TCL 6-Series TV Review (R655) | Still awesome, but …
thanks to wemax for sponsoring this,video,here we are the 2022 tcl6 series review,you know I spent about three minutes,trying to come up with some pithy intro,before I realized Maybe This TV doesnt,really need one,[Music],welcome back everyone Im Caleb Dennison,and this is the TCL r655 review the new,tcl6 series is a TV I think a lot of,people are going to just want to buy if,only because its predecessors have,received such positive praise but should,the r655 get to just ride on the,coattails of its Legacy I say no I think,we need to talk about whats new whats,improved what hasnt improved and what,if anything is worse but most,importantly should you buy this TV lets,figure that out together now before I,get into it just a heads up that I am,not going to be spending a bunch of time,in this video comparing this TV to the,Hisense u8h and thats only because that,comparison needs its own video which,will by the way be the next video I do,so youre going to want to come back and,see that best way to make sure you dont,miss it its right down there subscribe,and notification Bell also were 25k,away guys weve got this okay review,time so little surprise for my regular,viewers were hopping straight into,numbers for Knit nerds by the way I met,some of you knit nerds out there in,Dallas and that was awesome you know who,you are thanks for saying hi that was a,lot of fun anyway if youre not into,measurements and deep specs thats okay,you can skip this section and dive,straight into the picture quality,takeaways by clicking the link down in,the timeline down in the description so,before I start rattling off numbers I,want to send a huge shout out to meridio,who sent me their 7g 8K pattern,generator to try out this machine is a,TV reviewers dream you guys and a huge,shout out to Jason dustel at meridio who,I consider a friend but the same great,help hes given me he gives all his,customers so thank you Jason for helping,me get the most out of this Beast now,heres the good stuff yall in the movie,mode at its brightest setting with local,contrast set to high the r655 put out,515 nits in SDR the next brightest,setting down was 446 nits and you can,bring it down from there if you dont,need a super bright picture for when,youre just watching basic TV sports or,other kinds of SDR content personally I,consider that 515 knit number plenty,adequate for SDR but is this a great,bright room TV for everyday use Ill get,to that in a moment for HDR Peak,brightness was right under 1500 nits and,it was stable at 1100 nits with the 10,window test so this tells us that its,average Picture level in HDR can be,pretty high just over the Thousand nit,level if you Max everything out and that,HDR highlights will Top out around 1500,nits and I consider that really good for,a TV in the r655s price range are there,brighter TVs out there yes there are but,again well get to the bright room TV,discussion in just a few minutes as for,out of the box accuracy the SDR white,balance with the warm color temp,selection was pretty decent without any,adjustment the Delta e was around three,which is barely detectable and thats if,you know what youre looking for there,was quite a bit of blue and also a lot,of red in there too and thats why I,didnt get the vibe like the warm,setting had bluish whites green was the,color that was somewhat anemic so after,raining in the blue and the red just a,little bit I got to a d65 white point,and it did not take a whole lot of work,for this panel HDR white balance was a,bit more off with a Delta e of five not,exactly accurate but then I dont expect,a TV at this price to scream accuracy a,little adjustment and I got to d65 and I,am happy to report that because not a,lot of adjustment was necessary the peak,brightness numbers did not change color,accuracy out of the box was about what I,expected which is to say not super,accurate but by no means egregiously bad,the average error was just shy of six,and again for a TV at this price thats,exactly what I would expect so should,you get the tcl6 series calibrated I,guess that depends on how close to,accuracy you want to be I dont think,most people would need or want to but I,will say that this TV is such a good,performer overall that it would not be a,waste of money if you have lofty,standards but not such a lofty budget,you can save a lot of money buying this,TV and spend a little getting it,adjusted and get very close to the,performance of much more expensive TVs I,mean sounds like a tcl6 series right and,that brings me to my picture quality,takeaway this TV performs extremely well,for its price point it offers solid HDR,specular highlights the local dimming is,outstanding for a TV at this price so,you get incredibly deep blacks albeit,with a slight hit to really dark shadow,detail at times though nothing to get,upset about blooming is extremely well,mitigated I would happily put this TV in,my bedroom or a dedicated light,controlled viewing room the color looks,outstanding Rich when it needs to be,Vivid when it needs to be the motion,resolution is surprisingly good like I,didnt get hardly any stutter with this,TV and it resolves 24 frame per second,content extremely well and thats with,no motion smoothing turned on at all all,told this TV is fantastic for the money,but it does have a few weaknesses I,noticed one is that there isnt much in,the way of anti-glare treatment now this,has the benefit of helping blacks and,colors look very deep and Rich with a,slight gloss to them but it also has the,drawback of not doing much to handle,reflection so if you have bright Windows,you can expect to see Reflections when,watching Dark content during the day,also this is not a searingly bright TV,so if you do a lot of day watching and,dont have a way of dimming the light,coming into your room youll need to go,with one of the brighter picture modes,so the average Picture level is Juiced,up and you get a bright enough image for,that bright room so having said all that,if you watch most of your TV during the,day or if watching football during the,day is way more important than watching,movies at night then the tcl6 series,will do but there are some better,options for those of you with those kind,of viewing habits another weakness on,the TCL r655 seems to to be in cleaning,up low luminance low bit depth content,so take this 1080p YouTube video for,instance anytime you have large swaths,of dark area the macro blocking it looks,like big cubes of darkness in the,picture is pretty severe now granted,this is a 75 inch TV so thats going to,be more