TCL's latest flagship soundbar has two major selling points: 360-degree spatial sound and tuning in collaboration with longstanding hi-fi brand Bang & Olufsen (via John Archer on X).

Launched in China at the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin TCL Flagship New Product Launch conference, the Q95K has 11.1.4 channels of sound, with 1420W of peak power across 22 speaker units, and includes a wireless subwoofer and two wireless surround speakers.

The 'bar itself has seven horizontal channels, two overheads and a subwoofer, while the wireless surround speakers have rear surround, rear side surround and rear overhead channels to complete the spatial audio experience.

The three-way physical acoustic unit and independent sound chamber design help the Q95K cover a frequency range of 30Hz to 20kHz, with overall distortion kept under 1 per cent. Neodymium iron boron magnets paired with aluminium diaphragms help maintain detail and vocal clarity.

TCL says that the subwoofer's bass should remain stable even at higher volumes thanks to the dual 7-inch opposed units with a long-stroke damping design. The opposed movement aims to minimise cabinet resonances that can affect the bass.

Audio crosstalk is also reduced with 12 independent power amplifier chips driving the different speaker units separately.

B&O has helped create the audio profile, collaborating in terms of both hardware and the algorithm. Sound can be adjusted using the built-in Beosonic Mood Mixer. The algorithm can also be optimised to reduce the soundbar's reliance on room acoustics or wall reflections to deliver 360-degree spatial sound.

Using the TCL app, you can activate adaptive sound calibration to personalise the audio to your room. 4K HDR video passthrough is supported, as are wi-fi and AirPlay 2 wireless technologies.

It also has a floating base to reduce desktop resonances and a grille to keep dust out. It can be placed on a cabinet or wall-mounted, and will adjust its audio accordingly.

It's not the only new soundbar TCL announced. It also unveiled the Q85K, with 7.1.2 channels and 1180W of peak power, and the Q75K with 7.1.2 channels and 580W.

They are all available in China, with the Q95K costing 7999 yuan (around £889 / $1200 / AU$1700), the Q85K 5999 yuan (around £666 / $886 / AU$1300) and the Q75K 4699 yuan (around £520 / $700 / AU$1000).

We've contacted TCL regarding wider availability and will update this if we hear back.

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If you want a satisfyingly cinematic or sporting experience at home, there really is no substitute for screen size.

The good news is that a big TV needn't cost big money. These days, 65-inch TVs go for much less money than you might imagine, and if you wait for a big sales event, your cash can go even further.

And it just so happens that we're right in the middle of a big sales event – Amazon Prime Day – and I've sifted through all of the deals to find three super-cheap 65-inch TVs that I can recommend as great buys.

• View all the Prime Day deals on Amazon

What do I know about it? I'm so glad you asked!

I've been testing TVs for almost 20 years now, so I know the good from the bad (and the ugly, for that matter). I've also been personally involved in every What Hi-Fi? TV review in probably the last 10 years – and that includes the reviews of the three models I'm recommending here.

Happy with those credentials? Excellent! Here are my three picks, ranked in order of quality.

1. TCL Q6C

Deal price UK: £529 at Amazon
Deal price US: n/a

If you're looking for the best-value 65-inch TV in the Prime Day sales, this is the one I'd buy.

The TCL Q6C impressed us so much in testing that we awarded it five stars and described it as "an absolute steal". That's high praise for any TV, but it's especially impressive when you're talking about a 65-inch set that's currently selling for well under £600.

What makes the Q6C stand out is that it brings technologies normally associated with much more expensive TVs down into the budget category. It uses a Mini LED backlight with local dimming, alongside Quantum Dot colour technology, and the result is a picture that's far more sophisticated than the price suggests.

In our review, we were particularly impressed by the TV's contrast and black-level performance. Dark scenes look surprisingly deep and convincing, while bright HDR highlights have real punch.

Colours are another strong point, delivering plenty of vibrancy and richness without tipping into the sort of exaggerated look that often plagues cheaper TVs.

It's also an excellent option for sport and gaming. Motion is handled confidently, helping fast-moving action stay clear and composed, while gamers get features such as 4K/144Hz support, VRR and low input lag.

No TV at this price is perfect, of course. The sound is merely decent rather than exceptional (something that can be rectified with one of the best budget soundbars), and you'll get the best results by spending a little time tweaking the picture settings. But those are minor caveats when the overall performance is this strong.

Simply put, if your budget stretches to the TCL Q6C, it's the best cheap 65-inch TV I've seen in the Prime Day sales.

2. Amazon Ember QLED

Deal price UK: £600 at Amazon
Deal price US: $710 at Amazon

The TCL Q6C is my top pick, but the Amazon Ember QLED isn't far behind, given its current Prime Day price.

In fact, one of my colleagues recently described the deal on this TV as "impossible to ignore", and it's easy to see why. Amazon has cut the price dramatically, turning what was already a solid mid-range TV into one of the most tempting bargains in the sales.

The Ember QLED is a significant step forward from Amazon's previous QLED efforts. It features a full-array backlight with 160 dimming zones and a panel that's considerably brighter than its predecessor, resulting in a picture that's sharper, punchier and more three-dimensional than you might expect at this sort of money.

During testing, we were particularly impressed by its detail levels and colour performance. Images look crisp and vibrant, while upscaling of lower-quality content is handled well enough that everyday broadcast TV remains enjoyable.

The TV also supports every major HDR format, including Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive, so you're covered regardless of which streaming service you use.

Another advantage over many budget rivals is the sound. Built-in TV audio is rarely worth talking about, but the Ember QLED produces a fuller, clearer and more spacious presentation than most affordable sets manage.

Why isn't it above the TCL? Primarily because the Q6C's Mini LED backlight delivers superior black levels, contrast and gaming performance. The Amazon also tops out at 60Hz, making it less appealing to serious gamers.

Still, if you're heavily invested in the Amazon ecosystem or simply want a big, capable and easy-to-use 65-inch TV for as little money as possible, the Ember QLED is an excellent Prime Day buy.

3. Samsung U8000F

Deal price UK: £367 at Amazon
Deal price US: $400 at Samsung

The Samsung U8000F is the TV I recommend if your budget is as tight as possible.

At £367/$400 during Prime Day, it's substantially cheaper than both the TCL Q6C and Amazon Ember QLED, and that price difference is impossible to ignore. In fact, it's one of the least expensive big-brand 65-inch models you can buy.

Of course, some compromises are inevitable at this sort of money. Unlike the TCL and Amazon models above, the U8000F doesn't have a Mini LED or full-array backlight, and its picture isn't as bright or as impactful when displaying HDR content. Black levels are also less convincing, meaning movie nights won't have quite the same cinematic punch.

That said, Samsung has done a commendable job with the fundamentals. In our testing, we found the U8000F delivered a balanced, natural picture that avoids many of the exaggerated traits often seen on budget TVs. Colours are pleasingly authentic, detail levels are respectable, and standard-definition and HD content are handled particularly well.

Samsung's excellent Tizen smart platform is another big plus. It's packed with streaming apps, easy to navigate and generally feels more polished than many rival smart TV systems.

The biggest reason to choose the U8000F over the TVs above is simple: value. While the TCL Q6C is undoubtedly the better performer and the Ember QLED offers a more advanced specification, both cost considerably more. If spending £500-£600 on a TV still feels like a stretch, the Samsung gives you a huge screen from a trusted brand for comfortably under £400.

No, it's not the best TV in this list. But when price becomes the priority, the U8000F makes a very strong case for itself.

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Here are all of the best TVs and the best TV deals you can get right now

Don't forget the sound: here are the best budget soundbars

If you have been looking for a way to bring the big-screen experience to your home, countless projectors and large TVs claim to deliver just that. And, with Amazon Prime Day now in full swing, plenty of different brands are offering tempting discounts across a range of products.

But which models will get you the best large screen, all while saving you some of your hard-earned cash? We have found two products to fit that particular bill – that will deliver an immersive screen size and have similar price tags. Each offers something different, but both can bring the big-screen experience to your home.

A super-sized TCL TV

First up, the gigantic 98-inch TCL C7K is a king-sized 4K TV at a jaw-droppingly low price. The five-star set would usually cost a respectable £2399, but Prime Day has seen this crash to a remarkable £1999 at Currys. Don’t get us wrong, that is still a lot of money. But for the sheer size and quality of the TV, this is a bargain price.

You get 3000 nits of brightness controlled with 2000 dimming zones, plus TCL’s Halo Control features, which aim to reduce the effect of backlight blooming. This is aided by an anti-glare film that reduces reflections.

It received a What Hi-Fi? Award last year, thanks to its spectacular brightness and colour, as well as its excellent gaming specifications. The dimensions of the TV alone are enough to blow your socks off, as we say in our review: “We’ve seen a few 98-100-inch TVs now, but the raw cinematic impact of seeing our favourite test movies and TV shows writ so large across our field of view never seems to grow old.”

The brightness is intense, especially at this size, with small HDR highlights looking every bit as dazzling as on pricier TVs. TCL’s Halo Control also does a stellar job of suppressing any unwanted blooms of light emerging.

In terms of sound, the TV offers a 6.2.2-channel system designed by Bang & Olufsen. It is detailed and clear, and never becomes overstated, harsh or brittle. It does, however, lack the levels of bass and immersion that a decent, dedicated Dolby Atmos soundbar would provide.

It’s very well equipped for gamers, with VRR, ALLM, and a 144Hz refresh rate. You get a full complement of HDR format support, but only two HDMI 2.1 ports.

Of course, a 98-inch screen will take up a fair bit of room in your home. If you don't have the space to accommodate, the option below might be a better fit for you.

And a more compact projector from BenQ

TCL’s super-sized TV is certainly a large beast to behold, but it is simply not a realistic addition to many people's homes. It measures 218cm wide, which is quite a challenge if you are working with a compact space. There is the option to wall-hang, but of course you need to have a wall capable of supporting its 55kg weight.

If that won’t work for you, there’s another way to get the big-screen experience. The BenQ W2720i is a 4K projector that holds the crown as the best mid-range model in our best projectors guide. The price for the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning projector has dropped from £1999 to £1799 at Richer Sounds, saving you a reasonable £200.

It offers a more compact option than the TCL C7K, as it measures 14 x 42 x 31cm (hwd) and weighs just 6.5kg. You can push the screen size up to a claimed 300 inches, which knocks the 98-inch TV out of the park.

When we reviewed the projector, we were met with a clean, detailed picture that still looked natural. We say in our review: “So crisp, detailed, pristine and full of texture and density are the W2720i’s pictures that they really do look 4K, even if pushed to prodigious image sizes.”

The Award-winner's connections go further than those of most projectors, by including three HDMIs, one of which provides ARC support for passing sound out to a connected AVR or soundbar, and one of which supports 4K/120Hz.

There are some limitations to consider with a projector compared with a TV. Any projector that costs less than £10,000 will struggle to produce deep black levels, especially compared with a Mini LED such as the C7K. The W2720i is still a great performer in this area when compared with rival projectors, but the TCL TV does a better job at recreating proper black depth.

You will also have to deal with a weaker picture performance in any sort of ambient light compared with a TV screen.

But the BenQ’s smaller footprint and impressive specifications may well suit your home cinema set-up better. It depends on which big-screen experience works best for you, but these stellar bargains on both products are worth looking into.

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Check out the best TVs we have reviewed

And this is our full review of the 98-inch TCL C7K

If you need a good TV, but are tight on cash, then there’s only one TV deal I’d recommend right now.

Specifically, Argos's current deal on the TCL C6KS. The deal lets you grab the Award-winning 50-inch TCL C6KS for £343 (save 20 per cent) when you use the TCLTV20 discount code at checkout.

Why this TV in particular, especially with Prime Day about to start at the stroke of midnight? Because it’s the best cheap TV money can buy, even at full price.

Offering a Mini LED panel, the set delivers the best performance we’ve experienced on a TV at its price. Delivering atypically high, but controlled peak and operating brightness levels, solid HDR support and a nicely balanced picture that punches well above its weight, you won’t find better set this cheap.

That’s why the TCL C6KS earned a five-star rating when we tested it and then went on to win the best budget 48-50in TV trophy at the 2025 What Hi-Fi? Awards.

It’s also why, even now, we stand by our verdict: “TCL’s latest ultra-affordable TV is even better than its specs suggest and fixes pretty much everything that was wrong with its predecessor. The price seems like it must be too good to be true – but it isn’t.”

Our only word of warning is that, as is always the case at this end of the market, there are some compromises. For gamers, its framerate is capped at 60Hz, so you won’t be able to run a current-generation games console or PC at full speed.

There is also some minor motion blur during particularly animated scenes. And finally, again, like all TVs at this price, its speakers are middling. You should budget for a soundbar if you don’t already have one, as a result. We’d recommend the Sony HT-SF150 / HT-S100F featured as the top budget option in our best soundbars guide, if you don’t currently have one.

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The World Cup kicks off in less than a week, and we bet that plenty of people are making some last-minute upgrades to their set-ups, including splurging on a new TV.

TV shipments are up six per cent year on year, according to global technology market research firm Omdia, and while we hope that everyone buying a new set is consulting our carefully curated list of the best TVs, the likelihood is that there is a fair amount of impulse purchasing happening.

We don’t judge here, and we understand that many people will walk into a shop and pick the biggest and cheapest 4K TV that you can get, but we urge you to take stock before swiping your card and calling it a day.

The World Cup is running for just over a month, but your TV will last a whole lot longer; maybe not for life, but multiple TV manufacturers tell us that the average person replaces their TV every seven years.

With that in mind, I have devised a simple three-question system that anyone primed to make an impulse purchase this weekend should ask themselves.

Question 1: is this TV good value?

A cheap 4K TV is one thing; a good value 4K TV is something else completely.

Yes, we are seeing the likes of Hisense and TCL line shelves with super-affordable 4K sets, and some of them are truly great TVs – take the Award-winning, sub-£400 TCL C6KS, for example. But some of these super cheap sets can cut corners.

Panel technology becomes more basic at this level. That’s fine for those who want to catch the game, but for cinephiles who appreciate films as much as they do footy, you might want to consider looking up towards the mid-range Mini LED models at least.

Picture processing also tends to be more pared back at this level, too. Motion and upscaling are two processing factors to be mindful of – the former to accommodate fast-moving players springing across the pitch, while the latter can deal with sharpening up standard-resolution feeds from terrestrial broadcast channels.

Gaming specification also takes a hit here, with very few TVs at this level offering HDMI 2.1 support. While they are not entirely barebones, you can expect to miss out on high-framerate console gaming at 4K, and some budget 4K sets sport fewer HDMI sockets overall.

While opting for an affordable 4K set is by no means a bad decision, you also have to remember that you will be using this TV for plenty of years to come, so future-proofing is always advisable.

If you’re looking for TVs that tread the line of cheap and good value, you should check out our list of the best cheap TVs for some inspiration.

Question 2: will it stand the test of time?

Nearly every TV we see these days features a smart platform. Google TV is used by TCL and Philips, Tizen OS is featured on Samsung, webOS is on LG TVs, and Hisense uses its Vidaa platform on its sets.

Not all operating systems are made equal, and updates and app support can vary greatly between brands. While we are seeing decent coverage of the major streaming apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, we have seen some worrying gaps.

BBC iPlayer, for example, is missing on Philips’s current suite of TVs, which is quite an issue when we take into account that a considerable number of World Cup matches will be streamed free on BBC iPlayer.

Longevity is also, once again, something to be mindful of. Notably, Samsung and LG have both committed to supporting their respective TVs with seven years of software support.

If you want a TV that lasts, and you rely on built-in streaming apps, then we recommend going for a TV from one of these brands, or instead investing in an external streaming device.

Question 3: am I leaving room in my budget for a soundbar?

Our advice to anyone buying a new TV is to budget for a soundbar to pair with it.

TV sound, unless you’re looking at the upper-echelon of OLED TVs that feature speaker systems tuned by notable hi-fi brands, is almost always a let down.

And if you’re preparing to listen to commentators for hours on end, the last thing you want is a built-in sound system that is thin, tinny, and fatiguing on the ears.

A good soundbar doesn’t have to cost the Earth. Take the Sony HT-SF150, which delivers a solid cinematic sound experience for less than £100; or the Award-winning Hisense AX5125H, which includes Dolby Atmos support, surround speakers and a subwoofer for under £200.

While a good sound system will undoubtedly give you a more authentic experience during the matches (think of audiences chanting and cheering), you will also find a range of benefits, including a better audio experience when it comes to music and movies.

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Check out our picks for the best budget soundbars

As well as the best OLED TVs

Chinese brand Haier is launching its latest range of affordable TVs, all boasting 4K resolution.

The new release is being led by the flagship S90 series, which the brand claims will combine “dynamic visuals, immersive audio with ultra-reactive gaming experience”.

This “immersive audio” comes in the form of Dolby Atmos support, delivering “three-dimensional and cinematic audio quality”. The two 10W speakers are employing technology from British hi-fi brand KEF as well.

The S90 uses QLED panel technology with AI picture optimisation, with Haier saying this results in “rich tones and smooth colour transitions”.

In terms of physical connectivity, you will find four HDMI ports, with one supporting eARC. We assume that means the TV can handle 4K/120Hz signals, given its 240Hz DLG feature, but when we asked a Haier representative for confirmation, they couldn’t provide a clear answer.

Haier is also launching the entry-level K85 and the mid-range S80 models. These step-down TVs do not have Dolby Atmos, but they do offer Dolby Audio for “clearer voices and more balanced sound”. The S80 features a QLED panel, like the S90, while the K85 uses a 4K LED backlight.

All of the TVs come with Freely built-in. That gives you access to streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, Channel 4 and ITVX in the UK. Fire TV acts as the smart platform for all the models, offering access to Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Each range offers slightly different sizing options. The S90 goes from 55- to 85-inches, with the latter being the biggest screen size across all the models. The K85 is available in 43- to 65-inch sizes, and the S80 from 43- to 75-inches.

If you want to get your hands on the 65-inch S90, it will set you back £580. That is certainly aiming at the affordable end of the market, so Haier has TCL firmly in its sights. The S90 is up against the likes of the TCL Q6C, which launched at £649 for the 65-inch model. When we had the TCL set in our test room earlier this year, we praised its excellent picture quality and gaming performance which meant we awarded it a five-star rating.

We are yet to see how the flagship Haier model compares, but its affordable price tag and comprehensive smart platform could spell trouble for the current market leaders.

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Check out our TCL Q6C review

These are the best budget TVs

And here are the best budget soundbars

Sony has finally announced its full 2026 TV range, and guess what’s missing? That’s right – OLED.

It was long suspected that the brand’s new flagship model would be an RGB Mini LED set to replace the Bravia 9 ‘standard’ LED model. And, sure enough, that’s precisely what we’ve got, in the form of the technically formidable Bravia 9 II.

What I wasn’t expecting, though, was no new OLED in the range at all.

No replacement for the Bravia 8 II is no surprise: Sony works on two-year lifecycles for most of its models, and the company’s awesome QD-OLED set is only a year old.

And I’m beyond expecting a replacement to the A90K, which launched way back in 2022 but appears to have been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in the warehouses of Amazon, Currys and John Lewis.

I was, though, expecting the Bravia 8 to get a replacement. Now two years old, Sony’s W-OLED model is struggling to justify itself against last year’s LG C5 and the newer C6. Surely a nip-and-tuck upgrade would be worth it, both for Sony and consumers who want meaningful choice when buying a step-down/mainstream OLED TV.

Alas, though, there’s not a single new OLED in Sony’s new range, with all three of its existing models expected to run for at least another year.

And that’s prompted in me a dreadful thought: what if Sony plans never to launch another OLED TV? Sadly, the more I think about it, the more I feel that’s a very realistic possibility.

It’s all about profit, of course, which is understandable; it’s saddening nonetheless.

You see, Sony buys all of the panels for its OLED TVs from its rivals: it buys the W-OLED panels for the A90K and Bravia 8 from LG, and the QD-OLED panels for the Bravia 8 II from Samsung.

This, inevitably, eats into the money the brand can make from these OLED TVs, especially while it tries to compete on price with those brands that both make the panels and sell the TVs.

Meanwhile, Sony’s Home Entertainment division, which is responsible for the design, development and manufacture of its TVs (and home theatre products), is about to become a joint venture between Sony itself and TCL, the latter of which will hold a 51 per cent share.

TCL is, of course, the biggest manufacturer of LCD TV panels in the world. It’s famously uninterested in OLED where TVs are concerned, and while it is in the process of building a huge factory where it will produce OLED panels via inkjet printing, these will be for smartphones, tablets and laptops, at least in the first place.

So, once the Sony/TCL joint venture begins operations at the start of 2027, will it have any interest in buying expensive OLED panels from its rivals so that it can produce Sony OLED TVs from which it receives very little profit? Or will it entirely focus on producing TVs using the in-house panel technology supplied by the TCL side of the merger?

Sadly, it’s not hard to imagine the answer to that one.

Of course, Sony says it is very much not done with OLED, and I sincerely hope that’s true, as I’m yet to test a backlit TV that beats an OLED overall. But Sony also needs to operate as a business, which means making profits. And that, I suspect, means saying goodbye to OLED.

With any luck, I’m wrong, but if the Bravia 8 II really does turn out to be Sony’s last OLED TV, at least it’s an awesome one.

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Check out our Sony Bravia 9 II hands-on and Sony Bravia 8 II review

Here are all of the best TVs you can buy right now

TCL has achieved phenomenal critical and commercial success over the past couple of years thanks to an (almost) unerring ability to deliver good picture and sound quality at prices so aggressive they’ve had rival brands quaking in their boots. And, on paper at least, the Q6C looks to keep the winning streak going.

After all, features such as Mini LED backlighting, local dimming and a Quantum Dot colour system all sound surprisingly close to the specs found in TCL’s What Hi-Fi? Award-winning C7K series – yet the Q6C costs significantly less.

We guess there must be a catch somewhere, but on TCL’s current form we wouldn’t be at all surprised if whatever catch we find really isn’t that big a deal.

Price

Normally, if you spend £650 on a 65-inch TV, you would expect to get… not very much. Not for the first time in recent years, though, TCL is here to rewrite the TV value rulebook.

The set in question this time is the Q6C, the 65-inch version of which usually only costs £649 yet manages to carry such features as 4K/144Hz gaming support, Google TV smarts, Quantum Dot colours and even a sophisticated Mini-LED backlight system with local dimming.

We’ve been around the block enough times to know that such specifications aren’t automatically a guarantee of great picture quality – but at the risk of showing our hand too early, in the Q6C’s case they really do add up to something pretty special for the money.

TCL also sells 55-, 75-, 85- and 98-inch Q6C models for £409, £819, £949 and £1499 respectively. These are all pretty remarkable prices for screens built on the same key specs as the 65-inch model, where the only major difference is the number of dimming zones (more for the bigger screens).

The Q6C’s main competition, really, is TCL’s own C7K step-up model, which costs £200 more at the time of writing.

TCL also sells a C6K model which, it says, is identical to the Q6C. However, further up the range, TCL's ‘C’ variants often have a different panel coating to their “identical” ‘Q’ counterparts. The fact that matte vs glossy coatings can make a significant difference to picture quality, and that we haven’t specifically tested the C6K, this review only applies 100 per cent to the Q6C.

Design

At first glance, the TCL Q6C looks like a chip off the old TCL block. A narrow black frame runs around the screen, boasting a reasonably premium finish, and the screen sits on a pair of simple arched blade-style feet. These angle out slightly, bringing more attention to themselves than they would otherwise, but this stance also helps the set feel pretty sturdy and wobble-free.

As you go about screwing on the feet in either of the provided wide or close position options, though, you can’t help but notice first that the set sticks out around the back quite a long way by today’s TV standards, and also that the screen is significantly lighter than TCL’s more premium sets.

Most folk don’t spend their lives looking at the back of their TV, though, and the rather lightweight and plasticky nature of its build quality isn’t something you really feel aware of once the TCL has been set in place.

The Q6C’s remote control apes the TV it partners by quite effectively disguising an essentially rather lightweight and plasticky build behind a cute brushed finish, a sleek, long, thin shape, and an ergonomic button layout. That button layout includes direct access buttons for Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ and TCL’s own collection of live-streaming ‘channels’.

Features

Despite its aggressive price, the Q6C is built around a native 4K screen with Mini LED backlighting and a local dimming system that works, in the case of the 65-inch model we’re testing, across 242 independently controlled zones. At this price, local dimming of any kind is a rarity, so getting 242 dimming zones is a real treat. That said, the not vastly more expensive C7K features more than a thousand dimming zones.

The Q6C produces its colours using Quantum Dots, with which TCL claims to cover 93 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour spectrum used for most HDR mastering. The HDR support extends to both the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ premium formats, with their extra scene-by-scene image information, as well as the core HDR10 and HLG formats.

The set is also IMAX Enhanced certified, meaning it’s been judged capable of doing justice to the special noise-limiting IMAX Enhanced mastering system used on a few 4K Blu-rays and a fair number of films (especially Marvel releases) on Disney+.

Impressively for its money, the Q6C also gets one of TCL’s new HVA panels. These introduce a variety of innovations, including a faster transient response for enhanced clarity; a new light-emitting chip claimed to deliver 50 per cent brightness and 10 per cent efficiency boosts over its predecessor; and a new condensed micro lens system over the LEDs, that apparently focuses light better for greater backlight uniformity, optical stability and halo control.

Smart features on the Q6C, as with most of TCL’s current TVs, are provided by the Google TV platform. Unlike most other brands that use Google TV, though, TCL has managed to get BBC iPlayer on board alongside the other key terrestrial UK broadcaster catch-up apps, and all of the main global streaming services. The only things you don’t get that some rival smart systems offer are Freeview Play and Freely.

Gamers are exceptionally well catered for by the Q6C. It supports 4K/144Hz (and the console-friendly 4K/120Hz) gaming, and can even increase the frame rate to 288Hz if you’re prepared to accept a drop from 4K to Full HD resolution. VRR is supported, too, including in the AMD FreeSync Premium Pro format, and there’s even support for Superwide aspect ratios if you’re playing a PC game that supports them.

A special gaming menu becomes available when the TV knows you’re gaming, too, offering information on the incoming gaming signal as well as easy access to a selection of gaming aids that include a superimposed crosshair, the option to magnify part of the image to give, say, a mini-map more prominence, a couple of genre-specific picture presets, and an option to enhance shadow details in dark game sequences to make it easier to spot lurking enemies.

In a perfect world, all four of the Q6C’s HDMIs would support the full gamut of today’s gaming features rather than just two of them, but you don’t get perfect worlds on 65-inch TVs that cost this sort of money.

The Q6C’s sound system, finally, isn’t one of the Bang & Olufsen-designed systems found higher up TCL’s range. It’s still designed with another acclaimed audio industry brand, though, Onkyo, and still includes a couple of dedicated bass woofers on its rear panel to underpin the sound from its main stereo speakers. This sound system is capable of playing both Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual:X sound formats.

Picture

While the Q6C doesn’t quite hit the giddy picture-quality heights of TCL’s C7K, it gets closer than the price gap would lead you to expect. This means that it also comfortably outguns pretty much every other 65-inch TV around at the same sort of price point – including Samsung’s recently reviewed U8000F.

The single most impressive thing about the Q6C's supposedly budget pictures is their black level performance. Once again, TCL’s particular combination of an HVA panel, local dimming, Mini LED lighting and local dimming processing results in excellent blacks in both dark scenes or dark picture areas and the black bars of widescreen content.

Hardly a hint of greyness slips into dark scenes, and backlight haloing around stand-out bright objects during dark shots is also remarkably well controlled for a 65-inch TV at the Q6C’s price point. We’ve seen 65-inch LCD TVs costing hundreds, even thousands, of pounds more than this TCL fail to deliver black tones so effectively.

As well as instantly giving the Q6C an outstanding foundation for the rest of its images to build on, its excellent black levels are also achieved without causing shadow details to become crushed out of the darkest areas. Dark scenes thus look as three-dimensional and immersive as bright ones, creating a sense of consistency that makes it easy to remain fully immersed in what you’re watching.

The Q6C’s remarkable freedom from the sort of hardware and/or processing issues that almost always to some extent plague the picture quality of other similarly affordable TVs continues across pretty much every other aspect of its picture performance, too. Images look crisp, clean and detailed enough to leave you in no doubt that you’re watching a native 4K screen, for starters – especially if you leave the set’s Precision Detail feature on (which you might as well, as it doesn’t seem to cause any negative side effects) and turn the Digital and regular Noise Reduction features off (at least when watching native 4K sources). Even the Q6C’s upscaling of HD sources is well above par for its level of the market.

Colours impress, too. There’s more vibrancy and lustre on tap than we usually see with such affordable TVs, yet at the same time, in most presets, the impressive vibrancy doesn’t look forced or unnatural. Skin tones look believable, there’s practically zero HDR colour striping, and subtle shading differences are rendered with enough finesse to ensure that even the most colourful images feel three-dimensional and realistic rather than cartoonish and flat. The nuance in the Q6C’s colours contributes in no small measure to the image's impressive sharpness, too.

