TCL 43S425 43 Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart ROKU LED TV (2018)

I'm a Sony guy and, given the right opportunity and place, would select an authentic OLED Sony screen to hang onto a wall. But currently I find myself marooned and cash-stressed in a one-room apartment. Necessity can be the mother of serendipitous surprises, such as the discovery of this 55-inch "overachiever" from TCL, going for one-tenth the price of my desired Sony. It comes with two tripod legs (which are all I require in my quiet, sedate setting), though it's light and thin enough (though thicker, of course than an OLED) for hanging on a wall. I'm happy to place my screen in front of the big dresser mirror, where it blocks from my view the strange freak I find staring at me each morning. I've found that 55-inches is enough to cover the entire width of the mirror and falls just 4-5 inches short of reaching the top. More importantly, without an A-B side-by-side comparison, this picture satisfies me as much as the Sony and Samsung sets I've owned since 2015--a year in which all makers' hi-def sets were given a huge boost because of the pervasive use of LED lighting (previously used to illuminate only the edges of the picture). Moreover, the AUDIO is the best I've heard from any TV set (If you're "bass-challenged," buy the subwoofer). Listening to the Lincoln Center Orchestra play the music of Miles Davis (on Youtube), I could hear and notate every note from the acoustic "walking" bass without need of plugging into a high-end stereo-system. You'll notice that this is a "4 Series"--or #55S45, meaning 55-inch 4K Hi-Def Set with HDR. If you're willing to spend $50 to $250 more, you may wish to look into TCL's 5 series (55S55) or 6 series (55S65). The latter will bring you some metal to complement the plastic in the picture frames of the 4 series. And with the 6 you'll have bragging rights to more sophisticated circuitry, giving you control over, say, black levels of one small portion of the screen (great for viewers who have OCD and enjoy endless fiddling). Also, "gamers" may be willing to pay more for a TV promising faster, more efficient processors. I remember the days when we argued vehemently about the best-sounding loudspeaker. Now, all the attention is not on sound (have you heard today's, uh, music?). Confession: last year I installed a 32" TCL with Roku in our kitchen. It was so good, I couldn't wait to use my treadmill (placed directly in front of the TV) on a daily basis. Besides cable I had access to Prime Video and Netflix--all of it accessible on the TCL twice as fast as the Sony and 5 times faster than the Samsung. After duping the American public into believing that 4K was so revolutionary we all needed to trash our existing TV sets, "Consumer Reports" has become more honest and even a bit apologetic. The only difference the naked eye will see, according to the latest claim, is not in the sharpness of 1080p vs. 4K resolution, but in the quality of "depth" in the picture (the part referenced by "HDR"). Conclusion: my research and personal experience tell me that this TCL 4-Series offers a fully competitive picture at an amazing price. Moreover, in addition to two sets of legs, you will receive a full-featured remote control (including batteries!) as well as older pin plug adapters (1 video 2 stereo) and an instruction manual. All you "might" need for optimal versatility is an HDMI cable. Most consumers by now are wise enough to know that a high-priced $40 cable will not provide a picture that's 4X better. Check out the prices of Amazon cables. I purchased a 20-footer for $10, and it performs as well as a $50 cable. (It arrived a day later than the TV.)

