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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- TCL’s X11L targets color accuracy with Micro RGB and SQD Mini LED tech.
- 20,000 dimming zones and 10,000 nits push premium brightness and contrast.
- A Bang & Olufsen soundbar and Google TV add flagship appeal.
This year’s CES is indisputably the Micro RGB show. Virtually every major TV manufacturer is incorporating the tri-colored pixel technology, as if the transparent TVs from last year are no longer cutting-edge. TCL has other plans.
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The brand’s new crown jewel TV of 2026 is the , which features TCL’s Super Quantum Dot (SQD) Mini LED panel, for which the company claims achieves 100 percent of the BT2020 color gamut. This is accomplished by pairing the SQD layer with a CSOT UltraColor Filter, as well as an Advanced Color Purity Algorithm.
If that assembly of tech jargon doesn’t tell you it’s CES (or that TCL means business), then I don’t know what will.
How it works
Effectively, the X11L solves a major pain point with conventional Micro RGB TVs: color blooming, or color crosstalk. With Micro RGB TVs often emitting very bright light, certain colors can bleed into surrounding dark areas, reducing color accuracy.
With the CSOT UltraColor Filter, TCL has significantly reduced these artifacts, rendering images that, to my fresh-off-a-plane eyes, appeared consistent in color and had natural edge definition. I also took a demo of the X11L in a rather dim environment, so any signs of blooming, which there were not many of, should’ve been easy to discern.
What was apparent was how TCL paired the SQD Mini LED technology with two specifications that would leave any TV enthusiast drooling: 20,000 dimming zones and 10,000 peak nits of brightness. This combination of luminance and contrast control yields images that feel like the figurative interpretation of having my socks blown off.
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At one point, a scene of Las Vegas signage beaming in the night made both my colleague and me squint almost immediately. I now wonder exactly how consistent the color output will be at max brightness. That, and many other questions about how well the X11L handles day-to-day viewing, will be answered in a future review.
The other X factor
TCL equipped the X11L with a built-in soundbar tuned by Bang & Olufsen. While I’m usually skeptical of co-branded audio, a brief listening session proved this is no ordinary integrated system. Users can also tap into Dolby Atmos FlexConnect speakers to create a wireless surround sound setup.
And like TCL’s most recent QM9K model, the X11L will support the latest Gemini features on the Google TV platform, including enhanced search capabilities (such as settings tweaks), deeper explanations to queries, and other generative AI tools.
Pricing and availability
The X11L is available for preorder right now, with the 75-inch model priced at $6,999, the 85-inch model at $7,999, and the 98-inch model at $9,999.
Clearly, this is no mainstream TV set that will sit alongside other Mini LED and QLED models at your local brick-and-mortar store. Instead, it represents TCL’s next evolution of its most premium offering, and that may be just enough to entice enthusiasts who are cross-shopping brands at CES this week.
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