Compare TCL A300W NXTVision vs TCL A400 PRO

At first glance, it's clear that the TCL A300 NXTVision wants to be more than just an ordinary television. It offers an image display mode that – unlike its competitors from Korea, Samsung The Frame – is completely free of charge. Additionally, like its rivals, freebies are included. In the package, in addition to the television, we find extra frames imitating light wood as well as a flat wall mount, allowing the television to truly resemble a gallery piece. In terms of everyday use, the Google TV system makes the biggest impression – it's extensive, fast, and offers access to a vast number of applications. And if we feel like stepping out of the digital museum and jumping straight into the gaming world, the A300 can surprise us. Two HDMI 2.1 ports, 144 Hz, VRR, ALLM, and very low input lag mean that even demanding gamers can feel at home here. Well... maybe except for those who are sensitive to ghosting – because that's still one of the model's major issues. There are also downsides. Although the picture mode is free – and that's worth appreciating – the quality of the available graphics clearly falls short of what Samsung offers in its paid ART Store. The images displayed resemble photos rather than realistic reproductions of artworks. Unfortunately, the A300 – like the competing Hisense S7NQ – performs poorly in this regard and additionally has some software issues. The brightness of the television itself also leaves much to be desired – it is the darkest television of the entire “frame trio,” which translates to average experiences during the day and limited HDR effects. Nevertheless, the TCL A300 NXTVision is a quite reasonable alternative to Samsung The Frame or S7NQ – especially if we are looking for a more affordable solution without additional fees for access to the "gallery" mode and with an operating system that doesn't limit us in terms of the number of applications. However, it should be noted that this is a proposition with a lot of compromises. If we want to save a bit and aren’t expecting top-end picture quality, then the A300 could be a picture-perfect choice. Otherwise, it’s worth looking at its competition.

The TCL A400 Pro is one of the most interesting lifestyle TVs we've tested so far. And not because it turns the whole idea of the "TV as a picture" upside down. In that regard it does roughly what the competition does: it should look good, blend into the interior, and not be just another black slab in the living room. Its real strength lies elsewhere: in picture quality. It's the first TV of this type that actually delivers an image built on solid blacks and high contrast. A full Mini-LED backlight combined with a VA panel allows the A400 Pro to show a depth that has simply been missing from lifestyle TVs until now. Of course this is not Mini-LED that you would put side by side with the best LCDs on the market, but in its "picture" category the A400 Pro does something really important: it proves that an art TV doesn't have to mean a big compromise in picture quality. Crucially, it doesn't stop at blacks and contrast. The A400 Pro produces very good color, supports Dolby Vision and runs Google TV, so day to day it's simply a convenient, fully functional TV for movies, series and streaming. On top of that it has very strong gaming capabilities, so it works well with consoles and PCs too. And I think that universality is its biggest surprise. It looks like a lifestyle TV, but it doesn't force you to give up the functions you expect from a regular TV.

Paradoxically, the biggest reservations are not really about the picture itself. Sure, the number of local dimming zones could be higher and the upscaling is nothing beyond the norm. Given this model's character, though, we're more bothered by decisions tied to the very concept of a picture on the wall. The lack of a slim mount in the box is an odd choice, because that kind of installation should be the default here. On top of that, the wood-effect frames are permanently attached, so they don't offer the same freedom for personalization as other models of this type. And because the housing is thicker, the A400 Pro doesn't always achieve as flat and subtle an effect as one might expect from a TV in this category.

And that's the biggest paradox of the TCL A400 Pro. In terms of image it can be one of the strongest lifestyle TVs on the market, yet it loses a bit where this kind of product should charm the most. Still, the overall balance is very positive. If the design choices mentioned above don't bother you, the A400 Pro makes a lot of sense. It's a TV for people who want something prettier than a classic TV but don't want to pay for looks with a big compromise in picture quality. That's why the TCL A400 Pro is one of the most interesting models in its class.

TCL A300, also known as NXTVision, uses a VA panel, so right from the start, decent contrast could be expected. In our test patterns, the television did indeed show typical results for this type of panel – in the best case, the contrast reached about 5000:1, which is not a bad result for this segment.

