The TCL Q6/Q651G QLED is an entry-level TV released in 2024 and replaces the 2023 TCL Q6/Q650G QLED. It sits below the TCL QM7/QM751G QLED and the TCL QM8/QM851G QLED. It's a pretty basic 60Hz TV and doesn't have features like local dimming and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, but it does support up to 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR using TCL's Game Accelerator 120 feature. It still has some other features like DTS audio support and Dolby Vision. The TV runs version 12 of the popular Google TV smart interface, so it also has smart features like voice control and is loaded with a ton of streaming apps. The TV has a built-in 30W 2.0 channel speaker system. We bought and tested the 75-inch model, but it's available in seven sizes total: 43, 50, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 98-inches.
Our Verdict
The TCL Q6 is sub-par for mixed usage. It's inadequate for a dark room since it has poor black levels. It's also not a good choice when you turn all of your lights on during the day since its SDR brightness is unremarkable, and it struggles with reflections caused by glare. The TV is at its best in a moderately lit environment. Colors are okay overall, but since it lacks local dimming and doesn't get very bright, it struggles with showing both dark and bright colors, which limits the vibrancy of colors in most content. If you're looking for a cheap gaming TV, it's not a terrible choice thanks to its ability to do up to 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR. Unfortunately, its awfully slow pixel transitions mean motion is blurry when gaming, which is a huge drawback. Its viewing angle is mediocre, so it's not a good option for wide seating arrangements.
- 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR.
Unremarkable SDR brightness means it's only suitable for moderately lit rooms.
Inadequate HDR brightness leads to a lackluster experience.
- No local dimming to improve contrast.
Does a poor job reducing the intensity of reflections.
The TCL Q6 is inadequate for a home theater. It doesn't have a local dimming feature to boost contrast, so it has poor black levels. It also struggles to show both dark and light colors, so colors don't pop the way they should, and there's some banding in gradients. Unfortunately, the TV's HDR brightness is inadequate for an impactful HDR experience. Furthermore, colors and brightness in HDR content are inaccurate. Unfortunately, it does a sub-par job of upscaling, so low-resolution content looks soft. It also does a mediocre job of reducing artifacts in low-bitrate content. Although stutter isn't too noticeable, the TV doesn't properly remove judder from any 24p sources, leading to jerky motion.
Great SDR pre-calibration accuracy.
Inadequate HDR brightness leads to a lackluster experience.
Disappointing PQ EOTF tracking leads to an overly dim image in HDR.
Mediocre low-quality content smoothing and sub-par upscaling.
- No local dimming to improve contrast.
Doesn't remove judder from 24fps content.
The TCL Q6 is mediocre for a bright room. It has unremarkable SDR, so it's not bright enough for a well-lit room and is best suited for a moderately lit environment. It really struggles with reducing the intensity of direct reflections, so it's best to avoid placing a lamp or other light sources opposite the screen. Fortunately, blacks don't raise very much at all, and colors don't lose much saturation in a bright room, so you don't have to worry about losing too much image quality when you turn your lights on.
Blacks stay deep and colors barely lose saturation in a bright room.
Unremarkable SDR brightness means it's only suitable for moderately lit rooms.
Does a poor job reducing the intensity of reflections.
The TCL Q6 is mediocre for sports. It's not suitable for bright rooms, since its SDR brightness is unremarkable, so it's best suited for a moderately lit room. It's also best to avoid placing light sources opposite the screen since it struggles with direct reflections. Its gray uniformity is middling, and there's some apparent dirty screen effect when watching sports like hockey. Unfortunately, the TV's upscaling is sub-par, so low-resolution streams and broadcasts look soft. Additionally, its low-quality content smoothing doesn't eliminate artifacts from heavily compressed feeds. Fast-moving players and objects have noticeable trails of blur and artifacts behind them, so it's not great for sports like racing. You do get adequate colors, and they're accurate in SDR, so your favorite teams' jersey looks lifelike. Finally, the TV has a mediocre viewing angle, so although the image holds up from a slight angle, it's still not a good option for wide seating arrangements.
