The Roku Select Series is the lower-tier model in Roku's first-ever proprietary series of TVs. It sits below the Roku Plus Series QLED, but unlike that model, the Select doesn't use quantum dot technology to display a wider range of colors. As it's a cheap TV, it lacks some gaming features that more expensive models tend to have, like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, a 120Hz panel, local dimming, and variable refresh rate (VRR). Unlike the Roku Plus, the Select doesn't support Dolby Vision but still supports HDR10+. It comes with version 12.5 of Roku's fast and intuitive Roku TV smart OS, and its remote has an integrated microphone for voice commands. You can also use voice through the Roku app on your phone. It comes in eight different sizes, from a very small 24-inch to a large 75-inch model.
Our Verdict
The Roku Select Series TV is decent overall. It has adequate contrast and middling HDR brightness, so it looks fine when watching HDR content in dark rooms, although blacks look gray in dark scenes when bright highlights are present. Thankfully, it gets much brighter in SDR and has decent reflection handling, so it handles glare in bright and moderately-lit rooms well, making it a good TV for TV shows and sports during the day. Unfortunately, the TV's viewing angle is narrow, so it's best when viewed from directly in front. The TV is at its best when watching high-quality 4k content from physical sources, as its image processing capabilities are disappointing when dealing with low-quality or low-bitrate content. Finally, it's a good gaming TV due to its fantastic input lag and great response time.
-
Bright enough to fight glare in SDR.
-
Available in a ton of different sizes.
-
Fantastic color accuracy after changing only a few settings.
-
Disappointing image processing.
-
Narrow viewing angle.
The Roku Select Series TV is adequate for TV shows. It has very good SDR brightness and decent reflection handling, so it's bright enough to handle some glare in bright rooms, although it looks its best in moderately lit contexts. Its viewing angle is narrow, so it isn't the best choice for watching shows in a wide seating arrangement. It's not terrible, but it looks its best when viewed directly in front. The TV's image processing is disappointing, so lower-resolution shows from DVDs or shows from streaming services don't look as good as they could.
-
Bright enough to fight glare in SDR.
-
Decent reflection handling.
-
Disappointing image processing.
-
Narrow viewing angle.
The Roku Select Series TV is satisfactory for sports. It has decent reflection handling and gets bright enough in SDR to handle some glare from bright rooms, but it looks better in moderately lit rooms. The TV has a narrow viewing angle, so it's best viewed from directly in front. Its gray uniformity is alright; there's a noticeable pink hue on the lower left side of the screen with large areas of bright uniform color, with obvious vignetting, which is noticeable in certain sports, like hockey. Thankfully it has a great response time, so there's minimal blur when watching fast-moving sports.
-
Bright enough to fight glare in SDR.
-
Great response time with most content.
-
Decent reflection handling.
-
Disappointing image processing.
-
Noticeable uniformity issues with bright colors.
-
Narrow viewing angle.
The Roku Select Series TV is a good choice for gaming. It looks good in Game Mode, with adequate contrast and very good SDR peak brightness. The TV also has decent reflection handling, so it can handle some glare in bright rooms, but it is at its best in moderately lit rooms. Gaming on this TV is extremely responsive due to its fantastic input lag and great response time, although its response time is much slower in dark scenes, leading to black smearing. The TV is a bit light on gaming features, as it doesn't support VRR or 1440p, and is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.
-
Bright enough to fight glare in SDR.
-
Very low input lag.
-
Great response time with most content.
-
Decent reflection handling.
-
The TV's contrast and dark details are preserved well in Game Mode.
-
Disappointing image processing.
-
Limited gaming features.
-
Slow response time in dark scenes, leading to some black smearing.
The Roku Select Series TV is okay for movies. The TV's contrast is adequate, so dark scenes look fine in a dark room, although blacks look gray in dark scenes when bright highlights are present. Its HDR brightness is middling; highlights don't pop, and HDR content looks dull. Still, the TV's color accuracy is fantastic with minimal calibration. Unfortunately, the TV's image processing capabilities are limited; movies from streaming platforms have noticeable compression artifacts in dark scenes, and it barely sharpens low-resolution movies from DVDs when upscaling them.
