Hisense A6Q vs TCL P7L / P79L

Unfortunately, the Hisense A6Q is hard to recommend for watching HDR content. The main issue remains the low brightness and quite modest coverage of a wide colour gamut. A measured brightness of about 300 nits simply isn't enough for HDR materials to look impressive. In practice, the image often resembles standard SDR rather than true HDR with clear differences in brightness and dynamics. Additionally, colours in such content do not appear as they should. The TV does not utilise additional filters like QLED or PFS LED, and a DCI-P3 coverage of around 80% makes some colours look just too pale. As a result, some scenes in HDR materials lose intensity and spectacle, making it hard to talk about a proper HDR experience.

The biggest limitation of the TCL P7L in HDR is simply brightness. The TV doesn't have much luminance headroom, so strong highlights, sunlight or small light sources can't clearly "pop" out of the image. As a result, even well-produced HDR material looks fairly restrained and, in terms of dynamics, is closer to good SDR than to what brighter models show. That doesn't mean the P7L completely fails at HDR; the issue is mainly a lack of sufficient backlight power. Looking at colours, the situation is a bit better. The TV covers roughly 91% of the DCI‑P3 gamut and about 68% of the wide BT.2020 space, so for its price class the colour range is quite decent. TCL markets this model as QLED, although the nature of the solution used is closer to a PFS phosphor‑based backlight than a classic quantum dot layer. What matters most to the viewer is the effect: more saturated colours are on offer.

We conducted the tests in the best available mode, which is Filmmaker, however – as is often the case – this does not mean the image is perfect straight out of the box. In the case of Hisense A6Q, this mode clearly “swallowed” too much blue in everyday SDR content. In practice, this led to an image with yellowed whites, particularly noticeable on large, bright surfaces. This does not result from poor assumptions of the Filmmaker mode itself or from the vision of filmmakers, but from factory settings that require adjustment.
Additionally, looking at the saturation characteristics and gamma curve in SDR, as well as EOTF in HDR content, there is a slight tendency to brighten most scenes. As a result, the image often appears brighter than it should, losing a bit of its naturalness. For this reason, we decided to perform a professional calibration to restore the proper colour balance and a more accurate brightness characteristic.

In Film mode the TCL P7L performs quite decently without major tweaks, especially with ordinary SDR material. The white balance is relatively even, although as brightness increases there’s a slight rise in red and blue and a bit too little green. That doesn’t create a strongly visible colour cast and most colours remain close to their reference points. The Colour Checker confirms this, with a large portion of errors falling below the level that should particularly bother during normal viewing. We have more remarks about the gamma response. In the darkest parts of the image the TV drives it noticeably above the reference, so some shadow detail may be a little too dim. The curve then settles and for much of the range it’s close to the intended targets. As a result SDR generally looks natural, but in dark scenes the P7L can lose some subtlety.

In HDR the factory setup is less precise. As brightness increases the excess blue becomes more pronounced, so the picture can look cooler than it should. The number of larger colour deviations also rises, especially in brighter colours. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly conservatively, with the TV showing the image darker than the reference over much of the range. For such an inexpensive model, the factory Film mode settings are not bad.

Colours after calibration on the Hisense A6Q need to be evaluated in two ways, as everything depends on the type of content. In the case of SDR materials, the effect is really quite good. In daily programs, series, and movies, it’s hard to find any serious issues with colours. The yellow tint has been effectively removed, and the television has also stopped washing out the entire image. As a result, the ColorChecker test showed errors below a Delta 2 value, which are already outstanding results, allowing for a discussion of very high picture quality in standard content. Unfortunately, the situation looks much worse for HDR materials. Yes, the white balance has been corrected and the EOTF curve has been improved, but the limitations of the panel itself remain insurmountable. The lack of support for a wide colour gamut means that the television still generates quite significant colour errors. Parts of the colours simply cannot be displayed by the screen, making them look less saturated than they should. It’s a pity because even a simple PFS or QLED filter would have resulted in a significantly better end effect. The conclusion is therefore simple – for SDR content, the A6Q after calibration works really very well, while viewing HDR content on it should still be approached with caution.