The Q6C is not as bright as TCL’s step-up C7K model. It’s bright enough, though, to do arguably better justice to HDR images than any other similarly affordable 65-inch TV we’ve seen, combining good full-screen brightness with strong brightness peaks. All delivered alongside those excellent black levels we described earlier.

There are signs beyond its lower brightness that remind you that the Q6C is a step down from the C7K. While it’s faint, where backlight haloing does occasionally become noticeable, it spreads further beyond the bright highlight that’s causing it than it does with the C7K. That includes spreading very occasionally into the black bars of a movie if a really intensely bright object appears right next to them.

The very brightest highlights of bold HDR masters can also cause clipping, where subtle shading and colour details are lost in a sort of ‘white out’ effect, and skin tones can occasionally teeter on the edge of coarseness where they happen to catch bright sunlight, too – though they seldom if ever actually tip over into a distracting level of roughness.

Motion, once you’ve either turned the set’s motion processing off or left it on its low setting (to avoid unwanted over-smoothing or processing side effects), is marginally more prone to judder and blur with 24p movie sources than the C7K’s images are. But again, compared with the vast majority of rivals at its price point, the Q6C’s motion performance is actually pretty easy on the eye.

Colours can desaturate quite noticeably if you watch the screen from a steep angle of around 45 degrees or more, and blooming becomes slightly more noticeable. These problems are usually much more noticeable with budget VA LCD TVs, though, and from narrower angles.

To finish on the high note the Q6C’s pictures deserve, it’s a pretty stellar big-screen gaming display for its money. Graphics look crisp, bright and colourful, while the high frame rate support ensures gaming also feels fluid, smooth and responsive. The responsiveness is further bolstered by a measured input lag of just 13.1ms at 60Hz.

Sound

The Q6C’s Onkyo-designed sound system isn’t as ‘hi-fi’ in tone or as well-rounded as the B&O systems found higher up TCL’s current range. It’s not bad at all, though, for such an affordable TV.

Particularly surprising is the size of the soundstage it produces with DTS:X and, especially, Dolby Atmos mixes. Ambient effects and off-screen details appear well beyond the TV’s left, right and even top edges without the staging becoming incoherent or thin.

Dialogue seems to be coming from the screen rather than somewhere beneath or behind it, helping it sound impressively clear and clean. It still sounds contextualised enough, though, rather than bright or sharp.

Movie scores exist outside the scope of the main in-scene sound, just as they (usually) should, and sound effect detail levels are high enough to point to more quality in the speakers than you’ve any right to expect for this sort of money. Specific location details aren’t, to be clear, placed with the sort of accuracy you get with premium TV sound systems from the likes of Samsung, Philips and Sony, but the Q6C certainly does more with them than most similarly priced rivals.

There’s plenty of volume available, too, and while the sound density and power tend to level off during escalating action or horror scenes rather than continually expanding right to a scene’s climax, at least the sound doesn’t actively collapse under pressure.

Bass levels aren’t quite as rich and deep as we might have hoped, given the presence of two subwoofers on the set’s rear, which occasionally causes some high-pitched ambient effects to sound a little too dominant. Even the epic bass drops of Blade Runner 2049, though, don’t cause the bass speakers to seriously distort or drop out. In fact, the only distortion during Blade Runner 2049’s famous opening soundtrack dynamics comes from the treble, which causes a slight ‘buzzing fly’ effect when the speakers are under their greatest pressure.

The bottom line, though, is that, as with its pictures, the TCL Q6C’s sound is better than that of most, if not all, other TVs in its price class.

Verdict

If the Q6C cost twice as much as it does, we’d still class it as good. In fact, for a 65-inch TV at its price, it’s nothing short of ridiculous. If this is how TCL signs off its current range, we seriously can’t wait to see what the brand brings to the table next.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

Read our review of the TCL C7K

Also consider the Samsung U8000F

Read our Mitchell & Brown QLED1811 review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

We've gone hands-on with both the TCL C8L and C7L already, and now we have UK prices ahead of them going on sale this month. And it's good and bad news.

The C7L is £100 cheaper than the C7K at 65 inches. Which is cause for celebration. But pooping the party somewhat is the C8L, which is £300 pricier than the C8K. Boo!

The C8K and C7K both earned five stars, with the latter also picking up a What Hi-Fi? Award.

As you'll see below, some prices have risen, while others have fallen. Both new models are quite a bit cheaper at their largest 98-inch sizes.

Both models boast TCL's Super Quantum Dot technology, which eschews the pivot to RGB Mini LED that most manufacturers are making this year.

This includes TCL's new Deep Colour System, which should reduce colour bleed between light and dark areas, boost colour gamut performance and colour dot accuracy, and minimise the halo effect that comes with blooming.

The full model names are the C8L-UK SQD-Mini LED TV and C7L-UK SQD-Mini LED TV. In the US, they're called the QM8L and QM7L.

Here's how they compare to last year's equivalents.

Of course, these are only RRPs – the actual prices are likely to drop throughout the year. The big question is, will the discounts be as significant as last year? The 65-inch C7K ended up selling for just £899, and is currently available for £50 less than that. Which, coupled with its excellent performance, helped it on its way to an Award.

Stay tuned for our best TV deals for a bargain. We'll have full reviews of both models soon to see if they can equal their five-star predecessors.

MORE:

The best TVs money can buy

Big screen, small price: get a brilliant budget TV ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026

A load of five-star OLED TVs we recommend are disappearing – will they come back?

Roku and TCL have been accused of knowingly selling TVs with defective software that stops them working. The accusation was made in a class action lawsuit in California, USA.

The Roku OS operating system features on TCL's more affordable TVs. It's accused that faults with the former are affecting the latter, as well as other Roku TVs.

Plaintiff Terri Else alleges that Roku's software updates left the TVs inoperable. Issues include the TVs being 'bricked' (i.e. showing a black screen and unable to operate), restarting over and over, the screen flashing on and off, and freezing.

The lawsuit was filed against Roku Inc. and TTE Technology Inc. (trading as TCL North America) in the United States District Court, Central District of California.

It states that "Roku's software updates are repetitively defective, materially impairing the functionality of Roku Products, rendering many consumers' televisions either entirely unusable ("bricked"), blacked out, or otherwise substantially degraded in terms of device performance".

It also accuses the firms of failing to issue a fix to the problems they have introduced.

It says that Roku is a platform "which cuts corners, failing to ensure that the software updates are actually free of defects both in testing stages and at scale, failing to adequately invest in software updates which harmonise with the Roku Products, and failing to take appropriate remediative and corrective action once a defective software update is released".

Models affected include – but are not limited to – the Roku Select Series, Roku Plus Series, and TCL 3/4/5/6 Series Roku TVs.

The lawsuit points to complaints on Roku's official community forums, highlighting issues, and the responses that amount to "often unsuccessful self-guided troubleshooting instructions".

It says that the firms' failure to take action is a breach of express and implied warranties, as well as California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

The lawsuit demands a jury trial and requests declaratory and injunctive relief plus damages and restitution for members of class action.

Apple recently settled a class action lawsuit in California that could see affected customers paid $95 each (around £70 / AU$130).

It's early days yet in the suit, so it's likely to be a while until any conclusion is reached.

A Roku spokesperson told us: "We believe the claims are meritless." We've contacted TCL for comment and will update this if we hear back.

MORE:

The best TVs you can buy

A load of five-star OLED TVs we recommend are disappearing – are they coming back?

Big screen, small price: get a brilliant budget TV ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026

TCL has announced its latest answer to the art TV craze, and it's packing an upgrade that could see it produce a better quality picture than most of its rivals.

The A4000 Pro NXTVISION blends style and substance, with a frame-like chassis that challenges Samsung's super popular The Frame and Hisense's Canvas TV.

It's designed to blend seamlessly into your living room environment, and when paired with the Art Gallery mode (which features curated artwork and AI-generated content) and included walnut woodgrain frame, it doubles as a versatile piece of wall art when not in use.

Sounds familiar so far, right? Well, TCL hopes to set its offering apart by bringing the picture quality up to standard, as some of the frame TVs on the market sacrifice panel tech for the sake of design.

Not TCL, though, as it has included its precise QD-Mini LED backlight on this TV, and paired it with a matte HVA panel, which should improve viewing angles. That's quite a step up over Hisense's edge-lit QLED Canvas TV.

TCL claims to have included up to 488 dimming zones (presumably this refers to the largest 75-inch screen size), and the A4000 Pro also supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

Furthermore, this TV can support gaming signals up to 4K/144Hz over HDMI 2.1, with VRR and ALLM supported, making this a solid choice for gamers and home decor aficionados alike.

TCL has also included the Google TV smart platform and an Onkyo-tuned 2.0 channel sound system, which supports Dolby Atmos and DTS Audio. It says that "dialogue is clear and immersive without requiring an external audio set-up" on the A4000 Pro NXTVISION, which will appeal to minimalists who don't want trailing cables.

This TV comes in four sizes, starting at 43 inches, and it undercuts both of the rivals we've mentioned above. The 55-inch model starts at £899, which seems like a bargain compared to the equivalent Hisense, which we reviewed at £1099.

Samsung's 2026 Frame Pro (which is also billed as a Mini LED art TV), comes in at a staggering £1699 for the 55-inch model, which makes the TCL also look like a steal by comparison.

The TCL A4000 Pro NXTVISION is set to launch later this year, and you can see pricing for all sizes below:

• 75A400 PRO-UK – £1,399
• 65A400 PRO-UK – £1,099
• 55A400 PRO-UK – £899
• 43A400 PRO-UK – £599
  

MORE:

Read our full Hisense Canvas review

Check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

And read our full TCL C7K review

We're almost a third of the way through 2026, and if there's one takeaway from the world of TVs, it's that maybe too much is happening.

I'm deeply immersed in the release schedules and latest technologies tied to the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony, Philips, Panasonic, Hisense and TCL, and yet even I'm finding 2026 to be one of the most confusing years for TVs to date.

Part of that is a good thing, as we're getting lots of exciting innovations this year, which are sure to define generations of TVs to come, but they're ultimately meaningless if the messaging is unclear.

I've been catching up with the brands mentioned above since January, getting behind-the-scenes access to some of the more exciting TVs to launch this year. But, despite my extensive access to TV experts from said brands, I still have plenty of unanswered questions...

RGB Mini LED: mid-range marvel or premium panel tech?

The biggest TV news of 2026 is that practically every TV manufacturer is launching new backlit TVs with this state-of-the-art panel technology.

RGB Mini LED looks to be the successor to Quantum Dot Mini LED, as it strips away the QLED layer and swaps a white backlight for individual red, green and blue LEDs in the pursuit of greater colour accuracy and backlight control.

On paper, this sounds great, and we've even seen a few impressive sets, including the Hisense UR8 and TCL RM9L, in action. We've also just been treated to a demo of Sony's True RGB system.

The issue is that these companies can't decide where to position RGB Mini LED. And this lack of clarity on its place in the pecking order is already causing confusion.

Samsung and Hisense seem to be championing it as flagship technology, meaning it's reserved for premium models that sit alongside (or, in some cases, above) OLED TVs. Samsung's R95H appears to sit alongside the brand's S95H QD-OLED this year, which can only signify that the Korean AV giant sees it as a top-of-the-line technology.

Philips and LG, on the other hand, maintain that it sits below their respective OLEDs. Philips has been more open about this, as it claims "OLED is still the reference", and the company's mid-range MLED981 sits below even the entry-level OLED761.

So, which one is it? Is this new panel tech best suited to flagships? Or is it not capable of challenging even some of the most affordable OLEDs on the market?

Is OLED in trouble?

We were blindsided by two prominent OLED TV manufacturers, Sony and Panasonic, essentially selling off their TV businesses to Chinese firms, TCL and Skyworth. The latter is only handling Panasonic's European TV division.

Both Japanese giants are known for producing high-quality, and often fairly pricey, OLED TVs, but that may be about to change. While we can't speak entirely for Sony, we do know TCL's firm anti-OLED stance (specifically for TVs, the company uses OLED for mobile and automotive displays), so we don't have high hopes.

What we can presume is that Sony likely won't launch a premium OLED TV this year, as it now employs an unconventional release schedule, where each model is only refreshed every two or three years – or in the case of the A90K, possibly longer. The Bravia 8 II launched last year, so we expect this to stick around until 2027.

Speaking of not launching a new premium OLED, Panasonic confirmed that the Z95B will continue as its flagship offering in 2026. As it stands, the entry-level Z86C will be the only new OLED from the legendary Japanese AV company this year.

Pair that with the LG G6 being the first in the series to not score five stars (you can read our full LG G6 65-inch review here), things are already looking interesting for this year's What Hi-Fi? Awards judging process.

All we'll say is that it's a good job that the LG C6 is a simply superb OLED TV, as it might be among a modest cohort of new models this year.

Is Dolby Vision 2 really coming this year?

The final slightly baffling hot topic in the TV world is Dolby Vision 2. Now, I've seen it in action a couple of times, and I have to say that it looks superb, but there are so many unanswered questions.

Hisense and TCL were announced as launch partners at IFA 2026, and yet neither referenced it at their respective launch events in Europe last month. Furthermore, when questioned about it, Hisense confirmed that it should be coming to its 2026 TVs, but possibly not at launch. Instead, it'll likely be added via a software update down the line.

Philips, on the other hand, made no qualms about Dolby Vision 2 Max being supported on its 2026 OLEDs, including the OLED911. This feels more promising, especially when LG and Sony have remained especially tight-lipped about the new HDR format for quite some time.

There is, of course, the issue of Dolby Vision 2 content. To our knowledge, the only services that will support Dolby Vision 2 are Canal+ and NBC's Peacock service, neither of which really has the mainstream draw of Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video.

It is, of course, early days, so we could see more services pick the format up, but the creation of Dolby Vision 2 content is still a mystery right now.

Looking to a buy a TV now? Here's my advice...

If you're in the market for a TV now, my honest advice would be to hold out until we gain a little more clarity.

The best TV that we've tested this year (so far) is the LG C6, and while it is brilliant, it's also expensive right now. We expect this price to drop steadily throughout the year, as the C5 and C4 did, so your patience should be rewarded.

We're also yet to review any of the new RGB Mini-LED models, so if you can wait until we make a judgment on these upcoming TVs, we'd recommend doing so. It's entirely possible that RGB Mini LED could surpass OLED in terms of picture performance, but we won't know until we try them ourselves.

And if you're confused by the state of the TV world in 2026, then don't worry – we live and breathe TVs here, and even we're feeling a bit overwhelmed.

MORE:

Read our full LG C6 65-inch review

The LG C series is a bit of a mess right now, and it's all the better for it

Check out our picks for the best OLED TVs

April is usually when practically every TV manufacturer has officially unveiled its lineup of TVs for the year, and I've had the pleasure of seeing almost every new model in the flesh.

From new Primary RGB Tandem OLED flagships, to game-changing RGB Mini LED sets, and even affordable mid-range models (both Mini LED and OLED), the 2026 TV market is officially in full swing after a busy string of launches.

I started my year at CES, where Samsung and LG stole the spotlight with flagship OLED TVs, and from there I've attended hands-on events with Panasonic, Philips, Hisense and TCL to see each company's respective new TV ranges.

While we're still yet to hear from Sony about what it has up its sleeve (especially in the wake of its partnership with TCL), it's looking like a majority of the big players in the TV world have locked in their lineups.

I've selected the five that have caught my eye most at these events, and even included a bonus option which boasts some major improvements over its disappointing predecessor.

1. Philips OLED911

Kicking things off with Philips, the OLED911 is a sequel to one of my favourite TVs of 2025. The OLED910 offered up a picture experience that truly rivalled the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II, and there was no competition when it came to sound performance.

Its sequel, the OLED911, was unveiled at Philips' Unboxed Event in Berlin last month, and it stole the spotlight at the showcase.

It sports a second-generation Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel with an even higher claimed brightness figure than its predecessor and improved anti-reflective qualities to combat glare from ambient light.

Furthermore, it features a major upgrade for gamers: four HDMI 2.1 sockets (all of which support up to 4K/165Hz with VRR and ALLM), and it is also the first OLED TV in the world to support Dolby Vision 2 Max.

Rounding things off with the improved 81W Bowers & Wilkins sound system, which includes a slimmer rear-mounted subwoofer with four passive radiators, and dedicated left, right and centre channels, all of which feature dual 45mm midrange glass-fibre drivers alongside a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter.

This TV is feature-packed, and it comes in a slick new design as well, which makes it one of my top TVs to watch out for in 2026.

Read our Philips OLED911 hands on review

2. TCL C7L

While the pricey OLEDs are unquestionably the more eye-catching sets I've seen at these events, I've also been on the lookout for some of the more affordable options, which are guaranteed to shake up the mid-range TV market in 2026.

Case in point, the TCL C7L, which is a follow-up to the Award-winning C7K. Spotted at the company's Nxt Home launch in Paris last month, the C7L stood out thanks to its new Super Quantum Dot Mini LED (SQD-Mini LED) display, which promises more dimming zones, higher brightness figures, and better colour accuracy.

It's got big shoes to fill, but the TCL C7L promises to make some big picture upgrades over its five-star predecessor, which was enough to get me excited during my brief hands-on time with the new Mini LED set.

Read our TCL C7L hands on review

3. Samsung S99H/S95H

If we were giving out an Award for the luxurious TV of 2026, then Samsung's new S99H (S95H in the US) would have already won.

This new flagship OLED TV sports a brighter QD-OLED panel (Samsung claims there's a 700 nit upgrade in the TV's movie picture mode), and there have also been reported improvements to colour reproduction and banding visibility in lower-quality content.

Samsung has also made some changes to the One Connect system. The TV sports four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets housed within the main chassis. However, there is also an optional wireless One Connect box, which expands this to a whopping eight HDMI 2.1 sockets.

These upgrades sit inside a new, premium chassis that incorporates a Frame-style metal bezel, on which the QD-OLED panel sits to create a floating effect. I've seen this TV wall-mounted, and paired with the matte display finish, it really does look like a work of art.

I was treated to an early sighting of this TV at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea, and was there to see its official unveiling at CES 2026. Despite being severely jet-lagged in both instances, this TV was an absolute showstopper at both events.

Read our Samsung S95H hands on review

4. Hisense UR8

2026 is a big year for backlit TVs, as the next generation of Mini LED panel technology is here.

RGB Mini LED was introduced on a handful of 2025 TVs, namely a 115-inch Samsung model and a 116-inch Hisense. It should come as no surprise that these gargantuan TVs with their first-generation panel technology are wildly expensive.

Thankfully, that's all about to change in 2026. Hisense isn't the only company to welcome the new panel technology into its line up this year; however, it wants to be known as the RGB Mini LED brand, and the UR8 is just one of its new models.

With promises of high brightness figures and rich, pure colours, Hisense is really going all-in on the new panel technology, which hopes to succeed Quantum Dot Mini LED.

Interestingly, I've opted for the cheapest RGB Mini LED in the range, which I came face-to-face with in Munich, Germany, last month.

This is mostly because I, and many others, presumed that a new panel technology would equal huge introductory price tags, and yet Hisense claims that this step-down model – which comes in 55-, 65- and 75-inches – will hit the market at a "competitive" price.

Read our Hisense UR8 hands on review

5. Panasonic Z86C/Z85C

Speaking of step-down TVs, Panasonic has only announced one new OLED TV this year, and it's unfortunately not a successor to the excellent Z95B from 2025. Instead, Panasonic (which is now producing its European TVs in collaboration with Chinese AV brand Skyworth) unveiled the Z86C (Z85C in Europe) at its event (also in Munich) earlier this year.

This entry-level OLED TV sports LG Display's new OLED SE panel technology, which removes the polariser to cut back on costs. This will, of course, reduce the TV's ability to combat glare and reflections, but for dark-room viewing, the Z85C should be just fine.

With its 120Hz refresh rate, supported by two HDMI 2.1 sockets, the Z86C is also a solid choice for gamers. In my brief experience with the TV, I found that even at this entry-level point with a stripped-back panel, the contrast and black depths that OLED brings to the table were unquestionably great, even if this TV didn't quite rival its Award-winning Z90B counterpart.

Read our Panasonic Z86C hands on review

Bonus: Sony Bravia 3 II

I'm sneaking in this TV as a bonus option, and I'm even breaking my own rules here as it's not a TV I've seen in the flesh. It's no secret that the Sony Bravia 3, which I reviewed last year, was a bit disappointing, especially by Sony's usually excellent TV standards.

It ultimately came down to the hardware limitation; the Bravia 3 featured a 60Hz direct-lit LED panel with no QLED layer, which made it feel quite expensive, especially considering it outpriced the Award-winning TCL C7K (which featured a 120Hz QD-Mini LED display).

I have to give credit where credit is due though; Sony has come back with a MKII refresh which directly addresses my gaming-focused concerns, and it even brings something new to the table for Sony TVs.

While we don't get Mini LED or even QLED here, it does now feature a 120Hz panel and four, yes four, HDMI 2.1 sockets to support gaming features.

Better yet, the Bravia 3 II now comes with Sony's XR processor, which has worked wonders in its more expensive TVs, especially when it comes to enhancing the sharpness and solidity of the image.

While I feel as though Sony could (and probably should) have crammed in another upgrade or two, these are certainly steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, this TV isn't currently slated to come to the UK yet, meaning we'll have to wait to see if this TV is an improvement over its predecessor.

Find out more about the Sony Bravia 3 II here

MORE:

Read our full LG C6 65-inch review

Check out our picks for the best OLED TV

As well as the best Mini LED TV

TCL ruled the affordable TV roost in 2025.

The 65-inch C8K is the best premium TV that we've seen from the brand to date, and the genuinely cheap 50-inch C6KS took home a What Hi-Fi? Award thanks to its excellent picture quality and diminutive price tag.

However, the sweet spot from the Chinese AV giant's 2025 range is the C7K. We called it the "performance-per-pound champ" thanks to its "super-aggressive pricing, much-improved Mini LED backlighting and expansive Quantum Dot colour"; it should be pretty clear why we like this TV as much as we do.

So, you can imagine our delight when we came face-to-face with its successor, the C7L, during the company's Nxt Home event in Paris. While our first encounter was fleeting, the claimed upgrades are enough to pique our interest.

We have a few initial thoughts and some impressive specs to share, but our complete review will come further down the line, once we've fully tested the C7L in our dedicated AV testing facility.

Price

TCL hasn't shared pricing information for the C7L yet, but it promises that it's coming soon. As long as it can get the price on par with the C7K, we'll be happy.

We reviewed the 65-inch version of that TV at £899 initially; however, at the time of writing, it can be snagged for just £749. That's mind-boggling value for a TV of this size and ability, so we hope TCL is equally aggressive with this sequel.

Design

As you'll see from our hands-on pictures, TCL opted to showcase the C7L by mounting it on a wall. That makes judging the build quality and design fairly tricky.

We have seen photographs of the TCL C7L with its stand attached, though, and it looks almost identical to the C7K.

That means we can expect a fairly substantial centrally mounted pedestal stand and slim bezels surrounding the screen; that said, the pictures we've seen suggest this TV may be slightly slimmer than its predecessor.

If we're being honest, the build wasn't exactly the highlight of last year's C7K. It's quite a chunky and plasticky TV, though (as we mentioned in our full review), that's to be expected for "a premium TV being sold for a barely even mid-range price".

Features

Here's where things get exciting.

TCL is introducing the next generation of its Quantum Dot Mini LED panel technology this year, and it sounds like the C7L will be among a handful of models (including the C8L and X11L) getting a superpowered upgrade.

The new panel technology is called Super Quantum Dot Mini LED (or SQD-Mini LED for short), and it incorporates a few key picture upgrades.

TCL highlights its new Deep Colour System, which it claims will help to reduce colour bleed between light and dark areas, so colours remain natural and authentic in scenes with challenging contrast.

Furthermore, TCL says that there has been a 33 per cent improvement in colour gamut performance and a 69 per cent improvement in colour dot accuracy, which should result in richer, more authentic colours and enhanced subtlety and precision, respectively.

On top of this, TCL is touting better light control as part of its new SQD-Mini LED panels. It has blooming in its sights, and it says that it aims to "effectively minimise" the presence of the halo effect through its All-Domain Halo Control System.

Realistically, we're not expecting an OLED-level experience here, but TCL is promising a "more natural and immersive" experience when it comes to the most challenging hurdle for most backlit TVs.

Speaking of the backlight, TCL has been very forthcoming with the C7L's number of dimming zones and claimed peak brightness figures.

The 55-inch model will reportedly sport 800 precise dimming zones, the 65-inch version will have 1152 dimming zones, the 75-inch model will feature 1352 dimming zones, the 85-inch version will have 1624, and the 98-inch screen size will cram in an impressive 2176 precise dimming zones.

Brightness-wise, TCL says that the 55-inch model will max out at 2700 nits, whereas the other models (65- to 98-inches) will feature a slightly higher peak brightness figure of 3000 nits. For reference, the 65-inch C7K that we tested had a claimed peak brightness of 2600 nits.

TCL is also outfitting the C7L with its HVA 2.0 Pro Panel technology, which should supposedly support wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees, and greatly reduce reflectivity, even in high-brightness environments (making this, on paper, ideal for daytime living-room viewing).

As is the case with its existing range, the C7L continues the company's HDR agnostic approach. This means it supports Dolby Vision (with Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Vision Gaming), HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG. Sound is also covered thanks to Dolby Atmos support, and this TV is among a select few to natively support Dolby Atmos FlexConnect.

We'll quickly touch on built-in audio, too. TCL is continuing its partnership with Danish high-end hi-fi brand Bang & Olufsen, and this TV (like its predecessor) sports a sound system that's been tuned by B&O.

TCL didn't go into much detail regarding driver configurations or power output, but we expect something similar to the C7K's sound system.

Gamers should also feel right at home on the C7L.

The TV sports a native 144Hz refresh rate with VRR, although TCL's Game Accelerator feature will reportedly allow you to double the refresh rate to 288Hz (at Full HD resolution rather than 4K), while also retaining VRR.

TCL also claims that it has reduced latency on this new model for improved response time, and ALLM is also supported.

Finally, the C7L will support Google TV for a wide range of streaming apps. Based on our experience with the C7K, we expect it to carry the version that supports all of the terrestrial UK streaming platforms, alongside the ever-expanding list of global streaming apps.

Picture quality

As is the case with many of the TVs that we see at these hands-on events, the C7L featured a looping roll of demo content that doesn't entirely represent real-world content.

Furthermore, it looked as though the C7L wasn't in one of its most authentic picture modes, but that's to be expected, as TCL wants to show off this TV's new brightness and colour capabilities to their fullest.

This seems to have worked, as the C7L was mounted on a wall with several other TVs, and yet it stood out the most among the bunch. This is mostly due to the rich, vibrant colours exhibited by the set, paired with the improved brightness.

While this did throw up some over-saturated colours – notably in the case of some concerningly neon foliage – we're fairly sure we could wrangle these colours back into a more natural state by switching over to Filmmaker Mode.

One of the demo shots simply showed a white TCL logo on an all-black background, and while it's early days, we were impressed by how deep the blacks looked for a backlit TV.

The blooming control around the TCL logo was fairly impressive too: while there was unquestionably a white glow around the company's logo, it seemed fairly localised and controlled.

We'll need to test the C7L further, in a more accurate picture mode, to further assess colour accuracy, motion and detail levels with real-life content, but we can certainly see where TCL is going with this SQD-Mini LED panel tech from this brief introduction.

Sound quality

Disappointingly, TCL didn't demo the C7L's built-in sound system. Despite it carrying the name of a notable high-end hi-fi manufacturer, we didn't get to hear it at TCL's event, so we'll have to reserve judgment for this section until our full review later this year.

What we can say is that the C7K sounded pretty good during our testing, so we hope that TCL continues this trend. We commended its clean, detailed sound, which conveyed an open mid-range and impressive treble, which covers much of the day-to-day listening requirements.

However, we found that it held back slightly when it came to producing low-end frequencies, which left the sound feeling somewhat unbalanced, especially when it came to dense cinematic soundtracks.

On our wishlist for the C7L is more bass, which should help to round out an already impressive sound system nicely.

Early verdict

We'll need to test the C7L in our dedicated home cinema testing space to reach a final verdict, but this is so far shaping up to be another impressive mid-range TV.

With a souped-up panel and a long list of specs to suit cinephiles and gamers alike, the C7L could be another compelling Mini LED TV – so long as TCL gets the pricing right.

MORE:

Read our TCL C8L hands-on review

As well as our TCL X11L hands-on review

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Samsung’s old dominance of the budget TV market has been severely challenged in recent years, most notably by the likes of Hisense and, especially, TCL.

Can the 65-inch U8000F do enough within its measly price to make the Korean brand the king of TV value once more?

Price

In the UK and US, at least, being able to bag a 65-inch Samsung U8000F for £469 / $430 really does look like a potentially huge bargain.

It’s perhaps not quite such an eye-catching deal in Australia, but when all is said and done, even AU$1299 hardly looks excessive for a 65-inch TV with the usually dependable Samsung name attached.

