The TCL X11L is not only my most anticipated Mini-LED of 2026, but likely to be the best by a landslide. With up to 20,000 zones, TCL’s new SQD Mini-LED panel, a claimed 10,000-nits brightness, and 100% BT.2020 coverage, it promises near-OLED contrast and massive HDR impact.
I tested the 98-inch version, and it immediately makes a statement. TCL clearly aims for enthusiasts who want the most powerful HDR experience in a very large format. After seeing it at CES and now in my studio, it’s clear this is a Mini-LED like no other.
The TCL X11L delivers the best contrast performance I’ve ever measured on a Mini-LED TV by a huge margin, coming shockingly close to OLED in many scenes while massively exceeding OLED brightness in HDR highlights. Its color volume and HDR impact are outstanding, making it arguably the best large-format movie-watching TV currently available. However, motion performance and gaming responsiveness are major weaknesses, viewing angles still can’t match OLED, and the pricing is higher than I hoped. If your priority is cinematic HDR performance on a very large screen, this is the best Mini-LED ever made. If gaming or value is your focus, this is not the TV for you.
| Pros | Cons |
| Class-leading contrast | Poor gaming performance |
| Extreme HDR brightness | Mediocre viewing angles |
| Excellent screen clarity | Very expensive |
Disclaimer: This TV was lent to me by TCL for review, but all opinions are my own. Additionally Home Theater Review may run advertising campaigns with various manufacturers including TCL.
For this review I used an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, Color Checker Display Plus colorimeter, Calman Ultimate, Portrait Displays Video Forge Pro 8K pattern generator, a Sony RX100 VII 1000fps camera, an SM208 Screen Luminance Meter, and a Sony Cinema Line FX3 mirrorless video camera. Plus years of display testing experience.
| Panel Type | SQD Mini-LED LCD |
| Resolution | 3840 x 2160 (4K) |
| Refresh Rate | Up to 144Hz |
| HDR Formats | HDR10, Dolby Vision |
| Price | ~$8,000 (85”), ~$10,000 (98”) |
| Warranty | 1 year |
Given its size, especially in the 98-inch configuration, unboxing the X11L is a two-to-three-person job at minimum. TCL’s packaging is robust and well thought out, and setup itself is fairly straightforward once the panel is safely positioned. The TV boots quickly and walks you through a standard Google TV setup process.
Out of the box, the TV defaults to relatively aggressive picture settings, but Filmmaker Mode is available and serves as the best baseline for calibration and evaluation. Connectivity is excellent thanks to four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, meaning there are no compromises when connecting multiple high-end sources.
Out of the box, the TCL X11L delivers strong and vibrant colors with very good fidelity, though it isn’t perfect. SDR content looks solid, and the overall image feels balanced, but a few subtle issues are noticeable without adjustments.
HDR content is even more impressive in practice. Colors pop, highlights maintain intensity, and the panel’s extreme brightness really helps HDR material feel alive. In fact there will likely be very few displays this year that are able to deliver the brightness and color performance TCL has achieved with this monster. While not perfect, it feels like a TV from the future that other companies will struggle to match.
For home theater enthusiasts below are all my Calman results measuring the accuracy of the display. For everyone else, feel free to skip to the TLDR.
After calibration, the X11L delivers excellent color accuracy in SDR but HDR needs adjustments. Even after doing so, the X11L can not perfectly represent HDR content. Overall it's fairly accurate, but it can crush some shadows and blow out some highlights slightly. Thankfully the color performance overall is great, especially since it hits over 92% BT.2020 in my testing (More than any OLED).
TCL advertises peak brightness approaching 10,000 nits, and while real-world performance doesn’t fully reach that figure in accurate picture modes, the measured results are still extraordinary and place the X11L among the brightest displays I’ve ever tested.
In my peak window brightness testing, the TCL X11L measured 5,369 nits in a 10% window and 904 nits in a 100% full-field pattern, making it the second brightest TV I’ve ever measured.
Those results alone are impressive, but numbers don’t always tell the full story. Where the X11L really shines is in real HDR content, where tone mapping, sustained brightness, and contrast all come together. In actual scenes, the display often feels even brighter than the test patterns would suggest, especially when high-APL content and intense specular highlights are involved.
In real HDR gameplay from Baldur’s Gate 3, the X11L reached 3,379 nits on highlight details and 1,243 nits on terrain brightness, making it the brightest display I’ve measured in this real-world HDR test.
Importantly, this extreme brightness doesn’t come at the expense of color volume. Thanks to the panel’s high luminance capability, colors remain saturated and impactful even at very high brightness levels. The real-world HDR experience it delivers is among the very best available today, and in many scenes, it surpasses what OLED can achieve simply due to sheer light output.
