TCL A300W NXTVision vs SHARP JP7765E

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.

So how does the brightness of the Sharp JP7 fare in the most demanding titles? Honestly, at first, we were quite surprised. The television is capable of achieving over 1000 nits of brightness, which is an outstanding and rare result for a device costing just under 2000 PLN (for 55 inches). Watching bright, full-screen scenes, one might feel they are dealing with really good equipment. Unfortunately, though, we have to return to the problem we mentioned earlier regarding local dimming management. When small bright areas appear on a dark background (as in the test scenes from the films Life of Pi or Sicario 2), it is evident how poorly the JP7 handles zones. The television dims them almost to the maximum, crushing the entire HDR effect, which in such moments resembles a flat SDR image (less than 200 nits). This instability means that in demanding, contrast-heavy films, the image on the JP7 unfortunately loses its appeal.

As a consolation, it is worth noting that the panel has the potential for good colour display. It features a PFS (phosphor) filter, which allows for a solid 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 palette. The manufacturer calls its product a “QLED,” even though it is primarily based on the aforementioned PFS filter. Given the recent market battles of manufacturers over what may or may not be called QLED, we leave the question of the correctness of this naming to your assessment. However, it remains a fact that the potential for reproducing saturated colours in this panel is simply good.

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.

When it comes to out-of-the-box colours, the Sharp JP7 was tested in Film mode, which traditionally offers the most consistent image compared to the yellowed “Eco” mode or the glaring blue of the “Dynamic” mode. Although this is the best choice among the available settings, the results are still far from ideal. The white balance clearly lacked red and blue components, causing many scenes to take on an unnatural greenish tint. Another issue was the gamma – during full-screen scenes, the television provides excessive brightness, which completely diminishes its cinematic character. All of this resulted in colour reproduction errors, especially in shades of grey, which exceeded a value of Delta E 10. For reference: errors above 2-3 are already visible to the human eye, so we are dealing with a significant distortion of reality here.

In HDR mode, the situation is reversed, but not any better. Here, the blue colour dominates the white balance, which gives the image an unnatural, almost “retail” sharpness, reminiscent of aggressive demonstration modes. Furthermore, measurements of the EOTF curve emphasise the retail character of the image. The graph clearly shows that the television generates an image significantly brighter than the standards predict, resulting in an artificially boosted and unrealistic final effect. The Sharp JP7 is evidently trying to appear stronger than it actually is, but it does so at the cost of fidelity to the content.

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.

We subjected the JP7 to our standard calibration procedure and really... the television gained a new lease of life thanks to it, particularly with SDR content (YouTube, classic television, series, or older films). As a result of our precise adjustment of the white balance and stabilisation of the gamma, colour errors fell to a value of below 3. This is a level at which the human eye has difficulty detecting distortions. In this scenario, the Sharp JP7 delivers an image with truly excellent colour precision, which is a significant advantage in this price class. However, content with HDR turned out to be much more problematic. Here, despite our efforts and interventions in the settings, the television simply would not cooperate. In the JP7 menu, we don't find any option that would allow for real control over brightness management (EOTF). Although a significant portion of the colour errors was reduced, the image still remained unnaturally oversaturated. It's a bit of a shame, as the potential of the mini-LED backlit panel is great, but the software presents a clear barrier here.

The conclusion is simple: when watching less demanding content (SDR) on the JP7, you can expect an image that is more than satisfactory, but in HDR, you must come to terms with a certain degree of "artificiality" that cannot be circumvented even with professional equipment.

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.

In the case of lower quality materials and how the Sharp JP7 handles them, the situation is ambiguous. Let's start with the upscaling itself – here we have no major objections. The process of scaling the image to a higher resolution is correct; the picture remains readable and sharp, without the overscan effect, meaning no cropped edges. Of course, it is not at the level of top models, and at times one can notice slight jaggedness on the contours, but in this price range, the effect is fully acceptable.

However, the actual digital image processing performs significantly worse, which, apart from the upscaling, effectively does not exist. In the JP7 menu, we will not find any option that would effectively smooth out unwanted tonal transitions or reduce noise in the image. As a result, the signal reaches the panel in a very raw form, which, with heavily compressed materials (e.g. from YouTube), leads to visible posterisation. Either it is a flaw in the software or a very strange design decision, because in earlier Sharp models this function was available and, crucially, worked with noticeable effect. Here, we are left to deal with whatever the source provides us, without any digital support from the image processor.

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 motion fluidity on the Sharp JP7 is quite mediocre, and the reason is simple: the television uses a 60Hz panel. This instantly makes it difficult to recommend for watching sports or serious gaming, where higher refresh rates are already the standard. The only real plus is the presence of a smoothness feature, which we can control in films using a slider called De-judder. Lower settings provide a more raw, "cinematic" (framey) image, while higher settings add artificial smoothness. We suggest setting it somewhere in the middle of the scale, that is in the range of 3-5 – this is the best compromise to avoid the soap opera effect while also eliminating the tiring stuttering of the image. Interestingly, in the menu, we also find a "motion blur removal" slider, which usually indicates the presence of a 120Hz panel. However, with the JP7, it does not enhance the image at all and serves rather as a dummy – it is meant to look good in the settings, but technically it has no right to operate on this panel.

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.

As we mentioned earlier, the 60Hz panel is not a feature that will attract gamers to the Sharp JP7. Perhaps for the casual player, whose console still generates most titles at 60 frames per second, there might be something interesting? When it comes to specific additions, we find here:

• ALLM Mode: Automatically switches the television to low latency game mode (input lag).

• Game Menu: Which is hard to call a full-fledged “Game Bar,” as the functionality here is minimal. Aside from enabling ALLM, there’s only a game-specific motion smoother which we recommend avoiding as it introduces very noticeable artifacts and worsens responsiveness.

• Dolby Vision Gaming: For Microsoft consoles.

Unfortunately, the list of shortcomings is significantly longer and more painful than the positives. The biggest disappointment is the lack of support for 120Hz, even when reducing the resolution to Full HD. The presence of 120Hz would allow for performance modes to be activated in many games on PS5 or Xbox Series X. Another shortcoming is VRR, which means that during frame drops, we are exposed to screen tearing. The lack of proper implementation of the HGiG standard is also very problematic. This results in the fact that during HDR calibration in the console menu, it is very easy to "overshoot" the brightness settings. As a result, instead of clear details in the highlights, we end up with an unnaturally over-bright image with cut-off details. Sharp JP7 is a proposition solely for very casual gamers.