TCL 6-Series Roku TV review: Brighter and better than ever
TVs
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Hey everybody, this is the TCL six series one of the most highly anticipated TVs of the year.
I just tested it, it pretty much lives up to the height.
Let's take a look.
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This TV is the successor to one of my favorite TVs of last year also called the TCL six series.
The improvements this year though are significant TCL added mini LED, which improves the brightness and black level on this television.
It also added a THX game mode which really improves the look of video games.
We'll get to that in a little bit.
First, let's check out the design and features I'm sitting next to the 65 inch size this TV also comes in a 75 and a 55 inch size.
All very affordable the 65 inch are under $1,000 probably a little bit less later in the year.
The TV doesn't look cheap however around the edge, a very thin bezel, little thicker on the bottom, nice metallic finish with the TCL and Roku TV logos The stand legs are unique this year, they added the ability to move them from the edge as you can see here into the middle to accommodate different sizes of furniture.
So that's pretty cool.
The side relatively thick Of course this TV has the local dimming backlight so it's not going to be as thin as a lot of the other TVs on the market.
Around back you'll find for HDMI, a bunch of other inputs pretty much everything you need, again at a mid range price point.
Now let's look at Roku a little bit.
Here's the Roku TV homepage pretty familiar to pretty much anybody who's used a Roku device before.
On a TV.
You can name the inputs I have a name here you can also remove inputs if you're not using them.
Scrolling down pretty familiar app list, pretty much everything you'd want.
Although a couple of exceptions, Roku does not support Peacock or HBO Max yet, those two apps not on this TV.
If you want them you're going to need to connect an external streaming device.
You can get standard HBO though.
Of course with Roku TV you get a very simple remote.
This remote includes shortcut keys, the different apps, as well as a voice button so you can press it and do quick voice searches.
You can also launch apps and do a few other functions with their voice, not as capable as an Alexa, Or Google equipped TV, but still plenty for most people.
One note on Alexa and Google, you can connect one of those external speakers to this TV so you can issue commands via that speaker but it's not as convenient as it would be with like a fire TV Or a TV with Google built in?
Of course would you care about on TV like this is image quality and it's excellent.
This TV is better than last year's model in my side by side comparison.
It's also almost as good as the eight series perhaps the best LCD TV I've ever tested.
In my Side by side server the eight series did look a little bit better than the six series this year.
That model has more mini LEDs behind the backlight.
The result is a brighter image.
You also get better local dimming control on that television.
That's one of the minor things that I saw wrong with this TV.
The TCL six series for 2020 did show in some very dark scenes.
Some blooming effects and the local dimming really didn't illuminate shadow detail as well as it could.
That was relatively rare, however.
In general, image quality was excellent across the board.
I also compared it to a Sony TV, that TV doesn't have nearly as good black levels still very bright but not quite as bright as the six series.
Image brightness is a huge strength to most TV, it's the brightest TV I've tested at its price point.
That's a big advantage when you're watching in a bright room want that extra pop if you have some sunlight streaming in.
It's also a big advantage for HDR, High Dynamic Range content really looks best with a TV that's really bright.
This TCL 6-series brings it out even more than last year significantly higher brightness according my measurements.
Not quite as bright as the eight series again that eight series with more many LEDs does a better job but for the price this TV is brighter than any TV I've tested, and there's some TVs a lot more expensive that aren't quite as bright.
Now I spent some time testing THX game mode in my comparison, it's excellent.
THX game mode manages to combine really low input lag which is what you want no delay between moving a stick and seeing the result on your screen.
With excellent contrast and image quality, so the THX six series for 2020 manages to keep relatively deep black levels, not washing them out like the other three in my comparison.
Now those excellent black levels lead to very good contrast.
The image again was nice and bright when it needed to be and also dark when it needed to be.
One slight issue compared to the Sony shadow detail wasn't quite as good.
Of course if you have a game where you can adjust the gamma you can make up for that by turning it up a little bit.
You can see those enemies in the shadows, overall THX game mode, great on this TV and overall gaming better than on the eight series from last year.
And that's a look at TCL six series Roku TV for 2020 One of the best TVs I've tested in terms of image quality for the money, superb brightness, excellent black levels.
Very good gaming, a great all around package.
I'm David Katzmaier for CNET.
