Look, I love projectors, but there are just some ways in which they simply can’t match a good TV.
Yes, I’m mostly talking deep blacks, which projectors inherently struggle to achieve, but good TVs are also able to go much brighter than most projectors, and reproduce more vibrant colours.
That’s all changed in the last couple of years, with TCL and Hisense in particular having launched super-sized TVs at very reasonable prices.
The best of the bunch is the 98-inch TCL C7K, which achieved a five-star rating and What Hi-Fi? Award at the already impressively low price of £2399, but can now be bought for just £1899 from Richer Sounds in the Black Friday sales.
The TCL 98C7K is an astounding feat: a 98-inch, 4K Mini LED TV that delivers genuinely cinematic scale and picture performance at a remarkably aggressive price point.
Despite its colossal size, the design is lean – slim bezels, blade-style feet, and a rear chassis that remains surprisingly trim for such a giant screen. Unless you’re wall mounting it (if your wall can handle the 55 kg), you’ll need a broad piece of furniture to accommodate those wide legs.
The remote feels premium too, with brushed-metal styling and dedicated buttons for major streaming platforms.
Under the hood, the TV uses a Mini LED panel with 2000 dimming zones, and it hits a claimed peak brightness figure of 3000 nits.
TCL’s Halo Control technology helps tame blooming with clever optical design, a powerful light-emitting chip, micro-optics and a sophisticated dimming algorithm.
The result is a picture that feels bold and bright but also controlled – generally minimal haloing or clouding, even around bright highlights on dark backgrounds. Blacks are deep and convincing, with enough nuance that shadow detail isn’t crushed.
Colour reproduction is rich and vibrant thanks to quantum-dot tech, and yet TCL hasn’t thrown subtlety out the window: shading and gradients stay impressively natural.
In the Movie and Filmmaker Mode presets, the TV tempers its brightness so that it’s not just about dazzling intensity.
One of the biggest improvements over previous giant TCL sets is clarity: super-resolution upscaling sharpens the image well without introducing noise, and motion handling holds up.
There’s great news for gamers, too, as the 98C7K is very well equipped: two of its four HDMI ports support full HDMI 2.1 features, including 4K/120Hz (and 4K/144Hz, if your PC can handle it), VRR and ALLM.
On the audio side, TCL partnered with Bang & Olufsen to build a 6.2.2-channel, 60 W speaker system that’s impressively loud and spacious. Dialogue stays anchored and clear, and there’s a decent level of detail in the soundstage.
Really, though, pictures this big and brilliant demand audio to match, so I heartily recommend that you add a dedicated sound system. If you want to keep things neat and readily affordable, the Samsung HW-Q990F Dolby Atmos soundbar system is the way to go.
There are a few little picture flaws with the 98-inch C7K: some slight backlight instability, occasional brightness “jumps” in certain modes, and the AI-based “intelligent” picture preset can make skin tones and motion feel a little forced.
Still, those are small quibbles compared to what this TV achieves.
In short, the 98C7K is the most fun, jaw-dropping and value-packed screen you can buy at this size – a genuine home cinema experience.
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