Hisense, known as the undisputed brightness king, is also frequently cited as one of the best values in TVs. But the UR9 debuted as one of Hisense’s most expensive TVs ever. So, the pressure is on to deliver. Let’s find out if it does.

Why RGB Backlighting Matters

Hisense was the first to introduce RGB backlighting at CES. The 2025 116UX was a monster of a TV that bowled us over with its sheer size and brightness. I got to measure that TV in New York once upon a time, but my equipment couldn’t even handle it. It went well beyond the 5,000 nits of brightness that my reliable colorimeter could handle. And the readings I got from my less-reliable 10,000-nit colorimeter were a mess. I had to wonder if I could believe anything I was seeing at all. What I was certain of was that it was the brightest TV I’d ever seen, regardless of size. Unfortunately, I never got to report on that, so you can imagine why I’ve been pretty excited to review the UR9. It’s a lot like that 116UX, but scaled down to sizes normal folks can fit in their homes, at achievable prices.

Price reality check

When we first heard about the pricing, many people were shocked. Initial reports from The Verge had the 65-inch launching at $3,500 — compared to the $2,200 the U8K cost at launch. The 75-inch was set to debut at double the price of its U8K equivalent: $5,000 versus $2,500 the year before. It was a little disconcerting. But what many headlines failed to mention was that those high prices also included a free 55-inch canvas art TV.

So let’s take a breath and see where things stand now, just a few weeks after the May 21, 2026, launch event. The 65-inch is currently $2,000 — well below the original $3,500. And that’s not a sale price; that’s the new standard. The 75-inch is now $3,000. Okay, blood pressure is coming down from that $5,000 sticker shock. The 85-inch is $4,000. Still pricey, but lower than comparably equipped competition.

RGB backlighting explained

I think we can relax a bit about the pricing. Now we have to ask: is this second-gen RGB tech, or is it the first-gen RGB tech that LG Display was only too happy to show off to journalists earlier this year?

Until recently, premium non-OLED TVs used white light from blue LEDs and quantum dots, then filtered it to produce colors via subtractive color mixing. As you might guess, subtracting light makes everything dimmer. The excitement around RGB TVs is that they don’t need quantum dots at all — they use red, green, and blue LEDs directly. The benefit? The color filter doesn’t have to work as hard because the RGB backlights can sometimes combine (additive color mixing) to create the needed color. Less filtration, or subtractive mixing, means brighter colors. And yes, we all do a color-brightness dance.

So now you can see why TV reviewers like me — and TV geeks in general — are so invested in whether an RGB TV is actually using its RGB backlights to produce color, or if it’s mostly just combining them to produce white, making pictures the old-fashioned way (which, to be fair, has looked pretty good so far). But if you’re charging a premium price for a premium technology, the picture has to live up to the price tag—or at least the hype. That’s what I’m here to help figure out. Does the Hisense UR9’s RGB tech actually improve on previous generations? Is it better than last year’s TVs—and is that enough, RGB or not? And how does it stack up against all the other TVs jumping on the RGB bandwagon this year? We’ll get to all of that—but first, let’s look at everything else you get with this TV, because you’ve got to live with this thing, right?

Out of the Box

Design

First off, the UR9 is a little bulkier than you might expect, and most RGB TVs will be this year. That’s because when the red, green, and blue backlights have to combine to make white, they need some space to converge just right. So, the TV is a little thick, but a lot of folks have moved past the ultra-thin TV phase, so I’m not sure that’s a dealbreaker for anyone.

The speakers on the sides — Hisense has done all it can to make them less obvious because people complained about previous versions being unsightly. The problem is, I’m not sure they fulfilled their intended purpose of sounding more direct than the down-firing speakers we see on most other TVs. I’ll comment more on the sound shortly.

Stand

The TV itself is pretty hefty, but with its stand, it’s downright heavy. That’s because the stand is solid metal. I had a little trouble figuring out how to put it together correctly, but that’s because I refuse to read instructions. Turns out the instructions weren’t very helpful. Anyway, it’s just an odd way to put together a stand with a lot of screws. But I tell you what, this stand is solid as a rock, and that counts for a lot with me. It’s really heavy to move, but it lets you put a big old 85-inch TV on a relatively small stand. So once you get it in place, you don’t need to worry about it.

Remote

This is the only time I’ll compare the UR9 to the TCL QM8L — I’m saving a full comparison for later. Sitting side by side, the QM8L and UR9 remotes are similar, except that the buttons are in a different order. The UR9 places hotkeys for streaming services at the top, while TCL places them at the bottom. Both have a star key you can assign to any streaming service you want. Hisense decided to include a dedicated kids’ streaming service button, which is an interesting choice.

The Hisense remote is backlit, like the TCL’s, but you won’t find the brightness controls on the side as you do with the TCL. Both remotes are plastic disguised as metal, but they get the job done — nothing remarkable, nothing to complain about.

OS and Inputs

Google TV runs super snappily on this TV, likely because it uses the MediaTek Pentonic 800 SoC (system-on-chip). Here, that means you get three HDMI 2.1 ports and one DisplayPort connection on the side. There’s also a powerhouse USB-C input featuring DisplayPort Alt Mode, designed specifically for high-end PC gaming and creator setups. It’s been upgraded to handle a massive 4K signal at up to 170 or 180 Hz and can push a blistering 330 Hz variable refresh rate, depending on your resolution.

Because it taps directly into the TV’s supposed native 100% BT.2020 Pro color space and features a dedicated Adobe Vision PC monitor mode, the idea is that it can transform this massive screen into a color-accurate studio monitor. We’ll see about that. But it definitely pulls double duty by delivering 10 watts of power to keep your laptop or handheld console charged while you play — that’s more for the gaming PC nerds.

The SoC also enables this TV to support Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max, though those features won’t be active until a future firmware update, which isn’t entirely under Hisense’s control.

Reflections and Off-Axis Viewing

Beyond the TV’s core features, the two things most folks want to know about are reflection and glare handling, as well as off-axis performance. The UR9 doesn’t have the kind of matte screen, ultra-bright room reflection, or anti-glare treatment we’ve seen on the upcoming U7 SG or some recent Samsung OLEDs. Even though this TV seems positioned to compete with OLED — something I’ll discuss more when we get to picture quality —the anti-reflective and anti-glare coatings here aren’t groundbreaking.

I do notice some reduction in harsh light sources, like lamps, and the rainbow effect is present but not especially bright or distracting. Still, this TV isn’t built to handle direct, bright light. In a room with plenty of ambient light, though, it should be just fine — especially since, as I’ll soon show, it’s bright enough to fend off the kind of light you’d find in a geodesic dome off the coast of Florida. It’s bright.

As for off-axis performance, it’s actually pretty good. I’m used to being extremely disappointed, but it seems Hisense has adopted a wide-angle filter that does a nice job here. Color saturation and contrast hold up well, though there’s a bit of sharpness loss when you move off to the side.

Audio

Honestly, I’m just not impressed. I know Devialet tunes this TV — if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a French audio company known for some pretty wild-looking speakers that sound incredible. But I hear no resemblance between that premium audio brand and this TV.

To its credit, there’s a lot of control over the TV’s audio performance—more than I can say for most TVs. With enough tweaking (there’s a full graphic equalizer), you can probably get a sound you like. But right out of the box—which is what most people will experience—I don’t think the sound is very warm or rich. It seems to chase dialogue clarity by boosting the upper midrange, and that’s just not a sound I enjoy.

The UR9 Under the Microscope

I spent a lot of time testing this TV, more thoroughly than I have any other I’ve reviewed. There’s been some confusion in the TV reviewer world lately — especially with the latest version of Calman, the software we use for measurements. Some of the numbers from respected, measurement-focused publications have been all over the place. Here, I’ll break down what I found with the UR9, keeping things as straightforward as possible for readers.

Settings

For all my tests, I started with the default Filmmaker Mode. On the UR9, that means Warm 2 color temperature, which — oddly enough — is actually cooler than Warm 1. I compared both and found Warm 2 to be more accurate, but when just watching TV for fun, I actually preferred Warm 1, even without a detailed white balance calibration.

One thing to note: whites on this TV aren’t especially accurate. The colors look great, but there’s more going on behind the scenes. So, as we walk through these numbers, keep in mind that lab measurements don’t always reflect the real-world viewing experience quite as much as they used to.

I tested this TV under a variety of screen conditions: 18% window, full-screen (100% window), and the more common 10% window. Some manufacturers “game” these measurements, so I also used an 18% window with the average picture level setting, meaning the whole backlight is on, but just a portion of the screen is measured. I even tried a newer method—the 2015 two-degree standard observer—to find the most realistic performance numbers.

What stands out is that Filmmaker Mode peaks at about 280 nits for SDR, which is right on target for this setting. In my 100% window test, I measured about 278 nits—so, very consistent across different screen sizes.

Gamma, or how the TV handles brightness and grays, was inconsistent. The best results came from the 18% window, with the average picture level, suggesting the UR9 will perform well in everyday use. Still, the readings varied depending on the window size and the amount of the screen being measured.

From Grayscale to HDR: Where It Shines (and Where It Doesn’t)

Now we get to the interesting stuff: the two-point grayscale. As I mentioned, it’s a bit on the cool side with too much blue, but Warm 1 had way too much red, so I stuck with this setting. We see a max delta E of 6.08 — ideally, we want to see something below 3. So, out of the box, accuracy isn’t amazing in bright whites, but in dimmer grays it’s perfectly acceptable, right around 2.3. What we know from this is that as the picture gets brighter, especially in the whites, it becomes less accurate.

