TCL P607 55" (55P607) vs TCL R617 55" (55R617)

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.

Regarding the overall picture quality, the TCL R617 performs on par with the noticeably pricier high-end TVs. In its price range, the TV offers exceptional performance no matter if it is placed in a dark or bright environment.

It can reproduce a wide range of bright and vibrant colors as well as some truly inky blacks because of its wide color gamut, high color accuracy, excellent gamma tracking, high native contrast ratio, and stellar peak brightness.

Colors pop and look realistic thanks to the low average color error dE of 2.33, which is noticeably below the color error margin that can be spotted by a human eye. Also, colors don't look flat due to the TV's near perfect gamma tracking. The colors look very bright thanks to the TV's high overall peak brightness that is measured at more than 700 nits. No other TV in this price range can get that bright.

Dark scenes look profound thanks to the high native contrast ratio and excellent uniformity of its blacks. The TV's native contrast ratio is measured at around 6000:1, which is significantly above what its competitors offer.

With this TV you will not have problems associated with reflections and glare even in fairly bright environments thanks to the TV's amazing brightness and semi-gloss screen finish that helps it to diffuse reflections fairly well.

The TV's peak brightness measures at around 700 nits, which is far above what the other TVs in this price range offer.