The TCL 6 Series 2018 is a very good 4k TV for a wide range of usages. It has good dark scene performance due to the full-array local dimming and high native contrast so blacks appear deep even in a dark room. It's also great for HDR, as it has great brightness. Although it can produce a wider color gamut than Rec. 709, it isn't as wide as other great HDR TVs. It also has an excellent low input lag for gamers, and unlike the 2017 TCL P607 it can flicker the backlight to clear up fast motion and interpolate low frame rate content.
The TCL 6 Series 2018 is also known as the R615 or R617 depending on the manufacturer variant.
Very good TV for mixed usage. The R617 is a versatile TV that's good for pretty much everything. There are some gray uniformity issues, which makes it a less good choice for sports due to the dirty screen effect, and the image degrades rapidly when viewed at an angle, which is bad for those with wide seating.
Great TV for watching movies in a dark room. The TCL 6 Series has an excellent native contrast ratio, and the local dimming feature is decent for dimming darker areas of the screen. There may be some issues with uniformity, depending on your specific panel.
Good TV for watching TV in a brightly lit room. The R617 is able to get very bright and can overcome most glare, but the reflection handling isn't as good as high-end TVs, so some direct glare might be bothersome. The picture quality also degrades rapidly when viewed at an angle, which is bad for those with wide seating.
The TCL R617 is a good TV for watching sports. It has a great response time that makes fast-moving motion look clear. This TV can get really bright and it does a decent job with reflection handling, so you can still place it in a bright room. The gray uniformity is mediocre, so there's visible dirty screen effect that you'll notice when watching sports. Additionally, the viewing angles are poor, so it's not a good TV to watch with a big group of people.
The 55R617 is amazing for playing video games. Gamers will enjoy the incredibly low input lag and great response time, plus it has a black frame insertion feature to help reduce motion blur. This TV has a great contrast ratio, resulting in deep blacks if you game in the dark. Unfortunately, if you're looking for an immersive gaming experience, the sound quality is disappointing. However, this TV displays 1080p content, such as from older consoles, almost as well as 4k content.
Great TV for watching HDR movies. The TCL 6 Series gets very bright in HDR, and the excellent native contrast and decent local dimming make for a good dark room viewing experience. It also has a good wide color gamut, but it isn't as wide as higher-end TVs.
Impressive TV for HDR gaming. The R617 has excellent low input lag in game mode, and it has a great response time so games are free of annoying trails. The native contrast and good color gamut help games look their best. It doesn't support a 120Hz input, so some gamers might be disappointed.
Good TV for use as a PC monitor. The 6 Series 2018 supports chroma 4:4:4 when in PC mode, so text looks sharp and clear. It has low input lag and a good response time which keeps it responsive. The viewing angle is quite limited, so if sitting too close, the edges of the screen might fade and lose detail. There are also many reports of uniformity issues, so using it for web browsing might be a problem for some people.
Like most TCLs, the TCL 6 Series has a stand that is nearly the full width of the TV. You'll need a very wide table to put it on. It's made of metal and feels strong and sturdy. This change in material is a nice departure from the plastic feel of older TCL models.
Footprint of the 55" TV stand: 47.8" x 10.6"
The legs can also be reversed, in which case the stand measures 28.5" x 10.6".
The rear of the TV is simple. The top half is metallic and the body is plastic.
There's no cable management, so it can look a bit messy for those who enjoy clean setups with hidden cables.
Decent build quality that feels solid and the TV doesn't have any loose parts on it. Its successor, the TCL 6 Series/R625 2019 has improved build quality.
We have received many reports of varying gray uniformity issues between units, which may be indicative of the build quality or quality control.
As is the case with most VA panels, the 6 Series 2018 has a fantastic contrast ratio. The R617 is able to produce deep, inky blacks when viewed in dark rooms.
The local dimming feature further improves the contrast ratio, making it a great choice for dark room viewing.
The local dimming on the TCL R615/617 series is decent, and it can produce deeper dark scenes which is very noticeable especially when viewed in a dark room.
On the other hand, there's some obvious clouding around the moving objects. This is because of the inherent limitations of FALD technology and should not worry most people.
Update: The text has been updated to better explain why we see some clouding.
Great SDR peak brightness; it performs well in a bright room. The TV boosts the bright sections of the screen when other areas are dimmer. This is shown by how the smaller window tests are brighter than the larger ones.
This is an improvement from 2017's TCL P605/607 and it's much better than the brightness of competing TVs like the Samsung NU7100 and Vizio M Series 2017. It's also a bit brighter than the newer TCL 6 Series 2019 R625.
The TCL 6 Series has great HDR peak brightness. Bright highlights in HDR content will be shown fairly bright, very close to the level of 1000-4000 cd/m² they're intended to be.
Overall, the HDR brightness is much better than the TCL P605/607 which is great.
Mediocre gray uniformity on the 55R617. There's clear darkening around all four corners and there's visible dirty screen effect, which is noticeable with fast-moving objects. Even during dark scenes, the black isn't uniform across the screen. However, this result varies between units.
