TCL Bets on Mini-LED Only At High End of Its TV Range; Bet Pays Off in 2023
In 2023, TCL chose to push quantum dot and gaming features down its line but leave mini-LED backlighting only on its higher-end QM8 line. HiSense took a different approach. Both bets paid off, but the higher-end mini-LED sets are threatening legacy competitors.
TCL Strategy & Marketing
In the U.S., TCL is best known for its televisions, but it is actually one of the largest consumer electronics conglomerates in the world. TCL runs its own factories and invests tens of billions of dollars in building its own display panel fabs in China. TCL's mobile division sells Alcatel and TCL branded featurephones, smartphones, tablets, modems, and more. The parent company also makes washing machines, refrigerators, and consumer IoT devices that are primarily sold in Asia.
All that said, in the U.S., TCL really is primarily a television company, and it has grown at the expense of larger, better-known brands by following two simple strategies: maximizing the initially small budget it had for marketing, and providing a lot of value to consumers. In the late 2010’s, TCL focused on penetrating the volume segment of the TV market at retail and sponsored daytime talk shows with frequent on-air giveaways to guests – and sometimes audience members. TCL marketing also included venue and sports sponsorships. Movie premieres at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood automatically became TCL ads once TCL paid for naming rights starting in 2013. However, as TCL’s panels grew in size – and the company moved slightly upmarket at retail – TCL paid up for the ultimate U.S. sports marketing rights: it is now the official TV of the NFL.
Sports may move the marketing needle, but gaming and streaming drive TV margins. For 2023, TCL moved desirable gaming features and quantum dot color down into lower priced tiers, while reserving mini-LED backlight technology for its higher end QM8 line. Another Chinese challenger brand, HiSense, chose a different path, pushing mini-LED all the way down to $600. These low priced mini-LED sets were not as bright and did not have quite as many independent lighting zones as its more expensive sets, but HiSense could still market them as having better backlight tech than other TVs in that price tier.
Both strategies worked: TCL, with its QLED/gaming strategy in the budget tiers, and HiSense, with mini-LED pushed down to record low prices, both grew their market share in 2023. TV sales were down overall, so that meant that TCL and HiSense took share from Samsung and LG, especially in the U.S. Losing share at the low end is not too concerning for the legacy brands, but as TCL and HiSense move upmarket and into larger screen sizes where margins are healthier, they become a significant competitive threat. With that in mind, I wanted to take a closer look at the top of TCL’s U.S. product line, its mini-LED QM8. (TCL does have a handful of even more premium, extremely low volume TVs available in China.)
The QM8 starts at 55” but doesn’t stop at 75” or even 85” — you can get an absolutely enormous 98” miniLED QM8. Pricing on the QM8 line started out reasonably, with the 65” at $1300 and the 98” only $5,000, but holiday sales and time have pushed those prices down significantly. The 65” 2023 QM8 that TCL sent over is now $1,000, and the 98” monster is just $4,000. The 2024 models go even larger and brighter, but those units aren’t available to review just yet.
QM8 Unboxing and First Impressions
The first thing I noticed when unboxing the TCL QM8 was the attention paid to the rear of the set. Typically, mainstream consumer televisions look clean on the front, but the back has multiple different scalloped segments, with exposed screws, lots of cheap plastic, and a cramped input area on one side. The QM8 will almost certainly end up on a wall mount or sitting on furniture close to the wall, but on the off chance that it will be placed in the middle of the room, TCL took the time to make the rear of the QM8 presentable. The whole back area is a sculpted curve, with port areas covered up, and an attractive bass speaker in the center. Other than the speaker, it doesn’t cost TCL much to do this, it’s more a matter of priorities: the attention to detail on the back is one way that TCL is pushing this set past budget value segments and towards more premium value buyers.
TCL licenses operating systems from Amazon, Roku, and Google; this set is an Android TV version. Android TV OS 11 is functional, with all the apps you’d expect, plus a reasonable amount of Google integration with YouTube, any content you’ve purchased from Google, and home control. It is not as straightforward an interface as Roku or as theatrical as Fire TV, but navigating the interface on the QM8 was responsive. That's good, because TCL does not note which MediaTek chip it uses in the QM8 -- or even acknowledge that it is using one (it is). In contrast, Sony boasts that its (admittedly more expensive) Bravia Mini LED TVs use premium MediaTek chips for better upscaling. At least whatever TCL is using in the QM8 doesn't hold it back from responsive day to day use.
