Meet Maggie, PCMag'sThe QM8L is TCL’s latest SQD-Mini LED TV, following the expensive X11L that impressed me earlier this year with its RGB LED-like color performance and exceptionally bright picture. The QM8L is just as colorful and even more vibrant than the X11L, putting out enough light to earn the first PCMag Lab Award for brightest TV. It’s also much more affordable: The 75-inch model I tested retails for $2,999.99 and is usually available for around $2,000, about half the price of the 75-inch X11L ($6,999.99 at launch and currently available for around $3,799.99). It outshines both its pricier sibling and every available RGB LED I've tested so far, making it an Editors' Choice winner for premium mini-LED TVs.
The QM8L looks like a typical high-end TV, with a nearly bezel-free design featuring a narrow metal band around the sides and a thin bezel along the bottom edge. A small rectangular bump below the lower bezel holds the TV’s infrared sensor and far-field microphone array. The TV sits on a center-mounted, flat, rectangular metal stand, or you can mount it on the wall.
The power cable plugs into the left side of the back of the screen, while all the other connections on the TV are on the right side, facing right. They include four HDMI ports (all 4K144, one eARC), two USB ports, an optical audio output, an Ethernet port, and an RF antenna/cable connection.
The remote is identical to the one that comes with the X11L. It’s a flat, rectangular wand with backlit buttons and a large, circular navigation pad near the top. Menu buttons are clustered around the pad. Volume and channel rockers reside near the center of the remote, with a customizable shortcut button and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime, Google TV Freeplay, Netflix, TCLtv+, and YouTube below them. The right edge of the remote features two controls unique to TCL: a quick-access button for picture modes and a brightness rocker. I don’t regularly adjust the brightness on my TV, but the mode button is nice for quickly switching to the best setting for watching a movie, sports, or playing video games.
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The Google TV smart TV platform drives the QM8L, offering pretty comprehensive connectivity. All major streaming services are available, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Sling, Twitch, and YouTube, plus Google Cast and Apple AirPlay 2 for local streaming from any Android phone, iPhone, tablet, Mac, or Chrome tab. It also has hands-free access to Gemini, letting you control your TV and any compatible smart home devices, search for content, get answers to questions, and perform other tasks with just your voice.
The 4K TCL QM8L is an SQD-Mini LED TV, TCL’s term for its high-end mini-LED QLED TVs. It has a native refresh rate of 144Hz with VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and hybrid log gamma (HLG). For connectivity, it features Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for 1080p and 4K over-the-air broadcasts.
I test TVs with a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G 8K signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software, and out of the box, the QM8L shows a peak brightness of 773 nits when displaying a full-screen white field, 3,504 nits with an 18% white field, and 3,956 nits with a 10% white field with an HDR10 signal in Movie mode. That’s higher than the X11L (605 nits full-screen, 3,421 nits 18%, 3,776 nits 10%), and even higher than the older QM9K in two out of three metrics (769 nits full-screen, 3,330 nits 18%, 4,296 nits 10%).
In fact, the QM8L is the brightest TV I’ve tested so far (aside from the Hisense 116UX, which put out 4,012 nits with an 18% field and 5,889 nits with a 10% white field, but is no longer available and only came in 116- and 100-inch sizes for $9,000 and $19,000). Other RGB LED TVs I’ve tested haven’t come close to Q8ML's levels, as the chart above shows. Among models available in the sub-100-inch range most shoppers are looking for, the QM8L easily earns a PCMag Lab Award for brightest TV.
Color Performance: Wide Gamut, Minor Accuracy Quibbles
The above charts show the QM8L’s color levels with an SDR signal in Movie mode compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards, and with an HDR10 signal in Movie mode and a Dolby Vision signal in Dolby Vision IQ compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. HDR10 exceeds DCI-P3 in every color except yellow, showing a range comparable with that of RGB LED TVs. Whites lean a bit yellow in SDR and HDR10, but not enough to cast a significant tint across the picture. Magentas are also redder than ideal, which is a common issue with QLED TVs. Dolby Vision colors are much more accurate, though the gamut is reined in quite a bit to within DCI-P3.
TCL says its SQD-Mini LED TVs can cover the full range of the BT.2020 color space, the same claim manufacturers like Hisense, Samsung, and Sony make about their RGB LED TVs. The QM8L, like the X11L before it, doesn’t fully cover the BT.2020 gamut, but no TV I’ve tested, Mini-LED or RGB LED, has yet to fulfill that claim.