-
Excellent PQ EOTF tracking.
-
Fantastic color accuracy after changing only a few settings.
-
Disappointing image processing.
-
Doesn't remove judder from most sources.
-
HDR content looks a bit dull.
The Roku Select Series TV is good for playing HDR-enabled games, although its HDR brightness in Game Mode is middling. The TV has an adequate contrast ratio, so it looks fine in dark rooms, but it's a bit better in moderately lit rooms, as blacks are washed out in dark scenes when bright highlights are present. The TV's input lag is fantastic, so your inputs are quick and responsive, and its response time is great overall, so there's minimal blur in fast-moving games. However, its response time is noticeably worse in dark content, so this isn't the best TV for horror games. The TV is also rather limited regarding gaming features, as it doesn't support VRR or 1440p and is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.
-
Very low input lag.
-
Great response time with most content.
-
The TV's contrast and dark details are preserved well in Game Mode.
-
HDR content looks a bit dull.
-
Limited gaming features.
-
Slow response time in dark scenes, leading to some black smearing.
The Roku Select Series TV is a good TV to use as a PC monitor. It has very good SDR peak brightness and decent reflection handling, so it handles bright offices well, although it looks better in moderate lighting conditions. Its viewing angle is narrow, so the sides of the screen look washed out when you're sitting close to the TV. Still, the TV does proper chroma 4:4:4 with low input lag to give you the sharpest text alongside a very responsive experience, helped by the TV's great response time. Just make sure to avoid setting your apps and operating system to dark mode, as the TV's response time is noticeably slower when coming out of dark states.
-
Bright enough to fight glare in SDR.
-
Displays proper chroma 4:4:4 with the lowest input lag.
-
Great response time with most content.
-
Decent reflection handling.
-
Noticeable uniformity issues with bright colors.
-
Slow response time in dark scenes, leading to some black smearing.
-
Narrow viewing angle.
- 7.1 Mixed Usage
- 6.9 TV Shows
- 7.0 Sports
- 7.6 Video Games
- 6.9 HDR Movies
- 7.7 HDR Gaming
- 7.5 PC Monitor
- Updated Oct 04, 2024: We added a comparison to the newly-reviewed TCL S5/S551G in the Color Gamut box.
- Updated Jul 30, 2024: Mentioned the newly-reviewed LG UT7570 in the Low-Quality Content Smoothing section of this review.
- Updated Jul 02, 2024: Mentioned the newly-reviewed Roku Pro Series QLED in the Contrast section of this review.
- Updated Mar 21, 2024: Added the 55-inch Costco variant (55R4A6) in the Differences Between Sizes and Variants. We also removed all mentions of the TV being a Best Buy exclusive now that it's available at several different retailers.
- Updated Feb 29, 2024: Mentioned the newly reviewed Sharp AQUOS FS1 OLED in the Viewing Angle section of this review.
- Updated Feb 16, 2024: Clarified that Dynamic Tone Mapping should be 'Off' in the HDR Brightness, HDR Brightness In Game Mode, and PQ EOTF Tracking sections, and added a link to the calibration settings page in the Updated Dec 08, 2023: Mentioned the newly-reviewed TCL Q5/Q550G QLED in the Supported Resolutions section of this review.
- Updated Nov 24, 2023: Review published.
- Updated Nov 21, 2023: Early access published.
