Why is EVERYONE Buying this TV?? - TCL 55S405
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,385 words · ~6 min read
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in the year 2012 the world didn't actually end
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but there were some things that sucked the average 55-inch 4k tv cost about
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155 us dollars per diagonal inch here's a little
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visual representation for you per diagonal inch
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but thankfully prices have fallen precipitously in the intervening years
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bringing us to today's episode of why the actual advertiser friendly
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content are all of you buying this the best selling tv on amazon what
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exactly is it that you are getting for a
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mere seven dollars there's only five james five
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dollars whatever seven i have other dollars here seven dollars and 25 cents
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per inch well i'm gonna tell you after i tell you
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what you get for a subscription to private internet access pia encrypts
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your internet traffic and uses a safe protected ip you can check it out today
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at the link below
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the tcl55s 405 is the best selling tv on
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amazon with over 2 500 reviews and an average rating of 4.3
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out of 5 stars now you might be thinking gee
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i've never heard of the creative life before these tvs must be cheap chinese
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crap but you would only be 66.6 repeating of
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course percent correct it is cheap it is
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chinese but it's actually surprisingly
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decent as it turns out chinese companies
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have been climbing the largest tv manufacturers lists dethroning the more
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familiar japanese and korean brands that you might be used to in fact the
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creative life i can't do that anymore pcl occupies the first six spots on
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amazon's best sellers list all with sets that cost under four
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hundred dollars and this was actually really surprising
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unlike most value brands tcl didn't just
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buy a panel that was made by lg or samsung and put their own casing around
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it they are a completely integrated company that makes their own panels
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cases and stands in fact tcl is now the
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world's third largest producer of tvs and they claim
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to be the fastest growing tv brand in america they were even the first chinese
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tv manufacturer to nab lucky eight percent market share
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and the picture quality is really good for the price like we can see why
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so it's a 3840 by 2160 va panel which
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gives it nice deep blacks it uses a direct backlight instead of edge
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backlighting and it's got entry level hdr10 support thanks to its 8-bit plus
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frc bit depth panel something that both movie watchers and gamers are likely to
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appreciate and on that subject the gaming experience is actually
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surprisingly good as well the delay from mouse click to muzzle flash using our
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makey makey and cs go was only one to three frames that's a really strong
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result one disappointing tidbit though is that while the 55 s 405 is advertised
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as having a 120 hertz refresh rate
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it's actually just a 60 hertz panel with
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a combination of advanced signal processing and backlight scanning to
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present an effective refresh rate of 120
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hertz whatever that means and strangely you can't even
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toggle clear motion completely off like you can on most tvs that i've seen
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though with that said as someone who loathes the soap opera effect i didn't
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notice any smoothing anyway so it just doesn't seem to really work very well
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but your mileage may vary there i o wise it's pretty generous including
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three HDMI 2.0 ports a headphone jack awesome for a pc setup and an Ethernet
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port which is fantastic since many people think that they're watching 4k
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netflix or they've got a 4k chromecast ultra but they aren't actually getting
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4k streaming because their Wi-Fi isn't fast enough and you'll want to be doing
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a lot of 4k streaming on this thing because not only is it a smart tv but it
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actually basically has a roku streaming stick plus built right into it that's a
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dongle that usually costs
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that's a dongle that usually costs at least 50 bucks on its own and it lets
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you use your phone as a remote cast media from your phone and switch to your
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game consoles without flipping through inputs allowing them to appear as tiles
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just like your other apps for bonus points they even made all the menus loop
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so if you want to go all the way to the bottom all you have to do is hit up
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thank you but surely they had to uh cut some corners
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to get the price this low right and yes
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yes they did the most obvious one is brightness your 55 s405 will do you just
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fine in a dark or moderately lit room
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but if you're going to deploy it in your living room and you've got a lot of
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natural light there you are going to struggle to see through the shiny af
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glare and then there's the speakers
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so the problem with them is that
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they suck a pair of eight wad speakers sounds bad
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even on paper considering that we've reviewed monitors with 10 watt stereo
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setups and in real life they're even worse now you'll be okay
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watching the news or reruns of the big bang but if you're breaking out the
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popcorn for a base banging movie we
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would suggest some kind of audio upgrade like maybe this entry level sound bar
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from the amazon bestsellers list we haven't actually tried that one yet but
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should we maybe let us know in the comments below bringing us finally to
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the not so premium look the case is
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three inches thick made of plastic with
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a sheet of aluminum at the back and it rocks quarter inch bezels
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and i mean while no one's likely to ridicule you for them
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unless your friends and family are all gigantic butt heads
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if you want a more modern look you might consider shelling out the extra 150
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bucks for the sexier 2018 version
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so then should you buy this tv if you're not the
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type to scrutinize the nitty gritties of display technology like banding and the
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dirty screen effect then honestly
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definitely as long as you don't have to deal with
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customer service you will be happy and if you are more picky with your
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displays honestly the answer is probably yeah you
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should still buy it throw it in your bedroom chuck one in the ensuite
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bathroom or gift it bathroom
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or gift it to your laggard grandparents just make sure that they've got a big
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enough table to support its wide stance
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unrestricted free trial go to freshbooks.com tech tips we'll have that
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linked below and enter Linus tech tips in the how did you hear about us section
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that's okay that's okay because i have all of the this like
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amazing american money that could just as easily be hundreds as ones because
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you can't really tell unless you look really closely at it money