Customer Ratings & Reviews

I’ve owned the TCL 5 Series television for about three weeks now. I’ve had time to familiarize myself with all aspects of the television’s functionality. Here is a quick summary of my thoughts about this very nice TV: Pros • Nice, minimalist design • TV powers on quickly • You can view the results of your calibration tweeks on the screen as you are making them. There are multiple calibration options and it may take you some time to get the picture just the way you want it. I used the Internet to find a recommended calibration setting and it’s a perfect setting for my taste. • Clear, superb image • Roku operating system is fast and the availability of apps is robust, to include multiple options for cord cutting • The sound from the TV speakers is average to good and can get very loud if needed Cons • The remote control is pretty basic and there is no back-lighting • The IR sensor for the remote is located at the center of the bottom bezel and is somewhat blocked even by my smallish cable receiver box. A sound bar or center channel speaker with a higher profile would probably block this sensor. Just be aware of this so you can arrange your cable box, center channel speaker or sound bar accordingly. • The sound from the TV speakers can get very loud, but quickly loses fidelity as you increase the volume. Adding a sound bar or other AV receiver/amplifier and speakers options is a must • The contrast ratio is good, not great. You would probably need to go up to the 6 series or pay $200 more and up to get a better contrast ratio. For most people the contrast ratio on this TV will be just fine. Overall, the TCL 5 Series TV seems to be a great performer at a very nice price point. I will update my review later as needed.

I have been researching Samsung and Vizio TVs for a while and when Black Friday sales came up I was ready. The salesman at Costco told me about the TCL and how there’re the company that makes parts for some of the big brands. Now here’s the catch If you go on line and start reading reviews you will end up changing your mind over and over again about better specs then end up with a $5,000.oo Tv ... WHY? I found this TV at Best Buy for less than Costco and less than the Best Buy add on line. I took it home and mounted it on the wall. The setup was flawless The ROKU makes streaming real easy The colors pop! The speakers for now in Dolby sound great (I’ll get a sound bar later) For less than $400.00 I am totally blown away by this purchase. The folks at Best Buy were very helpful. Don’t buy a tv based on what you see hanging in a store if not you will be out of pocket thousands of dollars. Go ahead and get this TCL then try it out Spend the money on making sure you have quality cables and 4K equipment

I was coming from a 50" TCL TV from 2016. I quickly noticed the nicer picture and color quality of the S515, but during dark scenes, you can really notice light bleeding in the bottom right and left corner of the screen which is annoying. Also, I've noticed that the remote will advance through menu items a little too fast sometimes...almost as if if the arrow buttons are sticking. Although I'm impressed with the some of aspects of the picture and color quality, I'm not sure if these annoyances are worth keeping compared to my previous TCL.

OK,I researched liked crazy,I looked at them all in this price range.($400 +/= ) almost went with the Toshiba 4k,but something told me to do more research on theTCL.This brand has been around longer than I thought,and had a great company profile.Up and coming here in the States,currently #3 in TV sales. So with all that,i decided to go TCL. My first impression is,very nice with Roku.Real easy to maneuver thru set up. I like the home screen that shows you whats hooked up and whats playing,pretty clever.Out of the box the picture was alittle bright for my eyes,so I grabbed my calibration disc and checked it out,only had to adjust a couple of things,shut off all the factory enhancements,and put the sharpness all the way down to zero.It lets you pick movie,bright,brighter,brightest,I chose the movie setting with the pic on warm and normal.I'll tweak it somemore later,as for the Roku I'll set that up soon,seems real easy,everything is spelled out for ya.I gave it 4 stars because i'm not finished with it yet.I like the picture,did'nt expect OLEG quality ( crazy to spend thousands!! just me. )At $400 bucks this TCL 55 inch is a real treat,I went with the 5 series,gives ya alittle bit more in tone Speakers were ok not crazy KLIPSCH like,wont use them however,i set up a surround for that.If your on the fence,dont be. TCL has got "GAME ON ". Look for me to add another review in about couple weeks,it'll be in more detail,thanks for reading.

Bright colors are amazing! I just got this for Christmas and have been watching it for the last week. I haven’t had a TV for a while because I work so much, that it didn’t make sense. I heard TCL was the way to go. After a lot of consideration around different brands, I selected this model. All was fine with TV programming and a few movies in the Daytime, but tonight’s dinner and movie date blew my mind. The 5-6” Light leaks in every corner of every dark scene made my stomach hurt. Really TCL? Manufacturer defect. Obviously the body wasn’t build around the potential issues. I can’t believe how bad it is. Literally every dark scene is hard to watch because all I can see is white blotches everywhere and it made it so difficult to enjoy the film. I wish TCL offered something to customers, since this is such an obvious problem that I’m now seeing in reviews. Deeply disappointed, but luckily I’m in the holiday return policy. Just a shame that this is how it looks, and that I had to wait to open this gift, spend forever getting the arc system to work, mounting it, and now this.

