TCL 6-Series 2020 QLED TV with Mini LED (55R635, 65R635, 75R635) review

One-minute review

Although it's been superseded by a brand-new 8K TV model, the TCL 6-Series 8K TV (R648) and a new 6-Series model for 2021 (R646), the older TCL 6-Series 2020 QLED (R635) is still an incredible value.

Starting at just $650, the TCL 6-Series R635 is a 4K Roku TV that uses Mini LED – a technology that often goes into TVs that cost three times as much – as well as a Quantum Dot filter for more vibrant colors. 

The result? The 6-Series is brighter than before, more colorful and doesn’t have a single hint of haloing or light bleed. It’s designed in a new way to hide your cables and it’s the first TV to come with THX Certified Game Mode for 1440p/120Hz gaming.

Yes, the 8K TV still has a higher brightness and four times the amount of pixels, but  if you're buying a TV to binge Netflix or stream Hulu without breaking the bank, this is the 4K TV that we'd recommend for you.

• Check out the best TCL TVs overall

TCL 6-Series 2020 price and release date

The TCL 6-Series R635 became available starting in August 2020. Here in the US, it’s available in three different sizes including a 55-, 65- and 75-inch model that cost $649, $899 and $1,399, respectively. 

What makes the 6-Series so unique is that, despite its affordable price tag, it sports features that you’d find on TVs that cost twice as much, making it an incredible value.

In terms of performance, this year's TCL 6-Series is pretty similar to the full-array Samsung Q80T QLED TV and LG Nano 90, both of which use variations of quantum dot for greater color accuracy, but the 6-Series R635 is $300 to $650 cheaper than either option and uses the easily navigable Roku TV.

Of course, leave it to TCL to out-TCL itself. The newer version of the TV released in 2021 called the TCL 6-Series R646 has all the same features as its predecessor, but also offers better local dimming for less blooming, two HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K/120Hz gaming and Google TV instead of Roku if you want a more modern interface. It's unlikely that performance is head-and-shoulders above last year's model, but it would be worth looking at the new model if the prices are about the same.

Design

The TCL 6-Series has a lot going for it in terms of design (see: that Mini-LED backlight), but it’s not exactly an art piece the way Samsung’s The Frame is, either. That may feel like a potshot, but the 6-Series R635 is fairly chunky for an LED-LCD screen, and can’t touch the ultra-slim profile of an OLED. 

Despite not being incredibly slim, the nearly bezel-less design of the TV is fairly versatile. The legs of the TV can either be placed close together to fit on a smaller table or stand, or can be attached to the outside corners of the TV to give it some more stability. 

Speaking of the legs, one neat addition this year is the ability to weave cables through the legs themselves, creating a less chaotic space free from wires. 

Spin it around and you’ll find a solid selection of ports. Among them you’ve got ethernet, four HDMI 2.0b ports, one with eARC support, plus an AV In port that takes your standard composite (Red-White-Yellow RCA) input, USB and optical audio. 

Note, of course, that these aren't HDMI 2.1 ports that can carry 4K/120Hz or 8K signals – but 4K/60 or 1440p/120 is still very much possible here.

The remote that ships with the TV is similar to the Roku remotes that have shipped with past models, but it gets the job done. The only real change this time around is that there’s now a button for Disney Plus, which is probably better for most folks than ESPN+ that was there before.

Smart TV (Roku TV)

Like previous years, the TCL 6-Series R635 uses Roku TV, an egalitarian smart TV platform that has a fair and robust search feature and most of the major streaming apps. 

The search bit is important, especially if you’ve ever used an Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV, both of which would much rather have you stream from their ancillary streaming services over any of the third-party ones. Because Roku doesn’t have ties to a major streaming service – other than a vague deal to include FandangoNow on the home screen of the OS – it doesn’t push you any direction you don’t want to go. 

Happily Roku TV supports everything from Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and Amazon, to lesser-known channels like Pluto.tv, tubi, Crackle and others. The only major app missing from the bunch at launch was HBO Max, an issue that resolved itself Dec. 2020, when two companies reached an agreement. HBO today is a go (but not Go, which died, of course).

