With proper décor, care, and attention to detail, any artificial Christmas tree can look stunning.

But our top recommendation among the dozen and more trees we’ve tried since 2016 is the 7.5-foot National Tree Company Feel Real Downswept Douglas Fir. It is a versatile, competitively priced, realistic, and particularly attractive pick for any home.

7.5-foot National Tree Company Feel Real Downswept Douglas Fir

Compared with both costlier and more affordable artificial Christmas trees, the National Tree Company Feel Real Downswept Douglas Fir (PEDD1-D12-75) provides a good compromise between cost, realism, and ease of set up.

Incorporating nearly 2,000 lifelike polyethylene branch tips, it is fashioned similarly to those other high-quality artificial trees-except that at 37% polyethylene, a higher proportion than normal, it creates an illusion of a living tree.

 With 750 built-in LED bulbs, its branches are well illuminated, and the lights switch from all-white to multicolor or a mix of both, enhancing its unusual versatility.

While most trees need you to find the plugs in the foliage and attach them manually, the Power Connect system on this tree does it automatically when you stack up its three sections.

Balsam Hill’s 7.5-foot Vermont White Spruce Flip Tree Color + Clear LED

This tree has a higher percentage of realistic branches than National Tree’s Downswept Douglas Fir, which makes it appear closer to life, especially from a distance.

Besides, it has two-and-a-half times more lights (1,620 versus 750), creating a luxurious display most of our testers preferred. As with the Downswept Douglas Fir, the Vermont White Spruce’s lights connect automatically through plugs within the trunk.

The wheels on the tree’s base are an appreciated feature among our test group–this tree weighs over 90 pounds due to its numerous realistic branches, and the wheels make it much easier to move it into place and out of storage.