The TCL C8K is the flagship model in the company’s 2025 UK TV lineup (Europe gets the more premium C9K as a flagship) and is the latest addition to TCL’s family of big-screen TVs, which top out at 115 inches.
The C8K follows in the footsteps of the TCL C855, one of the best mini-LED TVs released in the UK in 2024, thanks to its stacked list of features, great picture quality and affordable price compared to more premium brands such as Samsung and Sony.
It’s not very often I get testing time with very large screens (logistically, we can only review up to 65-inch sets), but on this occasion, I got to test the 98-inch C8K model. I’ve labelled it as an ‘affordable’ 98-inch TV, and despite costing £4,799 (which for most is a step too far), it’s a bargain for the spec it has compared to other 98-inch sets.
To give you an idea, a 97-inch LG G5 OLED TV will set you back £24,999 – that’s five times the C8K’s price! For further context, the 98-inch Samsung QN90D, one of the best TVs of 2024 and a rival to the TCL C8-series, launched for £7,499.
Should you buy a screen at this size for this price? Read on to find out.
Bright and bold
One thing that became obvious during my testing of the 98-inch C8K was that I was dealing with a seriously bright TV. Using demo footage from the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark 4K Blu-ray, the whites of the snowy landscapes were dazzling and vibrant, with highlights given a serious HDR punch. In more colorful images, such as an orange butterfly and a field of red flowers, the picture was again dynamic thanks to the TV’s high brightness.
Throughout testing, I switched picture modes between Filmmaker Mode (a new addition to TCL TVs) and Movie. The former seemed more accurate but duller overall, while Movie was more eye-catching if not a little overwhelming at times. It all really came down to what I was watching.
When I measured the C8K’s brightness on a 10% HDR white window pattern, it hit 4,308 nits peak in Standard mode, 3,736 nits in Filmmaker Mode, and 4,001 nits in Movie mode. For a big screen, that’s serious brightness. For fullscreen brightness (100% HDR white window pattern), the C8K exceeded 600 nits in every mode – again, an impressive result for a screen this size.
Watching Wicked with Dolby Vision IQ active, colors like Elphaba’s green skin were dynamic but also accurate. Every color was as sickly and bright as advertised, with the blue uniforms of students, the shimmering green of the emerald city and the popping pink of Glinda’s outfits all coming across as eye-watering.
Measuring the C8K’s HDR color gamut coverage, it yielded results of 96.69% for UHDA-P3 and 78.81% for BT.2020. Both of these are very good results and help explain why colours looked as good as they did.
Refined and contrast-rich
Textures were generally very good on the C8K as well. In The Batman, details in the Batman’s suit looked refined, and textures in characters’ clothing and skin were true-to-life in close-ups.
The C8K also showed excellent backlight control, with deep, rich blacks and very few signs of blooming. Once again, darker scenes in The Batman showcased accurate shadows and strong contrast in scenes with light sources against dark backgrounds. And TCL’s new peak luminance settings meant the maximum brightness could be controlled for local dimming, allowing me to tailor brightness beyond the standard Low-High local dimming settings.
It’s not all good news
As my testing progressed, however, it became clear that this TV wasn’t perfect. Throughout various scenes, the C8K suffered from an effect where some textures became muddied. For example, in a landscape shot from the Spears & Munsil disc, the leaves of trees in the foreground looked massed together and lacked detail.
The C8K also didn’t always handle its exceptional brightness well. During the Wizard and I scene in Wicked, Elphaba runs across a wheat field, and the sun shines behind her as she leaps. Viewed on an OLED TV, detail is maintained in the wheat underneath, and Elphaba is mostly still visible in a silhouette. On the C8K, much of this detail was lost as the sun bloomed, oversaturating the image.
Also, although this wasn’t constant, I saw banding artifacts on the C8K, predominantly in darker scenes, but in ones with blue skies as well.
Final thoughts
This was by no means a complete test of the TCL C8K, and my first impressions were generally more positive than negative. Yes, some details and black levels were lost, and its brightness could be inconsistent, but the TV’s overall picture quality was generally good.
For £4,799, this is also one of the cheapest 98-inch TVs in the UK to offer this level of performance. I hope to test the C8K again (albeit in a smaller size) and provide a more definitive take, but for now, with the right settings and content, the C8K appears to have good potential.
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james.davidson@futurenet.com (James Davidson)