However, it should be noted that the model is not equipped with any local dimming technology, which unfortunately shows in practice. Black, although at times quite deep, often shifts to blue or gray – especially in darker scenes. In short: for a television without local dimming, it's not bad, but there’s no point in comparing it to models that already have that feature on board.

Moving on to image quality tests, it’s immediately clear that the biggest change compared with typical lifestyle TVs is what the TCL A400 Pro brings to black levels and contrast. This is all thanks to a full-fledged Mini-LED backlight placed directly behind the panel. That allows the TV to locally dim selected parts of the image instead of relying solely on the native contrast of the panel. In the 65-inch unit we tested, we counted 180 dimming zones. That number is not impressive compared with traditional Mini-LED TVs, which can have many times more zones, but for a lifestyle TV this is already a very large step forward. Especially since competing models often either lack advanced local dimming or use a much simpler edge-lit backlight.

In practice this yields very good results. In simpler scenes where bright elements are clearly separated from a dark background, the A400 Pro can effectively dim black areas of the picture and produce truly deep blacks. That’s one of those things that immediately sets it apart from many conventional picture-focused TVs. Of course, this does not mean TCL completely avoids the limits of LCD Mini-LED technology. 180 zones is still relatively few, so in more complex scenes, for example those with small bright elements on a dark background, a halo effect can appear. It also happens that blacks in such conditions take on a more navy-violet tint, because the TV can’t turn off the background with the same precision as OLED TVs. Despite these limitations, we believe the A400 Pro brings a real breath of fresh air to this category. For a lifestyle TV that is primarily designed to look good on the wall, the level of black and contrast is a very strong selling point.

NOTE. It’s worth noting that the number of local dimming zones depends on screen size. Larger variants should have more zones, but because the number of zones increases with panel size, we don’t expect large differences in the assessment of black levels and contrast between Mini-LED versions. The exceptions are the 32- and 43-inch models, in which TCL did not use local dimming. Those are much simpler LCD designs, so our review does not directly apply to those diagonals, and the prices quoted with the review should be treated as indicative only.

Number of local dimming zones in the TCL A400 Pro

Screen size	Backlight type	Number of local dimming zones
32"	PFS LED	No zones
43"	PFS LED	No zones
55"	QD Mini-LED	112 zones
65"	QD Mini-LED	180 zones
75"	QD Mini-LED	240 zones
85"	QD Mini-LED	264 zones
98"	QD Mini-LED	448 zones

When it comes to brightness, the TCL A300W is definitely the darkest TV among all frame-style models, such as Samsung The Frame or Hisense CanvasTV – and unfortunately, this is immediately noticeable. In our measurements, the peak luminance reached only about 400 nits, and on test film screens, this value dropped to 350 nits. This is definitely too little to feel the true "magic" of bright HDR effects. As a consolation – the TV is equipped with a PFS LED coating (which is something like QLED), which provides very good coverage of a wide color palette, both DCI-P3 and BT.2020. Additionally, there is full support for all popular HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision – which somewhat compensates for the shortcomings in brightness and helps improve the overall perception of materials in this quality.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches about 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many movies it does produce a noticeably more attractive picture than SDR. However, it is not a level that overwhelms by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that "attack" the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Due to rather aggressive control of the dimming zones, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness — in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars, or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. That said, this is not done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep blacks as deep as possible and to limit haloing around bright objects. It's a deliberate compromise: the TV more often chooses deeper blacks over maximally bright, point-like highlights. On one hand this is understandable, especially with a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other hand you should be aware that the HDR effect will not always be as strong as the peak brightness alone would suggest.

On the plus side, the colors are worth noting. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, produces suitably saturated colors. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

TCL A300 offers several picture modes, but without a doubt, the movie mode performs the best. Unfortunately, although it is the best choice among the available options, it is not free from errors. Both in HD and HDR content, the image has a noticeably too warm tint – leaning slightly towards pink, which is particularly noticeable in snowy scenes. Instead of pure white, we get a pinkish hue that spoils the natural perception of colors.