After calibration the TCL P7L can produce a genuinely pleasant picture, especially with conventional SDR material. We managed to even out the white balance very well, and the gamma curve now tracks close to the target value of 2.4. This is also evident in the colour measurements, as most errors have fallen significantly and in everyday viewing it’s hard to notice any major inaccuracies. Films, series, YouTube and regular TV therefore look more natural, without unnecessary warmth or a cool tint. For a model at this price point the SDR result is really very good.

In HDR the situation becomes more complicated. Calibration improved the white balance and corrected some deviations, but here the panel’s limitations become increasingly apparent. The P7L has relatively limited brightness and can’t sustain appropriate luminance for more saturated colours, so some errors remain even after careful tuning. In other words, settings can improve how the TV interprets the signal, but you can’t overcome its physical capabilities. That’s why calibration is most worthwhile for SDR on this model.

Upscaling on the Hisense A6Q works really well for a TV in this price range. Lower resolution materials are correctly “upscaled” to higher resolutions, and the image remains clear without any artificial edge sharpening or the typical "over-sharpening" found in cheap models. Unfortunately, the digital processing is significantly poorer. In practice, it’s hard to talk about any advanced artifact smoothing or masking of problematic tonal transitions. In heavily compressed films—especially those from YouTube—the TV struggles with reducing compression blocks and unwanted banding, making the material's imperfections clearly visible. The A6Q scales the image well, but when it comes to digital processing, it leaves the user alone with the source quality.

In this respect the TCL P7L performs surprisingly well, especially for such an inexpensive TV. The banding reduction feature, which in many budget models does little or nothing, actually manages to improve the picture here. It doesn't remove all banding completely, but it can noticeably reduce posterisation and make trickier gradients look more natural. In this price segment that's a genuinely pleasant surprise.

The upscaling itself also looks good. Lower-resolution material is upscaled properly, without excessive sharpening or adding artificial edges around objects. Of course the P7L won't turn a very poor source into a 4K-quality picture, but for regular TV the result is simply solid. For a model at this price point there are few major complaints to make.

The fluidity of motion on the Hisense A6Q is... well, quite average. It's a TV with a native refresh rate of 60 Hz in 4K, which means the movement of objects on the screen doesn't always look perfectly smooth. In dynamic scenes in films or sports, it's evident that this is not the strongest point of this model. The situation looks much better with 1080p content when connecting a console or computer, as the A6Q can then operate at up to 120 Hz. That's a big plus, especially for gamers. However, the sharpness of motion still leaves a lot to be desired, with noticeable ghosting, and the response time of the panel shows that it isn't one of the TV's strong suits.

TCL P7L uses a native 60 Hz panel at 4K resolution, and that's how it should be treated in everyday use. For movies the TV mainly offers frame interpolation, so it can smooth motion and reduce noticeable judder, but it doesn't deliver the smoothness typical of true 120 Hz panels.

For such an inexpensive television, the Hisense A6Q really can surprise with what it offers gamers. It operates in 4K only at 60 Hz, but when the game switches to performance mode and drops to 1080p, the panel can work at even 120 Hz. In this price range, that's a big plus, as most titles on consoles don’t deliver a stable 4K at 120 frames. In practice, we are realistically gaming in 1080p, and here the A6Q provides a very enjoyable gaming experience. Additionally, it has a few features that are usually found in more expensive models: ALLM, VRR, and Dolby Vision Gaming for Xbox Series X/S. Everything is gathered in one place, in a simple and convenient Game Bar, so you don't need to dig through the entire menu. For such an affordable piece of equipment, it's really a solid setup for gamers — maybe not for the most demanding, but definitely spot on for occasional gaming.

For such an inexpensive TV, the P7L has quite a lot to offer gamers. It has ALLM, VRR and Dolby Vision in games, and TCL also includes its Game Bar, where you can quickly check key information or change some settings without leaving the game. Not everything is perfect, though, because HGiG doesn't work here as it should, but at this price point it's hard to complain much about the feature set. The most interesting part comes when you give up 4K. At that resolution the TV runs at up to 60 Hz, but at 1440p and 1080p it can already display at 120 Hz. And that's not just a spec-sheet curiosity. In fast-paced games that support that frame rate the difference in smoothness is genuinely noticeable, so if you care more about smoother motion than maximum image sharpness, that mode can make a lot of sense. Of course, that doesn't make the P7L a true 120 Hz TV. Still, it's precisely these extra modes that make the P7L perform really well for gaming.