TCL C7L vs SONY Bravia 9 II XR95M2

The TCL C7L is, without doubt, an extremely bright TV. In synthetic tests using static test patterns it can reach peak brightness of around 2800 nits. That's a truly phenomenal result, given the price bracket it occupies. Unfortunately, measurements with real film scenes are not as spectacular as the white-square tests. Brightness in real HDR footage on the C7L falls to around 1200 nits. That's still very good, because the vast majority of modern films are graded to that level. However, when small, pinpoint elements appear on screen, the brightness of those details drops dramatically, even to around 400 nits, which reduces the HDR impact. The TV does this deliberately to preserve black levels and avoid excessive blooming. This is somewhat understandable, but it also shows that Mini LED technology is not completely without compromises in this respect. As for the HDR effect itself, alongside brightness the key factor is, of course, colour. Thanks to the use of new 'super' quantum dots, the colours are simply superb and among the best on the market. The TV is able to achieve very wide coverage of the BT.2020 and DCI-P3 colour gamuts, matching the best RGB Mini-LED screens with ease. Best of all, the C7L can maintain such high colour saturation regardless of the scene being displayed, which is often problematic in competing RGB Mini-LED TVs.

The real showcase of the new backlight architecture and Sony’s processor is HDR material reproduction. At the official launch Sony engineers said (not officially 😉) that the brightness of the Bravia 9 II should be almost identical to their professional director’s monitor BVM-HX3110, which is priced at astronomical sums. Our lab tests confirmed those were not empty promises. During synthetic measurements on the L20 test pattern the TV effortlessly exceeded the 4000 nits peak brightness barrier. Most importantly, these spectacular results translate directly to real film scenes. In most of the demanding shots we tested the screen easily maintained brightness around 2500–3000 nits. Regardless of the scene’s character, whether the light was small and pinpoint or flooded almost across the entire screen, the HDR effect was incredibly intense.

Colours

Colours are another key pillar of RGB Mini LED technology (Sony’s True RGB implementation). Specifically for testing these kinds of displays we have permanently introduced a new research section to examine how TVs handle colours in real-world conditions. Traditional tests using synthetic patterns are no longer enough to determine actual colour-gamut coverage. From now on we also measure colour saturation directly in selected film scenes by overlaying measurement points on them. So how do the colours perform?

In synthetic tests the Bravia 9 II achieves excellent results. For the popular DCI-P3 space used for HDR content the colour gamut coverage reached almost 98%, while for the extremely wide and demanding BT.2020 space measurements indicated nearly 90%. However, in real, varied scenes those values fall by a few percentage points. This is a direct result of the nature of zoned RGB backlighting. When differently coloured elements or bright white highlights appear side by side, light from adjacent zones starts to bleed together, producing a slight whitish glow. That naturally affects colour saturation, reducing it slightly. It shows that despite Sony’s brilliant algorithm for controlling the RGB LEDs, the number of zones is still too small to eliminate this effect entirely.

Is that something to complain about? Of course not. The Bravia 9 II’s final colour coverage is ultimately the same as that of a very good QLED TV, and the most important point is this: the vast majority of HDR films and series are distributed in the DCI-P3 colour space. In that standard Sony easily maintains very high colour saturation, regardless of the scene.

When it comes to out-of-the-box colours, what's new in TCL TVs, including the C7L model, is the addition of a picture mode called Filmmaker Mode. This is significant because such a mode was not previously available from this manufacturer. As the name suggests, this setting is meant to present the picture with the filmmaker's full intent. After our tests we can confirm that it is, without doubt, the best built-in mode on this TV if you want faithful colour reproduction straight out of the box. However, we certainly wouldn't say it's perfect. Like most devices on the market, this C7L also had some factory calibration errors. The white balance in Filmmaker mode drifted towards a slightly greenish-yellow tint, caused mainly by an excess of the green component and a noticeable shortfall in blue. Of course, this won't be a major drawback for the average viewer, but if you care about perfect whites, natural skin tones and getting the full potential out of the structure of those new "super" quantum dots, the TV really needs professional calibration.

Contrary to appearances and high expectations, the Bravia 9 II we tested showed some issues with its factory calibration straight out of the box. Looking at the white balance charts, it’s clear it wasn’t perfect. In SDR content the red component was noticeably lacking, so the image leaned toward cooler, bluish tones. In HDR, however, the white balance in that respect was considerably better. So where do the visible errors in image reproduction come from? They result from unexpected tuning of the gamma and the EOTF curve. In both cases the Bravia 9 II straight from the factory showed a marked deviation from reference standards. In SDR material the gamma was significantly too high — at extremes it hovered very close to 2.8 instead of the target 2.4. In practice this meant the image looked artificially darkened and seemed washed of colour, with details in darker areas (the shadows) disappearing entirely. The opposite happened with HDR material, where brightness reproduction is governed by the EOTF. That curve was pushed too high above the correct value, causing the image to be artificially brightened across most luminance ranges. As with every TV we test, we subjected this unit to professional calibration. You can see the results and how we managed to correct these factory errors below.

After professional calibration we managed to greatly improve the situation in the factory Filmmaker Mode. After our corrections, the errors in the ColorChecker test and across the wide colour gamut fell below the threshold of human perception, that is below a value of 3, which is a very good result. The TCL C7L definitely benefits from such a procedure in terms of colour fidelity, and it's hard to deny. Brightness management for HDR content looks a little worse after calibration, though. As I described earlier, even though we set this model up correctly, when you play real film scenes the TV can handle its brightness in a rather peculiar way. It often brightens some elements on screen contrary to the creator's intent, which is clearly visible in the EOTF traces measured from specific films. Despite this defect, or rather a specific characteristic of the television, one thing you can't fault is that after calibration the C7L was able to reproduce colours accurately.