obvious than the 65 or 55 inch,version but I think it is problematic,all the same now I dont have cable TV,here so I cant test it with a 720p or,1080i signal but I think wed see the,same with cable now to be clear in mid,to high brightness areas the picture,looks great its when the TV gets dark,and the signal is trashy that we see the,problem I saw this with local broadcast,TV too now this is not the case with,higher quality streams so if youre,watching something on Netflix HBO Max,Hulu Disney plus those streams have a,high enough bit depth whether theyre,1080P or 4K that you dont get any of,that macro blocking so I guess Id say,youre gonna watch Game of Thrones or,House of the Dragon on HBO Max youll be,okay but if youre watching that on,cable Im concerned the picture could be,a little messy and thats on top of it,already being a challengingly dark show,to watch in the first place speaking of,House of the Dragon I want to show you,something I discovered when I connected,the Xbox series X and started some basic,gaming tests first up theres a lot to,love here about the gaming capabilities,of the r655 when I connected the Xbox,series X the TV instantly recognized,that it was an Xbox and then it popped,up a notification that it was going into,game mode which is great Auto game mode,cool and when I go to display properties,in the Xbox menu I see that this TV can,do all of the things either the Xbox or,PS5 can
TCL 6-Series: BEST TV Picture Quality for the Money in 2022
hey everybody this is the TCL 6 series,Roku TV brand new for 2022 and yes it is,the best TV that Ive tested for the,money this year,[Music],now for the money I mean the best,picture quality for the buck now you can,spend a lot more to get an OLED TV but,if you spend just a little bit more for,a non-oled television from a brand like,Samsung for example the picture quality,is not going to be that much better than,you get on this TCL you can also spend a,little bit less for a Vizio TV for,example with full array local dimming,that I compared this to but it really,didnt look quite as good as this TCL,for a little bit more money the 6 series,is really the best of both worlds so,right now youre looking at the 65 inch,size this is around a thousand dollars,probably a little bit less through the,holiday season theres also a 55 a 75,and an 85 inch size thats a medium,price point for this TV what really,makes it special though is for that,price you get some great picture,enhancing features so mini LED is the,top feature on this television it really,improves the brightness improves the,black levels excellent full array local,dimming with hundreds of zones on all,the sizes so that combination gets you,really great contrast really great color,and just an excellent overall picture,Ill get to that in a little bit but,another thing that separates the tcl6,series from others is the design so for,a mid-range television the tcl6 series,has a really nice design so one of the,real improvements this year is that TCL,added the central pedestal stand I,really like the look of this single,stand underneath the TV it has a nice,Sleek look it lowers the panel relative,to the furniture thats sitting on,really nicely and it doesnt have those,splayed out legs to either side under,the panel like most of the other,competitors do another Improvement in,the stand is you can actually raise it a,little bit to support a sound bar for,example so you can have the sound bar,sit in front of the TV on your furniture,without blocking the screen thats a,really nice feature of course the stand,is a nice metallic finish here and its,really flush against the top of the,furniture the edge of the TV really,minimalist look the glass goes almost,all the way to the edge and overall its,a really nice premium look and feel for,a television in this price range now TCL,really didnt stint on the features This,TV has all the bells and whistles that,youd expect on a mid-range television,first off its got that full array local,dimming and mini LED backlight which are,the main ingredients to its excellent,picture quality its also got qled which,improves color especially with high,dynamic range sources this is also 120,hertz refresh television which gives you,a smooth look thats really great for,gaming So This TV has all the gaming,features Id expect including that 4K,120 hertz input from a PlayStation 5 or,Xbox series X it also has variable,refresh rate capability TCL touts 144,Hertz input but thats really not that,important for consoles its really for,higher end PC gaming cards so not a huge,deal I measured an excellent input lag,on this television as well it doesnt,have the improved gaming modes that are,found on a lot of its competitors like,LG and Samsung but still the game mode,does a pretty good job with image,quality and again has that really good,input lag so solid gaming features and,performance on this television around,back youll find four HDMI inputs and,the usual complement of USB as well as,an analog input headphone jack,unfortunately theres no atsc 3.0 tuner,on this television like some of its,competitors have but again not a huge,deal because that rollout is happening,very slowly right now across the country,so youre not really going to miss it,and if you really want atsc 3.0 you can,connect another tuner later another,thing I liked about the tcl6 series is,the Roku TV operating system now theres,plenty of operating systems out there,right now Google TV Amazon Fire TV and,the proprietary system used by LG and,Samsung but Roku really is my favorite,its the simplest looking screen when,you first turn on the TV you get that,nice grid of apps its also the easiest,to customize you can add and remove apps,to your hearts content you can move,around on the screen and youre not,stuck looking at an ad or a promo for a,TV show or movie like most of the other,competitors have Roku moved really,quickly on the tcl6 series really no,delays moving around and of course you,can search for uh apps you can search,for TV shows you can search for movies,really easily either typing into the,screen or using the voice function on,the remote control so thats a nice,touch too I also appreciate like all,Roku devices this thing is compatible,with apple AirPlay so you can easily,cast from your iPhone or other Apple,device right to the TV screen thats a,cool touch I also prefer really simple,remotes and the one with the tcl6 series,is no exception in addition to that,voice control its got volume on the,side its got a couple of keys to,navigate the menu and thats it except,for these shortcut keys so again none of,those