Mitchell & Brown QLED1811 (JB-55QLED1811) review

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

MORE:

Read our review of the TCL C6KS

Also consider the Sharp GK4245K

Best cheap TVs: affordable sets tried, tested and recommended