TCL RM7L vs Samsung S90H (WOLED)

The TCL RM7L is a bright TV. In our measurements its peak brightness hovered around 1600 nits. That's clearly less than the C7L, which can approach 2600 nits, but in real movie scenes the difference between the two models isn't that big. In less demanding shots with many bright elements on screen, the RM7L can hold around 1000 nits, and sometimes a bit more, approaching 1500 nits. It performs worse in dark scenes with small highlights; then their brightness can fall to around 500 nits. However, this behavior is not accidental. The TV intentionally dims small elements to better control the backlight and maintain higher contrast. This comes at the cost of their intensity, but it's typical behavior for local-dimming TVs in a similar price bracket.

Color gamut coverage

In HDR it's not only brightness that matters, but also color. And here the RM7L has a lot to show. Colors are strongly saturated, and a wide color gamut is one of its bigger strengths. In measurements it reached about 96% of DCI-P3 and around 83% of BT.2020. It's worth remembering, though, that on a TV with this kind of backlight the result can vary depending on the scene. On test patterns colors look best, while in movies their saturation can be a bit lower than on SQD Mini LED or QD-OLED TVs. The backlight construction itself is also interesting. The RM7L doesn't use the classic red, green and blue diode set. TCL used two green diodes and one blue, and obtains the red color using a PFS phosphor. You can see this in spectrometer measurements, but it doesn't have a major impact on the picture. Colors are still produced correctly.

The Samsung S90H in the WOLED variant is still an exceptionally bright TV for its price class, although it is slightly dimmer compared to the QD-OLED version. The difference is not as pronounced as in last year’s F series, where gaps could reach as much as 500 nits. Here the specs of both panels are very close, and differences in peak brightness are only about 100–150 nits. In small-area measurements, the S90H on the WOLED panel easily reaches levels close to 1500 nits. That headroom lets it portray HDR dynamics phenomenally—specular highlights, reflections or explosions have the right punch, just as the creators intended in the post-production studio. As with most OLED displays, when a very bright scene fills the entire screen, the protection systems that safeguard the panel kick in and brightness naturally falls to around 700 nits. It’s worth stressing that this is still an excellent result on the market, often noticeably better than many Mini LED screens in the same segment.

Color gamut coverage

The biggest difference between the two S90H variants lies in color reproduction and saturation. This stems directly from the different construction of the WOLED panel, which uses an additional white subpixel. As a result, colors at very high brightness don’t achieve quite the same intensity, and the volume of the wide color gamut is somewhat more limited than with QD-OLED. That said, in everyday use these differences will be hard for most viewers to notice. Our measured DCI-P3 coverage on the WOLED panel reaches nearly 99%, which means that in the vast majority of real film scenes both variants will deliver almost identical images. The true gap only appears in rarer, particularly demanding productions that use the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Due to the WOLED panel’s design, coverage of that standard is about 15% lower compared to the S90HAT with a QD-OLED panel, so the brightest, heavily illuminated HDR colors may appear a bit less vivid.

We checked the factory colors in Filmmaker Mode, the best picture setting available to the user. TCL has been using it in its TVs for two years, and its purpose is to present the image as faithfully as possible in line with the creators' intent. On the RM7L this was indeed the best-calibrated mode, although it wasn't without flaws. The biggest issue was the white balance. An excess of red and blue caused the picture to take on slightly pinkish tones. This was visible in both SDR and HDR. Additionally, the luminance response was slightly boosted, which made the image appear a bit brighter but also less contrasty than it should have been.

In Filmmaker mode, which we strongly recommend enabling right out of the box, the S90H offers very good factory color tuning. Colors are natural and faithful to the filmmakers' intent, without the intrusive oversaturation found in more aggressive profiles. However, as is usually the case without full calibration, there can be unit-to-unit variation. In our test the white balance lacked a bit of the blue component, causing the image to lean slightly toward warmer, yellowish tones. This was most noticeable in bright scenes, such as the snowy sequences from Star Wars. Additionally, the gamma curve ran slightly low, around 2.2, which resulted in a slight boost to shadow detail. In HDR mode the tuning was a bit better, showing only a slight undersaturation in the red region.

Thanks to a fairly extensive calibration menu, we were able to correct the vast majority of the errors described earlier. The biggest change was to the white balance. After calibration it looks very good, so the image lost its pinkish cast and became much more neutral. The luminance response itself also improved. Both the SDR gamma and the HDR EOTF curve are now much closer to the reference values. The image is no longer unnecessarily brightened, and darker areas look more natural and have more depth. Better luminance accuracy also affected the colors, which after calibration are noticeably more accurate. Not everything could be set perfectly, though. In HDR material the RM7L still interprets part of the signal its own way and does not always follow the reference curve exactly. This is most apparent in some darker scenes, where the TV can either slightly lift the shadows or darken them completely. That was the source of the earlier impression of a slightly brightened, less contrasty image. Even so, the calibration delivers a very good result here. It removes the most visible errors and, above all, makes the image much closer to how it should look.