number pads or extra features to,kind of confuse you its just a very,simple remote control so thats it for,the design and features lets talk a,little bit about picture quality I took,the tcl6 series into my lab and compared,it to a Vizio TV as well as a Hisense TV,side by side and this TCL really looked,the best now the Vizio did cost a little,bit less but it wasnt nearly as bright,as the other two and it didnt have that,pop and HDR image quality that Ive come,to expect from a mini LED TV the Hisense,on the other hand really did compete,very well with this TCL its another,mini LED equipped television and side by,side it actually looked brighter than,the TCL it had even more Pops so if you,have a really bright room maybe Id lean,you toward that high sense u8h,television but the tcl6 series really,did look very refined it had excellent,image quality especially when I turned,down the lights great accuracy in terms,of color and the shadow brought up,plenty of detail so it looked nice and,natural there so compared to the high,sense the TCL was a step ahead for that,theatrical image quality and of course,the other feature on the TCL that looked,really good was its brightness yes the,high sense was a little bit brighter but,the TCL was also plenty bright I,measured more than a thousand nits so,this TV can really compete well against,ambient lighting and we turned down the,lights the HDR image quality looked,excellent excellent pop and there was,very little blooming around the edges of,bright objects so overall picture,quality and tcl6 series is excellent,again not quite as good as an OLED,television that I tested but its really,about half the price so if youre,talking about picture quality for the,money the tcl6 series is really among,the best Ive ever seen when you put it,all together this is the complete,package for an affordable price its got,great image quality Step Up design all,the features that you really want and of,course that Simplicity of the Roku,interface kind of takes the cake of,course you can add a streaming device to,any TV to get Roku but at the end of the,day having it all built in really nice,and convenient and adds the overall,appeal of this package thats a quick,look at the TCL 6 series Roku TV brand,new for 2022 Im David katzmeyer for,CNET,[Music]
does it even make sense to spend more,than a thousand dollars on a 65-inch tv,anymore or more than 700 for a 55-inch,tv,lets see if we can figure that out,[Music],welcome back everyone im caleb dennison,and yes finally this is the tcl 6 series,or r635 review,one of two tvs this year that i think,begs the question,should you ever spend more than a,thousand dollars on a 65 inch tv,or more than 700 on a 55 tv were going,to try and answer that question at the,end of this video but first,weve got a lot to get through,[Music],first i want to address a couple of,things that i brought up in the,unboxing video for this tv which if you,havent seen i highly recommend you,check it out,link is right up there lets talk about,the cable management for a second,it is slick that you can hide the cables,in the feet themselves,the only problem is theres not a lot of,space in there now on the power cable,side youre fine but when youre trying,to put,four hdmi cables and an ethernet cable,in this small little channel it does not,work not with standard size hdmi cables,anyway so if youre hoping to do that,with this tv,i would highly recommend that you buy,the thinner style hdmi cable and make,sure its an ultra high speed cable so,itll work with everything that youre,going to connect to it,now and in the future,[Music],now lets take a second to talk about,picture settings and if youve seen my,tcl5 series from 2019 review,you might know where im about to head,here but for those who didnt heres the,deal,this tv breaks all the rules because,normally what you would do is start in,movie mode thats generally the most,accurate,picture mode on this tv but in this case,not only is it not really the most,accurate its also,not very exciting at all so heres the,play ill just make this very simple for,you,go from movie to normal thats instantly,going to improve the contrast but,there are a few things that we need to,fix go down to color temperature and,move that,to warm because that is going to be more,accurate than the much colder,temperature of normal,then you want to turn off action,smoothing and turn,off action clarity and double check,everything else,all right so that is the best setting,for,sdr now heres the problem it super,juices,the oranges and reds in fact the colors,are just a little bit off in general,this tv,is going to need a calibration to be,more accurate thats just how it is,but i will say that this is the best,possible experience,out of the box in sdr with those basic,settings heres the good news this tvs,performance in hdr modes,is vastly better than its sdr mode so,well open up the settings again,and you see that were in dark hdr which,again would normally be,the default setting i would start with,but again not in this case so,go into picture settings switch it to,normal hdr,and then ive already made some,adjustments here again color temperature,warm turn off the smoothing turn off the,action clarity,again this is going to be the best,possible picture quality,for me anyway in hdr and you want to do,something similar with dolby vision,which ill show you in a little bit,but before i move on to that i want to,point out something that just,doesnt make any sense even if you were,to go through,and make all of the adjustments in dark,hdr to match,those that are in standard hdr youd,find that you do not get the same,picture quality there is something going,on behind the scenes that you cant,touch that just doesnt allow you to get,the settings exactly where you may want,them im going to ask tcl about this,why that is and if we could expect some,kind of change in the future,the tv performs well enough out of the,box with the settings ive given you,to satisfy most people but as well talk,about later if you want to tweak it,its not that easy and it doesnt make a,whole lot of intuitive sense either,okay as promised lets talk about dolby,vision picture settings so well go in,here and ive started out with,dark now i want to show you what happens,when we move to,normal it cools off the color,temperature and puts on motion smoothing,which i think is a terrible decision so,go down to normal lets put this on warm,and lets reduce the action smoothing,which is at medium and clarity add,medium down to off,and i think that weve arrived at a,pretty good place however i wanted