Philips PML9009 / 9019 / 9059 vs TCL C7L

Philips PML9009 doesn't really operate at the highest values in HDR materials. Most effects with brightness around 550 nits won't leave us thrilled with the lighting effects, although they are quite stable, which is a plus, and a considerable difference can be felt between SDR materials. It's worth noting that we can achieve a good result only in one scenario, that is in the film "Gemini," where the flashlight as the sole light source can really shine. Why in this scene? The answer is quite simple. The scene itself doesn't have a large amount of black, and the flashlight isn't as large an object as the sun in the first and last scenes. Overall, the brightness measurement results in HDR materials aren't a solid basis for recommending this television for viewing productions that use a wide color gamut. However, it's worth mentioning that this model can cover it in a not too bad 93% degree in the case of the DCI-P3 palette.

TCL C7L is undoubtedly an extremely bright television. In synthetic tests on static patterns, it can achieve peak brightness of around 2800 nits. This is a phenomenal result, considering the price range it occupies. Unfortunately, tests with real movie scenes are not as spectacular as measurements of white squares. Brightness in real HDR footage drops in the C7L model to around 1200 nits. This is still a very good result, as this is the value at which the vast majority of contemporary films are mastered. However, when small, point-like elements appear on the screen, the brightness of these details drastically drops – even to around 400 nits – which somewhat diminishes the HDR effect. The television does this intentionally to maintain a better black level and to avoid a huge light bloom. This is somewhat explainable, but it also shows that Mini LED technology is not completely uncompromising in this regard. As for the HDR effect itself – alongside brightness, colours are of course key here. And these, thanks to the use of new, “super” quantum dots, are simply outstanding and among the best on the market. The television can achieve around 90% coverage of the ultra-wide colour gamut BT.2020 and 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut, easily matching the best RGB MINI-LED screens. Best of all, the C7L can maintain such high colour saturation regardless of the scene being displayed, which can often be problematic in competing RGB Mini-LED televisions.

The best factory mode used during our tests was "Filmmaker". Here, we will examine both SDR and HDR content. The key differentiator is primarily the EOTF curve in the wide colour gamut materials and gamma in those recorded "the old way". Starting with SDR films and series and the most basic thing we can observe, which is white balance, we see a significant red colour dominance. This led to a yellow tint across the whole image, causing unnaturally looking faces and yellowed whites. This issue is also clearly visible on the "ColourChecker" palette, where all colours have shifted towards their warmer counterparts. Looking at an even more significant graph, the gamma responsible for the contrast of the image, we see considerable errors beginning right from the start. From the left, the value we measured, indicated by a combined ellipsis, clearly spiked upwards, causing complete merging of details in the darkest scenes. This state of affairs persisted up to 10% brightness on the screen, after which it dove below the reference orange line, leading to a deterioration in contrast, which, as we know, Philips PML9009 is already lacking. In HDR materials, white balance issues were very similar to those in SDR content. The discrepancy appears when checking the EOTF curve, which governs the rate of brightness increase and severely limited it, resulting in an unnaturally dark image. As for the colours themselves, there were more reasons for concern here, as the television's low luminance caused a huge disparity between the actual state and the correct one, which is perfectly visible on the error graph, often exceeding the scale.

When it comes to out-of-the-box colours, a new feature in TCL TVs – including the C7L model – is the presence of a new picture mode called Filmmaker Mode. This is significant news, as such a mode was not previously available from this manufacturer. By design, as the name suggests, the picture in this setting is intended to be delivered with the full intent of the film's creator. After our tests, we can confirm that it is undeniably the best built-in mode in this TV if you value true-to-life colour reproduction straight out of the box. However, we certainly wouldn’t say it is perfect. Like most devices on the market, this C7L also had its factory faults. The white balance in Filmmaker Mode leaned towards a slightly greenish-yellow hue, mainly due to an excess of green component and a noticeable lack of blue. Of course, for the average viewer, this won’t be a drastic flaw, but if you value perfect whites, natural skin tones, and harnessing the full potential of these new "super" quantum dots from the structure, then the TV is begging for professional calibration.

