Amazon.com: Customer reviews: TCL 43" Class 5-Series 4K UHD Dolby Vision HDR Roku Smart TV

Top positive review

43" Series 5 is a great value and very good TV.

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2019

I have been a big fan of Vizio TV's over the years.

For Christmas, I bought my son a 43" series 4 TCL and he and his wife love it.

When my bedroom 40" Samsung went bad, I did my research and focused on ROKU TV's like the TCL, Hisense, JVC, and the Series 5 TCL. I could have saved money and bought the series 4 43" TCL for almost $80 less, but the features of the Series 5 won me over and I am so glad I got this TCL 43S525.

The Picture is excellent, watched a streaming 4K movie using the Roku and all I can say is WOW...
Good sound, and saw someone complain about the bezel size and I gotta say the bezel at the top and sides are very small, the bezel at the bottom is larger, but this is one great looking TV, I even like the power indicator at the bottom right side of the TV.

Also, like that this TV even has a CAT 5 connection, so I can use my wired internet connection which is faster than my wifi
for streaming.

Would recommend this TV for anyone wanting a premium picture at a TCL price, I believe you will be blown away too.

247 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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Ethan

Bad Detail, Misleading advertising, Mediocre HDR performance

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2019

Every depiction of this item in official promotional adverts shows basically no bezel when in reality it’s just the same as before. When viewing up close, there is an apparent screen problem, where there aren’t enough sub-pixels to go around, causing small icons/pictures to have horrible color and detail and grays to shine like a rainbow. You can see this in the linked pictures below. In turn, this screen doesn't give off the feeling Of true 4K. When enabling HDR, it's even worse; the screen dims itself into oblivion as there aren't enough nits to achieve even an average brightness. The ”Dolby Vision” certification is all software and b.s. on this TV. So if you're thinking about getting this TV purely as a monitor or for 4K/HDR, look somewhere else. There are no changes from previous models except a gimmicky power light and HLG compliance. As someone who previously seen the 43S517, there is no reason to get this when you can get a 517 or 515 for almost half the price, which is what these TVs are actually worth.

204 people found this helpful

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From the United States

W Fisher

43" Series 5 is a great value and very good TV.

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2019

Size: 43 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

247 people found this helpful

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Scott Shilala

Just Gorgeous.

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2019

Size: 55 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

I remember unwrapping my prom date.
This tv, it cost less and it’s so much more gorgeous.
People have mentioned the product pics.
This does have a half inch all around “bezel”.
If anyone can create a complaint about this tv, I can’t agree.
It’s so far beyond the price that there’s nothing I could find to compare.

The one thing I was amazed of, it’s incredibly light.
Keep your fingers away from the front and read like it matters. You’ll be happy.

I’m so pleased I can hardly stand it.
I hope you are, too!!!

229 people found this helpful

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Ethan

Bad Detail, Misleading advertising, Mediocre HDR performance

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2019

Size: 43 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

204 people found this helpful

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Kjersten Hendrickson

Beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2019

Size: 50 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

Integrated beautifully with my smart-home system, amazing picture quality. Setup and install were super easy.
My personal favorite bit though was the funny things it said on the "please stand by while we update/install/find your network"
I won't ruin it by listing the things here, but it made me chuckle.
Installing a TV should always be as fun as watching it. I am surprised more companies don't do that.

162 people found this helpful

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Andrew Miller

Poor quality.

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2019

Size: 65 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

We turned it on for the first time, went through the setup & got connected to the wifi, and before we could do anything else the TV said it needed to do a software update. I let it do its update and now it is a brick. It just keeps rebooting itself over and over before ever getting to the home screen. Tried powering off, tried a hard reset, nothing works.

This is the 2nd TCL we have owned. The first one had a black screen of death after 18 months, which a local repair shop was able to fix by replacing a burned out LED.

I definitely won't be buying a 3rd TCL. These things are not well made.

116 people found this helpful

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Yuri Reyna

TCL Smart TV is a MUST BUY!

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2019

Size: 43 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

THE BEST TV!!! If you're looking for a high quality picture screen, HDR and smart features - AND, all the streaming access we highly recommend you buy a TCL smart TV!! We purchased our first TCL for the living room in a much bigger size and we loved it after enjoying the great features and easy to navigate! We just had to buy another one for our bedroom - replacing our Samsung. We love it! TCL smart TV - A MUST BUY, not joke! Great price too!

103 people found this helpful

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Steve Maiman

Great 4K monitor.

Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2019

Size: 50 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

Excellent picture with deep blacks and intuitive remote. Upgrade from previous 4K TV which didn’t have this level of brightness or black level. Good value as well.

103 people found this helpful

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tony

Bezels not as small as advertised

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2019

Size: 50 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

Nice tv, would have gotten higher rating if not for the blatant false advertising. In the picture and video, bezels are made to look significantly smaller than they actually are. Still looks good, but not like advertised. They're 5 mm thick as opposed to the 1 or 2 it's made to look.

84 people found this helpful

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Christopher

Amazing thank you

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019

Size: 43 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

I have waited this long to buy a 4K, I have never seen one in person. This was a fantastic experience.
Also never had a smart tv.

Ok few things to note for new users like myself.

1. HDR on Xbox and PlayStation won’t recognize the compatibility, The Roku OS lets you manage each HDMI port via settings menu, really cool, and that is where you set the HDMI 1.4 to 2.0. You need to do this on each port as the auto setting doesn’t. Then the Xbox and PS4 recognize HDR 10 and Dolby vision.

