I Didn’t Expect It to Be This Good | TCL QM6K TV Review
Well, guys, here we are. It's February 2025, and we're already reviewing a new TV. What is this TV doing here? What does it mean? How good is it? And what does that [Music] mean? Welcome back, everyone. I'm Caleb Denison, and this is my first TV review of 2025. It's also my first 2025 TV review. I say that because I
have a couple of 2024 models that we still need to look at. And this is the TCL QM6K. So, a little backstory here. Every year, a few weeks before CES, most of the TV brands have a press pre-briefing. We do this as a video meeting. The presentations are a little cringe
sometimes—I'm not going to lie—but we do get to learn at least a little about each brand's lineup for the new year and get a feel for what we'll see at the big show. It helps us get prepared to cover the show, and it helps me kind of plan out what my year is going to look like. Usually, we hear about several models or entire lineups. For instance, LG told us about the G5,
the C5, and some of its new QNED lineup, along with some soundbar and projector stuff. Bottom line, we get a look at the product roadmap for the year, and it's been this way for the 15 or so years I've been doing this—at least. So you can imagine that when TCL held its press briefing and only announced one TV during that meeting, well, I didn't know what to think. I was like, "Is that it? Really? Not
even a hint at other stuff?" But then I thought, "Nah, I know the folks at TCL, and they have something up their sleeve for sure." This is a strategy play. I don't know if it's going to work out the way they think it's going to work, but okay—here we are. So, I was relieved to see the TCL QM7 make an appearance at CES. I’ve got to think TCL caught wind that maybe their strategy didn’t resonate the way they had hoped, and they needed to show that they had other secrets in store. I don’t know. These are the weird things that I daydream about. Here's my point. The TCL QM6K not only was the main fixture at CES,
but TCL dropped the bomb that you could pre-order it with a free soundbar tossed in—and that you could have it in your home in February. And that's when it all became clear to me. Because, look what's happening right now. This video is part of it. TCL is getting press when literally no other TV brand is right now. TCL has the spotlight. TCL pulled an anti-Y. That's not "anti-Y, son," but "anti-Y" as in the opposite of Sony’s strategy. Sony waits until
later in the year to own the spotlight. TCL decided to go hard in the opposite direction, and now it owns the spotlight before any other brand has had their first look events, let alone sent out review units or put a 2025 model on a store shelf. So, I've got to wonder— is the TCL QM6K just a marketing stunt, or is it a TV you should seriously consider buying? Well, I’m going to spoiler this video a little bit and tell you right now—yes, you should be considering this TV. But I’ve got to tell you, I’m just a little disappointed about one aspect of this TV. It’s not a deal breaker, and I’m not sure if I even should be disappointed, so we’ve got to talk about that. But let's get into this review and talk about everything you need to know about this TV.
So, I was a little worried when I unboxed this TV. The box was strangely flimsy, though I do think it's going to survive a trip from Amazon's warehouse to your home—link to buy in the description, of course. The legs are plastic, which is not unheard of for a lower-tier TV, but this is a mid-tier TV. I mean, this 65-incher costs a grand right now,
and I wanted metal, if only because it feels more like I'm getting my money’s worth. Installing the legs—look, you hopefully only do this once, if you have to do it at all—but it was hard to get them to seat so that inserting the screws pause was a little more work than I wanted to do. Pause After that, though, smooth sailing. My TV came without batteries for the remote, which I’m pretty sure is just because this is a review sample, not a retail sample, so I can look past that. It happens. The remote itself,
though—I love it. I like the new design. It doesn't feel like the cookie-cutter Google TV remotes that I tend to see with Google TVs. And it's backlit. Yes, backlit, and I love that. I also love that I'll actually use almost all of these hotkeys—YouTube, about time! And you get two 4K 60Hz ports. One of those is the eARC port, so you can connect two game consoles or a game console and a gaming PC and still have your eARC port free for connecting a soundbar or receiver. Speaking of gaming, check out this Game Master setting TCL has put in here. You can assign it to the HDMI input that you're going to use for most of your gaming, and it just takes a bunch of the question marks out of whether HDMI CEC and EDID communication is actually going to activate your game mode. So, I also love this.