After full calibration it can safely be said that the S90H in the WOLED version looks almost perfect. In SDR mode color reproduction errors drop to ultra-low levels, and Delta E values very rarely exceed 2. That's a phenomenal result, so if you care about perfectly faithful color reproduction it's definitely worth considering calibration. The calibrated HDR mode also performs very well, in which the white balance was stabilized and earlier deviations eliminated. After professional tuning it's really hard to find anything to criticize, because the TV delivers an image with almost exemplary naturalness and dimensionality. The slightly lower rating in this category compared with the QD-OLED variant is solely due to the previously described saturation limitation in extremely bright scenes; the tuning options and color fidelity themselves are at the highest level.

Upscaling and digital image processing are not the RM7L's strong suit. TCL used a MediaTek Pentonic 700 SoC here, designated MT5896, which isn't among the best processors at handling lower-quality content. The biggest problems show up with heavily compressed material from YouTube or regular broadcast TV. The processor can't effectively hide posterization and the characteristic color banding. The feature meant to smooth them does little here, and it often interferes too much with the picture, smoothing faces or fine textures, for example. For that reason, it's best to simply leave it off.

Straightforward upscaling to 4K looks better. Lower-quality sources remain reasonably sharp and retain enough detail. It's not on par with the best processors on the market, but for everyday viewing the result is entirely acceptable.

When it comes to reducing posterization, Samsung has kept the same solutions as last year’s models. The dedicated gradient-smoothing function works quite well and can effectively mask unwanted tonal transitions, which can be useful on a WOLED panel that is somewhat prone to banding. However, keep in mind it acts aggressively. This mechanism, aside from removing artifacts, can clean up fine film grain and slightly soften detail. Ultimately it’s a matter of compromise, but if you care about an absolutely faithful reproduction, it’s safer to leave this option off.

There’s also no breakthrough in scaling. The S90H uses the same NQ4 Gen3 processor as its predecessor, so the quality of upscaling was almost identical. The chip sharpens lower-resolution material very well, extracting a satisfying level of detail. Samsung still hasn’t dealt with the old overscan issue. With some older recordings or archival material the image edges can be slightly cropped. It’s a minor flaw, but it’s a shame the manufacturer still hasn’t eliminated it.

The RM7L uses a 144 Hz VA panel, so right out of the box it's a TV well suited for sports, gaming, and other fast-moving content. The high refresh rate also gives the motion interpolation engine more room to work, allowing it to generate extra frames. On the RM7L it works well, and with the right settings it can noticeably improve motion smoothness without causing an excessive soap opera effect.

In terms of motion handling, the S90H is simply excellent. This year's panel offers a refresh rate boosted to 165 Hz, though in practice the benefit will be realized mainly by gamers connecting a powerful PC. For movies, TV series, or sports broadcasts, such a high refresh rate makes no difference and the picture looks exactly the same as at the standard 120 Hz. Regardless of the source, the OLED panel's lightning-fast response time does its job, so motion is clean and the ghosting or smearing seen on LCD screens simply doesn't occur here.

You can say almost nothing but good things about the RM7L when it comes to gamer features. The TV supports ALLM, VRR, Dolby Vision Gaming and works correctly with HGiG, so it’s hard to point out any major omissions in that area. In practice this means automatic switching to low-latency mode, a smoother picture with variable frame rates, and accurate brightness reproduction in HDR games. There’s also a handy Game Bar. From it you can quickly check the frame rate, VRR status, signal format, and aspect ratio, and change key settings without leaving the game. TCL also added a few extra options, like a crosshair and brightening of dark parts of the image, which can be useful in some titles. The biggest downside comes from the use of the Pentonic 700 processor. Only two of the four HDMI ports support the full HDMI 2.1 standard. With a single console this won’t matter much, but when connecting two consoles and a PC you may run out of space. Especially since one of those ports may also be needed for eARC and a soundbar.

Players should feel at home with the S90H, because in that respect Samsung left few reasons to complain. The TV has four HDMI 2.1 ports, each of which supports VRR, ALLM, and high refresh rates. There's also the Game Bar, a handy menu that lets you quickly check key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. Importantly, Samsung has also improved HGiG. In last year's models it could cause issues when used with a console, but in the S90H it now works as it should. What sets it apart from the competition is primarily Game Motion Plus. It's a special motion-smoothing mode designed for games, which works best with titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second. Motion becomes noticeably smoother, while latency remains at a reasonable level. In our measurements it was under 50 ms, so you can still play comfortably. That's important, because on many TVs turning on a similar smoothing mode causes such a large increase in input lag that controls start to feel noticeably sluggish. Samsung has managed to find a good compromise here. There's still no Dolby Vision Gaming, but in practice Game Motion Plus may prove to be a far more useful feature.