TCL 4 Series Roku TV (55S425) review
Our Verdict
The TCL four Series Roku TV 55S425 is a basic 4K Television set, only the budget-friendly price volition be plenty for most people to overlook its flaws.
For
- Affordable 4H Tv with HDR
- Solid Roku Television receiver experience
- Excellent responsiveness for gaming
Confronting
- No local dimming
- Unimpressive motion handling
- Limited HDR support
Tom's Guide Verdict
The TCL 4 Serial Roku Television 55S425 is a basic 4K Tv set, simply the budget-friendly price volition be enough for almost people to overlook its flaws.
Pros
- +
Affordable 4H TV with HDR
- +
Solid Roku Tv experience
- +
Excellent responsiveness for gaming
Cons
- -
No local dimming
- -
Unimpressive motion handling
- -
Express HDR support
TCL 4 Serial Roku Tv set specs
Toll: $299.99
Model number: 55S425
Screen size: 55 inches
Resolution: 3840 10 2160
HDR: HDR10
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Ports: 3 HDMI, 1 USB
Audio: ii channel x 8W
Smart TV software: Roku Idiot box
Size: 49 ten 28.iv x three.1 inches [w/o stand up]
Weight: 26.seven pounds [w/o stand]
TCL's Roku TVs are, with only a few exceptions, best known for delivering high-quality TVs at extremely affordable prices. Our TCL 4 Series 4K Roku Idiot box (55S425) review ($299.99 for the 55-inch model) finds it to exist the almost affordable 4K Television that TCL makes, and in smaller sizes, it sells for prices more affordable than many bargain-bin 1080p smart TVs.
Merely there's a lot more than to the TCL iv-Series 55S425, from the excellent Roku smart Boob tube feel to speedy response times, that will be a certain hit with gamers. Yeah, it has some issues, like flawed motility handling and mediocre HDR operation, simply on the whole, it's a very practiced 4K Telly for a very low price. Read our total TCL iv Series Roku Telly review to come across why it earns a identify on our best TV list and on our list of best cheap 4K TVs.
Editor's Note: (viii/xiii/2020) The TCL four Series Roku TV is still beingness sold, even as new TCL 2020 TVs come out. We've updated our review to reverberate current pricing, but our original rating and recommendation remains unchanged.
TCL iv Serial Roku TV: Cost and availability
Our review centers on the 55-inch version of the TCL 4 Series Roku Television set, model number 55S425. But the 4 Series also comes in other sizes, ranging from a 43-inch model up to 75 inches.
| Model number | Screen size | Toll |
|---|---|---|
| 43S425 | 43-inch | $229 |
| 50S425 | 50-inch | $269 |
| 55S425 | 55-inch | $299 |
| 65S425 | 65-inch | $469 |
| 75S425 | 75-inch | $749 |
These additional sizes all share the same basic feature set, from the plastic stand up and trio of HDMI ports to the direct backlight and Roku smart-TV software. The just major difference between the diverse models is screen size, and then any recommendations we brand about the 55-inch 55S425 also apply to the other models.
TCL iv Series Roku Television receiver: Design
As TV designs get, the TCL four Series is very basic, with standard black bezels surrounding the display, unproblematic plastic anxiety for the stand and a matte-black panel across the back of the chassis.
The blackness rear console is jazzed upward with a row of tessellated triangles along the acme and a stripe of ridges just above the component box that makes up the lower half of the Telly chassis. These are purely visual embellishments, with no functional purpose.
Measuring 49 ten 28.4 ten 3.one inches without the stand, the 55-inch 4 Serial is pocket-sized plenty that one person can assemble and move the set, but the 26.vii-pound Idiot box is still large enough that a 2nd person is recommended. The 3.1-inch-thick design can be hung on the wall with a 200 x 200 millimeter VESA mount, but information technology volition stick out several inches from the wall.