to,show you what,bright dolby vision looks like its,extremely,cold so color temperature if we move,that to warm,and high action smoothing i dont know,why you would want that,on a brighter mode that doesnt make a,whole lot of sense its like they just,kind of ramp,everything up across the board so again,not super intuitive,heres the other thing the difference,between normal and bright hdr,actually appears to improve the black,levels more than it does the peak,brightness,i havent even decided which one i want,to go with here im going to stick with,bright,for now presuming that youve turned the,color temperature to warm,and turned off all the smoothing i think,thats a pretty good way to go but,i want you to go ahead and experiment,the way i have where you go through each,of the modes,go with a warm color temperature if you,like that make sure the smoothing is off,and flip between these while youre,watching content to see which one,gives you the best overall result before,we get to picture quality i want to talk,for a second about the mini led,technology thats in this television if,youre not familiar a standard led,backlit tv which is what,all of them are except for the tcl 6 and,8 series,those have maybe hundreds of backlights,behind the screen,this has tens of thousands of really,tiny little led backlights and what that,means is that you should get,really excellent control of where you,light the screen up and where you keep,it,dark and i think youre about to see how,that plays out once we get into the,black level section of this review i,guess ill start with screen uniformity,which is,really good on this tv now the camera,might show you something that i am just,straight out not seeing in real life,i know that theres just the tiniest,little bit of vignetting in the corners,but otherwise were talking about a very,clean screen,certainly no kind of splotchiness i have,no complaints about this,and thats after having received many,tvs with terrible screen uniformity lots,of dirty screen effect,even tcls maybe i won the lottery but,this tv looks fantastic,so now lets talk about backlighting,technology and how effective it is,its quite effective the mini led is,definitely coming through theres almost,no halo around bright objects on black,backgrounds,which i am very happy to see its got a,total of 144,zones and what ive noticed is that its,controlling those zones,very effectively weve got a shot here,where were coming out of black kind of,fading in,and it fades in extremely smoothly what,ive noticed,is you dont see the backlight in action,it just does its job and it does it,really well,not only does it afford very good black,levels but its also retaining some,shadow detail,which is a problem weve seen with other,led tvs they kind of crush out the,shadows,this is looking very very good screen,uniformity is looking good,we got inky blacks with good shadows,hows the brightness looking,well thats where things get interesting,i used a spectracal c6 meter profiled by,an xrite i1 pro 2,with calman software and an sdr i got,700 nits of peak brightness and i got,about a thousand nits in hdr,that actually kind of tapered down to,closer to 960 nits but thats still,pretty good thats in the same ballpark,as the sony x950h,and matches up with what the h9g from,hisense has on the box although we know,that that tv,punches well above that in general its,a very satisfying picture but i dont,feel like it leaps off the screen the,way ive seen with,brighter televisions now lets go back,to color which i mentioned a little bit,earlier,in sdr its a little bit hot in the reds,you can go back to the movie mode and,get,much more tamed down color but then
TCL 6-Series R646 4K 120Hz TV: Best Budget Gaming TV for Xbox Series X and PS5!
[Music],hey everyone kyle erickson here today we,are talking about a tv that ive been,really excited to do a review on that,being the tcl r646 six series with,google tv as some of you know i do have,both ps5 and xbox series x consoles now,and i want to be able to take advantage,of everything those consoles can do and,a big part of that is having the right,tv my tv was getting a bit dated so i,set out to find the best tv that i,possibly could at the best price and,after tons of research i landed on the,tcl6 series from everything that i have,heard these have amazing panels there,were some concerns with the software but,i decided to take the chance and pick,one up,do some comparisons and report back to,everyone on what i found the model i,have here is the 2021 edition with,google tv,its 55 inches but it also comes in 65,and 75 inches as far as the design goes,it has narrow bezels along the edges and,a brushed metal bezel at the bottom,along with the built-in speaker,the build quality is great it definitely,has a premium feel with the brushed,metal along the sides and the legs and,that front bezel,it is a little bit on the chunkier side,in terms of thickness its just under,four inches thick at the deepest point,along the back which is quite a bit for,a new tv now just for reference my old,samsung nu 8000 from 2018 is actually,quite a bit thinner,but putting that aside none of this,feels flimsy or cheap the metal feet,provided support the tv really well and,they also have built-in cable management,along the back of them to keep your,media area clean,which i think is a really nice touch,on the back right side of the tv you,have a power switch and a mic off button,if you are concerned with privacy,and just above that you have all your,ports which are pretty standard you do,have four hdmi ports but you have two,there that feature hdmi 2.1 with 4k up,to 120 hertz now for me those two parts,are crucial because i want to be able to,utilize hdmi 2.1 on both the series x,and the ps5 and i want those to run at,120 hertz where at all available,obviously with the supporting 120 hertz,refresh rates it is a 120 hertz panel as,well,its mini led which is something else,that was a must-have for me in my next,tv when i started considering an upgrade,i was pretty set on an oled panel but,mini led kind of won me over after i got,my macbook pro which also has a mini led,display,i couldnt believe how great the picture,was many leds offer deeper blacks over,standard led panels and they can get,much brighter and they do have better,color,for me oled screen burning is still,something that is on my mind a bit so i,think a mini led panel just made the,most sense to me not only is this,display 120 hertz 4k it does support,variable refresh rates as well to reduce,screen tearing which is an added bonus,it has,1.07 billion colors 1200 inch