Specs for TV (PlayStation 5)

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Having recently bought my eldest a gaming pc I am aware how important refresh rates are. I'm buying my youngest a PlayStation 5 but he'll be on a TV, I think he needs a refresh rate of 120hz for the games he plays but it is so hard to find TVs at that rate because I can't narrow down by it. I've found some but they're too large and as such also more than I want to pay. Has anyone recently bought a 120hz 1080i tv for under £300? Are these the right specs to go for?

120Hz TV compatibility is a bit of a bleeding edge feature. The manufacturers are not sold on it being a must-have feature, and testing isn't great. So I'd be wary of buying a cheaper 120Hz TV - the console might just decide that it can only support 60Hz, or a particular game might be incompatible.

On the PS5 there's only 102 titles out of 2660 that support 120Hz anyway.

And if your son is into competitive shooters, and can tell the difference, he'd surely be pushing you for a PC with a 144Hz display instead.

If a high refresh rate is really important above other factors, I'd shop for a monitor instead of a TV.

@mattbee thank you that's really helpful, is it worth pushing for a 4K TV do you think? Or is 1080i sufficient?

You can definitely get 4K far more readily, and (personally) I can spot the difference when using it at typical computer / gaming distances. It's worth having and the PS5 will use it.

At the cheaper end, you will get washed-out colours, or narrower viewing angles compared to a "better" panel. If you stick to 60Hz / 1080p, you should have a larger choice of good ones, but it'll depend on your budget.

I recently bought one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BX75WKGG for game development work - so I wanted 4K and 120Hz, even though the latter is silly :) From the reviews it looked about the cheapest decent telly that would do both. When I'm working at the desk, I glance at it from quite an extreme angle, and find the colours a bit pale.

I tend to lean pretty heavily on What HiFi or Toms Hardware reviews to describe the picture quality.

Get a 60hz 4k TV. I have a 120hz TV and a ps5 and I've never actually used it at 120 as almost no games support it.

You won't get one in your budget (I paid £1400 for mine). 4k Vs 1080 will make a massive difference, way more than 60hz Vs 120hz.

Refresh rates are not as important for consoles as they are for PC. You get much less control over graphical settings in general and often can't choose the rate at all, and when you can it's usually just picking between 30 and 60.