If you’re a cord cutter, you’ll love the Featured Free section of the homepage that shows you what's available for free on the different services and Roku’s own streaming service, The Roku Channel, which provides its own collection of entirely free movies that change in and out every few months. These are invaluable resources for cord-cutters who want live cable-free, and a great alternative to channel surfing for folks who still have a box.

One nice surprise TCL and Roku tucked into the TV is that it’s Screencast-ready – a handy feature that allows you to cast content from your mobile device to your TV. This is nice if you have a group of friends over and they all want a turn showing their favorite YouTube clip, or if you want to use your TV as a digital picture frame when family comes to visit. 

In terms of smart assistants, Roku TV uses the Roku Assistant, which is really only good for finding shows and movies, but it does link up to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant if you want to control the TV using either one of those smart home platforms.

Performance

The area that you’ll see the biggest improvement in the TCL 6-Series this year is with its performance – most notably in the black levels, contrast and lack of haloing you might have seen on previous models. 

That's all thanks to the new Mini LED backlight system that uses thousands of LEDs instead of hundreds to get near-perfect black levels next to bright highlights. 

The only drawback, here, we've noticed, is that the peak brightness is actually a bit lower compared to other QLED TVs not using Mini LED, like the Samsung Q80T or Samsung Q90T, Vizio P-Series Quantum X or even TCL's own 8-Series that we measured last year at over 1,300 nits of peak brightness. 

The result is that the 6-Series is more closer akin to OLED in terms of brightness and contrast, but has the benefit of using quantum dots, like last year, which means you’ll see a Wide Color Gamut that looks amazing. 

To put the TCL 6-Series through its paces we tried tons of different content, from Night on Earth (available in Dolby Vision, no less) to the local news to see how the TV upscaled HD content to fill the 4K screen.

Because there’s still a dearth of 4K/HDR content out there the 6-Series still relies really heavily on its AiPQ Engine to transform HD to 4K content. It does this using three algorithms – one for color, one for clarity and one for contrast – and the results, so far, do seem better than last year.  

For folks who want to get really serious about fine-tuning the picture of the TV, TCL includes five default picture settings, each of which can be further refined in the areas of color, contrast, etc… For our testing, we’ve so far gravitated to the Normal picture setting with most of the motion processing technology turned off due to the fact that it introduced motion artifacts while watching films like Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. 

The only other issue with the AiPQ Engine is that, no matter the mode, we’ve noticed that the processor can over-process areas of extreme brightness, making them a flat white color. We noticed this in clouds that lost their texture in shows like Down to Earth on Netflix or bright white buildings. It could be that the Mini LEDs are all turning on in a given area when only a few should, effectively boosting the brightness of the scene but obscuring small details in the image. 

For gamers, the 6-Series with Mini LED is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it supports 120Hz gaming and Variable Refresh Rate. The downside here is that, at 120 fps, the resolution is limited to 1440p and the TV doesn’t support proprietary GPU technologies like Nvidia G-Sync and AMD Freesync. 

It’s better to have 1440p/120fps gameplay than 1080p/60, obviously, but it would be nice if TCL used HDMI 2.1 to get the full benefits of the spec.

Sound

The sound on the TCL 6-Series is perfectly acceptable. You won't hear the fine details in classical music or the spacious soundstage of a 5.1 surround system, but you won't have any complaints about the volume level either.

On the frame you've got two 8W speakers that emphasize mids and highs rather than wall-shaking bass. That's a bit less than some other TVs that use 10W or even 20W drivers like the Sony X950H that we reviewed a few months back, but regardless the 6-Series' sound gave us little to complain about.

The best thing you can do with the money you save on the TV is invest in a Dolby Atmos soundbar like the Vizio SB36512-F6, Sony HT-X8500, LG SL9YG or the Samsung HW-Q70R. Because the TCL 6-Series has Atmos passthrough and eARC, setup is incredibly simple and well-worth the investment.

Should you buy the TCL 6-Series R635 4K TV?

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• Expect to see the TCL 6-Series R635 on our list of the best TVs and upcoming discounts with our best TV deals roundup