You are looking at the best priced TV on the market when it comes down to dollar for quality picture. Between the picture quality and the price I would call this the best overall deal on the market TCL made a winner here. After viewing a lot of TV's for a family members gift I decided to go with this TV. The remote is simple, intuitive and easy to use and smart features make this TV a step above the rest. The Roku interface is fast, slick and simple to use and pushes which pushes this TV above the rest of competitors. I installed Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and Netflix all of these apps worked flawlessly. Out the box the TV is extremely light and great for hanging, viewing angles are decent for a LED and on par with even more higher end LED TV's and the truth is when you are dealing with LED technology their all about the same when it comes to viewing angles. There is no magic wand that fixes the issue of viewing at angle and picture not degrading with LED technology. There is one important and noticeable issue here that could be a deal breaker for some. 1. Brightness. You'll notice this TV doesn't have Dolby Vision which isn't surprising at $299 but the reason it doesn't have Dolby Vision is it just isn't bright enough. Out of the box I was surprised at how fantastic everything looked but still went into the settings to see what I could tweak for a medium bright room the TV was placed in. I was surprised to see the brightness was already maxed out. I could play with the contrast but again shocked to see the brightness was already turned all the way up. That being said above - I would not put this TV in a room beyond medium bright. Examples it would go great in an office or a shaded living room but if you live in an area where you going to have full on beaming daylight this is not the TV for you and to be honest you won't find anything in this price range with 4K HDR that will suit your needs. You'll need to spend more money on brighter TV and there is no way around it. With the overall picture quality, smart features and price I can't even knock one star off for such a good budget TV and if you have the right spot this is the TV for you. I've had the TV now about two months and could not be more impressed. Though my family members eyesight is poor and unfortunately borderline blind in one eye which is why I opted for the ease of use this TV provides I have an eye for detail. I could not find a single dead pixel on this display and I have attention for detail. These TVs are well manufactured and the look and feel is more inline with a more expensive TV. On another note I also did review the TCL 55S525 which is slightly more expensive TV with Dolby Vision but it suffers from the same issue with the picture brightness and the fact is the 55S525 doesn't get bright enough to even output a Dolby Vision quality picture. If you are thinking about this TV or the 55S525 save your money and buy this TV!

This TV is absolutely mind blowing for how inexpensive it is. The quality of the display and the feature set puts it on par with much more expensive models. First things first, this is a true LED TV, not one of those LED back-lit types with odd light bleed on the edges. The contrast ratio is fantastic and the deep blacks puts every LCD TV I've ever owned to shame. Movies and games are far more vibrant than ever. This display seems to also lack any noticeable ghosting that you'd find on cheaper panels, which is honestly very surprising considering the price. It comes with the usual SmartTV features included with Roku. Netflix and Amazon stream to this display over Wifi in 4k! I've never actually been able to view 4K content before but now I can take advantage of it. HDR is a nice bonus however I haven't viewed any content with HDR yet so I can't really say much on it, but the fact that it's there is a nice touch. This display is also surprisingly light. Coming from a 42" 1080p Westinghouse I honestly thought I got sold an empty shell because this panel weighs next to nothing compared to the much older LCD panel I've come accustomed to. While this is advertised as a 120hz screen, it must be said that 4k will run at a maximum of 60hz, however lower resolutions might take advantage of the higher refresh rate. As far as I can tell there is no artificial motion smoothing effects (something you'd typically find on high refresh rate displays to give the illusion of 60hz during 30hz playback) but I find that to be a plus since those features add input latency which could be a major issue when gaming. I primarily will be using this display for light gaming and streaming, but I can say that it does both very well. The lack of ghosting, the response times, and the picture quality make this a must have if you have a console or you want to hook your PC up for couch gaming sessions.

