TCL C855 vs Hisense U7Q

TCL C855 delivers a highly varied HDR effect. On one hand, the television truly shines, while on the other, it resembles a lower model with FALD backlighting. This situation is, however, regularly observed in this brand, so it was not a surprise to us. The first and last scenes, featuring large elements of light, look almost phenomenal, "shining" with brightness levels of 1470 and 1820 nits respectively. Such effects will certainly cause more than one person to squint, while simultaneously feeling the extraordinary dynamism of the scene itself. You can truly feel as if you are inside the film. The situation changes dramatically when small or minor elements with high luminance surrounded by black appear on the screen. The TCL C855, in order to avoid the halo effect, significantly reduces brightness to a level of even 240 nits, which is a disappointing result, causing the film to not appear as if it was recorded in HDR. The HDR effect in the TCL C855 makes watching dynamic scenes more engaging, allowing the viewer to feel as though they are part of the action. Even with smaller elements of high luminance, the television manages to maintain details without excessive dimming. Moreover, the TCL C855 test shows that the brightness of the image is adjusted for scenes with a large amount of detail, which enhances viewing comfort.

Since the algorithms responsible for blacks are performing quite well, we expected a similarly good effect regarding brightness and overall HDR quality. Unfortunately – here we have to disappoint you a bit.

The U7Q is a sufficiently bright television – under the best conditions, it can achieve around 800 nits, which indeed impresses on some scenes, especially in scenes like those from the film The Meg. Bright areas can shine, and the HDR effect is noticeable. The problem arises when there are very small, bright elements on a dark background – for example, in Sicario 2 or in the second scene from the film Life of Pi. In such moments, the dimming algorithms work too aggressively. Yes, the blacks look great then, but the brightest points can almost completely disappear, causing the HDR effect to vanish and the details to be barely visible. It's just the nature of this technology in this price segment.

As a consolation, it's worth mentioning that the U7Q is marketed as QLED (in practice, a PFS layer is used, which works very similarly), and it is indeed capable of displaying a wide colour palette – a DCI-P3 coverage of around 94% is a very good result for this class.

The best factory mode for the TCL C855 is "Film," and it is on this mode that we conducted all our tests. Like any mode predefined by the manufacturer, it had its drawbacks that are worth correcting to achieve an image as close as possible to what the film producer intended. We will examine the colour characteristics in both SDR and HDR materials. Looking at the first, we see a noticeable dominance of green in the white balance, which, as you might imagine, resulted in an unpleasant greenish tint across the entire image. Observing the very important gamma chart, which is responsible for the image's contrast, we see a significant deviation from the reference line marked at 2.4. From the left, we can observe a strong spike in the measured value, which at this point caused the image to be overly contrasted, merging details into a dark blob. This situation persisted for quite some time, up to 20% of the chart's value, before then dipping below the reference. This, in turn, meant a brightening of the image and a significant drop in contrast. The factory mode performed slightly better in HDR materials, as the white balance looked quite good, except for the second half, where green once again took precedence. Looking at the EOTF curve, which, unlike gamma, shows the rate of brightness increase, we see primarily two errors: the darkest scenes were too dark, and the brightest ones were overexposed. This was something we could also observe in the scene from the film "Pan" in the paragraph checking the TV's HDR.

We tested the U7Q in the best possible picture mode, which is Filmmaker Mode. This is the mode that is supposed to provide the most "filmic" and creator-intended experience – right out of the box. Unfortunately… even this professionally sounding name does not guarantee a perfect picture.

In our unit, the problem lay in the incorrectly set white balance. Both in HD and 4K content, the picture had too much blue and red, which caused the screen to take on a slightly rosy tint. It didn't look terrible, but it was noticeable – especially in bright scenes and white backgrounds. This alone could perhaps be forgiven, but the biggest problem is managing brightness in HDR content. The EOTF curve from measurements confirms what we saw earlier during scene tests: the television can overly darken the smallest bright elements, causing them to nearly disappear, or on the contrary – excessively brighten the brightest ones, which affects the naturalness of the picture.

TCL, like the vast majority of manufacturers, provides advanced calibration tools in its televisions. Here we find 2- and 20-point adjustments for greyscale as well as an advanced colour management system. The results, as you can see, are very good, and in SDR materials we have significantly approached the reference image. We eliminated both the green tint and the gamma issue, although there is still a slight "kink" at the very beginning. The performance with HDR materials was somewhat poorer, as the TCL C855 did not allow us to model them adequately. We were only able to slightly adjust the EOTF curve and significantly improve the colours themselves.

Thanks to specialised tools, we managed to correct the colour quality in SDR content to nearly perfection. In materials with lower dynamic range, the delta E errors dropped below 0.5, which can be regarded as an almost reference result. The picture on television, YouTube, or classic Full HD looks really very good after calibration. Alright – but where did we not manage to improve the image so easily? Primarily, it concerns HDR quality content. Although we managed to somewhat 'tame' the white balance and eliminate pink tints in most scenes, unfortunately, we no longer had full control over brightness management. We set the local dimming settings according to the best observations – SDR: Medium, HDR: High – but the U7Q still did everything a bit its own way. There were still cases of excessive dimming or brightening of details that calibration simply could not eliminate. And although the overall reception of the content is significantly better, one must reckon that the U7Q will always have something to say at the end with an 'but'.