There are, as we’ll come to later, plenty of reasons why this TV is so affordable. These reasons don’t, though, include anything that might automatically disqualify it from being a potentially good performer for its money.

Not surprisingly, in today’s TV world, the strongest competition for the U8000F comes from TCL – in particular from the C7K and C6KS models, the 65-inch versions of which cost in the UK £829 and £479 respectively. The latter model actually adds local dimming and Mini LED lighting to the equation, despite costing more or less the same as the Samsung U8000F.

Design

The 65-inch U8000F is predictably built predominantly from fairly lightweight plastic. This makes it easy to move around, though, and actually, its bodywork still feels decently rigid and robust. That’s helped, perhaps, by the use of some attractively integrated ribbing in parts of the rear panel.

It’s fairly chunky around the back by today’s TV standards, making it a slightly awkward-looking wall hanging option – but you don’t notice its depth so much when it’s mounted on its pair of included feet.

These feet handily just slot and lock into holes on the screen’s underside, without the need for any screws. They’re positioned quite wide apart, however, meaning you’ll need a fairly wide TV stand to accommodate the TV.

The U8000F’s bezel tastefully sits more or less flush with the screen it holds, and is narrow enough when viewed head-on to prevent you from spotting the bodywork’s fundamentally plasticky nature.

The TV ships with two remote controls. One is an old-school looking chunky affair with a full button count, while the other is a much sleeker number with a nice polished finish and much reduced button count. It doesn’t carry a solar panel like the ‘smart’ remotes you get with Samsung’s premium TVs, but it’s comfortable to hold and easy to use.

Features

The panel at the 65-inch U8000F’s heart is understandably fairly basic by Samsung LCD standards. It’s lit by big ol’ regular-sized LEDs rather than Mini LEDs, and its backlighting doesn’t benefit from any sort of true local dimming system. It’s only a native 60Hz panel, too, which may limit its appeal to gamers with 120Hz (or more) consoles or PCs.

Most surprisingly of all, it doesn’t get a colour system built around Quantum Dots. Instead, as with all of Samsung’s U series TVs of the past few years, it gets something called PurColour, backed up by a Crystal 4K processor that’s a good few notches down in power and sophistication from Samsung’s Neo QLED processors.

If this PurColour system can still map colours accurately and subtly, though, it could still be enough to help the U8000F stand out from the budget TV crowd.

The TV supports high dynamic range video, including in the premium HDR10+ format. There’s no Dolby Vision, though; it seems like hell will need to freeze entirely over before Samsung joins most other TV brands in bringing Dolby Vision to its TVs.

The U8000F’s smart features and interface are provided by Samsung’s home-grown Tizen OS. This would normally be fine; Tizen now carries basically every streaming and catch-up TV service almost anyone could want, bar Freeview Play and Freely. You can operate the TV and find content by talking to it, too, via Samsung’s Bixby system or an external Alexa device. It maintains a dedicated Game Hub screen from which you can access streamed gaming apps or any game consoles or PCs you have connected.

Unfortunately, though, the 65-inch U8000F struggles with the demands of the latest Tizen system, typically running very sluggishly when it comes to opening menus, and booting up apps and streaming services.

While the U8000F’s lack of 120Hz support for gaming is unfortunate (if hardly surprising for such a cheap TV), it does have a few other gaming tricks up its sleeve. These include ALLM switching, VRR support and the HGiG system, whereby the TV essentially passes HDR output control to your Xbox or PlayStation console.

The set also takes just 9.7ms to render graphics when running in its Game mode – one of the lowest such figures we’ve measured.

Picture settings, meanwhile, include a Filmmaker Mode, raising hopes of an easily accessible route to accurate picture quality for AV enthusiasts, as well as Samsung’s suite of Picture Clarity tools for making pictures look cleaner and sharper. The Picture Clarity options here, though, do not include a blur reduction system as you get with more premium Samsung TVs; there are only noise reduction and judder reduction components to play with.

The U8000F’s sound is delivered by a fairly basic 2 x 10W sound system, bolstered by Samsung’s Q Symphony and OTS Lite features. Q Symphony lets the TV’s speakers join forces with those in Samsung soundbars, while OTS Lite uses nifty audio processing to try to make specific sounds appear to be coming from the correct part of the screen.

Connections on the U8000F, finally, comprise a trio of HDMI ports, a single USB-A port, an Ethernet port, the RF jack, a CI slot and, of course, wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options.

Picture

The U8000F is very much a tale of two picture settings, looking very respectable for its money in its Standard mode, but struggling to meet the demands of AV enthusiasts with its Filmmaker Mode.

Starting with the good news, the Standard mode’s pictures immediately look surprisingly bright by budget TV standards. There’s a very clear step up in brightness between SDR and HDR content, as well as a mild expansion in the HDR image’s colour range. Enough in both cases to make HDR look convincing and surprisingly natural – helped by the presence of a surprisingly effective dynamic tone mapping system (a feature that’s by no means a given at the sort of price level the U8000F is operating at).

The TV’s brightness in Standard mode sits alongside some quite respectable black tones for such an affordable TV. This makes dark scenes comfortable to watch, and creates a degree of contrast that again helps to sell the idea that this is a more HDR-friendly TV than most of its similarly priced rivals.

We should stress that we’re not talking about depths of black in dark scenes of the sort you’d get with an OLED or premium LCD TV – there’s always a hint of grey to remind you that you’re watching a fairly affordable LCD screen – but the impact of this is mild by cheap TV standards.

Dark scenes contain plenty of shadow detail on the U8000F, too, avoiding that flat, hollow look so commonly encountered with budget TVs. Especially budget TVs that are as focused on producing a convincing black tone as this Samsung model seems to be.

The U8000F’s pictures are also sharp enough to look definitively 4K – and thanks to some crisp upscaling, this feels pleasingly true with HD sources as well as native 4K.

The sharpness does dip, though, due to some resolution loss over moving objects that none of the available Picture Clarity settings can completely fix (though choosing a Custom setting with Judder Reduction set to level four or five can at least reduce the impact of the screen’s quite strong native judder with 24fps sources).

There are a couple more Standard mode niggles to report as well. First, very bright picture areas can clip a little, meaning they lose subtle shading information and end up looking so stark that they draw too much attention to themselves (though this reduces with Dynamic Tone Mapping active). Second, colours in relatively dark scenes can ‘clump’ a little, so that very detailed areas such as grass or leaves become a bit rough and ill-defined.

You can also sometimes notice a slightly distracting lag between the backlight system dimming and brightening during scenes that feature abrupt cuts between dark and light shots, and finally, there’s a narrow stripe of light leakage running down the left and right sides of the picture – though this is only generally visible in the black bars above and below 21:9 and similar-ratio films. It’s typically too faint to appear where there’s any sort of picture information other than pure blackness on the screen.

While it’s good to find a very affordable TV that is ambitious enough to carry a Filmmaker Mode, unfortunately, that mode isn’t much fun to watch on the U8000F.

Clipping, for instance, becomes quite extreme without any Dynamic Tone Mapping in play, while motion looks both juddery and soft.

Colours feel flatter in Filmmaker Mode, too, and the image generally lacks impact. Perhaps the biggest issue with Filmmaker Mode, though, is that for some reason, perhaps due to its reduced brightness and contrast, dark scenes suddenly reveal multiple areas of backlight clouding at various points across the screen. You can reduce the impact of this if you watch in a little ambient light, but it’s a shame this feels necessary.

Dark scenes look generally a little greyer in Filmmaker Mode, too, and this greyness can also sometimes take on a slightly green or blue tint.

Not everything about the Filmmaker Mode is a bust. Colours look slightly more even-handed and nuanced, which contributes in particular to a touch less colour clumping in densely textured areas. Shadow detail is still strong, too, despite the extra clouding. Ultimately, though, the Filmmaker Mode’s slightly more nuanced feel in some areas isn’t enough to make it the sort of instant cinematic hit that movie fans might have hoped for.

There’s one more issue to mention, too, that actually affects all of the U8000F’s picture settings: viewing angles. View the TV from really any sort of angle, and the VA panel design causes contrast to take a substantial hit, with parts of the picture that should be black taking on a vivid blue-grey tone. Basically, if your room layout requires lots of people to routinely watch this TV from the side, it’s probably not the TV for you.

Sound

The first thing to say here is that we recommend pretty much always turning the U8000F’s Amplify sound mode on. Without it, the sound tends to feel small and trapped inside the TV.

Even with Amplify mode on, the U8000F’s sound doesn’t exactly shake your foundations. There isn’t much bass depth or presence, and volume levels, even set to maximum, are hardly going to burst your eardrums.

While we might have wished for the U8000F’s sound to give us a bit more, though, what it does give us is actually quite clean and engaging – at least to the extent that the TV seems to understand its speakers’ limitations.

So, bass, while not heavy, seldom distorts or crackles. Treble, while not particularly extended, doesn’t tend to sound harsh or forced. Voices are quite well-rounded and contextualised, and surprisingly, given there are only two speakers in play, the OTS Lite system places voices and spot effects decently accurately in the right place on the screen.

This all makes the sound quite clean and therefore immersive by budget TV standards, making it surprisingly easy to live with.

Verdict

The 65-inch Samsung U8000F is overall a solid TV for its money. It’s up against some stiff and only slightly more expensive competition, and it’s certainly not without its limitations, but provided you aren’t a die-hard cinephile desperately on the hunt for a good Filmmaker Mode, the U8000F’s Standard picture setting actually serves up a cleaner, more balanced, more punchy and above all more consistent performance than most rivals in its class.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 4

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The proposed Sony and TCL joint partnership has taken another step forward today, with the new entity to be called 'Bravia Inc'.

This new name has been revealed as part of an announcement that the TCL/Sony takeover of Sony's Home Entertainment business has moved from the "memorandum of understanding" phase announced in January, to a "legally binding definitive agreements" phase.

I don't know about you, but I think 'Bravia Inc' is a pretty cool name, and it also suggests to me a Sony-first focus that I find encouraging.

And there are other details to be encouraged by if you're concerned about the future of Sony TVs and home cinema.

For starters, while we know that TCL will have 51 per cent control of the new company, whereas Sony will have 49 per cent, Bravia Inc will be headquartered in Sony's Tokyo HQ, and its CEO will be Sony's Kazuo Kii.

And, according to a Sony representative, "the two companies will be considered nearly equal partners".

Yes, I do worry about the "nearly" in that quote, but I think the new company being based at Sony and being led by a long-term Sony staffer are positive signs.

I don't want it to seem as though I don't have respect for TCL's involvement here, by the way, because the Chinese brand of course has a lot to offer, but it's the future of the Japanese legend that I'm most concerned for – and I know many readers feel the same.

As I wrote previously, this merger has the potential to be a good thing for both Sony and TCL, if the qualities of each are leveraged in the correct way.

And, indeed, that does appear to be the plan, with the Sony representative explaining that Bravia Inc will marry "Sony’s high-quality picture and sound technology, premium brand value, and operational expertise, alongside TCL’s advanced display technology, global scale, manufacturing footprint, end-to-end cost efficiency, and vertically integrated supply-chain capabilities."

This is what most of us want: Sony's peerless processing and premium products, boosted by TCL's scale and bleeding-edge hardware.

That quote, though, has given me pause for thought: where does OLED factor into all of this?

TCL, famously, cares not for OLED. Its focus is very much on advanced LED backlighting. More zones, more brightness and, as of 2026, so-called 'Super QLED' tech.

The prospect of Sony getting access to this panel technology at the developmental stage and weaving its magic to produce future flagship backlit TVs is naturally tantalising, but will there also be OLEDs in the range? I'm beginning to doubt it.

The beauty of this partnership from a business perspective is presumably that Sony will have first and super-cost-effective dibs on TCL's panel hardware. Does it also want to be buying notoriously expensive OLED panels from LG Display and/or Samsung Display? I don't think so.

Would the TCL (slightly more than) half of Bravia Inc even allow such a thing? Again, I'm not sure.

There is the possibility that TCL will eventually leverage its new inkjet OLED factory for the production of televisions, but that's far from a sure thing, and there's a question mark over how well-suited inkjet OLED panels are for use in TVs anyway.

All of which has got me wondering: could the Bravia 8 II, Bravia 8 and A90K turn out to be Sony's last OLED TVs?

We may not know for a while yet – Bravia Inc isn't expected to start its operations until April 2027 – but I certainly hope not.

In my eyes, OLED is still the best TV technology, and Sony leaving it behind would be a great shame.

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Read our Sony Bravia 8 II review and Sony Bravia 9 review

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Now this one is a bit bonkers, really.

A full Dolby Atmos home cinema with, practically, a 100-inch screen for three grand? If you had asked me for an estimate on the overall cost of that lot a decade or so ago, I would have had to double that price. At least.

And ease of use? Forget it. This was the realm of the full home cinema projector (with a decent screen) and a good multichannel amplifier with a full surround sound speaker system to go with it – and hours of painstaking set-up to go with it.

Not with this system. Just three components (one of which is really only a bonus) that are a doddle to set up together are all you need for a stunning, cutting-edge home cinema.

The system

• TV: TCL 98C7K (£1999)
• Sound system: Samsung HW-Q990F (£849)
• Console: Sony PlayStation 5 (£400)
• Total system price: £3248

The TV

TCL seems intent on finishing off the projector business – in the home at least – as quickly as possible.

To get this screen acreage on a TV for less than £2000 was complete science fiction a few short years ago. To get it today, and for it to have the performance capabilities it does, is astonishing.

Yet here we are. How TCL has managed to deliver so much TV for so little money is, frankly, beyond us.

The 98C7K is an all-out assault on the super-sized screen market. And it achieves the seemingly impossible: a 98-inch 4K Mini LED TV for a price that would make many 65-inch sets blush.

The raw cinematic impact of a 98-inch picture never grows old, but this TV is far more than just sheer acreage. It is built on a foundation of spectacular picture quality, driven by its Mini LED backlight and Quantum Dot colour system.

TCL claims a mighty 3000 nits of peak brightness, which, when married to more than 2000 separately controlled local dimming zones, results in a picture that is dazzlingly bright and contrast-rich.

Small HDR highlights, such as the glint of metal or the gleam in an eye, look bold and lifelike, while bright daylight scenes maintain much more brilliance than even the best OLEDs can muster up.

TCL’s new ‘Halo Control’ technology is the ace up its sleeve. This impressive tech focuses on greatly reducing the unwanted light halos that can plague local-dimming LCD sets.

While subtle, deliberate clouding is occasionally introduced to disguise potential blooming, the overall result is a beautifully handled performance with contrast, with deep, convincing, neutral black tones and a vibrant, subtle colour palette.

The picture also feels sharper and denser than previous models, holding up nicely even with motion, and the set supports every major HDR format: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.

The console

Crucially, for the modern living room, the 98-inch C7K is a superb gaming hub.

It supports 4K/144Hz, VRR (including AMD FreeSync Premium Pro), and ALLM, with an input lag of just 13.1ms at 60Hz.

It’s an enormous, responsive window into your gaming worlds – which is why we suggest you include a PS5 in this set-up, and connect it to one of the TV’s two full HDMI 2.1-capable ports.

Gaming on this scale needs to be experienced to be believed, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of the TCL’s talents in this area.

Besides, you can also use the PS5 as a Blu-ray player while you’re saving up for a dedicated machine for your amazing new home cinema.

The sound system

While the enormous telly boasts (or tries to boast, at least) a 6.2.2-channel sound system, designed in conjunction with Bang & Olufsen no less, our usual advice with a big-screen TV holds true, even with one as big as this: invest in decent sound to make the most of your lovely big picture.

And with Samsung’s Award-winning HW-Q990F soundbar system currently available in UK shops for vastly less than the £1699 price at which we believed it worthy of not only five stars, but also a Product of the Year gong for 2025 – our choice of sound booster was clear.

The HW-Q990F is last year's iteration of Samsung’s exemplary all-in-one solution. And it has taken an already spectacular package and turned it into an exemplary one.

The Q990F is an 11.1.4 system, boasting 23 drivers across the main bar, the wireless rear surrounds, and the sub. It supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and it sounds terrific.

Dialogue sounds excellent, with natural and detailed voices that carry plenty of subtle inflexion.

This carries forth to sound effects, and, as we say in our review: “We have to commend the Q990F’s delivery of Dolby Atmos effects. The ‘bubble of sound’ that we look for in any Dolby Atmos system is well and truly present here, and it’s not just the impressively placed height effects that we like. It's the way that the soundbar and surrounds are so tonally well matched, while the audio processing ensures that sounds move organically between the channels, that truly seals the deal for us.”

The real star of the show is that new subwoofer. Samsung has swapped from a tall, narrow unit to a much more compact, rounded-cube design. Don't be fooled by its smaller dimensions compared with the sub that comes with the Q990D; this one packs an almighty punch.

We find the Q990F’s bass to be rich, powerful, and, most importantly, controlled and dynamic. It’s a huge step up from the previous model. There is a newfound sense of tonal variation in the low-end, making the bass feel more organic and seamlessly integrated into the system as a whole.

The TCL 98C7K and the Samsung HW-Q990F work so well together. The TV’s only real weakness – the inevitable shortfall in sonic ability – is surgically corrected by the soundbar’s greatest strength: its class-leading, controlled, and deeply textured low-end from the new subwoofer.

The verdict

The TCL 98C7K delivers a picture that is utterly dominant and absorbing, with intense brightness and deep contrast, and it does a great job of replicating the look of a premium, high-end cinema display.

The Samsung HW-Q990F soundbar system then adds the scale and immersion to the sound that the picture deserves. The 11.1.4 system’s superb delivery of Dolby Atmos effects – the precise placement of height effects, the organic movement of sound – wraps the enormous visual in a convincing, three-dimensional audio landscape.

You get a full 98 inches of bright, sharp, detailed, and colourful 4K images, backed by a dynamic, cohesive, and deeply immersive surround sound performance – all without the hassle and cost of a separate AVR and countless passive speakers.

Now that, for us, is the definition of a fuss-free cinema. Just make sure your room is big enough for that telly…

MORE:

Read the full TCL 98C7K review and Samsung HW-Q990F review

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Sony has just taken the wraps off two new TVs, but if you were expecting a new QD-OLED to replace the Bravia 8 II or a successor to the Bravia 9, you might be disappointed.

That's because these two new models are both budget-oriented – and one of them came out in the US last year.

The genuinely new TV is the Bravia 3 II which, as the name suggests, replaces the three-star Bravia 3.

The good news is that the Bravia 3 II features several upgrades over its predecessor.

The most eye-catching of these upgrades is the introduction of four HDMI 2.1 sockets, which, in combination with the 120Hz panel, means the TV supports 4K/120Hz gaming (plus VRR and ALLM) across all of its HDMI inputs.

That's a first for a Sony TV, and hopefully it points the way towards this becoming standard across the brand's range in the future.

The next major upgrade is the processor: the Bravia 3 II receives the XR Processor, which has until now powered only models from the Bravia 5 and up.

This XR Processor brings with it Sony's XR Triluminos Pro technology for wider colour gamut coverage and the XR Clear Image feature for AI-powered upscaling.

Unlike the Bravia 3, the Bravia 3 II also features Netflix Calibrated, Prime Video Calibrated and Sony Pictures Core Calibrated picture presets, which are designed to deliver the most authentic picture quality from their respective streaming services.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sony has just been in touch to clarify that these calibrated modes won't be present on the Bravia 3 II at launch, but will instead be added at an as-yet unspecified later date]

What hasn't been upgraded, at least on the face of it, is the backlight.

Sony refers to the Bravia 3 II as simply having a 'Direct LED' backlight, and makes no mention of local dimming. That leads us to believe it will, like its predecessor, lack any form of local dimming.

In a world in which TCL offers affordable models with backlights that feature Mini LEDs and 1000+ dimming zones, that's undeniably disappointing, even though Sony has a reputation for squeezing the absolute best out of its hardware.

If you're a UK reader thinking that the Bravia 3 II still sounds like a tempting TV proposition, I'm afraid I have some more bad news: it's not currently scheduled to launch in the UK.

Sony says this is something to do with catch-up app certification, which sounds a little strange, but it does at least seem as though there's a good chance the TV will make it from mainland Europe to the UK at some point in the future.

In the regions in which the Bravia 3 II is launching, it will be available in sizes ranging from a fairly bijou (by modern standards) 43 inches, right up to a whopping 100 inches.

Bravia 2 II

Then we have the Bravia 2 II which, as mentioned, launched in the US last year.

As the name suggests, this TV sits below the Bravia 3 II, and it is in fact the new entry point to the Bravia range (there are models further down in Sony's range, but they're not designated Bravia models).

Once again, this is a 'Direct LED' TV, and as you would expect, it lacks the 120Hz panel and HDMI 2.1 sockets of the Bravia 3 II.

The Bravia 2 II also features Sony's X1 chip, rather than the XR Processor.

As with the rest of Sony's Bravia range, the 2 II features the Google TV smart platform, and it has the Sony Pictures Core app built in.

It will be fascinating to see how much the Bravia 2 II launches for in the UK. It will be available in 43-, 50-, 55-, 65- and 75-inch sizes, and in the US, the 65-inch model currently goes for around $700, which seems a little high in comparison with many TCL models.

We'll update this piece with confirmed pricing when we get it, and we will of course be reviewing the Bravia 2 II just as soon as we can get our hands on one.

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Sony and TCL are close to reaching a deal for the latter to buy the former’s TV division. The deal is said to be worth $1 billion, Bloomberg reports.

Sony and TCL announced the deal in January. At the time, Sony said that the announcement “reflects an initial memorandum of understanding” and that “further details are still under discussion”.

Now it seems the deal is progressing. It could all be finalised as soon as this month, according to Bloomberg.

This is the first inkling we have had of how much the deal could be worth. The $1 billion figure comes from “people familiar with the matter” who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the information.

Talks are said to be “at an advanced stage” but no final decisions have yet been made.

The deal sets up a joint venture for Sony’s home entertainment division, including its Bravia TV brand. It hands 51 per cent of the venture to TCL, with Sony retaining the remaining 49 per cent.

Under the venture, TVs will still be produced carrying the Sony and TCL names, but will use TCL’s screen technology. It is planned to take effect from April 2027.

TCL has been on a run of good form lately, picking up What Hi-Fi? Awards in three of the TV categories at the end of last year. Sony won an Award for the Bravia 8 II.

We have approached Sony and TCL for comment.

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TCL has had a great run of TVs lately, but now the division has suffered a blow. It's been banned from marketing certain models as 'QLED' following a court case with Samsung in Germany, Korea Times reports.

The court ruled that the models in question (including the TCL QLED870 series) do not deliver the kind of colour reproduction expected from quantum dot LED (aka QLED) TVs.

TCL has disputed the claim.

The District Court of Munich I ruled that, in marketing the TVs as 'QLED', TCL's German subsidiary violated the country's unfair competition law.

According to the court, the quantum dot diffusion plates used by TCL didn't improve the colour reproduction as expected. Hence calling the TVs 'QLED' constituted a deceptive trading practice.

QLED TVs work by using a blue light as the backlight. Between this and the panel a quantum dot film is applied to enhance colour reproduction. This results in more precise colours that are more accurately placed within the picture.

TCL claims its TVs do qualify as QLED as it has applied quantum dot particles on diffusion plates.

Following the ruling, TCL can no longer market or sell these TVs, or others using the same technology, as QLED models. The court's ruling is only binding in Germany, but Samsung has launched similar lawsuits in other countries, including the US. So chances are this won't be the end of it.

We would also expect TCL to appeal.

We've contacted both TCL and Samsung for comment, and will update this story if we hear back.

TCL was previously accused of falsely claiming its TVs had QLED status by Hansol Chemical, a Korean manufacturer of materials needed for quantum dot displays. Hansol filed a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission in 2024.

Whatever the merits of the case, TCL's 'QLED' TVs have reviewed very well of late. The C7K and C6KS even won What Hi-Fi? Awards last year. Expect to hear more about this case going forward.

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Last week, I spent the day looking at several of LG’s new 2026 TVs alongside members of the company’s product development team. During that day, one phrase kept popping up: “OLED is still king”.

It’s not a great surprise to hear this from LG. While it was coming from members of LG Electronics rather than the panel-producing LG Display division, the fact remains that the LG organisation as a whole is more heavily invested in OLED technology than any of its rivals.

So, while LG is launching an RGB Mini LED TV this year (somewhat disingenuously under the name ‘Micro RGB’), there’s a sense that the company is responding to market pressure rather than leading with conviction. LG is positioning this MRGB set below its flagship OLED models – and possibly even below the C6, though that will only become clear once pricing is confirmed.

According to LG’s Maarten-Joost Möller, the brand’s MRGB TV is “for people who want to have a huge TV with a lot of brightness”.

“It's specifically a big TV,” he continues, and the one to buy “if [someone doesn’t] want to spend the money on an OLED, because a 90-inch OLED, or even a 75-inch [OLED], sometimes is exceedingly expensive for some people.”

To emphasise the point that this is a pure play for brightness and vibrancy (the MRGB95 can hit a claimed peak brightness of 4000 nits and can reproduce almost 100 per cent of the BT.2020 colour space), LG would demonstrate its RGB Mini LED set only in its Vivid mode during the event.

But while LG clearly has a vested interest in defending OLED in the face of the “OLED killer” claims being made by many of its rivals, I actually rather agree with its “OLED is still king” sentiment.

Now, I haven’t yet seen all of the new RGB Mini LED TVs coming this year, and I’m yet to see TCL’s rival Super Quantum Dot sets in the flesh. But nothing that I have seen over the past 12 months – including some very advanced prototypes – has convinced me that OLED is even particularly close to being toppled as the premium TV tech of choice.

Yes, many of these TVs can go brighter than most OLEDs. And thanks to new RGB LED architectures, they can often reproduce a wider colour volume. But, ultimately, they are all still backlit TVs, and in my view, that immediately puts them on the back foot compared with the self-emissive pixels of OLED.

However advanced Mini LED becomes, it is still fundamentally managing a backlight. Having smaller LEDs increases contrast. Having more dimming zones reduces blooming. Improved optical layers enhance viewing angles. But it’s all mitigation.

OLED, by contrast, doesn’t need to manage light – it simply produces it at a pixel level.

Each pixel is lit individually, so it’s like having 8.3 million dimming zones with perfect, bloom-free contrast, and viewing angles that are more or less flawless. There’s no haloing to suppress, no light bleed to tame, no backlight algorithm trying to guess what should be dark.

Watch a dimly lit corridor scene in Alien: Romulus and the difference becomes clear. The inky blacks of deep space, the pinpricks of harsh industrial lighting, the subtle gradations in shadow – with OLED, those elements coexist naturally. With even the best backlit sets, you are often aware, however faintly, of the system working behind the scenes to keep blooming and grey haze at bay.

These qualities, to me, are far more valuable than another thousand nits of peak brightness. They make for a more immersively cinematic experience, where you’re entirely focused on the film rather than the technical gymnastics your TV is performing to mask the drawbacks of its panel technology.

That’s not to say OLED is perfect. Peak brightness still trails the most extreme Mini LED sets, and very large panels remain expensive. If you want a 100-inch screen with stunning brightness for less than the price of a new car, RGB Mini LED currently can’t be beaten.

But for overall balance – contrast precision, viewing angles, black depth, and cinematic authenticity – OLED still leads.

There’s still every chance that one of this year’s RGB or SQD Mini LED TVs will surprise me and genuinely challenge OLED’s dominance. I hope that happens – competition drives progress, and better picture quality is good for everyone. I’m just struggling to picture it.

OLED will be beaten one day – perhaps by real Micro LED if it ever becomes affordable. But that day isn't today – and I don’t yet see it on the horizon.

For now, at least, I’m inclined to agree with LG.

OLED is still king.

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Panasonic has announced that it’s entered a partnership with Chinese AV brand Shenzen Skyworth, under its parent company Chuángwéi RGB, to secure the future of its OLED, Mini LED and QLED TVs in Europe.

After years of speculation, and confirmation from Panasonic itself that it was looking to restructure and potentially offload its struggling TV business, a deal has finally been struck to ensure that the brand will continue to sell TVs in the UK and European markets.

Announced at Panasonic Experience 2026 in Munich, Chuángwéi RGB’s CEO Peter Zhang confirmed the partnership, and assured members of the press that the company will work alongside Panasonic to continue delivering products that “stay true to Panasonic TVs”.

The deal hands the production, research and development, and sales duties to Skyworth, while Panasonic will provide input in development, using its years of experience in the AV industry to ensure Skyworth continues to produce high-quality sets under the company’s name.

Panasonic will also handle technical support of TVs purchased before March 2026, with this deal set to officially begin on 1st April 2026.

The goal of this strategic partnership (the same term used by Sony and TCL when they announced their respective deal) is to scale up Panasonic’s presence in Europe.

Skyworth promises to leverage its manufacturing, development, resources and scale to expand Panasonic’s presence within this crucial market.

Panasonic has been losing market share to the likes of Samsung, TCL and Hisense in recent years, and the brand wants to regain some of that to solidify its position as a “top five global television brand”.

We also speculate that this deal will greatly reduce the cost of Panasonic TV production.

