TCL C7L vs Samsung S90H (WOLED)

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 in the WOLED variant is still an exceptionally bright TV for its price bracket, although it is slightly dimmer compared with the QD-OLED version. That difference is not as pronounced as in last year’s F series, where gaps sometimes reached 500 nits. Here the parameters of both panels are very similar, with differences in peak brightness of only about 100–150 nits. In small-window measurements the S90H with the WOLED panel easily reaches close to 1,500 nits. That headroom lets it phenomenally convey the dynamics of HDR effects — blooms, light reflections and explosions have the right punch, exactly as intended by the studio creators. As with most OLED displays, when a very bright scene fills the entire screen, panel protection systems kick in and brightness naturally falls to around 700 nits. It’s worth stressing that this is still an excellent result on the market, often noticeably better than many Mini LED screens in the same segment.

Colour gamut coverage

The biggest difference between the two S90H variants lies in colour reproduction and saturation. This stems directly from the different construction of the WOLED panel, which uses an additional white subpixel. As a result, very high-brightness colours don’t achieve quite the same saturation, and the wide-colour volume is slightly more limited than with QD-OLED. That said, in everyday use these differences will be hard for most viewers to notice. Our measured DCI-P3 coverage on the WOLED panel reaches almost 99%, meaning that for the vast majority of real film scenes both variants will present an almost identical image. The real gap only appears in rarer, especially demanding productions that use the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Because of the WOLED panel’s construction, coverage of that standard is roughly 15% lower compared with the S90HAT with a QD-OLED panel, so the brightest, heavily lit HDR colours may appear a touch less vivid.

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.

In Filmmaker mode, which we strongly recommend switching on straight out of the box, the S90H offers very good factory colour tuning. Colours are natural and faithful to the creators' intent, without the annoying oversaturation seen in more aggressive profiles. However, as is often the case without full calibration, there is unit-to-unit variation. In our test the white balance was a little deficient in the blue component, so the image leaned slightly towards warmer, yellowish tones. This was most noticeable in bright scenes, such as the snowy sequences from Star Wars. Additionally, the gamma curve was slightly low at around 2.2, which caused a small lift in shadow detail. In HDR mode the tuning was a bit better, showing only a slight undersaturation in the red region.

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.

After full calibration, you can safely say the S90H in the WOLED version looks almost perfect. In SDR mode colour errors fall to ultra-low levels and Delta E values very rarely exceed 2. That's a phenomenal result, so if perfectly faithful colour reproduction matters to you, it's definitely worth getting it calibrated. The calibrated HDR mode also performs very well, where the white balance was stabilised and previous deviations eliminated. After professional tuning it's really hard to fault anything, because the TV delivers an image with almost exemplary naturalness and three-dimensionality. The slightly lower score in this category compared with the QD-OLED variant is solely due to the saturation limitation in extremely bright scenes, while the tuning potential and colour fidelity are at the highest level.

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.

When it comes to banding reduction itself, Samsung has kept the same solutions known from last year’s models. The dedicated gradient-smoothing function works quite well and can effectively mask unwanted tonal transitions, which can be useful on a WOLED panel that’s somewhat more prone to banding. However, it’s important to remember it acts aggressively. This mechanism, aside from the artefacts themselves, can remove fine film grain and subtly soften detail. Ultimately it’s a trade-off, but if you want perfectly faithful image reproduction, it’s safer to leave this option off.

There’s also no breakthrough in scaling. The S90H uses the same NQ4 Gen3 processor as its predecessor, so upscaling quality was almost identical. The chip sharpens lower-resolution material very well, pulling a satisfying level of detail out of it. However, Samsung still hasn’t solved the old overscan problem. For some older recordings or archival footage the edges of the image can be slightly cropped. It’s a minor drawback, but it’s a shame the manufacturer still hasn’t fixed it.

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.

When it comes to motion handling the S90H is simply excellent. This year's panel offers its refresh rate boosted to 165 Hz, although in practice the benefit will mainly be for gamers connecting a powerful PC. For movies, TV series or sports broadcasts such a high refresh rate makes no difference and the picture looks exactly the same as at the standard 120 Hz. Regardless of the source, the OLED panel's lightning-fast response time does the job. Motion is clean, and the ghosting or smearing seen on LCDs simply doesn't occur here.

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.

Gamers should feel right at home with the S90H, because Samsung has left few reasons to complain in this area. The TV has four HDMI 2.1 ports, each supporting VRR, ALLM and high refresh rates. There's also the Game Bar, a handy menu that lets you quickly check key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. Importantly, Samsung has also improved HGiG. In last year's models it could cause issues when used with a console, but on the S90H it now works as it should. What really stands out against the competition is Game Motion Plus. It's a specialised motion-smoothing mode for games that works best with titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second. Motion becomes noticeably smoother and latency remains at a reasonable level. In our measurements it was under 50 ms, so gaming is still comfortable. That's important, because on many TVs enabling a similar smoothing feature causes such a big increase in input lag that controls become noticeably sluggish. Samsung has managed to find a good compromise here. There's still no Dolby Vision Gaming, but in practice Game Motion Plus may prove to be the more useful feature.