TCL NXTFrame 65A300 PRO Review

Until now, the Chinese TV giant TCL has made a name for itself with huge screen sizes at incredibly attractive prices or by delivering innovations in QLED and Mini-LED at the forefront. Now, the manufacturer, who has had a firm place in the worldwide top 3 of TV brands for years, is challenging its strongest Korean competitor in another segment: design televisions. In fact, the target group of those who do not participate in the arms race for ever more brilliant and more vibrant displays with ever larger screen sizes, but rather want to enjoy natural motifs in a pleasant environment, seems to be growing for several years. And for that, the television set should not dominate the living room, but integrate as discreetly as possible into the ambiance.

These customers are not the technically savvy cinema enthusiasts, but design-conscious comfort seekers, often with some appreciation for fine arts. What could be more obvious than to make the television look like a real picture frame? Instead of a blank black area, the screen should present artworks in standby.

The aforementioned Korean manufacturer filled this market gap with great success – and now TCL wants to replace “The Frame” in the sales charts with an “NXTFrame” if possible.

What Makes a Picture Frame TV?

Since digital photos exist, absolutely every television can display slideshows. Many even offer an art mode that draws a modern or classically designed frame around a mat. However, if you look more closely, the images are usually brighter and their colors more vibrant than those of the painted original or art print. In addition, many digital screens produce flickering and noise and change the color impression when viewed from a side perspective. And they usually reflect much more strongly than museum glass.

For a display to deceptively imitate a printed image, it must be perfectly non-reflective, have low luminosity that aligns with ambient light, display colors naturally, and exude utmost calm. Additionally, the body must be designed rectangular like a picture frame that lies flat against the wall everywhere. All this is achieved by the famous model in an astonishing way, and the NXTFrame devices from TCL like our 65A300pro also show these attributes. In this case, the device selected for our test is a kind of hybrid, with which one can watch TV or stream better than with a display trimmed purely for matte, dark photos. The 65A300pro, which is also available in 75 and 55 inches, has a 100 Hz panel and can even be played in Full HD for gaming with 240 fps. However, to achieve the 10-bit color resolution, subtle dithering becomes visible. TCL has a cheaper variant without “pro” in the name in its portfolio. It is a few hundred euros cheaper and mainly dispenses with the 3.1.2 sound system, in whose concept and tuning the luxury brand Bang & Olufsen was involved. The Scandinavian specialists enjoy a world reputation for premium audio and top design, which TCL has gladly adapted here. Moreover, art lovers who are interested in a picture frame TV are often connoisseurs with a taste for music and a certain demand for sound. Good sound, therefore, fits perfectly into the picture here.

In our lab, the rich bass, however, pushed itself strongly to the foreground, and we found no option for level adjustment. Highly interesting and intuitive, however, works the sound control from B&O called Beosonic. Logically, the budget for the transducers is extremely limited compared to full-grown solutions of the high-end brand; but the result surpasses most classic TV sets – if not by a large margin. The system is supplied with signals via wireless, and after the first pairing, the TV always automatically recognized the “strip speakers”. The standby consumption we measured of 1 watt actually refers to the sum of the three devices. Of course, you have to hide separate power cables for the bar and woofer.

Gaming

We were able to feed the TCL TV with 4K at 144 fps (10-bit RGB), and with up to 240 fps at Full HD. The latencies are so low that the sound lags far behind.

You Can Also Watch Television

At its core, the 65A300pro is a 144 Hz QLED TV. Its display is excellently blacked with only 0.27% reflection and very strongly mattified. This makes the picture appear coherent even in daylight and gets a look like printed. However, the maximum brightness is limited to 500 nits; since local dimming is not possible, you have to live with mediocre HDR contrast. The vividness of the colors, however, is high-quality and so well implemented that natural color tones also appear naturally identical in cinema mode. You should definitely prefer this picture setting to the preset “Standard” variant, as this first smooths the tuner signals all too much and outlines contours. Figures in the middle and background appear like watercolors, and here the artistic approach is not desired at all. The Art Mode for displaying real paintings, photos, or drawings has its own button on the remote control but is not automatically activated in standby. In addition, there is no special picture setup that then consumes less power, looks more neutral, or says goodbye in the absence of an audience. The software could still be improved here; hopefully, there are no patents on such ideas.

The A300pro is a Google TV with Quad-core A73 and casual 48 GB ROM. In addition to the huge app offering, TCL offers its own collection of free streaming content for fairly unsophisticated variety. Due to the concept of the picture frame, Google’s photo screensaver enjoys particular attention here. Four HDMI inputs with full bandwidth also invite game consoles. All HDR signals are processed with Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ and adjusted to ambient light. Regarding sound formats, it looks just as good; the TV hardware of the art object is therefore at the current top level.

Verdict

A de facto monopoly has fallen because from now on there are also beautiful white picture frame televisions from TCL. Known concepts have been refreshed with AI and a rolling easel but not surpassed in all respects. And since the haptics and design of devices from Chinese manufacturers have long been of high quality, you can calmly take a look at these models at the dealer.

by Roland Seibt

From the Test Lab

Image Measurement Ultra HD HDR BT.2100 12 Bit

The matte display managed only 500 nits at peaks, but TCL lovingly adjusts mixed colors. Unfortunately, dark image content often does not stand out strongly enough from the pale background.

Image Measurement HDTV Full HD, BT.709, 8 Bit

Thanks to the high-quality blackening and mattifying of the screen, HDTV appears nicely natural even in a bright living room. Auto dimming and light sensor shifted measurement values.

Pixels Under the Microscope

The extremely strong mattifying of the panel made our microscope shots difficult. For this image, we focused once on this diffuser layer.