While we’re happy to see Panasonic soldier on, especially after it produced two five-star TVs last year, in the form of the Z90B and Z95B (both of which roll over into 2026 and will stay in Panasonic’s TV lineup), we can’t help but feel the same pang of scepticism we felt upon Sony announcing that it will sell a majority stake of its home entertainment business to TCL.

That being said, the sentiment that “Panasonic TVs will stay Panasonic TVs” was echoed constantly throughout the company’s press conference on Monday, so we hope that both companies stick to their word here.

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Comparing a Sony and TCL TV is of even more interest now than it was just weeks ago, following the industry-shaking announcement that Sony is planning to sell 51 per cent of its home entertainment business to TCL.

Our experts have weighed in on what this could mean for Sony’s iconic home cinema range, but the deal has at least highlighted some of the relative strengths of each electronics giant: TCL excels at producing televisions with specification and picture quality well beyond their price points, whereas Sony tends to take its time to squeeze the most authenticity out of the hardware it has available.

Given that we are comparing two budget TVs, the Sony Bravia 3 and the TCL C7K, it might seem a foregone conclusion who will come out on top, especially given the review scores of each model.

Still, we have given each TV its due diligence and compared each TV category by category. Can relative newcomer TCL really topple a long-standing industry Titan such as Sony?

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: price

The 65-inch TCL C7K launched at a good value price of £1399 / $1500 / AU$2295. The Sony Bravia 3 was released later in the UK than in other territories, with launch pricing a tad cheaper, at £1299 / $1000 / AU$1499.

However, we tested both at the same UK price of £899, and both have been on sale as low as £749.

Despite the Sony Bravia 3 launching a tad cheaper, the two TVs are now level pegging – so we’re going to call this one a draw.

** Winner: Draw**

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: design

The Sony Bravia 3 is a well-built, if unremarkable-looking TV made from 100 per cent plastic, including the rather cheap-looking legs.

Still, assembly is super quick and easy, and there are both wide and narrow options for the feet. Bezels are fairly slim around the top three sides of the screen, with a slightly more pronounced chin.

The remote at least feels premium – it's the same (non-backlit) remote seen on the Sony Bravia 8 II.

The TCL C7K, however, has a much more premium look all round. The screen is wrapped in a slick, narrow brushed-metal trim on the front, with a Bang & Olufsen multi-channel speaker system protruding out slightly from the back.

Rather than feet, the C7K uses a metal central desktop mounting plate, with a wide-neck-with-detachable-cover arrangement that you can tidy your cabling into.

Unlike the Bravia 3, the C7K doesn’t get the same premium remote as its step-up brethren. Still, the plastic remote supplied has a nice brushed metal-style finish.

Despite being at similar price points, the designs of these two TVs are on opposite sides of the value spectrum. The C7K easily takes the win here for a premium look far above its price point.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: features

Right off the bat, there are some pretty stark differences noticeable with the panel technology alone. The TCL C7K made headlines thanks to its Mini LED screen with 1008 independent dimming zones, a remarkably high number, especially given the price. A Quantum Dot colour system is also included.

In contrast, the Sony Bravia 3 sports a standard direct-lit LCD panel without any local dimming or Quantum Dots. It does, however, boast Sony’s Triluminous Pro technology to boost colour volume.

Despite Sony’s pedigree with video games, the Bravia 3 is also lacking when it comes to gaming features. The C7K can support 4K feeds all the way up to 144Hz, doubling to a ridiculous 288Hz with TCL’s Game Accelerator technology (though that comes with a resolution drop to Full HD). VRR is supported all the way up to the 288Hz maximum, and ALLM is also on board.

The Bravia 3, on the other hand, taps out at a considerably lower 4K/60Hz. Granted, this is where the majority of console games max out anyway, but the lack of even 4K/120Hz is disappointing. VRR is also off the table, but ALLM is at least supported.

Movie lovers are better catered for, however, as the Bravia 3 supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. The C7K trumps it again, though, with support for all four high dynamic range formats, sporting the three mentioned previously as well as HDR10+.

On the sound front, the Bravia 3 sports a two-channel speaker system with a combined 20W of power. The system features Sony’s X-Balance drivers and Bass Reflex technology, which aims to produce deeper bass and enhanced vocal clarity.

We’ll see how much of a difference they make in the sound section, as they’re up against the C7K’s Bang & Olufsen sound system, which features new high-fidelity speaker designs fed by 60W of power.

Smart features are at least a bit more even, with both models running Google TV with the usual variety of domestic and international streaming apps.

The specification for the Bravia 3 may look disappointing in comparison with the C7K, but we do have to bear in mind Sony’s picture pedigree. As we say in our review: “The Japanese giant is renowned for creating TVs that are greater than the sum of their parts, thanks to clever processing and careful, considered tuning.”

Still, the Bravia 3 is up against an inordinate number of features. Other highlights of the TCL C7K include a claimed peak brightness of 2600 nits, a new AIPQ Pro picture processor and a whole host of ‘Halo Control’ technology to deliver better dark scene consistency.

Given the C7K’s class-leading feature set at this price, it seems almost unfair to pit it against the Bravia 3. But on pretty much every front, the C7K trumps the Bravia 3 when it comes to features – and often by some margin.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: picture

Straight out of the box, we find the Sony Bravia 3 to be not particularly subtle. As our Sony Bravia 3 review states: “Colours are punchy and rich, and there’s a solid sense of three dimensionality, but motion is oversmoothed.”

Switching to Professional picture mode (aka Sony’s equivalent of Filmmaker mode), the Bravia 3 is a lot more balanced and natural. Colours look lush and verdant without veering into overblown, and motion is also greatly enhanced with minimal judder.

However, despite Sony’s picture-tuning efforts, there are numerous shortcomings that can’t be ignored.

“What strikes us most is how the entire picture is covered in a grey wash, which robs it of some solidity and makes dark sequences borderline unwatchable,” our review reads. “The panel seems to glow in sequences that demand blacks, which results in an overwhelming amount of detail being lost in darker scenes.”

Even in scenes with plenty of light, there’s a lack of contrast, compromising Sony’s usually excellent presentation of three-dimensionality.

When compared with the TCL C7K, however, there are some redeeming qualities for the Bravia 3.

The black and white scenes in Oppenheimer are richer and more cinematically warm on the Bravia 3, leaving the C7K looking a little blue.

Sony’s motion processing also comes into play on the sweeping panning shots of Los Alamos, though those issues with dark details are still noticeable.

Switching to SDR content with the Gravity Blu-ray, the picture has a degree of naturalness, with film grain that looks more intentional than the C7K’s efforts.

However, the lack of black depth and dull highlights really make this a less impressive experience than the C7K.

Conversely, the C7K excels at contrast and black levels.

“On the most basic contrast level, it can deliver both extremely intense, vibrant HDR peaks by sub-£1k 65-inch TV standards, and some of the deepest and most neutral, natural-toned blacks and dark scenes the mid-range LCD TV world, at least, has to offer,” our TCL C7K review reads.

“What’s more, it’s able to deliver its light and dark extremes on screen simultaneously, without either significantly compromising the other.”

Unlike the Bravia 3, the C7K also excels at shadow detail reproduction. The TCL set’s backlight system as a whole punches well above the TV’s weight, with no fluctuating dimming zones or noticeable jumps in brightness during cuts.

Again, the Standard picture preset is not particularly authentic, but the colours are so radiantly beautiful and impeccably balanced against each other that it’s hard not to enjoy. For those dedicated to as-the-director intended accuracy, however, the C7K’s Filmmaker Mode achieves this without looking drab or washed out.

The TCL C7K is impressively bright, too – twice as bright in some shots as even the best OLED TVs – adding to the excellent consistency of HDR images.

As you’d expect from Sony’s pedigree, the Bravia 3 manages glimmers of greatness despite some disappointing specs. The picture even manages to trump that of the far better-equipped TCL C7K in cinematic warmth and naturalness during certain scenes.

However, it can’t hold up against the C7K in most other areas. The C7K is flat-out one of the best-performing LCD TVs we have seen at this level, with explosive brightness, contrast and colour-boosting Quantum Dots, and TCL’s Halo Control Technology. It was always going to be an uphill battle for Sony, and the Bravia 3 falls rather short in this one.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: sound

Here, the Bravia 3 is able to pick up some brownie points.

Dialogue is impressively clear and underpinned by a decent sense of low-level dynamics, injecting some much-needed emotion into heart-to-heart discussions in Civil War.

Sound also has a decent semblance of height, with larger effects such as explosions and jets coming across as surprisingly spacious.

The bass is a bit light, but we still prefer the Sony’s sound to that from the C7K’s Bang & Olufsen speakers, which sound thin in comparison. We have to crank up the C7K's volume quite high to match the loudness of the Bravia 3, which results in a forced and rather shouty sound from the TCL set.

The C7K’s speakers do offer a clean and prolific sound with impressively high treble and a nice open midrange, but the bass is far too reserved, resulting in a treble-heavy presentation.

Sony is generally quite reliable when it comes to built-in TV audio, and this rings true even for its more budget offerings. It’s no substitute for a soundbar, of course, but the Bravia 3 has a better integrated sound system than we usually see at this price – including the good but not great sound of the C7K.

** Winner: Sony Bravia 3**

Sony Bravia 3 vs TCL C7K: verdict

Recent years have seen Sony on a winning streak with its premium and flagship TVs, while TCL has specialised in offering budget and mid-range options with a performance well above their price points.

And that’s largely what we see here. Sony has used its careful tuning and Triluminous Pro technology to give the Bravia 3’s Direct LED screen warm and natural colours and impressive motion processing. And, as usual, Sony’s built-in sound is better than expected for the price.

But the Bravia 3 pales in comparison with its competition at this price – and that competition doesn’t get much better than the TCL C7K.

The C7K’s Mini LED screen, numerous dimming zones and Quantum Dot technology result in explosive brightness, contrast and colour not usually seen at this price. Throw in gaming features that go above and beyond, and it’s hard to make much of a case for the Bravia 3 when comparing the two sets side by side.

With its Direct LED screen, the Bravia 3 had an uphill battle, and not even Sony’s processing know-how can make up for it this time. The TCL C7K’s features and picture quality, on the other hand, are outstanding value at this price. It will take one impressive TV to topple this champion.

** Overall winner: TCL C7K **

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A British TV brand? As unlikely as that might seem in 2026, that is precisely what Mitchell & Brown is.

Created in Bolton in 2016 as an offshoot of the family-owned TVD Group, which these days is primarily a supplier and installer of AV kit for businesses but began life as an electronics shop in Lancashire, Mitchell & Brown is the brainchild of Matthew and Daniel, the sons of TVD founder Jim Brown.

The brand is, in fact, a tribute to Jim, with the name combining his surname and his mother’s maiden name, and all of the TVs featuring his initials and birthday (1811).

Said TVs are actually designed and manufactured by “Europe’s largest TV manufacturer” (Vestel), but they’re built to Mitchell & Brown’s specifications and the Brown brothers claim that each model goes through “intensive testing and rigorous quality control processes”.

The company backs up this quality claim by supplying the vast majority of its TVs with a seven-year warranty.

If you’re naturally sceptical about such things, you might be impressed to learn that a trust fund backs the Mitchell & Brown warranty, so cover should remain even if something unfortunate were to befall M&B itself, and that all warranty work is handled either by the high street retailer that sold you the TV, or Mitchell & Brown in Bolton. The customer service department is in the UK, too.

That all seems very impressive, but it’s obviously all for nought if the TVs aren’t up to scratch. After all, a rubbish TV with a seven-year warranty is still a rubbish TV.

Thankfully, while the QLED1811 we’re reviewing today has its flaws, it does enough right make it a solid budget TV choice – assuming you get it for the right price…

Price

The 55-inch Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 has an official price of £650. At the risk of jumping ahead, that’s a price that its performance struggles to justify.

It’s good news, then, that Richer Sounds is offering the TV for £499, where it becomes much more appealing.

The obvious competition at that level comes from budget TV overlord TCL, with the 55-inch version of the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning C6KS coming in at £429, and the C6K at £499. Our review of the second of those is yet to be published, but the TV has been tested and was on hand for comparisons with the Mitchell & Brown.

Design

The QLED1811 is a little fiddlier to put together than most rival TVs, and the endeavour isn’t helped by the rather unclear diagrams.

On that subject, the instruction manual is also written in the smallest text imaginable. An A4 version is available via the Mitchell & Brown website, but we wonder how many buyers won’t realise that and will persevere with the borrower-sized manual in the box.

It’s a shame more attention hasn’t been paid to these details, as they create a slightly negative first impression.

Still, once put together, the QLED1811 is a fairly smart-looking TV, at least when viewed from a typical viewing distance, from where the plasticky nature of the materials is less obvious.

Unlike most modern TVs, much of the QLED1811’s chassis is silver rather than black, which will appeal to some potential buyers.

The stand allows the set to swivel, too, which is handy for getting the best viewing angle and accessing the side-mounted connections, and while the TV is pretty chunky compared with more premium sets, its 6.6cm depth is fairly typical of budget models (the TCL C6K is 5.6cm deep).

Features

At least some of that thickness is likely down to the use of a direct LED backlight, rather than edge lighting. Edge backlights can open the door to slimmer designs, but they usually bring with them consistency issues.

But while the QLED1811’s backlight features LEDs facing directly outwards, there’s no local dimming, which will likely limit its contrast. Admittedly, local dimming is fairly rare at this sort of level, but it is something that TCL’s C6K and C6KS both offer.

Another potentially contrast-limiting factor is the use of an IPS rather than VA panel. IPS usually brings with it advantages to viewing angles, though, so this is a trade-off that could pay off. It’s also worth noting that the use of Quantum Dots (hence the ‘QLED’ in the name) should result in greater colour vibrancy than you would get from a standard LCD TV.

The panel is limited to a refresh rate of 60Hz. Again, that’s typical of TVs in this price bracket, but TCL has gone above and beyond by fitting the 55-inch versions of both the C6K and C6KS with 120Hz panels.

This limitation means 4K/120Hz gaming is off the menu, but the QLED1811 does have a dedicated Game mode (which it automatically switches to when required, thanks to ALLM support) that drops input lag to an imperceptible 15ms, so most gamers need not be put off.

Besides, Mitchell & Brown’s target audience is likely more interested in watching TV and movies, and here the QLED1811’s features are more impressive.

For starters, it has TiVo as its smart platform. While this does lack some of the slightly less mainstream apps that we like to see (Paramount+, Now and Discovery+, for example), the most popular bases are covered, including Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and all of the UK’s terrestrial channel catch-up apps. A dedicated Apple TV app is absent, but you can at least get Apple TV content via Prime Video these days.

Freely is also on board, so you can stream live terrestrial TV via the internet rather than an aerial, if you so wish.

HDR support is good, too. HDR10+ is missing, but this isn’t much of a loss, and HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision are all on board. Disappointingly, Dolby Vision wouldn’t work within the Disney+ app during testing (all HDR content instead played in the standard HDR10 format), but this is hopefully a temporary bug, as Dolby Vision worked in all of the other apps that it should.

HLG works fine in the BBC iPlayer app, at least, so those lovely nature documentaries and shows such as The Night Manager play in HDR as they should.

TiVo is very user-friendly and impressively intelligent when it comes to content recommendations and search results, so it’s a bit of a shame that Mitchell & Brown has bundled the QLED1811 with such a cheap, uncomfortable and occasionally unresponsive remote. The buttons are fairly well-spaced and clearly labelled, at least.

Interestingly, during initial set-up, we were asked to pair the remote to the TV using Bluetooth, which is required for voice control. However, the remote that came with our sample lacks the buttons we were asked to press, and seemingly has neither Bluetooth nor a microphone. Mitchell & Brown should remove this step from the otherwise slick installation process or (even better) bundle the QLED1811 with this apparently more fully featured remote control.

In terms of connections, the Mitchell & Brown offers three HDMI sockets, one of which doubles as the eARC port in case you want to connect a dedicated sound system, plus an optical out and a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a couple of USBs.

Picture quality

The Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 is capable of delivering good picture quality, but you won’t get it unless you dip into the settings menus.

During set-up, you’re asked to choose between the Natural and Dynamic picture presets, and neither is nice. Dynamic is what we’ve come to expect from such modes – everything pumped up to the max in a hyper-unrealistic way.

But Natural is ironically unnatural, too. Too cool, too bright, too sharp and with unpleasant motion processing, it’s more like the overenthusiastic Standard modes found on some rival sets.

Thankfully, there is also a Cinema preset that can be selected in the menus after initial set-up. While this isn’t perfect by default, either, it is the best of the presets, and it can be made better by dropping Sharpness to 0 (this fixes the default over-sharpening) and MEMC (motion processing) to Low or Off.

The one significant issue remaining is the clipping out of details and shading in bright HDR highlights, and this unfortunately can’t be fixed in the Cinema mode. Peculiarly, this HDR clipping is less of an issue in the Natural preset, but that has a very odd way with contrast that itself can’t be fixed, so our preference is to stick with Cinema and put up with the clipping, which is less readily noticeable.

For example, when we play No Time To Die on 4K Blu-ray in HDR10, while the bright clouds over the cemetery in Matera look much flatter than they should, they don’t look obviously incorrect, so don’t spoil your enjoyment of a presentation that is otherwise rather nice.

This is a very crisp and detailed delivery, even with the Sharpness dropped to 0. Edges are smartly drawn without looking fizzy or over-etched, and the QLED1811 digs up the texture of Bond’s lovely suit and the imperfections of his perfectly characterful face without anything looking forced.

In fact, the Mitchell & Brown’s delivery is impressively solid and three-dimensional-looking, and those traits remain even in motion – a traditional area of weakness for most budget TVs, which often have slow, smeary panels. With MEMC set to Low, though, the QLED1811 remains composed with both the slow panning shots across the Italian cliffs and the face-punching, rope-swinging, car-smashing action scene that follows.

The only time during testing that we manage to foil the M&B’s motion processing is with Blade Runner 2049. As Officer K’s flying cop car passes behind a series of towers on its way to the LA precinct, there’s some fluttering as the TV struggles to discern automobile from skyscraper.

With this sort of issue being so rare, our preference remains MEMC set to Low, but you can turn it off entirely if you prefer total consistency and are prepared to accept a bit of judder and blur to get it.

Blade Runner 2049 does highlight another of the Mitchell & Brown’s limitations, though – a lack of black depth. Full black and mostly black screens simply are not that. Instead, they’re a not-very-deep grey.

That probably sounds damning, and it’s not a good thing, for sure. But it’s really not apparent as often as you would expect. The studio logos and opening text of Blade Runner 2049 expose the issue, but during the film proper, where every shot is a complex mix of shades, the lack of black depth isn’t readily apparent.

This is possibly helped by the surprising brightness and pop of the QLED1811’s picture. The best budget Mini LED models (yes, we’re again talking about the TCL C6K and C6KS) offer better outright brightness and contrast, but the Mitchell & Brown is engagingly punchy.

The TV’s colours help entice the eyes, too. There’s some subtle oversaturation to reds that isn’t entirely authentic, but it does add a very pleasant warmth and richness without looking overblown.

Switching from HDR10 to Dolby Vision with The Rip from Netflix, we find that the Dolby Vision Dark preset works well by default, though we do change the MEMC setting from Off to Low.

Surprisingly, given the very dark presentation of Affleck and Damon’s corrupt cop movie, the Mitchell & Brown’s compromised black performance rarely stands out, and the slightly over-saturated reds once again add to the richness of the picture. All told, this is a nicely balanced, crisp, detailed and altogether very pleasant Dolby Vision delivery.

Drop down to HD, and the QLED1811 continues to put in a decent performance for the money. The HDR-less picture of our Logan Blu-ray looks a touch washed-out with the more vibrant TCL C6K running alongside it, but the upscaling is clean and controlled – qualities that also benefit live TV from Freely and Freeview.

A final note on viewing angles. As with all backlit TVs, there is some loss of colour vibrancy and contrast as you move off-axis, but the IPS panel helps to ensure that the sweet spot isn’t too narrow and the drop off isn’t too severe.

Sound quality

In terms of sound quality, the Mitchell & Brown JB-55QLED1811 is reasonable for its price tag.

There’s a small amount of width and height to the delivery with The Rip (just enough so that it doesn’t feel trapped in the screen), and the TV can go relatively loud while still delivering reasonable dynamics. Dialogue doesn't get buried in the rest of the action, either.

But while the dialogue is always clear, the rest of the presentation is rather muffled. Effects such as gunshots lack an impactful leading edge, and as action scenes and soundtrack moments get busier, sounds start to blend into one another.

For a cheap TV, there’s a reasonable amount of bass, though. This isn’t the generally thin, harsh delivery that you often get at this level. And the set remains fairly composed, too – there’s a bit of fuzz and hum with Blade Runner 2049’s super-deep bass, but much less than we usually get, even with many more premium TVs.

Verdict

Whether you care about Mitchell & Brown’s Britishness is, of course, entirely up to you. The seven-year warranty and UK-based customer service department are also hard to put a price on. Importantly, though, the JB-55QLED1811 is a decent budget TV regardless.

This isn’t on a par with TCL’s best budget models, but frankly, nothing is. Instead, it’s a TV that works effectively within the relative limits of its hardware to deliver an enjoyable viewing experience – as long as you’re prepared to put a little effort into the picture settings.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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Lots of people argue that change is healthy, and in certain instances, that’s true.

Evolution? That’s pretty cool, I use my opposable thumbs every day after all. LGBTQ+ rights? A big thumbs up from said digits. Spotify launching its Lossless tier? Yep, big fan; even if it ain’t perfect yet, those digits are partying it up with their siblings as I’ve got my hands in the air like I just don’t care listening to Andrew W.K.'s classic track, Party Hard, on it.

But there are undeniably some changes I don’t like. Highlights include baggy jeans coming back into fashion, the constantly increasing prices of streaming services, and, this year, the fact that not one, but two big-name OLED TV makers are on the verge of ownership changes.

First up is the TCL and Sony merger, which, for obvious reasons, is currently getting most of the attention. The news that TCL has started the process in earnest to buy a 51 per cent share of Sony’s home entertainment division was, without a doubt, some of the biggest news this year – or potentially this decade – for OLED TV fans.

The deal is in its early stages, but it could mean TCL has a controlling share of Sony’s TV business, including its OLEDs – a key area it has no real experience in, as an ongoing champion of Mini LED, and the soon-to-be-launched RGB Mini LED panel tech.

As you’ll know if you read our previous future-gazing pieces on the deal, key details are unknown about quite what the merger would mean for Sony’s Bravia OLEDs in particular. But the fact remains that any changes to Sony’s OLEDs, period, would be a big deal for serious home cinema fans.

After all, the Sony Bravia 8 and Sony Bravia 8 II remain staple sights in our best OLED TV buying guide for a reason – they’re pretty darned good. Our TV and AV editor, Tom Parsons, openly describes the Bravia 8 II as the best OLED he's ever tested, period.

So the idea of TCL trying to change Sony’s five-star, Award-winning formula does leave me slightly concerned.

But for me, it’s the second, quietly forgotten company, that’s currently shopping for a buyer to take charge of its TV business that has me sweating bullets. Specifically, what’s in store for Panasonic.

You may have missed it, but last year news broke via financial news outlet Nikkei that Panasonic is shopping around for a buyer to take its TV business off its hands. The firm then quickly put out a statement confirming it is “considering all possibilities”, including just closing it, as well as selling it.

And, to be fair, from a business perspective, I get it. The TV market is competitive and full of companies with deeper pockets. Hence why volume players, including Hisense, TCL and Samsung, are fighting for the top slot, not premium players like Panasonic.

But I’m scared because, despite them not selling anywhere near as well as the bigger players, Pansonic’s OLEDs have been constant personal favourites thanks to their overt focus on authenticity over razzmatazz.

Panasonic markets its TVs as being for movie fans who want an “as the director experience”. And as I’ve said numerous times before, after helping review pretty much every OLED from the company to pass through our viewing rooms in the past three years, including the Award-winning Panasonic Z90B from 2025, there is a lot of evidence to back that claim.

Sure, they don’t push their peak brightness as high, and yes, they can occasionally be a little too conservative with their processing, resulting in an occasionally less sharp and three-dimensional image than rivals – especially recent Sony sets.

But their consistency with contrast, colour volume and general even-handedness has meant that year-on-year it has always been a Panasonic set that has let me stay focused on what I’m watching, not what the TV is doing. And that, for me, is the be-all and end-all, and why I tend to favour them, even if I agree with my comrades in testing that the latest Sony sets are holistically better for most people.

And that’s always been the case – all the way back to the four-star Panasonic TX-55EZ952B in 2017, which was the first OLED I liked enough to buy (albeit heavily discounted, at the end of its shelf life and refurbished).

But, I know I’m rapidly becoming the minority and going against the grain with my insistence that consistency and control are more important than a big nit count, or a laundry list of clever AI features – two things most TV makers are obsessed with right now.

Which is why I can’t help but feel it’ll be a sad day for home cinema enthusiasts if Panasonic’s TV division closes, or is bought by a firm that doesn’t understand what makes it quite such a diamond in the rough for people like me.

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There was only one thing I could possibly write about for this week’s edition of Adventures In AV.

The proposal of a Sony and TCL joint venture that will take control of the former’s home entertainment business (which produces its TVs, soundbars and more) has shaken the industry.

I’ll be honest, it’s shaken me. I didn’t see the news coming, and as someone who grew up in a Sony household and is a big fan of the brand’s OLEDs in particular (I currently live with an A95L), I’m deeply concerned about what it means for the future.

To be clear, I’m not blinkered towards Sony. There have been plenty of Sony products, including TVs, that have disappointed me, and I’ve been involved in plenty of less-than-positive Sony reviews over my 18 years of testing.

Besides, we review as a team (it’s the What Hi-Fi? ‘how we test’ mantra), so any personal subconscious biases are counteracted as part of our testing process.

But, at its best, Sony can be unbeatable when it comes to TVs, and I think we need Sony to continue to be Sony – but will that be allowed as part of this joint venture?

The Sony difference

Sony takes its time. These days, most of its TVs have a two-year lifecycle, while every other brand replaces its entire range every year.

That extra time allows for more careful and considered tuning and development, and it results in greater quality jumps between generations.

And where its rivals battle it out to produce TVs with the largest, most impressive-sounding numbers, Sony generally (there are exceptions, such as the Bravia 9) rises above such showboating and focuses on squeezing the most out of its hardware in the name of delivering cinematic authenticity.

I’m not saying that’s always the right course, but it’s important that we have a brand that takes this approach when all of the others (with the exception of Panasonic) are obsessed with fighting a numbers war.

TCL is, of course, one of those brands that is obsessed with numbers. Each year, it tries to outdo the likes of Hisense and Samsung by packing its new TVs with the most dimming zones and the highest brightness – and it often comes out on top.

My concern is that this approach could be applied to Sony – TCL is going to have the controlling, 51 per cent stake of this proposed joint venture, after all – and we could end up with yet another brand focused on tech specs at the expense of patient, careful development.

There is, though, a way this could all work out…

The optimistic vision

If it feels as though I’m doing TCL down, that’s not my intention. I’ve been incredibly impressed by the Chinese brand’s TVs over the last couple of years, with 2025’s range proving incredibly consistent and awesome value for money.

TCL is great at what it does, which is produce TVs with specs and picture quality well beyond their price points.

And this is precisely the area in which Sony is weakest. It rarely launches budget-oriented TVs these days (it's been selling the same 32-inch model since way back in 2021, for heaven’s sake), and when it does, they’re rarely, if ever, the best in class – the recently reviewed Bravia 3 is a case in point.

So, what I’m proposing is that the TCL and Sony brands continue to target the areas of the market they’re already most invested in.

In fact, I’d like to see them both double down – TCL could stop edging closer to the super-premium end of things and solidify its position as champion of the mid-range and budget sectors, and Sony could stop producing budget-oriented models that are more or less destined to fail, at least in performance terms, and concentrate entirely on premium and flagship models.

So, what’s the point of the joint venture?

But if TCL and Sony ‘stay in their lanes’ as I’m proposing, what’s the flipping point of the joint venture? I’ve got thoughts on that, too.

Without stepping on Sony’s toes, TCL could bring its Japanese partner’s processing and tuning nous into its TVs, potentially resulting in an irresistible blend of mid-range-demolishing specs and super-authentic calibration.

Sony, meanwhile, could benefit from TCL’s greater scale and resources, allowing it to produce more models without entirely compromising its conservative approach. Being shorn of the responsibility to produce more affordable models could help here, too.

I’m not saying we necessarily need Sony to replace every model every year, but it would be nice if it had the capacity to extend its OLED range into more affordable and smaller models. For the love of all that is holy, it could at least finally put 2022’s A90K out of its misery and replace it with a model to take on LG’s latest C series.

Let’s not forget that TCL is currently building a huge new factory that will produce OLED panels using a new, more efficient, inkjet manufacturing process. It’s intended for the likes of laptops and phones in the first instance, but surely TV panels are on the agenda, too.

