**A Mixed Bag: TCL's 8K QLED TV Review**

I recently had the opportunity to review TCL's latest 8K QLED TV, and I must say that it was a mixed bag. On one hand, the picture quality is outstanding, with vibrant colors and excellent contrast. However, there were several issues that detracted from my overall experience.

One of the biggest problems I encountered was with Dolby Vision IQ. This feature requires motion smoothing, which isn't available on all TVs. Unfortunately, the TV's implementation of this feature is not ideal. The picture quality drops significantly when motion smoothing is enabled, and it's not even an option to adjust the level of smoothing. This is a major issue for anyone who wants to use Dolby Vision IQ without sacrificing picture quality.

Another problem I encountered was with audio. The TV's sound quality is passable, but it doesn't quite live up to expectations. The separate mid-range drivers and tweeters help, but overall, the sound still sounds boxy. If you're looking for a TV with excellent sound quality, you may want to consider other options.

In terms of quirks, I found that some features are buried in the menu system, making them difficult to access. For example, variable refresh rate and auto low latency mode are tucked away, which is frustrating if you need these features frequently. The lack of an input button on the remote control was also a disappointment. This is a minor issue, but it's one that I still find annoying.

On the other hand, there were some positive aspects to my experience with the TV. One major advantage is its performance for gaming. The low input lag is impressive, with values as low as 6 milliseconds at 120Hz. This makes it an excellent choice for gamers who want a fast and responsive TV.

In terms of picture quality, I was blown away by the TV's performance. The colors are vibrant and accurate, and the contrast is excellent. The Dolby Vision HDR support is also impressive, with deep blacks and bright highlights. If you're looking for a TV that can showcase your favorite 4K content in all its glory, this is an excellent choice.

However, I'm not sure if I would recommend this TV to anyone right now. The bugs and quirks are frustrating enough that they detract from my overall experience. While the picture quality is outstanding, it's not worth dealing with the issues that come with this TV. If you're looking for a hassle-free viewing experience, you may want to consider other options.

That being said, I do think that TCL will address these issues in future updates. The company has a good track record of supporting its TVs with software updates, and I'm confident that they'll get this TV sorted out soon. In the meantime, if you're looking for a great picture quality at an affordable price point, this TV is definitely worth considering.

**Gaming Performance**

One of the most impressive aspects of this TV is its performance for gaming. The low input lag is a major advantage, making it ideal for fast-paced games that require quick reflexes. I was able to play games like Fortnite and Overwatch without any issues, and the picture quality remained smooth and consistent.

The TV also supports 4K 120Hz gaming with HDR, which is a major plus for gamers who want the best possible picture quality. While Dolby Vision IQ requires motion smoothing, which isn't ideal, I was still able to get great performance from this feature.

Overall, if you're a gamer who wants a fast and responsive TV, this is an excellent choice. The low input lag and support for 4K 120Hz gaming make it an ideal option for anyone looking for a great gaming experience.

**Sound Quality**

Unfortunately, the sound quality on this TV is not as good as I would have liked. While the separate mid-range drivers and tweeters help improve the sound, overall, it still sounds boxy. If you're looking for a TV with excellent sound quality, you may want to consider other options.

That being said, I do think that the TV's sound quality is passable, especially considering its price point. It's not the best sound quality I've ever heard, but it gets the job done. If you're planning on using the TV for general viewing or streaming services, the sound should be sufficient.

However, if you want to use the TV for more immersive experiences like Dolby Vision IQ or 3D content, you may need to look elsewhere.

**Smart TV Experience**

One of the biggest drawbacks of this TV is its smart TV experience. While it's not terrible, there are several features that I found frustrating. For example, options like variable refresh rate and auto low latency mode are buried in the menu system, making them difficult to access.

Additionally, there's no input button on the remote control, which is a minor but annoying quirk. If you're someone who frequently switches inputs or uses multiple devices at once, this can be frustrating.

However, I do think that TCL will address these issues with future updates. The company has a good track record of supporting its TVs with software updates, and I'm confident that they'll get the smart TV experience sorted out soon.

In the meantime, if you're looking for a hassle-free viewing experience, you may want to consider other options.

**Conclusion**

Overall, TCL's 8K QLED TV is a mixed bag. While it offers excellent picture quality and good gaming performance, there are several issues with its smart TV experience that detract from my overall experience.

