TCL X11L vs LG MRGB85B

Such a large number of zones did not only result in deep, inky blacks, but also in screen brightness. The X11L is an extremely bright television. Peak brightness can easily exceed 4,000 nits, and with the special "Boost" mode active it can, in specific conditions, even reach marketing figures around 9,000 to 10,000 nits. It is undoubtedly one of the brightest, if not the brightest, screens on the market. So how do these numbers relate to real film measurements? The results are very good, though of course far from the marketing claims. The brightness we measured in real film scenes was around 2,000 to 3,000 nits. That is an excellent result, given that the vast majority of content available is recorded and produced for those brightness levels, even the rare material mastered to 4,000 nits. But it also clearly shows that the figures the manufacturer touts do not always translate directly to the video material you have at home. The only "quirk" (if you can call it that) is that when very small, bright elements appear on screen, their brightness falls below 2,000 nits. The dimming algorithm does this deliberately to preserve deep blacks and minimise halo. This is entirely understandable, and the effect is still very impressive, but it also shows that even with such powerful hardware, Mini-LED technology has its limits and does not always work without compromise. In HDR itself, brightness is not the only thing that matters; colour saturation and the colours themselves do too. On the X11L these are very good thanks to the new Super QLED (SQD) quantum dots. The application of a new coating filter has delivered excellent results in covering the P3 colour gamut and the ultra-wide BT.2020. Although it does not reach the promised 100% of BT.2020, figures around 89 to 90% can be considered excellent. Colours are not far off those of RGB Mini-LED screens. We can even say they are more stable, due to a less demanding algorithm that RGB screens often struggle with.

LG MRGB85 offers moderate brightness. On test patterns it reaches about 700 nits, which by itself is a decent result. In actual movie scenes the values are lower and most often fall between 400 and 600 nits. Bright, expansive shots perform best. In scenes with a lot of black the TV noticeably limits luminance, trying to maintain the highest possible contrast. The HDR effect is therefore visible, but it is far from the level offered by more advanced Mini-LED designs. Especially in darker parts of films the limitations of edge-lit backlighting and imprecise local dimming become noticeable again.

HDR Colors

A much stronger suit of the MRGB85 is its colors. The TV covers about 95% of the DCI-P3 color space and 74% of BT.2020, allowing HDR material to look vivid and striking. Colors are well saturated, and the difference compared with basic LCD TVs is clearly visible. It is worth noting, however, that this is not a classic RGB backlight, where each of the three primary colors is generated by a separate diode. Red is produced by a PFS phosphor, which expands the palette and yields more saturated red shades. This solution works well for color reproduction, but it does not change the limitations of dimming itself. The LEDs are not driven independently in the way the series name might suggest... so it turns out that Mini RGB is not the same as Mini-LED RGB!

Turning on what should theoretically be the best Filmmaker Mode, you expect a one-to-one image of what the director saw. On the X11L it's fairly good, but this mode has obvious faults, which our measurements immediately exposed. Let's start with SDR. Both the white balance and the gamma are simply misaligned. The whites contain too much blue and red, giving the screen a slight pink tint. That also affected the gamma, which instead of holding the cinematic 2.4 drifts closer to 2.2. What did that result in? The whole image is therefore more pushed and looks artificially brighter. The worst comes at the end, namely the HDR measurements. Apart from this slight white-balance shift, the X11L fails on the brightness-management curve, the so-called EOTF. What we saw in the measurements immediately explains what we noticed earlier in films. The image is unnaturally brightened because the curve is massively overshot above the reference. The TV simply blatantly lifts the dark parts of the picture to create a "wow" effect, completely ignoring the director's intent.

We tested the TV in Filmmaker Mode, because among the available settings it offered the image closest to the reference. However, the out-of-the-box colour reproduction was not perfect. The largest deviations concerned the white balance, with the image showing too much red and not enough blue, which caused the whole picture to shift noticeably towards warmer tones. Whites took on a slightly yellowish tint, and skin tones and bright parts of the image did not always look natural. It was not a fault that completely ruined the viewing experience, but in direct comparison with the same screen after calibration the difference was readily apparent.

After professional calibration we primarily managed to fully tame the SDR signal. Here the X11L responded perfectly to our adjustments. We were able to completely correct the white balance, remove that pink tint and set gamma to a stable 2.4. After that the picture finally became consistent with the director's vision, natural and free of artificial boosts. We also made minimal tweaks to HDR, but the TV's biggest flaw remained unchanged. It's of course about how the X11L manages its brightness and how much it overshoots the EOTF curve. Unfortunately, TCL provides virtually no tools to adjust this parameter. Even during professional calibration the software offers no way to rein in this curve, so the TV will always tend to brighten the image in HDR on its own.

