Tcl Smart Tv Manual

At about $650 for a 55-inch screen, the TCL 55FS4610R Roku TV is a cheap thrill — in a good way. Image quality is not videophile-grade, but it looks fine if you don't overanalyze it. Best of all, Roku's basic but intuitive smart TV OS is a breeze to master. Its fairly slim bezel and profile are far from boxy.

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TCL is a household name in China and may become one here as the company makes a push into the U.S. market. TCL has been more about value than top-notch performance, and the 55FS4610R doesn't break new ground in terms of technologies. However, set-top-box maker Roku played a big role in creating this TV — not just in the interface, but also in pushing for quality components throughout the set.

Design: What You See Is What You Get

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The 55FS4610R's roughly 0.6-inch black bezel doesn't get in the way. Ranging from about 2.2 to 3.4 inches thick, the panel is on the chubbier side, but you're unlikely to notice if you have it on a table pushed against the wall. The wide, tempered glass base is a refreshing change from the black-plastic stand under so many other budget TVs. The glass plate is solid, but the TV does sway atop it quite a bit after a bump — enough to make parents with small kids nervous.

That said, the 55FS4610R never showed a sign of tipping over, no matter how (reasonably) hard I bumped it. The 55FS4610R has no buttons on the front; but should you misplace Roku's petite, minimalist remote control, you can navigate the menu using a tiny joystick accessible of you reach behind the bottom-right corner of the TV.

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The back panel features easy access to all of the TV's ports. Most run down a line facing out sideways on the left side (if you're looking at the set from the back). At the top are three HDMI ports — plenty, considering the TV has a great set-top box built in.

Below them is a USB port that can power a streaming stick such as Chromecast. Then comes the standard coaxial antenna input for an HDTV antenna (see our reviews).

Analog and optical digital audio outputs are available for boosting the audio quality with a soundbar — a good idea, given this TV's weak built-in speakers. Pointing straight out the back of the set are analog composite video and stereo audio inputs, in case you can't part with those VHS tapes.

Smart TV: Roku Simplicity

Roku is one of the few tech companies, like Apple, that inspires near-romantic feelings among fans. On Roku set-top boxes, every source, such as Netflix or Crackle, is an app you click on from a home screen. Sounds like other smart TVs, but Roku's surprisingly simple interface makes getting to apps, and rearranging their order, insanely simple. You won't find the multiple-screen interface confusion that has plagued other 'smart' TVs.

Roku TV's innovation is to make all other sources — cable, antenna, Xbox, etc. — into apps. Will you watch cable or Netflix? Will you game on your PlayStation or listen to Pandora? There's no awkward, sluggish switching from 'real TV' to smart TV. Instead, you just pick among the different sources you want to watch, regardless of their source.

Remote: (Perhaps Too) Simple

Minimalist design carries over to the tiny (5.4 x 1.7 x 0.9 inch) remote with its comfy, rounded back. It features just the basics, mainly: a four-way rocker with an OK button in the middle; back and home buttons for navigating the screen; and play/pause, fast-forward and reverse buttons. A '*' button brings up context-sensitive mini menus, such as image or audio settings for that input (very handy). Volume up and down and mute buttons hug the right side where a thumb would fall (unless you're a southpaw).

What you don't get, however, is a number pad for choosing channels. This hews to Roku's minimalist aesthetic, but breaks with Roku TV's all-in-one interface design. In spite of Roku's elegant little controller, you still have to wield your big honkin' cable/satellite box remote.

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The remote is shamefully inadequate for watching free over-the-air TV. Instead of typing in your channel, you have to scroll up and down. If you live in an urban area rich with major channels and niche-oriented subchannels, you're in for a lot of up-and-down-button presses.

Alternatively, you can download Roku's remote app for Android and iOS, which provides much better controls. You'll get a full keyboard, which not only makes channel selection easier, but also saves you from the agony of scrolling through on-screen keyboards when typing in a search for content.

Image Quality: Overabundance of Color

When testing TVs, we first measure screen performance for aspects such as color accuracy and contrast in order to find the best preset mode. Even without instruments and with one eye closed, you could tell that Movie is the only respectable picture mode for the 55FS4610R. The other modes — including Vivid, and the misnamed Normal — produce garishly oversaturated colors that can turn even good-looking actors into pink or orange monsters. Ecosave, the default mode, is a distant second best to Movie; it's not as horribly oversaturated as the others, but still noticeably so.

