Samsung MU8000 55" (UN55MU8000) vs TCL R617 65" (65R617)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.