TCL 85C805K

The TCL 85C805K is an 85in TV that can be yours for less than £1,600. And no, I haven’t missed a zero off that price. This really is an 85in TV home cinema fans can buy for less than the price of many 55-inch models. So enticing is the 85C805K’s inches-to-pounds paid ratio, in fact, that it’s tempting to put my laptop down right away and head off to the pub. 

But that would be doing you and the 85C805K a disservice. Remarkably, TCL’s monster mid-ranger actually has lots more than size and value going for it.

Picture Quality

History hasn’t been kind to big-but-cheap TVs. After all, the more screen acreage a TV has, the easier it is to spot the limitations and flaws typically associated with a bargain-basement model. Right from the first moment I spend facing off against the TCL 85C805K’s monster 85in screen, though, it is clear that it suffers from far fewer picture gremlins than I’d have thought possible for the price.

The 85C805K’s unexpectedly great picture efforts are down, in no small part, to its being built around a startlingly sophisticated and high-end panel design. For instance, it’s illuminated by mini LEDs rather than the usual chunky ones. This allows more LEDs to be fitted into the 85C805K’s colossal screen area, boosting the potential brightness and light control.

Even more unexpectedly, this light control extends to a local dimming system operating across many hundreds of separate lighting zones. Finding even a basic local dimming system for the 85C805K’s money would be a bonus, frankly, so getting hundreds of dimming zones is nuts. It turns out, too, that the 85C805K’s colours are delivered by a wide-gamut Quantum Dot system rather than the basic RGB filter arrangement you might have anticipated on such an affordable king-sized TV.

Marshalling all these potential forces for TV good is TCL’s ‘AiPQ 3.0’ processing system - and for the most part, this AI-infused processor really does unlock lots of goodness from the TV’s promising constituent parts. 

It starts with remarkably few of the backlight flaws I expect to see with such a budget big-screen TV. Dark scenes are delivered with deep, rich black tones infused with impressively little low-contrast greyness. Bright objects appear against dark backdrops without causing widespread or strong halos of extraneous light around them. Also, they don’t get aggressively dimmed when they appear against dark backdrops, and I can’t see any significant general backlight clouding - not even in the image’s corners.

On top of all this, the 85C805K’s black tones look natural and neutral rather than taking on a greenish or bluish hue as is the case with many budget TVs, while the set’s light-handling is subtle enough to render an excellent amount of shadow detailing in dark shots. There’s none of that hollow, flattened look you get with TVs that crush subtle details in a bid to deliver convincing black tones.

Making the combination of credible black colours and minimal backlight blooming all the more impressive is the fact that the 85C805K is also much brighter than expected. Televisions as value-led as the 85C805K typically struggle to get beyond 500-600 nits of peak brightness, but TCL’s mega screen measures beyond 1350 nits on a 10% HDR test window. That’s up there with the peak brightness even LG’s mighty G4 OLED TVs can muster. Furthermore, the 85C805K also hits comfortably north of 700 nits with a full-screen bright HDR image - twice as bright as any OLED TVs get in the same circumstances.

The sheer size of the screen producing all this brightness makes it feel all the more potent and visceral, too - though it’s the contrast achieved by the way the 85C805K combines its brightness and darkness that really seals a spectacular high dynamic range deal. 

With such convincing black tones to provide a strong foundation, and so much brightness to infuse them, the 85C805K’s Quantum Dot colours also outperform expectations. Bright HDR tones retain more vibrancy than is often the case with aggressively priced TVs, while dark shades don’t fade towards grey or succumb to ugly tone ‘clumping’.

The 85C805K’s many picture strengths make it a great games monitor, too. Especially as the vivid colours, punchy contrast and high brightness are joined by a very respectable input lag time in ‘Game’ mode of just 13.4ms. Two of the 85C805K’s HDMIs can handle 4K @ 120Hz and variable refresh rates, too, meaning the gaming experience is as fluid as it is crisp and responsive.

Before home cinema fans, unable to believe their luck at how big a quality TV can be had for so little cash (by huge screen standards), start making space in their living rooms for a 85C805K, though, there are a couple of limitations to point out. First, while 4K pictures definitely look 4K, the 85C805K’s images tend to appear a bit softer than the 4K images of more expensive big-screen rivals TVs from the likes of Sony, LG and Samsung. This is partly because motion can look a little blurry with 24 and 30 frames a second content, and partly because it’s not as assured as some more expensive rivals when upscaling HD sources to 4K. And while it avoids dark colour clumping, meanwhile, the 85C805K doesn’t have as much colour finesse as really high-end TVs. Skin tones can therefore end up looking a little plasticky, while very bold saturations can become a bit monotone, robbing brightly coloured objects of three-dimensionality. 

Just because the 85C805K’s pictures aren’t as pin-sharp and pristinely coloured as those of the TV world’s most premium models, though, doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a fantastic TV for the money. It can certainly turn your living room into a cinema for a fraction of the cost and hassle of a good-quality projector.

