LG 24LQ520S-PU 24"

A 720p screen with great streaming apps in a tiny package. It's a $170 kitchen TV, not a home theater, and the picture quality is rough even for the price.

The 83Hz refresh rate is a genuinely odd surprise on a budget panel like this. It makes scrolling through menus feel a little snappier than the typical 60Hz cheap TV, but don't get excited. The 14ms response time and bottom-of-the-barrel gaming score mean this thing will be a blurry mess with a console plugged in. The real shock is the picture quality, which sits at the 3rd percentile. 250 nits of brightness and a 1366x768 resolution look soft and washed out next to even a basic tablet screen. It's fine for a background news feed, but you won't be watching a movie on this and feeling impressed.

The real competition here isn't another TV, it's a used iPad or a cheap Samsung monitor. A basic Samsung 24" like the one a reviewer mentioned will give you a sharper 1080p picture and better sound for similar money, though you lose the built-in streaming apps. If you absolutely need a small smart TV, the TCL QM6K is in a different league for picture quality, but it's also much bigger and pricier. This LG only wins if size and a sub-$200 price are your only two requirements.

Pricing on this thing is all over the map, with a wild spread from $170 up to over $4,300 across vendors. Let's be real: the $4K listings are nonsense. This is a $170 TV. At that price, it's a fair deal for a smart kitchen screen. If you see it creeping above $200, walk away and grab a cheap tablet instead.

The LG 24LQ520S-PU is a tiny TV with a very specific mission: be a cheap, smart screen for a kitchen, bathroom, or cramped dorm room. And for that, it mostly works. The built-in webOS is the real star here, giving you Netflix, YouTube, and Disney+ without needing to plug anything else in. Just know what you're signing up for. This is a 720p screen in a 4K world, and the picture quality lands in the bottom percentile of our entire database. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

If you're looking for a primary TV to actually enjoy movies or shows, this isn't it. The 720p resolution and weak brightness are a letdown. Go grab a TCL 4-Series or even a used 1080p Samsung instead. You'll get a much better picture for the same money or just a little more.

Buy the LG 24LQ520S-PU if you need the absolute cheapest, smallest smart screen for a spot where picture quality doesn't matter. A bathroom mirror replacement or a background noise machine in a tiny kitchen. For anything else, even a slight budget bump gets you a dramatically better picture. This is a one-trick pony, and the trick is just being small and cheap.