Let’s look at the grayscale. Results varied a lot depending on the test. With an APL of 18%, the max error was 6.45. If I used a 100% window, it wasn’t great, with a max delta E of 11 — not what we want to see. The standard 18% window performed well, with a max delta E of 6.07. In the lighter grays, it’s fine up to about 50%, but as it gets brighter, accuracy drops slightly. Not horrible, but definitely not Sony-level accuracy.

Saturation and Luminance

Now, onto saturation sweeps, which show how the color map works in SDR. Here, things look really good. The max error is 6.24 at the white point (100%), but everything else stays in the low range. So, we’re actually seeing pretty accurate color out of this TV — though there are a couple of outliers in the greens and at the brightest blue. The brightest blues are always the biggest problem on this TV, probably because they’re hottest in the white point.

Luminance sweeps show everything’s fine except for the brightest whites, which are a bit off. The color checker gives us more of the same — another really good result. The color on this TV is surprisingly good, even though the whites are way off. Looking at the chart, blue and cyan are slightly off, as we’d expect. Cyan is close to blue, but the skin tones — all those browns — are really nice and accurate. Overall, we’re noticing some oversaturation of blues and reds, though not as severe as I saw on the TCL QM8.

The chart above is what has caused a lot of trouble for reviewers so far: the HDR content color chart. When I pull it up, it looks absolutely awful — these bars are literally off the charts. Max error: 33.48. Remember, we want to see a score of 3 or below. Six is acceptable. Twelve is bad; 33.48 is horrible. What’s going on here? Charts like this are getting out to the public because people don’t realize you have to change the target setting for these tests — the target doesn’t change automatically.

HDR Testing: Errors and Adjustments

If that sounds like gibberish, here’s the quick version: calibrators and testers used to have separate tests for SDR and HDR, so we didn’t have to worry about targets. Now, we do. So, I clicked the target box to switch to HDR mode. That process takes a few minutes for the system to recalculate everything, but once it’s done, we’re working in Rec 2020 ST2084—meaning the TV is being measured against an HDR target.

Once I switched and ran the HDR content color test again, things looked much better. The maximum error dropped to 6.63 — not perfect, but a lot more manageable. The whites are still way off, and there’s a particular shade of green that’s off by 6.1, but this is basically what we expect to see: a little unsaturation in some places, and a little oversaturation in the whites. Overall, not bad.

The reason I bring this up is that many reports show terrible HDR results, and it’s usually because reviewers don’t realize they need to adjust the target setting. The good news is that the software company says it will fix this, so hopefully we’ll see more accurate reports soon.

Peak Brightness Performance

Now, let’s move on to the part everyone wants to see: just how bright does this TV get? Well, prepare to be impressed. In a 1% window, brightness is around 4,700 nits. At 2%, it climbs to 5,400 nits. At 5%, it’s over 6,000 nits. For full-screen white, you get 1,418 nits. If you want to know whether this TV can get bright, the answer is a resounding yes—it can absolutely light up a room.

Color Coverage and Volume

As for color coverage, there’s a lot of hype about TVs hitting 100% of the BT.2020 color space. That’s not the case here. This TV hits about 91.7%, which is still very good — about what you’d expect from a QD-OLED. What I really wanted to know, though, was how much color this TV can actually produce — what’s called “color volume.” Unfortunately, the software I use doesn’t save that data in a way I can easily show here. I’ll be able to provide a more detailed comparison of color volume when I put this TV side by side with the TCL QM8L in an upcoming review.

What Do These Numbers Mean in Practice?

So, what do these numbers actually mean? Some of the measurements were great, others not so much. The whites were off, but the colors were strong, which suggests that Hisense tuned this TV for great color performance, even if the white point drifts from the traditional D65 standard.

But does any of that really matter? To a degree, yes. It shows that this TV can produce any single color extremely well. If you’re only watching test patterns or colored rectangles, this — and just about any other RGB TV — will look fantastic. That’s because producing one color at a time is easy for the processor.

But real content isn’t just blocks of color. Real content puts yellow flowers next to pink ones, green grass, maybe a blue lake, and skin tones all in one scene. How does the TV handle that? It creates white and lets the color filter do the rest. So, most of those colors you see aren’t necessarily unique to RGB tech — at least not most of the time.

Where red, green, and blue backlights really shine is when they’re creating colors, not white. So when does that matter, and will you notice it? You definitely will with certain demo footage — it looks incredible. But after showing off a few demos to friends, most of us go back to watching TV shows, movies, or games.

Real-World Performance

Now we need to talk about real-world picture quality and how the UR9 handles actual content. I tried hard not to compare the UR9 to the QM8L, but with the TCL sitting right there, some comparisons slipped in. To be honest, it taught me more about the QM8L than the UR9, but I’ll save those thoughts for the dedicated comparison.

Let’s start with a compliment: I think Hisense has continued to make real processing improvements. Overall, the TV looks more refined than previous models — generally cleaner than any Hisense TV I’ve seen before. It still doesn’t clean up really poor-quality content as well as some competitors, but most cable and nearly all premium streaming content looked great. Blu-rays, whether 4K or standard, looked awesome.

I pulled out Batman v. Superman, John Wick 4, Interstellar, The Martian, and Pan — they all looked stellar (not just Interstellar). I also noticed minimal telecine judder, and pull-down processing was solid, especially compared to Hisense TVs from two or three generations ago.

Motion and Highlight Handling

Since this isn’t an OLED TV, it doesn’t have instant pixel response. That means some of the flashing from bright objects in motion won’t be as jarring as it is on an OLED. Still, with really bright highlights that move across the screen, you are going to notice some flashing — unless you enable motion smoothing (the “soap opera effect”) and let the TV create fake pixels to smooth things out.

Does RGB Backlighting Make a Difference?

I watched just about every kind of content on this TV, from low-quality streaming to top-tier 4K Blu-rays. In the end, I can’t decide if the RGB backlighting is a true advantage over conventional Mini-LED TVs. When it does make a difference, the effect is spectacular — but honestly, it doesn’t show up all that often. Most of the content available doesn’t really take advantage of what this TV can do.

So, will there be future content that leverages this TV’s color capabilities? And when it happens, how will the TV handle it? In theory, the real benefit should be color brightness, and I do see that on the charts. But real-world performance is complicated — cross-talk is an issue for any LCD TV, so the charts don’t always tell the whole story. How often do those red, green, and blue LEDs get to do something other than make white? That’s what I’m looking for.

The Real-World Test

Putting the technical questions aside, the real test for me is this: if you watched a full movie on a standard Mini-LED TV like the Hisense U8K, and then watched the same movie on this UR9 RGB Mini-LED — without knowing which was which — would you notice a dramatic difference? Honestly, I think you would. The UR9 has a quality that stands out, something I don’t remember from the U8 last year. I can’t quite quantify it, but after years of reviewing TVs, it’s a gut feeling I trust.

Is It Worth the Price?

There’s no doubt the UR9 is a gorgeous, impressively bright TV. The question is whether it truly earns its price premium. To answer that, we need to look at the competitors and do some side-by-side comparisons. Maybe that’s the point — you can’t really know without seeing them together. And if that’s the case, does it make a big enough difference?

I will say — and this isn’t a comparison review — that there were times I preferred what I saw from the TCL QM8L, and other times I was glad the UR9 wasn’t doing what the TCL was doing. So next, I start thinking about price. But does the pricing even matter when the UAQG is gone, this is the best TV Hisense offers, and prices are dropping? I’m not sure it does.

Where Does RGB Really Matter?

In the end, this is the best TV Hisense makes that most people can actually buy. I think it’s the best TV Hisense has ever made. The 116 UX with the Cyan Pixel is another story — the jury’s still out on that one. Also, I don’t think we can pin the entire RGB conversation on this one TV. We need to see how Samsung, Sony, and even TCL — despite pushing SQD technology — approach RGB. That’s when we can really talk about where Hisense sits on the RGB tier and whether RGB is a net benefit. I definitely believe in its potential, though. Credit to Hisense for being the first company to get an RGB TV into my hands. That’s a tough position to be in.

Final verdict

So, as far as RGB goes, I believe in its promise. The Hisense UR9 is a beautiful TV, and it uses RGB technology — those are facts. Whether one is the reason for the other, we’ll have to wait and see.

There were moments while watching the UR9 when my jaw dropped. Some Blu-ray scenes blew me away. Premium streaming content looked stunning. Even lower-quality live TV streaming was better than I’ve seen from Hisense before. Classic shows like Star Trek: TNG on Pluto? Decent upscaling — though I think TCL has an edge there, and Sony, Samsung, and LG are still at the top.

In the end, there’s no doubt this is a flagship-level TV, and it’s going to impress a lot of people. The question that remains is whether anyone can do significantly better and justify the much higher prices I expect competitors to charge. I can’t wait to find out.

What Makes the QM8L Stand Out

The QM8L is, in many ways and probably to nobody’s surprise, a spectacular TV. It features TCL’s new Super Quantum Dot (SQD) technology, which trickled down from the insanely spec’d out X11L TV that I reviewed (and accidentally melted) earlier this year. That’s the main headline with this TV and why we’re here: the QM8L brings SQD tech to sizes and prices that people can — and will — save up for. It has tons of local dimming zones and nearly every feature TCL could pack in. There’s definitely more than I’ll cover in this one review because it’s already going to be long enough.