While we're in the settings, I like that TCL has added an eco setting suite that lets you decide how you want your TV to save power—or not save power. Digging a little further into the picture settings menu—look at this! Filmmaker mode—yay! Look, I’m happy to see TCL get on board with the whole Filmmaker Mode thing, and I’m immediately wondering now how this TV will measure in this mode. I’ll tell you shortly—it’s mostly awesome news. Navigation is quick and snappy. I have zero complaints about how it is to operate this TV so far. If I discover something down the line,
I’ll post an update as a pinned comment, but for now, it’s been great. This TV does have an ATSC 3.0 tuner, and I know that because I tested it for the Super Bowl broadcast and got the NextGen TV station of my local Fox affiliate, which provided the game in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. I suppose that makes this as good a time as any to mention that the TV supports HDR10, HDR Dolby Vision Gaming, and Vision IQ, which I personally never use. So yeah, your HDR formats are well covered.
As for audio formats, it appears the TV will support most of the Dolby suite, passing through right up to uncompressed Dolby Atmos. It will also support DTS Virtual X, but it does not appear to support DTS:X or DTS Master HD, etc. If you are a DTS lover and want the best DTS audio experience for your AV receiver, you're probably going to want to run your external sources to your receiver first and then pass the signal along to your TV, rather than try and pass stuff through the TV. I was optimistic with the Ancho branding and the two subwoofers—and let's be real, we're using that term very loosely when talking about most TV speakers—but I'm sad to report that the sound quality of this TV is really just nothing to be excited about. My biggest complaint is the lack of clear treble reproduction, which results in less-than-super-clear voices and dialogue. You can tweak it a little bit, but the two down-firing speakers just don't have what it takes. I think at
least a soundbar is going to be an important addition to this TV for the best experience because, as I'm about to tell you, the picture quality deserves sound that is just as good. Yep, it's time to talk picture quality, which can only mean it's time for numbers for nit nerds. Now, if you're not into measurement data and such, please feel free to skip to the next section. I promise I'll summarize the picture quality in that next section so you don't miss anything meaningful. Timecodes are down in the description to make that easier for some of you. But if you like to dive into the world of metrics, here we go. I first tested stock Filmmaker Mode because I wanted to see if TCL's engineers understood the assignment, and I'm happy to report that they did.
In fact, they ate—no crumbs. (That was for my daughter.) Using Calman software, a VideoForge Pro, and a stethoscope that I got from Toys "R" Us, here's what I measured: So, in stock Filmmaker Mode—no adjustments made—in SDR, the TV put out 150 nits, which is exactly what a strict interpretation of SDR calls for. Most of you will want to brighten the TV up after turning off the ambient brightness sensor in the Eco settings area because most folks need a bit more brightness, at least for daytime watching of SDR content. And let's be honest, that's the kind of content that folks tend to watch during the day through cable, satellite, or live-streaming TV services. Now, if I max out the brightness setting and the local dimming setting, I could get about 650 nits in a 10% window, and I'll come back to that because I really want to focus on what impressed me most here.
The QM6K’s 2-point white balance was excellent for a TV of this price. At 30% stimulus, there was barely a registerable error, and at 100% stimulus, the Delta E was less than two. Honestly, that's not worth touching. Now, 20-point grayscale was a slightly different story. We do see errors up to
four in the midtones, but that's still really good for a mid-tier TV. My issue is that the 20-point calibration toolset appeared to fix the RGB balance, but the gamma was still off, so the Delta E stayed the same pretty much no matter what I did. I might be missing something here, but calibrators, please weigh in in the comments, will you? Now for the great news: this is the most color-accurate TV I can recall testing at this price point. I mean, look at this—the color in SDR and HDR was outstanding. And I don’t need the measurements to believe this. In fact, the skin tones on this TV are better than the now $155,000 QM891G 115-inch monster TV that we have here.