Movie mode gets things more or less right. It still oversaturated colors a bit — which cinephiles will probably notice much more than most people will. In the Blu-ray of Skyfall, for instance, fair-skinned Dame Judi Dench (M) appeared rather rosy, and light-cocoa-toned Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) had an overly coppery skin tone. I saw the exact same pattern in skin tones from the first episode of Netflix's Orange Is the New Black.

Rival Chinese TV maker Hisense also sells Roku TVs, and out of curiosity, I compared the 55FS4610R to the 40-inch Hisense H4 Roku TV (see review). It's tricky to show a photo of a screen, but this comparison between the 40-inch Hisense H4 Roku TV (at left) and 55-inch TCL 55FS4610R at least shows how they differ. Next to the TCL, the Hisense images may appear a bit greenish. But on its own or against another set, such as the Sony KDL-50W800B, the Hisense H4's colors looked truer.

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I wasn't surprised to see the results from our color tests of the 55FS4610R, in which yellows and reds drifted toward orange, and deep red was so oversaturated that it was outside the Rec. 709 color gamut that HDTVs use. (There are no extra points for going beyond.) Bright-white shirts turned pink in several videos and photos I viewed.

The 55FS4610R also overdoes blue. This popped up in the Blu-ray of the opening scene from Game of Thrones (Season 1, Episode 1). As the rangers rode slowly through the dim tunnel in The Wall, the dark cloaks, walls and ceiling looked a tad bluish or purplish instead of a clean black or dark gray. When they emerge into the open, blue tinted both their dark clothes and horses as well as the white snow around them.

In a 720p recorded football game featuring the Philadelphia Eagles, the green of the team's helmets and jerseys tended toward blue.

Our lab tests explain the blues. In Movie mode, the TCL had a color temperature (shade of white) of 6772 Kelvin, well above the 6610 K measurement of the Hisense. (Also in Movie mode: The two TVs' menus are identical.) The higher the temperature, the bluer the image. The Hisense is almost dead-on the 6500 K standard for TVs.

Tcl 65 Inch Smart Tv Manual

The TCL 55FS4610R's contrast ratio of 385:1 (in Movie mode) is one of the lowest we've measured, tied with the best-mode result for the 50-inch Panasonic TC-50AS530U (see review), and ahead of the 362:1 for the 40-inch Hisense H4. I also compared the TCL 55FS4610R to Sony's 50-inch KDL-50W800B (see review), which posted 466:1.

The Sony KDL-50W800B does show those deep 'blacks' that cinephiles salivate over. The TCL's screen looked sadly gray against the Sony's far-darker display in overwhelmingly black screens, such as the desolate star field in the Blu-ray of Gravity after Sandra Bullock tumbles away from the space shuttle. However, the price for that black on the Sony KDL-50W800B was far fewer stars; the TCL 55FS4610R showed about two to four times more stars in the background of Gravity's scenes.

I got slightly better blacks from the TCL by turning the backlight brightness down from 80 to 65 percent and switching from the default Brightness setting of Normal to either Dark or Darker. (If you are in a dim room, try both settings to see which one you like better.) Brightness was inconsistent on the TCL screen, with several lighter 'hot spots' obvious on black screens. When watching dynamic content, though, you probably won't see them.

Audio: Best You Can Expect

Let's face it: A thin-panel TV just doesn't have enough room for good built-in speakers. The TCL 55FS4610R validates that axiom, with generally shallow-sounding audio, especially in voices. This wasn't as noticeable in scenes that were mostly dialogue, like the cafeteria chats in Orange Is the New Black. Nor was it a problem in segments that were all music and explosions, like the chase scenes in Skyfall.

When voice and music mixed, however, voices lost out. This was the disappointing result in Shine a Light, in which Mick Jagger was drowned out by his bandmates. Switching from the default Normal audio mode to Theater mode made the audio sound more expansive, creating a better sense of a live environment. But voices — and, really, all audio elements — still sounded weak and mashed together.

MORE: Best Soundbars

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Tcl Roku Tv Owner's Manual

None of this is surprising for built-in audio, however. (The rival Panasonic TC-50AS530U sounds far worse.) Like it or not, you generally have to buy a home theater or soundbar system to get big audio commensurate with a giant picture.

Bottom Line

If you use the word 'TV' for not only cable but also Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the like, you'll find that Roku TV 'gets' you. If you are also the kind of person who thinks about color quality as soon as you see a TV screen, you'll face a dilemma, as you will notice irksome deficiencies on the TCL 55FS4610R. Hisense's H40 Roku TV splits the difference nicely, with far-better color fidelity, but Hisense currently sells only a 40-inch model.

