LG UA75006LA (VA) vs TCL C8L / QM8L

The LG UA7500 with a VA panel has a brightness that hovers around 350 nits, which, by today’s standards, isn't very impressive. It's hard to talk about a true HDR experience here – most content looks more like classic SDR with a slight attempt at highlights enhancement. One advantage is that regardless of the test pattern, the effect remained relatively stable. However, we noticed that in very extreme scenes with a lot of fine detail, the television can slightly dim the image to achieve better black levels, but this comes at the cost of visibility of bright effects. Additionally, it should be noted that the UA7500 is not equipped with any extra technologies for expanding color. It is neither a QLED panel nor a PFS LED, which is why the coverage of the DCI-P3 color palette is only 80%, causing many HDR movies to appear flat and not fully represent the variety of colors.

In terms of HDR, the TCL C8L turns out to be a hellishly bright television – and I mean literally. On a synthetic chart of 5%, our measuring equipment indicated a result exceeding 4500 nits. This is a result that is downright cosmic, considering that reference director monitors, which we often refer to in our materials, typically operate around 4000 nits. Does this mean that the C8L breaks barriers and climbs to the technological peak of Mini-LED? Not exactly. Dry synthetic tests are one thing, and real movie images are another. In real, varied scenes, the C8L achieves a peak of around 1600 nits. This is still a very good result, ensuring a very high level of HDR dynamics, but also clearly lower than what the manufacturer boasts in the specifications. The trouble starts with very small flashes of light – then brightness can drastically drop to around 600 nits. The algorithm tries at all costs to maintain deep black and minimize halo effect, but it does so at the expense of HDR impact. This is perfect evidence that laboratory charts rarely correspond to what we ultimately see on the screen.

Huge applause is due for color reproduction, all thanks to the new generation of SQD (Super Quantum Dot) quantum dots. The coverage of the DCI-P3 palette reaches 97%, but the true jaw-dropper is the measurement of the extremely demanding BT.2020 space. The C8L achieves as much as 90% in it, placing it alongside today's top screens that boast RGB backlighting. Importantly, unlike some screens with Micro/Mini RGB backlighting, this effect is stable regardless of the scene displayed. Of course, one must remember that content mastered for such a wide gamut in films or series is still a rarity. However, the mere fact that the panel has such a "color reserve" deserves immense admiration.

The Filmmaker mode on the LG UA7500 performs better than one might expect from such a budget TV, but let's not get carried away with the praise. The picture is put together quite sensibly and at first glance is not irritating; however, its weaknesses quickly start to show. This is most apparent in scenes with bright points – lamps in the background or reflections of light on the skin are clearly exaggerated. Characters' faces often look unnatural, as if they have been "burned out." Additionally, the default gamma settings brighten even the smallest details, causing the image to lose subtlety in darker areas. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, for its price range, the UA7500 in factory mode provides a decent starting point. However, it's clear that without additional correction, these issues cannot be avoided, which is why – as with other TVs – we decided to check what could be achieved after calibration.

We tested the TCL C8L in the best factory picture mode available in this TV’s menu for image fidelity. That, of course, is Filmmaker Mode, which appeared in this brand’s software relatively recently (a year ago in the "K" series). Thanks to it, an average user can get a pretty good color reproduction straight out of the box, although it is certainly not a perfectly tuned mode. Looking at the factory white balance of our unit, both in SDR and HDR material, the red component was clearly lacking, which made the image noticeably cooler and caused a slight shift toward bluish-green tints. The issue of brightness management is also ambiguous, as we mentioned earlier. While for SDR content the gamma linearity is actually correct and holds steadily at the reference value of 2.4, in HDR things look much worse. Tracking the EOTF curve clearly shows the TV has a significantly boosted brightness across the range, which can make the final image overly bright and inconsistent with the creators’ intent, and that in a mode that by definition should avoid that. Of course, like every sample in our lab, this one also underwent professional calibration, and its results are shown below.

We noticed the greatest improvement when calibrating the mode intended for daily SDR content. We managed to smooth the white balance in an acceptable way and tackle the issue of excessive brightening of small elements by the gamma characteristic. As a result, the image gained the consistency and naturalness that were lacking in the factory settings. After such correction, we can confidently state that for daily television content, programs, or materials from YouTube, the LG UA7500 performs really well – especially after professional calibration. The situation is somewhat different for HDR content. Here, the calibration did allow us to tame the white balance and slightly improve brightness management, but the limitations of the design are immediately apparent. The lack of additional filters to widen the color palette means that the most vivid colors appear flat, and the image does not have the intensity we would expect from good HDR. In SDR, the UA7500 performs quite decently, but in HDR – despite corrections – it remains far behind, and this is a characteristic that one must accept when choosing this television.

As you can see, the results of a professional calibration of the TCL C8L are really promising, thanks to the extensive adjustment tools the manufacturer put at our disposal in the menu. Above all, we were able to completely correct the white balance — we eliminated the red deficiency, so the image finally stopped drifting toward unwanted cool tones. After that adjustment, errors in the ColorChecker test fell to near-reference levels, regularly landing below a Delta E of 2, which is below the threshold of human perception.