The color accuracy is just so dialed in. Now, I suppose you could make it a little better with a deep calibration, but why? This TV is under $1,000. Just be happy with the out-of-box performance because it is stellar. We're looking at about 94% of DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and about 72% of BT.2020. Now, if that seems a little low, that's because it is—just a little bit lower than what we're used to seeing. Some of that may be owed to this TV's HVA panel, but some of it is probably due to the
TV's brightness capabilities, at least for that BT.2020 number. Still, it's not a meaningful shortcoming for most viewers, but if you're a nit nerd, you're going to want to know. For peak brightness in HDR, I got it to read about 931 nits once, under the best possible conditions. But to be honest, the highest repeatable number that I got in any respectable setting was about 750 nits, and that was in a 25% window, not a 10% window. Now, I'm okay with that because how TCL uses its dimming algorithm might mean that, in many real-world cases, it's going to be able to pull off decent specular highlights by activating more zones. But it does point to something about how dense—or maybe how not dense—the Mini-LED backlighting system is, or how their power management system works.
Now, I'm going to disappoint some of you when I tell you that I did not count the zones of the TV. I have a whole video about how I'm changing TV reviews, and counting zones is not one of them. The reason why is because the number of zones in a backlight system means almost nothing anymore—it's not a meaningful metric for performance. Sony’s been trotting that line out for a long time, and now TCL is proving that to be the case. Y’all, I think that's the real triumph for TCL here. They got the memo. They got to work. TCL’s engineers are on the case.
(And parenthetically, nit nerds, I think that means that TCL’s higher-end models are going to be competitive with Samsung, LG, and Sony in a way that we’ve just not seen before. Just don’t screw it up, TCL—you’re off to a really hot start here.) One more thing for you enthusiasts out there—I’m about to talk about the TV’s enhanced off-angle performance. I know there are a lot of theories swirling around about how it’s the HVA panel in this TV that’s improved the off-angle performance. But here’s something I need you to hear. In fact, I need other reviewers to hear this—whether they see this video themselves or you mention it in their comment sections.
TCL has been using HVA panels in its QLEDs. All of its QLEDs last year had HVA panels. It is not the HVA part of the panel that has improved the off-angle viewing. I suspect they just improved the HVA panel. And here’s what’s crazy—the folks I talk to at TCL have not heard from their engineers or from TCL CSOT, the panel manufacturer, that anything has been done to improve the off-angle performance. That was not one of the features they were informed they could crow about. Which is really interesting because, as you’ll soon hear, the off-angle performance is definitely better.
So, for any of you who just skipped ahead, here’s the takeaway from the nit-nerd section: This TV has remarkable color accuracy—best I’ve seen out of the box for the price, at least as far as I can recall. The white balance is excellent as well. The black levels and backlight control—you know, blooming and halo mitigation—are remarkably good. The only thing that leaves me wanting more is the brightness. Now, don’t get me wrong—this
TV will get plenty bright for most of you. I guess I expected more for some reason, and honestly, I might be unfair there. But I’ll explore that later. For most of you non-TV nerds, this TV gets plenty bright for the price, and I do think most of you will be quite happy with it. Motion looks really solid so far. I say “so far” because I have so much more content that I want to watch. I do notice some stutter in streamed content, but judder in 24-frames-per-second movies is minimal—to the point of barely being worth mentioning.
And if you like motion smoothing, TCL has a great motion smoothing system that, applied judiciously, will get you a very clear, smear-free, stutter-free picture—without throwing you into full-on, fake-ass-looking soap opera mode. Upscaling—honestly, subjectively, it looks a little bit better than last year. I don’t know if that’s quantifiable because I don’t have another TCL model in the house right now to compare it to. But I will say, when I was watching the Super Bowl, it looked great—upscaling the 720p (or maybe it was 1080p) signal up to 4K.