Updated Review.... My original score for this TV was 4/5 and that still remains. If you read this entire review, you'll learn that I had to get a replacement within a week of getting this TV because I was experiencing weird things with the speakers. At first I thought the speakers were actually physically broken, but later became convince that something was wrong internally. I had to reboot, restore and update that TV a few times just to make sure it wasn't a software issue.As the Review stated, I contacted amazon about this issue and got the replacement. The replacement works perfectly. The TV is slick in design but nothing special, given that most LCD/LED TVs look the same. It has good picture quality but it does suffer from various issues. first, you can feel the backlight through the image being presented to you. It's weird to explain, but get within 5ft range or so and you can just notice the backlight of the screen. It's even more noticeable when you are looking at the TV from more than a 35 degree angle. Which is the second issue, you have to look at this TV essentially dead on to appreciate the picture quality that the TV offers. So make sure the TV is at eye-level or you'll quickly see diminishing colors and reduced details. This can actually be fixed if you set the TV to its dark and darker modes, which still give you a very nice picture quality and is easy on your eyes when watching the TV in the dark. The 3rd issue is that, although the colors are nice, they do not pop. This is more of a subjective thing, but colors can seem slightly faded or washed when compared to a VIZIO TV.. The TV still offers a great picture. The ROKU interface is clean and simple and works flawlessly. It is really responsive and that is definitely a plus over other operating systems from LG, Samsung, VIZIO and others. Change the power settings to "quick start" and its so much fun being able to interact with the TV with my iPad or my phone. The remote is also a plus and I quite like it, even over the Apple TV remote. Button placement and design just feel right in my hands. I do wish the TV came with the ROKU remote that has a mic built in but i can't complain as I use my iPhone as a secondary remote with a mic. My only issue with the ROKU interface is I can't have multiple apps/channels open. That's a plus of having the Apple TV 4th gen and up. The sound? My speakers on this TV work perfectly. They are nothing out of this word but they get the job done. You have a rather balanced/flat sound but you can appreciate what is coming out of the speakers. It is definitely recommended you get a sound bar, but you won't be disappointed with e speakers. In summary, the TV is worth it at its price. it does give you a good picture, good contrast and ok sound. But the price is just perfect and i do not regret using this TV for gaming and as a monitor to my MacBook Air. BTW, thanks to Amazon again for helping me out with the replacement. :) ================================================ Old review.... I have been a fan of the TCL series of TV's but have also been rather skeptical of getting them through Amazon because of the shipping risks. I would look at them at Costco, walmart and Even Sam's Club but would not purchase them because I would always find them cheaper via Amazon. Anyway, I finally caved in on the Prime day sale and bought the 43" (2018 MODEL) 4K UHD HDR Tv from TCL. It arrived on Monday in a banged up box. ...But I was glad it had arrived because many TV's 43" and up from various manufacturers would simply not ship to Puerto Rico (Including the fire-equipped TV's). I was worried because of the nature in which the box was. I quickly opened it and removed the TV. Upon close inspection everything seemed to be OK. No scratches, dents, cracks, etc. It was brand new in all sense of the word. I quickly screwed in the legs in placed and stood it on my work area. I went through setup process and everything was a breeze. I really do like Roku's simple to navigate tile interface. I'm assuming it's Roku's because i've never interacted with a rook interface before. I apologize to TCL if it is their interface. Anyway, I was greeted with the setup video that looked gorgeous. I was able to quickly appreciate the vivid color of the TV and the sharpness of the image. Granted, Samsung TV's and Vizio TVs are more color accurate and have better color range, but this TV still looks really, really good. So I logged into Netflix, Amazon Prime Videos and my youtube account. I even plugged in my kids' NES classic and my Macbook Air. They worked perfectly. The next day I started watching Youtube videos and noticed the speakers start to hiss. The sound was coming out distorted as if the speakers were busted. I checked different youtube videos, Netflix videos and even my local videos on the macbook. Everything sounded off. So i figured i'd have to ask for a replacement and i did. The process was rather quick and painless with the help of an Amazon customer representative. As the TV is on its way the TV speakers have done weird things. They change in quality letting me, conclude that the actual TV speakers are not broken and that something is going on software-wise. The TV has gone from sounding completely normal to acquiring and echo-like sound (odd reverberations), to them sounding muffled and normal again. Sometimes they come and go on etheir own and at other times I have to go to sound settings to toggle sound mode. The distortions in sound have happened less and less in the past 2 days. The TV gets a 4/5 for these for now. Everything else about it is perfect. (i'd like airplay 2 support but it's not on these model yet). I'll be evaluating the replacement TV to see if it is offering the same kind of issue or another unexpected issue. Hopefully I'll keep the one that works properly the best. Thanks to Amazon for being quick in sending a replacement at no additional cost. It should be arriving tomorrow, if all goes swell. I'll update this review once I play around with the replacement TV and keep evaluating this one.

