Samsung The Frame Pro vs TCL A400 PRO

Samsung The Frame Pro is one of the relatively bright televisions. In synthetic tests, we managed to achieve values around 900 nits, which is quite a decent result for a lifestyle model. In full-screen scenes, such as the frame from the movie The Meg or the opening sequence in Life of Pi, the brightness maintained a level of 700–800 nits. These values allow you to fully enjoy the HDR effects and capture their cinematic magic. However, the situation complicates when smaller, point light sources appear on the screen. The edge lighting used here, equipped with the ability to local dim whole strips, does not handle them very well. It happens that small elements are overly darkened, which weakens the effect, or conversely – they become heavily brightened, but at the cost of losing black depth in that part of the image. This can be compared to light halos reminiscent of a laser beam spreading in dense fog – an effect that is visible and bright but at the same time not very natural and distracting. Fortunately, the colour aspect performs better. Thanks to the use of a quantum dot filter (QLED), the colours are saturated, and the reproduction of the DCI-P3 palette reaches over 92%. Generally, movies or series watched in HDR on The Frame Pro present a rich colour palette, even if contrast and the performance of the lighting algorithms can sometimes draw our attention away.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many films it does deliver a noticeably more appealing picture than in SDR. However, it’s not a level that dazzles by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that bombard the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Because of fairly aggressive zone control, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness, in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. It should be added, though, that this isn’t done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep black levels as deep as possible and to limit the halo effect around bright objects. It’s a deliberate compromise: the TV more often opts for deeper blacks rather than maximising point highlights. On the one hand this is understandable, especially given a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other you should be aware that the HDR effect won’t always be as strong as the peak brightness alone might suggest.

On the plus side, the colours are a strength. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, delivers suitably saturated colours. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and around 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

The best results were, of course, achieved in Filmmaker mode, which immediately showed that Samsung had put effort into the factory settings. In SDR content – the most commonly viewed materials – The Frame Pro performed really well. The white balance and gamma were almost perfectly set, making the image look natural and cohesive. Yes, there were some noticeable errors, particularly in skin tones and reds, which could be overly saturated, giving everything a slightly "warmed up" character, but in everyday use, it didn't hinder the viewing experience too much. For HDR content, the situation was similar regarding the white balance. It was at a good level, however, the biggest issue turned out to be managing brightness. The EOTF curve was set in such a way that in many scenes the image appeared blown out, and the brightest areas lost detail and resulted in uniform patches of light. This severely affected realism and made colours appear very oversharpened. Fortunately, Samsung provides the option for manual adjustment of the curve in their TVs, so we opted for calibration and its results can be seen below.

As usual, we carried out colour measurements in the best‑tuned picture mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one intended to be closest to the creators’ intentions. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they show much larger colour errors and interfere more with the image character. So we won’t cover them in detail in this part of the review. How does the factory colour reproduction fare? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurements, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during the measurements we genuinely rubbed our eyes in surprise. Such good factory settings don’t happen often, even in televisions running Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro straight out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good you could easily think someone had already given this unit extra attention and tried to calibrate it. Our one bit of nitpicking comes down to a single issue. In SDR material the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than 2.4. It’s not a large error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it. We should note, however, that we are talking about our specific test unit. There can always be some variation in factory colour between individual units, production batches or screen sizes. We do not assume every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

After calibration, the SDR mode looks almost perfect. We managed to eliminate the overly intense red saturation that previously gave the image a somewhat excessively warm character. The colours became more balanced, which translated into a natural and pleasant viewing experience for everyday content – from television to movies and series from streaming services or materials on YouTube. In HDR mode, the EOTF curve required the most work, as the factory settings caused excessive clipping of the entire image. The calibration significantly helped to "tame" this issue – the image stopped being overexposed, and details in the bright areas became more visible. Of course, the limits are set by the design of the television itself, as edge lighting reveals its limitations, and even the smallest elements of light can still appear overly bright or blend into the background. However, this is a matter of technology, not just calibration. After the correction, The Frame Pro is much more enjoyable to watch, and it is definitely worth considering if you want to make the most of the television's capabilities.

Despite the outstanding factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to professional calibration. With such a strong starting point, we were especially curious whether we could squeeze even more from this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our sample to absurdly low colour errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such outcomes are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and colour reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply excelled. The only thing we can pick on after closer analysis concerns the brightness response. The TV can vary the luminance level depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the picture is a little darker than it should be according to the reference. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and the local dimming algorithms work in this model. That said, it doesn't ruin the overall impression, because in terms of colour precision the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level that was genuinely hard to expect.