I think what most of you really want to know is that this TV does a lot of things extremely well—so much so that I almost don’t have to do this review. But I do, because every TV brand claims to have a model that delivers top-tier performance at a surprising price, and the QM8L is TCL’s answer to that challenge.

What truly sets this TV apart, though, is the introduction of Super Quantum Dot (SQD) technology—a major step forward from the typical display tech you’ll find elsewhere. To help you understand why SQD matters, let’s quickly break down what makes quantum dots special and how TCL’s approach is different.

Super Quantum Dots and a New Color Filter

The other brands use RGB backlight technology, which this TV does not. Super quantum dots are a lot like regular quantum dots, only they are super. But I can’t explain how they are super until you understand how regular quantum dots work. Okay, so you’ve heard of QLED, QD-OLED, etc. The Q is usually short for quantum dots. Quantum dots are ridiculously tiny nanoparticles that glow a certain color when you shine light on them.

So, what TV makers do is shine blue LEDs, which are already really good, onto a sheet filled with these red and green quantum dots. And when those colors combine, they make white. But not just any shade — very pure white with a very specific balance of red, green, and blue. The better the white light, the easier it is for a color filter to remove it and produce the colors you see on your screen.

That’s why quantum dots were such a big deal when they started to appear in TVs. We started seeing colors and color brightness that we’d never seen in TVs before. Well, super quantum dots have been refined to be even purer. So, the resulting white light they help create is purer as well. So pure, in fact, that a new color filter had to be invented to handle this new super pure white light. You might not have heard of it because “the super color filter” just doesn’t sound nearly as cool. But you can’t have SQD without a super color filter. And that new color filter means even more colors than we’ve seen before at brightness levels we’ve never seen before. It’s all very impressive.

Yes, we’ve heard this story before, but this is next level. It is first-gen technology, but based on well-understood science. So, it’s less risky, both for TCL to make them and for you to buy them. This is like a turbocharged version of last year’s best TCL TVs. But the QM8L is not a perfect TV either. We need to talk about the few areas where it falls short, because whether this TV is right for you depends largely on whether it can do what you need it to.

Build Quality: Stand, Design, and Ports

Stand

So, let’s talk about the TV itself. It’s got a central pedestal stand instead of legs, so it’ll fit on smaller credenzas or tables. That, I do like. But the pedestal is made of plastic, unlike Hisense’s metal stand on its UR9. That’s something I don’t like, because the TCL TV is already really heavy, so the stand should be heavy-duty as well. Of course, if you’re going to be wall-mounting, none of that matters. But if you spend good money on a TV, it should feel premium everywhere. And the stand does not.

Ports

On the back of the TV, we have four — yes, four — HDMI 2.1 inputs. You have been clamoring for it, and now you have it. Whether anyone will actually use all of that bandwidth is another story, but they are here. They are all 4K 144 hertz inputs. Number one is the eARC port. I love that that’s the direction we’re going. I would love for the eARC audio port to be port 1 on every TV. Also on the back are Bang and Olufsen mid-bass transducers. How well do they help the sound? We’ll get there in a moment.

Design

This TV has no real bezels on the top or the sides, though there is a silver strip on the bottom. I’d prefer a gunmetal or just a straight-up black strip. To me, the silver strip won’t vibe with modern decor.

The image on the QML goes all the way to the edge. There’s no black matrix. So, the whole screen is an image. And sometimes that image is Google TV’s homepage, which is ripping-fast to navigate. Thank goodness, because as many manufacturers moved to the chipset that powers this TV and supports those four HDMI 2.1 inputs we’ve been whining about for years, it was not a foregone conclusion that the chip would run Google TV well, but it does. For me, it’s been an exceptional start-up. Even with eco mode set to low power (like off mode), it still gets up and running pretty quickly. Sorry, I didn’t time it, but it wasn’t long enough to bother me, which means it probably won’t bother you either to save a couple of bucks a month on your electricity bill by turning off that little ecoRemote Controller setting.

Remote

Now, before we start talking measurements, pretty pictures, motion, black levels, blooming, and such, let’s look at the remote. It feels like plastic. I wish it were metal, but I love it anyway because there are brightness up/down buttons on the side and a quick-menu button, which I love. There’s also a standalone button that can be programmed to launch your favorite app. TCL gave up money to give you that option rather than sell access to a particular streaming service. And for that, we thank you, TCL.

Picture Quality

Now, let’s break down the measurements. If you want to get into the weeds with me on precise metrics, I encourage you to check out my video review.

Brightness

To start, I turned off adaptive brightness in the eco settings — unless you often watch TV in rooms with highly variable lighting, I’d suggest you do the same, since it helps keep things consistent during testing.

In “filmmaker mode,” the brightness is set very low by default (19 out of 100), which might seem odd, but it’s actually pretty close to professional standards. At that setting, I measured about 239 nits — bright, but not eye-searing, and a bit more than you’d get in a totally dark studio. “Movie mode” is technically brighter (321), but the difference isn’t huge.

Gamma, which describes how the TV handles shades of gray, wasn’t perfect — the image gradually dims, then suddenly jumps to full white. This isn’t unusual, but it’s something enthusiasts might notice. In terms of color accuracy, the results were generally good, especially for an uncalibrated TV. Most colors were on point, with only the very brightest whites and some highly saturated colors being a little off. If you’re picky, calibration can fix these issues, but most people won’t notice them during everyday viewing.

One thing to note: reds and blues (and to a lesser extent, magenta) were noticeably more intense than they should be. That means some colors might look a bit too bold, which TCL could address with future updates or calibration tweaks. Overall, though, the TV’s color and brightness performance are impressive — especially for the price point.

Peak Whites

Now, let’s get into the peak white nits — the numbers that matter for real-world viewing. In my testing, the QM8L consistently reached around 4,800 nits of peak brightness, with one measurement even hitting 5,400 nits. That’s beyond TCL’s own claims and puts this TV firmly in flagship territory. For reference, the industry-standard 10% window landed at about 3,700 nits, and full-screen white measured 804 nits — enough to comfortably light a room, even in daylight.

On the color side, HDR performance tells a mixed story. While the TV delivers impressive brightness and wide color, I observed that some HDR colors were oversaturated — certain shades registered delta E values above 12, which is outside the ideal range for accuracy. In ‘Filmmaker Mode,’ where faithfulness to the creator’s intent is the goal, I would have preferred more restraint, especially for reference content. That said, these levels of oversaturation are unlikely to be obvious in typical viewing, except perhaps with skin tones or highly specific color gradations.

Color Volume

The color volume test showed the QM8L covering just under 90% of the standard, which is a strong performance for this class of TV. As for the advanced gamut ring test — the same one that famously melted a previous model — I’ll be diving deeper into those results in an upcoming SQD versus RGB analysis, since some technical details are still being confirmed with engineers.

Gamut Ring

To complete the gamut ring test, the TV required significant cooling between each of the 62 measurements, and the process took nearly two hours. The good news: the QM8L handled the stress without issue.

The main takeaway here is that even without calibration, the QM8L posts impressive numbers. With minor adjustments to white balance and grayscale, gamma performance can be further refined. For those seeking absolute accuracy, professional calibration is a worthwhile consideration that could further elevate results.

One ongoing challenge I observed is oversaturation in the blue and red primaries, along with some color errors in HDR mode. These are particularly noticeable in demanding test patterns, and while super quantum dots deliver excellent color brightness, dialing in perfect HDR accuracy remains a complex task — especially for low-luminance shades. This is an area I’ll be exploring further as I compare SQD to RGB technologies in future coverage.

Real-World Content

So, that’s the nerd stuff, which, as we know, doesn’t necessarily translate into a viewing experience— and that is especially the case here. This TV’s color is truly exciting to look at. When you see really green leaves or luminescent blue waters, the vibrancy is tantalizing.

Move away from the dazzling demo material, which is meant to test a TV’s limits and show it off, and you start watching everyday content. That’s where you learn what living with a TV is going to feel like in the long term. I sat down and started by watching season 1 of The Pitt and then moved on to Fly Me to the Moon, which, if you ask me, is underrated for its cinematography. I watched the last few episodes of Picard on Paramount+ (yes, I’m a subscriber), which is how I also got into several episodes of Landman — you should probably check that out. I ran the Spears and Munsil disc through the TV because I know exactly how all that content should look. I also watched both the 1080p and 4K versions of Gravity, and some Pluto TV to check the upscaling. It all looked fantastic.

Brightness management and ambient sensors

It’s nice to know you can “hit the gas and go 200 mph,” but what’s the ride like when you’re cruising most of the time? When we hear “5,000-nit TV,” we might think, “Yikes, that’s just going to be a beacon of sun in my room all the time.” And, yeah, if you want it to blast you right out of the room while watching cable, this TV can do that. But Filmmaker Mode SDR is chill, the way it’s meant to be for a dark room. You can ramp up the brightness easily with the remote for daytime, or just use the built-in ambient light sensor and not worry. It works pretty well.

AI Processing and Backlight Precision

In HDR, the TV either follows the rules or it doesn’t — and this TV, well, it’s not exactly following the rules, at least not all the time. If I change the test parameters, it can actually look dimmer in HDR than it should. The updated processor and advanced image controls in this TV sometimes handle standard test patterns differently than expected, but they generally make smart adjustments based on the type of content you’re actually watching. In typical scenes, brightness and contrast tracking appeared excellent, and overall, I was impressed with how well the TV responded to everyday movies and shows.

