TCL is known for great value TVs, but its new flagship QLED rivals premium brands. Here’s why it’s so impressive.

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For the last few years, TCL and Hisense have been going head-to-head for supremacy in the midrange TV market. The two companies have proven that they understand what’s needed to offer a value-driven television that doesn’t skimp on image quality. But with the release of its new flagship QM8K TV, TCL isn’t competing just with Hisense anymore. It’s going after high-end offerings from Sony, Samsung, and LG — and the QM8K QLED 4K TV has the performance chops to pull it off.

Compared to last year’s QM8, the 2025 QM8K delivers significantly improved Mini LED backlight control, wider viewing angles, and an even brighter screen. But with that step up in performance comes an increased price. The QM8K’s list price is $500 more than the QM8 was when it launched in 2024. This puts the TV just under the suggested list price of Samsung’s latest flagship QLED, the QN90F.

Considering its capabilities, the QM8K’s cost isn’t unreasonable at all, and it’s already getting great deals. Compared to other 2025 TVs I’ve seen, the QM8K holds its own as one of the best, particularly for bright room performance at its price. However, the biggest knock against the QM8K has nothing to do with rival options from other brands. Instead, it’s the fact that the 2024 QM8 is still available at an incredible discount. This new model is a better TV, but given the current price difference, the older QM8 remains an enticing option.

The QM8 will eventually sell out, though, and I expect the QM8K to get even better deals as the year goes on. Once that happens, the QM8K will become one of the easiest TV recommendations of 2025.

The TV’s design is more premium and comes with some welcome features

The QM8K comes in four sizes, ranging from 65 inches (the sample size provided by TCL) to 98 inches. There isn’t a new 115-inch model this year; instead, the older QM891G will carry over to 2025.

The pedestal stand, which I prefer over wide-set feet, is solid and supports the TV well. It’s a slight change in design from last year’s QM8, and it isn’t quite as heavy, which I appreciate. There are two height options (for the 65-, 75-, and 85-inch models) at 2.94 inches or 1.8 inches, although the stand is quite deep, at 14.5 inches. If you’re planning to put a soundbar in front, make sure your console depth can accommodate both.

At two inches, the TV is slightly slimmer than last year’s model but still thicker than OLEDs from LG and Samsung. That said, TCL has made some strides regarding the panel’s border. On most TVs, the frame of a display consists of a bezel and a black border that runs along the edge of the screen. This thin black border is visible even when a TV is on, so the entirety of its screen isn’t used to display its picture. However, the QM8K uses TCL’s new ZeroBorder panel, which virtually eliminates that black space. This means that nearly the entire screen is used to display the TV’s picture.

The remote has also been redesigned. It has a silver face with squared-off corners instead of the curved edges of previous iterations, and the button organization and sizing have adjusted slightly. Thankfully, it is still backlit. When picked up, the buttons glow just enough to be seen easily in a dark room and stay unobtrusive.

On the downside, TCL has stuck with just two HDMI 2.1 ports for this model. HDMI one and two are 2.1, while ports three and four (also the eARC port) are HDMI 2.0. This means that if you route your game console or computer through an AVR or soundbar connected to the eARC port, you won’t be able to get 4K/120Hz (or 144Hz with your PC). Instead, you’ll have to use the HDMI one or two ports to unlock higher refresh rates.

The QM8K has a built-in Bang & Olufsen sound system that includes up-firing Dolby Atmos speakers and some rear-firing woofers to handle the lower frequencies. While I always recommend adding a soundbar or an AVR with a surround sound setup to get the best audio performance, the QM8K’s sound is pretty good for a TV. Dialogue is clear, and the TV is capable of a high volume without added distortion. You won’t get a cinematic rumble, but that’s a physics limitation you’ll run into on any TV’s built-in speakers.

A notable audio feature that I was unable to test is the QM8K’s support for Dolby Flex Connect. This allows multiple compatible speakers to be connected wirelessly to the QM8K to create a fuller, surround sound experience. The first Flex Connect speaker scheduled to be released is the TCL Z100, expected later this summer.

I heard a demo of the system with four Z100 speakers connected and placed around a room. These speakers also work alongside the TV’s built-in speakers. The TV runs a setup process, determining the location of the speakers and setting the levels. It was an impressive demo, and I’m optimistic about Flex Connect’s potential to make surround sound setups easier and more accessible.

The QM8K has exceptional brightness with fantastic backlight control

The TV world is in the midst of a brightness battle, and even though OLED displays continue to boost their outputs, QLED TVs with Mini LED backlights like those used on the QM8K still lead by a decent margin. In fact, the QM8K is one of the brightest TVs available, able to reach a peak HDR luminance of around 5,000 nits — nearly 500 nits higher than I measured on last year’s QM8.

With my X-Rite i1 Pro 3 spectrophotometer, I recorded 4,999 nits from a 5% HDR window (a white box taking up 5% of the screen on a black background). Now, that measurement does require some qualification. It was in the TV’s Vivid mode with the color temperature set to Normal. Though blazingly bright, that mode isn’t very accurate as it creates an image that’s way too blue.

To get the most accurate image out of the box, you should use the TV’s Filmmaker mode. The QM8K’s grayscale still leaned slightly blue using this preset, but this error wasn’t visible to the eye. In Filmmaker mode, the TCL was still able to achieve an impressive 3,648 nits on a 10% window (the brightest window in that mode), and with a far more accurate image. For comparison’s sake, the brightest OLED available right now maxes out at around 2,400 nits using the same test and settings.