TCL 4 Series Roku TV: Ports
On the right-hand side of the TCL 55S425, set a few inches in from the correct manus edge of the ready, there is a single panel of ports and inputs. There you will observe three HDMI ports, including one HDMI ARC port for connecting a soundbar without having to run additional audio cables.
An ethernet jack provides wired internet connectivity, while 802.11ac Wi-Fi is built in for wireless connections.
A unmarried USB two.0 port is available for viewing digital media files or powering a streaming stick, and an RF connector lets you hook up an HDTV antenna for over-the-air broadcasts. Additional ports provide blended video input, optical digital output for surround sound and a 3.5-millimeter jack for headphones or a stereo patch cable.
TCL four Series Roku TV: Functioning
The TCL 55S425 is a 4K display, offer full 3840 ten 2160 resolution, with direct backlighting and HDR (high dynamic range) support. The result is a adequately decent (if basic) 4K viewing experience, and meliorate than you might await at this affordable price.
The TCL 4 Serial turned registered 97.2% of the Rec. 709 color gamut in our testing, which is better than the Vizio Five-Series 50-inch 4K HDR Smart Television set (V505-G9) (96.75%), but not quite every bit wide as the 98.iv% we saw from the Samsung 40-inch NU7100. But while we prefer to see 4K TVs measure somewhere nigh the 100% mark, the TCL is inside the range we expect for a lower-cost model.
The 4K-viewing experience is amend than you lot might wait at this affordable price.
Color accuracy seemed a little off. Watching a scene from Bract Runner 2049 set in a hazy, dust-covered Las Vegas, the scene should be rendered in a distinctive orange tone. But on the TCL, that orange sometimes looked a bit pinkish. The colour issues were most pronounced when handling orange shades, which again skewed more than toward pinkish and reddish, merely it was just really noticeable in scenes in which that was the dominant color.
This was the only noticeable color issue we saw in our evaluation, and in fact, the 55S425 offers strong colour accuracy, according to our tests, with a Delta-E rating of 1.iv (closer to 0 is meliorate). Because most affordable sets fare slightly worse — our LG UM7300PUA review (i.9), Samsung forty-inch NU7100 review (2.five), and Vizio V-Serial V505-G9 review (ii.2) all showed greater difference — it's really very good for the cost.
We were less impressed with the TCL 4-Series' HDR performance, and in the absence of local dimming, the HDR content isn't as pronounced as it might be on more premium sets. Watching scenes from Spider-Human: Homecoming, the TCL's HDR back up was evidenced by bright highlights, like a holographic display or glowing purple alien antiquity. Only the 55S425 is limited to supporting HDR10, with no support for the richer Dolby Vision format, and the TV'due south handling of shadowy scenes left a lot to exist desired, frequently blending black and night shades into an undistinguished deadening gray.
Black levels aren't as deep and rich every bit you lot would meet on a set with local dimming, which lets a TV refuse the brightness or turn off the backlight entirely for nighttime portions of the screen. But since the TCL has merely direct backlight, without local dimming, dark and black portions of the screen are instead displayed as a dark, glowing greyness. It's not unexpected in this toll range, simply if you lot're picky about picture quality, it's one reason to consider something else.
More: 4 Reasons You Should Purchase a 4K TV
I likewise saw several problems with motion treatment. Whether it was a fast-paced fight scene, or even a simple panning shot beyond a scene, there was some unwanted judder equally the Television struggled to brandish the motility smoothly. Switching between picture modes did little to modify this, but turning on move smoothing improved (merely did not entirely fix) the event.
TCL iv Series Roku Goggle box: Gaming functioning
Unlike other sets, the TCL 4 Series Roku Television does not offer any sort of automatic switching to game manner or detection of a game panel, such as our Xbox I 10. Switching to game mode is also slightly unintuitive, as the mode is not offered in the regular pick of movie modes, and requires navigating into a separate menu of avant-garde picture show settings to activate.
The TCL four Series delivers bang-up response times, an indispensable advantage in fast-paced games.