Overall, the picture quality on this TV is stellar for the price—maybe the best I’ve seen from some perspectives, like the color accuracy for the price. But like I said before, I just find myself wanting more brightness for HDR highlights. Is that fair? I mean, do I have outsized expectations for a $1,000, 65-inch TV? Honestly, I don’t think so. The TCL QM7 from last year was definitely brighter, so I know TCL has been comfortable offering that kind of brightness at this price point. But you know what the QM7 didn’t have? It didn’t have this color accuracy. It didn’t have as clean a picture. It didn’t have a 144Hz native panel. I don’t think the black levels were this good. And
perhaps most notable—it didn’t have as good off-angle viewing as this TV does. And around that, let me be absolutely clear—the off-angle viewing experience on this TV? It’s not OLED-level awesome, but it is so much better than the previous VA-type LCD panels that TCL has used in the past. In fact, it is better than last year’s HVA panels that TCL used—so much so that I’m almost jumping for joy over here. If any reviewer out there doesn’t acknowledge that this is obviously superior for off-angle viewing, I question their integrity. I mean, it’s blatantly obvious how much better it is. I asked Chris to take a look at it, and he noticed it immediately. So did Zeke. When I stand off-angle from the 115-inch TV from last year, I can tell the QM6K has better off-angle viewing. If it doesn’t come across in
the video you’re watching—or whatever you’re watching it on—I’m going to have to ask you to trust me. I know you do. But trust my word on this thing specifically. Like I said, off-angle is not perfect, but it’s at least decent. ‘Cause in the past, it was B.A.D. And I don’t mean Michael Jackson bad—I mean borderline trash. Not just TCL—all of the VA panels had really bad off-angle viewing unless they had a very specific off-angle viewing filter, like some of the Samsung TVs we’ve tested. That stuff is usually reserved for extremely expensive TVs, so I consider this a huge step up and a great reason why you might want to buy this TV over a 2024 model.
Now, the problem is TCL CSOT—that’s TCL, the panel manufacturer—they’re selling this panel to lots of brands, not just TCL. So, you’re going to hear a similar story from competing brands, I think. But TCL is out here with it first, so they get the reign of praise. Folks, this is a great TV, pure and simple. I do want a little more sparkle for HDR, and I know that’s what Hisense is going to be bringing later this year. But unless Hisense steps it up in a hardcore, major way, I don’t think we’ll see color and grayscale performance from the Hisense equivalent to the QM6K here.
And if that’s the tradeoff? I mean, I think I’m going to take it. I’ll take the color on this TV versus slightly more sparkly HDR highlights. Yeah, I will. If you need more convincing, here’s how you know that I truly love this TV: I am going to recommend it to so many people this year. I have tremendous
confidence that this TV right here is going to make a lot of folks very, very happy. So, for now, this is going to be my go-to recommendation—and not just because it’s brand new. I would 100% recommend this TV over the 2024 TCL QM7. I don’t know that I would recommend it over the QM8 from last year, though. That TV can be calibrated for really good color accuracy, and the added brightness for both SDR and HDR might be worth spending about the same amount for the TV itself—and then a little more for a calibration.
Obviously, Hisense is in the conversation with its U7N from last year. But the color accuracy here? Well, that goes a long way with me, so I’m sticking to this TV in that comparison. As for the U8N from Hisense—uh, that U8N from Hisense is really powerful. That’d be hard to pass up if you were comparing the two. Here’s the thing about this TV that has me most excited: The QM6K here is this good at this price. The QM7K? The QM8K? Y’all—I think enthusiasts are about to see the best TV performance under $1,500–$2,000 that we’ve ever seen from QLED TVs. Really. That’s my prediction. I hope I’m right, and I cannot wait to find out.
For now, though—look. The TCL QM6K is the TV that most of the TV-watching public in the U.S. should get. It’s got what you need and then some, and it’s going to treat you to an amazing experience at a very nice price. Also, if you want a 2025 TV right now—as in, right as I publish this video—this is the only one out there. So maybe TCL’s strategy worked after all. Thanks so much for watching, everyone! I do hope you enjoyed this first TV review of 2025. Whether you did or not—will you let me know down in the comments? Your feedback means a lot to me.
Also, show your appreciation by slapping that like button! Subscribe if you’d like to see more great content like this—we’d love to have you back at the channel. That’s it for now—I’ll see you next time! And until then, here are two other videos I think you might like. Welcome back! (Oops… that’s bad for the voice.)
2025-02-22 07:27
