TCL 65-inch 4K QLED TV Review: Big Screen Entertainment for Rs 45,999

A 65-inch TV in a Mumbai flat is ambitious. I live in a 2BHK in Andheri East. My living room is maybe 12 feet by 10 feet. When the Flipkart delivery guys carried the TCL box through my front door, they had to tilt it diagonally to get it past the hallway. My wife stood in the kitchen doorway with an expression that said, very clearly, "you measured this, right?" I had measured. Twice. The TV would fit on the wall opposite the sofa with about four inches of clearance on each side. Tight, but possible. What I hadn't measured was the sense of absurdity that comes with mounting a screen the size of a dining table in a room where you can touch both walls if you stretch your arms wide enough.

But here's the thing — after three weeks with the TCL 65C655 Pro, a 65-inch QLED 4K TV that cost me Rs 45,999 during a Flipkart sale, I can say with confidence that a big screen in a small room isn't a mistake. It's an experience. And for this price, it's an experience I didn't think was possible.

Unboxing and Setup: A Two-Person Job

The box weighs about 25 kilograms. Do not attempt to move this alone. The delivery team brought it upstairs (third floor, no lift) and left it inside my door, which was generous of them. From there, my brother-in-law and I spent about 20 minutes carefully extracting the TV, attaching the stand legs, and deciding whether to use the stand or wall-mount it.

I chose wall mounting, which introduced its own challenges. Indian apartment walls are typically made of brick or concrete block with plaster over them. My wall is concrete, which is actually ideal for mounting — it holds screws well. But you need a proper hammer drill. I borrowed one from a neighbor. The mounting bracket that comes with the TV is a basic fixed mount — no tilt, no swivel. It works fine if your viewing position is directly in front of the TV at roughly the center height of the screen. I mounted it so the center of the screen sits at about 42 inches from the floor, which aligns with eye level when seated on my sofa.

The trickiest part was cable management. The TV has its ports on the left side (when facing the screen), which meant running an HDMI cable, a power cable, and an Ethernet cable (I don't trust Wi-Fi for 4K streaming) along the wall and down to the power outlet. I used adhesive cable channels from Amazon — Rs 350 for a pack — to keep things tidy. Total setup time from box to watching content: about two and a half hours.

A Note on Stand Placement

If you don't wall-mount, you'll need a TV stand or table that's at least 55 inches wide. The stand legs are placed wide apart at the edges of the TV, not centered. This means a standard Indian TV unit from Pepperfry or IKEA that's 48 inches wide won't work. Measure before you buy, or plan to wall-mount.

Picture Quality: What Rs 45,999 Gets You

This is a QLED panel, which means it uses quantum dots to enhance color range and brightness over a standard LED TV. It is not an OLED — there's no pixel-level dimming, no infinite contrast ratio, no risk of burn-in. At this price point, QLED is the best technology available, and TCL's implementation is genuinely good.

Cricket on the Big Screen

IPL season is when a big TV earns its place in an Indian household. I watched several matches on this TCL, and the experience was transformative compared to my old 43-inch LED TV. The 65-inch screen fills your peripheral vision when you're sitting 7-8 feet away, which creates an immersion that smaller screens simply cannot replicate.

Motion handling during cricket is the real test. Fast bowling deliveries, the ball tracking graphic, the camera panning across the stadium — all of these demand good motion processing. The TCL 65C655 Pro handles it well. There's a "Sports" picture mode that increases brightness, boosts green saturation (for the field), and activates motion smoothing. I normally hate motion smoothing for movies, but for live sports it genuinely helps. The ball is trackable during fast deliveries, fielder movements are smooth, and camera pans across the ground don't stutter or produce noticeable judder.

One issue: the Hotstar (JioCinema now, I suppose) stream quality affects the output significantly. The TV can only display what it receives. During peak IPL hours, the stream bitrate sometimes drops, and you'll see compression artifacts — blocky shadows in the stands, loss of detail in the pitch. This isn't the TV's fault. When I tested with a high-bitrate 4K cricket highlight reel from YouTube, the picture was significantly cleaner. If you're watching on a cable set-top box that outputs 720p or 1080i, this TV will upscale the signal, and the upscaling is decent but won't magically create detail that isn't there.

Bollywood Movies

I tested with several films across genres. For bright, colorful movies — think Jawan or Rocky Aur Rani — the QLED panel delivers vivid, punchy colors. Reds and golds pop with genuine vibrancy. Skin tones are warm and natural. The wide color gamut means you see nuances in costume details and set design that a standard LED TV washes out.