peak,brightness and 240 dimming zones that,provide good local dimming which helps,out with contrast which is an amazing,8600 to 1 native ratio that increases to,about 19 000 to 1 with local dimming the,panel from my perspective is outstanding,one thing that i was concerned about,when i bought this tv is just that a lot,of cheaper tvs suffer from poor black,and gray uniformity but this panel is,great in all the tests that ive ran on,top of that the contrast and the colors,are really excellent,the r646 supports hdr10 and dolby vision,and it covers about 90 percent of the p3,wide color gamut,i was shocked at how dark the blacks,were and just how vibrant all the colors,get,its not going to be the same level as,the top-notch oled panel but it is still,really impressive gaming on the six,series is very smooth especially on the,xbox series x i feel like im gonna say,series a lot in this video but anyways,it is smooth on the xbox where you see,more 120 hertz content,halo infinite which is my game of choice,since buying the xbox series x is,buttery smooth,the input lag is very low sitting around,6 milliseconds at 4k 120 hertz which is,great for playing online and really,every other game is no different the,same goes for the playstation 5. even,games running at 60 hertz the colors,really pop on a lot of those single,player titles on playstation 5 that make,the console so great it really adds to,the overall experience playing horizon,forbidden west for example there is a,noticeable difference in the image,versus regular led panels that ive,tried and really any of those great,action adventure playstation exclusives,that have stunning visuals,it really enhances the experience and,really whatever game that youre playing,on either console,anytime youre looking at scenes with,high contrast or bright colors this,really stands out i do also watch a lot,of content in my spare time both movies,and tv and the series 6 has been,exceptional for that as well,this is really where the black,uniformity helps out a lot,movies generally have more dimly lit,scenes and that uniformity plus local,dimming wide color gamut and the,impressive contrast really complement,the cinematics in a lot of scenes but i,dont want to just throw my opinion out,here i could tell you all day how good,this panel is but really context is,everything so lets do a little cost,benefit analysis here,you can find the tlc r646 for around 700,so if we look at similar tvs around this,price range theres some common models,that youll probably see are the samsung,q60a that has a 60hz refresh rate the,peak brightness of 480 nits and a 4600,to 1 native contrast ratio then we have,the sony x80j with 60hz,400 inch peak brightness it has an ips,led and 1100 to 1 contrast ratio,and then there is the lg nano 75 which,is also 60 hertz 270 nits peak,brightness and has an led panel and has,a 4300 to 1 contrast ratio these numbers,all pale in comparison to the tlc6,series which as i mentioned earlier is,120 hertz 1200 nits peak brightness and,has a mini led panel,86001 native contrast ratio which is,leaps and bounds better than those other,models from bigger name brands,to get something comparable youre,really looking at something like the,sony x95j which is around 1500 right now,on sale or the samsung qn 85a which you,can get for around eleven hundred,dollars currently but that model still,does lack a few features that the r646,has in any case i just wanted to throw,those out there to show you that this,panel is really punching above its,weight class back to watching content,ive done all of that through the apps,provided via the google tv software,thats built into the tv this was one,area of concern for me you see a lot of,stuff out there about it being super,buggy and not usable,but i do think a lot of those complaints,may have been before some of the,operating system updates were rolled out,all i can say is that i have not come,across any issues myself but i did,update my tv as soon as i set it up i do,really like the dashboard especially how,it consolidates a lot of the streaming,services to one home screen with a,little rotten tomatoes rating underneath,theres a pretty standard settings menu,with easy to navigate menus and options,and overall for me everything has been,very smooth there is a huge app,selection to choose from and this tv,also does have wi-fi 6,which is awesome considering i have a,wi-fi 6 system i havent had any trouble,at all with the connection and ive been,able to pair this up to my soundbar via,bluetooth and control it with a provided,remote with no issues the remote itself,isnt anything fancy its not going to,win any awards for looks but i do like,that its simple and its easy to use,i know some people dont like the lack,of labeling on the buttons but i dont,really find it necessary,maybe its because its somewhat similar,to my samsung remote but it is intuitive,enough that ive never wondered how to,do something you have a ring that has,buttons that control your playback and,your navigation some menu and settings,buttons and quick access to things like,prime netflix and youtube if you want to,tune
TCL R646 Long Term Review – Best Budget 4K 120hz TV
[Music],hey whats going on everyone welcome,back to another video so it wasnt too,long ago that I had reviewed tcls most,popular 4K TV the TCL r646 and I wanted,to revisit this in a video since this,55-inch TV is absolutely amazing and,Ive been using it as both a monitor and,a TV primarily for the last couple weeks,and I figured Id be able to answer some,questions like hey am I out of my mind,and B is this too big for a monitor Ill,take you through my last two weeks using,this and quick spoiler Im still using,this today as a monitor and it hasnt,pissed me off quite yet and if you are,new here thanks for stopping by here I,cover Tech with a purpose and if you dig,the video consider liking and subbing or,else youll get the red ring of death,but on your PlayStation 5. alright so,Ive been trying new monitors left and,right and while all of them have been,great none of them have yet hit the spot,for my gaming needs I do have an idea,which monitor I will try next but of,course that is for another day I know I,wont be keeping this as my monitor,really but my Gigabyte m32q is only,1440p and I just broke up heartfully,with the Sony Endzone M9 I just reviewed,it was really great but for the price,point I didnt quite have everything I,personally needed and frankly I have,this bomb ass TV thats 4K 120 hertz and,its sort of sitting around in my,bedroom it looks amazing and when you,think of it it costs less than most 4K,High