TCL V6C vs TCL A400 PRO

When it comes to HDR, the TCK V6C clearly shows that this is not its strong suit. A peak brightness of around 200 nits makes it difficult to speak of true HDR effects – the image simply remains too dark to extract details in bright scenes or convey the appropriate dynamics. Although the television formally supports many HDR formats, in practice it is not equipped for such demanding content. The lack of additional coatings that enhance colours, such as QLED or PFS LED, further limits the attractiveness of the image – in more spectacular productions, colours can appear washed out compared to more expensive models. Therefore, the V6C will primarily serve as a television for everyday viewing, YouTube or SDR content, rather than as equipment for cinematic experiences in high quality.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect, and in many films it does produce a noticeably more attractive picture than in SDR. However, it is not a level that overwhelms with sheer brightness. The A400 Pro therefore isn’t one of those TVs that ‘attack’ the viewer with a powerful flash in every eye-catching scene. The biggest limitation is seen with small bright elements on a dark background. Because of fairly aggressive local dimming control, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness, in extreme cases even to around 100 nits. This means that small lights, sparks, stars or individual highlights can be much less visible than they should be. It’s worth adding, however, that this isn’t without reason. The A400 Pro does this to maintain as deep a black level as possible and to limit the halo effect around bright objects. So it’s an intentional compromise: the TV more often opts for deeper blacks rather than maximally bright, point-like highlights. On one hand this can be understood, especially given the limited number of dimming zones, but on the other you should be aware that the HDR effect won’t always be as strong as the peak brightness alone might suggest.

On the plus side, the colours are a strength. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, allows for suitably saturated colours. Coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut measured around 94%, and BT.2020 around 74%, which is a solid result for this class.

We started our colour reproduction tests with the Filmmaker mode, which in theory should be the best choice straight out of the box. It certainly performs better than the Eco or Dynamic modes, which significantly alter the image and spoil its natural character. As you can see from the graphs, the factory calibration of the V6C is not ideal, although it's not a complete disaster either. The biggest issue turned out to be a deficiency in red – the television clearly "cools" the image, which is particularly noticeable on human faces, giving a "corpse skin" effect. This issue was the most bothersome in everyday viewing. Looking at the colour palette in HDR content, the shortcomings in red are also noticeable, and their source is the relatively narrow coverage of the colour space. Of course, every television can be calibrated, so we decided to check how the V6C would perform after such an adjustment.

As standard, we performed colour measurements in the best‑tuned Filmmaker Mode, the mode that is designed to be closest to the creators' intentions. The A400 Pro of course also offers other picture modes, but in practice these come with considerably larger colour errors and interfere more with the character of the image. Therefore we will not deal with them in detail in this part of the test. So how does the out‑of‑the‑box colour reproduction fare? In short: really very good. Actually, looking at our measurement results, downright excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during measurements we genuinely rubbed our eyes in amazement. Such good factory settings do not happen often, even in TVs operating in Filmmaker Mode. All the more credit is due to TCL, because the A400 Pro right out of the box can deliver an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good that one could easily think someone had already given this unit extra attention and tried to calibrate it.

Our nitpicking really comes down to just one thing. In SDR content the image was slightly brighter than the dark‑room reference intends, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than to 2.4. This is not a large error and most viewers will probably not even notice it.

It should, however, be noted that we are talking about our specific test sample. With factory colours there can always be some variation between units, production batches or screen sizes. We do not assume, therefore, that every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

My dear friends – we haven’t had such a difficult "calibration battle" in years. The V6C turned out to be one of the most stubborn televisions we have encountered in the editorial office. The calibration attempts alone took us several man-hours and required considerable patience. We finally managed to slightly warm the skin tones, which made faces stop looking like they were pulled straight from a horror film, a complaint regarding the factory settings. Unfortunately, that's not the end of it – the television reacted to our white balance corrections in a completely unpredictable manner. Where we expected stabilisation of the image in a certain area, new errors appeared, and the Color Checker measurements showed deviations that could not be rationally explained. It is hard to determine whether the issue lay with the software or the design itself, but one thing is certain – the V6C put up exceptionally strong resistance. Ultimately, the calibration brought improvement, especially in SDR content, where the image became more pleasant and natural. However, it must be clearly stated that the design limitations remain. The television still flattens the image in HDR materials and has noticeable deficiencies in colour reproduction. This device is rather intended for everyday television watching or SDR materials than for cinematic viewing in the highest quality.