Imagine if Sony could get first dibs on new, more affordable OLED technology as part of this joint venture. It could usher in a new dawn of Sony OLED TVs that no longer rely on the panel-manufacturing arms of LG and Samsung.

But will any of this happen? As should be abundantly clear by now, I just don’t know – and neither, it seems, do my contacts at Sony or TCL. Besides, let’s face it, any further official statement at this point is only going to put a positive spin on things, whether that's justified or not.

The proof will, as ever, be in the pudding, and we’ll be waiting a long time for that, as even if the joint venture is ratified, it’s not expected to commence operations until April next year.

In the meantime, I reserve the right to be very nervous about the future of Sony TVs – but also aware that there is a way it could all work out for the best.

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Here's our full news story on the Sony and TCL joint venture

And here are the opinions of several of our team members and readers on the matter

These are the best TVs you can buy right now

While I was once an all-around gadget reviewer with laptops within my purview, these days I rarely get excited about what's going on in that world.

This concept from Lenovo has really grabbed my attention, though, primarily because I think it has potentially awesome ramifications for the TV world.

Said concept is the Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable – a laptop with an OLED screen that can seamlessly expand from its default 16-inch mode to a much larger 21.5-inch size.

Here's my colleague from Tom's Guide, Jason England, having a play with it at CES:

This isn't the first laptop with an expandable screen to appear, but it is the first (to my knowledge) that has expanded horizontally rather than vertically, and that's why it's got me all hot under the collar about TV applications.

Jason and the rest of the PC press are naturally focused on the gaming potential here – 'ultrawide' gaming is a massive thing these days, after all – but I can't help but see the potential to eradicate the black bars we all put up with at home most days.

As I'm sure you're aware, almost every TV currently on sale has a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is the one used for most broadcast TV. But most movies (and an increasing number of TV shows) are displayed in a wider aspect ratio, usually 2.39:1, hence the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

Most of us got used to these black bars a long time ago, but the disappointing truth is that your screen is essentially shrinking whenever you play typical cinematic content – i.e. exactly the stuff you want to look its best.

Philips gamely tried to solve this way back in 2009 with its Cinema 21:9 TVs which, as the name suggests, had a movie-friendly 21:9 aspect ratio.

The problem was that all of the 'normal' TV you watched was compromised, either by black bars on both sides or some warping/cropping. It was a bit of a weird TV for watching football and the like, in other words.

But what if we could buy a 16:9 OLED TV that could extend to 1.85:1, 2.39:1, 21:9 to suit a movie or TV show? No longer would the most important content result in TV shrinkage; it would instead be expanded for maximum cinematic impact. Plus, there would be no black bars in sight.

I'm incredibly impressed by the smoothness and seamlessness of Lenovo's rollable concept, and it seems like it could be perfect for TVs if it could be scaled up.

Speaking of which, the rollable OLED tech actually comes from TCL CSOT, the panel-producing arm of TCL.

While TCL CSOT isn't yet producing OLED panels for TVs, it has recently broken ground on a $4.15 billion factory that will manufacture OLED panels using new, cost-effective inkjet printing technology, and it seems likely that this will eventually be put to use for TV-sized screens.

And let's not forget that TCL and Sony have just announced their intentions to merge their TV businesses. Could a future version of the Bravia 8 II have an expanding screen for movies? It's certainly nice to dream.

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Enough future-gazing – here are the best TVs you can buy right now

Here are our (and your) thoughts on the proposed Sony and TCL merger

Yesterday, Sony announced that it plans to enter a joint venture with Chinese TV manufacturer TCL, in which ownership of its TV business will be split almost in half.

I say almost, as TCL will technically become the majority stakeholder by owning 51 per cent of the business, whereas Sony will hold onto 49 per cent.

Frankly speaking, this announcement sent waves across the What Hi-Fi? team. There hasn't been much evidence leading up to this that Sony was looking to spin its TV business off in this direction, and there was certainly no indication that it was striking up a relationship with TCL.

The statement shared by Sony was brief, but it got the message across. The thought process here is that Sony will continue to implement its proprietary picture and audio tech, presumably including its legendary picture processing systems.

In contrast, TCL will handle the development of advanced display technology and leverage its existing cost-effective manufacturing infrastructure.

Sony TVs will continue to exist under the Sony and Bravia names, but the products themselves may look different in the future.

With a surprise announcement and very few details to go off, our team of home cinema aficionados have a range of questions, concerns and theories as to what this deal could entail.

I've assembled our TV and AV Editor (Tom Parsons), Editor in Chief (Alastair Stevenson), and Deputy Editor (Andy Madden) to share thoughts on Sony and TCL's new joint venture.

We have a range of opinions and questions, some more optimistic than others. We wonder if Sony can adapt to TCL's mammoth manufacturing operations, and what about the projectors? Unfortunately, we don't have the answers right now, but you can find our musings below...

What does the future hold for Sony's home cinema products?

A confession: I didn’t see this coming, and I’m not sure how I feel about it

Scale is great, but Sony's strength has always been its attention to detail

As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em…

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Check out our full story covering the Sony/TCL partnership announcement

Read our full TCL C8K review

As well as our Sony Bravia 8 II review

We're not even three weeks into 2026, and already we have some groundbreaking news regarding the future of two of the most prominent brands in the world of TV and AV.

Sony and TCL have announced that they are moving forward with discussions to establish a joint venture between the companies, which will see TCL assume control of Sony's home entertainment business.

The partnership is in early stages, with both companies signing a "memorandum of understanding to confirm their intentions to establish a joint venture that will assume Sony's home entertainment business".

Providing this "strategic partnership" goes ahead, the Chinese tech firm will hold 51 per cent of shares, with Sony maintaining 49 per cent. This will, of course, mean that TCL is the majority shareholder.

In a statement shared by Sony, it confirmed that the joint operation will "operate globally", and will ensure that TCL oversees "the full process from product development and design to manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service for products including televisions and home audio equipment".

Discussions are ongoing between the companies, but definitive binding agreements are expected to be reached by the end of March 2026, with operations from the new joint venture expected to commence in April 2027.

We've reached out to Sony and TCL for further comment on this partnership.

What does this mean for Sony Bravia TVs going forward?

Sony claims that it will continue to sell TVs under the globally recognised Sony and Bravia branding.

However, Sony aims to leverage TCL’s advanced display technology development, global scale, and end-to-end cost efficiencies to expand its global reach and bring its TV, audio and home cinema products to a wider range of consumers – particularly those seeking more affordable options.

Sony's contribution to this will involve its "high-quality picture and audio technology", which likely refers to its highly regarded picture processing and audio expertise, which it will continue to implement in Bravia-branded TVs going forward, as well as future home cinema audio products such as soundbars and (hopefully) AV receivers.

Considering that TCL enjoyed a particularly successful 2025, with five-star reviews for its C8K, C7K and C6KS TVs, we can certainly see the value in leveraging the company's resources and experience when it comes to the development of panel technology.

What does concern us slightly is TCL's aversion to OLED, as it has stated many times that it considers Mini LED to be the superior panel technology. Sony's recent OLED TVs (including the Bravia 8 II) have all been absolute show stoppers, so we can only hope that it remains dedicated to OLED with TCL at the helm.

TCL in the wider industry

TCL already plays a key role in providing other manufacturers with panels via its CSOT display manufacturing arm. Therefore, TCL already plays a key role in the production of televisions from a wide range of established manufacturers.

That being said, this joint venture sounds like a much closer partnership, which will see TCL assume a vital role in overseeing everything from development to the sale of Sony Bravia-branded TVs.

We'll have to wait and see how this partnership takes shape, as it's very early days. However, this is certainly an unprecedented and unexpected move from both companies.

MORE:

Read our full Sony Bravia 8 II review

As well as our TCL C8K review

And check out our picks for the best TVs

As we’ve covered in our two other CES 2026-based TCL TV hands-on reviews, TCL isn’t following the industry script with its 2026 TV range.

While pretty much every other brand is going all-in on RGB Mini LED technology (or Micro RGB as some brands are confusingly choosing to call it), TCL is sticking with its familiar Quantum Dot technology. Well, kind of.

For while its flagship X11L TV for 2026 and the ‘premium mainstream’ C8L (QM8L in the US) model we’re looking at here both stick with Quantum Dots, those Quantum Dots now boast a new ‘Super’ designation.

Is this just clever marketing, though, or does TCL’s new claimed strata of Quantum Dot quality really deliver the goods?

Price

Like every other TV brand at the recent CES in Las Vegas, TCL isn’t yet prepared to go on record with its TV prices for 2026.

However, even though the new C8L series features new Super QLED technology, it seems we can expect prices to at least be in the same ballpark as 2025’s popular C8K series, the 65-inch version of which launched with a UK price tag of £1599. If the C8L is priced similarly, it will look very aggressive indeed for a model offering a combination of premium features and, hopefully, performance.

It’s important to note here, too, that while TCL only released a limited number of screen sizes of the TCL C8K model in the UK, we understand that a much fuller TCL C8L range will reach these shores.

Design

We can’t help but think the C8L look rather familiar. As if we’ve seen it somewhere before… Ah, yes, that’s it – it looks almost identical to its C8K predecessor!

We’re not the sort of shallow people who expect a total design revamp every time a new model hits shop shelves, though, and the C8L’s look works well enough. The screen is a little deeper around the back than most premium TVs these days, perhaps, but the depth is slimmer at the screen’s outside edges, filling out gradually towards the centre of the rear where it’s less likely to be noticed – especially if you’re putting the TV on its central rectangular plinth stand (a design choice that means you don’t need a wide bit of furniture to place the TV on).

The central stand features cable channelling under a detachable cover, and the silvery metallic finish of its front support section gives it a nicely premium look.

The side panels are opulently finished too, while the top edge features a distinctive grilled finish that’s designed that way because underneath it can be found a set of up-firing speakers as part of an integrated Bang & Olufsen Dolby Atmos speaker system.

Features

While TCL had numerous C8L/QM8L screen sizes on show at its CES 2026 booth and had plenty to say about its new flagship TCL X11L and step-down TCL RM9L TVs, information on the more mainstream model’s features and specifications was actually quite limited.

The QM part of its US model name, though, together with the words Premium QD-LED down its side, reveals that the C8L are built around Quantum Dot technology, like the X11L, rather than returning to the RGB Mini LED technology of the RM9L.

In fact, it’s going to be built on the same new ‘SQD-MiniLED’ technology – where the S stands for ‘Super’ – introduced by the X11L, rather than dropping back to conventional QLED technology. So it gets the new, higher colour volume Quantum Dot design and condensed colour filter for a wider colour spectrum, as well as TCL’s second-generation WHVA Ultra panel.

We can also look at the five advantages TCL openly claims for its new Super QLED technology, including up to 100 per cent coverage of the BT.2020 colour gamut, freedom from the colour ‘crosstalk’ that can be an issue with RGB MiniLED technology, the potential for as many as three times as many local dimming zones as you can get in the same screen area with RGB Mini LED, more brightness than you can get with RGB Mini LED, and thinner design architecture than you can get with RGB Mini LED.

All this from a brand, let’s not forget, that will also be selling multiple series of RGB Mini LED TVs in 2026.

The C8L will be direct lit (where the LEDs sit directly behind the screen rather than around its edges), with the LEDs controlled by a local dimming system.

This local dimming system, previous TCL experience suggests, will operate across far fewer zones than the 20,000-plus boasted by the brand’s upcoming flagship X11L SQD Mini LED model, but will also be up on the zone count of TCL’s C8K from 2025. An assumption we’re making both from this being a specification area where TCL always tries to introduce an improvement year on year, and from the first impressions of the C8L’s picture quality described in the Picture Quality section.

The C8L will also get the premium Pro version of TCL’s latest AiPQ processing system, it seems, while smart features will be provided by the Google TV platform.

TCL’s X11L and RM9L announcements make it almost certain the C8Ls will support 4K gaming at up to 165Hz (and HD gaming right the way up to 288Hz), too, and we can also expect TCL to continue its support for both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision premium high dynamic range formats.

Picture Quality

It’s clear right away that the C8L is significantly less bright than the X11L, and is likely using far fewer dimming zones, too. We’d put brightness at somewhere around half that of the X11L (maybe a touch higher), while the extent to which a little backlight clouding can leach away from very bright objects that appear against dark backdrops during off-axis viewing definitely suggests a downgrade in dimming zones to well under half the 20,000-plus found on the X11L.

At which point, we need to quickly say that none of this should in any way be considered a disappointment. In fact, if we’re even close with our estimations of the C8L’s brightness and dimming zone count, both will actually be significantly higher than the figures delivered in these areas by the excellent C8K.

Certainly, we’d still describe the C8L’s pictures as radiant, even when judged in a venue as large and light-polluted as CES, and while a little blooming is apparent off-axis, viewed straight on, this blooming pretty much completely disappears. That’s even though bright highlights retain plenty of intensity when appearing against dark backdrops, and even though black levels appear to be at least as impressively rich and deep as those of last year’s C8K.

If we had a problem with the C8K, it was that its extra brightness over TCL’s awesome C7K seemed to cause a little colour fade to creep in with the brightest HDR pictures. The time we spent with a range of C8L screen sizes, though, suggests that the new Super QLED/WHVA 2.0 panel design has fixed this in no uncertain terms.

Now, the brightness, despite appearing to be another jump up from the C8K, simply seems to be unlocking more colour volume rather than thinning it out. Maybe those 100 per cent of BT.2020 claims TCL is making for its SQD Mini LED screens this year really are more than mere ‘the TV can do it but only if you choose this particular secret option in the menus and play this particular bit of demo content while wearing yellow Marigolds and singing Wonder Wall’ hype.

While much of the demo content available to us while looking at the C8L was fairly stark or artificial-looking, shots of night-time cityscapes and a close-up sequence of a crazily richly coloured and heavily patterned rug both showed the C8L to be capable of delivering seemingly outstanding levels of sharpness and detail, with even the 98-inch model managing to still look crisp and clear.

With motion also looking a little more natural and crisp on the C8L, too (though we didn’t get to see any 24p footage), the potential for it to achieve a really wholesale performance improvement over the already impressive C8K seems high. As does the likelihood that it will deliver a more all-round convincing picture quality step-up from whatever the next series down in TCL’s 2026 TV range turns out to be.

Sound quality

Given the circumstances of our CES hands-on, we don’t feel able at this point to say with any confidence whether we think the C8L will improve on the sound quality of the C8K.

From what we can judge from the grilled top edge and two rear bass woofers, the essential speaker configuration in the two TVs is the same, though, and a Bang & Olufsen logo on the screen’s front edge confirms that TCL has worked with the Danish brand again for the C8L’s audio system.

The rear woofers appear to have a slightly more refined and premium finish to them, too, raising hopes that they might improve on the slightly over-polite bass handling that was our only real issue with the C8K’s sound quality.

Early Verdict

While the C8L’s exterior might not look very different to its predecessor, its WHVA 2.0 panel and new Super QLED technology appear to have unlocked substantial contrast, brightness and, especially, colour improvements over last year’s C8Ks, raising the distinct possibility that the C8L will get back to making the 8 series the all-round performance-per-pound sweet spot in TCL’s 2026 range.

We will, of course, have to wait until we can get a full production sample into our test room for a comprehensive and comparative review before we can pass final judgement, but the early C8L omens are looking very promising indeed, particularly if TCL retains its trademark aggression regarding pricing.

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Check out our picks of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

Sometimes an Adventure in AV can involve a short trip into our TV's settings menu to discover something new. Other times it involves physically trekking halfway around the world.

In my case, it's the latter, as I kicked off my year in Las Vegas, Nevada, scouting out the latest innovations in the world of home cinema at CES 2026.

As expected, the show was nothing short of overwhelming, with countless new releases and announcements that will shape the AV landscape for the year to come.

While the RGB Mini LED TVs and new OLED sets stole the show, two specific demonstrations stood out, as they will remain relevant well beyond the end of 2026.

The first showed Dolby Vision 2, and although it didn't launch at CES specifically, I now have a much clearer picture of what it is actually capable of.

It was initially revealed at IFA 2025; but it was shrouded in mystery and confusion, and every TV manufacturer I quizzed on the subject seemed almost as confused as I was.

The second demo was for HDR10+ Advanced, which I had a sneak peek at during a trip to Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea, back in October of 2025.

The Samsung team offered somewhat of a more complete answer, though they showed me simulated footage rather than actual working HDR10+ Advanced, so I had to take their word for the claimed performance upgrade.

The good news is that both Dolby and Samsung had major presences at CES 2026, and each showed their new respective dynamic HDR formats working in action. So I now have a much clearer picture of what the future of HDR will look like.

I'll start with Dolby, which showed me three examples of Dolby Vision 2 running on a beta-software build on a high-end, mid-range, and entry-level TV.

They all appeared to be bright and punchy Mini LED TVs, and while Dolby wouldn't specify the brand, the primary launch partner for Dolby Vision 2 is Hisense; I'll let you connect the dots there.

Dolby's demonstration truly wowed me. It showed an intense boost to brightness that transforms dark content to dig out detail that I presumed was simply lost to shadows indefinitely. It had regular Dolby Vision TVs set up alongside the Dolby Vision 2 versions in some instances, and the differences were practically night and day.

Digging up more detail in the dark areas did not come at the cost of lifted black levels, however, as it still looked natural to my eyes, and (most importantly) Dolby assured me that the system can recognise what is intentionally meant to be shadow details and not over-brighten those sections.

Dolby stressed how closely it works with directors and editors to ensure that their work is presented in a true-to-life manner.

There is a more advanced set of metadata underpinning Dolby Vision 2, which comes straight from the creatives themselves. And it results in enhanced brightness (and more) without the loss of detail and authenticity.

The need for this brightness-boosting version of Dolby Vision is rooted in the launch of super-bright Mini LED and RGB Mini LED TVs, which can far surpass the capabilities of the current version of Dolby Vision; this makes the super-bright TVs that we've seen crop up over the past couple of years even more compelling, as there is now a feature that can properly take advantage of their specifications.

Not to be outdone, Samsung showed a live demo running its new HDR10+ Advanced format on beta software, running on the new R95H RGB Mini LED TV.

Once again, the results were impressive, especially as Samsung had a “normal” HDR10+ TV running alongside the demo of the new format. Colours seemed more vibrant while remaining natural and balanced, and there was unquestionably more depth and contrast to the image.

There also seemed to be more in the way of detail levels, although (much like Dolby Vision 2), this was most noticeable in dark sequences.

Samsung also assured us that creator-derived metadata would underpin the changes coming to HDR10+ Advanced, which means that authenticity was also at the top of its priority list.

Furthermore, both companies dug deeper into Dolby Vision 2 and HDR10+'s ability to handle motion. Traditionally, HDR formats haven't really played much of a part in motion processing; however, both Dolby and Samsung make a good point on this.

The (frankly tragic) reality is that most people out there will never open their TVs' settings menu. Some because they don't know how the settings work, others because they fear permanently messing up their TV by adjusting the wrong settings.

I sympathise. A TV settings menu can be daunting to the less technically inclined; and Dolby and Samsung's answer is simply to handle the motion processing themselves.

It's a bold move, and we'll need to test it more to confirm our feelings, but both formats showed promising signs during the demonstrations I attended.

Dolby in particular stood out with its Authentic Motion system, which can dynamically shift motion processing based on the content.

Therefore, minimal motion-processing can be applied during slower scenes, such as conversations, whereas fast-paced action scenes or panning shots can be aided by a pinch more.

It never looked unnatural or oversmoothed to my eyes, and it could solve the conundrum of judder being visible when using a TV's most accurate and authentic picture mode (in which motion processing is often switched off).

I will certainly need to do a lot more testing with both of these HDR formats to come to a conclusive opinion, but the good news is that both looked to be working as intended during CES.

This left me with a sense of hope for the future of HDR; it could be a bright and smooth year for the picture technology.

Samsung has already confirmed that HDR10+ Advanced will be coming to its mid-range and premium models sometime this year, and Amazon Prime Video will be the first service to offer select titles with the standard included soon.

Hisense, TCL and Philips TVs will launch with Dolby Vision 2 this year, and Dolby Vision 2 Max should also be supported on the higher-tier models within each of these manufacturers' lineups.

MORE:

Read our Hisense 116UXS hands on review

As well as our Samsung S95H hands on review

And our LG C6 hands on review

It's a brand new year! Happy new year to our readers, and we are here to brighten the January blues by giving you an insight into the hi-fi and home cinema products we have in for review this month.

While we try to clear away the festive-induced cobwebs and tackle 2026 with refreshed energy, there is no time to catch our breath when it comes to what's really important to us at What Hi-Fi? towers: reviews.

Our listening rooms have already opened the doors to new products as we get back to work on our first week, and we have on the testing block products as varied as Rega's flagship pre/power amplifiers, high-end open-back headphones and a new contender in the premium 4K projector space.

Below is a small selection of the tantalising products we have in for testing this month. Get in touch with us via whathifi@futurenet.com if you have any questions about them, and we can endeavour to answer your query during testing.

Rega Mercury and Solis

They're finally here. Rega's Mercury and Solis pre/power are the brand's new high-end flagship amplifiers, and they are finally in full production flow, after early concepts and units were teased and previewed at trade shows over the past year.

The pre/power duo costs £13,900 in total (approx. $21,000 / AU$29,000), and are, according to the brand, "the culmination of almost four decades of Rega electronics engineering experience in solid-state amplifier development". The engineers have obsessively worked on this new flagship, choosing components intentionally (even older DAC chips, for instance) to prioritise sound quality above all.

The preamp features line-level and balanced XLR inputs, coaxial and optical inputs, and USB type B, with the internal DAC supporting up to 24-bit/192kHz PCM and DSD64 file resolutions. The power amp outputs a claimed 168W per channel into 8 ohms – it may not be the flashiest product in terms of specs and design, but here's hoping that Rega can deliver where it really counts: pure audio performance and enjoyment.

We've got review samples of the Mercury/Solis in right now and are currently testing them – stay tuned for the full review in a few weeks.

Quad 3

Here's another product we've been dying to get into our test rooms ever since we first laid eyes on it last year. The Quad 3 amplifier takes inspiration from the charming 33 / 303 pre/power amp duo and brings those gorgeous 1960s retro looks to an integrated design.

Underneath the hood, however, it's a thoroughly modern affair, with cutting-edge specs (advanced ESS Sabre DAC chip, extensive file compatibility, aptX Bluetooth, HDMI ARC) and the promise of a "detailed, expansive and expressive sound".

All that packed into a nifty compact design with that eye-catching LED display, for £1249 / €1895 / AU$2799, is certainly tempting. Now, if only we had that matching Quad 3CDT transport that was just announced before Christmas in too...

Yamaha YH-4000

Yamaha's high-end YH-5000SE wired headphones were a revelation: they were a five-star stunner and winner of our Temptation Award in 2023 – truly, an impressive, hugely talented and insightful pair of audiophile open-backs.

Now, we have their latest premium headphones in for testing. The new YH-4000 open-back headphones follow the same design structure and magnesium body as the 5000SE, but with updated materials and technology. The orthodynamic (planar magnetic) drivers return, while there is a new mesh filter and brand new earpads specifically made for this model. The headphones are hand-assembled in Yamaha's Kakegawa factory, where their famed grand pianos are also made, and we hope the "uniquely responsive, natural and precise sound” lives up to the promise.

We also have the closed-back model, the Yamaha YH-C3000 ($1699), in for testing. The C3000 uses a new "armodynamic" driver and feature hand-crafted beech wood housings for the earcups – which promise lightweight build and natural sound.

Sharp RP-TT100

To quote our original news story: "This wasn't on our 2025 bingo card". TV/AV manufacturer Sharp surprised us with its first turntable in 20 years, with the RP-TT100 making its debut at the IFA showcase last year.

The RP-TT100 record player is fully automatic in use, with pause, reward, fast forward and repeat functions available at the push of buttons. There is even a USB-C port for digitising your records, while the deck itself features an aluminium platter and metal tonearm.

With built-in phono stage and Bluetooth streaming, Sharp is aiming to deliver all the modern requirements of a turntable for newbie vinyl fans.

The price is on the affordable side, too, costing a rather competitive £180 / €199, with availability in UK and Europe at the moment. Can it hold its own in the very crowded budget turntable market? We shall see.

Fyne F500E 5.1 speaker package

Fyne Audio's F501E wowed us with their incredibly expressive, cohesive and entertaining performance at £999 per pair, beating out plenty of pricier alternatives and winning the overall Product of the Year gong for floorstanders at the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025.

Naturally, a 5.1 surround sound package incorporating these talented speakers is our next step. This Fyne package consists of the F501E as the front left/right speakers, the smaller standmount F5E as the surround speakers, with the F502E centre and F3-10 subwoofer – all for £2249.

Can Fyne succeed in a home cinema setting the way it excelled on the stereo front? We are currently testing this 5.1 package, so you won't have long to find out in our full review.

Xgimi Horizon 20 Max

We normally encounter Xgimi projectors at the portable end of the market, such as the cute and enjoyable Xgimi MoGo 4, but the Chinese brand is now aiming for the big boys.

Its new range of 4K projectors are aimed at "serious home theatre enthusiasts" and we have the flagship, the Horizon 20 Max, in for review. This RBG triple laser projector aims to deliver “immersive visuals even in daylight or high-ambient light environments”, and has a claimed 5700 ISO lumens of brightness and 20,000:1 contrast ratio. It also supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and IMAX Enhanced, while Google TV gives you plenty of smart app access.

Sound is provided by Harman Kardon, while gamers are promised low-latency modes and a 240Hz refresh rate. Priced at £2599, it goes up against fierce competition from the Award-winning Epson EH-LS9000 – we can't wait to see how the new Xgimi fares.

TCL C6K (Q6C)

TCL had a terrific year at our What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025, picking up three wins for its C7K and C6KS TVs. Sandwiched between them is the C6K (or Q6C) range, and we have high hopes that this Mini LED TV lives up to such high expectations.

As part of TCL's 2025 TV range, the C6K stars from £799 for the 55-inch up to £3199 for the 98-incher. This Mini LED TV features comprehensive HDR support (same as those in the C7K), high refresh rates, and support for Dolby Atmos Flex Connect, which should give you greater flexibility for choosing and placing your home cinema speakers.

You get fewer dimming zones and lower max brightness of 1000 nits compared with the step-up C7K, and a 2.1-channel 40W Onkyo sound system, instead of the C7K's Bang & Olufsen version.

We praised the punchy brightness and contrast on TCL's C6Ks and C7K TVs as well as their very competitive prices last year, so here's hoping that the C6K model we have in for testing follows in its siblings footsteps.

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Onkyo celebrates its 80th anniversary with all-new Muse streaming amplifiers

CES 2026 proved to be yet another busy and exciting showcase of the top home cinema and hi-fi products that are set to launch later this year.

We caught up with a wide range of manufacturers, including Samsung, LG, Hisense, TCL, Xgimi and Cambridge Audio, checking out their latest innovations, which are set to shape 2026 for cinephiles and audiophiles alike.

As ever, the show proved to be a major hit for OLED TVs, with Samsung and LG debuting a handful of truly impressive-looking sets, despite RGB Mini LED also having a prominent presence at the show.

New Dolby Atmos soundbars were also unveiled by the companies mentioned above, including a convertible Samsung soundbar that boasts a serious boost to bass. LG, on the other hand, launched its flagship, Dolby Atmos Flex Connect-enabled soundbar, which is also compatible with its new wireless speakers and subwoofer.

A duo of unique-looking projectors from Xgimi and Hisense also made an appearance at the show, both with unique and eye-catching designs.

And for the hi-fi fans, an exciting new turntable from Audio Technica was unveiled, as was a new range of active speakers from Cambridge Audio.

That's a lot to unpack, but you can find out exactly why we chose these freshly announced products below.

TVs

LG W6 Wallpaper OLED TV

Remember LG's Wallpaper OLED TV? That super-slender TV that you could affix to your wall with magnets remains a legend in the home cinema world, and it's got a spiritual successor in the form of the W6.

LG's latest flagship TV sports the Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel tech from the G-series TVs, and crams it into a sleek and stylish chassis that measures just 9mm thick.

It leverages LG's Zero Connect box, which was popularised on the M-series wireless OLEDs, which is what the W6 is replacing. Gamers may be put off by the wireless interface, but LG promises smooth 4K gaming up to 165Hz on the W6.

LG also claims that this TV can deliver a superb picture performance despite the slender frame. It's leveraging its new Hyper Radiant Colour technology (which can also be found in the G6 and some versions of the C6) and low reflectivity display tech, which should make viewing the TV in traditional environments easier.

If you're looking for style and substance, then you definitely need to pay attention to the W6.

Samsung S95H

Samsung has also given its flagship OLED TV a stylish redesign. Meet the S95H, an all-new OLED TV that takes design, brightness and functionality to a new level.

Its new design echos the firm's Frame TV, and the more effective Glare Free display coating makes this set look even more like a piece of art than ever before.

While looks are important, we care most about picture performance, and Samsung is claiming that this TV is a big step up over its five-star predecessor. It reports that the QD-OLED panel can reach a new peak brightness of 2700 nits in a 10% display window, and there is an overall improvements to highlights, colour and sharpness.