I bought this TV brand new in 2019 and it’s still has an excellent picture with great colors, clarity and dynamic range. It was easy to setup with a little bit of trial and error, but not much work, as any smart TV requires some type of setup. Realize that I paid only $219, but that was 5 years ago. So, it was well worth the money. It’s an economy TV, yet I have had no problems with it. I have it connected to my cable box, and I can watch any of the various streaming services that are available without any issues. The only caveats that I have in hindsight are that it lacks UHD, so some of the streaming services that offer movies and TV series in UHD are watchable, but lack the clarity of HD. However, everything from my Xfinity cable provider is in HD and loos fantastic. The other caveat is the refresh rate: the only time it’s a problem is when I pause a sporting event or a show that has fast action where I see motion blur. So, at 60HZ it’s fairly slow when compared to the speed of more current TV models. Yet, when I watch fast action without pausing the show, then I don’t have any problem with motion blur. I bought it directly from Amazon, so I don’t know anything about the current seller.

I received this TV last week and so far I love it. I've finally got the 4K settings right and it's amazing (for $220 price tag). I purchased the 43" model. There are some good reviews with advice on how to the 4K working right but I had an extra step or two that I wanted to share. As an aside, this monitor starts up very fast (faster than any TV I've owned) which makes it ideal for use with the computer. Anyway: 1.) You need a good quality cable that supports HDMI 2.0 (I got one that supports HDMI 2.1). 2.) Your video card needs to be powerful enough for 4K. I'm using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super which I'll share some settings with. 3.) You need to set the Sharpness down on your TV to 0. If the Sharpness is grayed out (mine was originally) then there's probably a setting on your computer that tells the TV what it is. I changed mine from "Desktop Programs" to "Full Screen Video" and after that I was able to change the settings. Subsequently, there is a Roku app for Android/iOS.. GET THIS APP and link it to your phone. It has advanced color settings available that allow you to far exceed what the built in TV menu allows. 4.) In the settings for the TV turn "Game Mode" on. This will take the latency to almost nothing. 5.) Everything was bright, colors good, text was almost all crisp except red. Red was blurry. This is a tell tale sign that chroma 4:4:4 isn't happening. Luckly, I've figured out how to fix this (or rather I did two things and then it worked, so I'll share those). First on my video card (NVidia) in "Change Resolution" I told it to use custom color settings (changed from RGB to YCbCr444). Apply those. Then reboot. 6.) Next, it still appeared the red was blurry. I downloaded the Roku app to get to the advanced color settings. In doing so, I had to hook the TV up to the internet which I hadn't done yet (because I'm using it as a monitor). When I did this, it downloaded Roku updates for the TV and then rebooted the TV... this is important.. the TV boots fast because it's in a sleep mode, not fully off.. after the update it full powered down and reboot which took a minute or two to restart). Once it restarted I was shocked to find out the red text was no longer blurry, at all, at any scaling or resolution. The picture for me, is amazing. I like this TV so much for the price I bought a second one for my bedroom. Take this with a grain of salt that I've only had it a week but I will report back if I do have any issues. So far, this has been great. Update October 2020: Monitor is still running great. I've been working from home since the pandemic started and I've used this monitor -a lot- and I have no complaints. It was well worth the purchase, very happy with it.

