I've Reviewed Hundreds of TVs, and This TCL Mini-LED Model Is the Brightest

Here at PCMag, we recognize products that stand out for their overall quality or value with our Editors' Choice award, distinguishing them as one of the best in their category. In 2026, we're going deeper and further by introducing the PCMag Lab Awards for products that deliver the best numbers in lab testing, showing that they're superlative in a single, measurable area.

When evaluating TVs (and I've tested hundreds ), I use specialized equipment to measure several different performance specs. One of them is how much light a TV can put out, and in that category, the TCL QM8L stands above all the rest, earning our first PCMag Lab Award for brightest TV (not to mention our Editors' Choice award for mini-LED TVs).

This is the second TV to earn a PCMag Lab Award, following the Samsung S95H , our winner for lowest input lag , an important metric for playing video games. Read on for all the details of my TV brightness testing, the TCL QM8L's record-breaking luminance, and why this spec matters if you're shopping for a TV.

Why TV Brightness Matters

TVs, and every other type of screen for that matter, are all about two things: color and light. Their entire purpose is to form a picture and shine it into your eyes, and just how good that picture looks depends on the range of brightness and color the screen can achieve.

A TV's brightness range, the full extent of how dark and bright it can get at the same time, is called contrast. High contrast means seeing plenty of detail across both shadows and very well-lit parts of the frame. Most mini-LED TVs, and all OLED TVs, can completely turn off parts of the screen for "perfect" black levels, which means contrast often boils down to how much light they can pump out.

The maximum brightness of a TV also affects how we perceive its color. Without getting too deep into the very complicated science of color, the more light on an object of a given hue and saturation we see, the more vibrant it appears. That can mean the difference between the picture on your TV looking lifelike or faded.

How I Test TV Brightness at PC Labs

To test brightness, I measure a TV's light output under various conditions. This is called luminance, and it's measured in nits, or candela per square meter (cd/m^2).

I run these tests using a Murideo SIX-G signal generator , a Klein K-10A colorimeter , and Portrait Displays' Calman software . The Murideo device feeds a signal to the TV, making it display specific, consistent test patterns, while the colorimeter measures the brightness and color of the screen it's pointed at, and the software manages both devices and displays the resulting data. This lets me measure each TV's peak brightness and color range, and compare the results across models.

My goal when testing TVs is to determine their performance in the mode that provides the most accurate picture out of the box, without a full calibration. This is usually a Cinema, Movie, or Professional mode with the warmest color temperature preset. Many TVs can output more light, or at least appear brighter in their Standard or Vivid modes, but this can skew colors and white balance very cool, making everything look more blue than it should. Besides the picture mode, I will sometimes adjust certain base settings, like panel brightness if it isn't at its maximum, but I won't go into any granular calibrations.

I take these measurements with SDR, HDR10 , and, when supported, Dolby Vision signals in the TV's most color-accurate picture modes, and record all the results. 

When measuring brightness, I use three test patterns: a full-screen white field, an 18% white field (a white rectangle occupying 18% of the screen), and a 10% white field (the same, taking up 10% of the screen). I use multiple test patterns because most TVs emit different amounts of light depending on how much of their screens they need to light up. 

Based on my calibration training at the Imaging Science Foundation , I primarily use the 18% field results for brightness comparisons across all TVs. I started measuring 10% field results a few years ago, specifically for OLED TVs, which are usually dimmer than LED TVs. The 10% field almost always yields a higher value than the 18% field; this gap is typically wider for OLED TVs than for LED TVs, but these days, many high-end mini-LED and RGB LED TVs also show big jumps between those field sizes. I still weigh the 18% field measurements more, but I take the 10% measurements into account when they're particularly impressive.

TCL's QM8L Sets a New Brightness Benchmark

In Movie mode with an HDR10 signal, the TCL QM8L puts out 3,504 nits of peak brightness with an 18% white field and 3,956 nits with a 10% white field. That's the brightest 18% field measurement and the second-brightest 10% field measurement I've seen on any TV available in sizes less than 100 inches. It soundly beats the TCL X11L (3,421 nits 18%, 3,776 nits 10%). It also outshines the TCL QM9K with an 18% field (3,330 nits), but falls short at 10% (4,296 nits). Because I weigh the 18% field more than 10% when comparing TVs, I can declare the QM8L the brightest TV I've tested in the sub-100-inch size most consumers are shopping for.

It's worth mentioning that I have measured one TV that gets significantly brighter than the TCL QM8L, but it's not a realistic option for most people, so it falls short of our Lab Award. Last year's Hisense 116UX , the first RGB LED I tested, put out 4,012 nits with an 18% field and a blinding 5,889 nits with a 10% field. The big catch: It's a 116-inch TV with a $30,000 price tag, and it's no longer available.

Interestingly, I've yet to see another RGB LED TV come close to those heights, or the QM8L. The closest are the Hisense UR9 with 3,206 nits at 18% but just 3,257 nits at 10%, and the Sony Bravia 9 II with 3,654 nits at 10% but just 2,588 nits at 18%. The QM8L, an SQD-Mini LED TV, simply reigns supreme over all RGB LED models below five digits in price and three digits in size.

Besides being really bright, the QM8L is an all-around excellent TV. It has a significantly wider color range than most other mini-LED QLED and OLED TVs, covering up to 91.34% of the BT.2020 color space with an HDR10 signal. Those colors aren't super-accurate out of the box, but the slight yellow drift in whites is very minor, and the warm magentas are a common issue across QLED models, including SQD-Mini LED TVs. For HDR10 content, Movie mode delivers the best results. Dolby Vision content is more accurate, though the TV's color range is limited to the DCI-P3 gamut.

Besides flagship-level picture quality, the QM8L is loaded with features including hands-free Google Gemini, Google Cast, Apple AirPlay, a 144Hz refresh rate with VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for watching 1080p over-the-air broadcasts. Its remote is also quite nice, with backlit buttons, a dedicated brightness rocker, and a picture mode quick-change button. It's a lot of TV, and while its official price of $2,499.99 for the 65-inch model is pretty steep, it's much more commonly found for around $1,800. All of these considerations earned the QM8L our Editors' Choice award for mini-LED TVs, in addition to its PCMag Lab Award for brightest picture.

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