TCL X11L vs LG MRGB85B

Such a large number of zones translated not only into deep, inky blacks but also into the panel’s brightness. The X11L is an extremely bright TV. Peak brightness can easily exceed 4000 nits, and with the special "Boost" mode enabled, under specific conditions that brightness can even hover around the marketing figures of 9000–10,000 nits. This is undoubtedly one of the brightest, if not the brightest, screens on the market. But how do those numbers translate to real-world movie measurements? The results are very good, though of course far from the marketing promises. Our measured brightness in actual movie scenes hovered around 2000–3000 nits. That’s an outstanding result, considering that the vast majority of content is produced to those brightness levels, including the rarer material mastered to 4000 nits. But it also shows that the numbers the manufacturer brags about don’t always translate directly to the video content available at home. The only "quirk" (if you can call it that) is that when very small, bright elements appear on the screen, their brightness drops below 2000 nits. The dimming algorithm does this deliberately to preserve deep blacks and minimize halo. This is entirely understandable and the effect remains very strong, but it also demonstrates that even with such powerful hardware, Mini-LED technology has its limits and does not always work without compromise. In HDR, brightness isn’t the only thing that matters; color saturation and color accuracy do as well. On the X11L these are very good thanks to the new Super QLED quantum dots (SQD). The addition of a newly applied filter delivered excellent coverage of the P3 color gamut and the ultra-wide BT.2020. Although it doesn’t reach the advertised 100% of BT.2020, values around 89–90% can be called excellent. Colors are not far off those of RGB Mini-LED panels. We can even say they’re more stable because they use a less demanding algorithm than the one RGB screens often have to deal with.

LG MRGB85 offers moderate brightness. On test patterns it reaches around 700 nits, which is a decent result in itself. In real movie scenes, however, values are lower and most often fall in the 400 to 600 nits range. Bright, wide shots look best. In scenes with large areas of black the TV noticeably reduces luminance, attempting to keep contrast as high as possible. The HDR effect is therefore visible, but it is far from the level offered by more advanced Mini-LED designs. Particularly in darker parts of films, the limitations of the edge-lit backlight and imprecise local dimming become apparent again.

HDR colours

A much stronger suit of the MRGB85 is its colour. The TV covers around 95% of the DCI-P3 colour space and 74% of BT.2020, so HDR content can look vivid and impressive. Colours are well saturated, and the difference compared with basic LCD TVs is clearly noticeable. It is worth noting, however, that this is not a classic RGB backlight, where each of the three primary colours is generated by a separate diode. Red is produced by a PFS phosphor, which expands the palette and achieves more saturated red tones. This solution performs well for colour reproduction, but it does not change the limitations of the local dimming. The diodes are not driven independently in the way the series name might suggest... so it turns out that Mini RGB is not the same as Mini-LED RGB!

When you switch on what should theoretically be the best Filmmaker Mode, you expect a one-to-one image of what the director saw. On the X11L it's quite good, but the mode has obvious flaws that our measurements immediately exposed. Let's start with SDR. Both the white balance and the gamma are simply miscalibrated. The white point has too much blue and red, so there's a faint pink cast on the screen. That also affects the gamma, which instead of holding the cinematic 2.4 runs closer to 2.2. What does that mean? The whole picture ends up pushed and artificially brighter. The worst, though, is saved for last: the HDR measurements. Besides the slight white balance shift, the X11L fails on the luminance management curve, the so‑called EOTF. What we saw in the measurements immediately explains what we saw earlier in films. The image is unnaturally bright because the curve massively overshoots the reference. The TV just unapologetically lifts the dark parts of the picture to create a "wow" effect, completely ignoring the director's intent.

We tested the TV in Filmmaker Mode because, of the available presets, it produced the image closest to reference. The out-of-the-box colour reproduction wasn’t perfect, though. The biggest deviations were in the white balance, with too much red and not enough blue in the image, so the overall picture shifted noticeably towards warmer tones. Whites took on a slightly yellowish tint, and skin tones and bright areas didn’t always look natural. It wasn’t a fault that ruined the viewing experience, but in a direct comparison with the same panel after calibration the difference was clearly visible.

After professional calibration we chiefly managed to fully master the SDR signal. The X11L responded perfectly to our adjustments. We completely straightened the white balance, removed that pink tint and set gamma to a stable 2.4. After that treatment the picture finally became consistent with the director's vision, natural and free of artificial boosts. We were also able to make minimal tweaks for HDR, but the TV's biggest flaw remained unchanged. I'm talking, of course, about how the X11L handles its brightness and how much it overshoots the EOTF curve. Unfortunately, TCL provides practically no controls to adjust this parameter. Even during professional calibration the software does not allow you to rein in that curve, so the TV in HDR will always tend to brighten the image on its own.

