TCL X11L Review: Premium brands, watch out.

I’ve spent the better part of a year now telling anyone who will listen that TCL is coming for the premium TV market. The QM8K was the opening salvo, the QM9K was the confirmation, and now the X11L is the exclamation point. This is TCL’s most ambitious television to date, and it’s not even close.

What makes the X11L especially interesting is the technology behind it. While much of the industry is racing toward RGB Mini-LED backlights, TCL went a completely different direction with what it calls Super Quantum Dot, or SQD. Rather than using separate red, green, and blue LEDs in the backlight, SQD sticks with a single-color LED backlight but pairs it with a new generation of quantum dot particles and an improved color filter. The result is wider color, higher (blinding) brightness, and a thinner panel than RGB Mini-LED can currently achieve. After weeks of living with this TV, I think TCL made the right call.

It’s also expensive, by TCL standards. The 85-inch model I tested runs $7,999, which is a far cry from the value-first approach TCL has built its reputation on. But when you consider that OLED panels of comparable size cost significantly more and can’t match this model’s brightness, the X11L starts to make a lot more sense.

TCL X11L specs

TCL X11L design: Premium has arrived

Quick take: This doesn’t look or feel like last year’s model

The panel on the TCL X11L is only about two centimeters thick, which is remarkably slim for a Mini-LED of this size, and meaningfully thinner than the company’s past flagship models. TCL’s barely-there bezel treatment does carry over from last year’s lineup, and on a screen this large, the edge-to-edge effect is hard to look away from.

Gone is the cooler gunmetal finish TCL used on the QM8K and QM9K. The X11L trades it for a bronze-toned frame that wraps the top, sides, and bottom edge of the display. It makes the whole thing feel warmer, and its two leg supports, which have replaced the previous center stand, make it look even more sleek. The build quality here is excellent, and the X11L feels sturdy during assembly. This doesn’t creak, flex, or feel hollow anywhere. It feels like an $8,000 TV should, and is far less plastic forward than past models.

The most obvious design departure is the full-width Bang & Olufsen speaker system mounted beneath the screen, which adds a couple of inches to the overall height. It’s not that noticeable in a dim room with something playing, and I think it adds to the aesthetic when visible. More importantly, it sounds great, but I’ll get to that later.

Connectivity is excellent with four HDMI 2.1 ports, all supporting 4K at 144Hz, and one handling eARC. There’s a USB 3.0 port along the right edge, which is a nice touch for anyone planning to wall mount, since you won’t have to reach around the back. The TV also features USB 2.0, Ethernet, optical audio out, and an ATSC 3.0 tuner if you want to pull in 4K broadcasts over the air. Everything plugs directly into the TV without the need for external boxes or other wireless nonsense.

A word of warning on the stand: the feet sit far apart, so you’ll need a piece of furniture wider than you might expect, if not wall-mounted. Since I don’t wall-mount review units, I was grateful the X11L just barely fit on my console.

The remote is a real highlight. It keeps the backlight I love on the QM8K and QM9K, sports a metallic silver finish with a satisfying weight to it, and adds several genuinely useful controls. Along the right edge, there’s a button to adjust backlight brightness and another that cycles through picture modes. I found myself using the former constantly to adjust brightness at night.

Design score: 10/10

TCL X11L interface: Google TV at its best

Quick take: Snappy, intuitive, and Gemini is actually worth using

Google TV on Android 14 continues to be one of the better native TV platforms on the market. On the X11L, it runs noticeably smooth, as apps load quickly, navigation is intuitive, and the overall experience is responsive.

The standout feature is Gemini, Google’s AI assistant. I honestly wasn’t expecting much from an AI feature on a television, but Gemini handles multi-step queries better than any voice system I’ve used on a TV. I tested it by asking for movies and TV shows across specific genres and even on specific streaming platforms and it kept up.

That said, I still prefer my Roku Ultra for daily use since it lets me seamlessly bounce between TVs. But if you’re someone who likes using the native OS, Google TV on the X11L is as good as it gets right now. Google Cast and AirPlay 2 are both baked in as well.

Interface score: 9/10

TCL X11L SDR picture: The best color I’ve measured on any LED TV

Quick take: Absurdly bright, incredibly accurate, and the colors hold even when the brightness is cranked

Let me first explain what SQD is doing here, because it matters. Traditional QD Mini-LED TVs use a blue or white LED backlight and pass that light through quantum dots to produce color. The problem has always been that as brightness ramps up, the colors tend to wash out. TCL’s SQD technology tackles this with two hardware changes. The first is a quantum dot layer that uses particles roughly one-twelfth the size of what you’d find in a standard QD panel, paired with what TCL calls its UltraColor Filter. Together, these two changes allow the panel to hold onto vivid, saturated color at brightness levels where traditional quantum dot TVs would start to falter.

There’s a practical upside to this approach, too. RGB Mini-LED backlights can run into problems when light from adjacent red, green, or blue LEDs mixes where it shouldn’t, producing unwanted tinting in certain scenes. SQD sidesteps that entirely because every LED in the array is the same color, so there’s nothing to cross-contaminate. That simpler backlight architecture is also why TCL was able to squeeze up to 20,736 dimming zones behind a panel just two centimeters thick. An RGB array would need more physical space between the LEDs and the screen to blend colors properly, which means choosing between a thicker chassis or fewer zones.

