TCL Q7 QLED TV Review _ Full of Surprises

Bucks for a proper calibration folks that's almost the price of the 65-inch TV itself never mind that it would raise your total investment to about the same price as the 65-inch QM8 so if accuracy is what you're after don't expect to get close with the less expensive Q7 just buy a TCL qma and for me that's frustrating because it shouldnt be this way and to be clear I went out and checked some other reviews to see if theyre out of box measurements were close to mine and on the grayscale at least the measurements I got are in lockstep with other publications now I think thats just how this TV is and I dont get why I'm thinking back to some of TCL's 5 Series TVs and they had better grayscale and color accuracy measurements than this TV it's just so close to being a video files budget darling but not as it is now.

Now all of that information was primarily for enthusiasts I don't think the average viewer is going to be bothered too much by the inaccurate grayscale and scatter shot color accuracy although some of you might notice the white doesn't look pure white there's a magenta Hue happening that some average viewers might catch. I also happen to get a TCL Q7 with really good screen uniformity just the tiniest bit of vignetting in the upper left and right corners anti-glare is just okay but the TV gets bright enough that I don't think most folks will be too bothered with reflections.

But there are a couple of things I think average consumers might catch one this TV doesn't do a spectacular job at upscaling low resolution content it's not it's not terrible but it's not doing as good a cleanup job to cable TV and low-res streaming TV content as some slightly more expensive TVs. Two 24 frame per second content like movies shows a fair amount of stutter if you don't ever watch 24 FPS movies or if you like to use motion smoothing then that's nothing to worry about it's motion resolution at 60 frames per second is like perfect but if you watch a lot of movies in their native frame rate of 24 frames per second you'll see some stutter.

There's no judder issues the TV offers judder-free performance but stutter where it holds on to one of those 24 frames just a bit longer than it should you'll see that again if you're not super sensitive to that sort of thing then I think you'll love the Q7 but if you are you might want to pass on this one so at risk of repeating myself for all you non-video files or non-video enthusiasts the Q7 delivers a lot of wow factor in fact if you get it and start watching it you might think man that Caleb guy sure was going on about nothing this TV looks great I mean I wouldn't be at all surprised if thats how you felt.

