TCL A300W NXTVision vs Haier K85F

When it comes to brightness, the TCL A300W is definitely the darkest television among all frame-style models, such as Samsung The Frame or Hisense CanvasTV – and unfortunately, this is immediately noticeable. In our measurements, the peak luminance reached a mere 400 nits, and on test film patterns, this value dropped to 350 nits. This is definitely too little to experience the true “magic” of bright HDR effects. As a consolation – the television is equipped with a PFS LED coating (which is something like QLED), providing very good coverage of a wide colour gamut, both DCI-P3 and BT.2020. In addition, it has full support for all popular HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision – which somewhat compensates for the lack of brightness and helps improve the overall perception of content in this quality.

Let’s now turn to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, namely the quality of HDR effect. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we must unfortunately make it clear: if you are looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should avoid this model at all costs. The main problem is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what that means – such a value is fine for watching standard SDR content, but it is absolutely insufficient to showcase any real benefits of HDR. The image simply lacks the "power" to generate bright, striking highlights. All our measurements and tests on specialist patterns only confirmed this. As if that weren't enough, the television also struggles with colour reproduction. In this budget build, we won't find any technologies to expand the colour palette, such as quantum dot layers (marketed as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space, which is crucial for HDR materials, is only around 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of the vibrant, saturated colours that the director wanted to show us.

TCL A300 offers several picture modes, but without a doubt, the best is the movie mode. Unfortunately, although it is the best option available, it is not free from errors. In both HD and HDR content, the image has a noticeably too warm hue - it leans slightly towards pink, which is particularly noticeable in scenes with snow. Instead of pure white, we get a pinkish tint that spoils the natural perception of colours.

The management of brightness is also not very good. In the case of older HD material, the image often seems too dark - which is confirmed by the inflated gamma value. Conversely, with HDR content, the effect is the opposite - the image is overly bright, which we observed in scenes from the film Pan. Such a lack of consistency also affects the accuracy of colour reproduction - a test with the ColorChecker showed that many samples clearly deviate from the 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.

Well, how does the television perform with colours straight out of the box, without any interference from our side? The Haier K85F offers a full range of picture modes, such as Dynamic and Eco, but for anyone who wants to watch films according to the creators' intentions, only one really matters: Film mode. That is where we focused our tests, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture in the factory settings is very far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires numerous adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a noticeable deficiency of red. In practice, this means that the entire image has a cool, bluish tint. The situation is even worse regarding brightness management, namely the gamma curve (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a real rollercoaster, which has a disastrous impact on the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in shadows to be lost, and in the case of HDR – excessive brightness, which further exacerbates the issue of clipping. Such a combination, namely too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and excessive blue saturation, results in significant errors in colour reproduction. Our measurements on the specialist ColorChecker chart revealed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. Put simply, errors above the threshold of 3 are already easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colours on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

After our professional calibration, the TCL A300 has literally received a new lease of life. The image has stopped being too warm, and the colours finally look as they should – which was confirmed by the ColorChecker test, where the colour samples finally started to hit their marks, at least to some reasonable extent. 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 cannot be overcome – a slightly noticeable blooming effect is still present, but that is a characteristic of the technology and not something that can be eliminated even after professional settings.

Generally speaking: after calibration, the A300 performs significantly better and gains a completely new quality.

Well, is there anything that can be done about this picture? Can professional calibration save the situation? The answer is both yes and no. It must be clearly stated that there are certain limitations we cannot overcome. The constraints of the design itself, meaning simply a poor panel and its narrow colour coverage, make it impossible to expect a reasonable HDR effect – we won't mislead you on that. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is indeed for watching such content, after calibration, that this television starts to make sense. We managed to somewhat tame the white balance. Although the television only offers basic 2-point adjustment (rather than precise 20-point), so it's not perfect, we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the picture. Above all, however, we noted a significant improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the television can finally display images without artificially dimming or brightening them. The conclusion is simple: even with such a cheap television, professional adjustment of the settings can achieve a lot and extract the maximum potential from it.

TCL A300 handles tonal transitions in high-quality films very well, but the question arises – how does it perform with weaker material? The television is equipped with a tonal transition smoothing function, but its effectiveness can be described in one word: "random." In one scene it could work and improve the gradation, but when turned off… the effect remains the same. There is a lack of consistency and predictability.

Image scaling is also not one of A300's strong points. On the test chart, the main character actually looked better than on the raw signal, but with thin lines – such as fonts or background details – there was noticeable jaggedness and aliasing. On the positive side, the television does not crop the image and has no problems with overscan, but the overall quality of scaling is rather average.

Let's move on to digital processing and image scaling, specifically how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, such as those from standard television. Right from the start, we encounter an extremely annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – overscan that is enabled by default. This means that the television artificially enlarges the image, cropping its edges, and this happens on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig through the screen settings each time and manually switch the format to "expand to 16:9". It's a detail, but it's devilishly frustrating. The very act of scaling content to 4K resolution can be summed up in one word: acceptable. And that's about it. The image processor does not strip details from the picture, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any fireworks. It's alright, but nothing more. However, the biggest and most noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is the absence of a smooth tonal transition feature. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not provide such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality materials in full view.

The TCL A300 is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, which should immediately satisfy practically everyone – both gamers and sports fans. The motion is smooth and the image is clear even during fast-paced scenes. Additionally, the television offers motion enhancement functionality 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, cinematic look with visible frames to a very smooth (though somewhat unnatural) image reminiscent of soap opera effects. This way, everyone can find a setting that suits them.

The matrix in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which right from the start sets certain expectations regarding image fluidity. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found two separate sliders for motion control in the settings menu: one labelled as "Motion Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder". Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as typically manufacturers offer at most one shared option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm waned as quickly as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for motion blur reduction is simply a dummy. Its adjustment brings absolutely no visible effect on the screen, so only one of the two options works.

TCL A300 is a television designed not only to transport us to a digital art museum but also to a full-fledged gaming world. Here, we find practically everything one could expect from gaming equipment: two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, 144 Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and ALLM.

The proper implementation of the HGIG mode also deserves praise – something that competitor Hisense sometimes struggles with. The television easily handles lower resolutions (e.g., Full HD) while maintaining high refresh rates, which older console or PC owners will appreciate.

In addition, there is an attractive and clear GameBar that facilitates quick access to settings for gamers. The A300 is really well-prepared for top-level gaming – it's just a shame that issues with smearing slightly tarnish its overall image as a gaming device.

Let's move on to features for gamers, although we must emphasise at the outset that this is more of a proposal for the "casual" ones. The manufacturer boasts in the specifications about the presence of HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it is largely a marketing ploy. What good is a modern port if the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which deprives the HDMI 2.1 port of its most significant advantage. It's a shame. (That’s why we mark it as HDMI 2.0 in our tests). Another curious peculiarity is the television's reaction to attempts to calibrate HDR from the console level. Changes to brightness settings cause very unnatural image behaviour, which might suggest an incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, however, one shouldn't worry too much about this, because as we've mentioned numerous times, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to avoid being too negative, the Haier K85F also has two significant and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or Auto Low Latency Mode, which switches the television to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise, is support for VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate. While it works within a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its mere presence is commendable. As a result, the image in games can experience less "tearing," which significantly improves the gaming experience.