Great SDR pre-calibration accuracy.
Noticeable dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen.
Unremarkable SDR brightness means it's only suitable for moderately lit rooms.
Mediocre low-quality content smoothing and sub-par upscaling.
Awfully slow pixel transitions leads to blurry motion.
Does a poor job reducing the intensity of reflections.
The TCL Q6 is inadequate for gaming. It has bad black levels, so the image looks washed out any time bright elements are also on screen. Its HDR brightness is also inadequate for highlights to really stand out, so HDR games are lackluster. Colors look okay, but the TV struggles with dark and bright shades, so games that make good use of color aren't as vibrant as they should be. The TV doesn't have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, but it does support up to 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR, which is good for gamers on a budget. You also get low input lag for a responsive feel. However, the TV's pixel transitions are awfully slow, so motion is blurry and really lacks clarity.
- 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR.
Low input lag for a responsive feel.
Inadequate HDR brightness leads to a lackluster experience.
Awfully slow pixel transitions leads to blurry motion.
- No local dimming to improve contrast.
The TCL Q6 has poor brightness overall. It's not bright enough in SDR to fight glare in well-lit rooms, so it's best suited for dimly lit environments. Its HDR brightness is inadequate, so highlights in HDR content don't stand out much at all.
Unremarkable SDR brightness means it's only suitable for moderately lit rooms.
Inadequate HDR brightness leads to a lackluster experience.
The TCL Q6 has poor black levels. It doesn't have local dimming, so there's no blooming around highlights, but the entire image looks washed out anytime highlights are on screen since it has a low contrast ratio. Fortunately, it does have outstanding black uniformity.
Outstanding black uniformity.
- No local dimming to improve contrast.
The TCL Q6 has okay colors overall. It doesn't display dark saturated colors in HDR due to its limited contrast ratio, and its poor brightness holds back its ability to display bright colors too. It's a bit better in SDR, but it struggles to display light colors, especially in the widest BT.2020 color space. Color accuracy is great in SDR, so colors look the way they should. However, it has sub-par accuracy in HDR, so this isn't a TV to buy if you care about accuracy, especially since calibrating it doesn't help much at all.
Great SDR pre-calibration accuracy.
The TCL Q6 has subpar motion handling when watching movies, shows, and sports. Although stutter isn't too noticeable on this TV, it doesn't remove judder from any 24p sources, so most movies and shows look a bit choppy. Unfortunately, the TV's slow response time leads to noticeable motion blur, and there are some artifacts present in fast-paced scenes and sports. Fortunately, the TV is free from micro-judder unless you're watching 24p content from an older device that sends a 60p signal.
No micro-judder from almost all sources.
Awfully slow pixel transitions leads to blurry motion.
Doesn't remove judder from 24fps content.
The TCL Q6 has poor responsiveness in Game Mode. It doesn't have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, but it does support up to 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR, which is a good feature for those on a tight budget. Its input lag is low, so you get a responsive feel while gaming. Unfortunately, the TV has awfully slow pixel transitions, so motion is blurry and lacks clarity, which is a major drawback for the TV's gaming performance.
- 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR.
Low input lag for a responsive feel.
Awfully slow pixel transitions leads to blurry motion.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The TCL Q6 has disappointing processing. Its upscaling is sub-par, so low-resolution content lacks clarity. Its low-quality content smoothing is mediocre, meaning there are still artifacts present in heavily compressed content and a loss of detail. The TV's PQ EOTF tracking is disappointing, and HDR content is displayed dimmer than the content creator intends. Finally, its gradient handling is decent, but there's some noticeable banding in dark greens and reds and very apparent banding in dark grays.
Disappointing PQ EOTF tracking leads to an overly dim image in HDR.
Mediocre low-quality content smoothing and sub-par upscaling.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Mar 13, 2026:
We updated the score from '0' to '10' in the Lighting Zone Transitions section due to an error.