The brightness management doesn't perform well either. For older HD materials, the image often seems too dark – as confirmed by the inflated gamma value. Conversely, with HDR content, the effect is reversed – the image is overly brightened, which we observed in scenes from the movie Pan. This lack of consistency also affects color reproduction accuracy – a test with the ColorChecker showed that many samples deviate significantly from the reference values.

Fortunately, TCL allows manual adjustment of the settings, so we decided to check how the television would perform after our professional calibration. The effects of this correction are described below.

As standard, we carried out color measurements in the best-calibrated mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one that is supposed to be closest to the creators’ intent. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they suffer from much larger color errors and alter the image character more strongly. We won’t go into those modes in detail in this part of the test. So how does the factory color reproduction perform? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurement results, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during testing we genuinely rubbed our eyes in disbelief. Such good out-of-the-box settings don’t happen often, even in TVs operating in Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro right out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good that you could easily think someone had already paid extra attention to that unit and tried to calibrate it.

Our nitpicking really comes down to just one thing. In SDR content the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than to 2.4. It’s not a big error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it.

However, it should be noted that we’re talking about our specific review sample. With factory colors there can always be some variation between units, production batches, or screen sizes. So we don’t assume that every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

After our professional calibration, the TCL A300 literally got a new lease on life. The image is no longer too warm, and the colors finally look the way they should – which was confirmed by the ColorChecker test, where the color samples finally started hitting their marks, at least to some reasonable degree. It was also possible to partially correct the brightness management – the image is now more balanced and less "wobbly" between different types of content. Of course, certain limitations cannot be overcome – a slightly noticeable blooming effect still occurs, but that's a characteristic of the technology, not something that can be eliminated even after professional settings.

Generally: after calibration, the A300 looks significantly better and gains a completely new quality.

Despite its excellent factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to a professional calibration. Since the starting point was so good, we were even more curious whether we could squeeze even more out of this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our unit to absurdly low color errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such results are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and color reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply performed outstandingly. The only thing we can pick at after a deeper analysis concerns the brightness behavior. The TV can manipulate luminance levels depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the image is a bit darker than it should be according to the standard. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and local dimming algorithms work in this model. However, that doesn't spoil the overall impression, because in terms of color precision alone the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level we really didn't expect.

TCL A300 NXTVision is another frame-style television that really handles the smoothness of color transitions well. It's hard to find clear bands or sharp transitions between shades of the same color here – the overall look is natural and smooth.

However, it must be honestly admitted that among the three tested models (The Frame and S7NQ), TCL performs the weakest in this category. In darker and lighter scenes, delicate imperfections can be noticed. Nevertheless, looking at it as a whole, for a TV in this price range – it really presents itself solidly. It may not be the best among all, but it maintains a very good level.

The TCL A400 Pro handles tonal transitions very well. Gradation in most content is smooth, and any imperfections are visible only in extreme cases, mainly in subtle gray transitions. It’s worth noting that the vast majority of TVs struggle with such scenes. Another very good point is the lack of gradation issues in Dolby Vision. The A400 Pro did not produce additional banding or visible artifacts in that format, which lately is not a given. This is another factor that improves the viewing of movies and TV series in HDR.

TCL A300 handles tonal transitions in high-quality films very well, but the question arises – how does it perform with weaker materials? The television is equipped with a tonal transition smoothing feature, but its effectiveness can be described in one word: "random." In one scene it may work and improve the gradation, and when turned off… the effect remains the same. There is a lack of consistency and predictability.

Image scaling is also not one of the A300's strong suits. In the test pattern, the main character actually looked better than on the raw signal, but with thin lines – like fonts or background details – there was noticeable jaggedness and aliasing. On the plus side, the television does not cut off the image and has no issues with overscan, but the overall quality of scaling is rather average.

Digital video processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That doesn't mean the TV performs badly, but it's hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is adequate: edges are smoothed fairly well, the image doesn't look overly sharp or pixelated, and lower-quality content can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall look is slightly soft and it lacks the precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can deliver.