This is the headline feature of the TCL X11L, and frankly, it blows every other Mini LED out of the water. With up to 20,000 local dimming zones, this display operates in a completely different class. From the moment I powered it on, the contrast performance was immediately obvious, even in extremely challenging scenes that typically expose blooming and haloing on LCD-based displays, the X11L remained strong.
In a 10% window contrast test, the TCL X11L measured an astonishing 149,545:1, nearly four times higher than the second-best Mini-LED I’ve ever measured, which came in at just under 39,000:1.
That gap is massive, and it’s something you can clearly see in real content. Black levels remain deep and stable, bright highlights are tightly controlled, and blooming is kept to a minimum in situations where most Mini-LEDs would struggle.
In a highly demanding 1% window micro-contrast test, the X11L measured over 62,000:1, making it 5.6 times better than the second-best Mini-LED I’ve tested in this scenario.
In practice, this level of micro-contrast allows the TV to place very bright highlights next to near-black areas with impressive precision. Fireworks, star fields, and other high-contrast scenes look shockingly clean, and at times the X11L genuinely fooled me into thinking I was watching an OLED rather than a Mini-LED display. Blooming isn’t completely eliminated—especially when viewed off-axis—but straight on, the performance is nothing short of remarkable and represents the closest Mini-LED has come to OLED-level contrast for movie watching.
Absolutely no other Mini LED can touch the X11L in contrast. It's a crushing victory.
The TCL X11L uses a glossy panel combined with an RGB subpixel layout, which immediately improves perceived sharpness and detail. Text rendering is clean, fine details are preserved, and the image has a level of depth and clarity that matte-coated TVs simply cannot match.
Ambient light handling is equally impressive. Thanks to the glossy finish and careful panel design, I measured reflected light at approximately 0.06 nits, placing it among the better-performing TVs in bright rooms.
This means the X11L maintains strong contrast and clarity even in well-lit environments, while still delivering incredible performance in darker home theater settings. The combination of extreme brightness and excellent anti-reflective properties makes it a versatile display that works well across a wide range of lighting conditions.
Unfortunately, gaming is where the TCL X11L struggles. Motion performance is poor for a TV at this price, with slow pixel response times causing noticeable blur in fast-moving content, and higher refresh rates don’t improve clarity much.
Additionally, while the TV supports up to 144Hz, I could only reliably reach 120Hz after enabling VRR, and motion clarity still lagged behind competitors.
Input latency measured 32 milliseconds—acceptable but far from class-leading.
Combined, slow pixel response and mediocre latency make this TV a very poor choice for gaming. Even fast movies or sports can reveal motion limitations. Simply put, do not buy this TV for gaming.
While the WHVA panel improves viewing angles compared to older Mini-LED designs, it still can’t match OLED. Within roughly 30 degrees, performance remains strong, and even pushing toward 45 degrees is acceptable. Beyond that, contrast and color degradation become increasingly noticeable.
Uniformity overall is good for a panel of this size, but off-axis blooming becomes more visible as viewing angle increases. To get the full OLED-like experience this TV can deliver, you really need to be seated fairly close to the center.
The sound quality was disappointing on my unit. Despite TCL’s marketing, the built-in speakers sounded metallic and underwhelming, with weak bass and muddy mids. This TV absolutely demands an external sound system.
The Google TV interface is responsive and familiar, with broad app support and solid system stability. Motion interpolation options are available, with decent judder control, but they cannot fix the underlying pixel response limitations.
I also experienced limited upscaling improvements, so expect low quality content to look... well still low quality when stretched to 98". Though to be fair, I don't think many other TVs on the market do this well anyway.
The TCL X11L is a fascinating and, in many ways, groundbreaking TV. It delivers the best contrast performance I’ve ever measured on a Mini-LED display by an enormous margin, paired with exceptional HDR brightness and color volume. For movies and TV shows, especially in very large screen sizes, this is the best Mini-LED ever created—full stop, and I don't think its close.
That said, it is not a TV for everyone. Gaming performance is outright poor, viewing angles still trail OLED, and the pricing is very high. At $10,000, this TV exists in a very narrow niche. It needs a price drop.
That said, if you want the absolute best cinematic HDR experience in a 98-inch screen and don’t care about gaming or cost, the TCL X11L is unmatched. For everyone else, it’s best viewed as a glimpse into the future of Mini-LED technology—one that will hopefully become far more accessible as this tech trickles down into more affordable models.
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