Gamers should get excited too, as Samsung is offering this TV with an optional new Wireless One Connect solution, which adds four HDMI 2.1 sockets onto the four already available on the TV itself. That results in eight high-bandwidth sockets primed for various consoles, disc players, streamers and audio equipment.

LG C6

We’ve been waiting generations (TV generations, not human ones) for a big panel upgrade to LG’s C-series OLEDs, and we finally have one – albeit in limited fashion.

That upgrade is from standard W-OLED to super bright Primary RGB Tandem OLED, but only for the 77- and 83-inch models, which will be given the C6H name to differentiate them from the non-Tandem C6 sizes.

Every C6 is getting a new processor this year, though, and it’s the same flagship chip that is going into the G6 and W6.

In other words, we’re expecting the C6 to be a decent upgrade on the C5 at all sizes, but it should be a huge step up in the 77- and 83-inch models, which looked great when we saw them at the show.

TCL X11L

While the big TV story of 2026 is going to be the tsunami of new RGB Mini LED models, TCL is swimming against the tide with a new concept – the Super Quantum Dot TV.

The Chinese brand, which is quickly turning itself into one of the industry’s biggest players in terms of quality as well as quantity, does have RGB Mini LED models on its slate for this year, but sitting above them all is this X11L SQD model.

According to TCL, its Super QD model can go brighter and more vibrant than RGB Mini LED models, while also having better local dimming and colour accuracy, and being slimmer.

That sounds like a very tasty recipe indeed, and the X11L looked stunning when we saw it in the flesh on the show floor. Astonishingly punchy, colourful and contrasty, this could be the flagship TV surprise of 2026.

Projectors

Xgimi Titan Noir Max

Xgimi is a brand with a growing reputation for always improving with each new generation of its projectors. Which is why we were happy to see it launch its new Titan Noir Max at CES.

Sitting below the firm’s Titan and Horizon 20 Max from 2025, we’re still waiting on final pricing, but there’s no denying it’s an interesting beast with some solid specifications.

Highlights include new “precision-tuned optics” and the firm’s “most advanced dynamic IRIS system to date”. According to Xgimi, these factors will fix one of our biggest gripes with its past offerings: their lacklustre handling of dark scenes.

If that rings true when we get a Titan Noir Max into our review rooms, then we may have a new power player in the coffee table projector market on our hands.

Hisense XR10

Hisense has a strong track record in the home cinema in a box space. So much so that its entry-level, dinky Hisense M2 Pro won a What Hi-Fi? Award last year.

Which is why we paid attention when it launched its new XR10 and boastfully described it as “a first-of-its-kind laser projector built for cinephiles.”

While it’s too early to tell if there’s any truth to that claim, it certainly does have some impressive hardware. Key specifications include a completely new custom chipset, the brand’s latest LPU 30 Digital Laser Engine, atypical liquid cooling system and a staggering 6000 ANSI lumens peak brightness.

Add to this the ability to project an image up to 300-inches big, and it has certainly piqued our interest, earning the XR10 a place on this list.

Soundbars

LG Sound Suite (H7 Dolby Atmos soundbar)

Rather than announce a whole new soundbar range for 2026, LG has instead launched a family of home cinema speakers that can be mixed and matched to create a setup that’s tailored just to you and your room.

This Sound Suite consists of the H7 soundbar, the M7 and M5 wireless speakers, and the W7 subwoofer. So, you can just buy the solo soundbar, or you can partner that with a pair of either speakers and/or the subwoofer. In that regard, it’s rather like a Sonos system, with the Sonos Arc Ultra as the starting point.

The difference is that Sound Suite is built on the Dolby Atmos FlexConnect platform, so the components should be super-flexible over positioning. FlexConnect is built into LG’s new TVs, too, so you can do without the soundbar if you prefer, and have your television act as the hub for just the wireless speakers and/or sub.

Conceptually, this is really neat, and it sounded good during our limited demo session, too. Here’s hoping it still sounds good when we get it into our test room for a full, comparative review.

Samsung HW-QS90H

Samsung unveiled its first convertible soundbar last year in the form of the HW-Q700F, and now it's back with an updated take on the format.

It ditches the external subwoofer in favour of more bass drivers directly inside the 'bar, and the bass upgrade was certainty noticeable during our demo at Samsung's First Look conference.

It features a total of 13 drivers inside, and a gyroscope to recognise when the soundbar is placed in either of its configurations; those being wall-mounted or table-top. It will then redistribute the sound to the appropriate drivers to ensure that front-firing sound and Dolby Atmos height effects are positioned correctly.

We noted its punchy and bold sound in our HW-QS90H hands on review, and it's bass performance frankly speaks for itself. The real question is this: does the HW-QS90H have what it takes to dethrone the Award-winning Sonos Arc Ultra?

Hi-Fi

Cambridge Audio L/R X

This is the flagship in Cambridge’s new range of L/R speaker systems (the others being the S and the M), and it’s set its sights high. It’s gunning for KEF’s LS50 Wireless II, a system that has won a What Hi-Fi? Award a staggering six years in a row.

But the X certainly looks impressive. In terms of features, it goes toe-to-toe with the KEF, with a spec that’s nigh-on identical. It’s also set to launch at exactly the same RRP (though the KEF has seen some significant discounts in its lifetime).

It’s not out until the summer, but our intrepid senior staff writer Harry McKerrell has already gone hands-on with it at Cambridge’s London HQ. He found it to be a “clear, clean and rhythmically sound performer, one which is capable of bringing out ample helpings of textural detail while going loud and proud in the process.” Although the usual disclaimer about this being just a first impression applies.

Looks like KEF has a fight on its hands.

Audio Technica LP7X

We’re always interested when Audio-Technica unveils a new turntable, and the AT-LP7X sits just below the very enjoyable AT-LP8X record player we reviewed last year.

The LP7X is, surprisingly, a belt-drive model – which bucks the trend of most Audio-Technica turntables that use a direct drive motor – a feature that has piqued our interest.

It comes with a J-shaped aluminium tonearm and pre-fitted moving magnet cartridge that offers ample adjustment and upgrade options down the line. The minimalist design also has a built-in phono stage and aims to offer flexibility for vinyl fans.

We’re promised a “clean, considered deck” that isn’t showy but focuses on the fundamentals for £679 / $999, and we can’t wait to hear it in action.

MORE:

Read our Samsung S95H hands on review

As well as our Cambridge Audio L/R X hands on review

And our Samsung HW-QS90H hands on review

The final day of CES 2026 is upon us, and as is the case every year, it brought with it a wealth of hi-fi and home cinema treats.

That ranges from Hisense’s new four-colour Mini LED and RGBY Micro LED TV sets, to Audio-Technica's AT-LP7X turntable.

In the realm of Dolby Atmos soundbars, however, we have been left a little deflated at the lack of products from key brands that in past years have delivered new sonic treats at the show.

That's not to say that there have not been a fair number of Atmos soundbars being teased at the event.

Samsung, for example, announced two new models, the HW-Q990H and QS90H. Our senior staff writer Lewis Empson got the chance to have a sneaky listen to the latter at CES, and was impressed by the powerful sound and booming bass coming from the neat all-in-one package. The Q990H is also a particularly big deal, as it's a direct successor to the Award-Samsung Q990F from last year.

LG also released its Dolby Atmos Flex Connect soundbar system, which includes the H7 soundbar, M5 and M7 wireless surround speakers, and W7 subwoofer. It looks to be quite a promising proposition, with the possibility of building a whopping 13.1.7-channel home theatre system through LG's new Sound Suite feature.

There have also been a smattering of other brands releasing Atmos products (take TCL's A65K Design Series, for instance), but we were hoping to see a few more companies taking on the category.

We've spoken plenty about how we are hoping to see a new Dolby Atmos entry from Sonos as a continuation of the success of its entry-level Sonos Beam Gen 2 and more premium Sonos Arc soundbars.

We gave the Beam Gen 2 a five-star rating for its detailed yet immersive sound performance, but this model hit shelves more than four years ago. Since then, we have been eagerly awaiting its successor. Sonos didn't have the Beam Gen 2 replacement we've been waiting for, but that's not a surprise considering the brand tends not to unveil new hardware at the show. The wait continues...

But we were unhappy at Sennheiser, which didn't even tease a new Dolby Atmos model at the show, as it's been quite a while since its last entry back in 2023, when it showed off the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Mini. The Atmos model received a three-star review from us, with its uninspired sound and lack of projection failing to impress.

But were still hoping to see a new model as its more expensive entries have blown us away when we had them in our test rooms. The Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max donned the crown for years as the best premium model in our Dolby Atmos soundbar guide (that is, until the KEF XIO knocked it off this post last year). And it would make sense for the firm to at least try to take its crown back in 2026.

We're hoping both it and Sonos are just biding their time and will unveil new models at separate events this year.

My fingers are certainly crossed for even more brands to jump on the category and deliver a five-star stunner, as Hisense did with its surprise hit, the AX5125H, last year.

MORE:

Here are the best Dolby Atmos soundbars at the moment

Check out our review of the Sonos Arc

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The RM9L represents TCL’s first and most high-end foray into the suddenly oh-so-popular world of RGB Mini LED technology.

As such, it's the model that we would have expected to be TCL’s flagship TV for 2026. At CES 2026, though, the brand announced that the flagship title is in fact going to its ‘Super QLED’ X11L.

We went into some detail in our TCL X11L hands-on to explain just why TCL has gone against the current TV industry grain with this unexpected hierarchy, but we’ll try to sum it up more succinctly again in the course of this hands-on with the RM9L, which has left us with a very positive first impression despite its sub-flagship status.

Price

Unlike the X11L, the RM9L was not made available to order following its unveiling at CES 2026, and no price information has so far been provided.

All we can confidently say at this stage is that it will cost at least a little less than an equivalent-sized X11L.

Prices for the X11L, to give at least a little context, have been confirmed for the US at $7000 for the 75-inch version, $8000 for the 85-inch model, and $10,000 for the 98 incher.

There’s no UK pricing available for the X11L yet.

Design

The RM9L sticks out substantially further around the back than the X11L does.

The result isn’t ugly or even really cumbersome, though. In fact, TCL can even just about get away with its description of the design as “slim and integrated”. It just doesn't look quite as slender and elegant when hung on a wall as the X11L does.

Build quality and finish seem high, though, and TCL leaves you in no doubt about what technology is inside the RM9L by stylishly incorporating a badge saying 'Premium RGB MiniLED' into the screen’s right-hand edge.

There’s no repeat on the RM9L of the soundbar along the bottom edge that you get with the X11L – though a Bang & Olufsen logo in the bottom corner confirms that the premium Danish brand has again been involved in this new QD model’s sound design.

Features

TCL essentially claims in its 2026 TV range information that its new ‘Super’ class of QLED TV is capable of delivering more colour brightness, more local dimming precision and more colour precision than the RGB Mini LED can.

The X11L certainly did a compelling job of selling these claims during our hands-on with that model, but, on paper at least, the RM9L really doesn't come up far short of TCL's SQD flagship set.

Set to be available in 85-, 98- and a monster 115-inch screen size, the RM9L is claimed to cover ‘up to’ 100% of the massive BT.2020 HDR colour spectrum.

TCL also claims that the RM9L is capable of hitting a mammoth 9000 nits of peak brightness (only 1000 nits down on the peak brightness of the X11L), while control of all that light is delivered by a pretty epic 16,848 claimed local dimming zones (a drop of just under 4000 from the unprecedented claimed dimming zone count of the X11L).

As with the X11L, the RM9L is built on TCL’s new WHVA 2.0 Ultra panel. It also shares a bunch of other features, including native 4K/144Hz gaming support (or HD 288Hz support via TCL’s Game Accelerator system), Google TV smarts, playback of both the Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ premium HDR formats; and playback of the IMAX Enhanced system supported by most Marvel films on Disney+.

There’s also the Bang & Olufsen-designed speaker system capable of playing Dolby Atmos sound that we alluded to earlier.

TCL’s new AiPQ Pro processor is provided, finally, to help continually optimise pictures to the screen’s emphatic capabilities. Though you can also choose a more ‘as the director intended’ look for movie nights if you prefer.

Picture quality

Looked at in isolation, our early 85-inch RM9L's picture quality looks seriously, in some ways next-generationally, impressive.

The ‘next-gen’ bit comes from its phenomenally intense colours, which are delivered with a level of richness and purity – at least with the majority of TCL’s predictably extreme demo footage – that’s arguably even more easy on the eye than the vast colour scapes achieved by the first two RGB Mini LED and Micro RGB TVs we got our eyes on last year.

The ‘out there’ contrast and colour range of most of TCL’s demo footage would have represented a substantial challenge to lesser TVs, but the RM9L's light controls handled everything as if it were the easiest job in the world.

We were blown away, for instance, by how spectacularly bright pictures typically looked, despite the screen also being able to deliver black levels that often appeared almost OLED-like in their depth and freedom from clouding and instability.

The screen’s colours don’t degenerate/fade away in the most vibrant areas either, and the brightness is especially impressive with relatively complex colours involving a mixture of the panel’s core red, green and blue components.

Colours hold up excellently well with wide-angle viewing, too, and aside from clipping a little subtle shading in the brightest HDR highlights, the amount of subtle shading that’s retained in richly coloured picture areas is generally outstanding.

While the RM9L looks genuinely sensational when viewed in isolation, though, side-by-side comparisons with TCL’s flagship SQD X11L TV does reveal one or two limitations.

The RM9L's pictures aren’t quite as bright, for one thing, especially in picture areas containing an expanse of fairly pure red, green or blue content. This brightness disadvantage applies to HDR peaks as well as general baseline and full-screen bright HDR content.

To be clear about this, though, this brightness ‘limitation’ is only evident against the insanely bright X11L. Against pretty much any other TV around today, it’s still blazingly bright.

The remarkable colour saturation advantage so evident with relatively pure red, green and blue image content on the RM9L reduces somewhat with the rare moments of more natural, less extreme moments in TCL’s content reel.

There’s also a touch more greyness around bright highlights when they appear against black backdrops than there is on the X11L, especially if you’re watching the TV from a severe angle.

This blooming and clouding difference seemed fairly small under the show floor lights, though, and certainly never turned into aggressively obvious backlight clouding or blooming.

We didn’t feel troubled, either, by potential colour crosstalk problems during the play-through of TCL’s demo reel, though the starkness of this content versus regular video may have played in the demo screen’s favour in this respect.

The RM9L's pictures aren’t quite as crisp and sharp as those of the X11L – but, again, it’s a small difference, really, and doesn’t stop the RGB Mini LED model from looking every inch a native 4K TV.

While the RM9L's pictures don’t achieve as much intensity and impact or quite as much general picture consistency as the X11L's, they still look outstandingly promising versus most of the rest of even the premium TV world – and let’s not forget that the RM9L will likely be more affordable than the X11L.

Sound quality

The RM9L's sound appears to be a more substantial step down from the X11L than its pictures.

While Bang & Olufsen was still involved in the TV’s speaker design, there’s no forward-facing speaker ‘bar’ hanging from the screen’s underside, so all of this TV’s sound depends on speakers built into its sides and rear – a fact that immediately makes the set’s sound feel less direct and impactful. Bass sounded significantly more limited during our demo session, too.

Subtle effects were still presented quite cleanly, though, with a good balance , and we were impressed by how the sound seemed to exist right across the screen area, rather than only emerging from its edges and leaving a ‘gap’ where the pictures are.

There was none of that sense of an empty audio space between the left and right edges that you can get with other big-screen TVs.

Early verdict

While the RM9L we hung out with during CES wasn’t quite as all-round explosively impressive as TCL’s flagship X11L, it still delivered a premium performance, especially with relatively pure colours, that’s got us salivating for the finished product.

MORE:

Check out the full TCL X11L hands-on

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TCL’s flagship TV for 2026, the X11L, is a real tale of the unexpected.

For starters, unlike the top tier of TCL’s 2025 range, it looks as though UK buyers will actually be able to buy the X11L if they fancy it.

It also delivers a technical surprise, though, in that it's sticking with Quantum Dot technology rather than boarding the RGB Mini LED / Micro RGB bandwagon being so enthusiastically embraced by most other TV brands this year.

This isn’t to say that TCL isn’t doing RGB Mini LED at all in 2026 – the brand actually has more than one RGB Mini LED TV range waiting in the wings – but it’s definitely a twist to find ‘QLED’ still sitting at the top of TCL’s new TV pile.

Of course, TCL has long leaned into Quantum Dots more than most, from small touches such as the QD LED badges it incorporates into many of its TV designs, to the epic quantities of QLED panels it produces from its own factories.

Its extensive QLED history, though, is not the only reason TCL has decided that QDs still reign supreme versus RGB Mini LED. The brand also believes that QLED TVs can still be the best performers.

Especially when, as with the X11L, they’re packing TCL’s new Super QLED technology…

Price

Unusually, TCL actually had the X11L ready to buy in the US on the same day it was announced at CES 2026, with prices set at $7000 for the 75-inch screen, $8000 for the 85-inch version, and $10,000 for the 98-inch model.

UK pricing has yet to be confirmed, however.

Design

It's the 85-inch version of the X11L that we were able to spend time with for this hands-on, and the first thing that struck us about it was how slim it is.

Its monolithic shape is just two centimetres deep – substantially slimmer than the bodywork of TCL’s most premium RGB Mini LED TV, the RM9L (hands-on coming soon).

This is actually one reason why TCL favours its Super QLED screens over RGB Mini LED for flagship status, as the latter technology needs more depth in order to minimise the potential for its different red, green and blue LEDs to bleed into each other. We’ll get into this in a bit more detail later.

The slender side panels of the X11L have a premium-looking dark metallic finish, while the bezel around the screen, as you sit looking straight at it, is remarkably slim considering the screen sizes in question.

Build quality appears excellent too, and the design is elevated by a couple of unusual touches: a logo embossed down the screen’s right side saying 'Premium SQD-MiniLED', and the unmissable addition of a full-width integrated ‘soundbar’ that adds two to three inches of grilled elegance to the screen’s height.

This speaker enclosure sports a Bang & Olufsen logo, confirming that it’s the latest result of the TV sound design relationship TCL established with the premium Danish audio brand in 2025.

The X11L’s slim, monolithic shaping makes it ideally suited for wall mounting, but it can also be placed on a pair of large, metal-finished feet if you prefer.

Features

TCL’s new Super QLED TVs do not, sadly, wear capes or have laser eyes. They do, though, feature two significant new hardware innovations that TCL claims take QLED TVs to a whole new level.

First, their QD layers feature a new generation of Quantum Dots developed using new, more excitable (which in TV speak means responsive and efficient) crystal substances.

Second, TCL’s SQD MiniLED TVs use a new super high ‘Ultra’ colour filter.

Put together, TCL says these new innovations deliver five key claimed advantages: a wider colour gamut (TCL claims that the X11L can cover 100% of the world’s most extreme BT2020 colour gamut); the potential to use more local dimming zones than RGB MiniLED screens can due to the relative compactness of Super QLED’s single blue or white (rather than RGB) LED light source; enhanced brightness; slimmer designs than you get with TCL’s current RGB Mini LED technology; and, last but not least, immunity to the colour crosstalk issues it seems that RGB Mini LED displays can suffering with.

This crosstalk issue – which we’ll be on the look out for in our hands-on with TCL’s most premium RGB Mini LED model, the RM9L – is caused by the way the red, green and blue colours emitted by the three LEDs in an RGB Mini LED lighting ‘zone’ can end up scattering and spilling across one another, causing areas of coloured clouding.

For instance, if the light from a red LED crosses over into an area that already contains light from a neighbouring green LED, then you could see brown clouding as the two stray colours mix.

Such crosstalk troubles can apparently be reduced by increasing the RGB LED ‘throw distance’ (i.e. making the TVs thicker), but it isn't an issue for SQD Mini LED TVs in the first place, hence the potential for slimmer designs.

The higher brightness TCL claims for SQD Mini LED screens vs RGB Mini LED is explained by the fact that for the vast majority of the time, not all of the red, green and blue LED chips involved in an RGB Mini LED array will be fully activated at the same time.

For instance, with a relatively pure green hue, the red and blue LEDs will be pretty much dormant. This results in lower overall screen brightness, at least with content that uses fairly stark and pure colours, compared with the SQD Mini LED approach, where every LED ‘chip’ is effectively always fully illuminated by the white or blue LED.

Using a single LED to light each picture zone rather than an RGB LED trio is also the reason, according to TCL, that it’s possible to fit more separately controlled local dimming zones into an SQD Mini LED screen than it is with a same-sized RGB MiniLED screen, resulting in potentially finer light control.

Putting some numbers on all of this, TCL claims that the X11L can hit a huge peak brightness of 10,000 nits, and that it features 20,736 dimming zones – the highest such figure we’ve seen from a consumer TV. Even Hisense’s 116UX RGB Mini LED debutante had 'only' 3584 dimming zones.

Other key features confirmed for the X11L so far include a new Pro edition of TCL’s AiPQ processor, designed to ensure that even today’s relatively limited content can potentially make use of the full range of the TV’s capabilities; native 4K/144Hz gaming support that can be switched to HD/288Hz support via TCL’s Game Accelerator feature; Google TV smarts; support for both of the premium Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ HDR formats; support for the IMAX Enhanced format that most Marvel movies are available in on Disney Plus; and support for Dolby Atmos sound.

Picture quality

It took no time at all during our hands-on with the X11L before we started noticing its pretty remarkable picture quality charms.

Its killer combination of 10,000 claimed nits of brightness and more than 20,000 dimming zones delivered a truly spectacular contrast performance, for starters, where inky blacks share the screen with bright highlights that erupt off the screen with an intensity that its RM9L RGB Mini LED stablemate just couldn’t match.

In fact, we can’t recall seeing an equivalent level of brightness from any other screen, bar some of the crazily expensive Micro LED displays that pop up at technology shows every year. Not even the uber-expensive Hisense 116UX gets beyond 8500 nits.

It wasn't just the X11L’s raw brightness that impressed, though. The way it was able to retain most if not all of that peak brightness even when a bright highlight appeared against a near-black backdrop (something that TCL boldly allowed to happen a lot in its X11L demo footage) was incredible to behold – especially as it was achieved while throwing up remarkably little sign of the sort of haloing, blooming or zone ‘flickering’ issues that we’d normally expect to see with a local dimming TV delivering contrast even a fraction as intense as that of the X11L.

The brightness also held up outstandingly well with HDR images that filled the whole screen with bright content, providing a stark reminder of this advantage that LED currently retains over even the latest and brightest OLED screens.

The incredible contrast also held up remarkably well even when looking at the X11L from a wide viewing angle – though there was some mild colour shift from wide angles, and backlight haloing/blooming became a bit more noticeable.

In all of the above image areas, the X11L outperformed the RM9L screen next to it. The only area where the RM9L consistently outperformed (kind of) the X11L was with very pure colours.

Rich red flowers or bright green meadows, for instance, enjoyed purer saturations on the RM9L. A simple side effect, we guess, of the X11L having to mix QD colour filters with a single-colour LED backlight, rather than colours being crafted from pure red, green and blue LEDs as happens with the RM9L’s RGB Mini LED lighting system.

It certainly seemed to us, though, that as predicted earlier, the RM9L’s greater single-colour purity comes at the expense of some brightness versus the X11L.

Perhaps because of its extra dimming zones and brightness the X11L’s pictures also looked slightly sharper and more detailed than those of the RM9L.

Sound quality

The full-width integrated B&O ’soundbar’ attached below the X11L's screen carries left, centre and right channels, while two more speakers in the chassis fire sideways to left and right, and a pair of large, gold-finished rear-mounted woofers provide low frequencies.

The sound produced by all these speakers really did sound excellent in the admittedly highly imperfect surroundings of CES. The soundstage sounded really detailed, but also had a lovely, rounded, harshness-free tone, even at high volumes.

The way the sound was propelled towards us from the forward-facing integrated soundbar created a much more immediate and impactful sound, too, than anything we heard from TCL’s 2025 B&O-toting TVs, while the new woofers deliver seemingly more low-frequency heft than those of any 2025 TCL model, too.

If you really want to take the bass to properly cinematic levels, though, you can add TCL’s new Z100-SW wireless subwoofer.

In the demo session, this extended both the impact and depth of the bass substantially, but did so impressively seamlessly, enjoying a good tonal match with the TV’s integrated sound system and avoiding any obvious frequency response ‘gap’.

Early Verdict

We’re going to need to spend much more time with a finished, production sample of the X11L and our own favourite real world content before we can deliver a final judgment on TCL’s surprising new flagship screen. But the signs so far are looking auspicious to say the least.

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Dolby Vision 2, the somewhat controversial new HDR format, was announced last year with Hisense listed as the only TV partner at the time.

Now, though, it's been confirmed at CES 2026 that two further TV brands will be supporting the format this year.

The first of those is TCL. This should come as little surprise after the brand whacked a 'Dolby Vision 2.0' logo on its stand at IFA in September – much to the confusion of everyone, including TCL's own staff.

We now understand that the brand's new SQD Mini LED range, including the new flagship X11L model, will get Dolby Vision 2 support via a post-launch software update.

Dolby also claims it will be added to TCL's mainstream C-series, presumably including the successor to last year's What Hi-Fi? Award-winning C7K – we've approached TCL for comment on that.

And while Philips hasn't even announced its 2026 TV range yet (that's not expected for a few weeks), Dolby has already revealed that several new models, including the (again, as-yet-unannounced by Philips) OLED811, OLED911 and flagship OLED951 will support Dolby Vision 2.

So that's Hisense, TCL and Philips all confirmed (at least by Dolby) to be supporting Dolby Vision 2 this year.

But what about the rest?

Sony and Panasonic

It's no surprise that we have no Dolby Vision 2 news from Sony or Panasonic.

Sony no longer announces its new TVs at CES, choosing instead to reveal new models around March or April each year. We're expecting a similar timeframe this year, so if Sony is going to support Dolby Vision 2, that's when we'll find out.

Panasonic, on the other hand, does usually announce its new flagship TV during CES. This year, though, it hasn't done that. It could be a while until we get any 2026 TV news from Panasonic (its overall range is usually announced around May), including whether Dolby Vision 2 is on the cards.

Samsung

It's also entirely unsurprising that Samsung hasn't been mentioned in relation to Dolby Vision 2, because Samsung has never supported Dolby Vision at all.

In fact, Samsung created HDR10+ as a rival to Dolby Vision, and it's launching HDR10+ Advanced this year as a rival to Dolby Vision 2.

LG

Now this is the surprising one: LG has long been regarded as one of Dolby Vision's keenest advocates, having supported it from the start on as many models as it possibly could, yet we've been told that the brand has "no plans to support Dolby Vision 2 in 2026".

That's a direct quote from David Park, LG’s Director of Product Strategy and Marketing in the US, who is very much a man who's usually in the know, yet he seemed surprisingly in the dark about Dolby Vision 2 in general, including whether it might be possible for it to be added to its 2026 TVs at a later date.

Will a lack of Dolby Vision 2 be enough of a factor to put prospective buyers off LG's new W6, G6 or C6 OLEDs, which otherwise all look very appealing? It's hard to say, but the fact that several other brands will be offering it this year, while LG won't be, will certainly provide pause for thought.

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There's a lot of chat at the moment about RGB Mini LED being the next big thing in TV technology. Well TCL thinks it knows better, and has chosen SQD Mini LED as its flagship technology this year.

It will feature in the X11L, which launched in China towards the end of last year, and will come to Europe and the US later this year.

SQD stands for Super Quantum Dots. It refines how light is filtered at the colour level, reducing colour crosstalk (i.e. where colours unintentionally bleed into one another) and maintaining colour accuracy no matter how complex the scene might be.

It integrates TCL's Deep Colour System (which widens the colour spectrum and enhances contrast), and works alongside the firm's Halo Control System that so impressed us on last year's TVs like the Award-winning C7K. By minimising the halo effect around bright objects, SQD Mini LED promises to keep contrast under control even in well-lit rooms, creating a more immersive viewing experience.

TCL claims this will offer a 33 per cent boost in colour gamut performance and a 69 per cent improvement in quantum dot accuracy compared to previous-generation TVs. The promise is a picture that "remains stable at high brightness levels, preserves shadows more accurately and maintains colour." Which should make for a more lifelike, consistent image, especially in scenes of high contrast.

The X11L will offer an SQD Mini LED panel alongside TCL's Deep Colour System. This uses Super Quantum Crystals (Super QLED), an UltraColour Filter, and an Advanced Colour Purity Algorithm to produce more vivid colours with more nuance and greater accuracy. The Halo Control System is also onboard, with over 20,000 dimming zones and a peak brightness of 10,000 nits.

The promise is intense highlights and deep shadows without sacrificing detail, along with more localised light control for greater clarity.

The X11L also supports up to 100 per cent of the BT.2020 all-scene wide colour gamut, which is the gold standard used in cinema-grade content. Which should make for colours that are "clean, saturated and accurate."

We're also promised consistent brightness and colour from wider viewing angles thanks to the WHVA 2.0 Ultra Panel.

