[Music]
just when i thought i had seen
all the most important tvs this year tcl
comes around and drops
this on my doorstep
[Music]
welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison
and today i'm reviewing the tcl
r648 series tv now if you follow tvs
even a little bit or perhaps have done
some research lately
you may know that tcl six series tvs
have been something of a
darling among the tv enthusiasts crowd
because they
came seemingly out of nowhere and
smacked us upside the head with really
outstanding
picture performance for unprecedentedly
low prices
those 6 series tvs have all been 4k
hdr tvs this new 6 series tv is an 8k tv
and i know i know i can hear you now but
i don't need 8k
i feel like 4k just came out there's no
8k
content etc etc etc but i have news for
you
this review is going to end up being
about so much more than 8k
not to spoil it for you but there's a
lot more going on with this tv than its
8k
resolution although we will spend some
time talking about that too so
stick with me because we're going to
talk about some very notable changes to
the setup and roku os on this tv
take a look at all the new features that
are unique to this model
dig into picture quality and talk about
how and why it is actually
better than the 4k6 series from tcl and
a couple of other important little
tidbits that you won't want to miss
before i jump into it though i want to
know when you hear somebody start
talking about 8k
what's your first reaction are you
dismissive excited incredulous
how does it make you feel tell me about
that in the comments so we can talk
about it and while you're down there
please be sure to smack the like and
subscribe buttons because
there's a bunch of really interesting
news that's about to come out about tvs
in the coming weeks and you'll want to
be among the first to know about it
right here i'm not kidding some exciting
stuff coming up all right
let's dig into this tcl 8k tv
so let's start from the outside of the
tv granted sometimes beauty is only skin
deep but
if we're going to talk about how this tv
is a step up from the r6354
k6 series and we are then there are a
few things that are very obvious as soon
as you get this tv out of the box
number one for me is the new stand it's
a centralized stand that makes either
the 65 inch or 75 inch version which is
what we have here
much easier to put on a variety of media
stand sizes i know we tend to go through
phases on this type of thing but after
reviewing a bunch of giant tvs with
really wide legs
i'm happy to see the design making a
return it's just more user friendly
also this new remote is a big step up in
my opinion
it's still a roku remote with the voice
control button here and
you get volume and mute buttons on the
side but it's got a much more premium
look and feel to it and i was very glad
to see
this in the box now there's also this
new roku voice remote pro that you could
pick up
separately this will actually work with
a wide variety of roku devices as well
as roku tvs and the big advantage for me
here
is that it has a rechargeable battery in
it that lasts for months
of normal use without needing a charge
or if you use the headphone jack for
private listening
that rechargeable battery is going to
save you money since remote listening
can really kill those double a's in a
hurry
so while i like the look of the new
aluminum remote that comes in the box
i really dig the functionality of the
rechargeable voice remote pro
which you can buy just about anywhere
roku stuff is sold next up is the
speaker system which got a huge upgrade
you can see a subwoofer
right on the back of the tv that's
obvious but if you look
at the bottom of the tv you'll see the
r648 has independent tweeters and
mid-range drivers
that's a three-way speaker design that
you just don't see very often in tvs
and i'm looking forward to telling you
just how it sounds in a moment
before i get to that sound quality
though i have to talk about roku os
and how it is implemented in this tv one
of the most satisfying parts of my job
is pointing out a weakness
and then seeing that issue addressed in
the very next iteration of a tv product
and that has happened right here i spent
some time on prior tcl tv reviews
complaining that getting the picture
settings right for every input and every
app
for sdr hdr and dolby vision it was
a major hassle and a pain point for
anyone who wants the best picture
quality they can get
that i am thrilled to announce is no
longer an issue here in fact
the tv setup process from start to
finish was not only noticeably faster
but it was also extremely easy i made a
couple of key picture settings
adjustments in one app
and those preferences were basically
applied to other apps for both sdr
and hdr automatically not only that but
my preferences were also
inferred and copied over to the hdmi
inputs so
i didn't have to do nearly as much work
there either
overall it was one of the easiest tv
setups i performed in years and i just
can't tell you
how refreshing that was if you want to
see that for yourself be sure to check
out my unboxing video
moving right along let's talk about that