Calibration primarily corrected the white balance and removed the previously noticeable warm cast. After the correction, whites no longer had a yellow tint and colours became more neutral and natural. The biggest improvement was seen in SDR material, where the picture looked even and much closer to the reference. A similar effect was achieved in HDR. After calibration the image became more controlled, although not all of the TV’s limitations could be eliminated. The main issue remained intense reds, which were not always reproduced with sufficient precision. In practice the MRGB85 handles everyday SDR content very well, but in more demanding HDR material its limitations are still clearly visible.

As with the C8L we tested earlier, TCL has delivered a substantial upgrade in its flagship X series in this area. It's all down to the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor used in this model. Thanks to it, features like smoothing tonal transitions and even upscaling content to higher resolutions finally look the way they should. The biggest Achilles' heel of previous TCL models has finally been overcome. The processor handles digital processing superbly, and in this respect the TV no longer falls short of flagship models from Korea or even the most polished ones from Japan.

Upscaling and digital image processing perform quite well in the LG MRGB85. The Alpha 8 AI 4K Gen7 processor efficiently upscales lower-resolution material, and you can easily turn off overscan regardless of the source. The TV also handles compression artefacts well. The "Smooth Gradation" function can effectively reduce visible banding and tonal unevenness, but it isn't always precise. At higher settings it can also smooth out fine details, such as the texture of materials. A plus is that it doesn't remove film grain. The safest option is the "Low" or "Medium" setting, which offers the best compromise between artefact reduction and preserving detail.

Spec-wise the X11L can impress, supporting refresh rates up to 144 Hz at 4K, and in Full HD it can be pushed as high as 288 Hz. From a real-world perspective, though, we were most interested in how the screen handles 120 Hz — that's the limit of today's hardware, led by current-generation consoles. How does it perform in practice? Even though it's a VA panel, the screen doesn't exhibit heavy ghosting. With very fast-moving objects you can notice a slight trail, but it's subtle enough that you hardly notice it while gaming or watching sport. Also very helpful is the motion smoothing feature called "Wyrazistość ruchów", where you can adjust motion fluidity to your liking. You'll find the recommended settings in the photo.

The LG MRGB85 is fitted with a VA panel with a native 144 Hz refresh rate, so its motion handling is very good. The TV easily handles 120 Hz content from consoles and higher refresh rates when connected to a PC. That matters not only for gaming but also when watching sport, where camera motion is noticeably smoother than on basic 60 Hz panels. There’s also the TruMotion system, which lets you set the level of motion smoothing yourself. You can keep a more cinematic motion or increase smoothness, which works well for live sports and TV programmes. The adjustment range is wide, so you can easily tailor the motion smoothing to your own preferences.

For gamers the X11L is simply a superb screen. TCL has already trained us to expect that it packs practically every feature available on the market into its products, and it’s exactly the same with the flagship X series. Thanks to the new processor, the X11L gets four HDMI 2.1 ports with full 48 Gbps bandwidth. Naturally, HDMI 2.1 brings a set of very useful options, such as automatic low-latency mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR) synchronisation, working across the full refresh range up to 288 Hz. All of these features can be conveniently controlled from the dedicated Game Bar. Interestingly, you can customise its appearance to your taste, with three ready-made themes directly referencing the Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox consoles. And speaking of Xbox, Dolby Vision Gaming also runs without issue on the X11L.

When playing in the standard HDR10 format you should be aware of the screen’s specific brightness-curve tuning, which can cause problems during initial setup. Even though the TV supports HGiG, getting everything set correctly in the PlayStation or Xbox system menus can be tricky. The screen’s algorithms tend to artificially brighten the test checkerboard, so nailing the correct white-clip point by eye is genuinely difficult. For HDR10 to look correct, we suggest manually setting the console brightness in the console menu to around 2500–3000 nits.

When it comes to gaming, the LG MRGB85 performs by far the best. The manufacturer hasn’t skimped on the kit and has essentially carried over the full suite of features from pricier TVs into this model. You get three HDMI 2.1 ports with full 48 Gb/s bandwidth. Each supports 4K 120 Hz from a console, and when connected to a PC also 4K 144 Hz. So you don’t need to worry which port to plug your console or PC into, as they all offer the same set of capabilities.

On board you’ll also find VRR, AMD FreeSync Premium, NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible, ALLM and HGiG. Dolby Vision Gaming is included too, allowing supported games to use high refresh rates and dynamic HDR simultaneously on Xbox. Rounding it off is Game Optimizer, a handy in-game menu. Without leaving the game you can change the picture profile, brighten shadow detail or check the current frame rate. In terms of gaming features, the MRGB85 therefore offers almost the same as significantly more expensive LG models.