If you're looking for a hassle-free viewing experience, I would recommend waiting for future updates or considering other options. However, if you're willing to deal with some quirks in exchange for outstanding picture quality, this TV is definitely worth considering.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enunsurprisingly this TV performs really well better than I thought it would even but can I recommend it welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and today I'm going to review the TCL R 646 that's the Google TV version of TCL 6 series TV and for a good portion of 2022 this will be one of the most enticing TV choices out there for anyone wanting premium picture quality at a fraction of the price being charged from comparable TVs from the likes of Sony Samsung and LG it's got a lot of tech and a lot of promise but can I recommend it well let's talk about that before I dig into it I just want to say thank you so much for watching and if you aren't already subscribed please consider smashing that subscribe button cuz we have some exclusive reviews coming up that you'll see here first and when we hit a million Subs I've got a killer giveaway planned and you'll need to be subscribed to be eligible thanks in advance for your support okay let's do this okay so let's start with picture settings now if you want to get a feel for the basic picture settings I started with you can check out our unboxing video for this TV there's some other useful setup tips in there too so don't miss them but the short version for the picture settings is this I chose the movie picture mode for SDR and HDR and then Dolby Vision dark I turned off motion smoothing if for no other reason to get a feel for how this TV processes motion without copout frame doubling and that's pretty much it that gives me a good Baseline for testing and comparisons now I promised in the unboxing video that I would check out a few digital picture enhancements on this TV some of which I hadn't seen offered in a TCL TV before and I did that so here's what I found none of them Dynamic contrast black stretch micro contast made what I felt were Earth moving improvements in picture quality they did make a difference you could see though I'm just not so swayed by any one of them or any of them grouped together that I think they are must use features but that's just my personal preference if you get this TV give them a shot for yourself and see if the stuff you watch looks better or worse for the adjustments the Google TV interface doesn't make it easy for you to see the differences in real time as you switch them on and off but you can make it easier on yourself if you pause the TV on an image that has a good amount of bright and dark areas something with decent contrast and use that that way you can build build some memory around what that one image looks like rather than try to track changes while watching a moving TV show film or game okay so if you aren't interested in some of the data I got for measurements and you really just want to know what they translate to for real world viewing you can skip this section click the picture quality section link down below but for those who do it's time for numbers for nit nerds first off I have to say that the r 646 measured really well in the movie mode right out of the box both grayscale and color were right at that line where only some people could perceive something was off and frankly most folks would never know which means you can trust you're getting really accurate results by just clicking the movie preset and if you prefer something brighter the smart HDR mode isn't too bad that smart HDR setting by the way is as close to a normal or standard preset as This TV has as far as calibrating goes with a little tweaking of the two-point white balance I was able to get really awesome test results errors well below the thresh of human perception for Grays scale and that translated into more accurate color frankly I find that really impressive for a TV in this price class all right enough about gray scale and color accuracy how bright does it get that seems like the metric everyone Geeks out over well I have pretty impressive numbers to share here in SDR which has the backlight at about 80% the TV peaked at 864 nits in a 10% window in HDR that number bumped up to 1,00 nits but when I tested very window sizes and checked sustained brightness I saw anywhere from 13 to 1,500 nits so if I was going to slap a peak brightness number on this TV like a lot of other reviewers do I suppose it would be 1,200 nits or so but it is very clear this TV can push that number higher in a little bright highlight area so up to, 1500 nits in the movie mode and even higher in the Vivid mode so that's pretty good for a TV of this price I mean really it's excellent also for grins I ran some test patterns to check the backlight system I'm thinking of changing the terminology from test patterns to torture tests because to be honest I'm seeing decreasing evidence that strong performance in test patterns is required to see strong performance in real world viewing these backlight test patterns seem less and less meaningful but I did it anyway and the r 646 performed admirably was it blatantly obvious I was looking at a mini LED backlight system no was it pretty obvious the TV was doing a good job with local dimming yes AB absolutely the short story on the measurements is that they were really strong but more importantly the TV performs extremely well for real world viewing I watched Ozark which is a notoriously dark and Green Tinted show I watched our planet which is some of the most gorgeous 4K Dolby Vision content you can stream right now I watch Disney Pixar stuff yes in kto and yeah I already get way too much of that movie at home but man is Linn Manuel Miranda on fire right now and I watched a few 4K HDR Blu-ray discs all of that in addition to all the other stuff I watch on every single TV I review most of which is a real snore but hey that's the job bottom line the TCL R 646 is gorgeous TCL has done it again I mean if you have lots more to spend far be it from me to discourage you from divorcing yourself from your money but the real value proposition in terms of picture performance is right here the picture quality is just fire now to be frank I won the panel Lottery here like I got the mega Buck jackpot and the Powerball this might be the cleanest LCD panel I have ever tested I'm not exaggerating yeah there's some vignetting in the corners but that's almost inescapable these days not saying I love it but it's really common otherwise this panel is squeaky clean and I know that has a lot to do with why I'm so impressed with the picture quality will you get one this good I don't know that's why it's called the panel lottery I will say though that there were no obvious signs