TCL C855K (65C855K) review

The TCL C855K is the latest in an ever-growing sea of mid-range Mini LED TVs aiming to offer buyers who can’t afford an OLED a solid home cinema and gaming experience.

While that makes it sound like a fairly by-the-numbers TV, it’s interesting for one key reason: it’s the successor to the C845K, which was one of the best mid-range TVs we tested when it came out, giving the new model a special place among the tide of rival sets flooding our test rooms.

Does it live up to its predecessor, and TCL's generally strong pedigree in this space of the market? Having run it against key rivals the answer is yes – but only in certain instances.

Price

The TCL C855K is available in 65, 75, 85 and 98-inch variants. We have the 65-inch version in our review rooms for testing, which retails for £1299 / AU$2295 and sadly isn’t available in the US at the moment.

The price of the 75-inch model jumps to £1699 / AU$2895 and the larger-still 85-inch unit costs £2299 / AU$3995. For those with cavernous living rooms, the largest 98-inch model costs £3999 / AU$7995.

That puts the TV firmly in the mid-range market and in competition with key sets including the Hisense U8N, Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini LED and Samsung QN90D. The 65-inch versions of these currently retail for £1499, £1149 and £1399 respectively.

Design

The TCL C855K has a very similar DNA to past Mini LED sets we’ve tested from the Chinese tech giant. This means it is solidly built, but missing the polished feel of an entry-level OLED.

The top and side bezels are thin, but its bottom edge juts out noticeably. The set is fairly thick, too, so it will stick out if you choose to wall mount it – though, in fairness, this thickness is at least partly due to the rear-facing built-in subwoofer, which takes up a fair amount of space. The TV is also fairly heavy, weighing 26.5kg which, again, you will need to factor in if you plan to go down the wall-mounting route.

Outside of this, it’s a no-nonsense set with a solid metal stand that quickly and easily connects to the TV using included screws. The stand’s flat top and natural height make it easy to neatly place a normal-sized soundbar in front of the TV. Our only real quibble is that, like most TVs, the stand doesn’t have a swivel mechanism, which can make getting quick access to its ports or adjusting viewing angles on the fly a little awkward. Though, in TCL’s defence, this is a common problem shared by most TVs.

Like other TCL sets, the C855K has a functional plastic remote that, while basic, is nicely compact and well made, and the only minor quirk is that the volume control is located on its side, which takes a while to get used to. There’s also no backlight, which is a common annoyance at this price.

Features

The TCL C855K is a well-stacked TV featuring specifications and features that match, and sometimes exceed, those of its main rivals.

The set is powered by a TCL AIPQ Pro AI processor, which is built around an MT9653 MediaTek Pentonic 700 chip. The tweaks made by TCL focus on improving the set’s management of its local dimming zones in a bid to improve key areas such as contrast, black level, colour accuracy and sharpness.

The chipset supports every major HDR standard including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) and Dolby Vision. There’s also Dolby Vision IQ, which is an extension of the regular version designed to further improve performance by letting the TV respond and optimise its picture to the ambient light conditions it is running in, and IMAX Enhanced is on board too.

The chip powers two full-speed HDMI 2.1 connections as well as two basic HDMI 2.0 inputs. The HDMI 2.1s can handle 4K/144Hz signals, which will be a boon for PC gamers looking to connect their rigs to their big-screen TV. Console gamers, meanwhile, will still benefit from the 4K/120Hz support, which is as fast as the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S can run. For Xbox gamers, there’s Dolby Vision gaming HDR, which is increasingly important as there are more and more Dolby Vision titles available on the platform, some of which look outright stunning.

One atypical, but nice, touch is that, while there are only two HDMI 2.1 inputs, TCL has added eARC to one of the basic HDMI 2.0 connectors – so you don’t have to sacrifice a valuable 2.1 socket for your soundbar or AV receiver. We wish more manufacturers would take this approach.

Variable Refresh Rate, ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and the same useful ‘game bar’ menu we saw on the TCL C805K round out the gaming features. VRR lets the TV raise and drop its refresh rate to match the game you're playing, resulting in smoother and more responsive action, while ALLM lets it detect when it needs to prioritise gaming performance and reduce latency. The game bar has a nifty menu you can use to quickly access relevant settings without having to go into the TV’s extended settings options.

For regular viewing, the TV runs off the Google TV operating system, which is increasingly common these days. That means the TV supports most standard streaming services including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus and Paramount Plus – which all run in 4K and support the relevant HDR standards, based on our checks. But, unlike competing Mini LED TVs from Hisense and Panasonic, UK catch-up services are limited and the TV doesn’t have Freely or dedicated apps for BBC iPlayer and the like.

Outside of this, the TCL C855K’s headline feature is its screen. The TV comes with a VA panel with Quantum Dots and a Mini LED backlight with 1344 Full Array Local Dimming (FALD) zones. Those are similar specifications to the competing Hisense U8N, but the TCL’s screen is quoted as offering a higher 3500 nit peak brightness. That’s a full 500 nits more than the U8N.

But, as we’ve said before, peak brightness is only one ingredient in the recipe for supremely tasty picture quality. So just how good is the TCL C855K?

Picture

As with almost all of the Mini LED TVs around this price that we’ve tested in the past 12 months, the picture quality is good rather than perfect, and you will need to play with the settings to get the best results.