- Updated Nov 16, 2023: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Nov 13, 2023: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Oct 27, 2023: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 65-inch Roku Select Series TV (65R4A5R), but it's also available in 24, 32, 40, 43, 50, 55, and 75-inch sizes. The 24 and 32-inch models have a 720p resolution, while the 40-inch model has a 1080p panel. Model sizes above 40 inches are all 4k TVs. The non-4k models also have three HDMI ports instead of four on the 4k models. Costco sells an exclusive 55-inch variant of this TV (55R4A6) that is identical except for the model code.
| Size | US Model | Resolution | Number of HDMI ports |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24" | Roku 24R2A5R | 720p | 3 |
| 32" | Roku 32R2A5R | 720p | 3 |
| 40" | Roku 40R2A5R | 1080p | 3 |
| 43" | Roku 43R4A5R | 4k | 4 |
| 50" | Roku 50R4A5R | 4k | 4 |
| 55" | Roku 55R4A5R | 4k | 4 |
| 65" | Roku 65R4A5R | 4k | 4 |
| 75" | Roku 75R4A5R | 4k | 4 |
Our unit was manufactured in December 2022, and you can see the label here.
Compared To Other TVs
The Roku Select Series is a great cheap TV and competes with the TCL S4/S450G and the Hisense A6/A65K. Overall, the Roku is better than the TCL but is a bit light on features compared to the Hisense, although the Roku is better for watching SDR content in bright rooms due to its higher SDR peak brightness. One advantage of the Roku TV over any other model in its price range is the sheer plethora of sizes you can buy it in; as small as 24 inches to as big as 75. It's certainly one of the best bang-for-the-buck cheap TVs and is widely available.
See our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best smart TVs, and the best small TVs.
The TCL S5/S551G and the Roku Select Series are both budget TVs that perform similarly overall, though the TCL has a slight edge. Aside from using different smart interfaces, they have similar contrast ratios and peak brightness. That said, the TCL has a wider color gamut and slightly better picture processing. The TCL also supports Dolby Vision and has more gaming features, like VRR.
The Roku Plus Series QLED is better than the Roku Select Series. The Plus has local dimming, so it has a much better contrast for deeper blacks. It also gets much brighter than the Select in HDR, with a noticeably wider color gamut, enough for a satisfying HDR experience. The Select has a wider viewing angle, making it better suited for large parties or if you like to move around the TV, and it's much more accurate before being calibrated. It's also available in significantly more sizes than the Plus.
The Hisense A6/A65K is better than the Roku Select Series. They're very comparable in contrast and HDR brightness, although the Roku is much brighter in SDR, with a wider viewing angle, making it better suited for watching TV shows or sports in bright rooms with lots of friends sitting around the TV. The Roku is also available in more sizes, so there's something for everyone. Still, the Hisense is vastly more colorful than the Roku, so HDR content pops more on it than on the Select. The Hisense also has more features, such as good upscaling capabilities, removes 24p judder from more sources, and even has a basic variable refresh rate feature.
The TCL Q5/Q550G QLED is better than the Roku Select Series. The TCL gets brighter in both SDR and HDR, has better color volume, a wide color gamut, and supports Dolby Vision. The TCL also offers more to gamers with VRR support and the option of playing in 1080p @ 120Hz natively or 1440p @ 120Hz with resolution halving. On top of that, the TCL has better contrast and black uniformity, so it's a better option for dark room viewing.
The Roku Select Series is better than the TCL S4/S450G. The Roku is noticeably brighter in HDR and SDR, has better black uniformity and a significantly faster response time, and has a wider viewing angle than the TCL. The TCL does have better upscaling and low-quality content smoothing capabilities, but the Roku has better HDR native gradient handling. Overall, the Roku is the better-looking and better-performing TV of the two and is available in more sizes.
The Samsung CU7000/CU7000D and the Roku Select Series are very similar TVs with a couple of notable differences. The Roku has a higher SDR peak brightness, so it overcomes glare better in a bright room. The Roku also gets a bit brighter in HDR, so highlights pop more than on the Samsung. It also has a slightly wider viewing angle, so the image doesn’t degrade as quickly as it does on the Samsung. However, the Samsung is a little more versatile for gaming as it supports 1440p @ 60Hz.
The Roku Select Series is better than the Samsung TU690T. It gets much brighter in HDR and SDR, with a much better color volume, so all content pops more on the Roku than on the Samsung. The Roku is also the more accurate TV of the two. The Samsung does remove 24p judder from more sources and supports a 1440p resolution, but overall, it's outmatched by the Roku TV.