This makes the QM8K an excellent TV for bright-room viewing where you need to overcome glare. It also allows the TV to produce HDR highlights (like explosions) in high-brightness content with the intensity that the filmmakers intended. For HDR, the TV supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG. You can learn more about these formats in our HDR TV guide.

When watching movies and TV shows, skin tones look natural, green plants and trees are lush, and colors have a wonderful vibrancy. This is easily seen in colorful films like “La La Land,” where the TV exhibits rich yet accurate saturation on the vivid hues of various cars during the opening number and Emma Stone’s bright yellow dress in the dance scene at night later in the film.

If you do decide to use a preset other than Filmmaker mode, such as Gaming mode, I suggest changing the color temperature to Warm 5. Other settings are less accurate and too blue.

Like other TVs in TCL’s QM series, the QM8K uses a Mini LED backlight with local dimming. This feature allows the TV to dim and brighten specific areas across its screen, called zones, to achieve better contrast and deeper black levels. However, even the most expensive Mini LED models can’t match the infinite contrast provided by an OLED TV, since OLEDs can dim each individual pixel, and Mini LEDs are restricted to a more limited number of zones. You can learn more in our QLED vs. OLED comparison.

In practice, this makes Mini LED TVs susceptible to an issue called blooming. Image blooming is caused when light spreads from a bright portion of an image into the darker zone surrounding it, creating a halo effect that shouldn’t be there. Each year, companies make progress in containing blooming, usually by increasing the number of dimming zones and improving the processing used to control them. The QM8K makes a big leap in this regard, offering an impressive upgrade over its predecessor.

This improved performance comes from a suite of backlight optimizations that TCL is calling its Halo Control System. A new lens enables better control over the directionality of the light, and the optical distance between the backlight and the diffuser plate is smaller than before, which means there’s less opportunity for unwanted light scatter before hitting the screen. A 23-bit backlight controller allows for greater granular control over levels of brightness (TCL says it’s up to 65,000 levels of brightness). This degree of backlight control is similar to what Sony offers on its premium Bravia 9 Mini LED TV, which costs notably more than the QM8K.

The result is some of the best delineation between light and dark portions of the screen that I’ve seen on a Mini LED TV. The backlight doesn’t cause the halos that can typically be seen around subtitles. I also didn’t notice blooming in a scene around bright parts of a spaceship cruising through space, which is normally prone to halos. I moved directly from my LG C5 OLED review to the QM8K, and while the TCL’s contrast control still isn’t quite at the level of an OLED, it’s exceptionally close. I probably wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference between the two TVs if I hadn’t just been using the C5 for a few weeks.

Another area where the QM8K rises above its predecessor is with its viewing angles. QLED TVs have always struggled with off-axis viewing, causing image quality to noticeably fade when sitting to the side of the screen rather than right in front. The QM8K has wider viewing angles than many competitors. There isn’t a dramatic color shift off-axis, but brightness does still decrease (although not to an amount that makes the TV look washed out).

The Google TV OS is reliable, and the gaming interface is easy to use

Google TV has become the dominant name in smart TV operating systems over the past couple of years, since Roku has seemingly fallen out of favor with the major TV manufacturers. And there’s good reason behind it. Google TV navigation is fast and smooth, and its catalog of streaming apps is robust, including options like F1 TV, which isn’t supported on LG’s webOS or Samsung’s Tizen OS.

If you’re in Google’s ecosystem, the TV integrates easily. (The QM8K also has Apple HomeKit integration and supports Amazon Alexa.) Setting the OS up is simple, especially if you have an existing Google account, and signing into apps can be done by scanning QR codes on the screen and signing in with your device (with a few exceptions). Including adding and signing into a half dozen apps, I moved through setup and updates in less than 10 minutes.

TCL also includes its Game Master UI on the QM8K. Thanks to Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), the QM8K automatically switches into game mode when it senses the signal from a gaming console. This also allows for the Game Master UI to be called up on screen, where you can adjust any gaming settings, including VRR (the QM8K supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro), a Shadow Enhancer to improve shadow detail by lifting the brightness a little bit, an Aiming Aid, and a frame rate display.

The QM8K supports a refresh rate of up to 144Hz at 4K resolution when connected to a compatible gaming PC. This is toward the high end of what TVs offer right now, but it’s not quite as fast as the 4K/165Hz mode that some top-tier LG and Samsung models have.

Should you buy the TCL QM8K QLED 4K TV?

The QM8K is an impressive TV and a notable step forward for TCL. It rightfully stands toe-to-toe with the best TVs of the year so far. It has exceptional brightness and backlight control, improved HDR and color accuracy, and some nice quality of life tweaks.

But with all of those upgrades comes a higher price, with the 65-inch QM8K listing at $500 more than the 2024 model cost at launch. This puts it near the price range of OLED competitors, like the LG C5 and Samsung S90F. While neither of those TVs can match the QM8K’s brightness, both handle black levels and overall contrast better.

However, there’s a big caveat to my criticism about the QM8K’s list price. Historically, TCL TV prices drop significantly a couple of months after release, and indeed, the 65-inch QM8K is already seeing deal prices under $2,000. That makes it a much better value.

Still, it’s important to remember that last year’s 65-inch QM8 remains available for only $900. The QM8K is certainly the better TV — and by a good bit — but that is a steep price difference. If the QM8K’s improved contrast control and better viewing angles aren’t huge selling points for you, the cheaper 2024 QM8 is a better option while it’s still in stock. But the QM8K is unquestionably one of the year’s top new TVs, especially for bright rooms.