TCL QM6K review: You probably won't find a better starter QLED TV

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When you're not a diehard cinephile or gamer, it's easy to gaslight yourself into believing that your lackluster LED TV "isn't that bad." That was me up until a few months ago, when I finally made the call to replace my lifeless 2019 Roku TV with the 2025 TCL QM6K Mini LED TV. It falls in the middle between the cheap, most basic QLED TVs possible and the comically expensive, most premium QLED TVs possible, and is one of the internet's favorite budget QLED TVs. Here's how it went.

A decent TV from five years ago isn't a decent TV now

Our old TV only lasted so long as our go-to because neither my roommates nor I cared enough to pay for anything else. But even for people who aren't that picky about specs, it was becoming unwatchable. We were noticing that our weekly staple watches were looking wonky to the point of being distracting. Red, orange, pink, and tan hues were completely muddied on RuPaul's Drag Race, football games looked like they were in sepia, and dark scenes were borderline indecipherable. The screen looked like an Etch A Sketch in direct sunlight.

Not to mention, the aging Roku interface had become agonizingly glitchy. When you avoid switching streaming apps out of fear that it'll send your TV into a coma, that's when you know it's time.

The QM6K speaks to "happy medium" shoppers

I wrote about the coolest TVs announced at CES 2026 at the beginning of January, but I realize that list won't be appealing to everyone. To a large chunk of prospective TV shoppers, fancy several-thousand-dollar flagship TV releases aren't all that riveting if they wouldn't be a realistic purchase budget-wise. (For reference, TCL's new TV doesn't come any smaller than 75 inches and starts at $6,999.99.) That doesn't mean you're not willing to spend a little extra to avoid settling for the most basic TV.

While I'm not overly picky about TV specs in real life, I'm well-versed in the technical breakdowns of the different types of TVs — TVs are one of my main coverage areas as a shopping reporter. Since brightness, color saturation, and affordability were our main concerns, QLED seemed like the better route over OLED. But as a horror movie head, I couldn't fully neglect black levels and dark room performance. That ruled out any ultra-cheap QLED. The independently controlled pockets of bulbs behind a mini LED QLED TV, however, could do the trick.

Setting up the TCL QM6K was quick and painless

We had the QM6K up and running within half an hour or so of opening the box. And much of that time was spent taking the old one off the TV mount and sticking an adhesive color-changing LED strip on the back of the new one. The old TV was recycled at Best Buy.

The Google TV interface is extremely easy to navigate. Someone will have to log in with a Google account for setup, and they'll then be in charge of downloads or in-app purchases. I didn't mind being the one to log in until my recent ASMR watches on YouTube started popping up on our home screen's "recommended for you" section, considering I'm not even officially logged into YouTube on the TV. Why'd you have to expose me like that, Google TV?

How does the TCL QM6K perform in bright rooms?

When brightness is in question, any TV in my current apartment's living room has its work cut out for it. The natural light in here goes absolutely bonkers for much of the day, thanks to the southwest-facing wall being composed almost entirely of massive windows. The pull-down blinds barely do anything to mitigate the beam barging in.

The TCL QM6K's sports mode has been stellar, especially in broad daylight. During countless afternoon college or NFL games, one roommate or another has made a comment somewhere along the lines of "I can't believe how much better this looks than the old TV." The grass is accurately green but not blown out, team uniforms and fan merch are vibrant, the score bug is stark and legible, and the overall picture quality feels extremely clear. You don't have to squint to spot the ball or to read last names on jerseys to see who was involved in the play — it's just crisp. Not having to wait for the commentator to explain what just went down? Groundbreaking. Go birds.

I think The Price Is Right is another great test of a TV's performance in a bright room. If I'm at home during the 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET time slot, that show WILL be on (just as my grandmother and elementary school Leah on a sick day intended).

The set is extremely colorful but also contains a lot of bright whites, which can get super blown out if the TV's panel can't balance the palette. There's something so joyful about seeing each contestant's facial expressions, so brightness can't be so extreme that faces aren't contrasted. I've seen countless dull TVs butcher the show's visual charm, but the QM6K has really done it justice.

How does the TCL QM6K perform in dark rooms?

Remember when I said I wasn't a cinephile? I still watch a shit ton of movies, I'm just not scrutinizing the technical aspects of the cinematography or anything. For me, the QM6K's crisp contrast and robust black levels produce a solid home theater vibe.