The X11L should be very unobtrusive in situ as well, thanks to a thickness of less than 0.8 inches (20mm) and a ZeroBorder design with an ultra slim bezel. A TSR AI Processor will use machine learning to optimise each scene, and the 144Hz refresh rate will keep up with even the most frantic action. The built-in speakers are made by Danish hi-fi doyens Bang & Olufsen.

The X11L will be one of the first TVs to support Dolby Vision 2 Max following a firmware update. It also supports Dolby Atmos FlexConnect for greater versatility with speaker placement.

The X11L and other TVs in the range will have Google Gemini Interactive AI integrated, letting you personalise your entertainment experience.

We're hoping to go hands-on with the X11L later this week, so stay tuned for more.

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Cheaper TVs are getting good, and good TVs are getting cheaper.

That’s the trend we’re beginning to see, particularly from TCL, which is now regularly producing five-star and even Award-winning TVs that comfortably sit in the three-figure price range.

But what happens when a long-standing player, such as Sony, attempts to take these manufacturers head-on?

Well, we’re about to find out, as before us today we have the 65-inch Bravia 3 – a TV that’s aimed at the same budget-conscious crowd but has greater brand cachet and a claim to more considered tuning.

So, is the result a dream budget TV? Unfortunately, no.

Price

At £899 / $800 / AU$1645, the 65-inch Bravia 3 looks like a relative bargain compared to the rest of Sony’s 2025 TV lineup. We’ve seen it drop to as low as £749 in the UK recently, but pricing seems to have settled at the £799 mark.

Interestingly, the Bravia 3 launched in the US and Australia last year as part of Sony’s initial Bravia relaunch, but it’s taken until May of this year for it to be released in the UK.

The Bravia 3 comes in the same 43-, 50-, 55-, 65- and 75-inch size options as its X75L predecessor, as well as a new 85-inch option. Prices start at £479 / $240 / AU$999 for the smallest size, and reach £1499 / $1600 / AU$2300 for the 85-inch version.

We expect the performance to differ substantially across sizes, so this review should only be considered as counting for the 65-inch model.

Competition-wise, the 65-inch variant that we have in our testing room today is most closely matched to the Award-winning TCL C7K, which launched at £899 / AU$1595, but can now be found for a more comparable £749 / AU$1200.

We’ll dig into the features shortly, but it must be said that the Bravia 3 looks quite expensive considering its on-paper specification. That said, specifications are never the final word on performance, and we’ve reviewed many TVs that exceed the expectations set by their spec sheet.

Build

The Sony Bravia 3 is a well-built if unremarkable-looking TV. It’s 100 per cent plastic, down to the slightly cheap-looking (and feeling) legs.

Interestingly, Sony does not refer to this TV being constructed of its SORPLAS recycled material, which leads us to believe that this is made of your garden variety plastic rather than the company’s eco-conscious material.

We appreciate that there is an option to fit the feet in a narrow or wide option to suit your media unit, or to leave space for a soundbar. Better still, assembly is super quick and easy, as all you need to do is slot the feet into place; no screws required.

The bezels are fairly slim around three sides of the screen, with a slightly more pronounced chin, giving this TV a fairly minimalistic look from the front.

Furthermore, Sony gives the Bravia 3 a slightly more premium feeling by including the same remote as it does with its more premium models, including the Bravia 8 II.

This remote unfortunately isn’t backlit, though, as Sony seems to have stopped producing the backlit version of its control, which is a shame. Still, this part is made of recycled plastic and features a “find my remote” function.

Features

Sony has clearly made some omissions to reach this price point, and it’s most evident when we look at the feature set. The Bravia 3 uses a direct-lit LED panel, and Sony has opted not to include any sort of local dimming control.

It doesn’t feature Quantum Dots either. However, Sony tries to regain some ground here by including its Triluminous Pro technology, which uses a combination of the available hardware and software smarts to boost colour reproduction, but we’ll reveal how effective this is in the picture section of this review.

Furthermore, this is a 4K/60Hz panel. This will likely be disappointing to gamers hoping to squeeze the maximum performance out of their Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, but it’s worth noting that the majority of console games still max out at 4K/60Hz rather than 4K/120Hz anyway.

The lack of VRR is another shame, but all four of the Bravia 3’s HDMI sockets do at least support ALLM, with one socket doubling as an HDMI eARC port.

Sony does make some headway when we move away from gamers and focus on the features catered towards movie-lovers. Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG are all supported here, and Dolby Atmos audio is also featured via HDMI eARC.

Speaking of audio, the 65-inch version sports a two-channel speaker system with a combined 20W of output (10W per speaker). The speakers use Sony’s X-Balance and Bass Reflex speaker technology.

In layman's terms, this means that the drivers feature an unconventional non-circular diaphragm for a larger surface area, which reportedly produces deeper bass and enhanced vocal clarity.

Much like the rest of Sony’s lineup, Google TV is built in, meaning the Bravia 3 has access to a wide variety of domestic and international streaming apps. We don’t find any noticeable gaps in terms of app compatibility in our testing, and aside from a few hiccups (mostly after we first turn the TV on), we find that the TV handles the operating system fine.

On paper, it’s hard to deny that the specs are quite disappointing, especially when we look at the rival TCL C7K, which features a Mini LED-backlit panel with 1008 dimming zones, Quantum Dots and a 144Hz refresh rate.

We do, however, have to consider Sony’s picture pedigree. The Japanese giant is renowned for creating TVs that are greater than the sum of their parts, thanks to clever processing and careful, considered tuning.

Understandably, the Bravia 3 does not feature Sony’s flagship Bravia XR processor, but the 4K HDR Processor X1 can handle a few of the same features, including the aforementioned Triluminous Pro colour processing, as well as versions of the Live Colour and MotionFlow features found on the pricier Bravia models.

Picture

We always go into a TV review hoping for the best, and considering Sony’s recent five-star run, which includes the Bravia 7, Bravia 8 and Bravia 8 II, it’s fair to say that we have high hopes for the Bravia 3’s picture performance.

As you can probably tell from the star rating, these hopes are unfortunately not met, but that doesn’t mean the Bravia 3 is a complete write-off by any means.

We start in the TV’s out-of-the-box settings, and find that (as expected) the picture isn’t particularly subtle. Colours are punchy and rich, and there’s a solid sense of three dimensionality, but motion is oversmoothed.

Switching to the Professional picture mode, which is the Sony TV equivalent of Filmmaker Mode, we find that the Bravia 3 looks a lot more balanced and natural. Colours retain their richness, but look warm and more balanced in Civil War, with foliage in particular looking lush and verdant without veering into overblown.

Motion is also greatly improved in this setting, as evidenced by the jets flying overhead at the Western Forces military base in Charlottesville, Virginia. There is minimal judder here, and yet the oversmoothed out-of-the-box mode is also avoided.

Generally speaking, Sony’s picture-tuning DNA can be spotted in various aspects of the picture, but that’s not enough to make up for its various shortcomings.

What strikes us most is how the entire picture is covered in a grey wash, which robs it of some solidity and makes dark sequences borderline unwatchable. The panel seems to glow in sequences that demand blacks, which results in an overwhelming amount of detail being lost in darker scenes.

Take, for instance, the scene in Civil War in which the journalists drive through a burning forest at night. There is decent intensity and richness to the flames, but the rest of the image is robbed of detail, making the car and the occupants inside very difficult to see.

Even in scenes with plenty of light, we find that the image lacks contrast, meaning that Sony’s usually excellent presentation of three-dimensionality is compromised.

Switching to Oppenheimer, there are a few redeeming qualities to the Sony, especially when compared to the TCL C7K, which we have on hand for reference.

The black and white sections of the movie appear considerably better on the Sony, with a richer, more cinematic warmth to the whites that makes the TCL look a bit blue in comparison.

Furthermore, the sweeping panning shots throughout the introduction to the Los Alamos scene are handled admirably by the Sony, once again demonstrating how capable its motion processing is.

Unfortunately, though, we encounter similar issues when it comes to dark details. Characters with dark hair or clothing suffer from a lack of defined details, resulting in parts of the picture that look a bit rudimentary.

Finishing our picture testing with Gravity on Blu-ray, we can assess how this Sony TV handles SDR content. Overall, it doesn’t do a terrible job here, as the picture has a degree of naturalness that helps boost immersion.

The film grain featured in this film also looks more intentional on the Sony, whereas the TCL seems to present it in a way that makes it look like picture noise.

However, the lack of black depth ultimately makes the expansive void of space look less convincing from the Sony, and we find that highlights, such as the sun reflecting off the horizon of Earth below or stars in the background, look a tad dull.

The TCL features more convincing blacks and brighter highlights. It’s both a technically more impressive and better-performing TV for the money.

Dark details are preserved with much more finesse here, and while it is not an OLED, we find that the TCL’s handling of black and control of blooming make the C7K a much better option for watching anything with dark sequences.

Sound

While the Bravia 3 doesn’t nail the picture performance test, it does a much better job when it comes to sound.

Despite its fairly modest built-in speakers, the Sony manages to provide impressively clear dialogue that is underpinned by a decent sense of low-level dynamics.

This gives voices a much-needed injection of emotion – we once again revert to Civil War, where we find that softer heart-to-heart discussions and more volatile emotional outbursts are presented with genuine impact.

We also find that the sound has a decent semblance of height to it, meaning that larger effects, such as explosions or the jets flying overhead, sound surprisingly spacious.

It’s not perfect by any means – the bass is a bit light, which hinders the building of tension in the Gravity soundtrack – but we find it preferable to the TCL’s speakers.

In comparison, the TCL sounds slightly thin, and we have to crank the volume up quite high for it to match the Sony in terms of loudness, which leaves us with a fairly forced and shouty sound from the C7K.

As expected, a soundbar will still be a huge improvement to the Bravia 3’s built-in speakers, but the integrated sound system is better than we have come to expect from TVs at this price.

Verdict

The budget TV market is a whole different board game from Sony’s usual stomping ground of high-end OLEDs and Mini LEDs. While the Bravia 3 makes an attempt to challenge the likes of TCL and Hisense using Sony’s existing picture-tuning pedigree, its shortcomings are simply too obvious to overlook.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 4
• Features 3

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It’s easy, when looking for a bargain set-up, whether it be home cinema or hi-fi, to get a little too distracted with driving the price down, rather than looking at the quality you might be getting. If it’s cheap, after all, there must be some leeway for a few performance foibles, surely?

Often, of course, that simply has to be the case. But not always.

With this pairing, we are confident that, as well as spending a remarkably little amount of money for what you get, you are also getting almost unreasonable performance for your pound.

Fifty-inch televisions may be par for the course nowadays, but for most living rooms it’s a size that is plenty big enough to bring a cinematic sense of scale to proceedings.

The system

• TV: TCL 50C6KS (£419 / AU$590)
• Soundbar: Hisense AX5125H (£249 / $350)
• Total system price: £668

The TV

And the 50in TV we have for you here is, quite simply, a revelation. For years, the premium panel technologies – Mini LED and OLED – remained firmly in the territory of flagship pricing. TCL has shattered that barrier with the 50C6KS. It’s a 50-inch slice of visual excellence that makes you question how much money you need to spend to get a truly bright, punchy, and detailed picture.

The core strength of the TCL 50C6KS lies in its Mini LED backlight. The set’s ability to control local dimming zones is far more sophisticated than anything else we’ve seen anywhere near this price. And it translates immediately into the real-world performance: excellent brightness and contrast that fundamentally elevate all content you throw at it.

Watching high dynamic range (HDR) content, especially from Dolby Vision or HDR10+ sources, is where the magic truly happens. Sunsets blaze with intensity, streetlights pierce the inky blackness of a night scene, and explosions have a genuinely searing quality.

The black levels, while not reaching the absolute, pixel-off-perfection of a true OLED panel – this is a £350 50in TV remember – are deep and satisfyingly dark, particularly when viewed in a moderately lit room. Critically, we found very little evidence of a common pitfall for lesser LED TVs – blooming or light haloing around bright objects against a dark background.

The picture has depth and dimension, and avoids the flat, washed-out look that plagues so many budget rivals. Its colour palette is rich and vibrant, offering nuanced shades of green and red that bring nature documentaries to life.

There are, inevitably, some minor foibles. The most noticeable compromise is in motion handling. It’s generally perfectly competent, particularly for standard TV viewing; but watching fast-paced cinematic action can occasionally reveal an over-smoothing effect.

While this can be mitigated somewhat by tweaking the motion settings, out of the box it can lead to a slight soap-opera effect on fast pans and camera moves.

The other key limitation to be aware of, particularly for the enthusiastic gamer, is connectivity. The 50C6KS lacks the full suite of HDMI 2.1 features. This means the latest generation of consoles – the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X – will be limited to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. For the casual gamer or those who prioritize cinematic picture quality over extreme frame rates, this is a perfectly acceptable trade-off.

For most of the people, most of the time, the TCL 50C6KS offers a picture that is, in its own way, “even better than its specs suggest”. This is a television that simply loves light and is desperate to share it with you.

The soundbar

To pair with the television, we have a rare product indeed. A sub-£500 Dolby Atmos soundbar system that actually performs brilliantly for its price – indeed, it’s the first of its type to merit the full five stars (and a Best Buy Award) from What Hi-Fi?’s necessarily strict reviewing team.

Two top-value products, then, that bring so much more than you should expect for the less than £550 you will have to pay for them.

If the TCL is the visual bargain of the year, the Hisense AX5125H is without doubt its audio equivalent. This system is a certified winner, and it represents a genuine landmark: it’s the first truly good and incredibly affordable Dolby Atmos system What Hi-Fi? has reviewed.

What’s more, the Hisense is not simply a soundbar: this is a complete 5.1.2-channel system in a box. That means you get the main soundbar unit, a dedicated wireless subwoofer, and, crucially, two dedicated wireless surround speakers.

The system supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and the soundbar incorporates upward-firing drivers (the ".2" in that 5.1.2) to bounce audio off your ceiling, creating the true height and immersion that defines the Atmos experience.

And, when we had the system in our test room, we were stunned by the sheer scale and spaciousness of the sound it produces. Explosions don't just happen in front of you; they feel as though they are detonating across the entire room.

Aircraft fly overhead, and rain seems to fall from above. The soundbar itself handles dialogue and the front soundstage with a cohesive and detailed grip, ensuring that even in the most chaotic action sequence, you can still clearly hear the actors' voices.

The star of the show, though, is the wireless subwoofer. It delivers a room-filling, sofa-shaking exuberance that is addictive, providing a proper foundation for the sound, lending weight and dramatic scale to action movies and giving music a satisfyingly deep beat. This is bass that you don't just hear; you feel it in your chest, instantly transforming the sense of immersion.

The fact that you can get this sonic quality for 200 quid (at the time of writing) is, quite frankly, absurd.

The verdict

The beauty of pairing the TCL 50C6KS and the Hisense AX5125H lies in their complementary strengths.

The TCL is focused almost entirely on delivering a stellar image, one that is bright, contrast-rich, and detailed. Its internal audio, while more powerful than many rival TVs, is still, ultimately, TV audio. Which is to say, not ideal in a home cinema context.

The Hisense AX5125H steps in not just as an upgrade, but, as it turns out, as the ideal partner to the TCL's visual prowess. It solves the TV's one key limitation – the need for serious audio – and does so with an authority and completeness that is rare.

Where the TV draws you in with its stunning use of light and colour, the sound system holds you captive with its enveloping sonic landscape.

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2025 has been a bumper year for reviews.

I’ve crunched the numbers, and we published more than 200 over the last 12 months, roughly half of which were in the TV/AV category that I look after.

I was involved in pretty much all of those TV and home cinema reviews, either as the primary tester or as one of the ‘second-lookers’ (we test as a team, so every review involves several What Hi-Fi? staffers).

Of those 100 or so products, these are the five that rocked my world the most.

(This would have been a list of eight, but I decided to set myself a rule of just one highlight per brand)

Sony Bravia 8 II

Yes, I know I’ve written about this magical OLED TV a lot, but it would be disingenuous for me to start this list with any other product.

This has been an incredible year for OLED TVs, with a whole new panel technology (Primary RGB Tandem OLED) stealing the early headlines, and the QD-OLED camp raising its game to compete. The result has been the closest, most competitive flagship OLED TV battle I can remember.

What’s interesting is that the Sony Bravia 8 II is, in terms of pure numbers, arguably the least impressive TV of the bunch, but it’s the best in real terms. It doesn’t go quite as bright in outright terms as its LG or Samsung rivals, and it doesn’t use its innate Quantum Dot-enhanced vibrancy to dazzle you with colours.

Instead, it uses the bright and colourful potential of the latest-gen QD-OLED panel to deliver even more natural and cinematically authentic picture quality.

This is just the most all-round appealing TV I’ve ever tested, with a balance of technical innovation and processing mastery that I don’t think will be beaten for a while.

Hisense AX5125H

One of the best things about this job is, of course, getting to test the latest super-premium kit, but there’s also a genuine thrill to discovering an incredible bargain – and that’s exactly what this is.

The Hisense AX5125H was just £249 when we tested it, and it can now be bought for an even lower price of £199. That’s about half the price of most decent entry-level solo Dolby Atmos soundbars, yet this is a Dolby Atmos soundbar with a wireless subwoofer and two wireless surrounds.

I don’t mind admitting that my expectations for the sound quality weren’t high, but as soon as I set the system up and ran the first movie through it, I knew we’d stumbled upon a budget beauty.

Whenever I would take a break from testing, I’d convince myself that the Hisense couldn’t be as good as I thought, but then I would return to it, put on another movie and be impressed all over again.

Without a doubt, this is the home cinema bargain of the year.

Epson EH-LS9000

While not a bargain in the way of the Hisense soundbar system above, the Epson EH-LS9000 is fantastic value for money, essentially redefining projector expectations at its price.

That price is £2999 / $3999 / AU$7299, which certainly isn’t a snip, but the LS9000 fully justifies the outlay with specs that include 4K (via pixel-shifting), a claimed brightness of 2200 lumens, substantial HDR support, and 4K/120Hz gaming, plus a performance closer to models in the category above.

The crisp, colourful and three-dimensional-feeling picture is such a joy that we took time out of our busy testing schedule to watch more movies and play more games on the Epson just for fun.

KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 Speaker System

I could (some would say “should”) be writing about the incredibly impressive, boundary-pushing XIO soundbar here, but I’m an absolute sucker for ‘traditional’ home cinema, and I just loved listening to KEF’s Q Concerto Meta speaker package this year.

It probably helped that Senior Staff Writer Lewis Empson led this review, so he had to do all of the heavy lifting and calibrating, whereas I just got to enjoy the performance.

And what a performance it is: the combination of rich warmth and crisp punch is intoxicating, and the seamlessness with which effects are passed around the room is hugely immersive.

We put this system together by picking different speakers from KEF’s range, but it’s now being offered as a complete package for significantly less than the £3146 at which we tested it.

TCL 98C7K

If I had the space, I would have bought the 98-inch TCL C7K already.

The C7K had already impressed us in 65-inch form when we wrestled the 98-inch version out of its box, but I really didn’t think that TCL’s step-down Mini LED tech would effectively stretch to this gargantuan size.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This TV is an absolute joy to watch, delivering blacks, brightness and colours that projectors can only dream of. Like TCL’s other 2025 models, it’s nicely tuned, too, delivering a satisfyingly authentic home cinema experience.

It’s also now available for under £2000. That’s unbelievable value for money. If 100 inches was my limit, I would absolutely buy this TCL TV over a projector.

2025’s about to go the way of the dinosaurs, but what a run it had – especially if you’re a home cinema fan.

Over the past year, we have seen everything from the arrival of new cutting-edge OLED technologies to more than a few surprises that even our team of experts didn’t see coming. These included the arrival of the Award-winning KEF XIO, the British hi-fi brand's first Dolby Atmos soundbar.

But with the New Year on the horizon, you may be wondering, what’s next? Well, we’re pleased to report that the answer is “a lot”. There are already a wealth of new, potentially landscape-changing technologies confirmed to launch in 2026.

Which is why we have created this guide, detailing the key trends, products and technologies we think are worth keeping a particularly close eye on over the next 12 months.

There’s going to be an HDR war

By Alastair Stevenson

The launch of Dolby Vision 2 was a memorable moment in 2025 for two reasons. First, because of the way it was announced – in an unceremonious, concise blog post that appeared during the first press day of the IFA tradeshow in Berlin.

Not only did it have very little technical information, but its unveiling was also so unexpected that even the manufacturers supposedly making new TVs supporting the standard seemed “surprised” when we did a ring around, asking about it.

Second, because it has some fairly impressive features, including significantly more-advanced tone-mapping, and motion controls that should open a whole new plethora of opportunities to filmmakers. Certainly, the What Hi-Fi? home cinema team can’t wait to see what content looks like in Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max.

Never one to like being one-upped, Samsung couldn’t let Dolby’s new standard go unchallenged. Mere months later, then, it invited our intrepid senior staff writer, Lewis Empson, to Korea to see its answer to Dolby Vision 2 – HDR10+ Advanced.

With both standards set to launch in 2026, we can’t help but think the battle for HDR supremacy could be one of the year’s biggest tussles.

OLED will come closer than ever to losing its crown – but it will ultimately keep it

By Tom Parsons

The death (or, at least, the surpassing) of OLED has been predicted time and time again. And in 2026 it is going to be challenged like never before.

That challenge is going to come from RGB Mini LED TVs, with Sony, Samsung, LG and TCL all set or expected to launch models that feature the tech in the year ahead.

These won’t be the first RGB Mini LED TVs – Hisense launched its 116UX model this year – but they will be the first available in semi-realistic sizes (the smallest so far confirmed is the 76-inch LG MRGB95), and the level of competition will result in some excellent models.

What makes RGB Mini LED technology interesting is that it features coloured rather than white LEDs in the backlight. The idea is that colour reproduction is improved and, as there’s no need for a light-sapping colour filter, the TVs can go brighter.

We have seen prototypes from several brands, most impressively Sony and Samsung, and we feel there’s huge potential in the technology. Personally, though, while I know it will reignite the conversation of OLED-beaters, I can’t see RGB Mini LED coming out on top.

Yes, manufacturers are developing all sorts of technologies for backlight control, but at the end of the day, these are still backlit TVs, and I find it hard to imagine their strengths ultimately proving preferable to the self-emissive pixels of OLED.

I live to be surprised, though, and perhaps RGB Mini LED will do just that. A good shake-up of the TV industry sure would be fun to watch and experience.

We could finally get the much-anticipated Sonos Beam (Gen 3)

By Robyn Quick

Few soundbars have stood the test of time quite like the Sonos Beam (Gen 2). It’s been four years since the Dolby Atmos soundbar hit the shelves and found its way into our test room, where it received a five-star review.

And, despite countless rival models in its price range attempting to challenge the Sonos bar, it has won a What Hi-Fi? Award every year since its release. It's easy to see why, with the soundbar offering an incredibly detailed, immersive, and warm audio performance all packed into a compact body.

We have been patiently awaiting the announcement of Sonos’s third iteration for years now. With the original Sonos Beam released back in 2018 and the Gen 2 model coming out in 2021, the new update is now well overdue.

I am optimistic that 2026 could finally be the time. We have seen the Sonos Beam (Gen 2)’s price drop by almost £100 in the UK well past Black Friday, which could be a sign the brand is looking to release a newer model soon. This is all speculation, of course, but who knows what 2026 will hold?

If it manages to improve upon the sound performance of the Beam (Gen 2), then this could be a game-changer in the entry-level Dolby Atmos soundbar category. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled…

It could (and should) be a huge year for AV receivers

By Lewis Empson

2025 has given us some truly showstopping home-cinema products. The excellent Epson EH-LS9000, Sony Bravia Projector 7 and BenQ W2720i projectors spring to mind, as does the superb KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 surround sound speaker package.

While those deliver the most crucial aspects of any home cinema experience – picture and sound – you need a good AVR to act as the beating heart of a quality home-cinema system.

As you may recall from our 2025 Awards, we crowned the Sony TA-AN1000 and Marantz Cinema 30 as our winners. This is the third year in a row that Sony has won the coveted Product of the Year title, and the Marantz earned its second commendation after the Cinema 30 made its Awards debut last year.

While we love these spectacular AVRs, we do wish that they would receive some sort of serious competition. The major players in the AVR market, namely Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, Sony, Arcam and JBL, were all eerily quiet this year.

In fact, many of the best AV receivers are beginning to grow somewhat long in the tooth. The Denon AVR-X2800H was released back in 2022, while the Arcam AVR5 is a year older.

I hope to see this AVR drought end in 2026, as the manufacturers mentioned above have had plenty of time to prime a selection of new models. I'm keeping my hopes up for an epic battle of the AVR brands that will completely shake up our Awards list for next year.

MORE:

Check out our picks for the best OLED TVs

As well as the best Dolby Atmos soundbars

Dolby Vision 2 vs Dolby Vision 2 Max: what you need to know about Dolby's next-gen HDR format

I started reviewing TVs way back in 2007, and I genuinely think that next year could be one of the most interesting for televisions in a really long time.

Why? There are three main reasons: the controversial introduction of two new HDR formats; a new, compelling challenger for OLED's top TV tech crown; and, on the other hand, the arrival (finally) of more affordable OLED TVs.

Let's look at those in turn...

Dolby Vision 2 vs HDR10+ Advanced: the battle nobody asked for

Back in September, Dolby announced that it was working on a new version of Dolby Vision, called, predictably, Dolby Vision 2.

The news was met with a… sceptical reaction.

We asked our own readers for their opinions and checked out some of our regular Reddit haunts, and while some people did respond positively, many seemed downright annoyed about the Dolby Vision news.

There were people arguing (fairly, in my opinion) that most TVs can't take full advantage of Dolby Vision as it is; others posited that the new format is just a ruse to force them to buy a new TV; and a few suggested that Dolby Vision 2's AI processing will actually make picture quality less true to what the director intended.

I understand all of those takes, and I continue to feel a little wary of Dolby Vision 2 myself, but the more I've read about it, the more I have come around to the idea.

The important thing for me is that it's all tied into the studios mastering the movies and TV shows we're going to be watching in the years to come. Dolby Vision 2 is, according to Dolby, all about empowering studios to tailor their content to the TVs we have at home, and enabling us to get a more accurate picture.

There's still a lot that needs answering. Are the studios actually on board with all of this? Are the enhancements genuinely intended to improve accuracy? Which manufacturers are getting on board?

Here's hoping we get a lot of answers at CES 2026 in January, because I've been shocked by how little the people I've been speaking to in the TV industry know about Dolby Vision 2. Frankly, they seem to be as much in the dark as you and I are.

If Dolby Vision 2 has an uphill struggle to convince us of its merits, Samsung's rival HDR10+ Advanced has a mountain to climb.

On paper, it's designed to do much of the same stuff – improve motion, contrast and colours with the help of AI, and take advantage of new, brighter display technologies – but Samsung doesn't have the links to movie studios that Dolby does, so the idea that these improvements are in the service of more accurate picture quality is even harder to swallow.

Of course, I'm not going to judge either of these new technologies before I've seen them in action (neither has been demonstrated in anything other than 'simulations' so far), and it will be genuinely fascinating to test and compare them.

Perhaps one or both of them will defy the cynics and usher in a new dawn of at-home picture quality. Here's hoping.

The RGB Mini LED onslaught

2026 is going to be the year of RGB Mini LED, of that there can be little doubt – but what does it mean for OLED?

Honestly, that's hard to tell. While some manufacturers have already officially unveiled RGB Mini LED TVs, most have not, and even those that have are rumoured to be keeping further models behind the curtain until CES at least.

It seems to me that different manufacturers have different plans for the new panel tech, with some pitching it as the new, all-conquering flagship TV technology and others seeing it as a step-down from OLED.

My take? I think the range of quality will be absolutely huge, much as it is now with 'normal' Mini LED TVs.

Let's not forget that RGB Mini LED TVs are still backlit, so elements such as the number of dimming zones and the processing that controls them will be incredibly important to the final picture quality.

Some TVs will have more LEDs and dimming zones, others will have better processing, and it's probably only those that combine both that will mount any sort of challenge to the best OLED TVs.

Even those that do will have their work cut out for them if the goal is actually to beat OLED.

I'm inclined to believe that no amount of tiny, coloured LEDs in a backlight will match the pixel-level contrast control of OLED, but I live to be surprised; I was certainly very impressed indeed when I saw Sony's prototype RGB LED TV way back in March of this year, and I expect the final version of that set to launch in 2026.

Ultimately, I do think RGB Mini LED will be a game-changer – I just don't know whether it's the mid-range TV game it will change, or whether it's the flagship TV game that OLED is currently winning. I'm sure excited to find out, though.

Cheaper OLEDs, finally?

In 2026, we saw, for the first time, a 55-inch OLED TV launch for less than £1000.

Said TV is the Toshiba XF9F, and while it's unfortunately not particularly good, what it represents is very exciting indeed.

We have long pined for and predicted the arrival of more affordable OLED TVs – and we might even have got them by now were it not for several significant global events that I won't mention here – but it feels as though they might, finally, be right around the corner.