that this TV was thoroughly vetted before it came to me and I can tell when one has been honestly I probably just got really lucky and I hope you do too but even with a few screen uniformity problems I still think this TV's mini LED backlighting processing upscaling and color performance are way ahead of the competition at this price way ahead anyway I could go on about how great the picture quality is but it is because it is so good that it makes this next section of my review just that much more frustrating because the fact is for as good as the picture quality is the user experience at least right now is not where it needs to be so if you follow TV news at all then you already know that when tcl's first Google TVs came out they were buggy or glitchy bad enough that Best Buy and maybe this was a knee-jerk reaction on their part but Best Buy yanked them from store shelves to tcl's credit they came through with a software patch pretty quickly and the TVs came back to Best Buy shelves and here we are today now to be absolutely certain I had the latest software update I went into the TV's menu and forced it to look for one and I already had the latest software and firmware so now now it's time to tell you about the bugs SLG glitches and quirks associated with this TV at least these are the ones I experienced as recently as February 3rd 2022 and understand I'm reporting on these things in hopes that they are soon resolved but we'll get to that in a moment perhaps the most annoying thing is that apps just crash on me Netflix crashes within 15 minutes of me pressing the play button and the TV usually just goes back to whatever I was watching before I was watching say Netflix sometimes that's the home screen sometimes that's an HDMI my input and it's not just Netflix it's HBO Max and Disney plus and honestly I stopped testing apps there oh and sometimes the app just won't load the next issue is around volume control which is mostly fine if you're just using the TV's speakers but if you're using Arc or EC it's slow to respond and sometimes it gets stuck like I pressed the volume up button I guess for too long and no matter what I did I could not get the volume to stop going up I had to turn off our morant's a receiver so I didn't blow my speed speakers next bug is that the picture mode settings for over theair channels won't stick they kept going back to Vivid which if you've ever watched OTA TV on Vivid mode it is some of the ugliest picture you have ever seen people look purple I mean it's bad anyway what's up with that and frustratingly it's not consistent sometimes it's a problem and sometimes it's not also there were several times when I was watching something in Dolby vision and Dolby Vision picture modes weren't available in the settings the TV acted as if I was watching regular HDR I was able to get around it eventually but the bug is definitely there also Dolby Vision IQ requires motion smoothing and unlike many TVs motion smoothing isn't available on a sliding scale so it's always fullon maxed out frame doubling and it looks horrible to me fortunately for me I'm all about using Dolby Vision dark but motion smoothing should not be forced on Dolby Vision IQ I mean look it isn't even a menu option here I expect better for Dolby setting so those are some of the issues that I personally experienced and I've spoken to others at Digital Trends who own this TV and they had problems like audio just dropping out and the only way to get around it is to reset the TV not just power it off and then power it back on but do a full reset and yes I verified they had the latest software on the other hand I'm also seeing some professional reviews out there just coming out that indicate that the reviewers had a mostly trouble-free experience so I guess it's possible that the issues I experienced myself are maybe unique to me but those are the bugs now let's talk about quirks they aren't too many but they are annoying I think the best example is that options like variable refresh rate and autol low latency mode are buried in the menu system they should be easy to access especially if this TV is meant to be gaming friendly which it is and I'll talk about gaming in just a moment also there's no input button on the remote control and call me old school if you want but I switch inputs often enough that an input button on the remote is still one of the few buttons I think you need to have on a remote I don't want to have to surf on screen to get from over the air to HDMI 3 please and thank you now there are some other quirks but I think they aren't going to bother anyone but reviewers like me who have to do the same thing over and over with a TV that most normal folks will never have to bother with so I'm going to leave the quirkiness there pivoting back to another positive this TV is outstanding for gaming low input lag is about 14 milliseconds at 60 HZ or with vrr that's in game mode and at 120 HZ it's closer to 6 milliseconds the TV does support 4K 120 HZ gaming with HDR but not with Dolby vision and the graphics look fantastic on this TV as expected since the picture quality is so good frankly if you were to use a game console and nothing else with this TV I think you'd be in really good shape because you wouldn't be switching inputs you wouldn't be relying on the smart TV apps you'd just stick to one 4K 120hz HDMI input and be golden oh and as far as sound quality goes it's passable the TV has separate mid-range drivers and tweeters and that helps a little bit with Clarity but it still sounds kind of boxy so get an outboard sound solution if you can okay so can I recommend this TV honestly I feel super conflicted the TV's picture quality is fantastic everyone should get to enjoy it but would I put it in my own home right now I'd be a bit worried I mean I might betting on the fact that TCL might sort out the bugs and yet another future update for the TV and that seems relatively low risk but what if I get it home and my family gets frustrated and doesn't buy the hole it'll get better soon rationale in the end I will say buy this TV for its outstanding picture quality if you can put up with the bugs for a little while that's a big if or maybe wait until there's enough evidence that the bugs are all ironed out this TV will be around for a while and I trust TCL is going to get it all straightened out but for now I guess I'm just going to have to live with being frustrated that this TV is on the verge of perfection undone by the fact that smart TVs can sometimes be a pain in the neck thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think are you willing to put up with a buggy Smart TV because the picture quality is so awesome leave me a comment about that down below so we can talk about it don't forget to like And subscribe and here's two other videos I think you'll like\n"