When comparing TCL S405 55" (55S405) vs Samsung MU8000 55" (UN55MU8000), the Slant community recommends TCL S405 55" (55S405) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” TCL S405 55" (55S405) is ranked 5th while Samsung MU8000 55" (UN55MU8000) is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose TCL S405 55" (55S405) is:
The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Decent for casual movies/TV watching
The S405 is a decent, affordable pick if you're a casual viewer. You'll get decent picture quality and a good 4K experience, but the HDR performance might be lacklustre due to the lack of local dimming, wide color gamut, and low HDR peak brightness.
Pro Highly versatile
The S405 is versatile enough to be used as a general-purpose display.
The picture quality is decent for movies and TV shows, and it checks all the boxes that makes a TV suitable for gaming, sports, and as a computer monitor: low input lag, low motion blur, good screen uniformity, and full 4:4:4 color support.
Pro Well-balanced side inputs
Even when the S405 is mounted on a wall, you'll still have access to all essential inputs and outputs which are situated on the side of the unit.
Pro Decent picture quality
The S405 looks decent with adequately deep black levels, above-average color accuracy, and sufficient peak brightness levels for most content.
It’s especially great at reproducing dark scenes thanks to the panel’s contrast ratio of about 4000:1, which means blacks can get really dark at about 4000 times darker than the brightest white it can produce.
Colors are spot-on even without calibration, and the panel can get bright enough with a peak brightness level of ~200 nits to make them pop in dark environments.
The best viewing experience will be in a dark environment where the panel won’t have to compete with light. The S405’s screen can’t really get bright enough to perform as well in bright environments.
Pro Colors are accurate even without calibration
The S405 is excellent at reproducing colors accurately out of the box.
Even without calibration, the colors are spot-on - they're very close to what the source signal demands, and any inaccuracies are generally considered imperceptible to most end users.
The overall average difference between the source signal and the panel's reproduction of the color is measured in Delta-E, where lower means better accuracy. The S405 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users.
Pro Colors are easy to calibrate
Color calibration can be performed easily via the Roku mobile app. You won't have to fiddle with the remote trying to set the values correctly.
Pro Main interface has no ads
The S405 has no ads on its main interface, although there can be ads in third-party applications. Third-party ads can't be blocked, but the tracking and personalisation can be limited through the TV's settings.
Pro Excellent for gaming
The S405 is excellent for gaming - the overall experience will be very responsive and fluid, thanks to the really low input lag and barely noticeable motion blur.
It has an input lag of ~15ms that makes the TV highly responsive to user input - gamers will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what's on the display. The panel can fully change its pixels color in under 15ms, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.
It's also suitable for HDR gaming because there is no increased input lag for HDR, and it has full 4K suport @ 60 FPS, which makes it suitable for all new 4K games.
Pro Intuitive & smooth user interface
The S405 runs on the Roku TV smart platform, touted for its simple, straightforward, and lag-free UI.
It’s easy for anyone to grasp how navigation works, thanks to its two-column design with the menu on the left and options on the right.
There’s also no noticeable lag during navigation or menu selection.
Pro Decent for watching sports
The S405 is a good pick for watching sports thanks to its low motion blur and reasonably consistent color uniformity.
Fast-moving objects, like footballs, won't leave any visible trails on the screen due to the low motion blur of ~15ms. While there are slight uniformity inconsistencies in the edges of the panel when displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields, the issues generally go unnoticed by most.
Pro Works well as a computer monitor
The S405 works well as a computer monitor thanks to its low input lag, barely noticeable motion blur, and full 4:4:4 color support. The 43" model can even be used up close due to its small minimal viewing distance.
The low input lag and low motion blur of ~15ms makes it highly responsive to input and gives it the ability to handle dynamic content well.
It also has full 4:4:4 color support, so text or shapes with hard edges on the screen won't be blurry.
Pro Excellent value for money
The S405 strikes a nice balance between picture quality, screen size, and input lag, all for an affordable price of below $500. It's a great choice for watching and gaming casually without breaking the bank.
Compared to its direct competitors, it offers decent picture quality that is a tad below them, bigger screen size, and lower input lag.
Content looks decent enough for most casual viewers - the black levels are sufficiently deep, colors are vivid, and it gets bright enough for most types of content in a dark room.
The size difference is pretty huge as options with similar size of 49", or even smaller, cost fairly more than the S405.
Its low input lag of ~15ms contributes to a more responsive gaming experience. It's barely noticeable, and it’s also one of the lowest among 4K TVs, which is an impressive feat in this price bracket.