But the hardest thing about me doing TV reviews is that I know I have a fairly significant crowd of enthusiasts watching and for y'all you just need to know accuracy is not this TV's bag oh and also the backlight is a little sluggish that might bother you too so it's a mixed bag depending on who you are I've made this evaluation as fair as possible I think most folks will love this TV but for those of you with a keen eye stick to the TCL QM8 it's worth saving a little bit longer thanks as always for watching everyone what did you think of this review it's a bit different for me also golden sample nope let me hear from you down in the comments I can't wait to chat with you also don't forget to like and subscribe I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthanks to BDI for sponsoring a portion of this videoI have spent considerable time thinking this over and I think it's fair to say  that this is the most frustrating TV I've ever reviewed the reason  it's so frustrating this TV is incredibly good except where it isn't I'll explainwelcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and today I'm going to review for you the  TCL Q7 TV now by some measures this TV is actually outstanding and in fact I think  most folks are going to love it but by some other measures this TV is kind of  a mess and that is frustrating because it doesn't have to be I am so close to saying  this is probably the best TV for the most amount of people but I just don't know if  I can go there will I get there by the end of this review only one way to find out so let's  get into this reminder to like subscribe and ring that Bell your support is what makes it  possible for me to do these reviews and it is so much appreciated okay now it's review timeforeign let's start with where the Q7 sits within TCL's TV lineup this year it is tcl's second best  TV for 2023 sitting just below the epic QM8 mini LED TV of which I have done much rating the Q7  is not a mini LED TV it uses a standard LED backlight system with full array local dimming  but TCL has broken down the backlight into a pretty generous number of dimming zones this  65-inch model has 160 local dimming zones while the 75 and 85 inch variants are closer to 200  zones according to TCL now if we compare the Q7 to the Hisense competition the u7k which is  a mini LED TV and is thus able to have a higher dimming Zone count and very much does has about  384 zones of course as I'm fond of pointing out in just about every TV review these days  it's not about the size of your backlights or how many dimming zones you've got it's how you  use the them the Sony X90L is a great example of a TV with a standard LED backlight system  broken down into just 80 local dimming zones half as many and it looks outstanding and as  long as we're making comparisons it's worth pointing out that the 65-inch Q7 has a street  price of about 700 whereas the Hisense U7K goes for about 730 dollars right in the same ballpark  for reference the much more advanced TCL QM8 65 inch has a street price of twelve hundred dollars  now going forward I'll not be comparing the TCL Q7 to the Hisense U7K anymore because I haven't  tested the Hisense yet but that is coming very soon I will however do my best to describe the  differences between the more expensive QM8 and the Q7 here to give some context to the value  proposition of this TV so at this point you can probably already see the appeal of the Q7 it's 500  less than tcl's best model but it has some very promising Tech inside on paper it looks like the  Best Value in TCL's TV lineup and possibly the best value in TV on the market right now  that's why I think so many average consumers just looking for a great TV at a great price are gonna  end up looking at the Q7 but then there's the enthusiast crowd who may want as much of that  TCL QM8 goodness as they can get while saving a bunch of money maybe it's a second room TV  or maybe the budget is just a bit tight the Q7 should be the answer right well maybe for those  average consumers sure but I think enthusiasts are about to get let down at least a little bitbefore I deliver some tough news let me give a brief overview of what I like about the Q7 first  is contrast TCL is just killing it in a good way with the contrast on its TVs they're prioritizing  black levels blooming and Halo control and high brightness and as a result the picture on TCL TVs  like the Q7 has a lot of pop and I gotta hand it to TCL if you're going to single out one element  of picture quality to just dominate contrast is it second TCL is doing a solid job of making its TVs  friendly and accessible to gamers the Q7 has two HDMI 2.1 ports capable of up to 144 Hertz at 4K or  1440p or up to 240 hertz at 1080p it supports vrr as well and input lag is sufficiently low to earn  an excellent score third Google TV runs smoothly on this TV just remember to turn on the network  standby function and then cast to the TV from your mobile device from all kinds of apps it  also supports AirPlay and home kit I mean as a smart TV it's got a lot going for it fourth  would be color while the color performance is not perfect as I'll dive into more later in HDR bright  colors really leap off the screen and I think that's going to impress a lot of folks overall  this TV is built to impress the average viewer with most content anything 1080P and higher SDR  or HDR looks really good on this TV even with low bit rate content this TV manages to somehow avoid  too much macro blocking oddly it seems like it's doing a better job at that test than the QM8 which  I'm gonna have to check on that that doesn't seem right still I've been watching a lot of  YouTube content not all of it premium and it's been looking really solid hey so I'm going to  get you back to the video shortly but I wanted to take a moment to tell you about some exciting news  that I've actually hinted at in previous videos BDI which makes the gorgeous media consoles Lift  Top coffee table and laptop desk that we use daily here in the studio is ready to expand  into your bedroom the new collection called link is a suite of bedroom furniture that just like  BDI's living room furniture features Exquisite build quality gorgeous looks and genius design  plus it also hides some delightfully functional surprises this Uplink bed is my favorite and you  can bet I'm getting one this led accent lighting is fire it's also got integrated AC and USB  charging and something I'm extremely excited about is the Hideaway support legs which are  tucked back so there shall be no toe stubbing as you make the bed speaking of making the bed you  can configure it in several ways to support just about any kind of mattress including adjusting the  height of the bed it's so smart and of course there are complementary pieces to fill out the  rest of the bedroom as well from the 22 and 28 inch nightstands with movable tops and built-in  power management to a five drawer chest and a six drawer dresser that match perfectly guys  this is the good stuff and the BDI bedroom sale is running right now so act fast to take advantage of  the current savings you'll find a link to more