If the test patterns look this perfect, you might ask: why then the lower final score in this category? The answer lies in the brightness management discussed earlier. Although the menu includes sliders that let you precisely straighten the EOTF curve on synthetic signals, when confronted with actual movie material (I recommend enabling the EOTF filter when watching movies), you can see that in most scenarios the TV still reacts to HDR metadata its own way. As a result, the picture can be slightly over-brightened and not faithful to the creators' intent, and it was precisely this lack of consistency with real films that cost the C8L a few points.

The LG UA7500 with a VA panel has shown a really good performance in this category. The image scaling from Full HD content or even SD was surprisingly smooth. The picture looked smooth, edges weren't excessively jagged, and the television maintained a significant amount of detail, which meant that even older movies didn't lose their character. It particularly excelled with faces – there were no artificial contours or the "mask" effect, which often occurs in cheaper models. The way the television handled tonal transitions in lower-quality materials is also noteworthy. Thanks to digital processing, colors didn't blend together, and gradients looked natural and smooth. There was no intrusive image smoothing or loss of cinematic grain. This makes the UA7500 great for everyday content – from terrestrial television, through sports, to YouTube, where we often watch materials in various resolutions.

This year the C8 series and higher models received probably the biggest and most anticipated upgrade in TCL’s history, and it specifically concerns digital image processing. The C8L is the lowest-end model in the manufacturer's lineup to be equipped with the latest flagship chip, the MediaTek Pentonic 800 (listed in the menu as MT9655). Thanks to its processing power, the feature called "Gradual Smoothing" finally works as it should. The algorithm effectively eliminates unwanted posterization (ugly tonal transitions/color banding), doing so intelligently enough that it does not degrade the sharpness of other details.

The processor also handles upscaling lower-resolution content to 4K very well. Although evaluating this element can be mostly academic, because the differences between today's TVs in this class are very subtle. The most important takeaway is that TCL finally has nothing to be ashamed of compared to the competition.

LG UA7500 is a television with a 60 Hz panel, so it’s hard to expect any awe in this category. It’s more of a screen intended for everyday content or an evening movie session rather than for following dynamic sports events or playing action games. It’s clear that the manufacturer directed this model specifically to that group of consumers – and in that regard, it performs correctly. We have the TruMotion function at our disposal, which is a motion smoother. It’s simple, has only one slider, but it can make a noticeable difference. At lower settings, the image appears more raw and cinematic, while at higher values, motion becomes smoother and more pleasing to the eye.

The TCL C8L is equipped with a fast panel that has a native 144 Hz refresh rate. That spec will be most appreciated by demanding PC gamers, while most users, who rely on consoles or TV broadcasts, will use a steady 120 Hz. It is at 120 Hz that motion processing algorithms handle image rendering for movies, series, and sports. In the TV’s menu you’ll find a "Motion Clarity" option that lets you adjust the motion smoothing to your preferences. The algorithms handle cinematic material at 24 or 30 frames per second (fps) as well as dynamic sports broadcasts at 50 or 60 fps, maintaining appropriate smoothness.

LG UA7500 is a television that can be safely recommended to "casual" gamers. While it does not have a 120 Hz panel or HDMI 2.1 ports, so fully utilizing the potential of modern consoles is out of the question. However, the manufacturer has taken care to include a few extras that can make gaming more enjoyable. Notably, the Game Bar deserves mention – a very nicely designed panel where you can quickly view and change the most important settings. From this panel, we have access to features such as ALLM (automatic switching to game mode) and frame synchronization, which is VRR. The range of VRR is limited – it works from 48 to 60 Hz – but the mere presence of this feature in such an affordable television leaves a positive impression.

Additionally, there is support for HGiG, which is HDR calibration mode for gaming. It sounds good, but based on testing experiences, we already know that with the UA7500, this option doesn't make much sense. The television does not handle HDR very well, so paradoxically we achieved better results with this mode turned off. This is another signal that the UA7500 is more of a screen for occasional gamers who value simplicity and convenience rather than for those looking for full immersion from the latest consoles.

For gamers – especially for those with powerful PCs and several consoles at the same time – the TCL C8L is a true beast. It’s the first model in the manufacturer’s lineup equipped with four full HDMI 2.1 ports with a maximum bandwidth of 48 Gbps. This is directly thanks to the new Pentonic 800 processor we wrote about earlier. Additionally, the TV seamlessly supports virtually every gaming feature. It has an automatic game mode (ALLM) that reduces latency to minimal levels and full frame synchronization (VRR) operating in an impressive range of up to 288 Hz. We’re also talking about standards like G-Sync or FreeSync from Nvidia and AMD. When it comes to image display standards, there are also no compromises: the C8L offers complete support for HDR formats in games, including gaming Dolby Vision and the HGiG profile. All of these features can be conveniently managed from a very readable game bar (Game Bar), which we can customize according to our preferences. From a purely gaming perspective, there really isn’t anything to complain about in the C8L – well, maybe aside from the previously mentioned slight ghosting. But other than that? It’s an unflawed machine for gamers.