Pro Suitable for gaming
The Samsung MU8000 is the best gaming TV in its range because of its low input lag and excellent motion-blur handling. The TV’s input lag of 24.2 ms makes it suitable for fast-paced gaming.
Pro Excellent color accuracy
Out of the box, the color accuracy of the Samsung MU8000 is very high. It’s unlikely that you’ll need to spend substantial time calibrating this TV.
Pro Compatible with current-gen consoles
This 4K120 TV is an excellent companion to any current generation gaming console, such as the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and Wii U. Additionally, the HDR gaming support of the MU8000 will allow you to experience the immersive HDR effects in the latest console games.
Pro Good for 24p content
The Samsung MU8000 can detect and eliminate the judder effect from 24p content even when the content is sourced from a 60 Hz device, like a cable or satellite box, or Apple TV.
Pro Intuitive smart platform
The Samsung MU8000 runs the Tizen smart platform which is well known for its simplicity and intuitiveness. The whole menu of the Tizen OS is organized around the Smart Hub which acts as a gate for accessing all the functionality of the TV. Additionally, the Smart Hub has a row which contains the most-used items.
Pro Accessible inputs
The Samsung MU8000 comes with a mini One Connect box which is used to move all the TV’s inputs away from the rear of the TV so that you can easily access all of the essential inputs even if the TV is mounted on a wall. The One Connect box can also be used as a USB charging hub.
Pro Good picture quality
The Samsung MU8000’s picture quality is on par with its direct competitors. The TV produces a clear and good-looking picture in both dark and bright environments.
The MU8000 does an excellent job of displaying rich dark scenes because of the TV’s fair uniformity of its blacks and high contrast ratio.
High SDR luminosity allows the Samsung MU8000 to deal with the glare even in relatively bright rooms. The peak brightness of this TV is 380 nits, which is a good result considering that the competitors are only a tiny bit more luminous.
Pro Suitable for watching sports
The Samsung MU8000 is a good option for sports fans because of the TV’s decent color uniformity, well-controlled motion blur, and adequate picture quality.
Good color uniformity is essential for a sports TV since it allows it to reproduce beautiful and even looking sports pitches and arenas. In this aspect, the MU8000 performs as well as its more expensive competitors, like the Sony X850E and Sony X900E.
Also, a good sports TV must have a responsive panel that can eliminate the motion blur effect. Fortunately, the Samsung MU8000’s panel has a full pixel response time of 13.8 ms, which means that each pixel of this TV can fully change its color in about a 70th of a second, preventing fast-moving objects from leaving trails.
Cons
Con Can't fight glare very well
The S405 can deal with low amounts of light, such as sunlight through curtains, but it won't be able to deal with significantly bright light.
Apart from being unable to get bright enough, its handling of reflections is only average. The panel has a semi-gloss finish which helps in reducing reflections a little, but its peak brightness level of ~200 nits is not enough for fighting glare.
Con Not suitable for group watching
The S405 has a narrow viewing angle that makes it unsuitable for watching with groups.
People sitting away from the center of the screen will not experience the same picture as those sitting in the center because the picture quality starts to deteriorate significantly when viewing from just ≥30° away from the screen's center.
Con Lacks support for Dolby Vision
The S405 only supports the HDR10 format for HDR content.
Con Remote lacks functionality
The S405 has a basic remote that is only capable of navigation, playback control, and volume control. It doesn't have fancy stuff like voice command found in remotes of other TVs.
Con Poor sound quality
The speakers on the S405 are too bassy, so distortion becomes a huge problem at high volumes. A relatively cheap speaker system or a soundbar will make a huge difference in sound quality.
Con HDR support is basic
The S405 can't reproduce HDR pictures very well because it lacks various important features.
HDR won't look much different from SDR due to the lack of wide color gamut and low peak brightness. It can't reproduce the full range of colors necessary for HDR, and the brightness level of only ~200 nits is barely enough for HDR content to stand out.
The black levels are also insufficient for highlights to stand out, and it won't be as dynamic as one would expect for HDR due to the lack of local dimming.
Con Poor viewing angle
Just like many other VA TVs, the Samsung MU8000 does suffer from the substantial picture degradation due to viewing angle. The colors of this TV start to degrade once the viewing angle is greater than 19 degrees which makes this unsuitable for watching with a large group.
Con Suffers from reflections
The Samsung MU8000 reflects a lot of light, which makes this TV unsuitable for overly bright rooms with lots of windows.
Con Contains ads
The main interface of the Samsung MU8000 does contain ads and sponsored content.