Fortunately, with professional calibration, most of the Bravia 9 II’s factory missteps can be effectively eliminated. We managed to precisely correct, above all, the white balance and the gamma curve and EOTF. After these procedures, in everyday use and during film viewings the television looks worlds better. The picture gained proper depth and modelling, the cool tint to whites disappeared, and shadow detail that previously vanished because of an overly high gamma finally became perfectly visible. Although we ultimately rate colour accuracy as very good, as specialists we must point out one fairly serious design flaw in this model. The Bravia 9 II could look even better if it were not for the complete lack of an advanced colour management system in the television’s menu.

While a basic white balance correction can be carried out here without difficulty, the settings lack options for adjusting specific colours. We tried to tackle this issue in every possible way, both with the traditional method from the remote and via dedicated calibration software for Bravia televisions. Unfortunately, that function has been completely locked. We suspect this may stem from the specifics of the new RGB architecture, which imposes its own limitations. It’s a great shame, because without it you cannot push colour reproduction to perfection. A skewed red still catches the eye. One can only hope that Sony will fix this shortcoming in time via an update.

This can be seen as, to some extent, the Achilles' heel of the C7L. Unfortunately, this TV uses the older MediaTek Pentonic 700 chip, which has never been famed for outstanding digital image processing. You can clearly see that in the behaviour of the progressive smoothing function, the feature responsible for reducing jagged edges and removing digital noise. It simply performs very poorly. When set to low, its effectiveness is almost non-existent. The only small plus is that the algorithm does not further spoil the picture or blur details unnecessarily. Upscaling, that is scaling lower-resolution content to 4K, performs slightly better. It is simply adequate and does not stand out against the competition. There is no denying that the C7L would benefit greatly in this regard if the manufacturer opted for the newer Pentonic 800 processor, which is now appearing in an increasing number of rival models.

Digital processing and upscaling have long been Sony’s hallmark, and after testing the Bravia 9 II we can confidently say that nothing has changed in that respect. Sony remains at the forefront of the market. Their proprietary XR image processor, which in this model works alongside the main MediaTek Pentonic 1000 chip, deserves the highest praise. That combination delivers excellent results. The upscaling of lower-resolution material itself is extremely effective and precise. However, what most deserves applause in the XR processor’s operation is its tonal transition smoothing function. The system can reduce posterization in heavily compressed material to virtually zero. Crucially, the algorithm does this in a very intelligent way. It removes only the annoying digital “steps” in gradients without blurring fine texture details or creating an artificial, “plastic” look stripped of film grain. The picture remains sharp, natural and cinematic.

The TCL C7L uses a native 4K panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate, which at lower resolutions when connected to a PC can even reach up to 288 Hz. These are, of course, very high figures and impressive on paper, but bear in mind that almost all the dynamic content you’ll watch on this TV will still run at around a maximum of 120 Hz. To rein in that motion, the TV’s menu includes a motion-smoothing system called "Motion Clarity". It offers several preset modes, including a user mode that we strongly recommend you set manually using our tried-and-tested guides on our YouTube channel. There are two key sliders available. The first, "Blur Reduction", is responsible for cutting motion blur and improving sharpness in dynamic 60-fps material, such as sports broadcasts. The second slider, "Flicker Reduction", lets you add artificial frames to films and series shot in cinematic 24 or 30 frames per second. This, of course, can completely eliminate the irritating judder that appears during camera movement.

In the Sony Bravia 9 II specification you won't find very high screen refresh rates above 120 Hz, which some more demanding PC gamers may regard as a drawback. However, in everyday use, whether during movie viewing, console gaming or watching sport, it's really hard to have any complaints about motion smoothness. The VA-type panel used here does show slight smearing, natural for this panel type, but the excellent Motionflow motion smoothing algorithms come to the rescue. In the system menu you'll find sliders for blur reduction and smoothing that let you precisely tailor the motion characteristics to your own preferences.

When it comes to gaming, the TCL C7L is simply an outstanding TV for players. Thanks to two HDMI 2.1 ports with full 48 Gbps bandwidth, you get access to all the key features required by console owners and powerful PC rigs. There’s a well-working ALLM mode with very low input lag and VRR frame synchronisation that operates over an impressive range from 48 to 288 Hz. Importantly, unlike some rivals, TCL has properly implemented the console HDR10 HGIG profile and supports Dolby Vision in games. The package is completed by a very well designed gamer panel, the Game Bar, which even lets you edit its appearance and change the theme so it perfectly matches the style of your console.

The only thing you can, and even should, criticise is that the TV offers only two full-spec HDMI 2.1 ports, while the other two are older HDMI 2.0. That creates quite a logistical problem. Why? Because one of the fast ports also handles the return audio channel eARC. In practice this means that if you connect a soundbar or home cinema system to the TV, you’ll be left with just one free HDMI 2.1 socket. If you have two consoles at home, or a console and a powerful PC, unfortunately you’ll have to give something up or keep juggling cables at the back of the case while trying to maintain convenient control of the audio system.

Aside from a fairly serious design misstep in limiting the platform to just two full HDMI 2.1 ports, the Bravia 9 II offers almost all the key gaming features available on the market. Sony has already accustomed us to such a rich feature set in its previous models. The list of supported technologies is extensive. It includes automatic low-latency mode (ALLM), variable refresh rate (VRR), and a fully correct implementation of the HGIG standard and the Dolby Vision format tailored for gamers.