Despite its superb factory calibration, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to professional calibration. Since the starting point was so good, we were all the more curious whether there was anything more to be had from the TV. And here we must boast: we managed to reduce our unit's colour errors to absurdly low levels. Measurements below a value of 1 are not something you see every day, even in very good TVs. Such results are more commonly associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and colour reproduction the A400 Pro therefore simply performed exceptionally well after calibration. The only gripe we have after closer analysis relates to the luminance behaviour. The TV adjusts luminance depending on the content being displayed and quite often the picture is slightly darker than the reference calls for. This is most likely due to the way the Mini-LED backlight and local dimming algorithms operate in this model. However, this does not spoil the overall impression, because in terms of colour accuracy alone the calibrated A400 Pro showed a level that was really hard to expect.

When it comes to upscaling, the V6C does not bring anything groundbreaking to the table. Lower quality content is heavily sharpened, making the image look very unnatural, at times even artificial. This can be somewhat mitigated by lowering the sharpness level in the settings, but the effect is not spectacular. The image still remains far from ideal. The digital processing itself performs better. The function responsible for smoothing tonal transitions works quite effectively, especially at the medium setting, where the image does indeed appear smoother. Unfortunately, its operation is rather aggressive – it heavily interferes with the overall scene, causing the actors in the foreground to start looking like characters from super smooth soap operas. Therefore, we would rather not recommend using this option if a natural viewing experience is important to us.

Digital image processing is, unfortunately, one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That does not mean the TV performs badly, but it is hard to call it anything clearly above average. The upscaling itself is adequate: edges are smoothed fairly well, the picture does not look overly sharp or "pixelated", and lower-quality content can be watched without much discomfort. At the same time, the overall image is slightly soft and lacks the precision offered by the best image processors in more expensive TVs.

Much worse, however, is how it handles tonal transitions caused by strong signal compression. TCL has equipped the A400 Pro with a "Gradual Smoothing" feature that, in theory, should limit visible colour banding and artifacts in lower-quality material. In practice, though, its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can also smooth out image details, giving the picture an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason, we think it is best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro copes decently with basic image scaling, but if you often watch heavily compressed content with noticeable posterisation, this model will not be among the best choices.

Motion smoothing and fluidity are areas where the V6C quickly reveals its limitations. It's a 60 Hz television, so it was difficult to expect miracles here. During dynamic sports scenes, the image is rather average. This is most noticeable in darker scenes, where clear trails and blurred "glows" follow moving objects, which can be quite distracting. This is definitely a weaker point of this design. Fortunately, there is also a small plus. The V6C is equipped with a motion smoother that works while watching films. Thanks to it, productions recorded at 24 frames per second, which includes practically all cinematic titles and series, can look smoother than they were actually recorded. Importantly, the intensity of the effect can be adjusted to personal preferences – from a slight smoothing to a full "soap opera effect".

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we are most interested in its behaviour at 120 Hz. That is the frequency most consoles are limited to today, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-frame-rate content. At that rate the TV performs quite well. The sharpness of moving objects is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The "Motion Clarity" function is responsible for improving smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor how the motion smoothing operates to your preferences, separately for lower and higher frame-rate material. This makes it possible to achieve both a more cinematic look and a noticeably smoother picture. Those who do not want to fiddle with manual configuration can use presets such as low, medium, high, cinema or nature.

Although the V6C is not a television designed with avid gamers in mind, TCL has added a few features that might appeal to more casual users. It does not have a 120 Hz panel or HDMI 2.1 ports, but there is an ALLM mode that automatically switches the television to low-latency mode. Additionally, there is quite a practical Game Bar – a simple panel for previewing basic parameters, changing picture modes, or even activating a virtual crosshair on the screen. An interesting feature is the support for Dolby Vision Gaming, intended for Xbox Series S/X consoles – a nice addition, although in practice it does not offer as much as in more expensive models. However, the biggest issue remains the configuration of HDR. The HGiG function, responsible for adjusting the brightness and contrast of games to the capabilities of the panel, does not respond as we would expect – the image can be excessively dark or too flat. As a result, the better solution turns out to be simply playing in SDR mode, where the V6C performs stably and does not try to pretend to be a HDR television.

In terms of features for gamers the TCL A400 Pro performs brilliantly. The TV has practically everything you can expect from a gaming TV today: support for 4K at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. That means it works well with both next-generation consoles and a PC. Another plus is the presence of the Game Bar, a special panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic information about the signal, refresh rate or active features, and also adjust the appearance and behaviour of some settings to suit your preferences. This solution may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming.

The only thing to complain about is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such connectors out of the four available, and one of them also serves as eARC. In practice this means that if someone wants to connect two next-generation consoles and a soundbar, they may run into some limitations. In that scenario you will have to either swap devices or use additional equipment, such as an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Even so, it is hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a TV for gamers. The gaming feature set here is truly powerful.