TCL 8K 6-Series (R648) HDR TV Review | It’s Not About 8K

While we reviewed the 75-inch 75R648 model, our review also applies to the 65-inch model.

I’ve complained at length in past TCL TV reviews about how getting the TVs’ Roku TV OS up and running was a time suck, and that getting the TV’s picture settings optimized and applied across apps and all HDMI inputs was both a significant hassle and not in keeping with Roku’s historically user-friendly approach. To my delight, my complaints were heard and the R648 now supports a remarkably quick Roku TV setup process along with one of the most intuitive picture settings applications I’ve experienced in 10+ years of reviewing TVs.

Once the 75R648 was powered up and connected to the internet, it set about running its own Roku TV software update. This took just a couple of minutes. From there, I was prompted to enter the email address attached to my Roku account and was sent an activation link. Once I clicked the link, the TV did ask if I wanted to install a few apps (some of which are already part of my Roku profile) which felt a little bit like a sponsored promotion, but was over quickly. Then, when it was time for the TV to download apps or update any pre-installed apps, I expected to be able to walk away and get lunch. Thankfully, that process only took a couple of minutes as well.

What really pleased me, however, was how quickly I was able to get my preferred picture settings applied across multiple HDR formats and across multiple inputs. After selecting the Movie picture mode for its more accurate color temperature and lack of motion smoothing settings, I noted that I could change the backlight intensity from normal, to bright, to brighter, depending on how much ambient light was coming into the room, or depending on how bright I wanted the overall picture to look.

Right out of the box, I knew this TV was something special. I review enough TVs that I can just tell before I start breaking out the measurement gear or making any calibration adjustments. The HDR imagery just popped off the screen, color was well saturated, bright highlights were leaping out at me, and maybe most importantly, the black levels and shadow detail looked really good.

It’s clear that even though TCL is using the same backlighting hardware, the R648 has been tuned for higher performance. The peak brightness measurements I took are significantly better than those I measured from the R635. However, the improvements aren’t limited to higher brightness.

I observed the R648 handling dark areas of the screen much better than the R635 did as well, offering deeper blacks, even around bright objects on dark backgrounds — a tough trick to pull off with higher brightness readings across the board.

The higher contrast performance afforded by that combo extended into color performance as well, yielding better-saturated colors at higher brightness levels than I saw with the 4K R635. Other performance metrics more or less remained the same, though. Motion resolution was solid with no motion smoothing, with little stutter or judder in 30 frames per second and 60 fps content, and no perceivable judder in 24 fps film content. Handling of low bit-depth content, like YouTube videos, was handled the same as the R635, which is to say that it smoothed out color gradients fairly well, though not as smoothly as, say, Sony’s televisions do.

Upscaling seemed to be handled with the same prowess as well, though the job of upscaling 720p and 1080p content all the way up to 8K is clearly more challenging than it is to upscale it to 4K. Overall, I’d say the R648 does an admiral job with 8K upscaling, providing as sharp a picture as can be expected with minimal artifacts. With that said, no TV is a miracle worker, and most cable/satellite content delivered in 720p looked clearly inferior to higher resolution content from streaming apps like Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, and HBO max.

Upscaling of high-quality 4K content was very good, with no perceivable artifacts introduced. Familiar scenes from 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs looked expertly rendered on the 8K screen. Even sitting just 7 feet away from the 75-inch R648, I wasn’t able to make out individual pixels. This made for a highly immersive experience.

The R648’s Achilles heel is its off-axis performance. Typically, TVs that use a VA-type LCD panel struggle with maintaining contrast and color saturation as you move off to the sides or well above/below the TV. While the R648’s vertical axis performance is fine, its horizontal axis performance is restricted to a very narrow window, and its off-axis performance is bordering on deplorable. If you have a wide viewing area and folks frequently sit well off to the side of the TV, they will not be getting the same stellar picture quality those sitting directly in front of the screen enjoy.

The R648 has a beefy sound system that only adds value to the television. The included subwoofer offers solid bass and a room-filling presence offered by few contemporary TVs. Dialog intelligibility is excellent while stereo effects are present if not entirely convincing. My only complaint is that the tweeters seem to have been pumped up a bit, providing some harshness in the treble that I could do without. Admittedly, this harshness was more noticeable when listening to music than it was when watching TV shows or movies.

If it wasn’t clear by now that the R648 offers far more than just an 8K screen, let me add this little tidbit on top: The R648 offers two HDMI 2.1 ports, and as a bonus, they are independent of the TV’s eARC port.

The TCL R648 is an outstanding TV and very deserving of flagship status among TCL’s product lineup. Its high brightness, solid black levels, very good out-of-box color performance, smooth motion, and excellent gaming chops make it one of the best TVs you can buy this year. The 8K resolution? That’s a bonus. Like most TV manufacturers, TCL is reserving its best TV performance for its 8K TV lineup, making the question of whether 8K really matters, moot.

Is there a better alternative?