LG OLED C6 (WOLED) vs TCL P7L / P79L

The HDR effect on the LG C6 is really very good. LG Display's new WOLED panel primarily brought a significant increase in brightness. In our unit we measured around 1,500 nits and, importantly, the TV can show similar values in many normal movie scenes. That gives HDR the proper impact. Bright highlights, lamps, or sunlight can be really strong, and most HDR movies simply look very impressive. Of course it's still an OLED, so brightness drops in scenes with a lot of white. The fifth scene of The Meg illustrates this well, where the C6 reached about 600-700 nits. That's still a very good result, but it also shows the new panel hasn't removed all the limitations typical of OLEDs.

Colors

When it comes to color, there is also little to complain about. The C6 covers about 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and roughly 75% of BT.2020. In practice the colors are very saturated and, importantly, stable regardless of the scene. That's worth emphasizing, because not every TV behaves the same in this respect. In some RGB Mini LED models color saturation can depend more strongly on image brightness. Today a wider color gamut is mainly offered by QD-OLED TVs and new SQD models with a new generation of quantum dots. However, the C6 still performs very strongly here and is able to generate appropriately saturated colors in most movie scenes.

The biggest limitation of the TCL P7L in HDR is simply brightness. The TV doesn't have a large luminance headroom, so strong highlights, sunlight, or small light sources can't clearly "pop" out of the image. As a result, even well-produced HDR material looks fairly restrained and in terms of dynamic range is closer to good SDR than to what brighter models show. That doesn't mean the P7L can't handle HDR at all — the issue is mainly a lack of sufficient backlight power.

Looking at color, the situation is a bit better. The TV covers about 91% of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 68% of the wider BT.2020 color space, so for its price class the color range is quite decent. TCL markets this model as QLED, though the nature of the solution used is closer to a PFS phosphor-based backlight than a classic quantum-dot layer. What matters most to viewers, however, is the result: more saturated colors are available.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well set up, especially if you choose Filmmaker mode. In SDR material the white balance is decent, although as brightness increases it starts to lack a bit of red. The picture becomes a little cooler as a result, but it’s not such a big difference that it stands out during normal viewing. More happens in the brightness response itself. Gamma is a bit low and instead of holding at 2.4 it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 over much of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses some depth compared with how it should look in a dark room. In HDR the situation is a bit more interesting. The start of the grayscale looks very good, but from about 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift more and more. As brightness rises there’s more red and a noticeable lack of blue. In the brightest highlights the difference is already significant and also affects reproduction of some colors. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly well over most of the range. The C6 only has a tendency to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw during our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest highlights, where the TV begins to adapt the signal to the panel’s capabilities. So the out-of-the-box Filmmaker mode in HDR isn’t perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

In Film mode the TCL P7L performs fairly well without major adjustments, especially with typical SDR material. The white balance is relatively even, although as brightness increases there is a slight rise in red and blue and a bit of a shortage of green. This does not produce a strongly noticeable tint and most colors remain close to their reference points. The ColorChecker confirms this, with a large portion of errors falling below a level that would notably bother viewers during normal watching. We have more concerns about the gamma response. In the darkest parts of the image the TV runs it noticeably above the reference, so some shadow detail can be a little too dimmed. The curve then settles and for much of the range it is close to the intended target. As a result SDR generally looks natural, but in dark scenes the P7L can lose some subtlety. In HDR the factory setting is less precise. As brightness increases an excess of blue becomes more pronounced, making the image look cooler than it should. The number of larger color deviations also grows, particularly in brighter hues. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly conservatively, with the TV showing the image darker than the reference over a large portion of the range. For a budget model, however, the factory Film mode settings are not bad.

LG TVs have been very receptive to calibration for years, and the C6 is no exception. After adjustment the white balance was set almost perfectly, and most color errors dropped to values below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate color reproduction in both SDR and HDR. An interesting detail appeared only with the HDR brightness characteristic. On a classic EOTF chart everything looks nearly ideal, and at first glance it would be hard to find fault. Only when we measured the TV’s behavior using filters based on actual movie scenes did it become clear that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It’s not a huge difference and many people may even see it as a positive, because HDR looks a bit more impressive this way. From the standpoint of fidelity to the source material this isn’t ideal — some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is somewhat unusual for LG. In previous generations, the brand’s TVs typically stuck very closely to the reference tone curve after calibration. With the C6 we’re still very close to the standard, but that subtle boost in brightness is indeed noticeable in films and series.

