98in Mini LED TV £3250 whf.cm/TCL 98Q9BK
Not so long ago you would have had to pay five figures for a 98-100in TV. The TCL 98Q9BK, though, sets UK buyers back the princely sum of £3250 - and that's despite it being far from basic with either its specifications or features. Suddenly, the current huge surge in the popularity of mega-sized TVs isn't so hard to understand.
The main king-sized TV competition for the 98Q9BK comes from TCL itself and arch-rival Hisense. The 85in TCL 85C805K we loved so much is now, incredibly, available for under £1500, while Hisense's 100in 100E7NQT Pro is a pound under £2k. Note, though, that the 85C805K doesn't sport as many dimming zones or as much brightness as the 98Q9BK, while the Hisense model doesn't use Mini LED or, again, deliver nearly as much brightness.
While its size is obviously the 98Q9BK's most stand-out feature, it ticks plenty of other home cinema-friendly boxes too: its LCD display uses contrast-rich VA tech, and it is illuminated by Mini LEDS arranged in 1536 independently dimmable zones.
TCL claims, too, that the 98Q9BK is capable of outputting as much as 2400 nits of brightness for small HDR highlights.
Helping the 98Q9BK's colours keep up with its promised brightness is a Quantum Dot array, and the screen sports a mild anti-reflection filter to try to reduce the extent to which bright objects in your room might come between you and a direct connection with what you are watching.
Four HDMIS are joined by a couple of USBS and the usual wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options including Miracast, Apple AirPlay 2 and Chromecast, though only two of the HDMIs support 4K/120Hz (and, in fact, 144Hz) gaming feeds. The Chromecast support comes courtesy of the 98Q9BK's Google TV smart system. TCL has managed to add Freeview Play, too.
The 98Q9BK's Dolby Vision HDR support is backed up by HDR10+, HDRIO and HLG HDR playback, meaning it covers all four of the main HDR formats.
One last feature of note finds TCL turning to the audio gurus at Onkyo for the design of the 98Q9BK's 2.1-channel sound system, which includes a large rearmounted subwoofer.
Incredibly satisfying
There is no overstating just what an impact a 98in screen has on your living room, and how much the screen fills your field of view - as well as your wall - instantly turning even the Teletubbies into a (rather disturbing) Hollywood blockbuster.
Making that impact all the greater is how bright TCL's latest TV giant is. Bright highlights of HDR content gleam with the sort of intensity usually reserved for only the most expensive mid-sized TVs. Even more strikingly, the picture retains much more light with HDR images that flood the whole screen with brightness than any other super-sized TV (or any OLED TV) we have tested. Such brightness emerging at the 98Q9BK's scale is an incredibly satisfying sight for any videophile keen to experience what HDR can do.
The 98Q9BK doesn't throw its light about irresponsibly, without due regard for all the other elements that go into making a good TV picture. Its local dimming system (and the TCL AiPQ processor driving it) does a mostly very accomplished job of getting the screen to serve up impressively deep and consistent dark colours and black tones alongside all the bright stuff.
Unrelentingly dark scenes are troubled impressively little by low-contrast grey 'wash' hanging over them; yet at the same time they remain free of black crush, where subtle shading details can be lost in a TV's push for convincing black tones.
Scenes that contain a few relatively small but very intense bright highlights set against a mostly dark but also detailed backdrop can, though, cause a slightly cloudy, hazy look to creep into some dark areas. While it is clearly a result of the 98Q9BK's local-dimming system not quite having enough local light control to fully maintain inky blacks in between spread-out bright highlights, we broadly appreciate the choice TCL appears to have made between driving the local dimming so aggressively that it would surely have resulted in light 'halos' around the bright objects, and going for a more 'blended' backlight zone approach that raises general black levels slightly but doesn't generate distractingly specific backlight zone activity.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1345126686/1739276558/articles/ZMJHWHSqW1739342204405/3311399513.jpg]
The 98Q9BK's Quantum Dot colours are diverse and voluminous enough to take on all the light being thrown at them without thinning out or, except in extreme circumstances, 'clipping out' subtle shading details. There isn't quite as much general nuance to bold colours as you get with some of the most high-end TVs, a ...