Once again, we will take a look at the function of smoothing tonal transitions, but this time also at image scaling. The latter is particularly important when watching lower-quality materials, such as certain television programmes or older films. We will focus on the function responsible for tonal transitions. Interestingly, just like in the scenes of the previous test, it performed excellently and smoothed out practically all the inconsistencies; however, here it had problems. Using the menu responsible for this function, we found that no setting - even the strongest - was of any help.

Image scaling in TCL C855 is described as one of the best we have had the opportunity to test so far. The image is sharp, but in a way that could be described as natural for our eyes. Even the small, fine branches do not have jagged edges, and there is no white halo around figures, which is characteristic of inferior scaling systems.

There are situations where we would like to smooth out tonal transitions a bit, especially in older materials – those with limited source quality. The U7Q is equipped with a feature called "Smooth and Gradient Image," but unfortunately... it works very poorly. In the "Low" option, the effects are practically unnoticeable, and other settings smooth details but do not improve tonal transitions. The only positive aspect is that the feature does not interfere with film grain, so it does not ruin the natural structure of the image.

Fortunately, upscaling content performs quite well. The image is not excessively sharpened, and there is no artificial clarity – and although it is known that this is not the level of high-end televisions, the U7Q handles displaying really old content in a completely acceptable manner without any issues.

The maximum refresh rate we can set on the TCL C855 is 144 Hz. Naturally, this is only possible by connecting the TCL C855 television to a very powerful PC. Otherwise, we will be operating at a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz, which is recommended if we primarily want to watch sports or content with a lot of motion dynamics. For those requiring high image fluidity, the manufacturer has implemented a multi-stage motion smoother. This has been divided into two separate sliders regulating the sharpness of moving images (Motion Blur Reduction) and flicker (Flicker Reduction). Both sliders can be set in the range from 0 to 10, with each increment affecting the level of smoothing, so everyone can find their sweet spot. We present a setting that allows for slight smoothing without the soap opera effect.

The panel of the TCL C855 features a very good response time. This is particularly important as VA panels often have issues with so-called ghosting, which is the effect where a black halo can be seen behind a fast-moving object.

U7Q is indeed a very fast television, just like its more powerful version "PRO". At a resolution of 4K, it supports up to 144 Hz refresh rate, and if someone wants even more – in Full HD, you can achieve up to 240 Hz! This will mainly benefit PC gamers, but it is worth appreciating – it is a rarely seen feature in this price segment. Right from the start, it is clear that the U7Q has been designed with dynamic content in mind, such as games or sport. In films, we are not left "out in the cold" either – the U7Q offers an "Ultra Motion Smoothness" feature, where using two sliders you can adjust whether you prefer a smoother, theatrical image or something closer to a cinematic style with a visible film frame. It is good that, as with most manufacturers, we have a choice here as well and can adjust it to our own preferences.

The TCL C855 television is equipped with full HDMI 2.1 connectors with a full bandwidth of 48 Gb/s. During our tests, we confirmed the seamless operation of all functions that are part of this standard. As can be seen, all checkboxes light up green, which will certainly be appreciated by gamers, both console and those using the television as a monitor for their computer. Additionally, the TCL C855 supports both AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA's G-Sync, which can be easily activated in the graphics card settings. Those with a very powerful setup can send a 144 Hz signal to the C855, which this television handles effortlessly. It is also worth mentioning the implementation of the HGIG mode, which, however, due to the flaw of the “Game” mode, is overly brightened, making it difficult to configure properly on screen. Fortunately, the television performs excellently with the Dolby Vision format.

The TCL C855 is one of the first manufacturers to equip its televisions with a special GameBar, which allows for extensive setting changes on the fly, without the need to exit the game. It features functions such as an additional crosshair grid, black level correction, and settings for people with disabilities. In the picture, we can see the next generation of this solution.

In summary, the TCL C855 television will be an ideal solution for those seeking a screen for all sorts of electronic gaming. Thanks to all the features supporting such entertainment, it is incredibly engaging. It is also important to highlight the very low input lag, regardless of the selected settings, including with the HDR Dolby Vision format.

The Hisense U7Q is a television designed with gamers in mind – and this is immediately evident from its gaming capabilities. It has practically everything you could wish for: variable refresh rate (VRR) – check, automatic game mode (ALLM) – check, and on top of that, high refresh rates of up to 240 Hz in Full HD and support for various resolutions, not just 4K. This is truly a great set of features that makes the U7Q perform well both in fast-paced first-person shooters on consoles and in more demanding titles on PC. Of course – as with most Hisense models – there is a lack of proper implementation of the HGiG feature. It's a shame because HGiG allows console brightness to be matched to a specific television, which in practice makes displaying HDR games according to the creators' intent much easier. Without this, you simply have to reckon with certain limitations in the final HDR image in games.