TCL 6-Series R655 Review

The 6-Series is the set that forced everyone else to explain their prices. TCL pairs a mini LED backlight with a few hundred dimming zones and gets peak brightness well past a thousand nits, so HDR highlights behave like highlights rather than bright gray patches, and quantum dots carry wide color without the washed out look cheap LCDs settle for. The gaming provision is the surprise: two full bandwidth inputs, 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh up to 144Hz on a PC and a low latency mode that engages without a menu dive.

A thousand dollars for a 65 inch with that list was not a normal thing in 2022. The limits are the ones mini LED always carries at this price. Blooming shows around bright objects on dark backgrounds, black levels lift the moment you sit off center, and the Roku interface, fast and simple as it is, gives a calibrator far less to work with than Google TV or Samsung's own software. The stand is flimsy and the sound is forgettable. None of that touches the point. For a bright room, a console and a budget, this is still one of the smartest television purchases of the decade.