Best Buy has the TCL 8 Series, the best* non-OLED TV, for half** off

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/05/2020 at 17:01 • Filed to: None

The TCL 8-Series is TCL’s top of the line 4k HDR Roku TV that comes in 65” and 75” sizes. It’s a QLED/miniLED, which I will explain, momentarily. They’re a Best Buy exclusive and normally priced at $2k for the 65” and $3k for the 75”. I was considering buying a TV to replace my ok but nothing special low-end 50” 1080p Vizio from 2014, but no way was I going to spend that much.

UPDATE Friday 8/7: I am now exchanging this TV again . In my original post I noted that the first example I received, the HDMI port circuit board was misaligned and I couldn’t plug anything into the ports. The second example’s HDMI ports were properly aligned, but it’s having an intermittent issue where when I turn it on, there’s no picture. It responds to pressing buttons on the remote, and makes sound, but no picture. This appears to be a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I do love the picture quality after some basic adjustments, so I decided to roll the dice one more time and see if the replacement to the replacement is fully functional. Best Buy is delivering yet another one on Monday. If it’s anything less than perfect I’m going to have to return it entirely and start over with something else. What exactly that might be, who knows?

UPDATE Tuesday 8/11: The 3rd (and hopefully final) example of the TV was delivered yesterday. I’ve set it up and so far it’s working correctly with no issues. When I arranged for the second return/exchange, I asked for some kind of credit towards a gift card, extended warranty, etc. T he customer service person said they could do some kind of gift card, but I needed to call them after the exchange was complete before they could tell me the amount of the gift card . Seriously. Today I called back to follow up on this. The fist person I talked to got most of the way through giving me this gift card, but accidentally hung up on me and never called me back. So I had to go through the call-in, wait for call-back dance again. They offered me a $50 gift card. I’m waiting for that to arrive in the mail. I’m considering using it on a Geek Squad protection plan. The TCL warranty is for 1 year, but Geek Squad protection is $ 130 for 2 years, $150 for 3 years or $230 for 5 years. I probably will go ahead and get the 3 years just to be on the safe side. While I’d rather not have to buy an extended warranty like this, at least $10 0 (net after GC) for 3 years is relatively cheap and I already got the TV for half off. With the reliability concerns introduced by my double return/exchange experience, it’s peace of mind. TV is still great though!

When this deal first hit, both the 65 ” and 75 ” versions of the TCL 8 were half off their usual prices of $2000 and $3000 respectively. T he !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! instead of the $1500 it had been at first . Given that the cheapest 75 ” OLED is over $4k, that’s still probably a solid price.

Anyway, what the hell is that jargon? QLED refers to an LCD screen with an LED backlight and quantum dots integrated into the pixels on the LCD panel. The quantum dots help with better brightness, contrast and color. MiniLED is talking about the backlight behind the LCD panel. It has way more local dimming zones than a typical LCD/LED TV backlight. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ’s a more detailed explanation, but basically local dimming tries to improve contrast & dynamic range, plus give blacker blacks, by only turning on the backlight in the bright areas of the picture. The more local dimming zones, the more closely the backlight can conform to the picture, which makes it look better. Here’s how the different types of local dimming work:

The TCL 6-Series, which is the step below the 8-Series, has the quantum dot LCD panel and 120 local dimming zones. The 8-Series backlight is made of 25,000 individual miniLEDs grouped into 1,000 zones. With that many dimming zones, it’s able to much more closely mimic the look of a much more expensive OLED screen. OLEDs don’t have backlights. Their pixels are self-lit so every pixel can be a different brightness. So far, the TCL 8-Series is the only TV with this backlight tech. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! it’s probably the best TV short of an OLED. I’m not an expert.

Anyway, the 65” 6-Series usually goes for $800 at Best Buy, and I was thinking about maaaybe getting one what with being cooped up at home due to covid, but the half off deal on the 8-Series hit the tech blogs last week and I was like ahhh fuck it I’m buying it. I briefly considered going for the 75” but after talking with my wife we decided on the 65”. The 75” would juuuust fit on our TV stand with a couple inches to spare on each side but it felt like it’d overwhelm the room. So we saved the 500 bucks (now 800 bucks) and went for the 65”.

Now, there was a bit of a hiccup in the process. At least around me here in the DC area, Best Buy delivers these TVs from their warehouse. The stores aren’t involved at all. They scheduled a delivery window of 1-6 pm last Thursday, and said they’d call me when they were 30 minutes out. I got no such call, only an email when they were 10 minutes out. I’m working from home full time but I had to reschedule a phone call I had with someone so I could let the delivery dudes bring the TV in my house.

I didn’t pay for extra setup because I’m capable of setting up a TV my damn self, and I got it out of the box, on the stand, and went to plug shit in, when I found that I couldn’t plug anything into any of the HDMI ports. Somehow the circuit board that the HDMI ports are on wasn’t properly mounted to the plastic surround, thus blocking them from accepting a plug. WTF!

