TCL 55C815K 55-inch QLED Television, 4K Ultra HD, Smart Android TV with Freeview Play, Motion Clarity PRO, HDR 10+, Dolby Vision, Hands-Free Voice Control, Works with Google Assistant & Alexa, Metal

So here am I, a 57 year old but tech savvie codger, setting up home again for the umpteenth time and looking for a decent sized, good quality TV. Having visited several TV shops last year I knew I wanted a QLED TV. So I searched Amazon and came across this. I'd never heard of TCL before and I confess I didn't even know what an android TV is but after reading the wowser reviews I took a punt on this and with some trepidation bought it for £556.00. I think it was an Amazon return. Never had a bad one yet. It is simply stunning as a TV in it's own right but if you're an android using, cord-cutter who wants to de-clutter your A/V rack it really is your wet dream come true and it will save tons of money. The estimated delivery was a week. It was delivered in two days flat. Not all plain sailing though. Van man sack trucked it up to my door on its side and cleared off. When I righted it and went to lift it, everything started to fall out of the bottom of the huge cardboard box. When I got it indoors and inspected the box it was obvious that the previous owner had cut the flaps off the bottom of the box to open it, then had shipped it back out without taping up the bottom of the box at all. Worrying indeed. More worrying still I slid my hand into the gaping bottom of the box and pulled out a packet containing 3 legs. Then I fully unpacked the whole lot and checked the contents. Miraculously everything was still there. Note the TV sits on a tripod of legs not the usual 4. The legs are more narrowly spread in the left to right axis than most TV legs, approx 35", meaning you can use a narrower cabinet unit. However, also note that the tripod is deeper, front to back, than most TV legs at approx 14". So I got busy setting it all up without referring to the instructions at all, (it's a man thing). Turn on, follow on screen set up, connect to android hotspot. OMG nothing could be simpler. I had to scan the channels twice. First time it missed the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation 1 & 2. I think this is more to do with my ageing aerial, which is possibly pre-digital. First impressions: Not great. The sound was initially really disappointing. It sounded boxy with bass bloom, which I hate. Checking the settings I found it to be set up on a dynamic DSP setting. I don't care for DSP much full stop but I found a clear voice setting which straightaway calmed the bass bloom. It still sounded a bit boxy but over the course of 3 or 4 hours this completely disappeared and the sound now, i.e. the next day, is stunningly clear and natural. The throw on the ATMOS is awesome. At a guess I'd say there's some electrolytic capacitors in there somewhere, which need to be run hot for a while for the electrolyte to settle, like in loudspeakers generally. The picture on the internal freeview tuner was also a bit disappointing at first, on a par with a pretty stock HD TV. Then I realised this was more to do with watching standard, i.e low, definition source material pumped out by the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation. Onto the hd freeview channels. Now we were mining gold. Stunning definition and vibrant, yet natural colours. It's well lit with good whites and blacks no smearing, ghosting or any other obvious artefacts or flaws. Then onto catchup services and Firestick for some real hi def content. OMG is this the same TV? Absolutely sensational, utterly absorbing. I was watching people talking in a garden and for a moment it was like I was in my own garden watching the neighbours chatting. By this morning, 24 hours later, everything is simply stunning visually and aurally - even on crap def. The boring stuff: the onscreen menus are clear, uncluttered, well-organized, restrained and intuitive. Likewise the (full) remote, which is ergonomically designed and highly responsive. You get two remotes, a full one and the dinky Alexa activating one. The TV comes with various apps pre-installed; Netflix, Prime, Deezer, Spotify, Youtube, GooglePlay, GoogleMusic, GoogleFilm, Chromecast. Adding whatever apps you want is a breeze including, Plex, Emby, Kodi etc. Everthing you want or need is either already pre-installed or easily downloaded and installed and my hotspot hasn't dropped a connection yet. Amazing. Now, up until a week ago I had a landline and broadband contract costing me approx £46 per month. I'd always felt I needed superfast fibre to support my PC at the same time as my one year old Samsung HDTV, Freeview box and Firestick. I ditched that and have been running this TV, Firestick and PC off a data sim costing just £16.00 per month. Truth is I no longer need the Firestick. This TV is fully loaded and self-contained. So basically this TV will pay for itself in under 2 years. Absolutely remarkable. I simply cannot find a weakness for my needs. Maybe someone will miss having the ability to record programmes. That's what catchup services are for but if you insist, just connect your old freeview recorder. In sum, the design conception, execution, build quality and price of this TV is utterly remarkable. Who knew even 2 years ago that TV's could get this good. Fantastic. P.S. did I mention it's good?

