TCL 55C645K Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

Frankly, you’re not entitled to count on perfection in a product as competitively priced as this – and positive sufficient, the TCL 55C645K is much from excellent. However it’s surprisingly achieved in fairly a couple of areas – and in the proper circumstances it appears to be like like a costlier tv. Finest to not pay an excessive amount of consideration to the way in which it sounds, although…

Introduction

If you happen to’ve been researching TVs recently, you’ve in all probability obtained a good suggestion how a lot a 55-inch 4K QLED TV with HDR expertise and quite a lot of good TV performance should set you again.

Effectively, TCL is right here to make your assumptions look a great distance extensive of the mark. Its 55C645K prices manner lower than a display screen with this type of specification tends to.

Can it presumably be true? Can TCL have undercut the market by a big margin whereas nonetheless producing a TV that’s value watching?

Availability

The TCL 55C645 QLED TV is on sale in the UK at an especially eye-catching £389. In America the equal mannequin goes for $399, whereas in Australia essentially the most comparable mannequin is yours for AU$899 or thereabouts.

Want I say with undue emphasis that that is very reasonably priced certainly for a 4K QLED TV with a reputable good TV interface and a few current-gen video games console help? I’m tempted to counsel it’s virtually too reasonably priced…

Design

• 712 x 1225 x 83mm (HxWxD)
• 11.1kg
• 200 x 300mm VESA-ready

When nearly all of costly televisions are nothing particular in relation to design, it appears self-evident {that a} TV as moderately priced because the TCL 55C645K has not been designed a lot as constructed.

Nonetheless, you have a tendency to purchase a tv with the intention to look straight at it, proper? And on this respect the 55C645K is completely effective. Its bezels are moderately slim, the boomerang ft it stands on don’t really feel something particular however look completely okay… and they are often connected in a few positions, so the TCL doesn’t want all that extensive a floor to face on. They elevate the display screen to the extent that any realistically sized soundbar will match properly beneath it.

And moreover, whenever you realise the 55C645K is a hefty 83mm at its deepest level you’re unlikely to wish to dangle it up on the wall – even when its 11kg weight isn’t any burden, it appears to be like rather less than elegant when it’s up there.

Construct high quality and the usual of end are utterly unremarkable too – which, within the context of the worth, is nearly exceptional in itself. The plastics utilized in its development really feel no extra particular that these used for the ft, and spending extra will purchase you far fewer uncovered screwheads on the rear panel… however who appears to be like on the rear panel, anyway? Bear the asking value in thoughts and there’s nothing to take problem with right here.

Options

• 1 x HDMI 2.1
• Android TV interface
• Voice management

The TCL 55C645 is a 4K TV utilizing Quantum Dot QLED know-how in tandem with full-array backlighting in 2040 discreet zones. It’s appropriate with each worthwhile HDR normal, together with HDR10+ and Dolby Imaginative and prescient, and its two-channel, 20-watt audio system can take care of Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD soundtracks. On the danger of labouring the purpose, that’s a robust specification for a 55-inch display screen that prices lower than £400.

And someway there’s extra. One among its three HDMI inputs is at 2.1 normal, with ALLM and AMD FreeSync compatibility for the avid gamers and eARC performance for the homeowners of current soundbars. Additional connectivity is roofed by a USB-A 3.0 slot, a few aerial binding posts, a 3.5mm composite video enter, an Ethernet socket, and a digital optical output. Wi-fi options can be found through Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi.

When you’ve chosen a way to get your content material on board, the TCL’s AiPQ 3.0 processing engine is accountable for image high quality – it deploys MEMC (Movement Estimate, Movement Compensation) to take care of on-screen movement.

It additionally incorporates its Recreation Accelerator function which tries to suggest it may ship 4K/120Hz – however in actual fact its 60Hz panel requires using Twin Line Gate know-how to indicate 120fps content material. So sure, you’re solely getting half the vertical decision of true 120fps – however right here’s the place you might want to remind your self of the asking value once more.