This TV has a lot of work to do, but I’d say its backlight control is dangerously close to the X11L’s. The X11L has insane precision, though that level of precision doesn’t benefit most people, which is why the QM8L is a far better choice for the average user. You get all that trickle-down technology from the X11L, reined in a bit for everyone but the ultra enthusiast, for a real-life flagship that outperforms its predecessor by a significant margin — in some cases, for less than last year’s QM8K.

Motion handling and upscaling

Motion handling is better on this model, with less stutter even before turning on any motion smoothing. You get less ghosting when you crank up motion interpolation, though by its nature, that’s a system bound to create flaws, not fix them. Upscaling and cleanup of older, lower-resolution or lower-bit-depth content have definitely improved — the picture is just cleaner overall.

Console and PC Gaming Performance

The QM8L is an outstanding TV for watching shows and movies. If you’re gaming with a console, you’ll love using it here. Input lag varies with resolution and refresh rate, but TV companies have done a good job of mitigating it while preserving decent picture quality. For most console gamers, it’s a big thumbs-up for high-framerate content. PC gamers, keep in mind: TVs are not, by nature, made like monitors. The TV has to handle all image processing and graphical rendering, so it won’t perform like a monitor that just passes the signal from a high-end graphics card. Enjoy the 144Hz frame rate capability, but don’t expect this TV to beat your high-end PC gaming monitor. That’s why those smaller, high-end monitors cost so much—because they do things equally priced TVs can’t.

Audio

As for the audio, the QM8L TV sounds … okay.

I can count on one hand the number of TVs with sound I found impressive Sony’s recent OLED TVs — which use the screen as speakers — Sony’s X900B (launched in 2014), which had an array of speakers flanking the sides of the screen. almost universally denounced as atrocious-looking (unsightly as it may have been, it sounded great), and Panasonic’s fairly recent Z95B, which had a soundbar strip tacked on below the screen.

To me, everything else sounds mediocre at best. And that’s not just my inner audiophile speaking. If your speakers aren’t aimed at your head, you are fighting physics. No DSP magic or acoustic sleight of hand can override the fundamental laws of sound discovered by giants like Pythagoras, Galileo, and Newton.

The best thing I can say about the QM8L’s sound is that it is fairly warm (not harsh), dialog is intelligible without being chesty, AND you can now add a wireless subwoofer to the TV to lend some sizeable sound commensurate with the size of the screen.

Attainable Premium Picture Quality

The X11 is fire, but I’m not going to recommend it to any of my friends. That’s a TCL flex model, showing what the brand can do. If you’ve got X11L money and obsess over top performance, go for it. The folks I hang out with — friends, family, some referrals from each — I’m going to tell them to save up and get the QM8L later this year when the price comes down. Once prices do drop, watch out.

This TV is one of the best ways to get ultra-premium picture quality at an attainable price point. Note, I did not say affordable — that’s up to you, and how you spend or save your money — but it is attainable. There’s not much I dislike about watching this TV, other than the Netflix red looking off to me, or the YouTube logo’s red looking wrong. There are times in actual content — like intense flames in Mad Max: Fury Road — where some colors seem a bit overcooked. It’s the only thing that occasionally took me out of the immersion. So, sure, there’s room for improvement, but I don’t see any deviation from TCL’s core principles of delivering insane picture quality for the money you pay.

Price Comparison

For price comparison, the 65-inch QM8L came in $500 less than the QM8K and is currently available for $1,800. The 75-inch is $200 less, but TCL knows the popular size now is 85 inches, and that model is $500 more expensive. If you want the 98-inch size, that’ll be $1,000 more, and you can get it right now for $5,000.

Final verdict

I’m looking at the TCL QM8L and thinking, “Hell yeah, that’s a fantastic TV that probably shouldn’t be as good as it is.” TCL made some smart decisions and came out with an overachiever that punches dangerously close to its moonshot TV, but offers meaningful performance improvements over the QM7L step-down model. I suspect the QM7L will end up being the TV most folks should buy, but for now, the QM8L is a top-five TV this year. I don’t know which category it’ll grab, but it’ll be up there — probably the smartest move for the money. We’ll see how that holds up by the end of the year, but this won’t be the last you hear from me about the QM8L.

Community Q&A

Before we go, I want to answer some specific questions we gathered using a data model built by my team at CE Critic. You can also visit CE Critic, which is among the most respected reviewers (full disclosure: I am an executive partner at CE Critic). Here are some quick answers:

Is the QM8L using a new processor chip, or is it the same as last year?

Yes, it has a new SOC, which means some reprogramming and a new processing name, pointing to new tricks even if based on prior language.

Did TCL fix motion processing issues from last year?

Yes, motion processing is improved. It’s a bit better, though I’d argue the QMAK wasn’t bad to begin with. TCL is creeping up on Sony — actually, not quite there yet, but getting closer every year. Interpolation artifacts are hard to remove because they create fake pixels, which is a tough engineering challenge. Stutter on sports shouldn’t be a thing unless motion smoothing is on, and even then, ghosting is more likely. I haven’t watched baseball on this TV yet, but it’ll be in that versus video I mentioned. Low bitrate streams — well, you can’t put lipstick on a pig and call it a runway model, but the TV does well cleaning up dirty content.

Any improvements to blooming?

There weren’t major blooming issues with the QM8K, and for the price, it was one of the best-controlled TVs on the market. Remember, the brighter an object is, the more your eyes will see a halo. Try watching closed captions in the letterbox bars of a movie and see if the bottom half of the screen lights up — I don’t think you will.

Does the crazy brightness improve HDR colors and black levels?

Black levels don’t have much to do with SQD. There’s still some loss of shadow detail at extremely low (5%) stimulus levels. You can fix that for gaming, but your contrast will look a little more washed out — that’s an LCD thing. HDR color has expanded, and the gamut rings test shows that while it may not reach the furthest BT2020 extremes, it covers every color at every brightness level, right up to the edge.

Did TCL improve accuracy out of the box?

Not with my review unit, but other reviewers are reporting improvements. Is the QM8L actually different from the QM851G from two years ago? Yes, vastly different. The ultra-wide-angle viewing filter alone is notable, and SQD takes things to the next level.

How close is the QM8L to OLED?

I have a whole video on why OLED LCDs can’t beat certain aspects, but I’d say the QM8L is second in line so far, behind the X11L. Other TVs may soon give it a run for its money.

Is this TV range still a good value? Without question, yes. Check the price differences I mentioned earlier, and I think you’ll agree.

So, I’m going to use this Klipsch system to start the 2026 soundbar conversation. And even if you’ve watched or read a review about this soundbar and its system add-ons before, I think we’re going to be referencing this review for a while.

​Out of the box

Let’s get into the basics. This soundbar, which is long but not exceedingly deep or tall, feels better built than any Klipsch soundbar I can recall laying my hands on. This feels like a legit piece of gear, and that is almost always a good start.

Around back, you have inputs and outputs. The notable ones are the wired subwoofer output, a USB-A input (which delivers a wireless audio signal to the other components), and a mic input (for the built-in Dirac room correction system).

That’s right, the Core 300 offers free, limited-bandwidth Dirac access built right in, just plug in the included mic and follow the instructions on the app.

​A Word on HDMI Inputs

Before I move on to pricing and performance, I want to address the complaints I hear from other reviewers that it only has one HDMI input. Yes, you’re paying a lot of money, but this is not an A/V receiver. It’s not even an A/V receiver replacement. It’s an alternative to an A/V receiver designed to prevent you and others in your home from getting frustrated with a bunch of wires coming out the back of your system. The whole point is to use your TV’s eARC function. And if you need to go direct to use the DTS:X support because your TV won’t pass it through, then your Blu-ray player can go here. Or maybe your Apple TV needs to go in here. Otherwise, if you need a soundbar to act like an A/V receiver, please buy an HDMI switcher and don’t whine about having another remote around because you insisted on the custom setup. End rant.

Pricing

This soundbar alone has been retailing for about $1,200, but that price is going to drop — at least temporarily — to $900. I consider that a great deal.

At full price, the Flexus Core 300 punches a hole in the wallet, but Klipsch — and I — will argue that you’re getting a lot for that money. You get premium drivers, premium amplification (backed up by Onkyo in some way or another), premium build quality, and Dirac built in. Now, you can pay yet another $100 to get the full Dirac license, and Klipsch did offer that to me for this review, but I don’t think most of you need to bother – the 20Hz to 500Hz range that the built-in system covers most problem zones in most rooms.

First Impressions: Design, Interface, and Everyday Use

With or without Dirac, this soundbar sounds great. From an aesthetic and user interface standpoint, I have no complaints. The app is comprehensive and controls it well. I like the big display on the front, and I like the little Klipsch logo; I think it’s tasteful. I don’t even hate the remote that comes with it, and how it works. Day-to-day function is brainless in the best sense.

But the sound is what I’m here for, so let’s get to that good stuff.

The Heart of the Matter: Sound Quality

Dialog clarity is killer on this thing. Just wanted to say that to keep you paying attention – I’ll come back to that, because what I really want to talk about is how much music I listened to on this soundbar and why I think I’d end up getting it with the subs and surrounds if I could, rather than using the standalone version.