Video
Test Results
The Roku Select TV has a basic design, and it doesn't look very premium. It has thin bezels on three sides, with a much thicker bottom bezel.
The feet are basic, but they support the TV well. They're wide-set, so you'll need a wide TV table if you're not planning on wall-mounting it.
Footprint of the 65" stand: 51.6" x 13.2". The feet raise the screen about 3.3" above the table, so pretty much any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen.
The back is plain, mostly flat with raised lines, with a raised middle section on the bottom where the inputs are. As all inputs are near the center of the TV, they're hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted, although the side-facing ports are slightly easier to access than the bottom-facing ones. The TV has a tie wrap clip on the TV for the power cable but doesn't come with any other clips for cable management.
The TV has mediocre build quality. It's not made of premium materials, but there are no noticeable issues. There's a bit of flex on the back panel around the inputs, but this is common and won't cause any problems.
The Roku Select Series TV has a great native contrast ratio, but as it lacks a local dimming feature, blacks appear gray and washed out when very bright highlights are on the screen. If you want a Roku TV with better contrast, check out the Roku Pro Series QLED instead.
This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no blooming around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes.
This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones.
Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance.
Unfortunately, the TV's peak brightness in HDR is middling. HDR content is generally dull and lifeless, and specular highlights don't stand out.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Dark HDR
- TV Brightness: Brighter
- Backlight: 100
- Contrast: 100
- Game Mode: Off
- Dynamic Tone Mapping: Off
- Color Temperature: Warm
The TV's HDR brightness with Game Mode set to 'On' is sub-par. There's no noticeable difference in peak brightness from having the setting set to 'Off'.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Dark HDR
- TV Brightness: Brighter
- Backlight: 100
- Contrast: 100
- Game Mode: On
- Dynamic Tone Mapping: off
- Color Temperature: Warm
The TV has excellent PQ EOTF tracking with Dynamic Tone Mapping set to 'off.' It tracks the curve very well, although not perfectly, as most scenes are a tad overbrightened, much more so in very dark scenes.
The TV has very good SDR peak brightness. It gets bright enough to fight glare in a bright room, although it's better suited to a moderately-lit one.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Movie
- TV Brightness: Brighter
- Backlight: 100
- Contrast: 100
- Color Temperature: Warm
- Gamma correction: 2.2 (recommended)
The TV has an okay color gamut, but it can't fully display the wide range of colors that HDR is intended for. It does a good job with the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, but the TV doesn't adequately cover the wider Rec. 2020 color space. The TV's tone mapping is also way off in both color spaces, so it doesn't accurately portray colors at different saturation levels. If you want a budget TV with a wider and more accurate color gamut, check out the TCL S5/S551G.
The color volume of this TV is mediocre. Without local dimming, it can't display dark saturated colors well, and its low peak brightness limits its ability to display bright and vibrant colors.
The Roku Select TV has fantastic accuracy after changing just a few settings. Its color accuracy is superb overall, with no obvious accuracy errors. Its color temperature is a tad cold but still good overall. Its white balance is also superb, as it accurately portrays all shades of gray. As for gamma, it's exactly on the 2.2 target for moderately lit rooms.
The TV is easy to calibrate. The TV already looks fantastic before calibration, so there isn't much to do. After calibration, the TV has nearly perfect color and brightness accuracy, and its color temperature is now almost exactly on the 6,500K target, neither too warm nor too cold.
You can see our full calibration settings here.
The TV's gray uniformity is adequate. There are noticeable uniformity issues across the screen on large areas of bright, uniform color. There is obvious vignetting on all of its edges, and there's also a pink hue in the lower left of the screen, with dark bands in the middle. These uniformity issues are distracting when watching sports or browsing the web. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes, with minor backlight bleeding on both sides of the screen.
The Roku Select Series TV's black uniformity is great. The screen has a light blue tint in near-black scenes due to the lack of local dimming, with a slightly brighter patch on the right side of the screen.
