TCL C7L vs Samsung S90H (QD-OLED)

The TCL C7L is without doubt an extremely bright TV. In synthetic tests with static patterns it can reach peak brightness of around 2800 nits. That's a phenomenal result, given the price bracket it occupies. Unfortunately, tests with real film scenes aren't as spectacular as measurements using white squares. Brightness in real HDR shots falls in the C7L to around 1200 nits. That's still very good, because the vast majority of modern films are mastered to about that level. However, when small, pinpoint elements appear on screen, the brightness of those details drops drastically, even to roughly 400 nits, which somewhat weakens the HDR effect. The TV does this deliberately to preserve deeper black levels and to avoid a large halo of light. That's understandable to an extent, but it also shows that Mini LED technology is not without compromises in this area. As for the HDR experience itself, alongside brightness the key factor is of course colour. And thanks to the use of new 'super' quantum dots, the colours are simply outstanding and among the best on the market. The TV can achieve very wide coverage of the BT.2020 and DCI-P3 colour gamuts, matching the best RGB Mini-LED displays with ease. Best of all, the C7L can maintain such high colour saturation regardless of the scene shown, which is often a problem for competing RGB Mini-LED TVs.

The Samsung S90H is a really bright TV for the mid-range among OLEDs. In synthetic measurements its peak brightness reached around 1650 nits. That's an outstanding result in this class, roughly 50% higher than what we’ve seen from previous models at this price point. Most importantly, these tests translate directly to real video material. In four out of the five film scenes we tested the S90H’s brightness hovered around 1300-1500 nits. That kind of headroom lets it reproduce most HDR films with very high impact and without obvious compromises, especially material mastered to 1000–1500 nits. In practice, highlights, reflections and explosions have the right punch and the picture doesn’t feel dimmed. Of course, on full-screen, very bright scenes the result is naturally lower and drops to about 900 nits. That’s a direct effect of the protection systems that keep the OLED panel from being overloaded. Even in that scenario there’s little to complain about. Nine hundred nits across the whole screen is still a very high level, guaranteeing excellent dynamics in HDR content. A huge advantage of QD-OLED TVs has always been the colours, and the S90H is no exception. The DCI-P3 colour space we measured reached a full 100% (actually 99.9%), while coverage of the much wider BT.2020 gamut hit about 89%. That’s a great result, allowing very saturated and vivid colours in HDR material. It’s worth emphasising that QD-OLED’s edge over WOLED panels isn’t just about gamut coverage. In practice it’s seen mostly in the higher brightness of saturated colours, in other words greater colour volume. That makes intense reds, greens and blues in HDR look juicier and more impressive.

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.

The next stage of the test was to check how the S90H handles colour reproduction without any calibration. As always, we took measurements in Filmmaker Mode, the best factory picture setting. And here Samsung really deserves praise. The factory tuning is at a very high level, which wasn’t always the case a few years ago. The white balance was set correctly, as was the brightness response. The average colour reproduction error (Delta E) stayed around 3, which is below the level at which most viewers can notice inaccuracies. Only in the brightest shades of grey did the values slightly approach 4, but it’s still hard to call that a real problem during viewing. For out-of-the-box settings, the result is simply excellent.

After a professional calibration we managed to greatly improve performance in the out-of-the-box Filmmaker Mode. After our adjustments the errors in the ColorChecker test and across the wide colour gamut dropped below the threshold of human perception, that is below a value of 3, which is a very good result. The TCL C7L clearly benefits from such treatment in terms of colour fidelity and it's hard to argue otherwise. A bit worse, however, is brightness management with HDR content after calibration. As I described earlier, even though we set this model up correctly, when you play real film scenes on the television it can handle its brightness in a rather peculiar way. It often brightens certain elements on screen contrary to the filmmaker's intent, which is clearly visible on the EOTF curves measured in specific films. Despite this defect, or rather a specific characteristic of this television, one thing is undeniable: after calibration the C7L was able to reproduce colours accurately.

All right, but you know we wouldn't be ourselves if we didn't also check how much we could get out of the S90H with professional calibration. And there was no big surprise. Since the out-of-the-box settings were already very good, there wasn't a huge margin for improvement. Even so, we managed to refine the image almost to perfection. After calibration the average colour reproduction errors fell below the threshold of perception, reaching Delta E values under 2 for both SDR and HDR material. We also improved the luminance response, so the picture more faithfully reflects the creators' intent and maintains correct tonality across the entire brightness range. After professional calibration the S90H therefore becomes a screen very close to reference. Will the difference be spectacular for everyone? Not necessarily. The factory settings already deliver a very high level, so in everyday viewing some people may not notice a huge jump. Much also depends on the specific unit. Our sample was very well tuned straight out of the box, but that doesn't mean every S90H will present the same level. Even identical models can differ in their factory calibration. That's exactly why professional calibration makes sense: it lets you bring a particular unit to the highest possible accuracy, rather than relying on a bit of luck when buying.

This could, in a sense, be called the Achilles' heel of the C7L. Unfortunately, this TV uses an older MediaTek chipset, the Pentonic 700, which has never been known for exceptional image processing. You can see that clearly in the operation of the progressive smoothing function, which is responsible for reducing jagged edges and removing digital noise. It simply performs very poorly — set to low, its effectiveness is practically nil. The only small plus is that the algorithm doesn't introduce extra artefacts or unnecessarily blur fine detail. Upscaling, that is scaling lower-resolution sources up to 4K, fares a little better. It's simply adequate and nothing special compared with the competition. It's hard to deny that the C7L would benefit greatly in this area if the manufacturer opted for the newer Pentonic 800 processor, which is now appearing in an increasing number of rival models.