This TV is good for someone who wants something larger, better picture, all of the current technology, and an affordable price. There are definitely better TVs out there, but it is hard to find one like this with a similar price. I am pleased with it, but I am not blown away by the picture. It is definitely an upgrade from my old 32" Vizio TV. Also, the sound is not that great, and the viewing angle is not the best. I also don't care for the the controller as it doesn't respond that great.

Awesome TV! For the money you’ll be hard pressed to find a better one. Every feature and option is there, comparable or better than %90 of TVs that cost twice as much. I was suspect buying TCL, but I’d buy one again in a heartbeat. I spent 3 times as much on an LG, only for it to quit literally 2 weeks after the warranty expired. Bought the matching sound bar and subwoofer and they are a perfect match. TCL is the real deal.

I am VERY happy with this purchase. The price was more than right, the availability was there in the store. The TV out of the box was great! If you have a couple minutes to look online for some better settings then what is out of the box, you will be very surprised. My home configuration is: xBox One S, I stream Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, Youtube, etc. I had to learn some setting changes on my xBox to get the HDR/4K to work properly as well as go onto my Netflix account and include the 4K streaming for a small cost. The Hulu is not 4K but that is ok by me as the picture quality is still very good. When you are setting this TV up and using it, keep in mind, this is the top of the lowest level of 4K TVs. I mean, if you spend a bunch more, then you can get more bells and whistles...this TV had the HDR and 4K that I wanted. Be careful, other TVs that say/show HDR do not really have it, this TV does. I got a deal on this TV and Best Buy was the cheapest....and I mean I looked everywhere, they were the lowest price. Then a week later, Best Buy made this TV even cheaper!! So I contact Customer service via online chat and they gave me the $30 refund to cover. I do recommend you purchase the extra care/warranty as you know how TVs are, they work until they dont. I also recommend you purchase a 60Hz HDMI cable if you do not know if you have one and it is older....it is NOT 60Hz, it probably is 30Hz and YES, that will make a big difference. I made the move from 43inch 1080P to 55 4K and am very pleased. Once I learned how to adjust my settings, I'm very much pleased. if you experience the "soap opera" effect, then do a little looking on the internet, change the settings and suddenly all is great. Last comment....repeating myself when I say Best Buy was the lowest price AND this TV has the HDR that is real. Enjoy your new TV!!

This is my first 4K TV and it preforms better than I expected. I was initially looking for the TCL 6 series but it seems there is some quality control problems with the screen at this time, it is hit or miss. At the store the 5 series seems a little dark comparing to other brand but I think that may be just be of the set up so I decided to give it a try and I was not disappointed. The TV and the edges are very thin and looks clean comparing to others. I play around with the setting and set it to brighter and believe me it is very bright and the black is black not gray. 4K HD looks great but our main use for this set was for OTA network programs and the picture looks very good, even my wife said it looks clearer than the old TV. Initially, I was worry about the Roku remote has no number keys to switch channels but the free program guide make it easy to do and you can hide the channels you don't want to display on the program guide. However, in the two months of using, the TV did freeze two time when streaming a movie using some apps not sure it was the TV or the app content, but restarting the TV resolved the issue. Overall, I am very happy with the purchase.

Beautiful picture user friendly awesome features best TV on the market for the value

Ok, so maybe it's my favorite because of the built in roku but this Tv is awesome. I have had it for almost a year now and it has been on almost 15 hours a day. You can't beat the value and quality of TLC. The picture quality looks better than a lot of the higher end Tvs in my opinion. Very lightweight beyond simple setup. I would buy one for every room.

I searched around and then looked at the tcl 4K compared it with other tvs in its price range. It blows them away. In order to get 240 truemotion, Dolby vision, wide gamma hdr and 5.1 surround, I would have to make a purchase around the 1500-2000 mark, but not for this one! At the time, 449 for all those features that I was looking for. Great tv, awesome price, Best Buy.

Excellent tv for much less than others in class. Great value. Did not purchase additional sound bar; have not needed it. Picture and sound have been great. Functionality and ease of operation have been excellent. •the remote and buttons are a tad small. I have occasionally miss tapped.

Reviewing 4 weeks in, Roku screen is fast, remote could be better for more universal features. Using oem cable remote is fine. The tv has a setting to start with cable as the source vs starting with the home Roku screen. Was not sure about this tv when I bought it. It looks good and I have no complaints. Good bang for the buck.