Great TV for gaming PS4. Love the features. Let's begin, I paid full price blah blah blah not an ad. Anyway, this is a great TV for the price. By price I mean the picture quality only in that it's not as dark as way more expensive tvs. The resolution is great, no issues playing the PS4 in HDR. (you have to go into the settings and enable HDMI 2.0). Every review I read about this TV said it's a great second TV. That's exactly what this is. The best second TV. My GF and I got this for her room. At first she thought it was big but she really likes it even when I'm not here (or so she says lol). Features: it has a ton, stream all the YouTube and Netflix and such. But... My GF watches a lot of TV (off direct TV). This TV let's you choose what input to go to when you turn it on. This makes it easy for us to use the direct TV remote (I'm sure it would work for anything) to just press the power button and the tv goes to that input. It's different from making it turn on to the last channel or input. We could have been watching Netflix and turn it off and on and it'll go to the direct TV input. If I had this TV I would set it so everytime I turn it on its ready to play my ps4. Another feature I like about the remote is that if you press the Netflix, Hulu, Roku (don't use it), or Disney+ (don't have it) the tv turns on and goes directly to Netflix. Picture: I don't know... I'm not an expert. It just looks like the darks are less dark. That's all. Very bright TV. It's a 4k TV so it's 4k resolution. Seriously... It's the perfect second TV. Buying a TV for a bedroom? Get this one. Buying a TV for... the garage? Idk this is a great TV. Would I get it for my living room? No. Do I have it in my room? No. Not flexing, just being informative... My main console is the PS4 pro. The TV we bought is the 50 inch version. In my room I have a... Let's say 900 dollar TV. That TV is living room quality because I wanted to spend that much. If you're looking for anything under 500 because that's what you can afford. This is a the best TV for that in my opinion. This TV is easier to use than my other TV. I really like the dedicated buttons for Netflix and that it turns on straight to what I press. You cannot reprogram the buttons. The best reason I could find is something about marketing partnerships. Either way, great TV. Also!!! My GF likes to sleep when it's really dark. This TV has a square on the bottom that lights up when you press a button or when you turn it off. DON'T WORRY. There is a setting where you can turn it off. It's really bright if that's all that's on. Almost nightlight level. Just turn it off. Anything else... (rambling clearly shows I'm not a pro reviewer. Or does it...). Just a great TV. Don't notice any lag. My issue about dark parts is just that if I was playing a game and it's a dark tunnel, you can still see everything in the picture. It's just the darks are... very bright. Anyway. Great gaming TV. Great TV for the price category. Last thing, the "Cons" part: (dramatic music) When I took it out of the box it totally had that cheap plastic smell. It does go away. Remember the price but that the tv will still be great. Just had that smell. Still a 5 star product for me. Not really a con but plug in the power cord before you wall mount. Reaching the ports on one side is easier than plugging in the power cord on the other. The line on top of Netflix or streaming services... Yes, my TV does that sometimes. What am I talking about? Sometimes when I am watching Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube (the only streaming services I have tried. The TV has many more available just go to the home menu to select them) there's a small line across the top of the screen about an inch down from the edge of the screen. As best as I can describe since it's not doing it now and can't take a Pic, it freezes a previous scene in a very narrow line. My gf didn't notice at first. And it didn't really bother us. To be honest, I had already mounted it and was trying to stay calm. One solution I found online was to unplug it for 30 seconds. Of course I tried it and it still came back. It does happen way more seldom. I trust a future patch will solve it but in no way does it hurt my 5 star score. When we watch TV it's never there and when I play ps4 it's never there. So, I assume (OK I agree with the smarter people online) that it's probably a software issue that will get patched. Again... It doesn't affect the inputs. It won't be there when you play PS4 or watch TV. Just sometimes when you watch Netflix. Just try turning it off and pressing the Netflix button. It's still a great TV. The 4 stars in picture quality in my review is just about the dark colors. Still a 5 star tv. (owned it for 2 weeks so far) Edit: I added a picture of the "line" issue I talked about. Also, I thought of another question. If this tv was just within my budget, would I get something that may have a better picture but smaller screen?... No. I would choose this TV hands down.

The picture is clear, setup was easy, and streaming runs smoothly. Looks sleek and works perfectly for everyday use. Definitely recommend.