As the above chart shows, though, the QM8L comes impressively close. The chart depicts the TV’s color levels compared with BT.2020 levels using CIE31 and CIE76 maps. Both use the same measured color data, but the former shows it across the full range of human vision, while the latter adjusts those ranges to better illustrate how we perceive color differences. The QM8L covers 86.96% of BT.2020 in CIE31 and 91.34% in CIE76. That’s comparable with the RGB Samsung R95H (91.3%, 93.7%) and Sony Bravia 9 II (89.9%, 91.7%), and much wider than the OLED LG Evo G6 (78.8%, 85.2%).
While its color range isn’t quite as wide as RGB LED TVs, the QM8L’s conventional mini-LED-backlit QLED panel actually looks noticeably better in many cases. Those TVs show wider color ranges in testing thanks to backlight systems with individual red, green, and blue LEDs that can push colors farther than LCD panels alone. Those systems also tend to use neutral white backlighting when different colors are close together.
As a QLED TV, the QM8L uses a quantum dot layer with a blue-only backlight to expand the capabilities of its LCD panel. In most video content, this generally results in more vibrant color than on RGB LED TVs without a quantum dot layer.
Off-angle viewing is also much better on the QM8L than on RGB LED TVs. While some light bloom can be seen on the TV, it doesn’t wildly expand as soon as you step to the side, like on every RGB LED TV I’ve tested so far. Color and contrast also stay intact at much wider angles. OLED TVs like the LG Evo C6, G6, and Samsung S95H outperform it in those areas, but they’re also more expensive.
These factors result in the QM8L looking great when showing all of the test clips I use. On BBC’s Planet Earth II, blue waters and green leaves are varied and vibrant, with plenty of contrast. The textures of fur, bark, and scales are clear and detailed in both bright sunlight and shade, creating a lifelike picture.
The QM8L’s strong contrast is even more apparent in the party scenes of The Great Gatsby. Black suits look black while preserving their cuts, contours, and textures, and white shirts and lights in the same frame stand out brightly. Skin tones also look natural, and colorful dresses pop. Some light bloom can be seen along the edges of the black anamorphic letterbox bars in brother shots, which is common with LED TVs.
Demonstration footage on the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD benchmark disc looks excellent on the QM8L. Snowy landscapes appear bright while preserving plenty of highlight detail, keeping clouds and falling snow visible even against white skies and ground. Landscapes shot at sunrise and sunset show good color and contrast, with dark cliffs and tree lines easy to see against bright yellows and crimsons of sunlight over the horizon. Light bloom is clearly present in the disc’s torture test shots of brightly colored objects against completely black backgrounds, though, showing some haze along their edges.
A 144Hz panel and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro make the QM8L well-equipped for gaming, and its performance matches it.
Using a Leo Bodnar 4K Video Signal Lag Tester, I measured a latency of just 9.5 milliseconds with a 4K60 signal and 5.1 milliseconds with a 1080p120 signal. In both cases, that’s well below one frame of input lag, and comes close to the current PCMag Lab Award winner for fastest gaming TV, the Samsung S95H (9.2ms 4K60, 4.8ms 1080p120).
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Will Greenwald)
TCL 75QM8L
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
The TCL QM8L proves that conventional mini-LED QLED technology is still the best way to go if you want a really luminous screen, earning a PCMag Lab Award for brightest TV. It looks great, offering a more vibrant picture than pricier RGB LED TVs for most content and superior off-angle viewing. If you’re willing to spend more for an even better-looking screen with no light bloom and integrated 4.2.2-channel spatial audio, the Samsung S95H is our top pick for OLED TVs. But the TCL QM8L is brighter, and an excellent all-around performer that easily earns our Editors' Choice award for high-end mini-LED TVs.
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About Our Expert
I’m PCMag’s home theater and AR/VR expert, and your go-to source of information and recommendations for game consoles and accessories, smart displays, smart glasses, smart speakers, soundbars, TVs, and VR headsets. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and THX-certified home theater technician, I've served as a CES Innovation Awards judge, and while Bandai hasn’t officially certified me, I’m also proficient at building Gundam plastic models up to MG-class. I also enjoy genre fiction writing, and my urban fantasy novel, Alex Norton, Paranormal Technical Support, is currently available on Amazon.
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