For those of you keeping an eye on the latest brands out there, you more than likely would’ve noticed TCL slowly creeping its way into the consumer market, especially in the already saturated TV market. With their budget-friendly price tag, are they something to consider, or should you be walking straight on by? Well, we managed to get our hands on a TCL C645 QLED Smart TV for review, the newer generation model to the TCL C735 QLED 4K TV we had previously, and we’re about to answer the question: “Does cheap mean bad?”
The TCL C645 is a TV that packs a lot of features into its frame. It runs on Google TV, comes standard with HDR10+, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and has a sneaky feature that allows it to turn itself into a 120hz gaming screen. It also comes in a wide range of sizes, from 50 inches all the way up to 85 inches.
I spent three weeks with it at home, watching, gaming and gaming some more to see if it has what it takes to run with the greats.
Let’s start with Google TV. Over the past few months, it has become more prevalent in many smart TV devices, whether through streaming boxes or as the operating system on the TV itself, and I feel that’s a good thing. This has given Google time to refine the user interface, and I can see that. It’s a nice interface to look at, and it functions pretty well in general. There are a variety of apps on the app store, and you can essentially turn your TV into a giant mobile phone.
From Netflix to YouTube and DSTV Stream, there wasn’t a viewing app I use that I couldn’t find on the app store. Unfortunately, Google TV on the TCL C645 QLED Smart TV takes its time. The delay when scrolling through the UI is noticeable, especially when the TV has just turned on, and opening an app does take some time. This isn’t terribly annoying, as you’ll usually remain in one app and completely forget about it within 5 minutes. However, the remote for the TV is very sensitive, and for those of you with the bad habit of not putting your remote on a side table, you will quite often accidentally bump the remote, press a button, and the TV will switch from Netflix to YouTube. Like I said, this is easily solvable by simply putting the remote out of reach from your butt, but it’s worth noting nonetheless.
I immensely enjoyed the viewing experience from the TCL C645 QLED Smart TV. The combination of QLED, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision meant I had a vivid, colourful display that made images pop when they needed to and remain dark when they didn’t. I didn’t find it as bright as some other TVs with the exact specifications, but it’s still good enough. On that note, though, my wife did have to turn the brightness down as she said it was too bright for her. On sunny days, there was a noticeable glare, but once I had closed the blind directly behind me, the TV display became much easier to see.
The audio experience could have been more enjoyable, though. While the TV boasts Dolby Atmos for its standard speakers, the sound output felt very high pitched and tinny. I’ve been stung by bad-quality TV speakers before, so I immediately switched it back to my Home Theatre System. While it’s not completely unbearable, I would still recommend picking up a soundbar or similar to drive this TV’s audio.
But I know most of you are gamers, and you don’t care about watching TV on your TV. No, no, you want to game on it. So, let’s talk about that neat little trick the TCL C645 QLED Smart TV has up its sleeve. The panel on the TV is a 60hz panel, so while it does say 120hz on the box, it’s not a true 120hz. Using Dual Line Gate technology, the TCL C645 can push its 60hz panel up to 120hz, but at the cost of vertical resolution. This means it will deliver a 2K resolution at 120hz instead of its usual 4K.
To be honest, I found a much more enjoyable gaming experience at 4K 60hz over the 2K 120hz setting. These newer generation consoles can deliver such beautiful games straight to our couches these days, and the sacrifice in resolution felt like a step backwards. Yes, the TCL C645 QLED Smart TV can be a gaming TV, in a sense, but I preferred to leave the “gaming acceleration” off. That being said, whether I was playing Mortal Kombat or racing through the streets in Gran Turismo 7, I didn’t see any sort of screen tearing or motion blur. TCL’s MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation) handles everything behind the scenes to ensure motion blur and screen tearing don’t occur for a smoother viewing and gaming experience.
So, if the gaming accelerator isn’t all that great, then why go for the TCL C645 QLED Smart TV? Good question (thanks, Cody). The TCL C645 QLED Smart TV still manages to be an impeccable TV to watch shows and movies on and, with its host of smart features, keeps itself modern and up-to-date. Gaming is not completely ruined by not having a true 120hz. The HDMI 2.1 port still means you get to push a lot of the quality out of your console without getting 4K 120hz gaming. And when you consider its R7,999 price tag, around R1,000 to R2,000 cheaper than other TVs in a similar category without the same feature set, it’s certainly a TV to consider.
