8K TVs are getting closer to becoming realistic mainstream purchases, but they still carry the high premium of next-generation technology just starting to emerge from the proof-of-concept phase. TCL’s 8K 6-Series of TVs is a lot more affordable than the $30,000 LG OLEDZ9P, but at $2,199.99 for the 65-inch 65R648 model we tested, it carries a hefty premium compared with the company’s 4K 6-Series, which costs about half the price. Still, the 8K 6-Series is a very impressive line, with excellent color performance and some of the best contrast we’ve seen in LED-backlit LCDs. It’s also the most realistically priced 8K option out there. That said, there isn’t yet any content available to take advantage of the TV’s highest resolution, making it best suited for patient early adopters.
Stylish Silver
The 65R648 is sleek, looking just a touch more premium than the 4K 6-Series models. A silver band runs along the sides and top of the screen, with a narrow brushed gunmetal strip along the bottom edge. A small rectangular bump sits just below the center of that strip, flashing gently when the TV powers on or receives a remote command. The TV sits on a single wide, rectangular, brushed-metal base with a V-shaped profile. It’s attractive, but slightly more wobbly than the two V-shaped feet on the 4K 6-Series TVs.
The port for the power cable faces left on the back of the TV, while all other connections face right. The 65R648 has four HDMI ports, a single USB port, an Ethernet port, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an antenna/cable connector. There is no analog video input. A power/input button sits on the lower right corner of the back of the TV, below the ports.
Unlike the vast majority of Roku TV remotes, the 65R648’s remote is thin, rectangular, and a combination of two-thirds glossy silver metal and one-third matte gunmetal plastic. While it looks nicer than the squat black wand normally seen with Roku devices, it keeps the exact same layout. It still has a prominent direction pad, though circular and gray with only the center button bearing the signature Roku purple. Power, Home, and Back buttons sit above the pad, along with a pinhole microphone for voice search. Playback controls, a voice search button, and dedicated service buttons for Apple TV, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix sit below it. A mute button and a volume rocker sit on the right edge of the remote. It’s simple and direct, presenting only an aesthetic upgrade over the standard Roku remote.
The Same Roku TV
While TCL has started using Google TV in some of its TVs, the 65R648 is driven by the same Roku TV platform as all previous TCL smart TVs. It’s a robust interface with loads of apps and services, though it lacks some of the smarter features of Google TV and Amazon Fire TV, as well as LG and Samsung’s smart TV platforms. Nearly all major streaming services are present, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube (though Twitch is still absent). Roku TV also supports Apple AirPlay, so you can stream anything from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
The Roku TV platform doesn’t offer any voice assistant or smart home control, however. You can use voice search to find content by pressing the microphone button and speaking into the remote, but that’s about it; unlike Amazon Alexa on Fire TV devices and Google Assistant on Google TV devices, you can’t use the 65R648 to get weather reports, control smart home devices, or get any useful non-entertainment functions out of it.
Impressive Performance
The 65R648 is an 8K TV with 7,680-by-3,840 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, Dolby Vision, and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG).
We test TVs with a Klein K-80 colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software, using methodology based on Imaging Science Foundation’s calibration techniques.
See How We Test TVsSee How We Test TVs
Out of the box, in Movie mode and with an SDR signal, the 65R648 shows a modest peak brightness of 312.136cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field and 426.238cd/m^2 with an 18% white field, with an 0.009cd/m^2 black level. However, this default mode sets the backlight to 40%. Pumping up the backlight to max results in a full-screen brightness of 637.362cd/m^2 and an 18% field brightness of 1,133.929cd/m^2, with an 0.014cd/m^2 black level. That’s one of the brightest, highest-contrast SDR pictures we’ve measured; typically, even with settings maxed out, SDR signals produce much dimmer brightness levels than HDR signals. Here, they’re more or less the same.
With an HDR10 signal, with the picture mode set to HDR (Dark), the TV shows a full-screen brightness of 678765cd/m^2 and an 18% field brightness of 1,214.680cd/m^2, with an 0.002cd/m^2 black level. That isn’t much brighter than the TV is with an SDR signal, but that’s still a contrast ratio of 607,340:1, which is fantastic. Curiously, the HDR (Bright) picture mode doesn’t get noticeably brighter with the color temperature set to the more accurate Warm setting.
