With the RM9L RGB-Mini, TCL doesn’t skimp on HDMI 2.1 ports. There are four total, and each one can support a 144Hz refresh rate for low latency PC gaming or whatever you want to throw at the television. One of the HDMI 2.1 ports is for eARC passthrough audio to powered speakers or a receiver. I added an Xbox Series X and a Google TV for testing and connected Klipsch the Nines II speakers. There are two USB ports (one coaxial), an Ethernet port for a wired connection, and a digital optical port. The TV uses Wi-Fi 6, which is fast and compatible.
I liked the remote for the most part, since it is clean and easy to use. The brightness controls are on the right-hand side, which is a surprisingly brilliant design choice. For late-night gaming sessions you can crank down the brightness quickly or pump it up when the sunlight pours in. Tiny notches on the remote for volume and channels help you locate them without looking. The buttons for free television channels and a few others seemed like overkill. Also, the Home button is not centered, so it’s harder to find. Thankfully at this price, the remote is backlit.
Real-World Testing Results
Two movies I always test right away, especially to see if the contrast and brightness are as exceptional as they should be for a television’s price, are Awake on Netflix and The Creator on the Fandango at Home app. That’s because these movies have extremely dimly lit scenes at night or predawn. Even some OLED models look washed out during a cycling scene in Awake in which the actor Gina Rodriquez passes a guy in a blue shirt. Only after selecting the Vivid picture mode could I see what was going on. I find Mini RGB tech to be fussy at times, requiring picture quality tweaks.
For The Creator, an early scene by the ocean just didn’t have the vividness I would like for the price, looking slightly washed out without enough blue or deep blacks. Even after using Vivid or Dolby Vision IQ picture modes, the scene still looked too grayed out.
For skin tone benchmarks, the RM9L underperformed compared with the LG Micro RGB Evo. I noticed a lack of tonal variation, but in a side-by-side test against the LG television, there was more of a difference. That meant the RM9L matched up more closely with the midrange Sony Bravia 7 Mark II and the Hisense UR9 that also benefited from Mini RGB tech.
In a demo reel benchmark, there is one tough challenge involving white mist over a snowy mountain. The Leica Cine Play 1 projector is admittedly not a fair test (even if it’s cheaper) because that model has such an exceptional lens, but the mist was far more distinct on it. Green grass near a fence in winter was more noticeable and obvious than on the Hisense UR9, and the two televisions were about equal during a segment with buffalo on a field, showing different shades of brown. The LG Micro RGB Evo rendered several scenes with more color, including a yellow flower, a red cactus, a purple butterfly, and dark trees in a nighttime scene.
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