Not so long ago you would have had to pay five figures for a 98-100in TV. The TCL 98Q9BK, though, sets UK buyers back the princely sum of £3250 - and that's despite it being far from basic with either its specifications or features. Suddenly, the current huge surge in the popularity of mega-sized TVs isn't so hard to understand.
The main king-sized TV competition for the 98Q9BK comes from TCL itself and arch-rival Hisense. The 85in TCL 85C805K we loved so much is now, incredibly, available for under £1500, while Hisense's 100in 100E7NQT Pro is a pound under £2k. Note, though, that the 85C805K doesn't sport as many dimming zones or as much brightness as the 98Q9BK, while the Hisense model doesn't use Mini LED or, again, deliver nearly as much brightness.
While its size is obviously the 98Q9BK's most stand-out feature, it ticks plenty of other home cinema-friendly boxes too: its LCD display uses contrast-rich VA tech, and it is illuminated by Mini LEDS arranged in 1536 independently dimmable zones.
TCL claims, too, that the 98Q9BK is capable of outputting as much as 2400 nits of brightness for small HDR highlights.
Helping the 98Q9BK's colours keep up with its promised brightness is a Quantum Dot array, and the screen sports a mild anti-reflection filter to try to reduce the extent to which bright objects in your room might come between you and a direct connection with what you are watching.
Four HDMIS are joined by a couple of USBS and the usual wi-fi and Bluetooth wireless options including Miracast, Apple AirPlay 2 and Chromecast, though only two of the HDMIs support 4K/120Hz (and, in fact, 144Hz) gaming feeds. The Chromecast support comes courtesy of the 98Q9BK's Google TV smart system. TCL has managed to add Freeview Play, too.
The 98Q9BK's Dolby Vision HDR support is backed up by HDR10+, HDRIO and HLG HDR playback, meaning it covers all four of the main HDR formats.
One last feature of note finds TCL turning to the audio gurus at Onkyo for the design of the 98Q9BK's 2.1-channel sound system, which includes a large rearmounted subwoofer.
Incredibly satisfying
There is no overstating just what an impact a 98in screen has on your living room, and how much the screen fills your field of view - as well as your wall - instantly turning even the Teletubbies into a (rather disturbing) Hollywood blockbuster.
Making that impact all the greater is how bright TCL's latest TV giant is. Bright highlights of HDR content gleam with the sort of intensity usually reserved for only the most expensive mid-sized TVs. Even more strikingly, the picture retains much more light with HDR images that flood the whole screen with brightness than any other super-sized TV (or any OLED TV) we have tested. Such brightness emerging at the 98Q9BK's scale is an incredibly satisfying sight for any videophile keen to experience what HDR can do.
The 98Q9BK doesn't throw its light about irresponsibly, without due regard for all the other elements that go into making a good TV picture. Its local dimming system (and the TCL AiPQ processor driving it) does a mostly very accomplished job of getting the screen to serve up impressively deep and consistent dark colours and black tones alongside all the bright stuff.
Unrelentingly dark scenes are troubled impressively little by low-contrast grey 'wash' hanging over them; yet at the same time they remain free of black crush, where subtle shading details can be lost in a TV's push for convincing black tones.
Scenes that contain a few relatively small but very intense bright highlights set against a mostly dark but also detailed backdrop can, though, cause a slightly cloudy, hazy look to creep into some dark areas. While it is clearly a result of the 98Q9BK's local-dimming system not quite having enough local light control to fully maintain inky blacks in between spread-out bright highlights, we broadly appreciate the choice TCL appears to have made between driving the local dimming so aggressively that it would surely have resulted in light 'halos' around the bright objects, and going for a more 'blended' backlight zone approach that raises general black levels slightly but doesn't generate distractingly specific backlight zone activity.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1345126686/1739276558/articles/ZMJHWHSqW1739342204405/3311399513.jpg]
The 98Q9BK's Quantum Dot colours are diverse and voluminous enough to take on all the light being thrown at them without thinning out or, except in extreme circumstances, 'clipping out' subtle shading details. There isn't quite as much general nuance to bold colours as you get with some of the most high-end TVs, a ...
You're reading a preview of
What Hi-fi Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2025