If you want to go bigger, decide what matters more to you. For videophile quality, you'll have to spend more on a model like the $900 Sony KDL-50W800B (which does have a fairly friendly smart TV interface). But if you're looking for a very good combination of ease of use, size, price and respectable video quality, you can't beat the $650 TCL 55FS4610R.

Senior editor Sean Captain is a mild video snob. Follow him @seancaptain. Follow us @tomsguide, on Facebook and on Google+.

TCL's DP648 4K Smart TV is one of the first to arrive in the UK from the major television manufacturer, occupying a similar price range as Hisense and hoping to offer some of today's more advanced resolutions and display capabilities at a budget price.

We were completely won over by this year's TCL 6-Series Roku TV over in the US - where TCL is much more of a household name - which packed in incredible picture quality for a sub-$1,000 price.

TCL's foray into UK markets will be looking to replicate the success it's seen stateside, but is the DP648 up to the same standard? We've run through what we thought of its design, picture quality, and smart TV platform (no Roku TV, sadly) in the rest of our in-depth review below.

Price and release date

The TCL DP648 is available now at £399 for the 43-inch model (reviewed here), and £499, £599, and £899 for the 50-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch versions, respectively.

Everything considered, it's certainly a bargain for any smart TV. But is a low price tag enough to sell a TV in an already crowded market?

Design

In terms of aesthetics, there's a very thin black bezel around the edges of the display, before meeting the concrete-gray body of the set.

There's a very small TCL logo just below the screen, and two sharp-looking feet which are easily screwed into the underside of the television.

While it's very much a flatscreen display, the body of the set itself bulks out at the back, having to find somewhere to contain the bulk of the hardware, ports, and speakers. The panel itself, however, is pleasingly thin – 10mm wide – even if you're unlikely to want the rear shape of the set on view.

The build feels like unsurprisingly cheap plastic, though to be fair you're unlikely to spend much time looking behind the screen. There are however a good three HDMI ports (all 4K compatible), and ports for two USB 2.0, Ethernet, satellite input, an antennae cable, AC adaptor, CI (common interface), and SPDIF.

The remote might actually be the sleekest part of the package: a long and thin black slab with a smart, easy-to-read layout and quickfire buttons to jump straight to Freeview Play or Netflix, if that's where you're headed.

Design TL;DR: TCL's budget set doesn't have the best materials, but the panel is pleasingly thin, while the remote wins back some favor with its smart layout and sleek design.

Smart TV (SMART TV 3.0)

Unfortunately, unlike some TCL TVs in the US, you won't find the likes of Roku TV here. Instead, TCL's DP648 opts for a straightforward Linux-based SMART TV 3.0 platform, offering basic but uncluttered navigation of your HDMI ports, inputs, TV channels, and external apps and services.

A number come pre-installed, meaning that the likes of Netflix, Youtube, Rakuten TV, iPlayer, iTV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 On Demand come up immediately on the Home pane. The TCL DP648's TV+ App Store then offers a window into the other services you might want or need, such as BBC News, BBC Sport, and the like.

It's a very functional layout, but brings together everything you'd need from a basic smart TV with a well-designed remote that makes flicking through those identical menu panes almost a treat.

There's also a direct button to jump to Freeview Play, which integrates standard UK television channels (70 SD, 15 HD) with online streaming services like BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub, all in one place.

Smart TV TL;DR: As much as we miss Roku TV, the TCL DP648's SMART TV 3.0 is still a straightforward, uncluttered interface for flicking through different apps, services, and inputs.

HD/SDR Performance

The TCL DP648 is obviously a 4K-capable television, but most of the content you'll find either on terrestrial channels or online streaming services will still be in regular ol' HD/SDR. So how does it fare?

Don't get us wrong, the TCL DP648 is perfectly capable of displaying HD/SDR content relatively clearly, with a good amount of visual detail, even if some is inevitably lost on a screen this size without the powerful picture processing needed to make all those pixels pull their weight.

The upscaling does a decent job of bringing HD/SDR content into sharper focus on its 3,840 x 2,160 display, even if you're still stuck with some grainy images that struggle to show in natural-looking colors. Skin tones were an occasional issue, meaning that pale faces could veer into a sickly off-white.

Worse than that was the TCL DP648's motion blur, which came out in full force for even slowly-moving panning shots. This is less of an issue for some shows and media than others, though it doesn't make the set ideal for watching sport or anything involving a lot of movement, even when we switched on the dedicated Motion picture settings to help offset that.