Switching to Filmmaker Mode at 100 nits with all processing turned off, the X11L put up color accuracy numbers that are near reference level, and that’s pre-calibration. In my measurements, the X11L had a Delta E of ~2.0 out of the box and under 1.0 after calibrating.

Gamut coverage is where the X11L really flexes. This TV covers 99% of Rec. 709 and delivers DCI-P3 coverage in the high 90s. But the really impressive figure is Rec. 2020 coverage, where the X11L pushes into the low 90s. Suffice to say that the level of Rec. 2020 coverage is almost unheard of outside of OLED.

In practice, you won’t see the full benefit of that expanded gamut with today’s content, since the vast majority of what’s streaming is still mastered within DCI-P3 boundaries. But the capability is there, and as the content catches up to the hardware, the X11L won’t be the bottleneck.

Brightness in SDR is, frankly, absurd. The X11L doesn’t just punch through ambient light, it obliterates it. Even with my windows wide open on a sunny afternoon, the picture remained vivid and watchable. For anyone who has struggled with OLED’s brightness limitations in bright rooms, this is the answer. To be honest, my partner complained often in the initial days of testing that it was too bright to enjoy once the sun went down. Thankfully, I could turn the brightness down easily using the remote.

SDR picture score: 10/10

TCL X11L HDR picture: This is what Mini-LED has been building toward

Quick take: Dolby Vision with this much brightness and this many dimming zones is a sight to behold

HDR is where this TV truly earns its price tag. The combination of extreme brightness, over 20,000 individually controlled dimming zones, and Dolby Vision IQ support produces an HDR image that is stunning in a way I haven’t experienced from any other Mini-LED. Bright specular highlights punch through with zeal, and unlike some ultra-bright panels, the X11L doesn’t sacrifice black levels while doing so. The local dimming is phenomenal, with the TV maintaining deep blacks without blooming throughout dark scenes.

Dolby Vision looks awesome here, which is something I wish I could say about every TV I review. The dynamic metadata and refined tone-mapping make movies look brighter and more natural than HDR10+ alone. TCL says a firmware update later this year will add Dolby Vision 2.0 support as well, which should push the tone-mapping even further.

The X11L also supports HDR10+, HLG, and IMAX Enhanced, so no matter what format your content is in, you’re probably covered.

The one area where the X11L didn’t quite dominate was motion. Quick camera pans and high-speed action could produce a faint trail behind moving objects. It wasn’t something that bothered me during normal viewing, but it’s there, and it’s the one area where OLED’s instant pixel response still has a meaningful advantage.

For the gamers, the X11L is well-equipped. All four HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K at 144Hz with VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. Input lag is excellent for a TV, and there’s a Game Accelerator mode that bumps 1080p content up to 288Hz.

HDR picture score: 10/10

TCL X11L audio: The best built-in audio I’ve heard

Quick take: That integrated B&O system came to play

I raved about the audio on the QM9K when I reviewed it last year, calling it the best built-in audio I’d heard from any TV. The X11L takes that title now, and it’s not particularly close.

Bang & Olufsen engineered the speaker array that spans the full width of the TV. You get forward-firing drivers across the front for left, center, and right, along with a set of side-firing speakers and two sizeable woofers mounted on the back.

The sound fills a room in a way I’ve never heard from speakers built into a television. There’s genuine separation between channels, a smoothness to the mid-range, and enough low-end presence that you can more than get by without a soundbar. Dialogue clarity was also excellent.

Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are both supported, and if you want to go further, TCL’s FlexConnect system lets you add wireless surround speakers without running cables across your living room.

Audio score: 9/10

Should you buy the TCL X11L?

If you are in the market for a large, premium television and you want the best picture quality that Mini-LED can currently offer, then the TCL X11L deserves serious consideration. The brightness, color, and contrast on this model are in a league of their own for an LED-based display, and the built-in audio is the best I’ve experienced from any TV.

This is not a budget TV. At $7,999 for the 85-inch model, it is firmly a premium product, and it’s a significant departure from the value-first positioning that made TCL a household name. Though if the X11L follows the pattern of past TCL flagship models, you can expect to see pricing drop substantially over the coming year. When compared to OLED panels of similar size, which cost considerably more and can’t match the X11L’s brightness, the value proposition is hard to ignore.

If the price is too steep, TCL plans to bring SQD panels to cheaper sets later in the year. This should mean more approachable prices as well.

Why not try

• TCL QM9K: Still an incredible TV at a fraction of the price. You won’t get SQD or the same peak brightness, but the picture quality is about 90 percent of the way there, and the built-in B&O audio is also excellent.
• LG C5 OLED: If you prefer OLED’s infinite contrast and don’t mind the brightness trade-off, LG’s mid-range OLED is a solid alternative. Expect to pay more for equivalent screen sizes, but the contrast is unmatched.
• Sony Bravia 9: Outstanding contrast, brightness, and Dolby Vision support with near-reference color accuracy after calibration. A strong premium competitor at a lower price.

How we tested

The TCL X11L served as my daily television for weeks. In that time, I watched movies, TV shows, F1 races (back finally!), and streamed a lot of YouTube. I tested the TV with cinematic content, as well as sports and cable television.

I used both the native Google TV OS and, at times, my Roku Ultra. Testing was performed using a Calibrite Display Pro HL and DisplayCal software on Windows 11, as well as my own observations from looking at many, many different TVs over the years.