Much worse, however, is its handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a "Gradual Smoothing" feature that in theory should reduce visible color banding and artifacts in lower-quality content. In practice 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's best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro handles basic image scaling decently, but if you often watch heavily compressed content with visible posterization, this model won't be one of the best choices.

The TCL A300 is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, which should immediately satisfy practically everyone – both gamers and sports fans. The motion is smooth, and the picture is clear even in fast scenes. Additionally, the television offers a motion enhancement feature called "Motion," where we can find two sliders on a 10-point scale. These allow for adjusting the effect to personal preferences – from a classic, cinematic look with visible frames to a very smooth (though already unnatural) image reminiscent of a soap opera effect. Thanks to this, everyone can find a setting that suits them.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate used by most consoles today, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-frame-rate content. In this range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The "Motion Clarity" feature improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences — separately for lower- and higher-frame-rate material. That way you can achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother picture. If you don't want to tweak settings manually, you can use presets such as low, medium, high, cinema, or nature.

TCL A300 is a television designed not only to transport us to a digital art museum but also to a full-fledged gaming world. It offers practically everything you would expect from gear for gamers: two HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth, 144 Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and ALLM.

The correct implementation of the HGIG mode is also a plus – something that competing Hisense sometimes struggles with. The television easily handles lower resolutions (e.g., Full HD) while maintaining high refresh rates, which will be appreciated by owners of older consoles or PCs.

In addition, there’s an attractive and clear GameBar that facilitates quick access to settings for gamers. The A300 is truly well-prepared for gaming at the highest level – it's just a shame that issues with motion blur slightly tarnish its overall image as a gaming device.

When it comes to features for gamers, the TCL A400 Pro performs excellently. The TV has practically everything you can expect from a gaming TV today: 4K support at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. Because of that it works well with both next-gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a special panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic signal information, refresh rate, and active features, and also adjust the look and behavior of some settings to your own preferences. This is a solution that 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 ports out of four, and one of them also functions as eARC. In practice this means that if someone wants to connect two next-gen consoles and a soundbar, they may hit some limitations. In that scenario you'll have to either swap devices or use extra equipment, for example an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Despite this, it's hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is really powerful.

In terms of input lag, the TCL A300 performs really well. Values below 10 ms at a 120 Hz refresh rate are something many gamers dream of – such low lag is practically imperceptible, both during everyday gaming and in more demanding esports titles. One could indeed point out the result of 23 ms in Dolby Vision mode at 60 frames, but it is still a low enough value that it's hard to have serious objections. In this category, the A300 truly excels.

The input lag on the TCL A400 Pro is very low. With a 120 Hz signal we measured about 11 ms, and at 60 Hz about 15 ms. These aren't results that drop to a few milliseconds like in some OLEDs, but in practice it doesn't make much difference. The delay is small enough that controls remain quick, responsive, and fully comfortable both on a console and when connected to a computer.

If we plan to use the TCL A300 as a monitor for a computer, we may be pleasantly surprised. The television performs really well in this role. It is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, supports G-Sync, and, as we mentioned, offers very low input lag, so gaming on it with a connected PC is pure pleasure.

Working with text is also possible, although with some limitations. The TCL A300 has slight issues displaying dark fonts and thin lines – this stems from the structure of the subpixels, which can be somewhat bothersome in everyday use, even though it looks better in pictures than in reality.

The television supports chroma 4:4:4, but only up to 120 Hz. That's why we noted that this feature is available, but with a limitation – if we care about perfectly legible fonts, it's worth sticking to a refresh rate of 120 Hz. At 144 Hz, the sharpness of the text may suffer slightly.

The TCL A400 Pro also works quite well as a large PC monitor. Helping with that is, of course, the full suite of gaming features: VRR, FreeSync, G-Sync compatibility, refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and very low input lag. If someone wanted to connect a PC and play from the couch or at a desk, the TV is perfectly suited for that. Importantly, it also performs well for regular computer work. At 120 Hz fonts are very legible, so using a browser, documents, or the OS doesn't strain the eyes. It looks a bit worse when switching to 144 Hz. Then the horizontal parts of letters become slightly darker. However, this isn't something that seriously interferes with everyday use. Overall, text legibility is very good.