W tej kwestii Samsung praktycznie nic nie zmienił względem ubiegłorocznego modelu, co akurat jest dość dobrą wiadomością. Funkcja odpowiedzialna za wygładzanie przejść tonalnych nadal bardzo skutecznie ogranicza efekt posteryzacji. Trzeba jednak pamiętać, że działa dość agresywnie, bo oprócz samych artefaktów potrafi usunąć również ziarno filmowe i delikatnie zmiękczyć drobne detale obrazu. Jak zwykle jest to więc kwestia kompromisu i własnych preferencji. Jeśli zależy Wam na jak najwierniejszym odwzorowaniu materiału, polecamy pozostawić tę funkcję wyłączoną.

Również w kwestii upscalingu trudno mówić o rewolucji. S90H korzysta z tego samego autorskiego procesora obrazu NQ4 Gen3 co jego poprzednik, dlatego jakość skalowania pozostała praktycznie bez zmian. Telewizor dobrze radzi sobie z materiałami o niższej rozdzielczości, skutecznie poprawiając ich ostrość. Nadal jednak nie rozwiązano problemu z overscanem. W przypadku niektórych starszych materiałów, zwłaszcza archiwalnych nagrań, może zdarzyć się, że fragment obrazu przy krawędziach zostanie ucięty. To drobna wada, ale szkoda, że Samsung kolejny rok z rzędu pozostawił ten problem bez zmian.

TCL C7L uses a native 4K panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate, which at lower resolutions when used with a PC can even reach 288 Hz. These are, of course, very high figures and look good on paper, but in everyday use it's worth remembering that almost all dynamic content you play on this TV will still run at around a maximum of 120 Hz. To tame that motion, the TV's menu includes a motion smoothing system called "Motion Clarity". It offers several preset modes, including a user mode that we strongly recommend you set manually using our tried-and-tested guides on our YouTube channel. You get two key sliders there. The first, "Blur Reduction", reduces smearing and improves sharpness in dynamic 60 fps material, such as live sports broadcasts. The second slider, "Flicker Reduction", lets you add artificial frames to films and series shot at cinematic 24 or 30 frames per second. That, of course, completely gets rid of the annoying judder during camera-move shots.

In terms of motion handling the S90H delivers a very high level of performance. A new feature here is a panel with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz, although in practice this will mainly benefit PC gamers. Movies, TV series and sports broadcasts don’t use such high refresh rates, so when watching them the difference compared with the standard 120 Hz won’t be noticeable. That said, thanks to the OLED panel’s instantaneous response time, motion is very clean and the image doesn’t suffer from the smearing common to many LCDs. Samsung has equipped the TV with extensive motion settings. You get two sliders: judder reduction and blur reduction, which let you easily tailor the image’s character to your preferences. You can easily achieve very smooth motion for sport, but you can just as easily preserve a more cinematic feel at the typical 24 fps. It all comes down to which effect you prefer.

When it comes to gaming, the TCL C7L is simply an outstanding TV for players. With two full‑bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports at 48 Gbps, you get access to all the key features required by console owners and high‑end PCs. It offers a well‑working ALLM mode with very low input lag and VRR frame sync that operates across an impressive 48 to 288 Hz range. Importantly, unlike some rivals, TCL has implemented the console HDR10 HGIG profile correctly and supports Dolby Vision in games. The package is rounded off by a very well designed player panel, the Game Bar, which even lets you edit its appearance and change the theme so it perfectly matches the look of your console.

The only thing you can — and should — criticise is that the TV only provides two full HDMI 2.1 ports, while the other two are older HDMI 2.0. That creates quite a practical problem, because one of those fast ports also handles the eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel). In practice, that means if you connect a soundbar or home theatre system to the TV, you’ll be left with only one free HDMI 2.1 input. If you have two consoles or a console and a powerful PC at home, you’ll unfortunately have to give something up or keep swapping cables at the back if you want convenient control of your audio system.

From the start, the Samsung S90H gives the impression of a TV designed with gamers in mind, and it's easy to see why. The maker has equipped it with nearly everything you’d expect from a modern gaming display. You get as many as four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, support for ALLM, VRR and very high refresh rates. There's also a clear Game Bar that lets you quickly check key picture parameters or change settings without leaving the game. Another very welcome improvement is HGiG support. Last year it could cause quite a few problems, but in the S90H it works exactly as it should.

Samsung's real ace, however, is its proprietary Game Motion Plus mode. The feature works much like the motion smoothing used in films: it improves animation smoothness in games while keeping input lag at a very reasonable level. For titles running at 30 or 60 fps, with the right settings, input lag in our testing never exceeded 40 ms. That's an excellent result, especially since on many manufacturers' TVs enabling similar features results in delays several times higher. Game Motion Plus doesn't replace Dolby Vision Gaming, of course, since it's a completely different type of feature, but overall for gaming it's an addition that many players may find more noticeable. Smoother motion in 30/60 fps games often makes more of a difference than HDR itself, which, incidentally, is often poorly implemented in games.