For comparison, the 4K TCL 6-Series is only slightly dimmer with an HDR signal (1,114.897cd/m^2) with a higher black level (0.014cd/m^2), for a contrast ratio of less than half that of the 65R648 (74,326:1). Both are very good, but the Hisense U8G gets much brighter with an HDR signal (1,763.368cd/m^2), though it also has a higher black level, for a contrast ratio of 88,168:1. In overall contrast numbers, the 8K TCL 6-Series clearly reigns supreme. Only OLED TVs like the LG C1 offer better contrast, by sheer virtue of their ability to produce perfect black levels, and OLEDs aren’t nearly as bright as high-end LED-backlit LCDs like the 65R648; the C1 shows a peak brightness of 565.692cd/m^2 with an 18% white field.
The 65R648 also impresses with its color range and accuracy. The above charts show the TV’s color levels with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards, and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. The SDR colors are unsurprisingly spot-on; recently we’ve seen very few TVs that don’t nail Rec.709. With HDR, the 65R648 reaches nearly across the entire DCI-P3 color space, with only yellow falling short of the range. Green drifts a bit, and magenta leans slightly toward red, but otherwise the color performance is very strong. It’s not as strong as the LG C1, though, which effectively nails DCI-P3 out of the box, with very little drift.
Enjoy the Upconversion
There is still no consumer 8K content available, so we can’t readily test the 65R648 in its native resolution. Users who buy the TV will have to rely on its upconversion abilities, so we used our usual complement of Ultra HD Blu-ray discs to see how 4K video looks on the 8K screen.
In motion and at a reasonable distance from the TV, BBC’s Planet Earth II looks clear and crisp. Fine details like fur and bark can be clearly distinguished, with little to no visible upconversion artifacting. The 65R648 doesn’t try to synthesize new detail to fit the higher resolution, but it doesn’t degrade what’s already there, either. Pausing the video and looking very closely at certain textures and edges can show a bit of fuzziness, but it’s only really visible if you get within a foot or so of the screen. Sitting comfortably away you’ll be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the upconverted picture and the view on a native 4K panel. It’s a far cry from the early 4K TVs and their blotchy 1080p upconversion process.
In terms of color, Planet Earth II looks bright and natural on the 65R648. Greens of leaves and blues of water and sky are vibrant without appearing oversaturated, and the more muted colors of rocks and dirt are balanced.
The red of Deadpool’s costume in Deadpool looks rich and vivid, even in the cooler-lit opening scenes. The flames in the burning lab fight show plenty of different hues of oranges and yellows, and shadow details in the darker parts of the frame can be clearly discerned, and don’t look washed out.
The Great Gatsby generally looks quite sharp upconverted from 4K to 8K, but noise in certain frames can produce a bit of fuzziness. It isn’t distracting, and the noise appears on 4K TVs as well, but it seems more pronounced on the 65R648. The starkly high-contrast party scenes show off the extremes in brightness and darkness the TV is capable of, with the whites of shirts and servers’ jackets standing out and the blacks of suits looking very dark. In fact, those suits can get so dark as to look slightly muddy, but even then the contours and cuts can be discerned. Skin tones also look natural in these scenes.
Good for Gamers
For gamers, the 65R648 offers THX Certified Game Mode, and supports variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM). It shows impressively low input lag, as well.
Using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix, we measured an input lag of only 7.3 milliseconds in Game mode. That’s well below the 20ms threshold we use to consider a TV to be good for gaming. Make sure you set the Game mode when you want to play, though; in Movie mode, the TV shows an input lag of 95.4ms.
More Affordable, But Still for Early Adopters
TCL’s 8K 6-Series of TVs is impressive, with strong color performance and some of the best contrast numbers we’ve seen on an LED-backlit LCD. However, its main appeal and the justification for its high price is its 8K resolution, and there isn’t any widely available content to consume right now. Without it, you can only enjoy 4K and lower resolution on the TV and rely on its upconversion. Fortunately, that upconversion is generally very good.
For around the same price, you can get a similarly sized LG C1 OLED TV, which isn’t as bright and only has 4K resolution, but offers superior color performance, more smart TV features including the ability to use either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice control, and better gaming performance with AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync. Otherwise, you can save money by getting the 4K TCL 6-Series or the Hisense U8G, both of which also offer excellent performance for just a bit over half the price of the 8K 6-Series. But if you want to prepare for an 8K future now, TCL’s 6-Series is the most affordable way to do it.