The QM8’s remote control is long and rounded. It fits nicely in your hand and is straightforward to use, but it is not backlit, the buttons are not overly differentiated by shape, and only the power, channel up/down, and volume up/down buttons have raised indicators to feel for. Like most TVs today – and all budget brands – TCL sells one-touch placement buttons on the remote to streaming channels. Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV are joined by TCL’s own TCL TV+ channel – ad-supported streaming linear TV, and TCL Home – a quick settings bar with its own login. TCL is hardly alone in trying to build an ad business around its TVs, but at least for the programming I watched, TCL doesn’t have a large advertising base just yet – each ad break repeated the same spots multiple times.
Performance
The QM8 is one of the first televisions I’ve had in for review that didn’t immediately make me turn to the Sonos Arc soundbar I have on my test stand. That doesn’t mean that I left the soundbar off – this is still not especially rich or directional sound, music is a bit flat and dialog could certainly be clearer. The "ULTRA-BASS" branding on the rear speaker is aspirational. However, you can get reasonably loud and clear audio out of the QM8’s internal speaker array, and that isn’t always the case even at this price point. If you plan on using this for news, cooking shows, and sports, you should be able to get away without an external audio solution.
TCL is pushing gaming features down even into its budget line, but it certainly doesn’t stop there, and the QM8 is a great match for 5th generation game consoles from Sony and Microsoft. It also makes a reasonable PC gaming monitor, if by reasonable you mean absolutely enormous. The set has a dedicated low latency gaming mode, supports variable refresh rate, and will let you play games at 4K 144Hz or 1080 at 240Hz. There are also modes that smooth motion even further (great for gaming, turn them off for content, please).
If you are sitting on-axis, the QM8’s miniLED backlight array and quantum dot color combine to create compelling images that approach OLED contrast with even brighter HDR (High Dynamic Range) highlights. This is a superb TV for rooms with large picture windows and equally good in a dark room watching prestige TV in Dolby Vision. The QM8 hits peak HDR near 2000 nits and supports every HDR format (unlike Samsung) including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision. Dolby Vision IQ is included, which auto-adjusts to account for room lighting; I found it somewhat unpredictable and turned it off, preferring Dolby Vision Bright or Dark depending on room conditions.
The title sequence for Foundation on Apple TV+ is a great way to show off Dolby Vision high dynamic range (there are several concentrated lights), wide color gamut (the shifting color beads), contrast, and resolution (the crisp narrow font on top of all the rest). Shadow detail in Fallout on Amazon Prime is excellent, and all the over-the-top gore pops against the muted color tones of the wasteland. The “Family Madrigal” introductory song in Disney’s Encanto is essentially a color saturation torture test – and the QM8 passes with [sorry for the pun] flying colors. If you want to see just how bright the HDR can get on the QM8, you can’t do much better than the opening sequence in Disney’s Encanto – until you get to the “Waiting on a Miracle” number, which could have been animated by Dolby itself as Dolby Vision demo. The QM8 can also do atmospheric, moody content with accurate skin tones.
Comparison and Conclusion
Like all LCD displays, when sitting off to the side, brightness and color varies significantly; in that situation, or for consumers who want the best possible contrast and color reproduction, an OLED is worth paying for. I also wish that the glass was a bit less reflective; the QM8 can go super-bright and outshine reflections from room lamps and windows, but muting those room highlights would still make for easier watching.
I have an LG C2 OLED in my main theater test room, and if you don’t have an OLED nearby for direct comparison, you’re unlikely to notice a big drop-off in picture quality with the QM8 even on scenes with white text on dark backgrounds, HDR reflections, or animation with wide color gamut. You probably also won’t notice the technically wider color range that the best OLEDs can produce, at least not on normal program material. However, you will notice about $1,000 more in your wallet.
The TCL QM8 2023 is not as bright as the 2024 models are going to be, nor is it an OLED for the ultimate in contrast and off-axis viewing. But when compared to similar miniLED TVs from Samsung and LG, it offers superb performance at a lower price. This value proposition becomes even stronger when you get to larger sizes, topping out at a projector-like 98” for 2023, and still highly competitive in 2024.
To discuss the implications of this report on your business, product, or investment strategies, contact Techsponential at avi@techsponential.com.
A consumer-oriented version of this report was published at HomeTheaterView.