info in the description below thanks again to  BDI for their support of this channel okay so so far so good very good I would say for the price  this TV appears to be one of the best values ever but then drill a bit deeper and we start noticing  some flaws at first they're relatively minor but they just grow from there and that's where my knit  nerd fam is going to wind up disappointed I think which brings us to that section I like to call  numbers for Knit nerds this is where I dive into the measurements I got on this TV to provide some  objective basis for my analysis if you don't know your knits from your armpits that is just fine  feel free to skip this section time code is down in the description but if you're getting into TVs  and want to learn more stick with me so I'm going to get right to it and I'm not going to pull any  punches here the TCL Q7 has offered up some of the worst measurements I've seen in recent years not  all of them now some are just fine but the ones that are bad they're pretty bad we'll start with  some basics in SDR I measured Peak brightness at about 700 nits with the brightness setting maxed  out out of the box the brightness setting is at about 55 out of 100 and that will get you about  400 nits of brightness which is very respectable you can of course dial this down I would suggest  30 for a dark room if you want to see the content closer to what was intended by the Creator then in  HDR using either the movie mode or the IMAX mode Peak brightness maxed out at just shy of well it  was between a 1,000 and 1,100 nits in the variable window size test I got a fair amount  of variance each of the five times I measured before calibration but in the sustained peak  brightness test that number came in reliably around 750 nits and when I use the Spears and  muscle pattern designed to get around any cheating that the TV May employ when it sees test patterns  that number held steady at around 700 nits meaning peak highlights will have a good amount of punch  and sparkle moreover though the average picture level was quite bright for a TV of this price  now all of this is good news for the average consumer just looking for a great looking TV  at a great price but the white balance you guys oh sweet mother of pearl the white balance it's  possibly the worst I've ever seen from any TV now as a reminder any Delta e of three or less  is considered unperceivable to the human eye and I'll give a passing grade for a TV of this price  if it comes in at about six or under though I'm not going to be in love with that but folks out  of the box this TV had an average Delta e of 7.5 with the most egregious errors where it counts the  most at between 10 and 11. now look I understand if you get a chuckle out of me being all again  as I delve into some of the nerdiest TV analytics ever but seriously guys that is not good and while  a two-point white balance calibration took care of the brightest whites all the grayscale in the  middle remained at a Delta e of four or higher and near as I can tell the 20 point white balance  controls are well I'll use the word ineffective but some might call them just straight up broken  as for color well in terms of accuracy the results weren't as bad as the grayscale but the news there  isn't rosy either I saw errors all over the place and getting them corrected in the CMS or color  management system would probably take a lot of work so this is not good news for enthusiasts  who value accuracy and adherence to creator intent in order for this TV's performance to get closer  to what we'd consider accurate you'd need to hire a calibrator and that could cost as much as 500  bucks for a proper calibration folks that's almost the price of the 65-inch TV itself never mind  that it would raise your total investment to about the same price as the 65-inch QM8 so if  accuracy is what you're after don't expect to get close with the less expensive Q7 just buy a  TCL qma and for me that's frustrating because it shouldn't be this way and to be clear I went out  and checked some other reviews to see if they're out of box measurements were close to mine and on  the grayscale at least the measurements I got are in lockstep with other publications now I think  that's just how this TV is and I don't get why I'm thinking back to some of TCL's 5 Series TVs  and they had better grayscale and color accuracy measurements than this TV it's just so close to  being a video files budget darling but not as it is now now all of that information was primarily  for enthusiasts I don't think the average viewer is going to be bothered too much by the inaccurate  grayscale and Scatter shot color accuracy although some of you might notice the white doesn't look  pure white there's a magenta Hue happening that some average viewers might catch I also happen to  get a TCL Q7 with really good screen uniformity just the tiniest bit of vignetting in the upper  left and right corners anti-glare is just okay but the TV gets bright enough that I don't think  most folks will be too bothered with reflections but there are a couple of things I think average  consumers might catch one this TV doesn't do a spectacular job at upscaling low resolution  content it's not it's not terrible but it's not doing as good a cleanup job to cable TV  and low-res streaming TV content as some slightly more expensive TVs and two 24 frame per second  content like movies shows a fair amount of stutter if you don't ever watch 24 FPS movies or if you  like to use motion smoothing then that's nothing to worry about it's motion resolution at 60 frames  per second is like perfect but if you watch a lot of movies in their native frame rate of 24  frames per second you'll see some stutter there's no judder issues the tv offers  judder-free performance but stutter where it holds on to one of those 24 frames just a bit  longer than it should you'll see that again if you're not super sensitive to that sort of thing  then I think you'll love the Q7 but if you are you might want to pass on this one so at risk  of repeating myself for all you non-video files or non-video enthusiasts the Q7 delivers a lot  of wow factor in fact if you get it and start watching it you might think man that Caleb guy  sure was going on about nothing this TV looks great I mean I wouldn't be at all surprised if  that's how you felt but the hardest thing about me doing TV reviews is that I know I have a  fairly significant crowd of enthusiasts watching and for y'all you just need to know accuracy is  not this TV's bag oh and also the backlight is a little sluggish that might bother you too so  it's a mixed bag depending on who you are I've made this evaluation as Fair as possible I think  most folks will love this TV but for those of you with a keen eye stick to the TCL QM8 it's  worth saving a little bit longer thanks as always for watching everyone what did you think of this  review it's a bit different for me also golden sample nope let me hear from you down in the  comments I can't wait to chat with you also don't forget to like and subscribe I'll see  you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like\n"