While Sony is famously coy about quoting specification ‘numbers’ for its TVs, TCL has no such inhibitions, proudly declaring that it believes the 65C845K to be capable of delivering 2000 nits of brightness. This is a remarkable claim in a TV world where we would expect similarly priced TVs to struggle to hit even a quarter of that brightness. Most TVs costing even thousands of pounds more won’t give you quite as much HDR-friendly brightness as TCL is claiming here. We are reviewing the 55-inch version of the TCL C735 and given other screen sizes use similar panels, performance should be reasonably similar, but we cannot guarantee that will be the case given the usual differences in LCD panel to panel. HDR10 and HLG compatibility ensures that content is displayed at its fullest potential with vivid colour and bright highlights

TCL hasn't been shy in promoting the gaming-friendly features of the likes of the C73K, with screens starting from 43-inches. Introducing the C935U, P733W and S522W Soundbars It takes about a nanosecond watching the 65C845K – especially with HDR sources – to see that TCL’s boasts about its TV being incredibly bright for its money were much more than idle marketing speak. Its pictures really do jump off the screen with an intensity far beyond anything else we have seen at anything like the same price. In fact, they leave the vast majority of much more expensive mid-range and even a few really premium TVs looking dull by comparison. Including, as TCL would want it to, OLED models, with even the latest MLA and QD-OLED sets falling some way short of the sort of brightness the C845K can achieve, particularly when it comes to full-screen bright imagery. Nowadays, instead of 1080p being the norm, it has risen to 4K with every production be it games, movies or TV shows now pushing native 4K performance. 4K already enhances your viewing experience but coupled with specific optimizations that TCL adds onto all their TVs, your experience is like none other.The 55C735K’s pictures also have a nice 4K snap to them once the shadow detail and colour crush issues have been sorted out, and this holds up, too, when there’s movement in the frame, thanks to some impressively blur- and judder-free motion handling. As a footnote for those of you with an eye on hardware outside of the usual A/V marketplace, TCL also unveiled a new P Series of washing machines, fresh additions to its range of smart robot vacuum cleaners and some air conditioners/purifiers – all tied into the IoT via the TCL Home App. While TV designs typically seem keen to crow about keeping speakers hidden away as if they’re some sort of dirty secret, personally I have no problem with the TCL’s public display of sound-quality affection. The C845K’s impressive panel specifications are controlled by the third generation of TCL’s AI-informed AiPQ 3.0 processor, which includes an upscaling engine built on deep learning techniques.

Impressively, the 65C815K supports both of the so-called active high dynamic range (HDR) formats: HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Most rival TVs support only one or other of these formats, or neither of them – and, as we’ll see, this dual active HDR support is especially important to the 65C815K’s performance. However, with both these solutions brightness will have reduced to around 400 nits by the time you’ve done what you need to do to remove all the colour ‘exaggerations’.

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All in all, the gameplay was smooth, the visuals were fantastic, and it made games that were already great visually look even more beautiful. Conclusion The rear does suddenly become chunkier a few inches in from those super-svelte edges, but even then the set wears this extra area of bulk quite nicely. The chunkier area doesn’t just house the screen’s processors and connections; it also provides space for TCL to build in a strikingly large rear-facing bass driver – again adorned by the Onkyo logo.