TCL V6C vs Philips OLED811

When it comes to HDR, the TCK V6C clearly shows that it is not its strong suit. Peak brightness around 200 nits makes it difficult to talk about true HDR effects – the image simply remains too dark to extract details in bright scenes or convey the appropriate dynamics. Although the TV formally supports many HDR formats, in practice it is not adapted for such demanding content. The lack of additional coatings that enhance colors, such as QLED or PFS LED, further limits the appeal of the image – in more spectacular productions, colors may seem washed out compared to more expensive models. Therefore, the V6C will primarily serve as a television for everyday TV, YouTube, or SDR materials, rather than as equipment for high-quality cinematic experiences.

Philips OLED811 uses the new generation WOLED EX panels, also found in models like the LG C6 and Samsung S90H. After calibration we measured around 1500 nits, which is a very good result for an OLED TV. You can see it clearly in movies and series. All kinds of light flashes have the right intensity, especially when they appear on a dark background. In such scenes the OLED811 can deliver truly impressive HDR. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll see that peak brightness in every shot. When the screen is filled with a large area of white or a big explosion, brightness falls to around 600 nits. That's still a good result, but those scenes no longer have the same punch as small, bright elements on a dark background. This is a known limitation of OLEDs, and the OLED811 is no exception.

Colors

Aside from HDR brightness, colors also matter, and Philips performs very well here too. It covers almost the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which contains most of the colors used in HDR movies and series. So you get rich reds and lush greens, and while watching it's hard to find major faults in this area. It looks a bit worse with the much wider BT.2020 gamut — its most saturated shades are already beyond the reach of this panel. Added to that is the issue of the white subpixel the WOLED panel uses to help boost brightness. With very bright colors you can see some "whitening": the color is bright but loses some of its saturation. In exactly these situations QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display have the advantage. In most movies and series, however, this won't be something that immediately stands out.

We started the color reproduction tests with the Filmmaker mode, which in theory should be the best choice right after taking the television out of the box. It certainly performs better than the Eco or Dynamic modes, which heavily interfere with the image and spoil its natural character. As you can see in the charts, the factory tuning of the V6C is not ideal, although it’s not a disaster either. The biggest problem turned out to be a lack of red – the television clearly "cools" the image, which is particularly noticeable on human faces, giving a "corpse skin" effect. This issue was the most bothersome in daily viewing. Looking at the color palette in HDR content, the deficiencies in red are also noticeable, and their source is the relatively narrow coverage of the color space. Of course, every television can be calibrated, so we decided to check how the V6C would perform after such an adjustment.

The movie mode on the Philips OLED811 is sensibly configured right out of the box. Most color errors are minor, both in SDR and HDR, so you can sit down and watch without first adjusting the settings. There are no major inaccuracies that would immediately pull attention away from the film.

It's not perfect, though. The white balance shows a slight deficiency of red compared with green, so whites and grays can have a faint greenish tint. It's not a strong cast, but measurements clearly show it. There are also small brightness deviations in SDR: some areas of the picture are slightly lifted, and the deepest blacks aren't always rendered evenly. In HDR the TV tracks the reference much more closely, although in places it slightly pulls details out of the shadows. These are generally things to refine. The factory movie mode provides a good starting point, and calibration will show how much more you can get out of it.

My dear friends – we haven't had such a difficult "calibration battle" in years. The V6C turned out to be one of the most stubborn TVs we've dealt with in the editorial office. The calibration trials alone took us several working hours and required a lot of patience. We finally managed to slightly warm up the skin tones, which made the faces stop looking like they were straight out of a horror film, a flaw in the factory settings. Unfortunately, that's not the end of it – the TV reacted to our adjustments in white balance in a completely unpredictable way. Where we expected image stabilization in a given area, new errors appeared, and the Color Checker measurements showed deviations that couldn't be rationally explained. It's hard to say whether the software or the construction itself was to blame, but one thing is certain – the V6C offered exceptionally strong resistance. In the end, the calibration brought improvement, especially in SDR content, where the image became more pleasant and natural. However, it must be clearly stated that the design limitations remained. The TV still flattens the image in HDR material and has significant deficiencies in color reproduction. This is equipment rather intended for everyday TV watching or SDR materials than for cinematic screenings in the highest quality.