refresh monitors on the market not,only does it have its own operating,system but it has low response times a,lot of screen to work with and it pairs,absolutely perfect with the new,generation consoles now for this setup,off the bat I will say there is no,display port so I have actually moved my,gaming PC down to my basement with my,ultrawide monitor but lets talk a,little bit more about the TV itself if,youre unfamiliar with the TCL r646 its,one of the higher end TVs coming out of,tcls lineup not to be confused with the,r635 which wont have HDMI 2.1 support,it is a mini LED TV so itll be a little,bit thicker than an OLED but youve got,to dissipate that heat somehow the TV,itself is built really really well and I,seriously dig the brushed metal frame,that and the bezels are super thin it,actually fits easily into almost any,setup now for specs Ill keep this,really simple really Im not a spec nut,but this does cover you for just about,everything starting off this is a 4K,panel of course meaning the new,generation consoles and built-in,entertainment apps will look absolutely,incredible this does have high refresh,capabilities up to 120 hertz with the,two HDMI 2.1 ports it also supports Auto,low latency mode or Alm in its automatic,gaming mode which picks up as soon as,you hop on any console as well as,variable refresh rate the Xbox series X,had vrr from launch but the PlayStation,5 also just got vrr not too long ago in,an update so games that previously were,locked to 60fps Now bump all the way up,to between 110 to 120 frames per second,apart from the display youve got a,built-in Google home and all the smart,TV apps youd ever want and as an LCD,display it does get super bright so Im,really not worried about Reflections,especially in my tiny office and HDR,content absolutely pops so if you ask me,this is one hell of a TV and really,apart from its big ass size and no,display port it really does tick almost,all the boxes quickly lets talk ports,youve got four HDMI ports two of them,are 2.1 supported which will give you,that high refresh while gaming the,downside is one of the two ports is an,e-arc Port meaning that any Smart,Control devices or home theater systems,will eat one of your two ports you do,have a cable in if you do still use TV,boxes a USB a port an optical out and a,headphone jack which is missing in more,and more TVs these days now lets be,real most people have TVs in their,living room but this is a setup in my,office because well I really want to try,something new and something a little bit,different the goal here was to keep the,setup somewhat minimal and honestly it,kind of worked out my keyboard slots,perfectly underneath the TV itself as do,my laptop and iPad and all my controls,here on these basic Amazon stands and,everything here is plugged into this 100,watt Gan power strip from ugreen which,is todays video sponsor its been a,great help in keeping this whole area,decluttered both my PlayStation 5 and,series X are grounded in surge protected,while plugged in and theres a chunk of,ports on the front which is where you,get most of its use charging my,PlayStation 5 controller is way quicker,than plugging it directly to my PS5 and,charging on my iPhone is super quick as,well with up to 60 in 30 minutes the two,left type c ports charge up to 100 watts,and the third type c at 22.5 watts and,the USB at 22.5 Watts here Ive got two,laptops an iPad my phone and controller,all charging at the same time and I,gotta say it works really really well,you can check out this power strip link,below in the video description so yes,using a TV this big is kind of wild but,overall I mainly use this as a TV for my,game consoles Im a one cable type of,guy too so I use an HDMI dock that I can,easily slot between both my laptop and,Nintendo switch but lets talk gaming,since this is what I primarily use this,TV for and honestly I feel kind of,spoiled really this TV looks incredible,especially for the price point Auto,latency kicks in right away with gaming,mode when hopping onto a console and the,high refresh is automatically detected,depending on what game youre playing,even when playing ridiculously,fast-paced games like Call of Duty,theres zero tearing or artifacts while,gaming and Ive been a little bit,addicted to God of War lately Im super,excited excited for the next release God,of War Ragnarok and I just finished my,first playthrough ever here you can,watch me getting destroyed by the same,Valkyrie in three different angles in 4k,but for real theres always a part in,any game or movie that just makes you go,wow and even though this is a,PlayStation 4 title the colors here are,represented insanely well on this TV and,lets not even get started on,PlayStation 5 titles like Horizon,forbidden West or cyberpunk both of,these take Graphics to the next level in,the r646 here really helps it Shine,Horizon forbidden West is now a vrr,enabled title 2 but unfortunately I,still suck maybe Ill just stick with,photo mode and briefly heres where my,sanity comes into question since I have,been using this as a monitor for a bit,my desk is about 30 inches deep and I do,sit rather far back so its not too bad,just look at all this screen estate so,far I havent had much eye strain or,headaches but I can just hear my mom in,the back of my head screaming dont sit,too close to the TV well jokes on you,Mom this is a monitor and outside of,gaming and monitor usage everything else,about this TV is still great while Im,working the Google home is good for a,quick currency exchange or a quick,question even while I am gaming throwing,up some Lo-Fi Tunes while using my other,setup is neat and watching content on,here just showcasing is the HDR beauty,that is this display you got all those,apps youd need of course Disney Netflix,Amazon Prime YouTube and I only just,found out this TV also has Bluetooth,capability so only I will hear the vile,things that Call of Duty Lobby has to,say about my Mom and cherry on top this,does have Google TV OS so it is really,clean and works really really well,overall the TV looks incredible in terms,of image and while it wont quite match,the blacks of an OLED TV it does an,incredible job on its own and you wont,really be disappointed but lets sum,this whole thing up am I insane for,using this monitor well yes but it does,work so well for me and my eyes dont,hate me yet that in games just look so,freaking good on here some pros and cons,for me Pro number one I probably can,hold off on buying a gaming monitor for,a bit Ive got my C2 OLED in the livin
TCL 6-Series Google TV (R646) Review | Worth The Trouble?
