TCL P607 55" (55P607) vs Sony X850E 75" (XBR75X850E)

At $650, it's hard to find a better deal for a 55-inch 4K TV that can also handle HDR content reasonably well.

Compared to its direct competitors, its picture quality is more or less similar to them. Although the HDR performance is just a tad below them, it's still great, especially for the price.

It's also more versatile because it has better features for gaming - the input lag of ~15ms is among the lowest in 4K TVs on the market, and it has a motion blur of ~12ms that stacks up to more expensive options.

The screen size is large for the price when compared to TVs in this price bracket, such as the Sony X900E which costs ≥$250 more for the 49" model.

The P607 can play both HDR10 and Dolby Vision content.

The P607 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.

In a decently-lit environment, the P607's colors won't look dull thanks to the panel's high peak brightness levels and decent handling of reflections.

It's bright enough to fight off glare with peak brightness levels of ~500 nits for both SDR & HDR, and the intensity of reflections are also reduced by panel's semi-gloss finish.

The P607 has low input lag and barely noticeable motion blur, making for a responsive and fluid gameplay experience.

The input lag is barely noticeable at ~15ms for both SDR & HDR inputs, and the panel only requires ~12ms to fully change the pixels color, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.

The P607 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 P607 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users.

On top of its excellent picture quality, the P607 has everything essential to a great HDR experience: local dimming, wide color gamut, and fairly high peak brightness level.

Highlights will really stand out as the deep black levels are further improved with local dimming. It can make parts of the screen darker when the image calls for it, resulting in a fairly huge boost in picture quality as the black levels become deeper.

The wide color gamut enables the panel to reproduce the full range of colors required for true HDR playback. The screen can get sufficiently bright at a peak level of ~500 nits to light those colors up and make HDR details really pop.

The P607 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.

The P607 can upscale 480p, 720p, and 1080p content to 4K very well. The upscaled content has almost no artifacts, and the crisp details are preserved.

The P607 looks true-to-life with lots of details.

There’s a great depth to pictures and you’ll be able to see everything stand out. Dark scenes are great and you won't miss out on any details, even in shadows.

The panel has a contrast ratio of about 6500:1, which means it can produce blacks that are 6500 times darker than the brightest white. This can be pushed even further to over 7000 with local dimming.

The colors are lifelike and accurate even without any calibration by the user. They will look really vibrant even in bright scenes because of the panel’s high peak brightness levels of ~500 nits for SDR & ~550 nits for HDR.

Even in a decently-lit environment, the P607’s picture quality can still hold up - the panel is great at handling reflections and it can get bright enough to fight off glare.

The X850E has a wide color gamut that allows it to reproduce the colors necessary for true HDR, and it has an average peak brightness level of ~400 nits that allows it to light up these colors properly. Thanks to that, HDR pictures look decent and highlights will look fairly good.

However, the HDR performance can’t get better than that, due to the average peak brightness of ~400 nits which isn’t really enough for details to truly stand out, and it lacks local dimming.

The X850E looks fluid thanks to its excellent color uniformity and decent handling of motion.

It can display large, same-color objects like football fields really well - they will look natural and uniform.

Fast-moving objects, like football, will also look smooth. The panel only requires ~14ms to fully change the pixels color, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.

The X850E runs on Android TV that has access to the Google Play Store. The Play Store has a nice selection of apps, but normal Android apps won't work unless they support Android TV.

The X850E looks really good in dark scenes, thanks to its decent contrast ratio of 4500:1 and excellent black uniformity.

It can produce blacks that are 4500 times darker than the brightest white, and the black uniformity is especially good - there’s barely visible flashlighting, where edges of the screen have a light on them when displaying a black image, and the screen is evenly bright. This makes it perform really well in dark scenes.

Colors look vibrant because of the panel’s high peak brightness levels of ~350 nits for SDR & ~400 nits for HDR. With these brightness levels, it can get bright enough to fight glare. Along with its great handling of reflections, pictures will still look good in decently-lit environments without dull colors.

There are no ads on the X850E’s interface.

The X850E can increase the framerate of content to either 60Hz or 120Hz.

It guesses which frames are missing based on the previous and next frame, and inserts the missing frame in between them. This produces a really strong soap opera effect, where images look really smooth.

This might look weird to some people that don't like it, but the X850E can do this really well for those who enjoy it.

The X850 has a relatively low input lag of ~35ms that makes it a decent pick for gaming. Most players will feel in sync, however, it might be a little unresponsive for competitive or demanding gamers.

It’s also acceptable for HDR gaming because the input lag does not increase in HDR mode.

The X850E is an excellent option for those who watch content from an antenna/satellite box, DVD/Blu-ray player or Apple TV. It can detect eliminate jerky playback that is common in content from these sources.

The X850E has the largest screen size at 65” for the cheapest when compared to its direct competitors. Similarly-sized models from its direct competitors cost much more.