TCL QM7 Class 65-inch TV (65QM751G)

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TCL’s QM8 Class QM851G ($1,999.99 for 65 inches) is the brightest TV we tested, but you don’t need record-breaking light output for a great picture. The Q Series QM751G ($1,499.99 for 65 inches) is still brighter than most other TVs on the market. Additionally, TCL TVs can often be found for much less than MSRP, and we regularly see the 65-inch QM751G marked down to around $1,000, meeting our budget TV threshold and undercutting the excellent Hisense U8N (mentioned for $1,499.99, although regularly available for $1,149.99). ). If you can get your hands on it at that price, the QM751G is an excellent choice, although the Hisense U8N is much brighter, so it remains our Editors’ Choice winner for LED TVs.

Design: familiar and elegant

The QM751G looks almost identical to its more expensive Q-series sibling, the QM851G. The screen has no bezel on the top and sides, just a brushed metal band running around the edges. The bottom edge has a narrow black strip with an even thinner, translucent lip underneath, with a TCL logo in the middle. Below the logo is a small rectangular LCD display with bump holding indicator, the far-field microphone array, a power/input button and a microphone switch. All available screen sizes except 98 inches sit on a square black plastic base that supports the TV from the center; the largest screen size stands on two flat feet on the sides.

Most ports are located on the right side of the back of the TV. Here you’ll find four HDMI ports (one 120 Hz, one 144 Hz, one eARC), two USB ports, a 3.5mm composite video input, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an Ethernet port and an antenna/cable connector. The power cable connector plugs into the left side of the back of the display.

The remote is a sleek black plastic wand with a large navigation panel on the top and buttons for power, input, settings and microphone above it, along with a pinhole microphone. Volume and channel buttons are located in the center of the remote, with dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Netflix, Pluto TV, TCL TV, and YouTube below.

Smart features: Google TV

Like most TCL TVs, the QM751G uses the Google TV smart TV platform. It’s feature-packed and supports all major streaming apps, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Sling, Twitch, and YouTube. It also has Google Cast support for streaming from Android devices and Chrome tabs, along with Apple AirPlay for streaming from iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Google Assistant is integrated into Google TV and you can summon it with your voice via the QM751G’s far-field microphone array. Say “Hey, Google,” followed by your command, and the voice assistant will respond. The Google Assistant can search for content, control both your TV and any compatible smart home devices on your network, and provide general information.

Image quality: really bright, but not the brightest

The TCL Q Series QM751G is a 4K QLED TV with mini-LED backlight and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and hybrid log gamma (HLG). It has an ATSC 1.0 tuner for OTA broadcasts, but no ATSC 3.0 tuner. ATSC 3.0 is still quite rare, but the Hisense U8N has it.

We test TVs with a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator and the Calman software from Portrait Displays. The QM751G can get quite bright, but it doesn’t break records like the QM851G or the Hisense U8N. Out of the box in Cinema mode with an SDR signal, the QM751G shows a peak brightness of 571 nits at a full screen white field and 600 nits at an 18% white field. With an HDR signal, peak brightness increases only slightly at full screen to 634 nits, jumping to a fantastic 1,817 nits when only 18% of the screen is illuminated.

Thanks to the mini-LED backlight system and local dimming, the QM751G has excellent black levels, around 0.004cd/m^2 with an HDR signal. That is extremely dark for an LED TV; Such low light levels can generally be attributed to the slightest bit of ambient light.

The graphs above show the color levels of the QM751G in Cinema mode with an SDR signal compared to Rec.709 broadcast standards and with an HDR signal compared to DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. Like the QM851G, the QM751G gets a bit warm, with the white leaning slightly yellow-green and magenta leaning toward red. On both models, adjusting the color temperature from Warm -5 (the default for Cinema mode) to Warm -2 is an easy way to improve color accuracy without delving deep into the calibration settings. With that setting, the colors are much more balanced, covering most of the DCI-P3 color space without significant tinting.

Although somewhat warm, the color balance of the standard movie mode complements BBC’s “Lion” episode Dynasties. The green and yellow of the grass and the blue of the sky are well reproduced and look natural. The picture is clear, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of the QM851G. In shots silhouetted against a sunset and a stormy sky, the outlines of a lion and black suits emerge in the party scenes The Great Gatsby look quite dark while still showing their cuts and textures. The white of shirts, balloons and lights look quite bright in the same shots, showing off the TV’s strong contrast. Skin tones look natural and flashes of orange and blue pop beautifully.

Demonstration footage on the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD benchmark disc looks quite good overall, with sunny and colorful nature shots looking bright and vibrant. Bright objects against a black background are vibrant and the light bloom appears subtle and minimal. The beginning of a time-lapse scene from early morning to day starts off quite dark, but brightens rather abruptly instead of transitioning smoothly from dark to bright. This is probably because the TV has fewer lighting zones and possibly fewer brightness steps for those zones than the QM851G, but it’s a fairly specific and minor issue. Snowy nature photos show plenty of detail, such as falling snowflakes and clouds against a white sky, although the image here isn’t exactly stunning, as the brightness drops quite a bit as the entire screen tries to light up as much as possible.

Gaming features: 144Hz VRR with FreeSync Premium Pro

With a 120Hz panel that supports variable refresh rate (VRR) up to 144Hz and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, the QM751G should be just as attractive to gamers as its more expensive sibling.

The game mode isn’t as responsive as the QM851G’s, but the difference is fairly nominal at less than a millisecond; Using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix, we measured an input lag of 7 milliseconds compared to the premium model’s 6.4 ms. That’s below the 10ms threshold we consider good for gaming, but it’s still not as fast as the Hisense U6N (3.6ms).

Verdict: An excellent value

TCL’s Q Class QM751G line is almost as impressive as its QM851G sibling, while costing significantly less. Although it’s only about half as bright as the QM851G, the QM751G still outperforms most other TVs. It’s packed with features, with excellent picture quality and gamer-pleasing performance. The sticker price is high: $1,500 for 65 inches, but we’ve often seen the QM751G for slightly less than the Hisense U8N, which remains our Editors’ Choice for its superior light output. That said, the two TVs are very similar in almost all aspects, and are both very attractive, so if the price of the QM751G seems right to you, it’s a worthy choice.