If it were just the Toshiba XF9F, I wouldn't be so sure, but Philips also launched its 55-inch OLED760 model for £1199 this year – and, at the risk of spoiling our upcoming review, that's a genuinely great TV for the money.

In 2026, I can imagine Toshiba having another crack at the budget OLED and it being more polished. I can also imagine Philips going even more aggressive on the pricing of its affordable model.

My imagination even stretches as far as seeing the likes of LG and Samsung looking at these new, affordable OLEDs and deciding that they need to go cheaper with their entry-level models.

I'm not saying that there will be lots of sub-£1000 55-inch TV launches, but I do think that base-spec OLEDs will launch for less than ever before in 2026, and thanks to discounting, those people with a £1000 budget who want a large OLED TV will be almost spoiled for choice.

Won't that be a fine thing?

MORE:

Here are the best TVs and best OLED TVs you can buy right now

This is everything you need to know about Dolby Vision 2

Confused about the new panel tech? You won't be once you've read our RGB Mini LED explainer

It's no secret that Sony is working on a new high-end TV that's utilising the latest RGB Mini LED panel technology; in fact, we've been treated to not one, but two behind-closed-doors demonstrations of the prototype set in action.

While those brief encounters haven't given us much insight aside from a vague idea as to what the new flagship Sony TV for 2026 could perform like, we now have a new piece of the puzzle that pertains to how Sony will be marketing this TV.

A trademark filing in Japan and Canada (first spotted by Sony-centric news site The Walkman Blog) has revealed that Sony has claimed the name True RGB, which is likely linked to the new RGB Mini LED panel technology.

Reliable AV news source FlatpanelsHD has verified the trademark filing, which can be found here.

This suggests that Sony is gearing up to launch its mysterious new TV, potentially under the True RGB moniker. That being said, the company rebranded its TV and AV offerings in 2024, combining everything under the Bravia title.

We'd be surprised to see Sony make a U-turn on this naming convention so quickly, which is leading us to believe that this True RGB name will instead be how Sony refers to the panel technology, much like how Samsung opts to call it RGB Micro LED in its TVs.

Speaking of Samsung, and also bringing Hisense and TCL (both of which are also making RGB Mini LED TVs), we're not sure as to how the other manufacturers will react to Sony staking the claim of having "True RGB", especially considering how closely Samsung is guarding QLED these days.

Nevertheless, this trademark filing could suggest that Sony is primed to launch its new TV next year; however, we have inquired with Sony as to when we could expect its first RGB Mini LED TV, but the Japanese AV powerhouse has kept incredibly tight-lipped.

With CES around the corner, it could be the perfect opportunity for Sony to start 2026 with a bang. Ultimately, we're one step closer to a new flagship Sony TV, which is exciting considering how much we liked the Bravia 8 II.

MORE:

I quizzed Sony about its mysterious next-generation OLED-killing TV – here are 3 surprising things I learned

Read our full Sony Bravia 9 review

Check out our picks for the best Mini LED TVs

Buying a TV during Black Friday can be an overwhelming experience. You have the likes of Sony, Samsung, Hisense, TCL, LG, Panasonic and Philips all vying for your attention and, more importantly, your hard-earned cash.

Choosing the right model is easier said than done, as there are different panel technologies to consider, screen sizes and specifications which will all influence how you use your TV and the picture performance you'll receive.

There's also an added layer of considering whether the Black Friday deal is actually good, or if the savings aren't really worth it.

It's exhausting, but luckily for you, you don't have to go through any of that stress if you simply follow my advice.

I've been reviewing the latest 2025 TVs all year, and when I've not been in the AV testing room, I've been flying around the world to see the latest TVs in action ahead of their official launches.

I've distilled my Black Friday TV buying guidance into three simple options: a budget choice, a mid-range TV and a premium flagship model, meaning you can pick the TV that best aligns with your budget.

I've selected a trio of 55-inch and 65-inch TVs; however, if you're looking for a smaller option, I'd urge you to look a the 42-inch LG C5 or 48-inch LG C5. And for anyone who wants an XL TV, there is the 98-inch TCL C7.

I've chosen these TVs on their picture performance merits primarily, however they all also feature excellent specs elsewhere, including HDMI 2.1 gaming support and built-in streaming platforms.

Without further ado, here is my distilled Black Friday TV guidance...

The best value choice

I've recommended this TV during the Black Friday sales a few times, and recently cited it as the best choice "if OLED is out of the question".

It delivers convincing black depths with minimised blooming thanks to TCL's effective Halo Control technology, while the 1008 dimming zones and claimed 2800 nits of peak brightness allow for impressive brightness that is also surprisingly disciplined.

This TV is also impressively feature-rich, with two HDMI 2.1 sockets that can handle signals up to 4K/144Hz with VRR and ALLM, support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR, and there's even a decent built-in sound system that's been tuned by legendary Danish hi-fi brand Bang & Olufsen.

This TV launched for £899, and it's £150 off in the Black Friday sales; it might not look like a huge price reduction, but this TV was already punching well above its weight, so the fact that it's even cheaper right now makes it an easy recommendation for anyone working with a slightly tighter budget.

Read our full TCL C7K review

The best mid-range choice

The 55-inch LG C5 OLED TV is a gem in the mid-range sector. It leverages a "traditional" WOLED panel to deliver sensational contrast and deep, true blacks, which makes for an impressive and immersive cinematic image.

Paired with four HDMI 2.1 sockets, all of which are full bandwidth for 4K/144Hz gaming with VRR and ALLM and LG's extensive webOS smart platform full of streaming apps, the LG C5 is both fully-featured and great-looking.

The only area that's a slight let-down is the built-in sound. However, the 55-inch model, which we reviewed at £1900, has dropped below £1000 and can now be found for around £989 at many retailers.

I'd recommend using the savings to invest in a Sonos Arc Ultra. which has also been discounted for Black Friday.

Read our full LG C5 review

The best premium choice

The cream of the 2025 TV crop is the 55-inch Sony Bravia 8 II, an OLED TV that blew us away when we first tested it earlier this year.

It leverages a QD-OLED panel for enhanced brightness, and the combination of Sony's XR Processor and its prestigious picture tuning to create a contrast-rich, finely detailed and supremely three-dimensional image.

Much like the other options on this list, it supports the latest gaming features (enhanced by Sony's Perfect for PlayStation protocol), and it scores the highest on this list for the built-in sound thanks to Sony's excellent actuator-based drivers.

This TV is guaranteed to impress even the toughest cinephiles thanks to its rich and balanced image, and at an almighty £1000 discount, it's also a superb deal this Black Friday.

Read our full Sony Bravia 8 II review

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• Stereo amplifier: Cambridge Audio now £299
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75

We always maintain a reference system for our home cinema reviews. It combines a selection of Award-winning products that act as benchmarks, allowing us to accurately assess the performance of whatever we may be reviewing.

It's a collection of premium home cinema devices, with equally premium price tags to match, but if you want a reference system in your home that matches ours, then Black Friday is the best time to buy the components.

• Browse all the best deals on Amazon

Every part of our reference setup has been discounted for this savings event, meaning you can save a hefty chunk of change if you do want to replicate our system.

Now, ours is admittedly over the top (would you expect anything less?) as we always have multiple TVs and a projector set up at all times, as well as both a surround sound speaker package and a soundbar.

You may not need both a TV/soundbar and a projector/speaker system, so feel free to pick and choose what suits you best. Either way, you're guaranteed to experience the ultimate cinematic performance from these products and save a boatload of cash too.

Our projector: Sony VPL-XW5000ES

Sony's entry-level native 4K laser projector is on a What Hi-Fi? Award-winning streak, scoring its fourth Product of the Year title earlier this month.

It's still a pricey piece of kit, but this deal at Richer Sounds knocks £2000 off a supremely talented beamer that delivers seriously impressive contrast and black depths, sharp details, and rich yet balanced colours for an overall showstopping cinematic experience.

Our only gripe is the lack of motorised lens controls, but once you have the VPL-XW5000ES in place, you'll quickly forgive this minor shortcoming on account of its stellar picture.

Read our full Sony VPL-XW5000ES review

Our OLED TV: Sony Bravia 8 II

The Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II has been the TV we've obsessed over this year, and for good reason, too.

It's served as a benchmark in our reviews for the Panasonic Z95B and Samsung S95F, beating both TVs in terms of sheer picture performance thanks to its deeply engaging and three-dimensional picture.

Sony's masterful picture processing paired with the QD-OLED panel technology makes this TV a sight to behold, and it's backed up by impressive built-in sound, a solid set of gaming features (HDMI 2.1, VRR and ALLM) and a sleek design.

Read our full Sony Bravia 8 II review

Our Mini LED TV: TCL C7K

For the times when we're not reviewing a pricey OLED TV, we find ourselves reaching for the TCL C7K.

This surprise hit of 2025 delivers a bright and punchy image when required, but it also has a trick up its sleeve to ensure it impresses during dark scenes too.

TCL's new Halo Control technology hugely mitigates blooming, and black depths are seriously impressive by backlit TV standards.

If you're not interested in OLED or want a TV that offers a stunning picture without a ludicrous price tag, then the C7K is for you.

Read our full TCL C7K review

Our AVR: Marantz Cinema 30

We've swooned over this AVR plenty of times, but we're here to do it once again.

The Marantz Cinema 30 is a handsome piece of home cinema kit, with a premium sculpted metal design, tasteful ambient accent lights, and even a gorgeous remote control; but in the grand scheme of things, none of that really matters, as we care most about sound quality.

The good news is that the Marantz Cinema 30 is a showstopper when it comes to delivering cinematic sound, with a rich, weighty and smooth performance that is guaranteed to immerse even the toughest audiophiles.

It's dynamic, can deliver huge scale sound, and features excellent connectivity; it really is the full package.

Read our full Marantz Cinema 30 review

Our speaker package: KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1

The latest addition to our reference home cinema system, the KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 was the sleeper hit from this year's Awards testing process.

It won us over almost instantly with its rich, powerful and engaging sound, complete with a subwoofer that handles bass like a champion. It's accurate and agile, yet warm and inviting, which is a surprisingly difficult balance to strike.

We're also huge fans of its dashing good looks, and the fact that it's comprised entirely of standmounting speakers means it should take up slightly less room than an equivalent floorstanding setup.

It's become our new reference system for a reason, and we're already looking forward to the next time we can watch a movie using it.

Read our full KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 review

Our soundbar: Sonos Arc Ultra

Surround sound speaker packages will always be our favourite method of achieving cinematic sound, but we can't deny the convenience of a soundbar. And this soundbar happens to be pretty fantastic.

The Sonos Arc Ultra had massive shoes to fill, but it did so with ease, delivering the punchy, big-scale sound of its predecessor with added richness and height, as well as a whole lot more bass.

This all-in-one cinematic sound solution is a perfect accompaniment to the Sony Bravia 8 II, and it's primed to be made into a full system with the Sonos Sub 4 and a pair of Sonos Era 300 speakers.

Our 4K Blu-ray player: Panasonic DP-UB820

We tend to use the Oppo UDP 203 for a majority of our 4K disc spinning duties, but that player has been sadly discontinued.

Fret not, as the Panasonic DP-UB820 also has a permanent spot in our reference lineup, and considering it just took home yet another Product of the Year win, we don't see it leaving any time soon.

This easy-to-use 4K Blu-ray player delivers a vibrant, rich, and crisp 4K HDR image alongside powerful and spacious sound.

We've sung the praises of 4K Blu-rays over streaming countless times, and this player is one of the best ways to experience the benefits of physical media.

Read our full Panasonic DP-UB820 review

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75

The Black Friday deals are continuing as we head into Cyber Monday, and there's literally no cheaper five-star TV than the 50-inch Amazon Omni QLED, which can currently be bought for just £300 at Amazon.

There's no denying that's a serious bargain, but I don't think you should buy it.

That's because the newer 50-inch TCL 50C6KS is even better, and is available for just a little more money – £345 at Amazon.

That additional £45 is well worth paying, in my view.

Unlike the Omni QLED, the TCL 50C6KS is a Mini LED TV with 160 dimming zones. It's much brighter than the Amazon model, and has much better contrast.

The panel also features TCL's new HVA technology, which helps it deliver deep blacks, refined shadow detail, and better halo control than cheaper TVs normally manage.

Like the Omni QLED it supports all current HDR formats (HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision), but its superior hardware means its better able to make use of them, delivering a brighter, more dynamic and more colourful picture.

Bright highlights pop without washing out, and the colour is both punchy and natural – skin tones, skies and foliage all feel balanced, not over-saturated.

On the design side, the TV is mostly plastic, but nothing about it seems cheap when you’re actually watching it. The bezels are reasonably slim and the stand is serviceable.

Performance for gaming is pretty solid: there’s VRR and ALLM support, and the input lag is very low (9.9 ms). It’s only a 60Hz panel, but that's to be expected at this level, and the HDR in games feels satisfying and punchy.

The smart platform is Google TV, which gives you all the usual streaming apps plus voice control. Every major streaming service is supported, including all of the UK catch-up apps.

Surprisingly, the audio is very capable for a TV at this price. It supports Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual-X, and it delivers more clarity and detail than you’d expect – dialogue stays clean, and there’s good separation, though the bass isn’t powerful. It’s not going to replace a soundbar, but for everyday viewing it’s very decent.

There are a few drawbacks: motion can look a little soft, and very bright HDR highlights sometimes suffer clipping or colour banding. But this is still, as we said in our review, “one of the year’s biggest bargains”.

It overdelivers in pretty much every area where you’d normally compromise on a budget TV, which is why it's a What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 winner.

So, yes, the Amazon Omni QLED is great value for £300, but the improvements offered by the TCL C6KS are well worth the extra £45 it currently costs.

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals

I've been recommending TVs to eager Black Friday and Cyber Monday buyers for four days straight, and it's come to my attention that I've been mostly steering people towards OLED sets.

That's no great surprise, as we find that the panel technology delivers the most cinematic performance in our experience. We've said it before, but when you experience OLED black levels and contrast, it's near impossible to go back.

That being said, it's come to my attention that OLED isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I think that's fair enough. As someone who's constantly surrounded by premium OLEDs, it's easy to lose sight of the other options, but I completely realise that while I'll always opt for an OLED TV where possible, not everyone feels the same, and for good reasons too.

First and foremost, OLED TVs are expensive. Even hundreds of pounds worth of Black Friday savings can't drag the Sony Bravia 8 II's price below £1500, and the LG C5 sits north of £1000 in its 65-inch size, even with discounts applied.

Furthermore, there is the issue of brightness, as OLED has been playing catch-up with Mini LED in this regard for a few years now. The playing field is beginning to level with QD-OLED and Primary RGB Tandem OLED hitting their respective strides, but these panels are only featured in premium sets.

So, if you want a TV that balances convincing black levels and punchy brightness, and features a price tag that's under four figures, then OLED is, frankly speaking, out of the question.

Fear not, as I've been wracking my brains as to what the best alternative could be, and I was reminded of a TV that I've been using in our dedicated AV testing room just over a week ago.

It's the Award-winning 65-inch TCL C7K, a TV that I admittedly had some reservations about.

I wasn't a huge fan of the C855K, and that was the last TCL TV I'd come face-to-face with in our testing facility, so unboxing and setting up the C7K as a reference model for an upcoming review made me slightly anxious.

Thankfully, my nerves were quickly dispelled when this TV jumped into action. It's a fantastic looking TV across the board, with punchy highlights, impressively balanced colours and, most impressively, really convincing black levels.

Now I'm sure an OLED would show it up in a side-by-side test, but considering the price and capabilities of this TV, I was really impressed with how dark blacks came across on this TV.

Better still, dark scenes weren't compromised with obvious patches of blooming, which added to the experience and made them look even more convincing.

It's really hard for a backlit TV to excel in doing this, and we've seen many Mini LED TVs falter at this hurdle. However, the TCL C7K refuses to do so.

The best news about all of this is that the 65-inch model is currently discounted for Black Friday, meaning you can pick it up for just £749 at Currys, down from £899.

TCL is known for its budget TVs, but that doesn't mean it cuts back on features. This TV sports a staggering 1008 dimming zones and features a claimed peak brightness of 2800 nits.

Paired with a 4K/144Hz panel, two HDMI 2.1 sockets that support high-performance gaming with VRR and ALLM, a sound system tuned by none other than Bang & Olufsen, and support for both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, this TV begins to look more premium than its price suggests.

However, the real magic comes with TCL's new Halo Control system, which mitigates the drawbacks of the Mini LED backlight for more precise blacks. I think this is the real ace up TCL's sleeve, as it works a treat on the C7K.

This plays a crucial role in the reduction of blooming, which makes dark scenes look much more immersive. Black depths on this TV are shockingly impressive for a backlit model, especially at this price, meaning you can get an experience that's not a million miles off OLED for a much lower price.

The TCL remains my top pick for a 65-inch TV under £1000 this Black Friday, and it will certainly appeal to anyone looking to avoid OLED, especially with it being priced at just £749 at Currys.

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75

After some inconsistency that saw only the occasional amazing TV, TCL burst into 2025 all guns blazing with a string of impressive sets across all budgets and sizes.

This is, of course, excellent news for us AV enthusiasts, with much excitement in the testing room as we had several great Mini LED TVs with high refresh rates, comprehensive HDR support and new ‘Halo Control Technology’.

This does, however, make choosing the right TV all the harder. The TCL C7K is a What Hi-Fi? Award-winner, but how well does it stack up against its more premium sibling? We put the 65-inch models of both the C7K and C8K – two five-star Mini LED TVs – against each other to see which one comes out on top.

A quick note on model numbers before we get started: in the US, the C7K is known as the QM7K, while the C8K is the QM8K.

TCL C7K vs C8K: price

The 65-inch TCL C7K launched at an already good value price of £1399 / $1500 / AU$2295. The more premium 65-inch C8K, on the other hand, launched a tad higher, at £1599 / $1600 / AU$2999.

However, both can now be found with some significant discounts. The TCL C7K has been spotted as low as £749, while the C8K has been on sale for £1149. Both of these prices offer pretty incredible value for the money, and it’s encouraging to see such discounts so soon after launch.

The C8K, as you might have noticed, has not had quite as significant a discount as the C7K, and even on sale, is at a similar price to stiff competition such as Sony’s 65-inch Bravia 7 and LG’s 65QNED93.

The C7K is utterly exceptional value at this point, though, massively undercutting the competition, so this round has to go to the cheaper model.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

TCL C7K vs C8K: design

The TCL C7K and C8K share a similar design, including the same central desktop mounting plate.

The main difference is the metal finish, with the C8K enjoying a premium silver metal finish (aerospace-grade aluminium alloy, to be precise).

The C7K’s back section protrudes slightly, while the C8K has near-uniform flatness (likely to make room for the more premium direct backlighting system). Both are rather thick TVs, at 5.6cm for the C7K and 5.9cm for the C8K.

The C8K boasts a more premium silver metal-finished remote control, if that’s important to you – though the C7K’s plastic remote at least gives a premium feel with a metal-style finish.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

TCL C7K vs C8K: features

When it comes to features, the TCL C7K and C8K have an awful lot in common.

Both sport a Mini LED screen, which utilises tiny LED backlights to improve contrast and brightness compared to average LCD screens.

Both also feature a comprehensive suite of hardware and software technology called ‘Halo Control’, which is designed to allow TCL to push brightness while simultaneously improving both the depth and the consistency of blacks. In particular, the technology aims to address the problematic halos of light around bright objects on dark backgrounds.

Connections are identical across the board, including four HDMI ports, a USB port, an optical digital audio output, an ethernet port and the now obligatory wi-fi and Bluetooth (v5.4) wireless connections.

However, gamers should note that on both models, only two of the four HDMI ports are full-fat HDMI 2.1 connections for high frame-rate gaming. A shame, as both TVs can support 4K at up to 144Hz – and even stretch to 288Hz in HD resolution (if you can find any 288Hz sources!). Note that current-gen consoles currently max out at 4K/120Hz, so anything above that is only relevant to hardcore PC gaming.

VRR is supported on both TVs right up to that extreme 288Hz level, including in the AMD FreeSync Premium Pro format. ALLM, which automatically switches the TV to its fast-response game mode when a gaming signal is detected, is also on board. We measured an imperceptible difference of 0.1ms between the input lag of the two TVs, with the C8K clocking the faster time of 13.1ms.

Both TVs also offer the full range of streaming services available through Google TV, including UK catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 and My5, as well as international heavy hitters including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and YouTube.

Both also support all four HDR formats – HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

So what are the differences? As you would expect, given its lower price, the TCL C7K has a few downgrades compared with the C8K. Most notably, the C7K has fewer dimming zones (1008 compared to the C8K’s 1680) and lower peak brightness (a claimed 2600 nits vs the C8K’s 4500).

This improved brightness should result in a more impactful picture from the C8K, particularly with HDR content. It should also enhance performance in bright rooms. The higher number of dimming zones should also mean finer control over the backlight, allowing the C8K to dim some areas of its light while keeping others more effectively bright, and improving overall contrast.

The C7K has a CrystGlow HVA Panel, whereas the C8K boasts TCL’s newer CrystGlow WHVA panel. The WHVA claims a few notable improvements over the older panel technology, such as a lower reflection film, a 40 per cent wider viewing angle and an ultra-slim ‘ZeroBorder’ frame.

Both the C7K and C8K are jam-packed with features, including lots of fancy new screen and processing technology. The C8K, however, comes with all the features of the C7K and more – so this round goes to the C8K.

** Winner: TCL C8K**

TCL C7K vs C8K: picture

As you would expect from two TVs from the same range, the TCL C7K and C8K have a lot in common.

For starters, the much-hyped Halo Control Technology really delivers when it comes to contrast on both sets. This is particularly noticeable with simultaneous light and dark extremes, with bright objects showing up well against dark backgrounds without distracting light halos or heavy dimming.

In our side-by-side tests of the C7K and C8K, however, the differences become more apparent. Colours look richer and more rounded on the C7K’s Standard preset than they do on the C8K, where they are a touch washed out in the brighter areas. However, in the Movie and Filmmaker Modes presets, the C8K has the more effective colours.

However, this is likely because the C8K is a fair bit brighter than the C7K. The C7K is impressively bright, looking at least twice as bright in certain shots as even the best new OLED TVs. But the C8K’s extreme brightness is notable right from the outset, making for some of the most flat-out impactful HDR images we’ve seen. Most impressive of all is that this extreme brightness doesn’t come at the cost of shading, with tonal subtleties present even in the brightest images.

The C7K fares slightly better with shadow detail reproduction, however, against the overly punchy C8K.

Both the C7K and the C8K struggle slightly with wide aspect ratio films – the C7K has a yellowish colour creep in the top black bar, while the C8K has (very faint) instances of blooming in the bars when next to a bright object. There are issues with dark areas, too, with the C7K revealing faint traces of noise.

We’ve had to try hard to find these negatives, though, as the C7K and C8K are two of the best-performing LCD TVs we’ve seen, especially at this level.

Ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, we’re giving this round to the C7K. While the C8K has that dazzling brightness and therefore even greater contrast, the C7K is as bright and contrasty as anyone is likely to need, and it feels even better balanced and more natural overall.

** Winner: TCL C7K**

TCL C7K vs C8K: sound

While both TVs feature sound systems by Bang & Olufsen, they’re not identical, and this difference is evident in their audio performance.

Both deliver well in the midrange, offering an open and dynamic sound that provides plenty of room for film soundtracks to flow.

However, the lack of a dedicated bass driver means that low frequencies are not delivered as enthusiastically as the higher frequencies on both models. This results in a treble-heavy presentation where high-pitched sound effects come across too brightly, while bass is delivered a bit too politely.

This problem is exacerbated on the C7K. Playing dense soundtrack moments, such as the opening of Blade Runner 2049, results in more swallowed and condensed sound than the C8K, as well as a chuffing and buzzing interference in long bass sections that the C8K typically avoids.

We suggest you partner these TVs with a dedicated soundbar or surround system, but both models offer good built-in sound for the price. The TCL C8K is a tad better, however, so it takes the win this round.

** Winner: TCL C8K**

TCL C7K vs C8K: verdict

The TCL C7K and C8K are both excellent five-star TVs, and purchasing either model is sure to make for a delighted new owner.

Being from the same range, they have a lot in common, including rich gaming support, a stacked Google TV OS, all-encompassing HDR support and TCL’s innovative new Halo Control Technology.

The C8K, as the more premium model, offers a few more bells and whistles, including a more robust sound system, beefier screen specs and a brighter picture that still retains impressive lighting control.

Interestingly, though, while the C8K is undeniably more spectacular than the C7K, there’s a feeling that it occasionally pushes things a little too far, particularly in very high brightness situations.

The C7K, on the other hand, is more consistently natural in its picture performance. It’s also plenty bright enough for practically all of the HDR content that’s currently available, and for sunlit living rooms.

Given that it’s also so much cheaper than the C8K – and all of its significant non-TCL rivals, for that matter – it’s the C7K that we recommend. That’s why it’s a What Hi-Fi? Award winner.

** Overall winner: TCL C7K **

MORE

Read our TCL C7K review

Mini LED vs OLED: which screen technology is better?

Read our TCL C8K review

Owning a complete home cinema system is the stuff of dreams, isn't it?

But did you realise you could buy such a thing for a little over £500 this Black Friday?

• Check out all of the Black Friday deals at Amazon
• Richer Sounds Black Friday event
• Sevenoaks Black Friday deals
• Peter Tyson: Black Friday event

Well, it's true! By combining two amazing Black Friday deals – on five-star components, no less – I've built a system that includes a 4K Mini LED TV and a complete Dolby Atmos soundbar system for just £538.

The system

• TCL 50C6KS Mini LED TV: £349 at Amazon
• Hisense AX5125H Dolby Atmos soundbar system: £189 at Amazon
• Total cost: £538

The TV

The TCL 50C6KS is our favourite budget 50-inch TV – and it has the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 gong to prove it.

What really wins you over is the picture: deep, inky blacks – rare on a sub-£500 TV – combined with really strong brightness and vivid, convincing colours thanks to its Mini LED backlight and Quantum Dot panel.

Shadows look rich, HDR highlights pop nicely, and there’s a surprisingly good amount of detail even in dark or complex scenes.

On top of that, it supports the full spread of HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, HLG – so you can access all of your content in the highest possible quality.

Google TV is built in, so all of the big, global services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, etc.) are ready to go, and TCL has gone out of its way to add all of the UK's main catch-up apps, including BBC iPlayer.

Not that you'll need it, but the built-in sound also over-delivers for the money: surprisingly detailed, decently spacious and with Dolby Atmos support – more than you’d expect at this price.

Sure, it isn’t perfect: the screen is 60 Hz only, so it can't handle 4K/120Hz gaming (though the gaming experience is otherwise very good, it has to be said).

Motion is also a little soft, and on rare, extremely bright highlights, there’s a little clipping or slightly blatant dimming-zone transitions.

But honestly, those felt like tiny trade-offs at the full price of £419, let alone the Black Friday price of £349 at Amazon.

The Dolby Atmos soundbar system

You no longer have to spend a fortune and mix-and-match lots of different components to get a full home cinema system. Instead, you can get it all in one box, and for less than £200.

The one-box system I'm referring to is the Dolby Atmos-friendly Hisense AX5125H.

This isn't just a soundbar, but a full 5.1.2-channel system that includes a soundbar, a wireless subwoofer and two wireless surround speakers.

The result isn’t just louder than your TV’s built-in speakers, it’s genuinely cinematic: Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks come alive with solid impact, plenty of bass and a sense of space that makes films and shows far more immersive. Importantly, voices remain clear, even during heavy-duty scenes.

For the money, this is simply the most complete surround sound setup you’ll find.

Setup is refreshingly simple: HDMI eARC gets you going in minutes, no fuss. The hardware feels solid, and though the design is no flashy showpiece, it’s compact enough to sit naturally below most TVs (including the TCL C6KS) and doesn’t look toy-ish.

Sure, there are some limitations. The sub can get a little over-enthusiastic now and then, which in the busiest action scenes can make bass slightly boomy and even muddy dialogue a little. And while the package is excellent for movies, for stereo music or nuanced sound-mixes, it doesn’t quite reach high-end levels.

Again, though, those were minor issues at the original price of £249, so they really pale into insignificance with this £60 discount.

Black Friday quick links

• Amazon: browse all of today's best deals
• B&W speakers: save £200
• Bluetooth speaker: 48% off five-star JBL
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds: save £100
• Bravia 8 TV: save 34% on 55in Sony TV
• Denon AV receiver: save £500
• Dolby Atmos soundbar: down to £299
• ELAC Debut 2: five-star speakers now £199
• Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum 4 now £169
• LG C5 55-inch: lowest-ever price at Richer Sounds
• JBL soundbar: now better than half price
• John Lewis: £500 off LG and Sony OLED TVs
• Richer Sounds: browse Black Friday deals
• Sevenoaks: £150 off Award-winning speakers
• Sony headphones: now just £29
• Stereo amplifier: Cambridge Audio now £299
• TVs, movies, home cinema: browse the best deals
• Vinyl: 3 for £66 at Amazon
• Wireless earbuds: Award winners now £75