​Flexus Core 300 vs. Sonos Arc Ultra: Precision vs. Immersion

On its own, I tend to prefer the Flexus Core 300’s sound to the Arc Ultra’s. To be sure, there are things the Arc Ultra can do that the Klipsch can’t – like really trick your ears into believing sounds are coming from weird places in the room. Sonos is putting out more of a bubble of sound than the Flexus Core 300 – but what the Klipsch lacks in envelopment, it makes up for in precision.

The short version is this: if you want the soundbar that pulls off the biggest Atmos magic trick, this may not be it. But if you want the soundbar system that sounds most like real speakers playing real sound in a real room, Klipsch is making a very serious argument here.

With the Klipsch, I can’t point to exactly where I hear a movie helicopter or van screeching by. But I can tell you what kind of tires were on that van because the high-frequency extension is better and more detailed. I could tell you if it was a Ninja Blender or a Vita-Mix because the overtone series for each was more complete and less compressed. And also because I’m really, really weird.

The Sonos doesn’t sound generic, it’s just … the Sonos is less “there’s the sound,” and more “the room is made of sound.” The Klipsch is more like: there’s the sound. There’s the edge. There’s the texture. There’s the tire squeal. There’s the blender I’m apparently identifying like an absolute maniac.

​Bass, Room Correction, and Dirac’s Impact

I’ve heard some folks say the Klipsch is kicking the Sonos Arc Ultra’s booty when it comes to the bottom end of the frequency spectrum. I wasn’t getting that here — until I used Dirac. And then the bass really leaped out. Look, I’ve never been a fan of room correction software — I’ve always believed fixing a room would be more effective, and I still do. But I will say that the auto-calibration system picked up on the lean bass from my seating position and not only boosted it, but did so with an EQ curve that worked seamlessly with what the rest of the bar had to do — which is perhaps why the bar works so great with the sub 200 — more on that later.

Tweeter Tone: Klipsch vs. the Competition

For dialog and overall fidelity, Klipsch gets the win from me. Now, I know the horn-loaded tweeters might have a bit more ding, ting, or ring to them than some folks prefer – and for those of you who feel that way, I think you’ll dig the more laid-back approach of the Arc Ultra or the Sennheiser Ambeo, since we’re going upscale. But there were only a handful of times I wanted the Flexus Core 300 to sound smoother while listening to music, and I never wanted less high-frequency extension or a crisper treble attack from the Klipsch for watching movies.

Stereo separation is also really great with the Flexus Core 300 – and that’s because it’s wide – so, thanks, physics. See, Klipsch works with the laws of physics instead of fighting them, and that’s why it sounds more natural and less like it was extruded from a digital waveform analyzer. With that said, even with music, and especially with movies. I wanted the surround speakers. But … I’m getting to that.

​Why Music First? My Listening Test Tracks

The reason I test a soundbar with music first is that I can immediately hear its benefits and drawbacks. I use music I’ve listened to more times than I care to count, and on reference systems, so I really know what it’s supposed to sound like. For this review, I used almost the entire Oscar Peterson We Get Requests album, and the “On Green Dolphin Street” track from the Sound of the Trio record, because how Ray Brown’s Arco bass sounds at the intro is almost everything you need to know about an audio system in just a few seconds. I listened to “Make a Move” by Lawrence because those horn textures and transients are both fun and familiar, and of course, “Forget Me Nots” by Patrice Rushen. All of that before going down a Lake Street Dive rabbit hole I still haven’t crawled out of. When possible, I listened to the vinyl and CD versions in addition to the Apple AirPlay versions, just to see how much – if any – playing a better source made a difference to the experience.

I’ll play AirPlay or Google Cast to this soundbar, listening to it in the background all day, and I’ll be very pleased. I even enjoyed sitting down right in front of it and being impressed. It really can hold its own sitting there by itself. It sounds great. But, I won’t lie. It sounds miles better with the sub and surrounds. And, maybe this isn’t the news you want, but it’s the news you need – Don’t get the surrounds unless you get the sub, too. Because somehow the bass from the bar alone doesn’t fill out the experience that you will get from the surrounds when you add them in.

​Surrounds and Subwoofer: Worth the Upgrade?

And I’ll side-step here to say that I wouldn’t mind having bigger surrounds being an option for this system, but I don’t think that makes sense because once you add the perfectly capable, sealed, 12-inch Sub200 — arguably the best value in bundleable wireless soundbar subwoofer on the market — and then toss in the surrounds — the cost of this system goes up considerably. By the way, the Sonos Sub 4 might take the Sub 200 for both looks and some performance areas, but it’s also $200 more. Plus, as I’m about to explain: the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The surround 200 speakers are selling for $500, and the Sub 200 is going for $600, so you’re adding another $ 1,100 to an already pricey soundbar. Now, the sub and surrounds will be 20% off through May 31 – that brings the price of adding them down to $880, so $1,780 for the whole system if you buy it on sale. That’s still a lot, but let’s take a look at what similar systems cost. The full price is $2,300, and the discounted version is about $ 1,800 – what else can you get for that kind of money?

Value Compared to Rivals

The Flexus Core 300, at full price or sale price, is in the same general conversation as systems like Samsung’s Q990 series, LG’s flagship S95-series bars, and JBL’s Bar 1300X. And if you’re shopping by spec sheet, yeah, some of those systems make it look like the Klipsch might sweat a little — especially the Samsung, because the Q990 series has been the one to beat, and I still haven’t reviewed this year’s version yet.

But Klipsch is making a different argument here. It’s giving you more features and more hi-fi pedigree than a lot of the competition: Dirac built in, DTS:X, HDMI 2.1 passthrough, a real sealed 12-inch wireless subwoofer, and the option to add a wired third-party sub if you want to get weird.

And as for Sonos, the only Sonos setup I’d really put up against this would be the Arc Ultra with Era 300s in the back, and a Sub 4 — all locking you into the Sonos ecosystem, by the way — and that system currently runs, well, a lot more than the Klipsch does. And I’m not sure everyone would appreciate the sonic difference.

I guess that’s the price of relatively high performance with the convenience of fewer wires, buttons, and dials. You can still assemble your own killer system for the same or less – I mean, I enjoy it – but all the data shows that soundbar surround system sales are on the rise, so it makes sense to me that companies like Klipsch are gonna not only get in on the action, but see how far they can push it.

​Musicality and Emotional Impact: Real Listening Moments

I like where Klipsch has pushed the Flexus Core 300. When I listened to the Oscar Peterson recordings, I loved how natural the upright bass sounded, both when plucked and when bowed. I loved how I could hear the nuances of Peterson’s humming along with his own playing, just under the rich, overtone-filled piano, which had weight but zero thunk, because both the built-in bass modules in the soundbar and the subwoofer are in total control. There were moments when the drummer’s cymbals sounded like they had more ring to them than the dryness I’m used to, as I mentioned before.

But I enjoyed the high overtones in all the brass I heard, and on the Lawrence cuts I listened to, I loved especially how the gruffness of Clyde Lawrence’s voice came through while Gracie — who can really belt it out, by the way — never came across as shrill, unless she intended it to be that way. ​

As for movies and TV – well, it’s a party. As I said before, the Sonos gives you more of a bubble – and I’m looking forward to seeing how this system does against the Samsung Q990H and whatever Sony might have in store this year – again, I’m not saying anything, but not not saying anything – but the Klipsch’s front soundstage is super wide, the front to back motion is pretty smooth.

​Surround Placement

I prefer the surrounds to be closer to me than farther away. I’m also not sure what the wireless range is from the bar to the surrounds, but I wouldn’t test the limits beyond about 17 feet – that’s how far I had them, and I noticed that when they got too far away, they started to break up.

The Atmos effects may not be the strongest I’ve heard, but you definitely miss them when they are gone because I dropped their level while cranking up everything else, and they were sorely missed — they add height and fullness with fidelity even if they don’t let you point directly at the surround object you want to be hearing from an exact spot.

​Final Thoughts: A High-Fidelity Soundbar System

So, overall, this is a big win for Klipsch. I tried a prior Flexus Core system, and while I had good luck with the soundbar, the whole system’s performance just wasn’t what I expected from Klipsch.

The Flexus Core 300 is a loud and clear message that Klipsch still makes some of the most kick-ass audio gear you can buy. Klipsch hasn’t lost sight of its identity — if anything, it has a clearer vision of it than it has had in years. This is why I’m so excited to get to the two-channel alternatives in the Nines, Sevens, and Fives, because while a soundbar system like this is what a lot of you want, a simpler two-channel system can also be a lot of fun, so we’ll be sure to explore that, too.

For now, know that if you want a soundbar-based surround system with the fidelity of a component-based system, I don’t think there’s a more musical, high-fidelity option in this price class. It’ll tug at your wallet, but it will tantalize your ears in return. And that sounds like a great deal to me.

​

This is the part you haven’t heard.

I was tempted to split this into two pieces. In fact, I probably should have. But the X11L isn’t a “two tidy posts” kind of TV. It’s a swing-for-the-fences, change-the-conversation, possibly-change-how-we-review kind of TV. So we’re doing this in one go.

The first half is for most readers: what makes this TV a big deal, what it does brilliantly, where it falls short, who should (and shouldn’t) buy it, and whether the price makes sense.

The back half? That’s for enthusiasts, calibrators, and industry folks. We’re going to talk about why this review took longer than usual, what I discovered during testing, and why I think the way we measure high-end TVs may need to evolve.

