TCL A300W NXTVision vs Philips OLED811

When it comes to brightness, the TCL A300W is definitely the dimmest TV among all frame-style models, such as Samsung The Frame or Hisense CanvasTV – and unfortunately, you can see that right away. In our measurements, peak luminance reached only around 400 nits, and on test movie screens, this value dropped to 350 nits. That’s definitely too little to feel the real "magic" of bright HDR effects. As a consolation – the TV is equipped with a PFS LED coating (which is something like QLED), which provides very good coverage of a wide colour gamut, both DCI-P3 and BT.2020. In addition, there is full support for all popular HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision – which somewhat compensates for the shortcomings in brightness and helps improve the overall experience of materials in this quality.

Philips OLED811 uses the new generation WOLED EX panels, also found in models like the LG C6 and Samsung S90H. After calibration we measured about 1500 nits, which is a very good result for an OLED TV. You can see that clearly in films and series. Flashes of light have the right punch, especially when they appear on a dark background. In those scenes the OLED811 can deliver really impressive HDR. Of course this doesn't mean you'll see that level of brightness in every shot. When the screen is filled with a large area of white or a wide explosion, brightness falls to around 600 nits. That's still a good result, but such scenes don't have the same impact as small bright elements on a dark background. That's a known limitation of OLEDs and the OLED811 is no exception.

Colours

Aside from HDR brightness, colours also matter and here Philips also performs very well. It covers almost the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which contains most of the colours used in HDR films and series. So you get rich reds and lush greens, and while watching it's hard to fault it in that regard. It looks a bit worse with the much wider BT.2020 gamut — its most saturated shades are already beyond the reach of this panel. There's also the issue of the white subpixel that the WOLED panel uses to help boost brightness. With very bright colours you can see a certain "washout": the colour is bright but loses some of its intensity. It's in exactly these situations that Samsung Display's QD-OLED panels have the advantage. In most films and series, though, this won't be something that immediately jumps out at you.

TCL A300 offers several picture modes, but without a doubt, the movie mode performs the best. Unfortunately, even though it is the best option available, it is not free from errors. Both in HD and HDR content, the image has a noticeably too warm hue – it has a slight pink tint, which is particularly noticeable in snowy scenes. Instead of pure white, we get a pinkish coating that spoils the natural perception of colours.

The management of brightness is also lacking. In the case of older HD materials, the image often seems too dark – confirmed by an elevated gamma value. Conversely, with HDR content, the effect is the opposite – the image is overly bright, as we observed in scenes from the film Pan. Such a lack of consistency also affects colour accuracy – a test with a ColorChecker showed that many samples clearly deviate from reference values.

Fortunately, TCL allows for manual adjustment of settings, so we decided to check how the television would perform after our professional calibration. The effects of this adjustment are described below.

The film mode on the Philips OLED811 is sensibly set up straight out of the box. Most colour errors remain minor in both SDR and HDR, so you can comfortably sit down to watch without adjusting the settings first. There are no large inaccuracies that would immediately distract from the film.

It’s not quite perfect, though. The white balance shows a slight lack of red relative to green, so whites and greys can have a faint greenish tint. It’s not a strong colour cast, but measurements clearly show it. There are also small luminance deviations in SDR: some parts of the image are slightly brightened, and the deepest tones aren’t always reproduced evenly. In HDR the TV stays much closer to the reference, although it occasionally lifts detail from the shadows. These are generally things that can be refined. The factory film mode provides a good starting point, and calibration will reveal how much more you can get out of it.

After our professional calibration, the TCL A300 has literally been given a new lease on life. The image has stopped being too warm, and the colours finally look as they should – as confirmed by the ColorChecker test, where the colour samples finally started hitting their marks, at least to some reasonable degree. It was also possible to partially correct the brightness management – the image is now more balanced and less "wobbly" between different types of content. Of course, certain limitations can't be bypassed – a slightly visible blooming effect still occurs, but that's a characteristic of the technology, not something that can be eliminated even after professional settings.

Generally: after calibration, the A300 looks significantly better and gains a whole new quality.

