OLED has been the darling of display enthusiasts for years now, but with companies like TCL getting closer and closer each year in terms of image quality, are buyers better off saving big or getting a much larger Mini LED for the same price, or is OLED still worth the premium? Today let’s find out by taking a close look at the brand new 2024 TCL QM851G.
TCL has been making big improvements to the brightness and contrast levels of their Mini LED TVs, and in 2024 the line between OLED and mini LED has been further blurred by the QM851G. Not only can it reach an incredible 5000+ nits (a number OLED can’t come close to reaching), but with a 144Hz 4K and 240Hz 1080p gaming mode both movie enthusiasts and gamers should find this TV to be an excellent value option, especially when it's on sale.
Now in order to review a serious OLED display like this you need some serious equipment which is why I’ll be using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, Color Checker Display Plus colorimeter, Calman Ultimate, Portrait Displays Video Forge Pro 8K pattern generator, a Sony RX100 VII 1000fps camera, an SM208 Screen Luminance Meter, & a Sony Cinema Line FX3 mirrorless video camera. All together at least $12,000 worth of testing equipment alone and of course years of experience testing displays.
Disclaimer: This unit was sent by TCL for this review, but I can and will share my unfiltered opinion.
Overall the specs are solid, especially the 144/240Hz modes which will be of great interest to PC gamers.
Let's be honest, the 75” 2024 QM8 is an absolute beast that will likely require at least two people to take out, though I was able to package it back up alone; a feat I recommend nobody tries to repeat. I found the best way to unpack this TV is to pull the top off, and use the cardboard cover with styrofoam inside to slowly lean the TV down and then attach the stand. Then I slowly tilted it back up with the box cover and set it on my TV stand.
Alright, now it's time to jump into the meat, and let's start off by talking about the color. And I gotta say right away, my first impressions are that it's very good. It's not quite as rich or saturated as QD OLED can get at times, but it can deliver much higher color luminance than W-OLED,allowing for a more faithful representation of bright HDR scenes. When the content asks for it, it's just absolutely excellent in terms of color, and If you've never seen a modern mini-LED display, this one is surely going to wow you.
Now for you film buffs and creators out there, below I have all the Calman data on color accuracy and performance.
sRGB Gamma 2.2
HDR DCI-P3
Overall TCL has ok sRGB and HDR accuracy. It's not as good as some competing brands, but some buyers may prefer the extra brightness that TCL affords. Personally I would like to see TCL dial in modes for movie and gaming that improve the HDR accuracy especially.
Now thankfully color coverage is excellent, meaning that all your HDR movies and games will give much brighter and richer colors than older LCD or even WOLED TVs can display. This will allow buyers to take full advantage of the best content on the market. I suggest watching a movie like The Mario Bros with bright, high contrast colors if you purchase this to see what I mean.
Now, in terms of the brightness and the HDR experience overall, this thing is insanely bright, and I'm saying that in the best way possible. It blows most OLEDs out of the water in terms of brightness, especially in SDR. And HDR pops off the screen in a way that even the best OLEDs will struggle to match. And certainly that's gonna be the case in higher APL scenes. However, OLED definitely has its own strengths that we'll go over later.
If you’ve never seen a Mini LED before you will see what I mean when you pull up HDR video on YouTube. One particular video I run shows rocks in the sun and on this TV it really felt like I could almost reach out and touch them because of the insane contrast afforded by such high brightness.
Overall the 2024 TCL QM8 is by far the brightest display I’ve ever seen, which is great for HDR viewing.
Now Unfortunately one issue that still plagues Mini LED is crushed shadow detail, and the QM8 is no exception. It’s certainly not a deal breaker, but there may be times when some small details are missing in very dark areas.
