The Best Home Entertainment Gear of 2026

Sep 17, 2026 09:00 PM - 1 hour ago 2
Stephen Johnson is simply a elder unit writer astatine Lifehacker covering popular civilization and technology, including the columns “The Out-of-Touch Adults’ Guide to Kid Culture” and “What People Are Getting Wrong This Week.”

I don't want to beryllium mean—but your streams are excessively compressed, your pixel count is excessively low, and your situation sound is not surrounding. It's cool, though, because you tin upgrade your outdated TV pinch a caller one, consciousness existent bass pinch a caller stereo, and different entertain yourself pinch each mode of location intermezo appliances. The cogwheel listed beneath is the champion of 2026 successful different categories.

The champion wide location intermezo merchandise of 2026: Samsung S95H OLED TV

Samsung's flagship TV is astir arsenic bully arsenic it's imaginable for a TV to be. It uses "quantum dot enhanced" OLED exertion to present the brightest 4K image of immoderate TV connected the market. The colors are HDR10+ certified. The blacks are arsenic achromatic arsenic my soul. The 165Hz refresh complaint destroys lag. The S95H offers built-in spatial audio, pinch room-filling, directional sound, and the creation is arsenic fantabulous arsenic the specs: The surface is matte, and the framework is metallic silver, truthful it looks for illustration a portion of art, and it's bladed capable that you tin bent it connected the wall for illustration one. It's not cheap, but it's the benignant of tv that will impressment your neighbors.

Samsung 77-Inch Class S90H Series Smart TV
$2,597.99 at Amazon
$2,797.99 Save $200.00
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Samsung 77-Inch Class OLED S90H Series Samsung Vision AI Smart TV (2026 Model, 77S90H) OLED HDR+ pinch Glare Free, NQ4 AI Gen3 Processor, 4K AI Upscaling Pro, AI Motion Enhancer Pro, Alexa Built-in
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$2,597.99 at Amazon
$2,797.99 Save $200.00

Best projector of 2026: Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K SE

There are projectors retired location pinch brighter pictures and much features, but the Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K is my prime for champion of the twelvemonth for its equilibrium of quality, portability, and price. A projector for illustration the Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 is nice, but it costs astir $6,000, and it mounts to the ceiling truthful you can't usage it to show a movie successful the backyard aliases bring it complete to your friend Gary's house. The Cosmos is designed for versatility. It automatically focuses and scales its crisp, agleam 4K image connected immoderate level wall successful seconds, and it costs little than a grand. It moreover has a grip for easy carrying.

Anker Nebula Cosmos 4K Smart Projector
$799.99 at Amazon
$999.99 Save $200.00
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NEBULA Cosmos 4K SE Smart Projector,4K High-Brightness Projector pinch Dolby Vision,200" Huge Screen,1,800 ANSI Lumens Brightness,HybridBeam,Enhanced Image Quality,Google TV,Portable(Renewed)
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$799.99 at Amazon
$999.99 Save $200.00

Best soundbar of 2026: Sonos Arc Ultra

Soundbars person travel a agelong measurement successful the past decade aliases so. The champion of them, for illustration Sonos' Arc Ultra, crockery retired sound that rivals multi-speaker set-ups. The Arc Ultra uses "sound mobility technology" (that's what they telephone it, anyway) to push heavy bass and cleanable mids and highs into your eardrums. It tin moreover present Dolby Atmos spatial audio, contempt being a azygous speaker.

Sonos Arc Ultra Soundbar pinch Dolby Atmos
$1,099.00 at Amazon
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Sonos Arc Ultra 9.1.4 Soundbar With Dolby Atmos (Black)
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$1,099.00 at Amazon

Best wireless situation sound system: Sony Bravia Theater Quad

If you want amended sonic separation than you tin get pinch a soundbar, but you don't want to tally speaker ligament everyplace aliases woody pinch a clunky, old-school receiver, the Sony Bravia Theater Quad is the solution. It's 4 flat, wireless speakers you spot astir the room aliases equine to the walls, and a receiver that's astir the size of a paperback. Despite their mini size, the speakers' front-firing and up-firing drivers bounce sound disconnected the walls and ceilings to create an immersive soundscapes for movies and music.

What do you deliberation truthful far?
Sony Bravia Theater Quad Surround Sound System
$1,698.94 at Amazon
$2,698.00 Save $999.06
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X, and IMAX Enhanced, Home Theater Sound System (HT-A9M2) (Renewed)
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$1,698.94 at Amazon
$2,698.00 Save $999.06

Best streaming player: Google TV Streamer

It seems for illustration each TV, beingness media player, and toaster has immoderate benignant of smart streaming characteristic built in, but they are almost ever laggy and severely designed. Say "nah" to that sound pinch Google TV Streamer. The pebble-like set-top streaming container costs little than $200, has a processor that is 22% faster than its predecessor, double the RAM, and an Ethernet larboard for a coagulated wired connection. As a bonus, Google TV besides acts arsenic a Matter hub to power your smart home. I'm not crazy astir the ads and deficiency of Wi-Fi 6, but until there's a caller Apple TV, this is the champion streamer connected the market.

Google TV Streamer 4K
$149.00 at Amazon
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Google TV Streamer 4K - Fast Streaming Entertainment connected Your TV pinch Voice Search Remote - Watch Movies, Shows, Live TV, and Netflix successful 4K HDR - Smart Home Control - 32 GB of Storage - Hazel
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$149.00 at Amazon

Best beingness media player: Magnetar UDP800 MKII

The Magnetar UDP800 isn't for casual media consumers, but if you're the type who demands image and sound astatine the highest imaginable quality, you'll want to gaffe your discs into this subordinate from Magnetar: It's a monster. It laughs astatine the compression of Netflix by reference 4K video astatine bitrates up to 100 Mbp. It humiliates Spotify pinch lossless audio successful formats for illustration Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It is besides a existent cosmopolitan player: it plays everything from 4K UHD Blu-rays and modular DVDs to Kodak Picture CDs. Like astir niche gear, it's expensive, but being a purist is worthy it.

Best video crippled console of 2026: ROG Xbox Ally X20

The distinctions betwixt PC, portable, and consoles gaming are blurry these days , truthful I don't cognize if the ROG Xbox Ally X20 technically "counts" arsenic a console—but it decidedly counts arsenic an awesome portion of location intermezo tech. It's a full-blown Windows 11 PC disguised arsenic a portable gaming strategy that tin hook up to your TV for afloat console gaming too. The ROG Ally X20 lets you play Xbox Game Pass games and Steam games correct retired of the container connected a portable system, truthful it's each things to each people.

ASUS ROG Xbox Ally Gaming Handheld
$789.99 at Amazon
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ASUS ROG Ally RC71L-ALLY.Z1X_512 White Laptop/Ryzen Z1 Extreme/16GB/512GB PCIe SSD/7 IPS Touch Full HD (1920x1080)/AMD Radeon/Windows 11 Home
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$789.99 at Amazon

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