sound quality i mentioned earlier this
tv sounds
very very good now i wouldn't quite put
it on the same level as some of the sony
oled tvs i've tested recently but that
subwoofer
is expertly blended with the mid-range
and tweeter drivers that fire
down from the tv for a big robust yet
even sound signature dialog clarity is
superb
on this tv as well which i think is one
of the most important aspects anyway and
music videos they sounded surprisingly
good as well
overall you can get away without a sound
bar no problem with this tv although a
dedicated sound bar is rarely ever a bad
idea
my only complaint about the sound is
that the very top end of the treble is a
little too
aggressive and a bit harsh it's as if
the designers were trying to compensate
too much for the fact that the
drivers were firing down from the tv and
it's just not necessary but
honestly i'm being pretty persnickety
here the tv sounds fantastic
compared to most others on the market
[Music]
now for everyone's favorite part the
picture quality and let me tell you
there's a lot to cover here so
let's just dive right into it 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 better than the 4k version
of the six series
without a doubt and i'm gonna get into
why soon but first
let's dig into a little section of this
review i'm gonna call
specs for knit nerds yes my friends i
did pull out my colorimeter and calman
software and measured this tv's peak
brightness before
and after a simple white balance
adjustment and here's what you need to
know
even though i'll say right now that
these numbers don't begin to tell the
whole story
in the movie picture preset i measured
peak brightness from a 10
window with the normal bright and
brighter modes
here's what i got in normal i got 256
nits in sdr and 910 nits in hdr that's
great for a dark or dim room in bright
mode i got 346 nits in sdr and 1226
in hdr in the brighter mode the tv was
pulling off 460 nits for sdr and
1563 nits for hdr which
believe me was more than enough in this
room with a fair amount of
sunlight beaming in these are very
respectable numbers across the board and
a lot of versatility depending on where
you need to put the tv
and for those that care about backlight
zone count you're getting 240 zones in
the 75 inch model
and 160 zones in the 65-inch model
so right there you can see that this tv
is outperforming the 4k
r635 but there's more which i'll get to
in a moment
outside of brightness settings i checked
the out-of-box white balance in the
movie mode and it was a bit hot in the
red less so in the blue
and green came in a little weak still
we're talking about pretty tight
tolerances here the tv was by no means
way
out of whack so the color accuracy i
measured was pretty good
now using the roku app a professional
can do an 11 point white balance
adjustment
and you can get errors well below the
visible threshold so
the tv can be adjusted to a high level
of accuracy
if you wanted to however i'm not sure
how many folks are going to pay for a tv
calibration on this set so
i think what's more important is that
the out of box performance
is very good just know it can be a
little bit better if you want to pay a
bit more to get it adjusted
now i've mentioned that this tv is
outperforming the already solid 4k r635
a couple of times and we pointed to the
peak brightness being
one of those indicators but i also
noticed that the backlight control on
this tv
is definitely superior it appears to
have gotten a bit of a tune-up since the
r635 was released and frankly
an 8k panel does beg for some specific
backlight control so
that's not a huge surprise what does
surprise me is just how effective that
tuning seems to be i'm far more
impressed with how this tv
obscures blooming and halo artifacts
than i was with the r635 black levels
are just more solid across the board so
when you pair that with higher peak
brightness you get an image with more
depth and pop and the color volume is
clearly superior as well
you can get brighter colors that don't
desaturate at those higher brightnesses
which
is also a highly visible aspect of tv
picture quality as for motion
it's pretty solid without any motion
smoothing or black frame insertion in
play
i will say that for ultra fast moving
sports and video games
that there is a little bit of blur but
that's typical because of the way our
eyes work and the only way to make it
more clear
is black frame insertion and
unfortunately that feature introduces
dimming and flicker that i don't like so
i'll take the blur instead there's very
little stutter with this tv
and minimal judder almost none with 24
frames per second movie so
i think the motion is where it should be
on a tv of this price
then there's the matter of upscaling
clearly with an 8k
panel and over 33 million pixels to fill
and cable satellite content coming in at
720p or
maybe 1080p if you're lucky it's
important that the tv be able to do a
good job of upscaling
and i'm pleased to say that the r648
does a solid job
it's not a miracle worker if you watch
old school 4x3 content from the 70s
through the 90s it's gonna look
bad it looks bad on any tv over 50
