes larger screens practical in normal living rooms, and why 8K mostly matters for very large screens viewed up close. Calculations assume a 16:9 screen and run in your browser.
What size TV for a 3 m (10 ft) viewing distance?
About 73 inches (so a 75") for the SMPTE 30° guideline, or 98–100 inches for a THX cinema feel.
Is it bad to sit too close to the TV?
It does not damage your eyes, but very wide angles can be tiring for TV watching.
Does 4K matter on a small TV?
Only if you sit close. On a 43" TV viewed from 3 m, 1080p and 4K look almost the same.