HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality was Very Good, overall. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent. Color accuracy was Very Good, with flesh tones in particular, looking natural. Very Good contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—gave images convincing depth and dimension. Black levels were Very Good, and delivered fairly deep blacks that helped the contrast in darker scenes. TCL's full array "Local contrast" feature helped. The quality appeared worse as we viewed from the sides—see our Viewing Angle results, below. This was among the brightest models we've tested (with the backlight control turned up), so the picture was well suited for a very sunny room—a lower setting is recommended for a dimmer viewing environment. There was notable display non-uniformity in our test sample—it appeared as brighter cloudy areas which were most visible on very dark scenes (or in the black bars of a letterboxed movie)—the severity can vary from model to model. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content for "up-converted" HD-to-UHD images was generally Excellent and free of "jaggies" (jagged edges) deinterlacing of 1080i video was Excellent but film mode detection of 1080i film-based content was faulty.
4K UHD PICTURE QUALITY Overall 4K UHD picture quality was Very Good, overall. In our UHD testing, we played native-4K movies and test videos (non HDR) thru the TV's HDMI input, and found their image detail was all there. For color, contrast and black level, the TV performed similarly to its HD picture quality.
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PERFORMANCE HDR performance had very limited effectiveness. In our tests, the display's lack of high peak brightness capability (by HDR standards) limited its ability to show the benefits of our HDR 4K content. It could not reveal much contrast between the moderately bright and very bright highlights, while the brightness levels in the mid-to-lower tones, like those in an indoor scene, were slightly low. It did a good job reproducing a greater range of nuanced shadow detail, from black to white, with no obvious banding within the gradually shaded areas. There was no visible loss of detail within the highlights of the brightest areas. Brightly colored objects remained nicely saturated.
VIEWING ANGLE This TCL model has a narrow viewing angle overall, below-average performance among TVs. Only those seated directly in front of the screen will see the best picture quality. We examined the image quality at various viewing angles—its image quality notably decreased as we moved away from the center position. When we viewed the TV from the sides image quality degraded significantly. The picture showed a strong loss of color, so flesh tones looked very washed out. Black levels visibly brightened, and reduced the contrast especially on dark scenes. Halo effects around objects in darker scenes (a side effect of the local dimming feature) also become more prominent at off angles. Lastly, we viewed the image from above and below center screen, and noticed Good vertical viewing angle performance, with only slight changes in color, contrast, and black level.