inches in my opinion
however most everything i watched on
this tv looked solid from a resolution
upscaling perspective
as for handling lower bit depth content
like the stuff you get off youtube
the r648 does a better job than the r635
i think and
again i think that's because it's got a
more advanced picture processor
to handle the 8k upscaling and image
processing
now if i haven't made it clear already
there are a number of reasons to buy
this tv that have
nothing to do with the 8k screen it is a
clearly
superior tv to the 4k6 series and at
this very moment
it's the best tcl tv you can buy od0
technology could change that soon but
for now the r648
is tcl's best and it is a remarkably
good tv for the price i mean
tcl is slaying the competition with
pricing on a brand new ak tv
and resolution aside it is more than
earning that price with its picture
quality
lest you think this tv is perfect though
it does have a couple of notable
weak points for one the off axis picture
quality
is well it's very poor when you move
well off to the side you lose a lot of
contrast and color saturation and the
backlight becomes more obvious now this
is true of
all va type lcd panels but it is
especially
poor here also and i know this comes
down to the panel lottery but
our review sample has a bit of dirty
screen effect as well you can see
on these gray scale slides that there's
a vertical stripe down the middle
and some random splotches all across the
entire screen again we see this
all the time with lcd panels but the
good news here is that the dirtiness is
very light compared to other tvs we see
so
it's not likely to be seen most of the
time however if you have huge sections
of light colors painted across the
screen
i'm thinking like hockey or olympic ice
skating events that sort of thing
it is something you could notice and
again it depends on the screen that you
get
now let's talk about 8k for a moment do
you need
8k no i don't suppose anyone needs 8k
any more than they need a bugatti
instead of say
an audi r8 hashtag not sponsored but
while tvs are getting bigger
our living rooms aren't so you can sit
right at about seven and a half feet
from this tv
and never see a pixel but you will get
some pretty incredible detail
also if you've never seen native 8k
content on an 8k tv
then i would advise you not to be so
quick to pooh-pooh it but caleb there's
no 8k
content out there you say sorry folks
but that just isn't true
anymore if you want to see some legit 8k
content
you need to go no further than the
youtube app built right into the tv
there's plenty of 8k content out there
you can visit the 8k
association channel it's got some 8k
vids you can check but honestly
my favorite youtube channel for showing
off a tv is jacob and katie schwartz now
we used to use their content while we
were shooting these videos until we got
flagged and demonetized which
it happens on youtube but i did want to
point you to this channel because
everything these folks make is gorgeous
and an
absolute spectacle on a quality tv so if
you want to impress yourself
or your friends check it out and hey
jacob and katie if you're watching hit
me up because i would love to work
something out
i do want to warn you though that not
all content claiming to be 8k
on youtube is actually 8k so if you want
to be sure
use this little trick you want to call
up the stats for nerds by clicking
up on the remote then click the three
little dots then navigate to the far
right to this little bug looking icon
and click that
you'll get an informational box that
shows you the resolution of the video
you are watching
among other things now 8k videos on
youtube are compressed and that can
create some banding and other artifacts
but
it can still be gorgeous and show you
what 8k content on an 8k
screen can look like well that should
about do it except for
i almost forgot gaming yet another
reason this tv is a huge step up for tcl
is that it has two hdmi 2.1 inputs so it
will support 4k 120 hertz or
8k 60 hertz it's got thx certified game
mode
supports variable refresh rate dolby
vision dolby atmos e-arc the whole nine
it's also got auto low latency mode
automatically detects your console and
renames the input for you and while i
have not yet been able to measure the
input lag
i know that the tcl r635 came in at
about 18 milliseconds at 4k 60
and about 9 milliseconds at 1440 120. so
i think
we can expect some similar numbers here
also the two hdmi 2.1 inputs are
independent of the e-arc port which
is huge anyway the visual experience is
where it's at and this tv has that
unlocked for gaming as well as just
about
everything else you can display in short
i'm a big fan of this tv and so far i'm
having a tough time finding anything
that would prevent me from giving it a
wholehearted recommendation
even if you weren't thinking about
getting an 8k tv give the tcl r648 a
series look because
8k or no 8k it's a stellar television
thanks as always for watching everyone
what do you think did this tv just come
out of nowhere for you as well
let me know down in the comments below
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