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Updated Mar 13, 2026:
We added text to our new Cinematic Motion Handling performance usage and our new Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation test sections after converting the review to TV 2.2.
- Updated Mar 10, 2026: This review has been updated to TV 2.2. We've added new sections for Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation, and updated the way we test Stutter. Additionally, we removed the 'Broken' disclaimer from our Motion Handling usage.
- Updated Feb 05, 2026: We added text to the new Micro-Judder section and refreshed the text in the updated Judder and Response Time Stutter sections after converting the review to TV 2.1.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 75-inch TCL Q6/Q651G QLED, and these results are mostly valid for the 43, 50, 55, and 65-inch models. The 85- and 98-inch models use a 120Hz panel, so our results aren't valid for those, although most should be similar. Note that the smaller sizes don't have TCL's Game Accelerator 120 feature, which allows you to drop your resolution in favor of a higher frame rate. The larger sizes have TCL's Game Accelerator 240 feature instead.
| Size | Model | Refresh Rate | Game Accelerator |
|---|---|---|---|
| 43" | TCL 43Q651G | 60Hz | No |
| 50" | TCL 50Q651G | 60Hz | No |
| 55" | TCL 55Q651G | 60Hz | 120 |
| 65" | TCL 65Q651G | 60Hz | 120 |
| 75" | TCL 75Q651G | 60Hz | 120 |
| 85" | TCL 85Q651G | 120Hz | 240 |
| 98" | TCL 98Q651G | 120Hz | 240 |
Our unit was manufactured in February 2024.
Popular TV Comparisons
The TCL Q6/Q651G QLED is a sub-par TV, and it's nothing special in terms of overall picture quality. It's similar to a TV like the Hisense U6/U6N, but that TV has a local dimming feature that improves its contrast and increases its black levels, which makes it look much better than the TCL in a dark room. The U6N is also brighter overall, so it's more well-suited for use in a room with the lights on and delivers a more impactful HDR experience. Even though the TCL can output 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz with VRR using TCL's Game Accelerator 120 feature, its awfully slow pixel transitions really hold back its gaming performance. If you want a much better gaming model with superior picture quality from TCL and don't mind spending more, consider the TCL QM7/QM751G QLED.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best Google TVs, the best QLED TVs, and the best gaming TVs.
The TCL QM6K is significantly better than the TCL Q651G. The newer QM6K is brighter, it has better contrast, and it has a full array local dimming feature, all of which contribute to much better picture quality overall. The QM6K also has better gaming features, with a higher maximum refresh rate at lower resolutions and a wider VRR range with 4k signals. The biggest difference with VRR is that the refresh rate range is wide enough at 4k to allow it to work with Low Framerate Compensation, which keeps the image tear-free even when your framerate drops a bit.
The TCL Q550G and the TCL Q651G are better than each other in different areas. The Q5 displays deeper blacks thanks to its higher contrast ratio, is brighter in both SDR and HDR, is more accurate in HDR, and has slightly better upscaling. However, the Q651G has much better pre-calibration SDR accuracy, less banding in color gradients, better low-quality content smoothing, and supports DTS audio formats.
The TCL QM5K is a lot better than the TCL Q651G. The QM5K is brighter in both SDR and HDR, so it can handle more glare in a bright room, and HDR stands out a bit better. Unlike the Q651G, the QM5K features a Mini LED local dimming feature. Even though it's not perfect, it still delivers much deeper, more uniform blacks, and it looks better in a dark room.
The TCL Q651G is slightly better than the Hisense QD65NF. They trade blows on many aspects of image quality, as the Hisense has slightly better contrast and a slightly wider color gamut. In turn, the TCL is the more accurate of the two TVs in SDR and has better image processing overall. The biggest difference is in gaming performance, as the TCL has lower input lag than the Hisense, and the TCL has 120Hz support in 1080p and 1440p with VRR.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
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