XIAOMI A PRO 2026 vs TCL A400 PRO

If you're counting on the cinematic HDR experience in the new Xiaomi A Pro 2026, it's best to temper your expectations. This TV is simply too dim to fully realise the potential of contemporary films or series designed for the highest quality image. Our measurements showed brightness levels in the range of 200–300 nits, which are values that are more suited to SDR content than to ambitious HDR productions. In practice, this means that while most films look decent, they certainly won't evoke the 'wow' effect that other TVs do. Fortunately, not everything is lost – credit has to be given to the PFS LED filter used here, a solution similar to the quantum dot technology found in QLEDs. Thanks to this, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette reaches about 94%, resulting in vibrant, saturated colours in the vast majority of materials.

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.

What we saw in Filmmaker mode really surprised us – and unfortunately not in a good way. The mode advertised as the Hollywood standard resembled more of a display in a shop window. The white balance was shifted towards blue, which led to massive colour errors and the effect of blown-out scenes in SDR content. It was a bit better, though far from perfect, in HDR materials. There were also problems there – colour saturation and the entire palette consistently drifted towards cooler tones, resulting in an image that had an artificial, cold tint rather than a cinematic character. In other words: even in Filmmaker mode, which should be the showcase of this television, we got an effect far from expectations.

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.

Even though Xiaomi isn't a brand associated with top-tier televisions, it's fair to say that even in a budget model like the A Pro 2026, the manufacturer left plenty of calibration settings. After a few adjustments, the SDR picture took on a completely new look. The colours stopped veering into blue tones, the whites gained a sense of naturalness, and most errors dropped to a practically invisible level. As a result, SDR content looked very good, surprisingly so for this price range.

It was a slightly different story with HDR materials. Here, it was immediately noticeable what we had already mentioned – the overexposure of bright scenes and issues with balance control. Calibration helped only partially, as the limitations of the panel itself were at play. However, it must be emphasized that in the case of SDR, the television changed beyond recognition, and definitely for the better.

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.

Upscaling and digital image processing in the Xiaomi A Pro 2026 are not among the model's strong points. One might expect that since the television was not designed to achieve record brightness levels, the manufacturer would have opted for a more robust processor and a set of features that would "enhance" lower quality images. Unfortunately – we were also met with significant disappointment here. On the plus side, it has reasonably decent upscaling, which handles HD content and boosts it to 4K in an acceptable manner. However, that is where the list of advantages ends. The television does not offer any features to improve tonal transitions or smooth out digital imperfections, so in most cases, we receive a raw image, exactly as we deliver it from an external source. On a large screen, this lack of support makes lower quality content look simply bland. An additional problem is the phenomenon of overscan. When watching older material, it happens that part of the image is cut off, which only intensifies the impression that Xiaomi has quite a bit of catching up to do in this category.

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 motion fluidity in the Xiaomi A Pro 2026 is an interesting compromise that results from the hybrid matrix used here. At a native resolution of 4K, the maximum refresh rate is 60 Hz – sufficient for those who mainly watch movies and series. It is with them in mind that the manufacturer added a motion smoother, allowing users to adjust the image to their own preferences – one can opt for greater fluidity or leave it with more "cinematic" frames depending on the settings.

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.

No indeed – since Xiaomi has added the "Game Boost 120 Hz" feature here, one might expect that they'd follow up with a solid gaming package. Unfortunately, reality quickly dampens that enthusiasm. Aside from this mode (which, it must be said, is a great addition in a budget build), we only have a rather peculiar player panel. It's hard to call it a full-fledged "game bar" – it's more of a simple overlay on the TV's Menu with limited options. And that’s about it. There’s no ALLM, so the TV won’t switch to game mode automatically. There’s no VRR, so you can forget about smooth frame synchronisation. We also won’t find support for Dolby Vision in games or the HGiG format, which are increasingly becoming the standard on consoles. In short: apart from Game Boost 120 Hz, which indeed allows for a more enjoyable experience at 1080p or 1440p, Xiaomi A Pro 2026 offers nothing that particularly appeals to gamers.

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.