Although in 4K HDR materials the fluidity of tonal transitions in the ChooseTV Pro is not a problem at all, naturally with weaker signal quality – such as with television, HD materials, or older Full HD films – imperfections may occur. Therefore, it's crucial how the television handles these limitations thanks to the image processor. The noise reduction feature works really effectively here. At the medium setting, it eliminates unwanted bands or artifacts, smoothing the image in a visible yet not overdone way. However, it's important to remember that Samsung has a tendency to be aggressive – even at the lowest level of this feature, it can "eat" film grain. So, it's wise to use it with caution and adjust the settings according to the material being watched.

The upscaling itself is of a high standard. The ChooseTV Pro effectively boosts older materials to a native 4K resolution, maintaining good sharpness and clarity. Movies and series in lower quality simply look better here. However, it's worth mentioning a minor downside – typical for many Samsung televisions. With very old sources in poor quality, you may notice some cropping of the image edges on the left side of the screen. It's not a problem that will ruin the viewing experience, but it's good to know that it may occur.

Digital image processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That does not mean the TV performs badly, but it’s hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is acceptable: edges are fairly well smoothed, the picture does not look overly sharp or “pixelated”, and lower-quality material can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall image has a slightly soft character and you don’t see the kind of precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can offer.

Handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression is much worse. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a “Gradual Smoothing” feature that in theory should reduce visible colour banding and artefacts in lower-quality material. In practice, however, its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can further smooth image detail, giving it an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason we think it’s best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro copes decently with basic image scaling, but if you often watch heavily compressed material with visible posterisation, this model will not be one of the best choices.

The fluidity of movement in The Frame Pro is not only due to the panel itself, which operates at a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, but also the image processor and motion smoothing system. It is thanks to this that we can adjust the way movies or sports broadcasts are displayed to our own preferences. Available are sliders for blur reduction and motion judder reduction – the first function enhances the sharpness of fast movements, while the second helps to soften the effect of the "jumping" image during camera pans. Everyone can choose between a cinematic character of motion and a smoother, more "television" style.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate most consoles, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-motion sources, are limited to today. In that range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The 'Motion Clarity' function improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences, separately for low-frame-rate and high-frame-rate content. This allows you to achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother image. If you don't want to fiddle with manual configuration, you can use built-in presets such as Low, Medium, High, Cinema or Nature.

Samsung The Frame Pro doesn’t pretend to be just a “living room” TV; gamers will also find something for themselves here. The manufacturer has ensured a full package of gaming features: we have support for variable refresh rate (VRR), auto low latency mode (ALLM), refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and compatibility with both G-Sync and FreeSync Premium Pro. Additionally, there’s the well-known Game Bar panel, which is a quick menu where you can check key parameters on-the-fly – from refresh rates to active image processing modes. Are there downsides? Yes, The Frame Pro doesn’t support Dolby Vision in game mode, but it’s hard to consider this a serious issue – most gamers use HDR10 anyway... so the HGIG mode. Exactly. The biggest surprise was the latest software update. Samsung... completely removed this option from The Frame PRO. In practice, this means that the TV independently interprets HDR tone mapping in games, and the user cannot enable settings designed with consoles in mind. This is a step backwards, which may disappoint more aware gamers hoping for full compliance with HGiG guidelines. We can only hope that this mistake will be quickly fixed.

An interesting feature of The Frame Pro is also the unusual placement of HDMI 2.1 ports. We have as many as five at our disposal – four are located in the One Connect module, and the fifth, in micro HDMI form, is located directly on the TV. This solution is quite unusual but very practical. Samsung clearly suggests that this is the port to connect your console or computer. Why? Because it minimises any potential delays associated with communication through the wireless One Connect, and in gaming, every millisecond counts. We have written separately about input lag, but we can reveal here that by connecting the equipment directly to the TV, we get the absolute maximum response speed from it.

In terms of gaming features the TCL A400 Pro performs brilliantly. The TV has practically everything you’d expect from a gaming TV today: support for 4K at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. That means it works well with both next‑gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a dedicated panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic information about the signal, refresh rate or active features, and customise the appearance and behaviour of some settings to your preferences. It’s a solution that may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming. The only thing to criticise is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such ports out of four, and one of them also serves as eARC. In practice this means that if you want to connect two next‑gen consoles and a soundbar you may run into some limitations. In that scenario you’ll need to either swap devices or use extra equipment, such as an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Even so, it’s hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is genuinely powerful.