After calibration, the TCL P7L can deliver a really pleasant picture, especially with classic SDR material. We managed to very effectively even out the white balance, and the gamma curve now tracks close to the target value of 2.4. You can also see this in the color measurements, as most errors dropped noticeably, and in everyday viewing it's hard to find any strongly visible inaccuracies. Movies, series, YouTube, or regular TV therefore look more natural, without unnecessary warming or a cool cast. For a model in this price range, the result in SDR is really very good.

With HDR the situation gets more complicated. Calibration helped improve the white balance and tidy up some deviations, but here the panel's limitations become increasingly apparent. The P7L has relatively low brightness and can't maintain appropriate luminance for more saturated colors, so some errors remain even after careful tuning. In other words, settings can improve how the TV interprets the signal, but they can't overcome its physical capabilities. That's why calibration makes the most sense for this model primarily with SDR.

The LG C6 has taken a really big step forward here. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very similar. That’s a big plus, because in this area LG’s processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" feature works especially well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly tonal transitions and artifacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It’s best to leave it set to "Low." Then the improvement is clear, and the TV doesn’t yet start blurring fine details. Higher levels smooth the image more, but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on the screen. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is sharpened properly, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively rebuilds fine details. In this regard the C6 is already very close to LG’s best TVs, and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

In this regard the TCL P7L performs surprisingly well, especially for such an inexpensive TV. The tonal transition smoothing feature, which in many budget models does little or almost nothing, actually manages to improve the picture here. It doesn't remove all banding completely, but it can noticeably reduce posterization and make trickier gradients look more natural. At this price point that's a genuinely pleasant surprise.

Upscaling itself also performs well. Lower-resolution material is scaled correctly, without excessive sharpening or adding artificial outlines around objects. Of course the P7L won't turn a very poor source into 4K-quality footage, but for regular TV the result is simply solid. For a model in this class there is little to criticize.

The LG C6 features a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, which is great news especially for gamers using a powerful PC. For movies, sports, or consoles we'll of course use up to 120 Hz, but even then it's hard to fault the motion clarity. As you'd expect from an OLED, the panel's response time is almost instantaneous. Moving objects therefore don't leave the characteristic smears you still see on LCD TVs. This is particularly noticeable in sports and fast-paced games, where the picture remains very clean even during dynamic motion.

For movies and TV, LG also provides the TruMotion motion-smoothing system. In the user settings you'll find two separate sliders. De-Judder is mainly for low-frame-rate content, that is primarily 24 fps films and series. It can slightly reduce the characteristic judder, or be set higher if you want a much smoother image. De-Blur is useful for higher-frame-rate material, mainly sports broadcasts and 50/60 fps television.

The TCL P7L uses a panel with a native 60 Hz refresh rate at 4K resolution, and that's how it should be treated in everyday use. For movies the TV mainly offers frame interpolation, so it can smooth motion and reduce the typical judder, but it does not deliver the smoothness of true 120 Hz panels.

LG has focused heavily on gamers for years, and the C6 really lacks nothing important. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz from consoles, and when connected to a PC it can run up to 165 Hz. It also offers VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM, and properly working HGiG. A big plus is Dolby Vision support for games, so the Xbox Series X can use that format without sacrificing game mode. The package is rounded out by a Game Bar that lets you quickly check key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. In terms of features, the C6 is one of those TVs that’s really hard to find fault with. Whether you play on PlayStation, Xbox, or PC, practically everything you could expect from a modern gaming TV is available here.

For such an inexpensive TV, the P7L has quite a lot to offer gamers. It has ALLM, VRR, Dolby Vision for gaming, and TCL adds its Game Bar, which lets you quickly view key information or change some settings without leaving the game. Not everything is perfect, though, because HGiG doesn't work here as it should, but at this price point it's hard to complain much about the feature set. The most interesting thing starts when you give up on 4K. At that resolution the TV runs at a maximum of 60 Hz, but at 1440p and 1080p it can already display at 120 Hz. And that's not just a spec-sheet curiosity. In fast-paced games that support that frame rate you can really notice the difference in smoothness, so if you care more about smoother motion than maximum image sharpness, that mode can make a lot of sense. Of course that doesn't make the P7L a true 120 Hz TV. Even so, it's precisely those extra modes that make the P7L perform really well for gaming.