TCL C8K vs TCL C9K

The TCL C8K is a truly bright television. In synthetic conditions – that is, during brightness test patterns – it was able to achieve even 3500 nits of peak brightness in movie mode. This is an impressive result that brings the C8K close to the market leaders, at least in terms of panel brightness. More importantly – these are not just numbers on paper. In films with a lot of bright scenes, such as Life of Pi or The Meg, the brightness clearly exceeds 1000 nits, providing a real sense of HDR effect. The picture in such moments looks very dynamic, colours are vibrant thanks to excellent colour gamut coverage, and lights are spot-on and intense. Just as it should be.

However, this does not mean that everything is perfect. Similar to the contrast tests, compromises also arise here in more demanding scenes. In sequences with very fine light elements – such as stars in the night sky or reflections in dark rooms – the local dimming algorithm can… get confused. Instead of bringing those details up, the television sometimes decides to significantly dim them – to a level of around 300 nits – to maintain blacks. On one hand, this is quite a reasonable approach (better deep blacks than a grey/blue screen), but on the other hand – there may be moments when certain elements of the picture become hardly visible or even disappear into darkness.

TEST UPDATE (20/08/2025) : The brightness control algorithm in this model is quite problematic – an attempt to calibrate the picture so that it does not drastically overexpose the brightest scenes results in unnatural shifts: an improvement in one area of the picture leads to a deterioration in another. The television may achieve slightly higher brightness measurements, but in practice, this comes with a highly oversaturated image that looks very unnatural!

For the sake of order, we provide the brightness values without this adjustment:

1. 1463 nits

2. 640 nits

3. 1368 nits

4. 468 nits

5. 1025 nits

As we mentioned with black and contrast – the C9K makes a huge impression in synthetic tests. Our measurements showed that on a screen 10% filled with white, the television is capable of squeezing out... 4000 nits of brightness! It sounds cosmic, but – and here unfortunately the pattern repeats – the numbers say one thing, and practice another. In real film scenes, the situation looks different. In the best case, when the light effects occupy a large part of the image and the local dimming algorithm doesn't have to think too hard about what to do with thousands of zones – the result is really quite good. At that point, the C9K can reach about 1500 nits, which provides a pleasant, intense flash and can indeed make a positive impression.

The problem begins with smaller elements – such as stars in the sky, the moon, or individual reflections. That's when the proverbial cat comes out of the bag: the algorithms are not yet refined, and brightness drops even to 400–500 nits. This is a huge difference compared to the potential of 4000 nits that we saw in laboratory tests. Why does this happen? Most likely, the television tries to protect the black and minimise the halo effect around bright objects. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of details – some of the intricate details simply disappear, and the scene loses its nature.

In the C8K, a new picture mode has appeared: Filmmaker Mode. This is something we have known for years from televisions of other brands – a mode designed to deliver the director's vision as faithfully as possible, without unnecessary image enhancements. Unfortunately, with TCL, this still seems to be at a stage 'in need of improvement'. At first glance, the screen appears too warm – the image leans towards reds, which may not appeal to everyone. The white balance was significantly skewed – the screen looked distinctly warm, and the red colour dominated almost every scene. There was a lack of blue, which resulted in an unpleasant yellowing and distortion of the image. But that’s not all. Regardless of whether we were watching regular television, YouTube, or films in HDR – the television had a clear tendency to excessively brighten the image. In the gamma and EOTF graph tests, the lines, instead of sticking to the pattern, strayed, which in practice translates to an overly bright and less contrasty image. Additionally, in the colour reproduction tests, there were noticeable deviations – on the colour wheel, certain points were even 'off the mark'. It must be said plainly: Filmmaker Mode in the C8K in its current form is not very filmic.

For colour tests, we once again reached for the Filmmaker mode – a new feature in TCL televisions for 2025. And although the direction itself is a step in the right direction, the execution leaves much to be desired. The white balance in SDR content turned out to be too warm – there was an excess of red. Conversely, in HDR, it swung in the opposite direction: the image became excessively blue. The Colour Checker test revealed quite a few colour inaccuracies that were noticeable to the naked eye. An even bigger problem turned out to be what we mentioned above – managing brightness. Regardless of whether we were watching SDR or HDR content, the image had a tendency to blow out the entire scene, giving it an unnatural, almost grotesque character. Therefore, it is hard to call this a 'director’s mode' – because the director surely has never seen such an image.

After professional calibration, the TCL C8K has made a huge step forward. In SDR content, we managed to almost perfectly set the white balance – the screen has finally stopped being too warm and has acquired a neutral character. The gamma curve, responsible for the way brightness is reproduced, also looks very good now – the image is more consistent and realistic. We also improved the white balance in HDR content – within the limits that the television itself allows. Unfortunately, the C8K still interprets brightness management somewhat "in its own way." When we look at the EOTF chart in films, it is clear that the television brightens entire scenes more than it should. Before calibration, this effect was really troublesome – now the situation looks much better, although it still falls a bit short of perfection. This, however, is a limitation of the device itself, which – despite our efforts – does not allow us to fully tame its nature.

