[Review] My quick review of TCL 50" C716 QLED 4k TV

Tested on firmware: V389

Overall:
Good TV with an exceptional panel for it's price, but comes with few major caveats it being a cheaper model

Color:
SDR: Out of box SDR color accuracy is poor, SDR color volume also seems to be low, overly saturated by default. This is mostly caused by backlight eco mode, turning it off improves color alot, would recommend keeping it off. Native color profile also helps

HDR: HDR color accuracy and color volume is amazing, white point is nearly perfect with excellent dynamic range. HDR / Dolby Vision videos on Youtube and games look really good

For some strange reason Netflix is not showing proper HDR; even when Dolby Vision tag is displayed. This is apparent from colors. Apparently Netflix's mastering of HDR content is pretty poor as same videos / clips on youtube HDR / Dolby Vision show significantly better

Gradient handling is okayish, can see minimal banding

Brightness & Panel Uniformity:
Brightness in HDR is mediocre, details don't pop as they should but images still pack a punch due amazing colors
Backlight bleed is minimal, slight darkening in edges and some foggy areas in upper left, unnoticeable during content play

Motion:
Motion handling is not good, there is visible ghosting when navigating fire tv menus but during gaming it's a bit better; nothing spectacular. Slight flicker in some content. VRR is missing, which is expected at this price range; but 120Hz is also missing which is a loss imo

Viewing Angles:
Viewing angles are poor, sitting at 8 ft away from tv the image starts to wash out even if I move more than 3 ft away from dead center

Audio:
Audio on built-in speakers is decent but there's ~100ms audio delay on internal speakers which is annoying, same issue happens even if I use optical out

System & UI:
UI is pretty laggy compared to LG etc., processor being so slow that Kodi is practically unusable at 4k. But, this is a non-issue for me as I use Fire TV mostly. Even with that, TV has restarted multiple times during it's use and YouTube exhibits an annoying bug in HDR whereby TV would intermittently switch in / out of HDR while playing content

Performance with Consoles:
Xbox looks amazing, HDR games like Forza, Doom, TitanFall look absolutely amazing; lack of brightness is felt but that's a given in this price range. Nintendo Switch looks a bit over saturated in SDR by default, but looks amazing nonetheless. 120Hz is missing so that's a huge loss for gaming, do keep this in mind when considering it with next gen consoles

Current Gear, for context:
TVs: LG 55" EG9A7V OLED, TCL 55" C716 (this TV), Samsung 32" CF391 Monitor, Fire TV Stick 4K
HTPC: HP EliteDesk 705 G2 Desktop Mini PC
Audio: Edifier R2000DB, Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 58X, E1DA PowerDAC V2 amp & few IEMs
Consoles: Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch (w/ Pro Controller and 8BitDo SF30 Pro)
Lappy: MacBook Pro 15, 2017
Phone(s): Samsung Galaxy S8, iPhone SE 2020

I'm afraid it might mess up the white point, but I will give it a try over the coming weekend

Which firmware you're on? I'm using kodi to play 4k HDR content from my htpc over samba; UI becomes sluggish if video is playing in the background. Fire TV remains a lot more responsive with the exact same content.

Let me update the firmware, will report back afterwards. I'm currently very happy with colours and brightness, hopefully it will be improved