Philips PML9009, like most leading manufacturers, has been providing advanced tools for calibration processes for years. Here we find 2-point and 20-point greyscale adjustments, as well as an advanced CMS (Color Management System). The differences resulting from calibration are evident, and even someone who doesn't pay attention to image quality (although there probably aren't many like that here) will notice the positive difference. Both SDR and HDR materials have undergone quite a transformation. The former and the latter have primarily shed the ugly yellow tint resulting from the red colour dominance in white balance. As for the SDR materials and gamma, although it is not perfectly modelled and still loses dark details, the rest of it is at more than a decent level, and minor errors will not be noticeable. The colours themselves look far better, and with low deltaE errors, they are almost reference-quality. On the other hand, HDR materials, due to the unit's low luminance, have not been optimised as we would have liked. Although the white balance has been largely normalised, a slight blue tint can still be observed here and there. Fortunately, the EOTF curve turned out to be much more accessible, allowing for practically perfect geometry. Unfortunately, due to the screen's too low brightness, the colour errors remain quite high.

After conducting a professional calibration, we were able to greatly improve the situation in the factory Filmmaker Mode. Following our adjustments, the errors in the ColorChecker test and across the entire wide colour gamut dropped below the threshold of human perception – that is, below a value of 3, which is indeed a very good result. The TCL C7L definitely benefits from such a treatment in terms of colour fidelity, and it's hard to deny that. However, the management of brightness in HDR content after calibration appears to be a bit worse. As I described earlier – even though we set this model up properly, when we turn on real film scenes on the television, it can manage its brightness in quite a peculiar way. It often brightens certain elements on the screen in a manner inconsistent with the creator's intent, which is visibly apparent on the EOTF graphs measured in specific films. Despite this flaw – or rather, this specific characteristic of the television – one cannot take away from it: after calibration, the C7L was able to reproduce the colours flawlessly.

Judging by how PML9009 Philips handled tonal transitions, the image scaling test should perform just as well. This time, we are checking the TV’s algorithms responsible for enhancing the quality of images that were recorded in lower quality. Such images can be found, for example, in various TV shows or older films. In this regard, Philips PML9009 performs quite mediocrely and drastically blurs the image. This is particularly noticeable on fine branches or the model's hair.

Let’s revisit the issue of tonal transitions, which performed remarkably well. Within the unit, we will find several levels of smoothing. Even the lowest one can effectively eliminate any jerky tonal transitions and will be suitable for the vast majority of materials. More importantly, none of the settings for this function soften the effect of film grain, which is extremely important in terms of alignment with the director's vision. However, we would like to point out that sometimes it may turn out that fine details are blurred.

This point could be called in a sense the Achilles' heel of the C7L model. Unfortunately, this television uses an older chipset from MediaTek – the Pentonic 700 – which has never been known for outstanding digital image processing. This is clearly visible in the functioning of the gradual smoothing feature, which is responsible for reducing jagged edges and removing digital noise. It simply works very poorly – when set to a low level, its effectiveness is practically none. The only small plus here is that the algorithm doesn't mess up anything else in the image and doesn't forcefully blur details. The upscaling, that is, the scaling of the image from lower resolutions to 4K, performs a bit better. It is simply adequate and does not stand out in any particular way against the competition. However, it cannot be denied that the C7L would greatly benefit in this aspect if the manufacturer decided to use the newer Pentonic 800 processor, which is now being found in an increasing number of competitive models.

