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While the TCL C81 QLED isn’t the most attractive TV of 2020, it certainly isn’t ugly. The frame around the screen is narrow, and the outer edges of its rear are exceptionally slim for an LED TV. A result, no doubt, of the TV using edge-based rather than direct LED lighting (where the lights sit right behind the screen). The C845 also utilises quantum dot technology to enhance colour richness, contrast and realism, while there is also support for various HDR formats – including Dolby Vision IQ – to make sure that picture is as crisp as possible no matter what you’re watching. The TCL C845 would make a very good second-room TV in bright conditions as well as a large gaming monitor for console fans. What are your alternatives?
The Google smarts also make setup an easy process, getting the TV on your home network and walking you through how to use the remote control for voice activation. The C81 QLED’s sound is mostly impressive for such an affordable TV. The soundbar delivers a large soundstage with a genuine sense of verticality that sits well with the TV’s built-in Dolby Atmos decoding. This doesn’t mean you actually hear overhead effects, but you do get a wall of sound that at least feels as tall as the TV. The picture was immediately impressive out of the box: the kind of visual punch that sells high-level TVs. It launched in Eco picture mode, which we initially switched up to ‘Smart HDR’. The luminance was mad, yet never crushing or flaring, but instead supporting crazily three-dimensional contrast and clarity between edges of objects; no apparent enhancement, just pure performance.The C845K’s impressive panel specifications are controlled by the third generation of TCL’s AI-informed AiPQ 3.0 processor, which includes an upscaling engine built on deep learning techniques. The 65C845K’s sound is as aggressive as its pictures – which is mostly a very good thing. Its 70W of power is given full rein to pump out seriously loud, cinematic volume levels by integrated TV sound system standards. The volume is joined by decent projection, too, to create a sound stage that spreads way beyond the physical boundaries of the TV’s bodywork. The subwoofer on the TCL 65C845K’s rear panel contributes an impressive amount of bass by TV sound system standards.
While not quite as exceptional as its pictures, the C845K’s sound is still much better than we would expect with such an affordable TV. It has got bags of volume, for starters, getting way louder than most TVs in its class while also managing to use that volume to create a sound stage much larger than the physical proportions of the TV. Voices can on occasion sound as if they’re coming from slightly below the picture rather than from where mouths are moving onscreen, but dialogue sounds clear, clean, distinct and nicely contextualised.
Pretty much everything about the TCL 65C845K up to this point has been a case of a TV punching well above its price weight – and happily this trend continues with its picture quality.
TCL’s Game Master Pro brings all the latest gaming-specific features to the C845, with ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) automatically detecting a games console and switching into the appropriate low-latency mode. This is important because, in the Game mode, the input lag drops to anywhere from 13ms to 6ms – depending on the resolution and frame rate of the game.When it receives a Dolby Vision signal, the TV defaults to the IQ option, which adjusts the tone mapping based on the measurements from a light meter. It’s a more sophisticated approach compared to the Adaptive Brightness control offered with SDR content, but purists might prefer to use the Dolby Vision Dark picture mode at night, thus retaining the original artistic intentions.
You just aren’t supposed to be able to get the intense vibrancy that the C81 QLED is capable of for so little money. But unless you’re watching a Dolby Vision or HDR10+ source, there’s a problem… We’re waiting to find out the official information regarding other features such as connectivity, so will be sure to update you with that information when it’s available. TCL C805 sizes and pricing Here we did experience a downside to handing setup over to Google Home: it rarely works perfectly. When it got to the Wi-Fi connection, for example, the TV announced it was connected. But the Google Home app said it had failed and we should try again. We had no choice – we had to keep using the app to get through the setup, so we had to do it again. Happily, the second time it worked and we could move on. On the downside, the sharpness can be impacted when there’s lots of motion in the frame. TCL has provided a decently flexible motion processing system, but using this to get a balance between reducing judder and removing blur without introducing too many unwanted digital side effects isn’t easy. Your best bet is to set both of the judder and blur processing elements to around their three levels. This will keep processing artefacts at bay, but you’ll still spot a little softness during camera pans, and the occasional panning stutter. A dedicated gaming onscreen menu, meanwhile, provides a helpful combination of signal information and game-specific features that include an Aiming Aid, multiple game picture presets, and the facility to adjust the brightness of dark parts of the picture without overcooking the brightness elsewhere.There are any number of apps in the Google Play store for streaming music, but also Bluetooth (and Chromecast and AirPlay) for streaming music to the TV. Setting up
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