After calibration the Philips OLED811 delivers an image very close to the reference. We managed to even out the white balance and remove the slight colour cast visible in the factory settings. ColorChecker errors for SDR and HDR fell to around 1 to 2, with many samples even below 1. That's a level at which differences from the reference are hard to spot with the naked eye. We also improved the gamma, with only a slight lift remaining in the brightest whites. In HDR the EOTF curve also stays close to the reference, although the TV still tends to slightly boost the brightness of small details, such as stars or subtitles. That gives the picture a bit of extra brightness that shouldn't be there, but otherwise it's hard to find fault. It was already good out of the box, and calibration allowed us to iron out most of the remaining issues.

TCL A300 handles tonal transitions in high-quality films very well, but the question arises – how does it perform with weaker materials? The TV is equipped with a tonal smoothing feature; however, its effectiveness can be described in one word: “random”. In one scene, it may work and improve the gradation, but when turned off… the effect remains the same. There is a lack of consistency and predictability here.

Image scaling is also not one of A300's strong points. On the test pattern, the main character actually looked better than on the raw signal, but with thin lines – like fonts or background details – there was noticeable jaggedness and aliasing. On the plus side, the TV does not cut off the image and has no issues with overscan, but the overall quality of scaling is rather average.

The OLED811 handles processing lower-quality material reasonably well, though it's far from perfect. The "Banding reduction" function helps smooth tonal transitions and on the low setting gives a pretty good effect. It doesn't remove banding between shades as effectively as similar solutions from some competitors, but at least it doesn't introduce new artefacts. It's a sensible setting for everyday viewing. Still, there's a bit of a letdown, because the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset used here can, in other manufacturers' hands, deal with the effects of heavy compression more effectively even at similarly low settings. A lot therefore depends on how a given manufacturer uses its capabilities.

We have a few more comments about the upscaling to 4K. There's plenty of detail, but overall the image looks rather soft. Edges are heavily smoothed, so the picture lacks some sharpness and clarity. You can partially correct this with the sharpness slider in the menu, though that will be extra edge enhancement rather than recovering detail. On the plus side, there's no overscan, and even with an SD signal the TV doesn't crop the edges of the picture.

TCL A300 is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, which should instantly satisfy virtually everyone - both gamers and sports fans. Motion is fluid and the image is clear even during fast scenes. Additionally, the television offers a motion enhancement feature called "Motion," where we find two sliders on a 10-point scale. These allow you to adjust the effect to your own preferences - from a classic, filmic look with visible frames to a very smooth (though already unnatural) image reminiscent of a soap opera effect. This way, everyone can find a setting that suits them.

In terms of motion handling the OLED811 performs superbly. At 120 Hz, which is useful for console gaming and watching sport, the image remains clear and moving objects don't leave noticeable trails. The OLED's fast pixel response helps here. You can see it clearly in the UFO test, even on a dark background. There are also controls for motion smoothing. In movies you can adjust the strength of smoothing to your taste, from preserving a cinematic feel to much smoother motion. A separate blur-reduction control is useful for fast-paced content like live sports broadcasts.

The TCL A300 is a television designed not only to transport us to a digital art museum but also into the full-fledged world of gaming. It offers practically everything you can expect from gaming hardware: two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, 144 Hz refresh rate, support for VRR and ALLM.

It also deserves credit for the proper implementation of the HGIG mode – something that competing Hisense sometimes struggles with. The television handles lower resolutions (e.g., Full HD) with ease while maintaining high refresh rates, which will be appreciated by owners of older consoles or PCs.

Additionally, there's an attractive and clear GameBar that facilitates quick access to settings for gamers. The A300 is indeed well-prepared for gaming at the highest level – it’s just a shame that issues with ghosting somewhat detract from its overall appeal as a gaming device.

The OLED811 has almost everything you’d expect from a TV for gaming. It supports 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p and 4K, and when connected to a PC it can reach up to 165 Hz. It also offers VRR to help avoid screen tearing when frame rates fluctuate, and ALLM, which automatically switches to game mode. So you don’t have to go into the settings every time you start your console.

Another plus is the properly working HGiG, which ensures that once HDR is set on the console the TV doesn’t apply its own changes to image brightness. The Game Bar is also available, letting you check signal parameters and quickly change settings useful while gaming. The list even includes Dolby Vision for games, but there’s a significant catch here, which you’ll read about below.