Samsung MU9000 55" (UN55MU9000) vs TCL R617 65" (65R617)

The MU9000 can produce really detailed pictures, especially in dark scenes thanks to its really deep black levels. It has a contrast ratio of about 6000:1, which enables it to produce blacks that are 6000 times darker than the brightest white.

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 ~400 nits for SDR & ~450 nits for HDR.

Even in a decently-lit environment, the MU9000's picture quality can still hold up - the panel is excellent at handling reflections thanks to its glossy finish, and it can get bright enough to fight off glare.

On top of its great picture quality, the MU9000 has a high HDR peak brightness level and wide color gamut that makes it good for HDR.

Shadows look pretty good with nice details, and highlights are quite vibrant thanks to the peak brightness level of ~450 nits.

The panel can reproduce the wide range of colors required for true HDR playback because of its wide color gamut, which covers ~60% of the standard colors required for HDR according to the Rec. 2020 color space. This is considered decent enough for reproducing HDR details, and it can display these colors accurately at different brightness levels.

It’s worth noting that while the MU9000 has local dimming that’s supposed to make HDR better, the local dimming is worthless and doesn’t do much. It increases the contrast ratio by a meager amount and does nothing else.

The MU9000's panel has a glossy finish that reduce reflections significantly. This makes it excellent at fighting glare, along with its adequate brightness levels of ~400 nits for SDR & ~450 nits for HDR.

The MU9000 is pretty versatile. On top of its great picture quality, it has features that makes it perform quite well for gaming and sports.

It offers a responsive and fluid gaming experience . Players will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what’s on the display, and fast-moving objects won’t leave any trails on the screen. That is thanks to the low input lag of ~25ms and the panel’s quick response time of ~15ms, which virtually eliminates motion blur.

It’s also great for watching sports because of the almost non-existent motion blur that makes fast-moving objects look smooth. The panel is also pretty uniform meaning it has no issues with displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields.

The MU9000 comes with a OneConnect box which moves all the hard-to-access rear inputs away from the TV. Thanks to this, you’ll always have full access to all inputs and outputs of the TV even if it’s wall-mounted. The OneConnect box can also be used as a USB charging hub.

The MU9000 runs on the Tizen smart platform, known for its simplicity and intuitiveness.

It’s easy to navigate and access all the functions of features of the TV. The Tizen OS menus are organized around the “Smart Hub” which contains everything: apps, settings, input switching and others. It also has a section for quick access to frequently used items.

The MU9000's remote has a voice command feature that can perform actions as you physically would with the remote, and it can even be used to adjust settings directly.

The MU9000 can upscale 480p, 720p, and 1080p content to 4K quite well. The upscaled content has almost no noticeable artifacts, and all the details are preserved.

The MU9000 is great at dealing with 24p content, such as Blu-rays or media sourced from an cable or satellite box. It can detect and eliminate the judder effect present in these content, where images displayed can appear jittery.

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.

Thanks to its low input lag and 4K 4:4:4 support, 65R617 is a good option for console gaming.

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.