Summary
- Small TVs rarely exist under 32 inches, with the smallest size being 22 inches for a product categorically defined as ‘small’.
- An iPad suffices for watching TV but lacks some TV features like better speakers and enhanced display brightness.
- Manufacturers shy away from producing small TVs due to phone use and cheap phone stands, offering no practical incentive for the market yet.
Recently, I was looking for a small TV to put up above a bartop in our home, but finding anything under 32 inches was almost impossible. It used to be that you could find a small, and often truly small TV without much difficulty—no longer!
That’s a shame, because despite smartphones and tablets filling much the same niche, I think there’s still a solid case to be made for TVs that are on the smaller side of things.
We Used to Have Tiny Kitchen TVs
Go back a couple of decades, and you’ll find tiny CRTs under kitchen cabinets, perched on garage workbenches, or squeezed onto tiny bookshelves in kids’ rooms. I had a 9-inch black and white TV in my room when I was in the first grade, and my mom had a similarly-sized TV made by Blaupunkt with a carry handle and integrated antenna.There were much smaller TVs as well—small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
I Use My Tablet as a Small TV, but It’s Not Perfect
These days, my 12-inch iPad Pro is probably the device I watch TV on the most. After years, I only recently put a TV back in our bedroom. So my iPad was what I’d watch an episode or two of a show on before falling asleep.
I particularly like using it in the kitchen, so I can watch something while cooking, or doing the laundry (it’s all the same room). The thing is, although I’ve found my iPad to be a great solution, it’s still not a real TV. A 12-inch smart TV with all the same features as a full-sized TV would be great as a permanent fixture in my kitchen. No battery or charging issues. It could have beefier speakers, at least in principle, since it doesn’t have to be as thin as an iPad, and it could accept input from external devices, or even show broadcast content.
An iPad is perfect for watching streaming content or video files I’ve downloaded, but a TV could do that an so much more.
The Smallest TVs Aren’t That Small
I had a look around online to see what the smallest proper TV was that you can buy these days, and the answer to that, in general, is 24-inches. That’s not “small” by any measure if we’re being honest. That’s a decent size for a desktop PC monitor.
I was able to find a 12.5-inch smart TV, but I don’t even want to put a link to it here because it’s a no-name model with absolutely awful reviews, so I’d hate it if someone actually bought one by accident. I also found a portable 7-inch TV, but that’s a battery-powered device, not just a miniature version of a normal TV.
So, if we exclude products that are basically e-waste, the bottom of the market for small TVs seems to be 22–24 inches. Which leads me to suspect that these are basically surplus PC monitor panels that have been diverted to TV production.
You’d think with the proliferation of small LCD panels for devices like tablets and phones, we’d see more decent attempts at making small TVs that can be squeezed into tight spaces, but they just don’t seem to be a product category that justifies the effort.
What’s Holding the Return of Small TVs Back?
Honestly, since everyone has a small 7-ish inch “TV” in their pockets these days and a phone stand costs just a buck or two, it’s probably unsurprising that the likes of Samsung and LG aren’t pumping out a stream of tiny TVs, but I honestly think that with the right marketing and design, there’s ample reason to buy such a product over and above a phone or tablet.
A plug-in tiny TV doesn’t have to be half and inch thick. It can accommodate power-hungry speakers, and a bright display, because you’re pulling power from the wall. Permanently mounting such small TVs in suitable nooks and crannies would be awesome, but it seems we’re not in the right mind space for the mainstream return of tiny TVs quite yet. In my opinion, however, the time is right for someone to tackle the successor to small kitchen CRTs again.