Like all TCL TVs, the C855K doesn’t have a Filmmaker Mode. This is because TCL believes, ardently, that its processing efforts improve the picture and there’s no need for one.

Like 99 per cent of the TVs we test, the out-of-the-box standard mode delivers heavy-handed motion handling and overbaked colours. Bright sections of a battle scene playing from our Dune: Part 2 4K Blu-ray see characters’ movements suffer from the soap opera effect and there’s a loss of detail in the desert sands due to the set’s overt focus on showing how bright it can go.

While its peak brightness is impressive, we get the best results switching the TV to its Movie setting with Local Dimming in High and all motion handling reduced to its lowest setting.

Once done, the TV delivers a dazzlingly bright performance, with the desert landscape sparkling and with oodles of detail. Explosions look bright and full of a violent hue of reds and yellows. The Fremen suits retain details lost on many competing Mini LED TVs, which have a tendency to show them as pure black. The end result is an immersive picture that takes advantage of the set’s incredibly high max brightness.

Moving to our 4K Blu-ray test disc of Top Gun: Maverick, the TV continues to deliver a decent performance. Colours look natural, with skin tones, in particular, nicely clean and realistic. Motion handling is solid with a rapidly moving, panning shot of Maverick racing across the desert on his motorbike looking smooth but natural, without any unpleasant artefacts or ghost frames sneaking in.

There are still some flies in the ointment, however. Moving to our brightness stress test, a scene from Pan, which is mastered at an atypically high 4000 nits, the TV continues its strong peak brightness performance. As a flying pirate ship races through the sky, the TCL C855K retains details in the incredibly bright setting sun that are lost or less visible on completing sets, including the Hisense U7N.

But TCL’s efforts to show how incredibly bright the C855K can go are too heavy-handed. During this scene, while the peaks look dazzling, the TV artificially over-brightens the entire image, making the peak look slightly less impressive and damaging the picture’s contrast, making it look slightly flat overall.

The issue repeats when we move to our It 4K Blu-ray. Here, the TV seems to bump the brightness of the entire sewer the moment Pennywise's sparkling, menacing eyes appear, diminishing the scene’s overall impact. There’s also a brief but noticeable shift in brightness across the whole panel, where the black level shifts from being nicely inky to washed out as the TV reacts to the addition of an incredibly bright section.

This is a shame as the TV otherwise handles blacks fairly well by Mini LED standards. Though the black level is nowhere near the perfection you get from an OLED, they’re deep enough to feel immersive. As we watch Georgie go down into the basement, the set does a stellar job of retaining detail, with there being no obvious crush. TCL has done good work here, not pushing the contrast too high in a bid to compensate for the panel’s naturally imperfect black level.

Blade Runner 2049 yields similar results. During the opening scene, the dark protein farmhouse retains a decent amount of dark detail, with every crinkle in the leather sofa remaining visible. But the lack of light control again makes some parts look slightly less three-dimensional than we’d like. The dark segments of a replicant’s face are slightly too bright and don’t have the depth seen on the competing U7N, which is a shame as skin tones are nice and warm and the image retains oodles of detail.

Running our final upscaling test using our tried and tested SDR Blu-ray of True Grit, the results are mixed. Though there is reasonable black depth, there’s noticeable blooming around white text overlaying the black background and the lanterns shining in the snowy night intro scene. There’s some noise in the snow as well, with the TV struggling with both this and the film’s intentional and admittedly difficult-to-handle spaghetti western grain.

Sound

The TCL C855K comes with an Onkyo-branded 2.1.2 sound system with a rear-facing subwoofer and up-firing channels. The system is powered by 60W and supports the Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and DTS-HD surround-sound formats.

On paper, this makes it an impressive set-up, and the C855K proves to be a cut above many rivals with its audio performance during testing, too.

Cracking out our Top Gun: Maverick test disc, the TV deals well with a demanding scene where a jet screams through a canyon. Here, while it isn’t as precise as a dedicated 5.1 set-up or decent soundbar and the soundstage is narrower than we would have liked, the TV does offer some sense of direction, with the audio shooting left and right as the plane twists and turns.

The screeching engines and whooshing wind noises also sound clean and don’t overlap with the dialogue going on over it, as pilots watching Maverick swoon over his skills.

Our only complaint is that, like most TV speaker systems, the C855K struggles to deliver a sense of height. The audio continues to feel like it is coming from the TV’s horizontal axis, even when the jet plane screams overhead.

Switching to our standard Blade Runner 2049 scene two stress test, the included sub delivers some weight and the TV never outright distorts, as many do, when the soundtrack's booming, warbly synths kick in. But there is a slight lack of precision, and details in the mid and high frequencies are lost. So despite being good by TV standards, you will want to invest in a soundbar or speaker system for the best results.

Verdict

The TCL C855K is in many ways a good value TV for people who want a bright, big-screen set but don’t fancy spending multiple thousands to get it.

For your money, you get a large TV that’s noticeably brighter than most rivals that cost the same. Add to this some clever quality-of-life touches, including loading the eARC input into an HDMI 2.0, leaving the two HDMI 2.1s free for current generation games consoles and PCs, and it is undeniably enticing.

But, some issues with its control, including a tendency to push the entire backlight too bright and so making the image slightly flat, stop it from being a true 'shut up and take my money' bargain for serious movie fans.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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