For darker films — Tumbbad, for instance — the limitations of QLED become apparent. Shadow detail is acceptable but not exceptional. In scenes with a bright object against a dark background (a lantern in a dark room, a face lit by a single candle), there's a visible halo of light bloom around the bright area. This is because the backlight zones aren't fine enough to precisely light only the bright portion of the screen. OLED doesn't have this problem, but OLED at 65 inches costs Rs 1,50,000 or more. For Rs 45,999, the TCL's dark scene performance is reasonable. Not great, not terrible.

Netflix Dark Scenes

This deserves its own section because Netflix has a habit of producing shows where key scenes are practically unwatchable on budget TVs. I tested with Sacred Games (dark Mumbai streets), Wednesday (dark Gothic interiors), and the notoriously dark Long Night episode of Game of Thrones.

In a dark room with the TV's brightness set to about 70% and the backlight on high, dark scenes are watchable. You can make out details in shadows, characters' expressions are visible, and the overall image doesn't turn into a muddy grey mess. In a room with ambient light — a tubelight on, or daylight coming through a window — dark scenes lose detail. This is where the QLED's brightness helps; it can push out more light than a standard LED to fight ambient light, but dark scenes will always look best in a darkened room.

I'd rate the dark scene performance as 6 out of 10. Adequate for most content, frustrating for heavily stylized dark cinematography. If dark scene performance is your primary concern, you need to double your budget and look at OLED, or at minimum a mini-LED panel like the TCL C755, which offers much better local dimming.

Sound Quality: The Honest Assessment

The TV has a 20W speaker system — two 10W speakers firing downward. For news, YouTube videos, and general TV content, the built-in speakers are fine. Dialogue is clear, volume goes loud enough for a medium-sized room, and there's enough mid-range presence for voices to sound natural.

For movies and cricket, the speakers are insufficient. There's no bass whatsoever. Explosions in action movies sound like someone tapping on a cardboard box. The crowd roar during a cricket six is thin and tinny. Music sounds flat. If you're buying a 65-inch TV for a cinematic experience, you need a soundbar. This is not a criticism of the TCL specifically — no flat-panel TV at any price has good built-in audio. It's a physics problem. Flat, thin enclosures can't move enough air to produce decent bass.

I paired it with a JBL Bar 2.1 Deep Bass that I already owned (it cost about Rs 15,000 a year ago). The combination is excellent. Dolby Audio passthrough over HDMI ARC works without issues. The soundbar handles bass and wide sound, while the TV speakers can be turned off entirely. If you're budgeting for this TV, add Rs 8,000-15,000 for a basic soundbar. Without it, you're watching cinema on a movie screen with phone speakers. The visual experience deserves better audio.

Google TV Interface and Indian App Support

The TCL runs Google TV, which is the best smart TV platform available in India. I've used Samsung's Tizen, LG's webOS, and various Android TV implementations. Google TV is the most complete.

App availability is excellent for Indian users:

• JioCinema (for IPL, HBO content): Works, supports 4K where available
• Netflix: Works, supports 4K HDR (you need the Premium plan)
• Amazon Prime Video: Works, supports 4K HDR
• Disney+ Hotstar: Works, supports 4K
• YouTube: Works, supports 4K HDR, 60fps
• SonyLIV, ZEE5, Voot: All available and functional
• Spotify: Available for music playback
• Airtel Xstream, Tata Play Binge: Available

The remote is simple — a basic Google TV remote with dedicated buttons for Netflix and YouTube. There's a built-in microphone for Google Assistant voice commands. "Hey Google, play Sacred Games on Netflix" works as expected. Voice search for content across apps is the most useful feature — instead of typing with the terrible on-screen keyboard, just press the microphone button and speak. It works well in English and reasonably well in Hindi.

The interface is responsive but not instant. There's a slight lag (maybe half a second) when navigating the home screen or switching between apps. Apps launch in 3-5 seconds depending on the app. Netflix is fastest; JioCinema is slowest. This is running on a MediaTek processor that's adequate but not powerful. Don't expect flagship phone-like responsiveness from a budget TV's smart platform.

Chromecast Built-In

This is a feature I use daily. Casting from my phone to the TV — YouTube videos, Google Photos, even screen mirroring from my laptop — works flawlessly over Wi-Fi. If you're already in the Google ecosystem, Chromecast built-in eliminates the need for a separate streaming device.