The Best Buy dudes were of course long gone, so I had to do a return, which was its whole own nonsense. The local store is literally 6 blocks from me so I wanted to bring it there. But noooo, can’t do that for large items delivered from the warehouse by Best Buy drivers. Instead I had to box it up and they would take the busted one when they delivered the new one. The box was fucking huge, so the only place I had to put it was my 1-car garage, which meant no room for a car. We had to put both cars outside until the replacement was delivered on Tuesday at 1-6 pm. Boo hoo.

Except, that’s the window that the return person told me on the phone, but when I looked in my Best Buy account online after they updated the order, it instead said the delivery window was fucking 7 am to 1 pm today, Wednesday. I don’t wake up at no fucking 7 am working my ass at home during covid! I called Best Buy about this but there was nothing they could do to change the window. Fuck. I at least was able to tell them, the last time nobody called me, the only notification I got was an email when the truck was 10 minutes out from my house, and if y’all are going to deliver at 7 fucking am I need an actual call and give me more than 10 minutes notice. I fibbed a little and said “I work a shift later in the day,” but dammit, I was grouchy about this. The phone person said they’d “make sure” they call me 30 minutes out.

Last night I left my phone on my nightstand which I normally don’t do, and I asked my wife who wakes up before me to take it downstairs with her when she woke up. Around 7:45 they called and told my wife they were 15 minutes out. She woke me up, I went downstairs to take down the old TV, and let the (masked, thankfully) delivery dudes in. I insisted on them taking it out of the box to make sure the HDMI ports weren’t fucked like the first time. Thankfully, all was well.

So, I’ve got the thing set up, my basement is still in a bit of disarray, but the TV is damn awesome. Once I turned off the stupid motion smoothing, the blacks are black, the colors pop, gradients in images have none of the blockiness you sometimes see in cheaper non-HDR 1080p TVs, the Roku features work well, and all is right with the world.

I don’t have an OLED to compare it to of course, but the cheapest 65” OLED available at Best Buy at the moment is the LG BX for $2300. Maybe that $300 difference is worth it over the usual $2000 price for my TV, but hell, that $1300 difference is a big gap. The cheapest OLED equivalent to the 75” is the 77” LG B9 for $4200. Yeesh.

Oh, and here’s the difference in size from before and now. I had my 50” on a VESA-mount swivel base and my center speaker resting on the base but the 65” is too heavy for that swivel base so I moved the center channel into the TV stand. I had planned out for this possibility when buying the stand and center speaker. Future proofing!

A+ for the TV quality vs price, C- for the shopping experience. I know it’s not Best Buy’s fault my first example was a lemon but their return process was decidedly meh.

DISCUSSION (24)

ttyymmnn > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 17:05

I know very little about the details of these fancy TVs, but I bought a TCL last Christmas and we really like it.

Textured Soy Protein > ttyymmnn
08/05/2020 at 17:07

The much-shorter version is this is 85-90% of the performance of an OLED TV for 43% of the price (for the 65 ”).

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 17:13

Amusingly enough I saw the same promo and jumped on it. Wall mounted it myself. Not a smart thing to do but I freaking love it (coming from a 6 year old Samsung 55" plasma)

Kinja'd!!!

Determining if I wanted 65 or 75 or if the 75 was worth the extra $500 cost. I’d determined it wasn’t.

Kinja'd!!!

The TCL vesa mounts real low so the whole wall mount had to come down a few inches or the TV would be at the ceiling. And yes I recommend everyone add an LED light bias strip.

Textured Soy Protein > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/05/2020 at 17:17

You and I have markedly different home decor.

Sovande > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 17:50

I don’t know much about new TVs and I really didn’t want to learn. Like I would read reviews and not understand what they were even talking about and I could not bring myself to care enough to figure it all out. Luckily the sales guy knew what I needed so I ended up with a Sony X900F and I hope he ended up with a commission.

Sovande > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/05/2020 at 17:54

I had leds behind on my old TV and loved it. I need to do that with my newer TV. A ny suggestions? Do I need to do all four sides? Just the top and the sides? Does it matter which ones I buy?

The Snowman > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 18:09

I sold high end AV gear for most of the '00s and can tell you Sony had a pretty advanced version of this back light system over a decade ago in the xbr series. Of course nothing was this big back then so they had less zones but it made a huge difference and they sued any and everyone who tried to knock it off. I am glad the tech from super expensive stuff back then has decreased in price even on huge TV's now.

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > Sovande
08/05/2020 at 18:09

On my plasma I had these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LR3RAVU/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_inactive_ship_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1&th=1 and think I prefer the more neutral white (you’ll need to change the size)

Currently I have this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07PRSP3K3?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image and it has a bit more blue than I’d like but I know I didn’t want a warm white. I should have just bought the first ones again. 16ft is supposed to be enough to do all 4 edges but I lopped off the extra since I prefer having a sort of horizon line at the bottom - it would be weird seeing ground and having glow beneath it.

Also the weird shape of the TV some are facing back and some are facing out. I may adjust these so they’re all facing the wall so you dont notice them when walking by.