I bought this tv specifically to use with my new Xbox one x. The settings out of the box make everything look horrible. I had to spend hours online figuring out how to get the image to look right, some settings are very obscure. Honestly, the picture isn't that much better than my previous 1080p insignia that I got 3 years ago. But the picture is pretty decent. I paid extra for this model because it claims to have Dolby vision. However, Dolby vision with this tv does NOT work on Xbox one x. My cable provider doesn't use Dolby vision, so it's a feature that can never be used. Pretty disappointed with that. This tv does support native 4k and hdr 10 on Xbox one x, and the games look good so I'll keep it because it's not worth the hassle to try to get something else. The Roku options work well, and it's overall a good tv and a decently choice for a 4k tv on a budget. Just know that Dolby vision does not work on Xbox.

The TCL 5 series is a remarkable 4K TV. Picture quality is excellent and it has Roku built in. I have been a user and a fan of Roku for the last 5 years, so to find a TV with Roku built in is a real plus. High Dynamic Range is the up and coming technology that provides for more color depth and contrast detail than the standard video output. I have not had a chance to test the HDR functionality, but I can tell you that right out of the box, the video image "pops" off the screen. The colors are bright and vivid. My only non-positive issue with this TV is the sound quality, hence 4 out of 5 stars. The sound is crisp and clear but "tinny", as if the audio base range is somehow diminished. I added a sound bar with the Fiber Optic TOSLINK connector and now everything is perfect. Only TCL gives you a 55 inch TV with all of these features in such a beautiful frame for under $400.00 on sale.

TL;DR: Everything is GREAT for the price except the backlight bleed on the corners. Considering swapping out for Vizio which doesn't seem to have this issue. Giving a week to decide. At the moment, wouldn't recommend. Review: I picked this 55" 5 series yesterday after spending a week researching the differences between 4, 5 & 6 series. I read a lot about the 6 series having issues with vertical banding and the 5 series seemed to have better features than the 4 series so I landed on the 5 series. The actual set looks sleek, *good picture, decent sound, functional OS (I have been apprehensive for years to buy a Smart TV because I hard they were slow but no problem here). I picked up Band of Brothers Bluray edition and it looked awesome... until I saw some dark scenes. I noticed some light bleed along the top which wasn't too bad and was willing to overlook but the four corners, especially the bottom corners, have significant light bleed. I altered some of the TV settings like turning brightness from highest to normal and lowering backlight and TV mode settings and it is better but still distracting. I had been reviewing these different models pretty heavily but apparently not well enough because when I googled this specific problem on TCL, it seems relatively common, and I suppose I overlooked this issue on rtings.com. I know this is a budget TV and I didn't expect perfection but if I am constantly distracted from movies, especially in a dark, tense horror/thriller movie, I fear this might just be too much of a problem. I read about panel lottery and some people traded their TVs in multiple times and sometimes the replacement was worse. I read about potential fixes for this problem but they seem to risky for me to try. I could break the TV! When I went to Best Buy to pick this up, I noticed a 55" Vizio e-series TV for $40 more and since I have a 42" Vizio that I have had for 9 years with no problems, I considered going for that instead but I have read in recent years that Vizio prices have gone up and quality has gone down and that TCL took their place as the GOOD, budget TV so I went with my initial decision for the TCL. That being said, after I noticed this issue, I googled the "Vizio e series backlight bleed issue" and I couldn't find any complaints and rtings.com says it is better in that regard than the TCL. I am a little disappointed that I had to turn brightness settings down to compensate for this because I like it brighter and I dread the idea of repacking a 55" tv so I am going to allow a week to get used to it and make the decision next weekend. If I do bring it back, I am going to swap it for the Vizio (although I read Chromecast runs slower than Roku...) I'll try to remember to update this with my decision.

The tv is fantastic. I am not a know-it-all type of guy about modern tvs by no means but this tv not only has the regular tv abilities, but Roku is super fast. Everything works really fast and the movies available on Roku app work just fine. I can download so many apps in Roku for free which is good for my pocket. I have this device hooked to an audio system and it works just as fine. The audio comes out with a 3.5 mm audio jack couple for RCA cable which is great for my purposes because I have a big audio system for computer with a 3.5 mm but also I have a big audio system with RCA cables so I can use either, although I always wanted a tv with only the 3.5 mm audio jack. The image is sharp and the screen is super thin and it doesn't use much electricity so its great for saving electricity. I am so happy for this purchase under 500. I bought full price was 399.99, after tax it was 433 bucks which qualifies for 6 months interest free. Advice!! --Just make sure to pay it all before 6 months or you will also have to pay all interest accrued during those 6 months too!--

This is a great looking tv with a 4k roku included. This alone makes it worth the price. It is not the brightest tv, but the features and picture quality make it great for your first tv or for a location that does not get a lot of sunlight. Look for sales and you have an excellent purchase.

Love it!! Colors are great and haven’t had any problems with it