I saw TCL’s stunning next mini LED flagship TV and it’s a total knockout
A few months ago, TCL announced details of its next flagship mini LED TV. I just got to see it in action for the first time at the IFA 2024 show, and it’s a beauty.
It comes in both 85-inch and 98-inch sizes, and both were on display. Even without worrying about the price (which I’ll probably find steep), it’s clear that I’m not going to be getting one of these behemoth TVs in my modest living room, but it does make me excited to see the technology inside it make its way into TCL’s regular TV lineup… if not a reminder of just how good the company’s current TVs are.
TCL claims the X11H is capable of 6,500 nits of brightness. Note that around 3,000 nits is the maximum you’ll get from the more standard-priced Mini LED TVs featured in our guide to the best TVs — and that still applies to the more expensive ones.
Extremely high brightness isn’t really an advantage if all the light leaks from the bright areas into the dark areas. That’s why the X11H has over 10,000 dimming zones on the 85-inch model and over 14,000 on the 98-inch model.
It’s quite mesmerizing to see this combination of brightness and light control in action. Colors are so intense without tipping over the edge of oversaturation, and the dark areas of the screen were pitch black without any noticeable bleeding of the light areas.
Granted, a trade show floor isn’t the best place to get into the nitty gritty of lighting control, so I’d prefer to have the TV in our dark test room. Still, I was impressed with the level of contrast I saw there, as TCL’s demo images weren’t afraid to surround small, noticeable areas with darkness.
Still, I kind of expected the contrast level to be good, so the colors were the element that really stood out. The thing about ultra-bright TVs is not that they don’t necessarily make HDR movies better. In fact, with these very bright TVs we always recommend using the Movie or Filmmaker mode which usually lowers the brightness, as this improves accuracy.
But big brightness and big colours are fantastic for recreating the real world, which is a very bright place. It’s great to watch sports or nature documentaries filmed in ultra-detailed 4K on a screen with brightness that makes them look closer to real life – the advantage of brightness is its flexibility, rather than everything having to be bright by default.
I’ve said before that I picked up something, though, and that was my comparison with the best TCL TV for regular people in Europe this year: the TCL C855. I got to see the X11H and C855 side-by-side at 85 inches, and while that comparison showed off what the X11H’s additional tech is capable of, what I learned more starkly was just how good the C855 is – no surprise there if you’ve read our glowing TCL C855 review.
(Since this is a European trade show, the US-focused TCL QM851G could not be compared.)
The 85-inch C855’s handling of local dimming didn’t seem to be significantly different from the X11H, with the C855 still boasting over 2,000 dimming zones.
I could see a much more noticeable jump in color intensity on the X11H over the C855, largely due to the extra brightness, but even then it served as a reminder that the C855 still looked fantastic and will likely cost a fraction of the X11H’s price – especially as the C855 will drop in price over time and the X11H won’t arrive until later. Plus… well, the C855 comes in more realistic sizes for most people.
As with most advanced AV technology, there are certainly diminishing returns the more you spend, but the X11H is a very good example of what you get when you push TV technology to its limits.
We awarded the TCL X11H one of our Best of IFA 2024 awards, thanks to this beautiful display of color and contrast. Check out our other favorite tech from the show.
