Customer Ratings & Reviews

If you're shopping for an 85-inch screen on a budget, the TCL S4CF Series definitely gives you massive size for the money, but you need to know exactly what you're getting into before putting it on your wall. The Good Stuff Huge Immersion: You cannot beat the sheer scale of an 85-inch display in a living room. For casual daytime TV, live sports, and brightly lit games, the screen size completely transforms the space. Bullet Punchy Daytime Color & Brightness: In a room with ambient light, the panel gets plenty bright and colors look vivid and sharp. Built-in Fire TV: The smart interface is smooth and straightforward. Navigation is snappy, streaming apps load quickly, and Alexa voice search makes finding shows effortless. The Major Trade-off: Terrible Blacks & Visible Light Bleed Once the lights go down, the budget shortcuts on this panel become impossible to ignore: Severe Backlight Bleed & Clouding: In dark scenes or during letterboxed movies, the screen shows heavy, patchy light bleed across the corners and edges. Instead of a uniform black backdrop, dark sequences turn into a hazy, cloudy blue-gray mess. No Local Dimming: Because this uses standard direct backlighting without dimming zones, the backlight has to stay powered on across the entire 85-inch display at all times. It simply cannot produce true blacks. Don't Watch in the Dark: Moody films, horror movies, or dark sci-fi titles look washed out. Subtle shadow details get completely swallowed by the backlight glow. Viewing Angles Fall Off Fast: Mounting an 85-inch panel high or watching from off-center exaggerates the light bloom and washes out contrast even more. The Verdic: What Works: Massive screen size, vibrant daylight colors, and a hassle-free Fire TV interface. The Dealbreaker: Horrid black levels, severe backlight bleed, and distracting clouding in dim or dark rooms. Bottom Line: If this TV is going into a bright family room for sports, cartoons, and daytime casual viewing, it gets the job done for a budget 85". But if you plan to dim the lights for movie night, do not buy this—spend the extra cash on a Mini-LED TV with real local dimming instead.

This is the first television set I have had from the TCL brand and I am impressed so far. I would have to say that the initial set up was surprisingly easy; in these days of everything being "smart" and internet-connected, the majority of smart TV's I have had to set up for the past several years were for the most part, a bit cumbersome to set up. Disclaimer--since the instructions pointed out that I had the choice to use either the Fire/Amazon streaming interface imbedded into the operating system that came preloaded on the TV, or a different streaming platform (or even a TV antenna), I chose to use a different streaming stick brand that my family was familiar with and have been using for the past several years already. So after unpacking and assembling the TV on its stand I essentially only had to complete two steps--plug in the TV, plug in the streaming stick, and we were instantly watching our favorite shows pretty much almost immediately. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeeezy! There are a good number of HDMI inputs--four to be exact, perfect for our needs as we are using them as inputs for our streaming stick and three different gaming consoles. Gaming on this TV is excellent as the picture quality and graphics are crisp and clear, with vibrant colors that are not washed out or over saturated. We watched various football games all weekend and again, the picture quality was very good. We also watched several shows and movies on the streaming services we subscribe to (Prime Video, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Paramount, Apple, Crunchyroll, YouTube) and we were very pleased with the picture quality displayed on the nice big 85" screen. The sound quality is solid, although you may want to use a sound bar for true cinematic level audio. As mentioned, the Fire TV streaming platform is already included with the TV so if you are in the Amazon ecosystem you may want to go that route; Amazon Alexa is also built into the TV system as a voice assistant. We are long-time Amazon Prime members and have many Amazon branded tech/electronic/household products throughout our house; we are just too used to a different streaming platform over the Fire TV so I am very glad that this TCL smart TV gives us the freedom to choose. The only slight negative that I need to point out is that the regular full-price of this TV set is quite on par with others--others that have much higher specs, though! However, it has been on sale for a substantially lower price for a long time, but at this lower price it is well worth it.

I'm not the guy who spends a weekend tweaking picture modes. I just want a big TV that looks good, sounds decent, and doesn't turn movie night into a tech project. The TCL 85 inch S4CF checked all of those boxes for our family room, and it did it with a lot less fuss than I expected. First things first. The box is enormous. I knew 85 inches was big, but seeing that box at the front door was something else. Plan on a second set of hands and some open floor space to unpack it. Once it was out of the box though, setup was easy. The on screen steps were simple to follow, and I had it connected and signed in to my accounts pretty quickly. Most of the apps we use were already preloaded, which was a nice touch. They did need some updating the first time I opened them, so give yourself a little time before your first movie night. Nothing hard, just a few minutes of waiting. In day to day use, this TV has been a pleasure. The picture is plenty bright and it looks sharp at 4K. What I appreciated most is that I didn't have to play with the settings much at all. It looked good right out of the box, and I was watching instead of fiddling within a few minutes. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG, so whatever we're streaming tends to look the way it's supposed to without me having to think about it. The viewing angle is good too, which matters more than I realized on a screen this size. When people are spread out around the room, nobody gets stuck with a washed out picture. Whether you're sitting dead center or off to the side, it still looks clear and colorful. That makes it a good fit for a family room where everyone has their own favorite spot. The remote is easy to use. It's simple, the buttons make sense, and it doesn't take a manual to figure out. Fire TV keeps all of the apps in one place, so jumping from one show to another is quick, and Alexa voice control is built in if you'd rather talk than type. Everyone in the house picked it up right away, which is the real test. I was also pleasantly surprised by the sound. Built in TV speakers usually leave me wishing I had a soundbar, but the audio here is good. Dialogue is easy to follow, and it fills the room better than I expected for everyday watching. If you're a serious home theater person you'll probably still add your own speakers, but for regular TV, sports and movies it holds its own. As for what could be better, it's mostly small stuff. The giant box is a hassle to move and break down, so figure out where the TV is going before it shows up. The app updates during setup are a minor annoyance, not a dealbreaker. Neither one has anything to do with how the TV performs once it's up and running, and that's what really counts. Overall, I'd recommend the TCL 85 inch S4CF to anyone who wants a really big screen without a complicated setup. It's bright, sharp, sounds good, and looks great from just about anywhere in the room. If you're a regular household that just wants to sit down and watch something good without digging through menus, this TV makes that easy. It has quickly become the centerpiece of our family room, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

The TCL S4CF 85” 4K TV is a huge TV. My largest physical TV is 65”, but I have had Projectors for many years with larger sized screens. I mounted this on my wall with a fixed TV mount. It was easier to mount than I thought it would be. It actually wasn’t that heavy for 2 of us to mount. This being a Fire TV, I do like the operating system, but unfortunately it is a little slow. It took a little time to set up and get all the apps updated. I loaded all my favorite apps and set the TV up to my liking and signed into my favorite apps. Once I got it set up, it is fairly easy to navigate. One of the first things I noticed was that you really need to have a solid high quality signal. I watch TV using my Tablo and it looks great on my other TV. Unfortunately, it does not look very good on this TV. I don’t know what the difference is, but it just does not look very good on this TV. I tried other sources/apps to see how they looked. Using Netflix or Paramount + the TV looked very good. So the quality of the signal really does really make a big difference. If you keep in mind that this is more of an entry level 85” TV and don’t expect it to look or operate like a high end unit, it is ok. This is an average TV. The remote is a little slow and the picture quality is ok when you have a solid high quality signal. If you have a weak low quality signal, it probably won’t look that great.