I’m not an AV expert, so am not even going to pretend to talk knowledgeably about the technical performance. Picture quality is pretty amazing - we have it mounted in a south facing, brightly-lit kitchen diner, and have had not issues with glare. That said, we are coming from a 14 year old plasma, so our bar may be lower than others coming from newer LCDs. Sound is really good, but we’ve had a few instances where the output has gone a bit mental and started coughing out the sound like an old broken speaker. A restart of the TV seems to fix that. While we are talking startup, it’s a little slow for my liking (takes about 30 seconds). Comes with all the ports I need - have Ethernet cable going in via an Eero receiver that also feeds the cable box. Has a few HDMI ports although only use 2 of them. I don’t use the Google assistant as it’s annoying and cumbersome. Apps are good but the whole android system does occasionally freeze, so things like Netflix or Amazon video may need a restart. As the TV is networked, I can cast some things from my phone direct to the TV; great for Spotify, YouTube, and some Facebook videos also. Comes with 2 remotes (a full sized and simplified mini one). Overall, and in my ‘novice’ opinion, this TV is the nuts!

I have a pretty fine TV in the living room that cost twice as much as this one but I wanted another for the bedroom and didn't expect this would be too bad given the features. Well it is absolutely fantastic. The picture can be boosted up to blindingly good. No problems at all watching TV in a very bright room. The off angles which our main TV really suffers with just isn't an issue on this TV. There's no sweet spot. You can sit anywhere around the TV and get the same punch. And punch is a word I'd use here as when you really let the brightness controls rip, the TV makes white a kind of blazing neon that makes normal white look grey. Great for movies but for just casual TV I like to drop it down to the movie setting and its quite a nice refined picture. The sound. It sounds as good as my main speakers I've refused to replace for years because I love the sound so much. You can get a real whack of bass and ear scratching treble or much more balanced but the point is that if say someone is hard of hearing. They can tune the TV to the area of the dynamic range that they need. For my mother she doesn't hear the highs so you can pump those and it sounds amazing to her suddenly. And as we wall mounted this TV, having the soundbar built in is just a brilliant bonus because there was nowhere to really put one. Love having it built in and the sub woofer is on the back of the TV so that's built in too, nice. I played some games on the TV through streaming and direct connection over HDMI. I didn't feel the need to switch it to game mode but i did anyway and either way was super responsive for me. Well the streaming wasn't quite as smooth as I get when say trying to stream stadia on my PC but perhaps steamlink needs time to get to know your network. Anyway HDMI gaming was glorious. The speed of the OS is not up there with the Nvidia Shield that I just love to bits but its fast enough. Some waiting around for apps to load but they are pretty responsive with only minor niggles like pressing pause not registering sometimes so you have to press it again. Our last bedroom TV was slower than this one and I coped with that fine. This is probably up there with the best TV's for controls. I do have one issue with amazon prime video/audio going out of sync. Tried the obvious fixes but so far its an unresolved issue. NEtflix, disney, youtube etc no problems. AndroidTV works great, you get two remote controls. I know the little one is the smart one but I like how the big one feels in my hand so use that but all the cool stuff like google assistant works just fine and I was able to cast to the TV from my PC no problem with a 10 secondish lag to establish connections. Not bad. What really matters here is that picture quality. Are the blacks deep enough? is the HDR popping or flopping? I'll sum up by saying I think this is the best TV you can buy for the money and really you need to step up to the higher end QLED's from Samsung or go OLED to beat this. The blacks really are pretty darn black. I tested some dark movies in pitch black room and oh boy was it ever just super. If you said this was OLED I would believe you but I've only seen only in passing in stores so an owner of OLED might laugh at that. Basically this is an amazing TV for the money. Update. I resolved the audio sync issue. You have to change the sound type in settings and this enables a audio sync slider that doesn't appear at all until you do this. With that you can re-sync the sound. I did that on Youtube with a video designed exactly to help you do this. Easy to find just search on calibrate sound sync.