Buckle up. This is a ride.

Why the X11L is a big deal

First: What makes this TV such a big deal? Well, mini-LED TVs have been around for a while now — they are becoming the new normal. The brightness has gotten intense, the blacks have gotten blacker, the contrast has been off the charts, the processing has gotten better, and the colors are more accurate. All great things!

But the display industry never rests. Always pushing for the next great thing, the top TV makers are turning to RGB mini-LEDs to make TVs even better, primarily by enhancing color and color brightness.

Until now, mini-LED TVs have used tiny blue LED backlights that illuminate red and green quantum dots (the “Q” in QLED and QD-OLED). The resulting high-purity white light then passes through a color filter to display the full spectrum of colors. This filter is what turns white light into vibrant images on your screen.

Color filters, however, are inherently inefficient. They carve out wavelengths to create specific colors — and in doing so, they waste light.

The industry’s next move? Reduce reliance on those filters. By using separate red, green, and blue backlights, these TVs allow for more precise color control and reduce reliance on color filters. Less dependence on color filters means less light loss — and ultimately, bolder, brighter colors. This approach eliminates quantum dots from the equation.

The new generation of RGB mini-LED TVs is different. ​

TCL is manufacturing an RGB mini-LED-backlit TV, but it has also chosen to advance quantum dot technology further. This leads to the “SQD” badge you’ll find on the X11L’s box and, soon, on more affordable models as well.

SQD: super quantum dots

SQD stands for Super Quantum Dot, and while it may sound funny – oh, TCL made the quantum dots super, huh? Well, yes. Quantum Dots are already fascinating and kind of super on their own – it’s wild that something as small as a virus or antibody can glow a specific color depending on its size. And then they deposit billions of them onto a sheet and make a TV out of them? Are you not impressed?

I’m oversimplifying a bit here, but it’s remarkable to consider that TCL has refined quantum dots to about one-quarter the size of a hydrogen atom, increasing efficiency at a scale that’s almost absurd to think about. Tiny adjustments. Massive implications. This level of innovation would have seemed like science fiction just a few decades ago. You think ol’ Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye saw this coming decades ago? I didn’t.

But making the quantum dots “super” was only half the trick toward making a new kind of TV. TCL also had to make a super color filter to go with the super quantum dots, because now this color filter had a tougher job. Wouldn’t you know it, TCL knew how to make one, but to start making it, TCL would have to shut down its operations, making regular LCD panels for the whole darn world, to set up a special portion of its factories to make these new color filters.

That’s expensive. Risky. A big swing.

No one else made that swing this year.

The X11L’s picture quality is so impressive that it’s impossible to capture accurately in photos or video. The picture this TV puts out is astonishing, and the only way to have any inkling of what it can do is to bear witness to it in person.

And for those who can — even those without a background in imaging — will instantly recognize that they’re seeing something unprecedented. The brain knows it. It’s like — this doesn’t compute. How am I seeing that kind of green on a TV right now? How is it this bright? It’s unreal; the overall impact is simply on another level.

Let’s explore the X11L’s features before delving into its picture quality and price — because understanding what TCL offers for your investment is essential.

​Key features and design

Remote

Let’s start with the remote. TCL’s remote stands out for its functionality, featuring dedicated picture mode and brightness buttons. This allows users to easily adjust the screen’s brightness for different viewing environments — no need to dig into settings menus to make quick changes.

All the other buttons you need and then some are on here. I wish this remote were metal – it’s plastic masquerading as metal, and considering this remote is that part of the TV you touch the most, I think it should feel premium. That’s something Sony gets right – its remote is unnecessarily heavy, but it feels premium because of its weight. It’s actually made of recycled plastic called Sorplas, which is super light, but Sony added weight to make it feel awesome, and I think TCL should be doing the same.

Build quality

TCL got it right with the TV’s exterior build quality, though. This thing is a tank, and I mean that in a good way. It feels like a well-built TV, and I believe that’s because, for the most part, it is. It’s solid and stable.

Mounting

There is one design quirk: the VESA mounting holes are positioned unusually high on the back of the TV, possibly to accommodate the audio system, and they aren’t exactly centered. Now, that may not cause a problem for a fresh installation, but that’s going be tough on someone who has an existing wall mount and wants to use it. Even with the arms placed as far down on the TV as possible, it’s still likely to sit far lower than your previous TV, and if you take a step up in screen size, well, it’s going to go even lower on your wall. I’m not sure that is going to be a design compromise worth making, in the end. Of course, if you’re doing a fresh install, it won’t matter.

Audio system

The X11L’s audio system — developed with Bang & Olufsen — is TCL’s best yet. The integrated soundbar delivers strong bass and clear dialogue, projecting sound directly toward the viewer. Some may find the design polarizing, but it provides an impressive audio experience out of the box.

​The audio system, designed in conjunction with Bang and Olufsen, is the best I’ve heard from TCL. It’s got bass, presence, and slam, and the best thing about it is that the audio is directed toward you by a soundbar strip at the bottom. The soundbar strip has extremely clear dialogue and definitely has B&O vibes. Thus, it is polarizing. I’ve gotten a few messages from subscribers saying how ugly it is and that TCL should know the buyer of this TV is going to have a fancy audio system.

To that I say: Ugly? Sure. But buyers are all going to have a fancy audio system? No. Not “most of them.” Plus, TCL would have gotten roasted if it charged this much for a TV and didn’t include a decent audio system. We put TCL in a catch-22 — whine if they do, whine if they don’t.

Poor TCL, laughing all the way to the bank to the tune of $7,000 for a 75-inch, $8,000 for an 85-inch, and $10,000 for the 98-inch model. Somehow, I think it’ll be ok.

Smart features

​So what else do you get for the money? Google TV and Google Gemini, which, can I say: you can clown AI in TVs all you want, but using the AI image generator through this TV is a blast. I’m giving it the most insane prompts, and it’s cracking me up. No, seriously, I’m as annoyed with AI showing up everywhere as anyone else might be, but there’s no arguing that Gemini on board makes this TV way more interactive.

Display technology

The X11L features a zero-bezel design for an immersive, edge-to-edge picture. TCL’s Crystal Glow HVA panel delivers excellent off-angle viewing, and with up to 20,000 local dimming zones, backlight bleed and halo effects are minimized. TCL claims peak brightness up to 10,000 nits — an extraordinary figure for any TV.

The X11L features a zero-bezel design for an immersive, edge-to-edge picture — and TCL is very proud of it. TCL’s Crystal Glow HVA panel delivers class-leading off-angle viewing, and with up to 20,000 local dimming zones, it minimizes backlight bleed and halo effects. TCL claims peak brightness up to 10,000 nits — an extraordinary figure for any TV. It’s the most premium thing TCL could make.

After using the X11L as my primary TV for three weeks, I can confirm it delivers a spectacular viewing experience. The combination of brightness, color, and contrast is genuinely thrilling, making even familiar content feel new.

Living with the TCL X11L

I watched this TV as my daily driver for three weeks before this review — longer than I normally do. And I was giddy just about every second of it. This TV is a gas, as they used to say. Pure delight meets exhilaration. I didn’t know whether to squeal or scream, so I did a little bit of both. I was laughing out loud at how preposterously good this TV looked while I wrapped up the last three episodes of Picard with my brother and sister-in-law. I gasped when I watched the first 20 minutes of Mad Max: Fury Road for the 319th time — and no, I still haven’t watched the whole flick. I watched just about every single Eugene Belsky and Jennifer Gala video on YouTube. I’m telling you, this TV is mind-blowingly good.

It’s not just about contrast and color. The X11L’s motion processing is solid, pixel response time is among the best I’ve seen on an LCD TV, and blooming or halo effects are virtually nonexistent during real-world viewing.​

Clean-up of low-quality content is reasonable — perhaps not the best in the industry, but in the top 10th percentile.

Look, we can dissect this TV 20 different ways, but at some point, the specs and numbers melt away, and what you’re left with is a stellar-looking TV.

Should you buy the TCL X11L?

If you have the budget, the X11L is an easy recommendation. But don’t buy it on the assumption that it’s “future-proof”— no TV truly is. That said, it supports Dolby Vision 2, likely HDR10+ Advanced, an ATSC 3.0 tuner, and offers four HDMI 2.1 ports with high refresh rate support. It’s as ready for the future as any current TV, but technology always moves forward.

For those of you who would take a second mortgage out on your house to buy a TV? Don’t. This is first-gen tech, and as amazing as it is, there are bound to be bugs to work out. I think I’ve already found a couple worth addressing, and besides, this will be less expensive in a year. You can stand to wait a year to save a bunch, right? Not to mention, we’ll get SQD tech in lower-priced TVs later this year, and those might be the smarter choice for most of us anyway.

TCL’s pricing reflects the innovation and investment required to develop the X11L. As the brand moves beyond its budget-TV roots, it’s asserting its presence in the premium segment — much as Samsung did years ago.

​But I can’t throw shade at TCL over the price. When you make a groundbreaking product, you charge prices commensurate with the innovation required to create it. I know some of you want to keep TCL in its “inexpensive TV” lane, but TCL isn’t interested in being oppressed. It is moving on up. Samsung and LG didn’t “stay in their lane” back in the day, and TCL isn’t going to either. It’s a new frontier, and TCL is staking its claim.

Pushing the limits: advanced testing and scrutiny

New technology warrants new scrutiny. The next section dives into how the X11L performed under advanced testing protocols — and what that says about the state of the industry.

