I swapped my big-brand TV for TCL’s mini-LED marvel - I can’t get enough of its superb sound and vibrant vision

I upgraded my old 4K TV to the gorgeous, glowing TCL C8K - but there is one thing I miss Features (Image credit: Future) (Image credit: Panasonic) (Image credit: Future) (Image credit: Future) Josh Russell published Here's why you should swap your big brand TV for one from a challenger brand I'll admit it: when I used to think of premium televisions, I'd default to big brands like LG, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic. It's not that I wasn't aware of the many alternative brands out there but, in my mind, if you wanted premium pictures, those mainstream brands were the ones to go for. That's no longer the case. Increasingly, brands like TCL and Hisense have been taking the fight to the industry giants, often delivering sets that can rival them for color, clarity and brightness for less money. That piqued my curiosity, so when I saw my colleague and TV Hardware Staff Writer James Davidson had given TCL's 65-inch mini-LED screen 4.5 stars in his TCL C8K review , I decided I had to check it out. My last TV purchase was firmly from a mainstream brand. I bought the Panasonic HX800 back in 2020 - despite a list price of £899 (around $1,200 / AU$1,810) for the 50-inch version, it was reduced down to around £650 (around $870 / AU$1,310), making it a real steal. Conversely, when I recently picked up the 65-inch TCL C8K (or TCL QM8K as its known in the US), it had a list price of $2,499.99 / £1,599 / AU$2,495, making it much pricier in terms of outlay. However, I’d argue it’s crammed with upgrades that make it worth the extra spend, especially as similar quality would cost me significantly more. So how does it feel swapping from a mainstream TV set to a challenger brand? Pretty great, as it turns out. However, there are still one or two things I've noticed the TCL C8K vs Panasonic HX800: bright spark Naturally, as this was my first time owning a mini-LED TV, the first thing I noticed was that screen. Calling the TCL C8K ‘bright’ hardly does it justice - it’s incandescent . Out of the box, it can hit an HDR peak brightness of 4,500 nits. While that’s with its Boost peak brightness mode enabled, that is impressively bright for a mid-market TV, even beating the 2,086 nits of Samsung’s flagship mini-LED TV for 2025, the QN90F. Another factor I’d say gives it the edge over my older Panasonic HX800 is its contrast. Thanks to that mini-LED tech, it offers discrete dimming zones totaling 1,680, compared to the HX800’s edge-lit design, while also rocking both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. As a result, the range between dark and light honestly blew me away - while watching Blue Planet 2 , the bold contrast between a cuttlefish’s scintillating zebra stripes took my breath away. Yes, I might get an even bolder contrast from an OLED but possibly not this level of brightness, making the C8K...

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