After calibration the Philips OLED811 produces an image very close to the reference. We managed to even out the white balance and remove the subtle color cast visible in the factory settings. Errors in Color Checker measurements for SDR and HDR dropped to around 1 to 2, and many samples even fall below 1. That's a level at which it's hard to spot differences from the reference image with the naked eye. We also improved the gamma, and only in the brightest whites a slight brightening remains. In HDR the EOTF curve also stays close to the reference, although the TV still tends to slightly boost the brightness of small elements like stars or subtitles. That gives the image a bit of extra glow that shouldn't be there, but otherwise there's little to complain about. It was already good out of the box, and after calibration we managed to refine most of the remaining shortcomings.

When it comes to upscaling, the V6C does not bring anything groundbreaking. Lower quality content is heavily sharpened, making the image look very unnatural, sometimes even artificially. This can be partially mitigated by lowering the sharpness level in the settings, but the effect is not spectacular. The image still remains far from ideal. The digital processing itself performs better. The function responsible for smoothing tonal transitions works quite effectively, especially at the medium setting, where the image indeed appears smoother. Unfortunately, its operation is quite aggressive – it heavily interferes with the overall scene, causing the actors in the foreground to start looking like characters from super smooth telenovelas. Therefore, we would not recommend using this option if natural reception of the image is important to us.

The OLED811 handles lower-quality content reasonably well, though it's far from perfect. The "Artifact Reduction" feature helps smooth tonal transitions and on the low setting delivers a pretty good result. It doesn't remove banding between shades as effectively as similar solutions from some competitors, but at least it doesn't introduce new artifacts. That's a sensible setting for everyday viewing. Still, there's some disappointment, because the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chip used here can, in other manufacturers' implementations, deal more effectively with heavy compression even at similarly low settings. A lot therefore depends on how each manufacturer uses its capabilities. We have a few more reservations about the 4K upscaling itself. There is plenty of detail, but the overall image looks fairly soft. Edges are heavily smoothed, which robs the picture of some sharpness and clarity. You can partly correct that with the sharpness slider in the menu, though that will just emphasize outlines rather than recover detail. On the plus side, there is no overscan, so even with an SD signal the TV does not crop the edges of the picture.

Motion smoothing and motion fluidity is an area where the V6C quickly reveals its limitations. It is a 60 Hz TV, so it was hard to expect miracles here. In dynamic sports scenes, the picture comes off rather average. This is most noticeable in darker scenes, where clear smears and blurry "halos" trail behind moving objects, which can be quite distracting. This is definitely a weaker point of this model. Fortunately, there is also a small plus. The V6C is equipped with motion interpolation, which works while watching movies. Thanks to it, productions recorded at 24 frames per second, meaning practically all cinematic titles as well as series, can look smoother than they were actually recorded. Importantly, the intensity of the effect can be adjusted to personal preferences – from slight smoothing to full "soap opera effect."

In terms of motion handling, the OLED811 performs excellently. At 120 Hz, which is useful for console gaming and watching sports, the image stays clear and moving objects don’t leave noticeable trails. The fast response of OLED pixels helps here; you can see it clearly in the UFO test, even on dark backgrounds. There are also motion-smoothing controls. For movies you can adjust the strength of smoothing to your taste, ranging from preserving a cinematic feel to much smoother motion. A separate motion blur reduction control is useful for fast-paced content like live sports broadcasts.

Although the V6C is not a television designed with avid gamers in mind, TCL has included a few features that may appeal to more casual users. There is no 120 Hz panel or HDMI 2.1 ports, but there is an ALLM mode that automatically switches the TV to low-latency mode. Additionally, there is a quite practical Game Bar – a simple panel that allows you to view basic parameters, change the picture mode, or even enable a virtual crosshair on the screen. An interesting feature is also the support for Dolby Vision Gaming, intended for Xbox Series S/X consoles – a nice addition, though in practice it doesn't offer as much as in more expensive models. However, the biggest problem remains HDR configuration. The HGiG feature, which adjusts the brightness and contrast of games to the panel's capabilities, does not respond as we would expect – the image can end up being overly dark or too flat. As a result, a better solution turns out to be simply playing in SDR mode, where the V6C performs stably and does not try to pretend to be an HDR TV.

OLED811 has almost everything you could expect from a gaming TV. It supports 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p and 4K resolutions, and when connected to a PC can reach 165 Hz. It also has VRR, which helps avoid screen tearing with variable frame rates, and ALLM, which automatically switches to game mode. So you don't have to dig into the settings every time you power up your console.

HGiG also works correctly, so once you enable HDR on the console the TV doesn't apply its own brightness adjustments. There's also a Game Bar that lets you check signal parameters and quickly change settings useful while gaming. The list even includes Dolby Vision for games, but there's a significant catch, which you'll read about below.