The TCL S4/S450G is an entry-level 4k TV released in 2023. It's part of the TCL S4 series of budget TVs, which includes the TCL S4/S470G and offer a limited selection of extra features but are available in a wide variety of sizes. Unlike previous years, TCL is offering the S4 series with two different choices of smart interface; the "G" series of TVs, like this one, run the Google TV smart interface. The "R" models run the Roku smart interface instead.
Our Verdict
The TCL S450G is an alright TV for mixed usage. It's best suited for watching shows or playing games in a moderately-lit room. Despite its good reflection handling, it can't overcome glare in a bright room. It's okay for watching movies or gaming in a dark room, thanks to its high native contrast ratio, but it lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast. It supports HDR, but this adds almost nothing, as it can't display a wide color gamut, and it's not bright enough to bring out bright specular highlights.
- High native contrast for deep blacks in dim scenes.
- Good reflection handling.
- Bad viewing angle.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G is mediocre for watching shows in a bright room. It has poor peak brightness but good reflection handling, so it can handle some glare in a moderately lit room, but it can't get bright enough to overcome bright reflections. The built-in Google TV smart interface has a great selection of streaming apps to quickly find your favorite shows. Unfortunately, the image fades rapidly at an angle, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement. It also has limited picture processing capabilities, so it can't do much to clean up low-quality or low-resolution content.
- Wide selection of streaming apps.
- Good reflection handling.
- Bad viewing angle.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G delivers a mediocre experience when watching sports in a bright room. It has good reflection handling, so it can handle some glare in a moderately lit room, but it can't get bright enough to overcome bright reflections. The response time is okay, but fast action in games looks blurry, and the TV has a narrow viewing angle, meaning the image fades and looks washed out at an angle.
- Wide selection of streaming apps.
- Good reflection handling.
- Bad viewing angle.
- Distracting dirty screen effect in the center.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G is okay for gaming. It has superb low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming experience with minimal delay between your actions and what you see on the screen. There's also very little difference in picture quality when switching to 'Game' mode. On the other hand, it has a fairly slow response time, so you'll see more blur around fast-moving objects. It's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and doesn't support any advanced gaming features like VRR.
- High native contrast for deep blacks in dim scenes.
- Low input lag.
- Good reflection handling.
- 60Hz refresh rate and limited gaming features.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G is okay for watching movies in a dark room. It has a high native contrast ratio and decent black uniformity, so you don't have to worry about distracting IPS glow or blooming around bright highlights. It can't get very bright in HDR, though, and it lacks a local dimming feature, so bright specular highlights don't stand out. Finally, it can't display a wide color gamut, so most HDR content looks dull and muted.
- High native contrast for deep blacks in dim scenes.
- No local dimming feature to improve contrast.
- Poor peak brightness in HDR.
- Can't display a wide color gamut.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G is just okay for gaming in HDR. It has low input lag and good picture quality in the 'Game' Picture Mode. It also has a high native contrast ratio, which is essential for a good HDR experience. It lacks a local dimming feature, though, and it can't get very bright in HDR, so specular highlights in HDR don't stand out at all. It also can't display a wide color gamut, and HDR adds very little overall.
- High native contrast for deep blacks in dim scenes.
- Low input lag.
- No local dimming feature to improve contrast.
- Poor peak brightness in HDR.
- 60Hz refresh rate and limited gaming features.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
The TCL S450G is just okay for use as a PC monitor. It has low input lag, ensuring a responsive desktop experience, but the response time is a bit sluggish, resulting in more noticeable blur around fast-moving objects like a cursor. It has just okay gray uniformity, and there's noticeable dirty screen effect near the center, so it doesn't look good when browsing the web. It also has a bad viewing angle, so the sides of the screen lose uniformity when sitting too close to the screen.
- Low input lag.
- Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly for clear text from a PC.
- Good reflection handling.
- Bad viewing angle.
- Distracting dirty screen effect in the center.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room.
- Sub-pixel dithering causes some color issues, especially in games and shadow details.
Changelog
- Updated Oct 04, 2024: We've added a comparison to the newly-reviewed TCL S5/S551G in the Variable Refresh Rate box.
- Updated Sep 12, 2024: We mentioned the newly-reviewed Hisense A7N in the SDR brightness section of this review.
- Updated Nov 24, 2023: Mentioned the newly reviewed Roku Select Series in the Compared To Other TVs section of this review.
- Updated Oct 03, 2023: We bought and tested the TCL S4/S470G, and added a few comparisons below in the Differences Between Sizes And Variants and the Color Gamut sections.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 50-inch TCL S450G which is part of the TCL S4 lineup, and these results are also valid for the 43-, 55-, 65-, 75, and 85-inch sizes. There are a few different models in TCL's S4 series, which share a similar design but slightly different features and picture quality. The TCL S470G is very similar to this one, but has a different panel with a wider color gamut and a wide viewing angle, but much worse contrast. The TCL S450R is a Roku variant of this TV with a slightly different feature set, but similar picture quality. All sizes perform the same, but the 75-inch and 85-inch models have a slightly different stand and an additional USB port.
| Size | Model Number |
|---|---|
| 43" | 43S450G |
| 50" | 50S450G |
| 55" | 55S450G |
| 58" | 58S450G |
| 65" | 65S450G |
| 75" | 75S450G |
| 85" | 85S450G |
Our unit was manufactured in April 2023; you can see the label here.
Popular TV Comparisons
The TCL S450G is a very basic entry-level TV with okay picture quality and very few additional features. It's cheap, and it performs as expected for a cheap TV. You can get a much better TV by spending just a bit more or get the better Roku Select Series 2023 for a similar price. But if you don't care about gaming features or picture processing, then it's an okay option.
See our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best TVs under $300, and the best smart TVs.
The TCL S551G is better than the TCL S4/S450G. While both have a somewhat limited contrast ratio and no local dimming, the S5 gets noticeably brighter, resulting in better overall picture quality, especially in brighter rooms. It also has a better viewing angle and wider color gamut, as well as offering more gaming features, like VRR and 1080p or 1440p @ 120Hz.
The TCL Q651G is better than the TCL S4/S450G, as it's a higher-tier product. The Q651G is noticeably brighter and more colorful than the S4, and it has more gaming features, with VRR and 120Hz support at 1080p and 1440p in its 55, 65, and 75 model sizes, and support for 4k @ 120Hz on its two largest 85 and 98-inch models. The S4 doesn't have VRR and is limited to 60Hz at all resolutions. It has better contrast than the Q651G, but the S4 isn't as good a TV overall.
The TCL Q550G is significantly better than the TCL S4/S450G. The Q550G has a much better picture quality overall and looks better in bright rooms thanks to its higher SDR peak brightness. HDR content also has more impact on the Q5 thanks to its higher HDR peak brightness and wide color gamut. Finally, the Q550G is better for gaming thanks to the addition of VRR support, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience.
The TCL S4/S450G is a bit better than the Toshiba C350 Series 2023, although the Toshiba is the brighter TV of the two, making it better overall as a bright room TV. The Toshiba also has a much wider viewing angle, making it a better choice for a wide seating arrangement. However, the TCL has vastly better contrast and black uniformity, so it looks significantly better in a dark room or even in a moderately lit room with its good reflection handling.
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
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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