Sound quality

Designed with renowned audio brand Onkyo, the 85C805K’s speaker system is good enough to deliver a surprisingly satisfying accompaniment to its epic pictures.

Particularly effective is how widely the simple two-channel, 30W speaker set up manages to cast sound beyond the TV’s hulking frame. Off-screen effects, ambient sounds and musical scoring are all placed effectively outside the 85C805K’s bodywork, extending the experience even further than the 85in pictures do. 

This expansion of the soundstage doesn’t lead to any incoherence or imbalance in the way movie soundtracks are presented, either. On the contrary, most sounds appear to be exactly where they should be - and the sound’s spaciousness helps avoid the muddiness and harshness that can afflict more trapped-in TV audio systems.

There’s a kind of vertical hierarchy to the audio presentation, too, that - while not quite delivering a true sense of Dolby Atmos height effects - does at least generate a compelling wall of sound. With subtle effects emerging clearly and dialogue always remaining intelligible, the only mild complaints I have about the 85C805K’s sound are that there isn’t enough bass extension to add the heft that such huge pictures deserve, and that there’s a slightly lo-fi feeling to the presentation. While this latter issue might give you a mild reminder of how little this huge TV has cost, though, it seldom spoils the fun or seriously disrupts the TV’s immersive qualities.

Living with

In case you hadn’t realised yet, the TCL 85C805K is very big. In fact, it’s weird just how much bigger it feels than a 75in model - and 65in TVs look like babies in comparison. Of course, if you’re already thinking about buying an 85in TV you’re probably fully aware of how much it will dominate your field of view, and that’s exactly what you want it for. But still. It’s a major addition to your home, and you need to be aware of that. 

It’s also worth bearing in mind that, since it uses a VA type of LED panel, nobody will want to sit very far off-axis to the screen. If they do, they will experience quite a drop in contrast and colour saturation. 

One nice touch, given how much of a black hole the 85C805K’s screen leaves behind when it’s in standby, is a ‘Screen Saver’ mode that can fill the screen with a nice collection of photographs and patterns while you’re not watching it in earnest.

The 85C805K’s smart features are delivered by Google TV. This is a more attractive, straightforward and stable interface than its Android predecessor, but for me it’s still a bit cluttered and lacking in customisation options. Also, while it carries a huge array of apps and streaming services, it doesn’t currently carry all the UK’s key terrestrial broadcaster catch-up services - including BBC iPlayer. TCL says, though, that it will send a free Roku TV stick to anyone who asks for one.

My main takeaway from living with the TCL 85C805K, though, is that it gives me a proper home cinema-sized experience without the hassle and limitations of a projector system - and for less money than you might spend on a week in a holiday cottage in Norwich.

Conclusion

After a couple of years nibbling away at the fringes of the UK TV market, TCL’s European operation is now fully up and batting - and delivering the same sort of terrifyingly good-value TV hits that have already made it a huge force in the US. Even by TCL’s new standards, though, the 85C805K is a home theatre bargain of pretty much historic proportions.

Test Samples

Gears Of War 4

The perceived wisdom among competitive gamers is that you need a fairly small monitor so your eyes can take in the whole screen at once. I have to say, though, that playing an FPS as graphically intense and refined as Gears of War 4 on an 85in screen (and even at 120Hz in some online modes) so that the action feels life-sized and more is an experience you won’t forget in a hurry.

Aliens 4K Blu-ray

While some AV fans have declared themselves offended by the pristine clarity of the new 4K Blu-ray master of James Cameron’s classic Aliens movie, I love it. And its tasteful HDR master’s combination of rich, deep blacks, subtle shading, lots of depth of field and surprisingly bright highlights for artificial lights, reflections on armour, guns and so on are handled remarkably well by the 85C805K.

It 4K Blu-ray

The first of Andy Muschietti’s two It films has become something of a classic TV test disc, thanks to its mixture of bright, colourful daylight scenes around the town of Derry and exceptionally dark, scary scenes in various cellars and sewers. Remarkably, the TCL 85C805K takes all these potential picture quality hurdles easily within its stride.

If you’ve always hankered for a truly cinema-scale TV but have never been able to get past the eye-watering price hurdle, the insanely good value TCL 85C805K is pretty much the answer to your prayers.

A screen as big as the 85C805K really benefits from being fed the most high-quality sources. I’d strongly recommend adding a decent 4K Blu-ray player, such as the Panasonic UB820, and paying for the premium quality tiers of the Prime Video and Netflix streaming services. Disney+ has a lot of 4K HDR content too.

While the 85C805K’s sound is better than expected, clearly a screen this big feels like it should be partnered with a full surround-sound system such as that offered by Samsung’s excellent Q990D soundbar. Though, as a sign of just what great value TCL’s king-sized TV is, Samsung’s Q990D actually costs £100 more!