After calibration, we finally managed to tame the white balance – and it immediately translated into a more natural image. Colours finally started to look as they should, and the overall presentation was incomparably better than with the factory settings. In other words – it’s worth taking a moment to improve this, as the gain is really significant. The gamma responsible for managing brightness was also brought under control in SDR content, and the effect was more than satisfactory. Unfortunately, when we switched on the HDR material, the situation quickly became complicated. No matter how we set the local dimming, the television had a tendency to do what it pleased with the image – either overexposing the whole picture or dimming the darkest parts too much. Just like we saw in the scene from the film Billy Lynn. Colour-wise, the improvement after calibration makes a great impression, but managing brightness in HDR remains the Achilles' heel of the C9K and constitutes a technological limitation.

How does the TCL C8K perform with lower quality content? One could say: reasonably well, though without much enthusiasm. The television offers a tonal transition enhancement feature, which aims to smooth out unwanted gradients. In practice, there is a slight improvement, but it is not at a level that will eliminate all imperfections. The feature subtly softens harsh transitions, but does not perform miracles. Film grain is not completely suppressed, and gentle banding on grey backgrounds can still be noticeable. But perhaps that is for the best? – at least the image does not lose its texture or depth, as can happen with televisions that overdo digital processing. When it comes to upscaling, or enhancing the quality of images from lower resolutions, the C8K performs quite well. The picture is sharp, and details – although sometimes slightly softened – remain readable. However, it is not at the level of the best image processors from the competition. On the plus side, it is worth noting the lack of overscan issues, which is the artificial trimming of the image that can still surprise in some models from other brands.

The digital image processing in TCL C9K is rather mediocre. The tone transition smoothing feature is supposedly present, but activating it hardly makes any difference – colour banding is still visible, and it can inadvertently highlight elements we would prefer to hide, such as textures of objects. Fortunately, it does not remove film grain, but that's scant consolation considering the effects are still poor. Thus, it's hard to recommend using this option.

On the other hand, image scaling performs significantly better. Lower quality materials look quite decent – characters and backgrounds are represented clearly, although of course, with sources like 576p, the limitations of the physics cannot be disguised. Sometimes, there's characteristic aliasing of objects, but that's due to the source itself, not the algorithm. A plus for the fact that there are no overscan issues – the image is neither artificially cropped nor enlarged.

If you are planning a weekend with the Champions League or a marathon of F1 races – the TCL C8K won't let you down. The television is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, which means it should handle fast motion well by definition. And indeed – it performs very well. The fluidity of motion is at a very good level here, and the "Motion Clarity" feature with two sliders (motion blur reduction and flicker reduction) makes it easy to adjust the effect to your own preferences. Want to smooth it out a bit – you can. Prefer a cinematic look – no problem.

Similar to the C8K, the C9K is also a really fast television – both figuratively and literally. On board, we have a 4K panel with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, and at lower resolutions, the panel can even ramp up to 288 Hz. Such speed translates into practice – while watching sports or playing games, the picture looks very smooth and clear. Additionally, in films, we get an extra motion smoothing feature called Motion Clarity, which allows you to adjust the smoothness to your own preferences – from the cinematic "stuttering" of frames to nearly theatrical smoothness.

TCL C8K offers practically everything we could expect from a screen for gamers. It features variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), Dolby Vision in games, and a correctly functioning implementation of HGiG, which helps preserve the creators' intentions in HDR titles. The television also supports 120 Hz at lower resolutions without any issues and can even display an astonishing 288 Hz in Full HD – a value that is sure to please fans of dynamic shooters and racing games on PC.

We also find the GameBar – a graphic interface reminiscent of an elongated Nintendo Switch console. It is thanks to this that we gain quick access to information about the current game mode, frame rate, HDR format, and other details that really make life easier for the gamer. Of course, we couldn't resist and launched a couple of races in Forza Horizon on the C8K – and we must admit, it looked and performed really well.

However, there is a slight drawback – in such a fast and evidently gaming device, it is somewhat disappointing that the manufacturer opted for the implementation of only two HDMI 2.1 ports. For some users who utilise several next-generation consoles and, for example, a soundbar with eARC, this might be a certain limitation that is hard to overlook.

For gaming, the TCL C9K is a complete tool. Here we have two (out of four) HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gbps, so all the key technologies work: VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). Additionally, the manufacturer has included a really intuitive Game Bar, which allows you to quickly check the most important parameters and adjust settings without rummaging through the menu. Also worth noting is TCL's policy – the television does not shy away from any HDR formats, even in game mode. Whether it's HGiG or Dolby Vision for the Xbox Series S/X console – everything works as it should, giving the player a wide range of freedom.