[Music],unsurprisingly this tv performs really,well better than i thought it would even,but,can i recommend it,welcome back everyone im caleb denison,and today im going to review the tcl,r646 thats the google tv version of tcl,six series tv and for a good portion of,2022 this will be one of the most,enticing tv choices out there for anyone,wanting premium picture quality at a,fraction of the price being charged from,comparable tvs from the likes of sony,samsung and lg its got a lot of tech,and a lot of promise but can i recommend,it well lets talk about that before i,dig into it i just want to say thank you,so much for watching and if you arent,already subscribed please consider,smashing that subscribe button because,we have some exclusive reviews coming up,that youll see here first and when we,hit a million subs ive got a killer,giveaway planned and youll need to be,subscribed to be eligible thanks in,advance for your support okay lets do,this,[Music],okay so lets start with picture,settings now if you want to get a feel,for the basic picture settings i started,with you can check out our unboxing,video for this tv theres some other,useful setup tips in there too so dont,miss them but the short version for the,picture settings is this i chose the,movie picture mode for sdr and hdr and,then dolby vision dark i turned off,motion smoothing if for no other reason,to get a feel for how this tv processes,motion without cop-out frame doubling,and thats pretty much it that gives me,a good baseline for testing and,comparisons now i promised in the,unboxing video that i would check out a,few digital picture enhancements on this,tv some of which i hadnt seen offered,in a tcl tv before and i did that so,heres what i found none of them dynamic,contrast black stretch micro contrast,made what i felt were earth moving,improvements in picture quality they did,make a difference you could see though,im just not so swayed by any one of,them or any of them grouped together,that i think they are must use features,but thats just my personal preference,if you get this tv give them a shot for,yourself and see if the stuff you watch,looks better or worse for the,adjustments the google tv interface,doesnt make it easy for you to see the,differences in real time as you switch,them on and off but you can make it,easier on yourself if you pause the tv,on an image that has a good amount of,bright and dark areas something with,decent contrast and use that that way,you can build some memory around what,that one image looks like rather than,try to track changes while watching a,moving tv show film or game okay so if,you arent interested in some of the,data i got for measurements and you,really just want to know what they,translate to for real world viewing you,can skip this section click the picture,quality section link down below but for,those who do its time for numbers for,knit nerds first off i have to say that,the r646 measured really well in the,movie mode right out of the box both,grayscale and color were right at that,line where only some people could,perceive something was off and frankly,most folks would never know which means,you can trust youre getting really,accurate results by just clicking the,movie preset and if you prefer something,brighter the smart hdr mode isnt too,bad that smart hdr setting by the way is,as close to a normal or standard preset,as this tv has as far as calibrating,goes with a little tweaking of the two,point white balance i was able to get,really awesome test results errors well,below the threshold of human perception,for grayscale and that translated into,more accurate color frankly i find that,really impressive for a tv in this price,class all right enough about grayscale,and color accuracy how bright does it,get that seems like the metric everyone,geeks out over well i have pretty,impressive numbers to share here in sdr,which has the backlight at about 80,percent the tv peaked at 864 nits in a,10 window in hdr that number bumped up,to 1100 nits but when i tested various,window sizes and checked sustained,brightness i saw anywhere from 13 to,1500 nits so if i was gonna slap a peak,brightness number on this tv like a lot,of other reviewers do i suppose it would,be 1200 nits or so but it is very clear,this tv can push that number higher in a,little bright highlight area so up to,1500 nits in the movie mode and even,higher in the vivid mode so thats,pretty good for a tv of this price i,mean really its excellent also for,grants i ran some test patterns to check,the backlight system im thinking of,changing the terminology from test,patterns to torture tests because to be,honest im seeing decreasing evidence,that strong performance in test patterns,is required to see strong performance in,real world viewing these backlight test,patterns seem less and less meaningful,but i did it anyway and the r646,performed admirably was it blatantly,obvious i was looking at a mini led,backlight system no was it pretty,obvious the tv was doing a good job with,local dimming yes absolutely the short,story on the measurements is that they,were really strong but more importantly,the tv performs extremely well for real,world viewing i watched ozark which is a,notoriously dark and green tinted show i,watched our planet which is some of the,most gorgeous 4k dolby vision content,you can stream right now i watch disney,pixar stuff yes in kanto and yeah i,already get way too much of that movie,at home but man is lin-manuel miranda on,fire right now and i watched a few 4k,hdr blu-ray discs all of that in,addition to all the other stuff i watch,on every single tv i review most of,which is a real snore but hey thats the,job bottom line the tcl r646 is gorgeous,tcl has done it again i mean if you have,lots more to spend far be it for me to,discourage you from divorcing yourself,from your money but the real value,proposition in terms of picture,performance is right here the picture,quality is just fire now to be frank i,won the panel lottery here like i got,the mega bucks jackpot and the powerball,this might be the cleanest lcd panel i,have ever tested im not exaggerating,yeah theres some vignetting in the,corners but thats almost inescapable,these days not saying i love it but its,really common otherwise this panel is,squeaky clean and i know that has a lot,to do with why im so impressed with the,picture quality will you get one this,good,i dont know thats why its called the,panel lottery i will say though that,there were no obvious signs that this tv,was thoroughly vetted before it came to,me and i can tell when one has been,honestly i probably just got really,lucky and i hope you do too but even,with a few screen uniformity problems i,still think this tvs mini led,backlighting processing upscaling and,color performance are way ahead of the,competition at this price,way ahead anyway i could go on about how,great the picture quality is but it is,because it is so good that it makes this,next section of my review just that much,more frustrating because the fact is for,as good as the picture quality is the,user experience at least right now is,not where it needs to be so if you,follow tv news at all then you already,know that when tcls first google tvs,came out they were buggy or glitchy bad,enough that best buy and maybe this was,a knee-jerk reaction on their part but,best buy yanked them from store shelves,to tcls credit they came through with,the software patch pretty quickly and,the tvs came back to best buy shelves,and here we are today now to be,absolutely certain i had the latest,software update i went into the tvs,menu and forced it to look for one and i,already had the latest software and,firmware so now its time to tell you,about the bugs slash glitches and quirks,associated with this tv at least these,are the ones i experienced as recently,as february 3rd 2022. and understand im,reporting on these things in hopes that,they are soon resolved but well get to,that in a mome