The viewing angles on the TCL A300 NXTVision are – let's be honest – average. The television is equipped with a VA panel, which inherently has quite limited angles, and unfortunately, you can clearly see that here. The film below speaks for itself – even a slight deviation from the axis results in a noticeable drop in contrast and color saturation. It’s a pity that this is another frame-style television that hasn’t done anything about it. After all, we don’t always have the option to sit perfectly straight in front – especially if the device is also meant to serve a decorative function in the living room.

Viewing angles are not the strongest suit of the TCL A400 Pro. This is mainly due to the use of a VA panel, which has advantages like better contrast but naturally performs worse when viewed off axis. Just move farther from the screen's centerline and you'll notice a drop in brightness and color saturation. So it's not on the level of IPS/ADS panels, and even less so compared with OLED displays, which in this regard remain beyond the reach of traditional LCDs. The A400 Pro is simply best viewed straight on. That's when its picture looks by far the best.

The TCL A300 NXTVision is equipped with a matte panel very similar to the one found in one of its Chinese competitors – the Hisense S7NQ model. Such a surface does quite well in suppressing reflections, although it must be admitted that it performs worse than Samsung's The Frame, which offers a definitely higher level in this respect. As is often the case with matte displays, blacks during the day lose depth and appear more gray than black – and this is no different here. Unfortunately, the fact that the A300 is the darkest television among the tested trio does not help either. As a result, it has a real problem standing out in heavily sunlit rooms.

The TCL A400 Pro handles a bright living room quite well. The matte screen coating does most of the work here, very effectively reducing reflections and meaning you don't have to battle every window or lamp reflecting off the panel during the day. There's also decent SDR brightness, reaching around 600 nits, so in terms of daytime image readability it's really good. You should remember, though, that the matte coating comes at a price. In a heavily lit room the image can lose a bit of depth, and colors don't look as punchy as they do in the evening. Reflections are far less noticeable, but at the same time color saturation clearly drops. It's still a good TV for a bright living room, but it performs best when you care primarily about viewing comfort rather than the most dramatic picture.

TCL A300 is a television styled like a painting, which in everyday use can successfully imitate a work of art hanging on the wall. It is equipped with a special image display mode, additional frames in a light wood tone, and a flat wall mount that allows the TV to be hung like a real painting – flush against the wall.

A significant advantage of the picture mode is that it is completely free. We have access to dozens of artworks from which we can choose what should be displayed in standby mode – instead of a black screen, the image selected by us stays on the wall. The quality of the graphic reproduction is decent, but it must be admitted that it clearly falls short compared to that of Samsung's ART Store. Although access to the images there is paid, the quality of the scans is significantly better – you can see the texture of the paint, canvas, and details. In the TCL A300, it resembles high-quality photos more than realistic reproductions of artworks. Additionally, the implementation of the picture mode in the system leaves much to be desired. For example – if we set the brightness in picture mode to 10%, this same value automatically transfers to the regular viewing mode, where we could easily set the brightness to 50% or even 100%. It also works the other way around – when we set the brightness to 100% in regular mode, after switching to gallery mode, the images are displayed with that same maximum brightness, shining too intensely and losing the entire effect of "a picture on the wall." These are minor but annoying errors that can ruin the impression of what was supposed to be visually subtle and elegant.

Moving on to more classic features – the A300 runs on the Google TV system, which currently offers by far the largest selection of applications (full list available below). The well-functioning voice assistant with support for the Polish language is also a significant plus. As is standard – as in most TCL televisions – there is a lack of USB recording functionality or picture-in-picture (PiP) mode.

Google TV

The TCL A400 Pro runs Google TV, so on the Smart TV side it delivers a very solid package. All the major apps are available: YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Max, Prime Video, Apple TV and all the other services you’d expect today. It also includes Chromecast, voice search and Google Assistant. The system itself runs smoothly and is easy to use, although, as with Google TV, the home screen can be heavily filled with recommendations and promoted content. Some people will like that, others may find it a bit annoying. Functionally, though, there’s little to seriously complain about.