It should be clarified that this can be a evaluation of TCL 55C645K for the UK market, which differs from what you get on the continent, mainly by way of the interface. UK homeowners get Android TV whereas these not of those isles plug into Google TV because the good interface.

Both manner, although, the good TV interface occupies the entire display screen. It doesn’t have many apps as normal, and downloading those you need from the Google Play retailer takes some time. ‘Some time’, in actual fact, additionally covers rearranging apps into your required order, and the loading time of the apps themselves. At the very least it has each app you’re more likely to require, although, and Freeview Play means all of the catch-up TV content material you need is obtainable too.

Navigating the interface, or the pretty transient set-up menus, is a job for the excellent, logical and unremarkable-feeling distant management handset. Or you could want to make use of voice management – however right here, once more, is the place issues differ based mostly in your location. UK viewers are prompted so as to add the TCL talent to your Alexa app (there’s ‘Works with’ Google interplay too), the Google TV mannequin has Google Assistant in-built, naturally.

Image High quality

• Broad, convincing color palette
• Good backlighting management
• Lacks brightness

Having only one HDMI 2.1 socket is a little bit of an inconvenience – particularly because it’s accountable for eARC performance too. However there’s little doubt that the TCL 55C645 does by far its finest work when given some full-on content material to take care of. Load up a PlayStation 5 recreation or a UHD 4K Blu-ray disc with an HDR aspect to it and there’s tons to love in regards to the ensuing photographs.

The classic charms of Gregory’s Woman in its Dolby Imaginative and prescient-remastered guise permit the TCL to disclose fairly a couple of areas through which it is aware of precisely what’s what. It’s a steady and composed watch, handles even the sport-related on-screen movement nicely, and it retains element ranges excessive on the similar time. Patterns and textures get loads of calm, steady expression, and edge-definition is nice.

Colors are usually convincing, and the C645 does significantly good work with skin-tones. There’s loads of across-the-board variation in tone and shade, and the QLED configuration makes its affect felt within the easy vary of colors the TCL can generate. Black tones are fairly deep by the requirements of LCD panels, significantly panels as reasonably priced as this one, and the backlighting is concentrated and managed nicely. I discovered that solely essentially the most testing stuff – white textual content on a black background, for instance – can fluster it.

This isn’t a shiny tv, although – so regardless of the very fact its white tones are respectably clear and detailed, contrasts are removed from robust. Console video games that depend on lighting results don’t have the pop accessible on brighter screens, and the Dynamic Distinction management within the set-up menus is extraordinarily gentle in its results. None of that is helped by the reflectivity of the display screen – watch the TCL in a shiny room and its readiness to mirror combines unhappily with its personal lack of outright brightness.

Swap to some 4K content material from a streaming service and there’s solely the slightest drop-off intimately ranges and a few restlessness to edge definition to let what’s what as regards your supply. However you’ll know the place your content material is coming from already, as a result of the C645K takes longer to load than any display screen you’ve sat in entrance of in who is aware of how lengthy – and as soon as it’s loaded there’s a brief interval of leaping and stuttering whereas the system establishes a buffer.

Step right down to some 1080p content material and this can be a completely respectable upscaler – so long as you don’t thoughts a little bit softness and moderately much less certainty with movement than earlier than. Something much less information-rich than this, although, and the TCL isn’t comfy within the slightest – it turns into fairly coarse and noisy and loses its grip on motion fairly badly.

Sound High quality

• Skinny, edgy sound
• Thinner and edgier the louder it will get
• Small-scale and ill-defined

To be trustworthy, the best factor to say right here is to funds for a soundbar. That is the feeblest sounding 20 watts I’ve ever heard, and the system’s stereo configuration sounds small and cramped. It sounds aggressive and onerous at quantity, too. There’s an absence of substance and refinement right here that appears virtually wilful.

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