The TCL DP648 display is compatible with the BBC-developed HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma), as well as the HDR10 standard for UHD viewing – but more on that below.

HD/SDR TL;DR: The DP648 is perfectly capable of displaying HD content, though the picture processing isn't advanced enough to make all those 4K pixels pull their weight – and motion blur is a recurring issue.

4K/UHD Performance

Of course, if you're buying a 4K Ultra HD TV, you want to know how it actually fares with high-definition viewing.

The TCL DP648 is at the cheap end of 4K capability, so you shouldn't expect dazzling pictures so much as just a set with the minimum specs to display 4K at all.

When switching on to 4K content – whether that's gaming on a high-end console, using Blu-Ray 4K, or a compatible TV channel – there's a pick up in definition, but that's largely down to the content rather than the set itself.

The TCL DP468 does use a processing technique called HDR Pro, to mimic some of the enhanced imaging effects you'd find in mid-range HDR TVs, but you'll be disappointed if you come looking for the real thing.

A lot of the same picture issues remain, though we found that the set came into its own when showing brighter, pulsing colors, even if it struggled to sharply distinguish between similar shades.

When watching Black Mirror's USS Callister episode (season 4), the TCL DP648 fared much better with the cartoonish color palette of the scenes set on the eponymous spaceship, than with the moody grayscale tones of urban life back on Earth.

Tcl Tv Reviews Consumer Reports

It's certainly far more suited to casual watching over committed 4K gaming, especially given the recurring motion issues.

There are dedicated viewing modes to optimize the picture processing for different types of content. The 'Movies' mode will tends to minimize the amount of picture processing so as not to meddle too much with the intended visuals of a film or TV show. The images might not 'pop' as much, but the colors and contrast ratio tend to be a bit more consistent.

It is thankfully simple to pop into Picture Settings from the remote and switch any of these features on and off, and this will often come down to personal preference.

Other modes like Standard, Dynamic, and Sports will try to affect the amount of motion blur, color contrast, and the like, depending on the programme or broadcast being displayed – though none of them drastically change the picture on offer.

4K/UHD TL;DR: 4K content is better suited to a screen of this size, and it's still a decently vivid experience even if it struggles with darker colors.

Sound

But enough of the eyes. What of the ears? The TCL DP648 comes with two downward-firing 8W speakers packed into the back of the television.

While the audio detail isn't exactly forthcoming, and doesn't have the benefit of forward-facing drivers or separate tweeters and woofers to broaden the soundstage, there's also little to complain about.

It comes bundled with standard Dolby Audio, meaning you're getting essentially the same basic audio offering of most TVs at this price range: nothing special, but you shouldn't be craning to make out dialogue either.

Sound TL;DR: Little to report on the DP648's basic but sufficient Dolby Audio speakers.

Other panels to consider

Those wanting more of an audio boost may want to wait for TCL's other UK-bound 4K television, the DC748. It looks to pack in much the same internals as the TV reviewed here – albeit only in the 55 and 65-inch sizes – alongside a dedicated JBL soundbar built into the base of the television.

At the sub-£500 price range, you might get a more consistent picture with Philips PUS6753/12 – a great-value 4K television that comes with the company's patented Ambilight tech. At an even cheaper level, the Philips PUS6262/05 offers a capable flatscreen for only £277.

If you head over to our best cheap TV deals page, you'll also find a number of competitively priced 4K TVs for only a few hundred pounds apiece. We also have a dedicated round-up of the best TVs under £500.

Final verdict

The TCL DP648 Smart TV offers 4K resolution on a budget, and it does what it says on the tin. It's a perfectly functional and easy-to-use smart TV, and with the basic upscaling and 4K capability to justify not being even cheaper.

If what you're after is a decently-sized screen at a low price, and aren't as fussed about some of the finer visual performance issues, this could well be your next set. But there are consistent motion blur and coloring problems, and the low build quality makes it a set that isn't that nice to look at when it's off, either.

Tcl Smart Tv Specs

For a sub-£500 television (i.e. the 43-inch and 50-inch models), those niggling issues are probably less important than the price tag; there are better options for the price though, and for a larger budget we'd recommend looking elsewhere.

Tcl Smart Tv Manual

Overall, the TCL DP648 doesn't quite match the promise of the TCL 6-Series, which offered truly capable picture performance at a bargain price, and we're disappointed not to currently be giving as warm a welcome to the budget TV brand here in the UK.

Edit: We previously referred to the DP648 having a 'tilted screen', though this turned out to be a manufacturing issue with our review model. The design section of this review has been amended accordingly.

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