Digital art gallery

The most interesting part starts with the digital art gallery, since that’s what is meant to set the A400 Pro apart from regular TVs. TCL provides access to over 80 works of art that can be displayed when the screen isn’t being used for movies or series. That way the TV doesn’t have to hang on the wall as a black slab; it can actually mimic a picture. An ambient light sensor, which adjusts the screen to the room’s lighting conditions, helps with this. And here’s good news compared with the older NXT Vision A300: the A400 Pro fixes the annoying brightness issue in art mode. Gallery settings are now separate from regular viewing, so you can set a lower brightness for artworks without spoiling your movie or TV settings. It may seem like a small detail, but in practice it’s important, because it makes the screen more like a picture and less like a glowing TV. TCL also adds the ability to create your own images using artificial intelligence. The manufacturer talks about more than 100,000 available artworks and variations, so there’s plenty to choose from. You can stick with the ready-made gallery or pick something that better matches your taste and room decor.

Classic features

The classic TV features are much less exciting. The A400 Pro doesn’t stand out here. You get standard broadcast TV, a channel guide and basic options, but no major extras that would change how you use traditional TV.

The built-in player in the TCL A300 works as it should – most popular video and photo files play without any issues. Although it lacks support for the HEIC format from Apple (which is quite common in many TVs), most users still rely on the AirPlay feature, so it shouldn't pose a major problem. If someone is not satisfied with the default player, the Google TV system offers considerable options – it's easy to install an alternative app that better matches our preferences. Nonetheless, it must be admitted that the factory solution is completely sufficient for everyday use.

Playing files from USB is one of the strengths of the TCL A400 Pro. The built-in player performs very well and can easily be counted among the best. It handles common video, audio, and photo formats without any problems, so in most cases you just need to plug in a flash drive or an external hard drive and play the content. That's good news, because you don't have to install external players right away. The A400 Pro natively supports a very wide range of files and in our testing it had no major issues playing them.

When it comes to sound, the TCL A300W – like its competitors – sounds quite... flat, after all, we are talking about a super slim TV. For everyday watching of news or series, this level is completely sufficient, but during movie screenings, it may clearly lack depth and space. On the plus side, it’s worth noting that the TV supports both Dolby Atmos and the increasingly rare DTS:X – which provides more options when connecting an external audio system. It’s also worth mentioning that the A300 PRO model is equipped with a dedicated, flat soundbar. And it's no ordinary one – it sounds better than most of the TVs we tested.

The sound in the TCL A400 Pro is rather average. The best news is that the TV can play loudly. It easily reaches about 83 dB, so loudness is not an issue. Another positive is support for formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS, with DTS becoming increasingly rare in TVs. But that's about where the praise ends. The standard 2.0 speaker setup has its limits, and it's hard to get more out of it. It mainly lacks bass and a sense of space. The sound is fine for regular TV or YouTube, but with movies, TV series, and especially music it quickly becomes too flat. For that reason we'd definitely recommend adding at least a simple soundbar or a traditional home theater system to the A400 Pro. Especially since the TV itself supports Dolby Atmos and DTS, it practically begs to be connected to external audio that will actually make use of those capabilities.

TCL A300W NXTVision vs TCL A400 PRO

Advantages

Disadvantages

Our verdict

TV appearance

Where to buy

Contrast and black detail

Number of local dimming zones in the TCL A400 Pro

HDR effect quality

Factory color reproduction

Color reproduction after calibration

Smoothness of tonal transitions

Image scaling and smoothness of tonal transitions

Blur and motion smoothness

Console compatibility and gaming features

Input lag

Compatibility with PC

Viewing angles

Daytime performance

Panel details

TV features

Classic features:

Smart features:

Sound connection options

Supported audio formats (external HDMI eARC audio):

Senior accessibility

Google TV

Digital art gallery

Classic features

Apps

Playing files from USB

Sound

Sound Quality Test

Acoustic Measurements