​By the numbers

Testing the X11L required the use of the Colorimetry Research 250 — a high-precision instrument that enabled thorough, cutting-edge measurements.

This new instrument enables advanced measurements that my other tools can’t provide. While the C6 HDR 5,000 from Portrait Displays covers most needs, only this specialized device reveals the X11L’s full, forward-looking capabilities — insights I haven’t seen in other reviews. I’m concerned some coverage may be based on incomplete information, which I’ll address shortly.

For those seeking accuracy and strict adherence to creator intent, none of the default picture modes deliver this out of the box. That’s probably a good thing for most viewers, but reviewers and purists will need to make additional adjustments.

Start with FilmMaker Mode for both HDR and SDR. While Movie mode looks brighter, in HDR it severely overbrightens the image due to always-on dynamic tone mapping and peak brightness settings — pushing highlights toward 10,000 nits, since the peak brightness setting is on boost.

That is neither accurate nor comfortable for most folks. Also, the white balance starts strong, but, as I’ll explain, it may not remain strong after about 2 hours of viewing.

Even the default Filmmaker Mode isn’t perfect, but it’s more comfortable for most environments and conserves energy and heat — a benefit I’ll revisit later.

With brightness set at 50 (same as Movie mode), but peak brightness on low, and local dimming set to high (with dynamic tone mapping and contrast off), the TV undertracks the EOTF curve in the midtones before recovering. Two-point white balance is excellent in both HDR and SDR, though, oddly enough, the 20-point grayscale shows some deviation at the top.

I also noticed — and this only happened in default filmmaker mode — that the 10% window was curiously brighter than any other. Again, only in default filmmaker mode. It was otherwise part of a predictable decline from 1% or 2% on down. That’s super puzzling to me.

The TV performs best when you bump the brightness to 60 or 70 and set both peak brightness and local dimming to high. At that point, the TV starts to track the EOTF curve correctly. This is the most accurate I could get the TV out of the box, but it still really wants to be extremely bright.

Most of my testing used full-screen patterns for SDR and an 18% window with constant APL to give HDR measurement results that might best match real-world performance – but I also used an 18% window without constant APL, just to give the TV a chance to kick extra tail.

​New testing protocols, new hurdles

However, even with refined testing methods, new challenges emerged. The latest version of Calman introduced much more stringent testing protocols, changing how TVs are evaluated.

​But even that approach, I would soon learn, would not save this TV from its own power. Because I’m not the only one who’s been changing their testing protocols. Portrait Display, the folks who make Calman, also changed the game with its latest version.

A new era of TV testing

The good news is we have new charts to look at. Calman challenges TV makers to take their TVs to the next level by showing where they still fall short, given how good they’ve gotten. The complicating factor is that key settings that used to be automated are now manual, and if you miss that, you’re going to get some whacky results. I worry some folks are getting whacky results and not knowing it.

The new Gamut Rings, Color Volume, and HDR color checker tests are more comprehensive, but they are also brutal: so much high brightness color being tested and for so long, sometimes up to half an hour – measuring 386 points of color or more? This needs to be addressed.

When brightness bites back

​Because of how hardcore these new tests are, two things happened while I was testing this TV — and please understand me when I say that, along with Calman, I was unaware that we were torturing this TV. But because this TV can get so bright, the exhaustive nature of these tests caused the TV to overheat.

And it overheated by quite a bit. I measured 164 degrees at the center of this TV, and it wasn’t even in its brightest mode. Imagine if I had done this in Movie mode, where it was reaching for 10,000 nits. Not only that, but the screen appears to have sustained slight damage as a result.

Now, don’t panic. I have good news. I tested the TV cold, then ran it hard on HDR content for 3 hours, and it never got above 107 degrees on the surface. So, unless you’re testing HDR test patterns for hours as I did, you are not going to hurt your X11L. But there is one issue you might run into.

The drift I didn’t expect

My only real concern right now is that this TV’s white balance shifts as it warms up. The red channel in the white balance goes down steadily. And down, and down. So if I left the TV alone, it would end up deficient in the red channel an hour or so later, and it was a slow decline I charted the whole way. If I were to knock down green by 6 points and blue by 1 point to get a solid D65 white when the TV was well warmed up, then it would be highly inaccurate for the first hour and a half of operation. ​

I’ve never seen white balance drift like that before.

That anomaly stood to throw off all the other test results. So, before I ran any color checker, saturation sweep, or pretty much anything, I needed to adjust the white balance first, because all the color math is based on how white behaves. That, and giving the TV breaks, transformed a 1-day job into a 3-day job. ​

But under adjusted testing conditions, the X11L aced the tests we’ve been running on TVs for over a decade.

But as I said before, Calman made harder tests, and so some of the results, at first blush, make it look like the TV was struggling. On the contrary, it’s doing amazing, it’s just that we’ve never seen a TV attempt these very specific color shades at their very specific brightness levels before. Just wait until other TVs try this.

In short, the X11L is breaking records and setting a new standard for TV testing. It will be the benchmark against which other models are compared this year. I imagine it is setting that bar extremely high, though we’ll see when we get to some of the RGB-backlit TVs.

The hidden weakness: low-luminance color

I believe every brand needs to improve its low-luminance color saturation. We get so excited about high-luminance color that we forget TVs fall short in dimmer colors. You can see this in saturation sweep tests, and you can see it in the color gamut coverage tests below 75% stimulus. When it’s bright, the TV is tight, but when we lower the brightness of the test patterns, the TV’s BT.2020 coverage drops. Again, every other TV we test this year will be doing the same thing. We’re just talking about it in a TCL X11L review because TCL had the guts to put out a flagship TV in January.

How does the X11L compare to OLED?

Is the X11L an OLED killer? Not quite — but it’s the closest an LCD has come. It surpasses OLED in raw brightness, but pixel-level dimming and absolute black levels still give OLEDs a slight edge in richness and contrast.

​Verdict: a new benchmark for LCD TVs

​The X11L is a revolutionary TV. The SQD tech inside it is compelling. I’ve never seen a TV like it before. TCL deserves massive praise for doing what it had to do to make this TV a reality, and I love it.

​Much of it is first-gen tech, though, and, as a result, early adopters run certain risks. I don’t know if I would buy this TV if you plan to leave it on 12+ hours a day and like to watch in standard or vivid mode. But for those with the disposable income, looking to get everything OLED can’t do and won’t do, along with 75, 85, or 98 inches of pure bragging rights, plus the joy of seeing the shock on people’s faces when you tell them this is TCL? Well, that sounds like it might be worth a lot to me.

The TCL X11L is a triumph — likely to be remembered as a landmark in LCD TV development, much like the Sony Z9D in its era.

It’s incredible to think of how far we’ve come, that something like the TCL X11L exists. And it’s fun to dream about how much further TCL could take it.

​

​

Somehow, the Sony Bravia 8 Mark-II QD-OLED TV has become the subject of some controversy, and I think that’s a shame. Because there’s nothing controversial about this TV – in most of the ways people actually care about, it’s exceptional. That’s not even just my opinion, it’s won the two most prominent professional TV shootouts held this year.

And yet, if you’ve been doing your research – as you should – you’ve probably noticed there’s a lot of discussion swirling around this TV. Not all the comments are glowing, and maybe that’s caused some concern for you. These are the kinds of things that keep potential shoppers on the fence, and we’re here to help you understand the full story.

Get ready to learn things about this TV that nobody else has told you. I’m also going to weigh in on normal review stuff – like how well this TV does in a bright room, how good does it sound, does it have any HDMI bugs, and is it worth the price you’ll pay?

And yes, if you want to see it compared to the Sony Bravia A95L, we’ll do a little bit of that too. Before we get started, please let me say I’m grateful to Sony for their support before, during, and after my most recent legal battle, and for sending me this TV to review the second I was ready to review it. I’d been eagerly anticipating spending some quality time with it since I’d first seen it at a Sony event last February.

But enough of all that - let’s dive in.

Whether you’re familiar with my reviews or not, you should know this isn’t going to be a typical review – in addition to my standard review and performance appraisal, we’ll also be discussing, well, the discussions we’ve heard orbiting around this model. I’m doing it this way for a few reasons.

1. I feel like I have a responsibility to share my industry knowledge and understanding with everyone and see if I can’t bring some folks together, and…

2. There are already a lot of great reviews about this TV out there, and I don’t want to drag you through a bunch of information you already know.

Just to level-set, if you were go to http://www.cecritic.com – think, Rotten Tomatoes, except for consumer electronics – and look at their score before my review, you’d have noticed that the Bravia 8 Mark II got an 89%. You might be asking how a TV with an aggregate score that amounts to a B plus managed to ACE the exam at two shootouts in which a bunch of video professionals declared the Bravia 8 Mark II the best of the bunch?

Well, there’s your controversy, right? The reviewers say it’s really good, but it’s getting lower scores than other well-reviewed TVs like the LG G5 and the Panasonic Z95B – and not just because of its higher price – it’s all in the minutiae, things like “the Bravia 8 Mark II’s white balance is a bit too cool or too blue out of the box.” Or that “it’s not bright enough in SDR for bright rooms”, rinse and repeat.

Meanwhile, a bunch of experts – and they really are experts – declare it’s the best of the bunch. So… what’s going on here? Is someone on the take? Who got what wrong? Who are we to believe?

