TCL really impressed us last year with its P-Series.
The 55P607 offered fantastic picture quality and plenty of streaming apps and services at a very reasonable price, but there was just one problem: TCL only offered a 55-inch model.
The company is expanding its range this year with its new 6-Series of 4K TVs.
The Roku TV-powered 6-Series features a similarly excellent picture, and is available in 55- and 65-inch versions.
We tested the 55-inch 55R617, which is available at a retail price of $649.99.
Its combination of performance and affordability earn it our Editors' Choice.
Design
While TCL is known as a budget brand, the 55R617 looks expensive.
It foregoes the standard black bezel for a brushed gunmetal-colored frame that measures just 0.25-inch on the sides and top and 0.75-inch on the bottom.
The gunmetal look extends to the back, which helps make the relatively thick 1.25-inch sides (extending to three inches for the bottom edge) of the TV appear very modern when compared with more expensive edge-lit TVs measuring fractions of an inch.
A silver-colored TCL logo sits in the middle of the bottom bezel, and a round, backlit power button rests on the lower right corner.
Besides the left-facing power connector, all inputs and outputs on the 55R617 face right on the back side of the TV, a few inches in from the right edge in a rectangular recess.
The connections include three HDMI ports, a USB port, an Ethernet port, an antenna/cable connector, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm composite video input for use with the included cable, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Three HDMI ports is fairly scarce for a modern TV, and appears to be one of the few areas where TCL skimped to ensure the 6-Series' relatively low price.
The remote is another minor compromise.
It's a standard Roku TV remote, with the signature purple direction pad flanked by menu navigation and playback buttons.
A volume rocker and a mute button sit on the right side, and dedicated service buttons for Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, and DirecTV Now sit under the playback controls.
A pinhole microphone near the top enables voice search with Roku's fairly limited voice assistant, and the remote connects to the TV wirelessly so it doesn't have to be pointed directly at it.
However, it lacks the headphone jack we've become very fond of on Roku's Enhanced remotes, which enables private listening.
The headphone jack is present on the Roku Ultra, and was on last year's TCL 55P607, but you won't find it on this remote.
It's a minor shame, but not a deal breaker; you can still use private listening with the Roku app on your phone if you want, and the wired headphone jack on the back of the TV offers other alternatives for listening without disrupting others.
The Roku app also lets you control the TV itself, and stream media from your mobile device to the TV.
Roku TV
The 55R617 uses the Roku TV platform for its connected features and interface, just like the 55P607 and other TCL TVs of the last few years.
This means the TV features a simple, accessible interface that can access a wide variety of streaming media services, providing an experience nearly identical to using a Roku Streaming Stick+.
Nearly all major streaming video services are present, including Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV, Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV, and YouTube.
There are also plenty of dedicated apps for individual TV networks, subjects, and regions, including ABC, CNN, Crunchyroll, ESPN, HBO GO, SyFy, Univision Now, and hundreds more.
For music, you can access a variety of streaming internet radio services like iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Slacker, and TuneIn, plus on-demand music from Amazon Music, Deezer, and (in music video form) Vevo.
Google Play Music is missing from Roku's selection, a slightly odd omission when Google Play Movies & TV is available.
Spotify also doesn't work at this point, but a splash screen when you attempt to load the app says the Spotify team is currently working on updating the Roku version, and it should be available in the future.
While Roku TV is a powerful platform for content, it lags a bit behind Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung's first-party smart TV platform in terms of other connected features.
The pinhole microphone on the remote and the voice search function on the Roku app let you search for a movie or TV show with your voice based on title, actor, genre, and various other categories.
However, that's the limit to Roku's voice features.
It falls short of the voice assistant functions of Alexa on Fire TV devices, Google Assistant on Android TV devices, and even Bixby on Samsung smart TVs; you can't ask a Roku TV for a weather forecast, or to control smart devices in your home.
Performance
The ultra HD (UHD, or 4K) TCL 6-Series supports high dynamic range (HDR) content encoded in both HDR10 and Dolby Vision.
