TCL X11L vs TCL RM7L

Such a large number of zones translated not only into deep, inky blacks but also into the panel’s brightness. The X11L is an extremely bright TV. Peak brightness can easily exceed 4000 nits, and with the special "Boost" mode enabled, under specific conditions that brightness can even hover around the marketing figures of 9000–10,000 nits. This is undoubtedly one of the brightest, if not the brightest, screens on the market. But how do those numbers translate to real-world movie measurements? The results are very good, though of course far from the marketing promises. Our measured brightness in actual movie scenes hovered around 2000–3000 nits. That’s an outstanding result, considering that the vast majority of content is produced to those brightness levels, including the rarer material mastered to 4000 nits. But it also shows that the numbers the manufacturer brags about don’t always translate directly to the video content available at home. The only "quirk" (if you can call it that) is that when very small, bright elements appear on the screen, their brightness drops below 2000 nits. The dimming algorithm does this deliberately to preserve deep blacks and minimize halo. This is entirely understandable and the effect remains very strong, but it also demonstrates that even with such powerful hardware, Mini-LED technology has its limits and does not always work without compromise. In HDR, brightness isn’t the only thing that matters; color saturation and color accuracy do as well. On the X11L these are very good thanks to the new Super QLED quantum dots (SQD). The addition of a newly applied filter delivered excellent coverage of the P3 color gamut and the ultra-wide BT.2020. Although it doesn’t reach the advertised 100% of BT.2020, values around 89–90% can be called excellent. Colors are not far off those of RGB Mini-LED panels. We can even say they’re more stable because they use a less demanding algorithm than the one RGB screens often have to deal with.

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.

When you enable the supposedly best Filmmaker Mode, you expect a one-to-one image of what the director saw. On the X11L it's pretty good, but the mode has obvious flaws that our measurements immediately exposed. Let's start with SDR. Both the white balance and the gamma are simply misaligned here. The whites have too much blue and red, giving a faint pink tint. That also hurt the gamma, which instead of holding the cinematic 2.4 runs closer to 2.2. What did that result in? The whole image ends up pushed and artificially brightened. The worst is saved for last: the HDR measurements. Apart from that slight white balance drift, the X11L fails on the brightness management curve called the EOTF. What we saw in the measurements instantly explains what we noticed earlier in the films. The image is unnaturally bright because the curve is massively overshot above the reference. The TV simply and ruthlessly lifts the dark parts of the image to create a "wow" effect, completely ignoring the director's intent.

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.

After a professional calibration we were above all able to fully tame the SDR signal. The X11L responded perfectly to our adjustments. We were able to completely straighten the white balance, eliminate that pink tint, and set gamma to a stable 2.4. After that treatment the picture finally became consistent with the director’s intent, natural and free of artificial boosts. For HDR we also managed to make minor corrections, but the TV’s biggest flaw remained unchanged. I’m talking, of course, about how the X11L manages its brightness and how badly it overshoots the EOTF curve. Unfortunately, TCL provides virtually no tools to manipulate this parameter. Even during professional calibration the software offers no way to tame that curve, so the TV will always tend to brighten the image in HDR.

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.

Like in the C8L model we tested earlier, TCL has delivered a substantial upgrade in its flagship X series in this area. It's all thanks to the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor used in this model. Thanks to it, features that smooth tonal transitions or even upscale content to higher resolutions finally look the way they should. The biggest Achilles' heel of previous TCL models has finally been addressed. The processor excels at digital processing, and in this respect the TV no longer lags behind flagship models from Korea or even the most refined ones from Japan.

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.

In terms of specs, the X11L can impress: it supports refresh rates up to 144 Hz at 4K, and at Full HD it can be pushed to 288 Hz. But from a real-world perspective, we were most interested in how the screen handles 120 Hz. After all, modern hardware is limited to that rate, led by current-generation consoles. How does it perform in practice? Although it uses a VA panel, the screen doesn't exhibit heavy ghosting. With very fast-moving objects you can notice a slight smear, but it's subtle enough that it doesn't stand out when gaming or watching sports. The motion smoothing feature called "Motion Clarity" is also very helpful; it lets you adjust motion smoothness to your liking. Recommended settings are shown in the photo.

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.

For gamers the X11L is simply a superb screen. TCL has already gotten us used to the fact that its products deliver practically every feature available on the market, and it's exactly the same with the flagship from the X series. Thanks to the new processor, the X11L offers four HDMI 2.1 ports with the full 48 Gbps bandwidth. Naturally, the 2.1 standard brings a set of extremely useful options, such as Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and VRR frame synchronization, working across the full refresh range up to 288 Hz. All of these features can be conveniently controlled from a dedicated Game Bar. Interestingly, its appearance can be customized to your taste, with three ready-made themes referencing Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles. And speaking of Xbox: Dolby Vision Gaming also works on the X11L without any problems.

When gaming in the standard HDR10 format, however, you should be aware of the specific tuning of the brightness curve, which can cause problems during initial setup. Although the TV supports HGiG, configuring everything through the PlayStation or Xbox system menus can be tricky. The screen's algorithms tend to artificially brighten the test checkerboard pattern, making it really hard to hit the correct white clipping point by eye. For HDR10 content to look right, we recommend manually setting the brightness in the console menu to around 2500–3000 nits.

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.