I had a 50 inch 4k Samsung TV on the wall for a while which is now in my bedroom. This TV trumps that TV. The built in sub sounds fantastic, once the picture is calibrated it is amazing. The colours really pop from the screen and at 65inch it feels huge and immersive in the room! Sometimes I have experienced some lag with the interface but then other times it's nice quick and smooth. May be down to connection? I dunno but not a major issue. Remotes are lovely and the build quality feels great. I don't really use the smart one as the main one feels better in my hand and easier to use/ navigate. I've always been a little guilty of being a bit of a brand snob but after doing my due diligence on TCL, I'm not ashamed and I am proud to show this beast off! Easy to fit wallbracket and place on the wall, connect to my android phone and internet etc. Gaming is brilliant too but not sure if or how to check if it goes above 60fps but it all looks stunning so I'm not sweating it! I'd advise watching some YouTube tutorials on how to set it up for maximum performance but once this is done I tend to flick between dynamic and normal picture settings, just depends on preference really. Sound wise I have found the gaming option to be the best for me but again this is subjective. I rarely have this over 30 odd as it's too loud too powerful! Brilliant TV and a solid 9 out of 10 for me!

This TV has been rubbish losses it’s connection all time, have to keep turning it off and on at wall or no sound , had it 5 years and only worked well for one year only used in dining room when having our meals . However saving grace didn’t pay thousands for it only hundreds

I’m going to give this product a fair review as I took a chance on this TV based on good reviews. The telly turned up when Amazon said it would. I loved the look of the TV and the built in sound bar gave great sound. However something just wasn’t right I suffered from the TV screen blacking out but the sound was still there and some functions of the TV didn’t work. I contacted TCL for help but unfortunately they were of little help (this was in Covid times so can understand the TCL team would be reduced) I then contacted Amazon who were very helpful and arranged a pick up of the TV. I had to order another TV so at that point I had two TV’s and have spent roughly the same as if I was buying a top end TV. Amazon will refund my original purchase once they receive the faulty TV back. after unpacking the replacement TV I noticed the new TV was just packed better and had more information based flyers within the packaging I believe the original TV had been sent back as faulty and I had received the TV further down the line. The replacement TV is awesome and that’s why I’m reviewing this in a positive light. The TV is worth the money and gives a great picture and outstanding sound and also looks great on the wall. The thing to remember is when was the last time someone walked into your front room and said “that samsung or LG telly looks great” it’s more likely someone would say “that TV picture looks great” and never mention the brand or notice the brand. So if your a brand snob I’d say avoid this product but if your someone who wants an affordable TV with great performance I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Good TV but dosnt support BBC iPlayer also lagged on menus prime netflix and the menu lagg become unbarable so it got sent back for pc only it's perfect 4k 60hz others not great laggs on netflix

Requires a lot of fiddling with the settings to get the desired picture quality, but it's a very good panel. I have some light bleeding issues on grey screens. Colours and brightness is excellent. It's Android Google certified. The voice commands work great. You have access to the Google play store. You can even install APK's. It's Quad-Core but not the fastest. You can switch off the screen and just listen to audio. Soundbar is decent for watching terrestrial TV. Not that great for movies. Has a subwoofer 20W. Is Dolby Atmos compatible, also Dolby vision besides HDR. Lip sync issues with Amazon prime is an issue, not in all titles. You need to change audio to pcm and not pass through and then adjust the sync. No eARC in a 2020 TV!! That too in a TV which processes Atmos from streaming services, you cannot send lossless Atmos to your receiver. Only 3 HDMI inputs. I have had issues with ARC when connected to a Atmos soundbar, may be it was an issue with the soundbar. HDMI 2.0 has to be activated in Android settings. The additional Bluetooth remote is handy, has the Google Voice feature on the remote. Can be a bit slow to respond. Wi-fi speeds drop on VPN even if the apps are tunnelled. Too many preinstalled apps, cannot uninstall a lot. The Freeview tuner is single, hence no DVR facility.