TCL A300W NXTVision vs Philips OLED820

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.

When it comes to HDR quality, the Philips OLED820 uses the same class of WOLED panel found in its biggest rivals – the LG C5 and Samsung S90F. This means we can expect really solid results. This year, mid-range OLED panels can exceed the threshold of a thousand nits, and the tested model reaches around 1300 nits in some films. This is an outstanding result, allowing the director's vision to be conveyed with immense precision, as this is the brightness range in which contemporary productions are mastered. Of course, there are situations where even the OLED820 has to compromise. Full-screen scenes filled with white, like those in the film The Meg, can drop brightness to 400–500 nits, which clearly weakens the effect. This is a characteristic of OLED technology that has yet to be fully eliminated. Despite this limitation, it is hard not to appreciate the HDR in this model – high luminance and a wide DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage of 99% make the image simply look fantastic.

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.

The colour reproduction in the factory settings really surprised us, and positively so. The Philips OLED820, switched to Filmmaker mode, immediately showed that it was quite well tuned in terms of colour. The white balance was relatively accurate, though there was a slight deficiency in the blue hue, which occasionally gave the image a slightly yellowish tint. However, this is not a flaw that particularly detracts from everyday viewing. A bigger issue arose with the brightness characteristics. The gamma curve clearly deviated from the ideal, with the line below the expected values, causing the image to be excessively brightened, and the colours looked as if they were covered with a light milky filter. This effect was also noticeable in tests using the Colour Checker pattern, where more pronounced errors appeared.

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.

After calibration, both the Filmmaker mode and the gaming mode gained a lot. A slight adjustment of the white balance and an improvement in brightness characteristics produced excellent results in SDR content – the image looked almost perfect, natural, and very close to reference. In the case of HDR materials, the situation was similar, the colours were presented wonderfully, and it was hard to find anything to criticise. However, we noticed a certain feature, which we already pointed out when comparing scenes from the film Billy Lynn. The analysis of the EOTF curve showed that the television has a slight tendency to dim details in the blacks, so the darkest parts are not always displayed exactly as intended by the director. Nevertheless, the effect after calibration is stunning, and the OLED820 is emerging as one of the more interesting screens in its class. It just needs a little pampering, and there really is nothing to worry about.

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.

Fortunately, the earlier effects of the mentioned posterisation can be quite effectively mitigated. The "distortion reduction" function set to a medium level deals with unwanted colour banding, improving the smoothness of tonal transitions. It does happen that it works a bit too aggressively and also smooths out some details – such as minor skin imperfections of the actors – but nevertheless, it can be considered worth using without substantial compromises. The upscaling in the OLED820 also performs quite well. The test image with the model is exceptionally soft, sometimes even too much so, although this can be rectified by slightly boosting the sharpness in the picture menu – this is really a matter of individual preference. The absence of overscan issues with very low-resolution content is also commendable, meaning we don't have to worry that the image will be unnecessarily cropped.

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 fluidity of motion is an area where OLEDs always shine, and the Philips OLED820 confirms this rule. The panel itself offers a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which primarily benefits PC gamers, but even with standard television sources or consoles, where it operates at 120 Hz, the motion is fast, sharp and simultaneously smooth, without signs of blurring. This is thanks to the remarkable response time between pixels, which maintains image clarity in every dynamic scene. The manufacturer has also added its own smoother called "Motion Style". In the menu, we find two sliders – the first, responsible for fluidity, allows adjustments to the number of artificially added frames in films. This way, we can choose a raw, cinematic character with a distinctly visible film frame or a more theatrical image with smooth motion. The second slider is for motion blur reduction, particularly useful in sports broadcasts. Here, we definitely recommend setting it to the maximum value, as the effect is truly excellent.

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.

The Philips OLED820 is one of the most complete televisions for gamers. On board, we find practically everything one could expect: two HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gbps (it's a shame there aren't four), variable refresh rate VRR, automatic game mode ALLM, support for Dolby Vision in games, and a good implementation of the HGiG mode. The television handles lower resolutions at 120 Hz with ease, so one can count on considerable flexibility when choosing different picture modes on the console. Philips also includes a Game Bar – a panel that allows changing picture modes, adding a crosshair, or previewing parameters. Although it looks rather clunky and is less polished than that of the competition, it does its job. In practice, therefore, the OLED820, in addition to a full set of four HDMI 2.1 ports, offers nearly everything a gamer could need.