This means most HDR video available on streaming services and on Ultra HD Blu-rays will display in HDR on the TV.
We test TVs using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G test pattern generator, and SpectraCal's CalMAN software on a Razer Blade Pro notebook.
The TCL 6-Series shows similarly excellent contrast performance to last year's P-Series, with a peak brightness of 497.15cd/m2 and a black level of 0.01cd/m2.
That means an effective contrast ratio of 49,715:1, which is fantastic for a relatively inexpensive TV.
For better contrast, you'll need to spend much more on an OLED screen, like LG's C7P-Series.
The above chart shows Rec.709 broadcast standards as boxes and measured color levels under the Warm color temperature setting as dots.
The 6-Series shows an appreciably wider color range than Rec.709 when displaying HDR content, with a greater amount of greens and reds.
Whites and grays are almost perfect, and yellows and cyans appear balanced and consistent.
The only minor complaint for color accuracy is a tendency for magentas to run a bit more red than ideal.
See How We Test TVs
HDR content looks excellent on the 6-Series, though you might have to flip through the three HDR picture modes to get the best performance depending on what you're watching.
The BBC's Planet Earth II looks bright and detailed, with accurate colors in the Dark HDR (closest to cinema level) mode and Normal HDR pushing them a bit farther to appear more vivid without looking too garish.
However, Bright HDR, while making the picture more eye-catching, pushes the greens and yellows of the foliage to appear almost cartoonish and oversaturated.
Fine details in both brightly lit and shady scenes can be clearly seen in all modes, and textures like sloth fur and tree bark appear crisp and natural.
Deadpool also looks very good, especially in the Normal HDR picture mode.
The red of Deadpool's costume looks rich and natural, and skin tones appear balanced.
Using the Bright HDR mode can push his costume to look even more vivid, but it becomes an issue in later scenes like the burning lab fight where the flames can appear garish and overwhelming.
In other modes, the bright yellow and orange fires of the scene help show off the TV's strong contrast and natural colors, keeping details in shadowy parts of the scene even against the burning light sources.
Films with an over-the-top, high-contrast look like The Great Gatsby benefit the most from the Bright HDR picture mode.
The bright whites and intentionally garish colors of the party scene pop, and the texture and contours of the black suits appear clearly without looking washed out, though switching to Normal HDR mode further improves the dark parts of the scene at the expense of the highlights.
Flesh tones also appear largely natural in both modes, if slightly cool and pale in some indoor scenes.
Input Lag and Power Consumption
Input lag is the amount of time between when a TV receives a signal and the screen updates.
The 55R617 shows a very high 68.7ms input lag in its Movie picture mode.
However, enabling Game mode, which slightly compromises picture quality in favor of responsiveness, drops lag to a much better 17.9ms.
We generally consider TVs with an input lag lower than 20ms to be suitable for gaming in most conditions, and can count the 6-Series among the best TVs for gaming.
The bright 55R617 can be a bit of a power hog, consuming 163 watts under normal viewing conditions in the Bright HDR picture mode with the Brighter backlight preset.
Setting the backlight to Darker and the picture mode to Normal HDR cuts that down to 129 watts, which is still rather high for a 55-inch LED TV.
The Samsung UN55NU8000FXZA uses half as much power, consuming 69 watts in its Low power saving mode, which only slightly dims the screen from preferred picture settings.
Affordable Excellence
The TCL 6-Series is a worthy follow-up to last year's P-Series.
It makes few significant changes besides a slightly more attractive physical design, keeping the excellent contrast and color range of the previous version intact.
At $650 for the 55-inch model and $1,000 for the 65-inch model, this is an ideal choice for anyone who's been waiting to make the jump to 4K HDR.
You can get more feature-filled TVs that offer even better picture quality, like LG's C7P and Sony's A1E OLED TVs, but you'll be spending several times more for the same size screen.
That makes the TCL 6-Series our Editors' Choice for budget-friendly TVs.
The Bottom Line
TCL's 6-Series of 4K TVs is a worthy successor to last year's excellent P-Series, and stands as one of the best values currently available.