Calibration primarily allowed us to correct the white balance and remove the previously noticeable warm tint. After adjustment the whites stopped leaning towards a yellow cast and the colours became more neutral and natural. The biggest improvement was seen in SDR material, where the picture looked even and much closer to reference. A similar effect was achieved in HDR. After calibration the image became more organised, although not all of the TV's limitations could be eliminated. The greatest reservations still concerned intense reds, which were not always reproduced with sufficient precision. In practice the MRGB85 handles everyday SDR content very well, whereas in more demanding HDR material its limitations remain clearly visible.

Much like the C8L model we tested earlier, TCL has delivered a substantial upgrade in its flagship X series. It's all thanks to the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor used in this model. Thanks to it, features for smoothing tonal transitions and even upscaling content to higher resolutions finally look as they should. The biggest Achilles' heel of previous TCL models has at last been addressed. The processor handles digital processing superbly and, in this respect, the TV no longer lags behind flagship models from Korea or even the most refined ones from Japan.

Upscaling and digital image processing perform quite well on the LG MRGB85. The Alpha 8 AI 4K Gen7 processor efficiently upscales lower-resolution content, and regardless of source you can also easily disable overscan. The TV also copes well with compression artefacts. The "Smooth Gradation" feature can effectively reduce visible banding and tonal unevenness, but it is not always precise. At higher settings it can also smooth out fine details, for example surface textures. On the plus side, it does not remove film grain. It's safest to use the "Low" or "Medium" setting, which gives the best compromise between artefact reduction and preserving detail.

From a specification standpoint the X11L can impress, supporting refresh rates up to 144 Hz at 4K, and it can be pushed to as much as 288 Hz in Full HD. However, from a real-world usage perspective we were most interested in how the screen performs at 120 Hz. After all, that is the limit for today’s hardware, with current-generation consoles leading the way. How does that look in practice? Even though it uses a VA panel, the screen does not exhibit significant smearing. With very fast-moving objects you can notice a slight trailing, but it is subtle enough that it hardly stands out while gaming or watching sport. The motion smoothing feature called "Motion Clarity" is also very useful here, allowing you to adjust motion smoothness to your preference. Recommended settings can be found in the picture.

The LG MRGB85 is equipped with a VA panel with a native 144 Hz refresh rate, so it performs very well in terms of motion handling. The TV easily handles 120 Hz content from consoles and higher refresh rates when connected to a PC. That matters not only for gaming but also when watching sport, where camera movement is noticeably smoother than on basic models with 60 Hz panels. We also have TruMotion, which lets you set the level of motion smoothing yourself. You can keep a more cinematic feel to motion or increase smoothness, which works well for sports broadcasts and TV programmes. The adjustment range is wide, so you can easily tailor the smoothing to your own preferences.

For gamers the X11L is simply a superb screen. TCL has already accustomed us to the fact that it packs virtually every available feature into its products, and the flagship from the X series is no different. Thanks to the new processor, the X11L has as many as four HDMI 2.1 ports with full 48 Gbps bandwidth. Naturally, HDMI 2.1 brings a set of very useful features, such as Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and VRR frame synchronisation, covering the full refresh range up to 288 Hz. All these features can be conveniently controlled from the dedicated Game Bar. Interestingly, its appearance can be customised to your taste; there are three preset themes to choose from, directly referencing the Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox consoles. And speaking of Xbox, the X11L also supports Dolby Vision Gaming without any issues.

When gaming in the standard HDR10 format, however, you need to bear in mind the specific tuning of the brightness curve, which can prove troublesome during initial setup. Although the TV supports HGiG, configuring everything via the PlayStation or Xbox system menu can be difficult. The screen’s algorithms tend to artificially brighten the test checkerboard pattern, making it really hard to hit the correct white clipping point by eye. For HDR10 to look correct, we suggest manually setting the console brightness in the console menu to around 2,500–3,000 nits.

When it comes to gaming, the LG MRGB85 performs by far the best. The manufacturer didn't skimp on features and has essentially brought the full suite of functions from pricier TVs to this model. You get three HDMI 2.1 ports with the full 48 Gbit/s bandwidth. Each supports 4K at 120 Hz from a console, and when connected to a PC also 4K at 144 Hz. So you don't need to worry which port to plug your console or PC into, because they all offer the same capabilities. Also on board are VRR, AMD FreeSync Premium, NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible, ALLM and HGiG. There's also Dolby Vision Gaming, which means in supported games you can use high refresh rates and dynamic HDR simultaneously on Xbox. The package is rounded off by Game Optimizer, a handy in-game menu for gamers. Without leaving the game you can change the picture profile, brighten shadow details or check the current frame rate. In terms of gaming features, the MRGB85 therefore offers almost the same as much more expensive LG models.