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Midrange TVs have been getting so good over the last few years that it’s getting hard to justify spending two to three times the price for an OLED TV. That has been TCL’s goal, since their business model is essentially to kill off OLED TVs by mastering the QLED tech at a relatively low price. TCL’s QM7 is the best and latest example of that, which I got to review and put to the test . The 55-inch model is just $479.99 (it was $799.99 during its release), an amazing value for its current price. The 65- and 75-inch are also much cheaper than their launch pricees, according to price-tracking tools .
$479.99
at Amazon
$479.99
at Amazon
$686.64
at Amazon
$686.64
at Amazon
$897.99
at Amazon
$897.99
at Amazon
When it comes to midrange TVs right now, QLED technology is the best before crossing over to the much more expensive OLED side. QLED might never reach the picture quality that OLEDs can get to, but for most people, it can get pretty close and be much cheaper. Right now, the Hisense U7N and TCL’s QM7 are the best QLED TVs you can buy right now, and you can’t really go wrong with either.
The keyword most QLED shoppers are looking for is “dimming zones”—the more you have, the better deep blacks will look next to bright highlights. The QM7 has up to 1,240 local dimming zones, which is much more than Hisense U7N’s 384 local dimming zones. It can also get very bright, with up to 2,400 nits at peak brightness. Of course, you get 4K resolution and HDR support (HDR ULTRA with Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG). As a gamer, I enjoyed the 120Hz refresh rate and 6 millisecond input lag with Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, making my Halo matches go smoothly.
The Google TV OS is icing on the cake, since I love casting to the TV seamlessly from my phone. The QM7 has been my favorite non-OLED TV I’ve ever tried, and for its current price, it’s the best non-OLED TV you can get.
