TCL 5 Series 4K HDR TV Review (2020) | Price is its best feature By Digital Trends

You know the TCL 6 series gets a lot of press, but what about the TCL 5 series? How come nobody talks about that? Well, probably because it's never really been a notable TV until now welcome back everyone, I'm Caleb Denison, and today we're reviewing the tcl5 series TV, a TV that has a bunch of specs on the box that used to be on the six series last year. So the hope at least, is that this TV might offer that kind of performance, but at a lower price we're going to find out. Normally we would do a big unboxing, but since this TV is so similar to the six series and really all of TCL's TVs, we're going to skip that part and get to the good stuff. But if you want to check it out, it's right up there. Now, let's do this so first impressions on this TV is that it is way thinner than I expected, especially for a TV that has full array, local dimming and there's virtually zero bezels on this TV. You just have a little aluminum strip along the bottom, and the feet are very thin as well and a quick note there.

They don't have to be this spread apart. You can actually mount them a little closer to the center for a smaller footprint. If you want, let's turn to the back and talk about the HDMI inputs. These are not HDMI 2.1 inputs, so you're not going to be getting variable. Refresh rate out of this TV you're, certainly not going to be getting 4k at 120 hertz.

You can do 4k up to 60hz and that's going to be fine for most folks, like this TV may not be built for next-gen gaming, but it's still a good TV to consider for casual gaming because it has a really, really low input lag. Now, a quick word on the remote and the operating system with the remote you lose voice control, that's just not available at the 5 series with the operating system, and this is not unique to the 5 series TV, but Roku did a little of an update, and it has a slightly refreshed feel to it. The setup process was a little easier with the Roku app and then also it got home kit and airplay too. So, keep that in mind. Now, let's just get right down to picture quality which, as you can see, has some admirable attributes.

It has perfect black levels. This television part of that is the VA panel, which unfortunately means that off-angle viewing is not great, but it's also owed to the local dimming on this particular TV, which is definitely doing a good job of not crushing blacks but offering deep, blacks and minimizing any kind of blooming or halo effects that you might get from lesser backlighting systems. Unfortunately, that backlighting system does not mean really high peak brightness, so we're seeing barely a difference between SDR peak brightness and HDR peak brightness, whether that's hdr10 or Dolby Vision. In fact, one could call into question whether you would actually call this a HDR TV, because there's not enough brightness to really give you those sparkly highlights the contrast is there, but the peak brightness is not there to make the HDR images pop as much as we would see on other TVs. That may not be a huge deal we'll get back to that in a second.

I will say, though, that the color on this TV does benefit from the use of quantum dots, so you're getting a wider color gamut you're, just not getting a hugely increased color volume versus a nonuser TV. So keep that in mind. This TV also does pretty well with motion. It's got 120 hertz panel, so it's going to be pretty decent for sports. There is just a tiny little of motion blur with fast objects, but it's not something that you see very easily.

I think watching sports is going to be great. As for film content, 24 frames per second content looks very smooth, not much stutter or judder happening there, which again perfect for a TV at this price point as for sound quality. Well, let me put it this way. Get yourself a sound bar. This TV does not have the greatest sound.

There's a lack of depth, not a lot of bass going on here, so it has sort of a tinny feel to it, and I would worry about dialogue, clarity too. So a sound bar is going to be key with this TV. Fortunately they're, not that expensive, and you can get a perfect one for not a lot of money. Now, let's talk about gaming for a second earlier, I said this TV doesn't have HDMI 2.1 ports, so it's not going to be supporting variable refresh rate or some of the other fancier features like 4k at 120 hertz. It just doesn't do that, but at 4k 60, it's just fine, like I said it does have low input lag.

I think the only real knock goes back to the picture quality overall, which is that if you're going to get anything out of the HDR gaming experience, you're going to need a slightly brighter TV. However, if you're a much more casual gamer, you only play every once in a while, and you really just play to have fun it's not about the visual effect. Then this TV is perfectly suitable for that kind of thing, and that kind of takes me to my final point. This is a good TV. It's a solid television.

Is it an overachiever? No, it's not. Is it trying to be like the six series was last year? No, it's not, but it's definitely a step-up from what the five series was last year. Look I think this TV is going to appeal to anyone who just needs a solid television who isn't looking to get blown away, who isn't super picky about picture quality and just wants to enjoy what they're seeing on the screen. This thing does a lot of things right. The black levels are impressive.

It's just not a super juiced bright television, so it does not bring HDR home in a meaningful way. I think that's all right. You probably know somebody who has not been exposed to HDR and may not recognize it if they were, let's keep things in perspective and not overthink. This review not overthink this particular TV. The tcl5 series, has a lot of competition out there in this price range that does not perform as well as this does so.

On that note, I think TCL is actually nailing it. This mid-level price point with mid-level performance is exactly what a lot of people need thanks as always for watching everybody. Do you know somebody for whom the tcl5 series would be the right fit hit me with a comment down below like subscribe, hit that notification bell and while you're here, here are two other videos I picked just for you?.

Source : Digital Trends