The viewing angle is poor. Blacks and colors shift rapidly as you move away from the front, and the brightness drops quickly as the angle increases a few degrees.
As with most TCLs we've reviewed, it's most suitable for a narrow viewing environment.
The Sony X720E is a better choice for a wide viewing angle.
The R617 has a semi-gloss finish that works well in diffusing reflections across the screen. However, when viewed in a bright room, the reflections may be somewhat distracting especially if the source is facing the TV.
This model has better reflection handling than the newer TCL R625.
Good color accuracy pre-calibration. Most of the colors on the TCL R617 still appear fairly accurate, but because the color temperature is below the target, most colors will be closer to red and yellow. The gamma curve follows the target really well, so most scenes should appear at their correct brightness.
As is the case with most TVs, the R617 has near-perfect color accuracy post-calibration. With the exception of the color blue, most colors are extremely accurate. The gamma curve is exactly at the 2.2 target, but the color temperature wasn't able to fully reach its target, so some colors are still closer to red/yellow.
See our recommended settings here.
There are some artifacts visible with 4k content due to the sub-pixel dimming. This performs similarly to the P607 (see here), but shouldn't be an issue for most people and is mostly noticeable when used as a PC monitor.
This type of dithering is uncommon, and is only seen on some TCL TVs, including the S517 and R617. Most people won't notice it much, but occasionally it causes artifacts when it interferes with spatial dithering in games such as this green or purple shadow. (Note: the images are from the S517, but we expect them to be the same on the 6 Series.)
Update 29/05/2018: We've received a report that the 49" S515/S517 has similar crosshatching to the S405, as seen here, and we expect this to be the same in the R615/R617. This will bother some people especially when used as a PC Monitor.
The pixel structure is quite different from the P607, but there are still artifacts visible with native 4k content as seen in the 4k input box.
The TCL 6 Series 2018 has a good color gamut, but it's slightly worse than the P607. It supports a wide color gamut, but it isn't as wide as other HDR TVs. HDR will look good, but bright outdoor scenes will lack some detail due to the TV's limited green reproduction.
Note that for this test, a PC was used as a pattern generator. Like many other TCL TVs, the TV detects the PC from the AVI infoframe and automatically switches to a PC mode which behaves a little bit differently. Using an HDFury Integral to mask the AVI infoframe results in a color gamut in the same ballpark, but slightly lower at around 65.8% Rec. 2020 uv.
The TV's Movie EOTF curve follows our input stimulus almost perfectly, but it rolls off sharply as it hits the TV's peak brightness. The PC and Game EOTFs are nearly identical, which is great.
The 55R617 has decent color volume. In the P3 volume, it covers the gamut well; this is a great improvement over the TCL P607. In both color volumes, the darker colors aren't displayed very well, and blues don't get very bright.
There's no image retention on this TV. As always, this is good news for gamers and PC users who might use this TV as a monitor.
We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.
There's a backlight flicker on the R617, but it flickers at 480Hz, which is barely noticeable. This is a significant improvement over the 120Hz flicker on the TCL P Series/P607 2017. The TV mainly dims the backlight through PWM, although there's some amplitude dimming as well.
The R617 has an optional black frame insertion feature that can adjust the backlight flicker to help clear up motion by introducing flicker.
This can be enabled by going to Options->Advanced Picture Settings and turning LED Motion Clarity On.
The TV can flicker as low as 60Hz, even in game mode, but there are some strange results. It appears to flicker each color individually, resulting in visible duplications of different colors, as seen here. This is also noticeable when moving around with BFI enabled.
The TV can interpolate lower frame rate content as high as 60 fps. Motion can look a little strange to some people when enabled, this is commonly known as the Soap Opera Effect. This doesn't work when connected to a PC, and there's no way to bypass this as this TCL automatically detects when it's connected to a PC.
Motion interpolation is a new feature on the TCL R617, and it can be enabled by going to the Advanced Picture Settings menu, and setting Action Smoothing to either Off, Low, Medium, or High.
The R617 can display most content without stutter, but there's some noticeable stutter when playing 24p content - like Blu-ray movies. This is mostly noticeable in wide-panning shots.
The TV is judder free when playing native 24p content from a Blu-ray player. To remove judder from other sources, Natural cinema must be enabled in the Advanced Picture Settings menu. This is a significant improvement over all other TCL TVs we've reviewed.
The TCL 6 Series doesn't support any of the Variable Refresh Rate technologies like AMD FreeSync. We tested on a PC with an AMD Radeon RX 580.
Update 10/16/2020: We've received reports that Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) is now available on this TV. Unfortunately, we no longer have it, so we can't confirm this information.
The R617 has excellent low input lag, as long as Game Mode is enabled. With Game Mode disabled, input lag is extremely high. 1080p and 4k input lag are very similar. The TV is a 60Hz panel, as such 120Hz input is not supported.
For use as a PC monitor, the TV automatically detects when it's connected to a PC. If it doesn't automatically detect it, changing the input label to Computer will enable PC Mode. For the lowest input lag in PC mode, Game Mode must also be enabled.