The TCL 4 Series supports 4K gaming, as well every bit streaming content with 10-bit colour support at 24Hz. However, the set up does not support additional frame rates for streamed content, nor does it back up HDR modes for either gaming or streaming. That's fine if HDR content isn't a high priority, only it does mean that games will announced less impressive than on other 4K sets.
Though the TCL 4 Series doesn't offer HDR support when gaming, it does evangelize peachy response times, an indispensable advantage in fast-paced games. When we tested the 55S425 with our input lag tester, we recorded a bespeak-to-screen time of 14 milliseconds. That's a faster response time than the Samsung 40-inch NU7100 (17.9 ms), simply slower than the LG UM7300PUA (12.1), and stands as i of the best results nosotros've seen this year.
TCL iv Serial Roku Tv: Audio
I area where the 55S425 is distinctly lacking is in audio. With a pair of 8-watt speakers doing the heavy lifting, the overall volume provided by the Tv set is relatively weak, and isn't well suited to rooms that take a lot of ambient racket.
Bass is nearly nonexistent. When listening to Pink Floyd'due south "Coin" the distinctive intro bassline was severely muted, and moving-picture show scenes that should have thumped and rumbled, sounded weightless and insubstantial.
MORE: Roku Smart Soundbar Review
This is definitely a set that will benefit from something off of our list of the best soundbars, ideally with an external subwoofer, besides.
TCL 4 Series Roku Television receiver: Smart features
TCL'south Roku TVs routinely offer 1 of the best smart TV experiences on the market, and the 55S425 delivers on that front. Roku's tiled interface is simple and easy to apply, fifty-fifty without prior smart-Tv experience, and the app option offered in Roku's channel lineup is impressive and varied.
The included remote control has no microphone for voice interaction, but if you use the accompanying Roku app on your smartphone, you can search past voice. It's a basic search only, without the fancy features offered on premium sets that have Amazon Alexa or something similar built-in, only it works.
And, speaking of Alexa, you can pair both Amazon Repeat devices and Google Abode speakers with the TV, providing further vocalization interaction and integration with the rest of your smart domicile.
TCL iv Series Roku Idiot box: Remote control
The included remote control is a basic Roku remote, a pill-shaped controller that features a plus-shaped directional pad, a handful of navigation controls — such as home, back and return buttons — along with media playback controls and side-mounted volume controls. In add-on to these controls are four dedicated-app buttons, with one-bear on access to DirecTV Now, Hulu, Netflix and Sling Boob tube.
The infrared remote requires line of sight with the TV'southward IR sensor (centered beneath the TCL logo on the lesser bezel of the TV). Nosotros would adopt something like the Bluetooth connectivity used on the remotes of many other premium TVs, only it's par for the course in this ultra-budget toll range.
TCL iv Series Roku Goggle box: Verdict
The TCL iv Series Roku TV 55S425 is a cheap 4K Goggle box that offers good value and adequacy for its small-scale price, only our recommendation comes with some caveats. The lack of local dimming means that HDR content won't wait every bit dynamic on this set, and the motion handling has noticeable flaws. This won't be an event during slow paced dramas, just activeness films and other kinetic content will look a bit less impressive on this ready than on other 4K competitors.
Simply those competitors all toll more, and for many shoppers, the defining feature of a TV isn't the HDR formats it supports, or the precision of the backlight; it'south all about the cost. With the 55-inch model now selling for as little as $299, it's hard to find a 4K set in this price range at all, and the 55S425 delivers great resolution, decent colour quality and, yeah, it still supports HDR (admitting only the basic HDR10 format). The TCL 4 Series is too a smashing option for gamers, who may not care equally much about format support and volition appreciate the speedy responsiveness of the set.
Equally a value-focused set, the TCL 4 Series Roku TV offers some of the all-time value we've seen on a cheap 4K TV. It replaces our previous budget-favorite, seen in our TCL 43S517 Roku Smart 4K Tv set review, and is a slap-up deal for anyone on a budget.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/tcl-4-series-s425
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