TCL 6 Series/R646 2021 TV Review – Mini LED 4K TV with Google TV
[Music],today well be doing a review of the tcl,six series 2021 or the r646 well be,evaluating it on our standardized test,bench to see how it performs and if you,should buy it we bought and tested the,55-inch model and we expect the larger,sizes to perform similarly this tv is,the successor to the r635 also known as,the tcl6 series from last year,the 2021-6 series has a pretty standard,design which looks very similar to last,years model the stand is almost as wide,as the tv with some basic flaps for,cable management on the back theres,about three and a half inches between,the screen and the table if you want to,fit a soundbar in front,the inputs are located on the right hand,side theres four hdmi ports two of,which are higher bandwidth hdmi 2.1,ports for 4k at 120hz signals which,well talk about later,one of these hdmi 2.1 ports is also used,for e-arc or an enhanced audio return,channel that you can connect your,receiver or soundbar to play sound from,the tv through your external speakers,this unfortunately means that if you use,this port for a sound bar then theres,only one hdmi 2.1 port remaining for a,new console or pc,the back of the tv fits the vase amount,standard so you can wall mount it for a,cleaner look,its somewhat bulky though so will stick,out a bit,the build quality of the tv feels good,its made of plastic and theres some,flex in the panels but nothing too,surprising here,now lets talk about our test results a,high contrast ratio is important for,deep dark scenes which is good if you,want to watch movies in the dark like a,home theater environment,this tv has a va type panel and can,produce very deep blacks which is,excellent for an immersive picture when,viewed in the dark,this tv also has local dimming which is,a feature to further improve dark scenes,for a better movie watching experience,the contrast with local dimming on our,test pattern is very high but we didnt,actually find it to be as impressive,when viewing a range of real scenes its,still decent overall though which isnt,surprising as its advertised with a,mini led backlight,you can adjust the local dimming between,low and high and we found that the high,setting results in too much crushing of,small details while low is better for,retaining details but is less impactful,overall as the screen doesnt get,completely black,now if you want to use the tv in a,bright room then a high peak brightness,is important to overcome glare the 6,series has an excellent brightness among,the highest overall that weve tested,which makes it great for a room with,lots of light it can also use this,brightness to produce bright highlights,in newer high dynamic range or hdr,content for an impactful hdr experience,when watching darker scenes in a bright,room its really the reflectivity of the,screen that has more impact than the,brightness you can see that the tv,handles reflections very well reducing,the intensity of all incoming light it,also diffuses the reflections a bit,which many people like as even if there,are reflections youre not distracted by,the details of them,if youve got a wide seating arrangement,or like to watch tv with family and,friends then good viewing angles help to,ensure no ones left with a subpar image,off to the side unfortunately on this tv,the image quality drops dramatically,when viewed off angle so the image is,really only best from directly in front,when watching sports or playing video,games a uniform screen brightness and,color is important to avoid the,appearance of clouding known as the,dirty screen effect,this does vary between units but we,expect the r646 we bought to be about,typical its actually surprisingly good,the edges are a bit darker but its not,bad,this is a nice surprise as previous,tcls used to have lots of issues with,uniformity,when watching in the dark the black,uniformity is also good so there arent,really any distracting bright areas,which is nice,if youre looking to buy a new tv,because you want to watch high dynamic,range or hdr content then a wide color,gamut is important to have an image that,pops this tv has a great wide color,gamut so its great for those who like,an image with extra saturation,some tvs struggle to display smooth,gradients so when playing games that,have smooth gradients like in the skies,some banding can be visible,for this 6 series though it isnt too,much of a problem overall,we found that certain shades do have,some banding but its not a big issue,and there is also a gradation clear,setting to smooth up any banding that,might be present in the source content,do note at the moment the tv has issues,upscaling 480p content such as from dvds,and legacy sources it transforms 480p,signals to a resolution of 800×600 with,a 4×3 aspect ratio and the resulting,image looks unnatural tcl has indicated,they intend to fix this though through a,future software update this shouldnt,matter for most people but if you still,have a collection of dvds you watch,regularly or want to connect vintage,game consoles this tv isnt right for,you at the moment,when playing fast paced games a fast,response time is important for a clear,image without distracting blur the r646,has a fast response time overall,depending on the dark scene you might,notice some light smearing in the form,of overshoot but this is pretty typical,of most tvs and not really an issue also,important for gaming or pc use is low,input lag for a responsive feel this tv,has an excellent low input lag,especially when gaming at 120 hertz,where its among the best weve tested,speaking of gaming this tv supports the,complete range of signals from a new,xbox or ps5 including 4k at 120hz on the,hdmi 2.1 ports this is excellent for,those who want to be future-proof and,results in a responsive experience and,detailed image it also supports variable,refresh rates which is great for a,tear-free gaming experience now for the,smart interface and this is quite,interesting typically tcl has released,tvs with the roku smart platform in,north america this year though tcl has,released a few tvs like this one with,the google tv interface,while we didnt really experience any,bugs in our testing a lot of people have,been experiencing issues while many of,them are minor small annoyances like,bugs with the wi-fi setting and changing,picture modes definitely can detract,from the overall experience tcl tends to,be pretty responsive so while we expect,these to be fixed in a firmware update,we cant guarantee it besides this,theres a wide range of apps and the,menus are easy to use and navigate the,sound of this tv is good and actually a,bit better than many of the tvs weve,tested its still a tv speaker though,and not as good as an external soundbar,or speakers so if you really care about,good sound then an external speaker,system is the way to go so this brings,us to the main question should you buy,this tv well its nice to see that tcl,is improving their models year over year,and this one really is great this is,impressive considering the low price,when compared to tvs from samsung lg or,sony with similar features and picture,quality if this suits your budget go for,it,if you dont mind spending more money,there are some other options though if,youve got a dark room then you really,cant beat an oled like the lg c1,if youre a fan of sony tvs for their,picture processing and customization,features then check out the x95j which,also has the best local dimming weve,seen on an lcd tv again though both of,these options will cost you more so,whether its really worth it is up to,you,you