Comparison: Hisense and Xiaomi at Similar Sizes

The two most direct competitors at 65 inches around the Rs 45,000-55,000 range are the Hisense 65A6K and the Xiaomi TV 5A 65-inch.

TCL 65C655 Pro vs Hisense 65A6K

The Hisense is about Rs 3,000 cheaper but uses a standard LED panel instead of QLED. The color range is narrower, and peak brightness is lower. In a side-by-side comparison (I saw both at a Croma store), the TCL's colors are visibly richer and more vibrant. The Hisense does have slightly better built-in speakers with Dolby Atmos decoding, though the real-world difference through those tiny drivers is marginal.

The biggest issue with the Hisense is VIDAA, its smart TV platform. App availability is decent, but the interface is sluggish, updates are infrequent, and the app library is smaller than Google TV's. If you plan to use the TV's built-in smart features without a separate streaming device, Google TV on the TCL is significantly better.

TCL 65C655 Pro vs Xiaomi TV 5A 65-inch

The Xiaomi TV 5A 65-inch is priced around Rs 38,999 — a full Rs 7,000 cheaper. It runs Android TV (not Google TV, so the interface is slightly different and less refined). The panel is a standard LED, not QLED, and it shows. Colors are duller, brightness is lower, and viewing angles are worse. The Xiaomi is a perfectly acceptable TV for casual viewing — news, YouTube, standard definition cable — but it doesn't deliver the same visual experience as the TCL for movies and sports in 4K HDR.

The Xiaomi does have the advantage of PatchWall, Xiaomi's custom content discovery layer that aggregates content from multiple Indian streaming platforms. It's actually quite good at surfacing relevant content and is optimized for Indian users. But PatchWall runs on top of Android TV, and the combination sometimes feels clunky.

My recommendation: if your budget is firm at Rs 40,000 or below, the Xiaomi TV 5A is decent value. If you can stretch to Rs 45,999, the TCL's QLED panel, Google TV platform, and better HDR support make the difference worth the extra money — especially for sports and movies.

Things I Wish Were Better

The remote feels cheap. The buttons are mushy, and it uses AAA batteries instead of a rechargeable cell. For a TV at this price, a basic Bluetooth remote with a rechargeable battery would have been welcome.

The TV takes about 12-15 seconds to boot from a cold start. This is typical for Google TV devices, but after pressing the power button, you're staring at the TCL logo for an uncomfortable amount of time. Standby-to-on is faster (about 3 seconds), so I leave it in standby mode.

There's no HDMI 2.1 port. All three HDMI ports are 2.0, which means a maximum of 4K at 60Hz. If you have a PS5 or Xbox Series X and want 4K at 120Hz, this TV cannot deliver that. For console gamers who want high refresh rate gaming, you need to look at the TCL C755 or spend more on a Samsung or LG with HDMI 2.1 support.

The viewing angle is mediocre. If you're sitting directly in front of the TV, colors and contrast look great. Move 30 degrees to the side, and colors start washing out. In my setup, this isn't a problem because the sofa faces the TV directly. But if you have an L-shaped seating arrangement or people watching from the dining table at an angle, the side viewers will see a degraded image. This is a VA panel limitation and is common across all QLED and LED TVs at this price point.

Power Consumption

A 65-inch TV running for 6-8 hours a day adds to your electricity bill. The TCL's rated power consumption is about 150W during typical use, with a peak of about 200W during bright HDR content. In practical terms, at Mumbai electricity rates (approximately Rs 9-12 per unit depending on your slab), running this TV for 6 hours daily costs roughly Rs 250-350 per month. That's not negligible, but it's not dramatic either. My old 43-inch LED consumed about 70W, so the upgrade roughly doubled my TV-related electricity cost.

Three Weeks Later

The TV has become the centerpiece of our living room. Weekend movie nights with the family feel genuinely different on a 65-inch screen compared to 43 inches. Cricket matches are immersive in a way that makes you flinch when a bouncer is bowled. My daughter watches her cartoon shows in colors that make her point at the screen and name every shade she sees.

Is it a perfect TV? No. The black levels are mediocre compared to OLED. The speakers need a soundbar to be taken seriously. The remote is forgettable. The boot time is slow. There's no HDMI 2.1 for next-gen gaming.

For Rs 45,999, you get a cinema experience. Not a perfect one. But for this price, I'm not complaining.