The off-angle viewing of this TV is mediocre. As you move off-center, colors appear dim and washed out, and the image takes on a slightly green tint. It's not terrible, but it isn't the best choice for a wide seating arrangement. If you want a TV with a wider viewing angle that also runs the Roku OS, check out the Sharp AQUOS FS1 OLED.
The reflection handling is decent. The semi-gloss coating helps reduce the intensity of direct reflections, but they're still distracting. It's fantastic when dealing with ambient lighting, however, so you just need to avoid placing it immediately opposite bright lights or windows.
The TV has good HDR gradient handling. There's some banding in dark grays and greens, but other color gradients have minimal banding, if any.
Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is poor. It just doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well. If you're looking for an affordable TV with better low-quality content smoothing, check out the LG UT7570.
The TV has disappointing upscaling capabilities. The Sharpness slider doesn't seem to affect the TV's sharpening much, making it hard to improve the TV's overall image quality in upscaled content.
Sharpness processing was calibrated for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, with the following setting:
- Sharpness: 60
The TV uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout. For multimedia usage, this doesn't cause any issues, but it causes text clarity issues when you use this TV as a PC monitor. There are easy workarounds for these issues, however, and you can read about them here.
The Roku Select Series has a great response time, so motion is fluid and smooth, with just a bit of blur behind fast-moving objects. The TV is slower when coming out of a dark state, so there's some black smear in shadow details and noticeable overshoot.
Unfortunately, the backlight flickers at a low frequency with anything below the max backlight setting. This flicker causes a noticeable image duplication, and it can cause headaches and eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.
This TV doesn't have a backlight strobing feature, also commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). It always flickers at a fixed frequency unless you have the backlight at max. This low-frequency flicker acts similarly to a BFI feature and helps reduce persistence blur, but it also causes a noticeable image duplication.
This TV doesn't have a motion interpolation feature.
The TV's good response time results in an overall decent stutter performance. There's some noticeable stutter in slow-panning shots in 24p content, like movies. The TV's stutter performance is exceptional with 60 fps content.
The TV removes 24p judder from external sources, like DVD or Blu-ray players, but not from internal apps. It can't properly remove judder from any 60Hz source.
This TV doesn't support VRR.
This TV has incredibly low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming and desktop experience.
The Roku Select TV supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz, although, unfortunately, it doesn't support 1440p. It displays chroma 4:4:4 signals properly at all of its supported resolutions, which is essential for clear text from a desktop PC. If you'd like a TV with a faster 120Hz refresh rate, look up the similarly priced TCL Q5/Q550G QLED.
This TV can't take full advantage of the PS5. It supports HDR but doesn't support VRR or 1440p resolutions and is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.
This TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X. It supports HDR but doesn't support VRR or 1440p resolutions and is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.
This TV is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth on all four HDMI ports.
Unfortunately, this TV can't passthrough advanced DTS audio formats over eARC, which is disappointing as many UHD Blu-ray discs use these as their main audio track. It also can't pass any 5.1 audio formats through optical, like DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1, but they work fine through ARC.
The Roku Select TV has a disappointing frequency response. There's next to no bass response, as the low-frequency extension (LFE) is incredibly high. Above the LFE, the frequency response is well-balanced at low-volume settings, and most dialogue is clear and easy to understand. It can't get very loud, though, and there's noticeable compression at max volume.
This TV has good distortion performance. There's very little audible distortion at moderate listening levels, and while it does increase at maximum volume, it's still decent overall.
This TV runs version 12.5 of the Roku TV smart interface, which is very simple, with fewer animations and a simpler user interface than you'll get with more premium TVs. It's very fast, though, and quite intuitive.
Unfortunately, like all Roku TVs we've tested, there are large ads on the home screen, and you can't get rid of them.
There's a great selection of streaming apps to choose from, and most of the more popular streaming services are available.
This TV comes with the voice remote found with most premium Roku devices. You can access voice controls through the remote or the Roku companion app. There are a few quick access buttons for popular streaming services, and the remote also comes with two extra shortcut buttons to which you can assign apps, which is a nice touch. You can also plug in headphones into the remote for private listening.