Since mini LED bulbs are organized into individually operating zones, every few inches of each scene benefits from more precise brightness control. The areas that need to stay deep and shadowy don't get blown out trying to brighten the light parts of the scene, and the areas that do need better lighting aren't too dark to see. The QM6K's 500 dimming zones don't hold a candle to TVs in the thousands, but most people seem to agree that the QM6K achieves amazing black levels and contrast for the price.

Horror movie head on a budget, at your service

I got my QM6K in October, and together we watched a scary movie almost every single day. (Shudder is still one of my top three most-watched streaming apps year-round.) My favorite horror sub-genre is found footage, which has inherently poor lighting to make the camcorder, webcam, or phone camera fantasy believable. And at least for my standards, dark scenes like that flourished on the QM6K's movie mode in my dimly-lit living room.

The "go into a sketchy house while trick-or-treating" segment in V/H/S Halloween comes to mind. The characters are running through a maze of pitch-black hallways with no lights but their flashlights, and that would have flopped on my old TV. But the QM6K didn't struggle to show me every nasty detail, which is only mildly traumatizing to this day. My yearly rewatch of Host was easily the most intense since my first watch in 2020. Unrelated to found footage or dark scenes, the gore, hoop skirt gowns, and glitzy ballroom scenes in The Ugly Stepsister looked exquisite — vibrant but natural, avoiding over-brightening so hard that the 1800s color palette showed up neon.

Horror's not the only way to test how well a TV handles dark scenes. Every Game of Thrones fan who was watching the show as it aired remembers "The Longest Night" — or at least they remember being pissed off about it, because the episode was so dark that most people couldn't tell what was going on.

The cinematographer said that it was actually your TV that couldn't do the episode justice. Back in 2019, it was relatively uncommon to have a "nice" TV like today's capable QLED and OLEDs at home. But with the TCL QM6K now hanging on my wall, I had to head back to Season 8 to see the difference for myself. Fine, I'll rewatch my favorite show again for science. Twist my arm.

It turns out, the entire episode was more than an hour-long black blob with subtitles! All of the infamous dark screenshots from the 2019 Twitter spiral were wickedly defined this time around. I preferred movie mode to the slight brown haze of filmmaker mode, but I'm sure filmmaker mode is helpful in another context.

I didn't have to rely on subtitles to decipher intimate interactions between key characters — I could actually see the look in their eye. The dragons didn't blend in with the smoky sky. From the up-close carnage during clashes with the Dead to the heartbreaking deaths of a nauseating number of big characters, I really felt like I could see just about everything that the cinematographers intended. I have goosebumps thinking about being able to see what the hell is going on in House of the Dragon season 3 this summer.

Is the TCL QM6K good for gaming?

I don't really play video games besides Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. But someone else in my household is a huge PS5 player, so I had him bring his console out to the living room to compare the experience to his ancient bedroom TV.

Dark Souls III, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the Elden Ring DLC all played deliciously on the QM6K. When I sarcastically asked, "So this is better than your usual TV?" the immediate response was literally a laugh followed by, "Better isn't even a strong enough word." He specifically mentioned how instantaneous the response times felt (for reference, the TCL QM6K offers 4K at 144Hz, VRR, and ALLM). Even as a mere observer of Red Dead being played on each TV, it was hard not to be drawn in by the lush graphics on the QM6K.

Downsides

I wish that the QM6K had better glare reduction. The QM6K gets bright enough to overpower the most egregious glow coming from the windows or indoor lamps, but the screen is far from matte. Dark scenes do mirror your reflection back to you in certain lighting. It's still infinitely easier to see than my last TV, though.

I compared my notes with reviews from CNET's Ty Pendlebury and PCMag's Will Greenwald. (CNET and PCMag are both owned by Mashable's parent company, Ziff Davis.) In terms of room for improvement, the general consensus is that the QM6K could be even brighter, especially if you really care about HDR. The color gamut could also be wider.

But for the most part, those criticisms stem from comparisons to higher-end TVs that are expected to be brighter and more colorful, anyway. Both Pendlebury and Greenwald spoke extremely highly about the QM6K's color accuracy, deep black levels, and overall picture quality for a TV in this price range.

Is the TCL QM6K worth it?

If you're not a stickler about TV specs, there's obviously no reason to spend a ton of money on an elite OLED TV. But not being a strict cinephile or gamer doesn't mean that you should settle for a no-frills TV just because it's cheap.

The TCL QM6K offers an incredible value between those two extremes, especially given the fact that every size can consistently be found for nearly 50% off. Once you make the switch from the old TV you've dealt with for years, I think you'll find that you actually notice TV specs more than you thought.