Kinja'd!!!

The Snowman > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/05/2020 at 18:11

You must not have OCD, I could never have a tv mounted without being centers above a fireplace lol that ambient lighting looks cool btw

Sovande > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/05/2020 at 18:12

Cool thanks! On my old plasma I just had three sides too. I hadn't even considered something like how the ground would look.

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > The Snowman
08/05/2020 at 18:18

Well now I can't unsee it

Dr_Watson > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 20:37

I beginning to think my Panasonic Viera 50" plasma will never die. Hopefully it lasts until OLEDs are reasonably priced. I’d like to skip the entire LCD generation of TVs.

Textured Soy Protein > Dr_Watson
08/05/2020 at 21:23

I haven’t really watched it much yet but the blacks and color gradients and such look really solid. Like definitely not even remotely like cheaper LCDs I’ve had in the past. At full price it’s not that much less than OLED but for this price, heck yeah.

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Textured Soy Protein
08/05/2020 at 21:30

I used part of our s timulus to buy a 65" Vizio M8 Quantum (2019) when they dropped to $599, and the picture performance vs our old J 62 00-series Samsung 1080P set (without local dimming) are like night and day. The PS4 set to HDR10 is a whole new experience, an the color and brightness and contrast with local dimming are massive... That pri ce on the TCL 8-series is pretty sweet ... but then again R tings.com rates the TCL 8 and Vizio M8 series closer than you might think, which the the TCL having better brightness and upscaling , and the Vizio actually beating the TCL on color gamut and response time, as well as input lag... A s my only 4K source (my internet is not fast enough to stream 4K reliably) is the PS4 (soon to be PS 5) those fast responses are worth something to me.

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Dr_Watson
08/05/2020 at 21:35

Ahhhh Plasma. I used to sell high end AV in the late 90's and early 2000's... I installed many a Pioneer plasma, complete with dedicated 15amp circuit ;) The last generation of Plasmas were damn fine looking sets... then again the current generation 4k qLED, local dim ming sets are * SO* good that the price differe nce to get to OLED requires either much more disposable income than I have, or very careful consideration about feature values... that’ s my two-cents.

Textured Soy Protein > JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t
08/05/2020 at 22:16

I don’t game at all. I use the built-in 4k Roku on the TV plus a Chromecast Ultra. And I have 300 Mbps internet with a really good router . Honestly the small differences between generally high end TVs don’t really interest me. This is the first TV I’ve bought that was anything above entry level and it smokes those past ones.

I did look up the local dimming on the M8 65 and it has 90 zones which is actually less than the 120 on the TCL 6. The blacks on the TCL 8 to my untrained (but actually pretty nitpicky from photo & video editing) eye are seriously impressive. My wife who is not really into TV nitpicking at all was watching it and there was a mostly black scene with little pops of light and the blacks looked indistinguishable from the bezel. I was like, “see how the blacks are really legit black like that” and she was just “ ohhh now I get why this thing is so good.”

marcva > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/05/2020 at 23:30

That looks a little high on the wall. Are you sitting back pretty far, or looking up?

thatsmr > Textured Soy Protein
08/06/2020 at 00:24

Kinja'd!!!

Ha. I love my furniture more than I love a tv. Limited to a 32"(and have to know exact measurements to fit) my $120 Target TCL does just fine :/

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Textured Soy Protein
08/06/2020 at 09:17

i just like the fact that the stand is a flat bar in the center instead of the chicken feet that most new tvs come with

cluelessk > Textured Soy Protein
08/06/2020 at 13:36

My girlfriend bought a a 50" 4 Series TCL. It’s a great tv for the price and fits our apartment well. Low input lag for gaming is real nice.

Textured Soy Protein > cluelessk
08/06/2020 at 14:13

I feel like cheaper TVs have gotten a lot better than the cheap 1080p SDR sets from 5+ years ago. I’ve also thought about upgrading our other TV to something like that. We live in a rented townhouse. The 65" is in the basement. The family room/lounge on the main floor has a built-in cabinet with only so much space for a TV. W e have a cheap older Toshiba 39" 1080p SDR in there. A 43" with small bezels would probably fit. It’d be nice to have 4k HDR in that room and there are plenty of options for $250-300. But even at that low price I’m hesitant to buy something that size to fit a rental house built-in when we already have a TV there that’s just decent enough.

gmctavish needs more space > Textured Soy Protein
08/06/2020 at 15:38

I was looking at TCLs as well, but they gave a good enough deal on a QLED Samsung that I couldn’t resist. It’s so damn nice to look at. Plus I could only fit a TCL 6 Series, 55" is the most I have space for. That looks like it was a really nice deal though

Textured Soy Protein > gmctavish needs more space
08/06/2020 at 16:13

Which Samsung did you get, and was it cheaper than the TCL 6?

gmctavish needs more space > Textured Soy Protein
08/06/2020 at 16:32

The Q8DT, and it absolutely wasn’t cheaper than the TCL 6 Series, but it was a lot cheaper than a Sony A8H, and looked 95% as good.