Additionally blooming can still be a small issue especially at an angle. Now thankfully I counted 4,032 local dimming zones, so for the most part blooming was almost invisible, but it can still happen, and more importantly there just aren’t quite enough zones to match the micro contrast of OLED, at least not yet. I calculate that roughly 20,000 zones are necessary for the average viewer to find the differences almost unnoticeable in terms of contrast between OLED and Mini LED in most scenes.
But what about gaming? Can you use this TV for gaming? The answer is yes. It's a little bit slower in my testing than some of the fastest OLED TVs that I've measured, but it's nearly margin of error here, guys. And this is gonna feel very, very fast in the 144 Hertz mode. Likewise, 120Hz, yeah, it'll be a tiny bit slower, but for console gaming, also excellent.
And speaking of speed, let's take a look at the motion performance. Here is where it definitely pales in comparison to OLED. OLED just simply smacks LCD in terms of its motion performance. It has near instantaneous response times. That's not the case for mini-LED.
As you can see, you can’t quite make out that this is supposed to say better than 60 Hertz, even at 144 Hertz on this TV. And at 120 Hertz, it gets even more blurry. And at 60 Hertz, it's very blurry. Now, it's certainly not horrible. I think this is acceptable, especially for a TV that's mostly gonna be meant for a lot of watching and some light gaming, but it's not going to be as competitive as OLED.
Now, to terms of the text clarity in the subpixel layout, overall, I think it's very good. It's not quite as good as a regular RGB layout as it appears to be blue, green, red. However, it's in that one, two, three type of layout that most applications would expect, leading to some pretty good overall text and clarity.
Now, in terms of the finish and perceived clarity, I got great news. It's excellent. TCL has chosen a great glossy finish that leads to excellent clarity, amazing color pop, and great ambient light handling, but it can have some rainbow-like reflections if it's hit with certain light sources.
Now, in terms of the viewing angles in uniformity, like a lot of mini-LED displays, it's not great. Off angle, you will start to lose some brightness, color saturation, and contrast. Now, this is unlikely to be a big issue for most movie rooms, but if you do have some chairs or sofas far to the left or right, it definitely could be leading to a non-ideal picture.
Also, the uniformity, I did see some areas of the display that were a little bit darker than others. It wasn't quite perfect, and it's certainly nowhere near as good as QD OLED, but it wasn't noticeably bad. It was certainly acceptable, something that I would expect to see on this type of technology.
Now, in terms of the sound, I actually got good news. It's pretty good for a TV. There was no major rattling. It wasn't overly muddy. It does have some body and bass, and the timbre is okay, but it does have a slight delay, which might not make it great for gaming. You certainly could get by with the TV audio itself. You don't need to buy anything, but hey, if you're spending a lot of money on a TV, it might be worth it for the extra oomph and detail.
Now, in terms of the menu and firmware, it's actually excellent. It's probably the fastest menu I've ever used, and it's almost entirely bug-free, leading to a pretty great experience. And then finally, VRR Flicker. Thankfully, I did not notice any major flickering, so that's great.
So there you have it. TCL has definitely come out swinging this year with their brand new mini LED TVs, and I gotta say, I was actually overall very impressed. Now OLED certainly still does have its advantages versus mini LED. It's gonna be faster. It's gonna give you better contrast, and of course, it's just gonna look almost perfect as long as it can get bright enough, and that's where Mini LED does have its strengths. In fact the brightness on this year's QM8 is so good that some buyers may want to consider it not only based on value, but also for its ability to create a great looking image even in a very bright room. Something OLED still struggles with.
Overall I certainly would recommend picking one up, especially if you can find it on sale, which I do recommend taking a look at the affiliate links in this article to see if it is on sale, as I've noticed mini LEDs do tend to get some pretty large discounts, and if you can find one even lower than MSRP, well, you could be in a situation where you could buy, say, a 75-inch mini LED for the same price as a 55 or 65-inch OLED, or maybe a 98-inch mini LED for the same price as something like a 65 or 77-inch OLED TV, depending on how expensive that OLED is and the discounts available.
