I once dreamed of owning a 100-inch TV

Summary

Traditionally, massive flat-screen TVs have been a product of envy in the consumer space.
Flat-panel displays at or above 100-inches are impractical, and more cost-conscious solutions are available on the market.
Here’s why I’ve grown to love my screen-free setup, and why I don’t plan on creating a home theater anytime soon.

Ever since flat-screen television sets first hit the scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s, manufacturers have been trying to push the boundaries as to how big of a panel they can feasibly sell to consumers.

It didn’t take long for a standardized set of size classes to emerge: 42, 50, 55, 65, and 75-inch TVs are commonplace, while smaller and larger models can also be readily purchased at many retail outlets.

In recent years, however, companies have been attempting to one-up each other in the super-massive TV space, as is the case with the recent HiSense 116-inch Mini-LED panel, which was showcased at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) back in January.

For the longest time, I was firmly in the ‘bigger is better’ camp.

For the longest time, I was firmly in the ‘bigger is better’ camp, hoping to one day outfit my living room with the biggest TV screen I could manage to fit through my door frame. The appeal is clear: a more immersive home cinema experience, and much more screen real estate for enjoying TV shows, video games, and more.

For as great as a home theater setup sounds on paper, complete with an imposing 100-inch centerpiece display, I’ve come to realize that the idea is both impractical and antiquated – here’s what led me to this determination.

Should you still buy a curved TV in 2025? Probably not

A curved display makes sense, but maybe not in your living room.

Massive flat-screen TVs are impractical

On the whole, home theater setups are expensive and space-consuming affairs

Hisense

To put it simply, flat-panel TV sets become a logistical nightmare anywhere above the 65-inch size. Any larger, and it’s a genuine challenge to fit the product into a standard vehicle, lug it all the way home, and set it up within a typical living room space.

It’s also important to consider that larger TVs aren’t always better TVs. The bigger the screen, the more spread out each individual pixel is, which means that resolution and picture crispness will take a hit. That is, unless you’re willing to dish out money on a particularly high-end model.

It’s also important to consider that larger TVs aren’t always better TVs.

These high-end supersized TVs are prohibitively expensive, too — Samsung’s 110-inch Micro LED model costs $150,000, and the aforementioned Hisense 110-inch Mini-LED panel is currently listed at $15,000.

On top of all this, you’ll need to have a recreational or living room that’s physically large enough to comfortably house a TV of such a grand display size. Samsung provides a useful ‘recommended viewing distance for your TV’ support page which outlines optimal setup conditions — for a TV with a 98-inch screen size, the company recommends a viewing distance of 9.8 feet (3 meters).

Your TV speakers aren’t that good and you shouldn’t be using them

Built-in speakers are limiting and can’t provide a quality audio experience.

These days, better solutions are available

Why bother with a 100-inch TV when projectors and headsets are readily on the market

Samsung The-Freestyle 2nd Gen and XREAL Air 2 Pro header image

Pocket-lint / Samsung / XREAL

Even with all these impracticalities and pricing concerns in mind, the allure of a massive and luxurious TV home theater setup has, until recently, overridden my more reasonable intuition. If I can make a 100-inch TV work, why not jump on the opportunity?

There are two factors that have since changed my outlook on super-massive TVs as a whole: a desire to reduce the presence of digital clutter in my home, and the existence of smart augmented reality (AR) glasses and portable projectors.

I find most modern large-screen TV sets to diminish the ‘warm and cozy’ appeal of most living spaces.

Aside from taking up a large amount of physical room, I find most modern large-screen TV sets to diminish the ‘warm and cozy’ appeal of most living spaces. All-black display panels, cheap glossy plastic outer casings, and constant dust collection make me yearn for the wooden and knob-filled CRT TVs of yesteryear.

It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that a new class of painting-style television sets has started to take off — Samsung’s The Frame is an excellent example of a tech product attempting to organically blend in with its surroundings, and consumer reception appears to be positive.

Then, there’s the existence of AR glasses and portable projectors, which are product categories that are a viable consumer-facing alternative to the big-screen TV lifestyle and all its complications.

I’ve come to see my TV-free living room setup as an asset as opposed to a disappointment.

The XREAL Air 2 Pro, for example, is a $400 pair of AR glasses that offer a 130-inch spatial display, complete with a 46-degree field of view. They plug directly into your existing gadgets via USB-C, cost a fraction of a super-giant TV’s price tag, and can be stowed away in your nightstand drawer.

Miniature projectors have come a long way in recent years, too. Samsung’s The Freestyle is perhaps the perfect example: its compact and portable design is ideal for nomads like myself, and it can transform any living space into a 100-inch home theater setup in seconds. At $800, it isn’t a cheap product, but it’s also a fraction of the cost of a traditional XL TV setup.

With all these factors in mind, I’ve come to see my TV-free living room setup as an asset as opposed to a disappointment. These days, I feel more inclined to save money for an eventual purchase of AR glasses or for a mini-projector, while sparing the need to reserve physical space in my house for a massive flat-panel display.