Philips PML9009 has been equipped with a panel that has a native refresh rate of 120 Hz. This is the essential minimum for watching all kinds of sports and is recommended for comfortable gaming in favourite titles on consoles or PCs. The manufacturer, for those who dislike the characteristic judder of footage recorded at 24 fps or those requiring a high degree of motion smoothness, such as when watching football matches, has prepared an effective system for improving the sharpness of moving images. In the dedicated tab, we will find a "Smoothness" slider responsible for eliminating judder and a "Motion Blur Reduction" setting that helps to increase the sharpness of dynamic elements. The function works very well and granularly, meaning each setting has a real impact on motion perception. With such a set, every user will find their sweet spot. In the picture, we present our choice, which is slight smoothing without the soap opera effect.

A matter directly related to motion is the response time of the pixels in the panel itself. The best in this regard are of course OLED panels, followed by units based on IPS and ADS screens, and lastly VA. Despite the generally good quality of the systems responsible for smoothening the image, the use of a VA panel carries consequences in the form of black smear behind fast-moving objects. Although in the tested television this should not occur frequently, it will be noticeable here and there.

TCL C7L features a native 4K panel with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which can even ramp up to 288 Hz at lower resolutions when using a PC. These are certainly very high and commendable figures on paper, but in everyday life, it's worth remembering that almost all dynamic content you display on this television will still revolve around a maximum of 120 Hz. To tame this dynamism, the TV menu includes a motion smoothing system called "Motion Clarity." It offers several predefined modes, including a user mode, which we highly recommend setting manually using our tried-and-true guides on our YouTube channel. You’ll find two key sliders available. The first one, "Motion Blur Reduction," is responsible for reducing blurring and improving sharpness in 60fps dynamic content, such as sports broadcasts. The second slider, "Flicker Reduction," allows for the addition of artificial frames in movies and shows recorded at cinematic 24 or 30 frames per second. This naturally allows for the complete elimination of the annoying stutter effect during camera movement shots.

Philips PML9009, equipped with HDMI 2.1 connections with full bandwidth, supports all functions dedicated to gamers. The most basic ones, such as VRR and ALLM, are a given, but G-Sync, FreeSync, or playing in HDR Dolby Vision with low input lag are not. These features activate without any problems, and during the tests conducted, they presented no obstacles. Such preparation of the television is certainly its strong point, and it can be said that it is a unit dedicated to gamers. For more advanced users, we also mention that the PML9009 is equipped with the HGIG mode, which will be particularly felt by gamers, as there are still relatively few games that support Dolby Vision. This mode primarily allows for the adjustment of HDR effects to the capabilities of the television on a special board, to prevent dimming and burning of the image.

The television additionally implements a special menu - GameBar. This allows for editing unit settings "on the fly," meaning without having to exit the game. In it, we will also find functions such as activating a crosshair or black level correction for better visibility of opponents in shadows.

In a brief summary of this paragraph, the Philips PML9009 is a unit that will undoubtedly attract gamers' attention. Thanks to its versatility, it will allow for playing any title in the highest quality without compromises. Especially since features such as VRR, ALLM, G-Sync, FreeSync, or gameplay in HDR Dolby Vision will provide an even greater immersion in the favourite title.

When it comes to gaming, the TCL C7L is simply an outstanding television for gamers. With the presence of two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports at 48 Gbps, it provides access to all the key features that console and high-end PC owners require. We have a well-functioning ALLM mode with very low input lag and VRR frame synchronization, which operates within an impressive range from 48 to 288 Hz. Importantly, unlike some competitors, TCL has ensured a proper implementation of the console HDR10 HGIG profile and support for Dolby Vision in games. This is complemented by a very well-designed gamer panel, known as Game Bar, which even allows for editing its appearance and changing the theme to perfectly match the style of your console.

The only thing that can – and should – be critiqued here is the fact that the television only offers two full HDMI 2.1 ports, while the other two are older HDMI 2.0. This creates quite a significant logistical problem. Why? Because one of those fast ports also supports the eARC audio return channel. In practice, this means that if you connect a soundbar or home theatre system to the television, you’ll only have one available HDMI 2.1 port left. If you have two consoles or a console and a powerful computer at home, unfortunately, you’ll have to give something up or constantly juggle cables at the back of the unit while maintaining comfortable audio system control.