Well, guys – the answer comes down to this: TV reviews are in need of some serious help right now, and I don’t think it’d be going out on much of a limb to say that TV reviews are broken right now. They’re not completely useless – that would be going too far. But what I *will* say is that a lot of publications got it wrong with this TV. Now, sure, some of that statement is certainly my own subjective opinion, but some of it is objective fact, which is appropriate, because it is the objective vs. subjective evaluation of this TV – or maybe the lack of adequate SUBjective evaluation that has done the Bravia 8 Mark II dirty.

Now, I’m going to leave the full explanation of why TV reviews are broken for a dedicated video – sorry, you’re just going to have to wait – but for decades now, many TV manufacturers have based their TVs’ color processing, or color math calculations, on something called the CIE 1931 color matching function or CMF. It was developed in 1931. Yes, you heard that right. We’re six years away from these calculations being a century old. But it works! And, by default, Calman, the software that many TV reviewers AND professional calibrators use to measure, adjust, and re-measure TVs, defaults to the CIE 1931 standard to do all its math, take measurements, and provide its results, telling users whether the TV is putting out accurate whites and greys and colors.

I believe – based on some evidence I’ve gathered, some of which comes from white papers published by Sony, that Sony uses a much more modern CIE 170-2 (color matching function which was developed in 2015. This more modern CMF was designed to be an improvement over the 1931 standard, particularly for – and pay attention here – TVs with narrowband emitters like OLED TVs.

Why does all that science-y stuff matter? Well, if you’re using Calman to measure a Sony OLED TV, and Sony is indeed using CMF 170-2 as I suspect they are, and you don’t change this option in Calman FROM old-school CIE 1931 to new-school CIE 170-2 – what’s gonna happen? Well, I’ll show you.

Here are some measurements on this TV using CIE 1931 – notice how the white point and color errors are relatively high. Now, here’s the same TV measured using 170-2, and would ya look at that – it’s passing the tests with – dare I say it? Flying colors.

You can roast me later. For now, do you follow what I’m saying here? If reviewers are relying very heavily on measurements to determine whether this TV is doing a good job, and those measurements aren’t exactly right? Well, the TV might get an unfairly low score in some regards. At the very least, I guarantee you this would have reviewers scratching their heads, all because they may not know how to make this one adjustment to a default setting in a piece of software.

But that’s not all. Measuring the brightness of a TV has also gotten complicated. Some TVs are programmed to ace the test, but they don’t perform as well in the field. Other TVs focus on performing well with real content and don’t worry about acing a test. Some would argue that getting programmed to ace a test is shady. But my argument is that if reviewers control the fate of your success, and they use a questionable test, then maybe it’s on the reviewers that this problem exists?

Regardless, let’s see if this TV is bright enough in SDR to look good while watching in the daytime. I tested this during the day, with all my drapes and blinds opened wide – it’s bright in here, even without studio lights. And… you know what? This TV looked pretty good. much brighter in SDR than its measurements would seem to suggest it should look.

This is just one example, but it’s a great indication of how subjective evaluation tells us something quite conclusive, when an objective test indicated a potential failure. And that’s frustrating, because the intention of objective measurements is to validate and reinforce what we see with our eyes, not argue with it. The problem is, you have to watch the TV and do that subjective evaluation and I’m not gonna lie, some of the reviews I’m reading make me wonder how much real-world testing was done and whether it was compared to the measurements at all.

Anyway, I should point out that I fully acknowledge that it is easy for me to sit here and make this observation with the benefit of a whole bunch of other folks having done a bunch of work already. As I said earlier, I’m fortunate to even be able to have this perspective. And that’s why I’m not calling anyone out or criticizing anyone. Hindsight is 20/20, and I’m lucky to have it. I’m just trying to explain what I think caused a bit of a discrepancy between what reviewers have said, how the Bravia 8 Mark II has fared in professional shootouts, and how much favor it has curried from professional calibrators.

The reason the Bravia 8 Mark II does so well in shootouts is that it’s designed to match a professional reference monitor used in Hollywood. A monitor that’s – coincidentally – made by Sony’s professional division. So Sony has a little bit of an upper hand here. An unfair advantage? Not really, other companies can buy that monitor and work to match it, too, if that’s what they want. But it is a notable advantage nevertheless.

Does that mean the Bravia 8 Mark II is a perfect TV? Absolutely not. It’s got a few quirks, just like every TV – one of which could be a deal breaker for some folks. So, with all of that inside baseball out of the way, let’s talk about how this TV performs in real life.

In short, the picture quality is almost always exceptional. Is it bright enough for bright rooms? Absolutely. How are the black levels in bright rooms? The discussion indicated that they take a big hit. I disagree. I think they take a small hit, but the black levels, on balance, look great in a reasonably bright room. Better than the A95L – there’s less purple being thrown around than on the A95L, and when you watch actual content – not a blank screen – your impressions of the blacks are that they are black. More importantly, the micro-contrast across the entire viewing area is exceptional. Day or night? I love watching this TV.

The color? Exceptional. The clean up of low bitrate and low bitdepth content? Top-tier. The motion resolution is the best in the industry. I mean, from a processing standpoint, I think this TV takes the best-in-industry award.

You’re probably saying: Caleb? Is there anything wrong with this TV?

Yes. It has one weakness, and it’s up to you to decide how big a deal it is for you.

In low luminance scenes, you can get some posterization and artifacting visible around dimly lit objects, for example, you might see some magenta and green blocks popping up around candles in a dark room. How often will that be a problem for you? Probably not very – It’s the type of thing that people often don’t even notice – but when talking about professional-grade hardware, it’s going to get professional-grade scrutiny.

Now, can the LG G5 or Panasonic Z95B with their Tandem OLED panels look even brighter in some situations than the Bravia 8 Mark II? Sure. They can do that, and some of you may want that. But what the Sony lacks in raw brightness power, it makes up for in so many other ways. If you don’t need an absolute light cannon, I think a lot of you would pick the Sony as your favorite, too.

How about the sound? I think the Bravia 8 Mark II is one of the best-sounding TVs you can buy. Heck, it might even be THE best. I just haven’t done side-by-side comparisons, but having this TV’s screen aim its sound directly at you, instead of shooting out at the floor or your entertainment stand, goes a long way. And the bass response, while not exceptionally deep, is punchy and present – and it never sounds like fake bass, which I appreciate. Oh, and it matches perfectly with the Bravia Theater Quad system, even though I still think the Theater Quad’s phantom center is a better overall option than using the TV as your center channel.

Look, let me leave you with this on the TV’s sound. I put music on the TV, forgot it was running on the TV, and listened to it while I did chores, quite happily, for almost an hour. It sounds really good. It’s not “just-for-a-TV” good, either. It’s good-good.

The Google TV interface? It was trouble-free the entire time I used the TV. BUT, I have heard multiple reports from several very reliable sources that this TV’s interaction with devices connected via HDMI can be tricky. Specifically, if you’re connecting this TV via eARC to an A/V receiver and using that A/V receiver to switch among devices. My understanding is that the Bravia 8 Mark II has a rather long EDID readout, and not every receiver can read it all. EDID stands for Extended Display Identification Data, and it’s essentially a list of instructions and capabilities it sends out to other devices over HDMI to tell those devices what they can and can’t do together as a group. Apparently, there’s some bugginess involved there that I have not yet personally duplicated because, frankly, I have an Integra receiver that CAN read the Bravia 8 Mark II’s full EDID instructions and it hasn’t caused me any problems. Just know that there can be some communication issues there, and that chasing them down when you really just want to watch what you want to watch can be annoying. We’re talking things like switching from one HDMI input to another and back, unplugging HDMI cables, and plugging them back in. That sort of thing. Not a big deal, but never anyone’s favorite thing to do.

The only thing I think you can blame the Bravia 8 Mark II for getting wrong is not being available in a 77-inch size. Sony may have its reasons for not making the 8 Mark II in a 77-inch size, but it seems like a lot of folks want it. For now, if you want a 77-inch Sony QD-OLED, you need to get an A95L and guys, I gotta be honest – I love the A95L. Like… it’s hard to feel like you’re getting second best with that TV, so I personally have a hard time understanding the frustration that there’s no 77-inch 8 Mark II. But I hear you, and I think your voice deserves to be represented.

Speaking of, if you want your opinion to be heard and really count, go to http://www.cecritic.com and leave a review for the TV you own. I’m not interested in your opinion on a TV you don’t own, ok? But if you own a TV and wish it did this, or that, or were a little better here or there, leaving a user review is the best way to get your voice heard. With your help, I can use that data to help brands make better products and affect real change – it’s far more powerful than any Amazon review or forum post.

Back to the Bravia 8 Mark II – it’s an exceptional TV. Sony may consider the Bravia 9 to be its top dog, but in my heart, the Bravia 8 Mark II is Sony’s current flagship, and I adore it. It’s a step above the A95L in some meaningful ways, and I don’t know that I can say anything more glowing about this TV other than it is so good it makes me want to watch it all the time. A true destination TV for me, I go out of my way to watch things on it because I want to see how good it looks. Now, I suspect I’ll feel that way about the G5 and the Z95B, too. But Sony still has that “Sony look” that I so deeply enjoy, and this TV holds a very special place in my heart. To me, it really is the reference standard and is, so far, anyway, the industry leader for me.

As always, thank you so much for reading. What did you think? A bit of a different sort of review than normal. Was it helpful? That’s the real question. Let me know in the comments. Until next time, take care.