It took me til the next day to realize this, and the difference is night and day with HDR.

Other bonus info for new users, You can manage your home screen on the TV move and remove any options you don’t like and under the accessibility tab you can hide all the unwanted ads, Roku is amazing for this support because most of these proprietary OS’s won’t let you do this.

(Looking at you amazon fire)

I have very happy with these TVs

51 people found this helpful

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William C. Mcdonald

You get what you pay for - audio and video performance problems and horrible customer service

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2020

Size: 65 InchStyle: TV OnlyVerified Purchase

I ordered the TCL 65S525 on September 27, 2019, seemingly a very affordable 65" 4K TV with HDR10 and Dolby vision.

Audio malfunctioned from the beginning. In "Auto-Detect" mode, it always went to PCM (i.e., 2 channel) even with Dolby Digital source material. If I wanted surround, I had to use my Preamp/Processor to simulate it (matrix) or I had to put the TV explicitly in one of the 5.1 surround modes, e.g., Dolby Digital/DTS. In the latter, audio frequently lagged video by a very noticeable amount and the lag increased during a single movie reaching over a second. I was able to get around this by selecting Dolby Digital alone.

On February 9, HDR10 movies on YouTube were malfunctioning with colors extremely shifted toward red. This was not subtle, the movies (purchased) were unwatchable. Non-HDR10, including Dolby Vision, worked as expected. I’ve recently confirmed that YouTube HDR10 on another Roku TV works fine. Further, Netflix HDR10 on the TCL TV works fine; this is exclusively a TCL/YouTube issue, i.e., something about the way TCL processes YouTube HDR.

I contacted TCL Support about the HDR problem. First-level support was responsive but had me jumping through multiple, time-consuming hoops including taking pictures of the screen during malfunction and performing various resets including a factory-reset that lost all my settings (I knew I’d lose settings, but they didn't bother to warn me). Reestablishing settings (wireless, Hulu, Netflix X 2, YouTube X 2, devices, etc.), all from the remote w/o benefit of a keyboard, is a pain and takes about a half-hour, and I've now had to do this 5 times in this process.

After all this, on Feb 11, first-level support threw in the towel and escalated my case. I heard nothing for two full weeks while my TV remained broken. I then contacted first-level support for an update on Feb 25. They didn’t reply until March 5. It’s now been almost a month that my TV has been down, and three weeks since anyone at TCL support has bothered to contact me, and they responded only now after I had to nag them. I have little doubt that TCL’s approach was to make it so difficult that I’d just give up.

Regardless, they decided to dispatch a technician to replace the mainboard in the TV.

A third-party contractor technician arrived on March 9 to replace the mainboard. It’s now been a full month with a broken TV. Mainboard replacement was unsuccessful as the TV was unable to boot-up with the new board. The technician told me to expect replacement of the TV.

I was subsequently told by TCL support to expect a technician with a replacement TV. See my comments on TCL demands for my duties below for before and after technician visits.

On March 27, a third-party technician arrived. It’s now been about 2 1/2 weeks since the last, failed, attempt by TCL to fix the problem and my TV has now been down for a total of about 7-weeks with lengthy delays by TCL and no sense of urgency or other indication of customer concern.

The technician came with a 75S425, which is larger but a lesser model (I bought the 65" 5 series, this is a 4 series). Further, the new TV isn't compatible with the expensive wall-mount I bought for the original (way too late to return), so I've now had to buy another expensive mount. Further yet, the replacement turns out to be a REFURB with only a 90-day warranty, which reduces my original 12-month warranty by about 3 months.

At no point did TCL or its representatives notify me or ask my permission to substitute this lesser refurb for my original new TV.

Further, THE REPLACEMENT TV HAS THE SAME AUDIO AND HDR10 PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS AS THE ORIGINAL TV. To restate the previous: I’ve recently confirmed that YouTube HDR10 on a different Roku TV works fine. Further, Netflix HDR10 on the TCL TV works fine; this is exclusively a TCL/YouTube HDR issue, i.e., something about the way TCL processes YouTube HDR. This means these problems are design or implementation issues that TCL has not bothered to fix in these, relatively vintage, 2019 TVs.

As further indication of TCL’s lack of concern for customers: prior to both technician visits, TCL gave me a list of demands (not requests!) including the TV had to be removed from any mounts or stands, work space of a specified area had to be provided, and I was responsible for remounting the TV. More hours of my time wasted because of TCL's failing. Further, I live alone and am 72-years old; how am I to mount the very large replacement TV, weighing 75 lbs.?

This is one of the worst customer service experiences I've had. Not a single TCL employee apologized for my many hours of inconvenience and weeks without a fully functioning TV. TCL is indifferent to customer satisfaction; the company clearly is in business to sell cheap, unreliable TVs, rushed to market without adequate testing and with a very small budget for continuing engineering and customer support.

If I had it to do again, I'd spend a few hundred dollars more for a reliable brand. Overall, this would have been far less expensive in every respect.

BTW, both third-party technicians were excellent.

42 people found this helpful

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5 star		76%
4 star		12%
3 star		4%
2 star		2%
1 star		7%

TCL 43" Class 5-Series 4K UHD Dolby Vision HDR Roku Smart TV - 43S525

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