TCL C635 (Photo: Walla! Technology, Nir Yahav)
The World Cup held this year in Qatar was accompanied by a very strange feeling, because unlike the previous and familiar celebrations, it is the first that does not take place in the summer months but in November.
And why are we telling you this?
Because completely coincidentally it also fell on the month known as the big shopping month, the one that includes Black Friday and other sales days.
One of the best-selling products during the special shopping days of November is a TV screen, and if that's not enough, add the World Cup this time as well, a time when people rush to upgrade the viewing experience, and you'll get a big bang, a double celebration.
You don't really need a bottom line, but we'll say it anyway: TV screen sales this November are an absolute steal.
On the occasion of reaching the advanced stages of the World Cup, i.e. its last two weeks, we decided to test one of the most popular and best-selling TV screens during the football month - a 65-inch QLED K4 smart TV from TCL - model C635.
Let's start from the end: this is an excellent TV that is sold at a decent price - NIS 3,150.
Weighing all the factors, this is one of the screens that provide a very good value for the price.
By the way, a larger screen (75 inches) will cost NIS 5,450 and a smaller one (55 inches) will cost NIS 2,230.
But before we get to the screen itself, a little background on the TCL company: it is a very old Chinese brand that has been on the market for 42 years.
Like many Chinese companies, TCL - which is considered one of the strongest and best-selling brands in the huge country - was in no hurry to leave the borders of China until the last few years.
Only in these years is he working to penetrate markets around the world, including the Israeli market.
Although it is less well known than big brands like Samsung, Toshiba or LG, TCL TV screens manage to sell well in Israel.
According to the company's data, 8,000 screens are sold every month and in fact every eighth TV sold is a TCL TV.
In Israel, as mentioned, TCL mainly sells televisions and air conditioners, but internationally it is also known for its cell phones and vacuum cleaners.
In the United States and France the TCL brand is gaining momentum and today it is considered the number 2 brand in these countries when it comes to televisions, right after Samsung.
The Israeli - and the world's, it should be noted - reluctance to the term "Made in China" still exists, but as time goes by - it is eroding.
The entry of the Chinese into the car market, for example, managed to change this perception, and it is becoming increasingly clear that a Chinese brand is not just an imitation but an independent and strong technological brand.
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TCL - considered one of the strongest and best-selling brands in China (Photo: Walla! Technology, Nir Yahav)
Now, to the screen itself: those who buy a screen mainly to watch the World Cup (and football, in general), do not need more than this screen.
There are indeed more focused screens that include gaming functions, but for the general public who watches series and sports, the C635 is absolutely sufficient.
Beyond its pleasant design, adapted to every living room and room, all the leading technologies in the field of screens are present in it: nine speakers, QLED technology, a surround system of the excellent brand ONKYO that provides good and improved audio quality, a sharp image with a resolution of 3840X2160 (UHD 4K) and a MEMC image smoothing mechanism.
What is QLED?
It's mostly a marketing game.
Broadly speaking, the televisions you will find on the market today belong to one of two main technologies: LED and OLED, where the O in OLED means "organic".
LED is the same technology you know from your computer screens, just bigger.
The difference between OLED and LED is that LED needs a backlight source, while in OLED the pixels themselves contain phosphorescent material that allows them to light up by themselves.
Most manufacturers try to add peacock feathers to the LED technology, which is on the face of it inferior, so you will come across names like QLED, NanoCell or Full Array LED.
Despite the bombastic names, it's still an LED.
However, because they have a stronger luminance, LED TVs will be more suitable for particularly bright living rooms, and are good for various uses.
One of the advantages of this model is in the connections: the screen has three HDMI connections, with one of them in the 2.1 standard that allows extremely high resolutions and a refresh rate of 120 (compared to 60 in the previous 2.0 standard).
Next to the HDMI connections there are USB connections, one of them in version 3.0 for fast data transfer.
On the wireless side - dual band wifi to maximize the internet connection and BT5 with good performance.
But the main advantage of TCL's screen (not just a 65-inch screen, but from 43 inches and above) over LG and Samsung's screens is the operating system - Google TV (formerly Android TV) which provides a wealth of functionality.
While with competitors such as Samsung or LG the operating systems are closed and the applications have to be adapted to them, the great advantage of Google TV is that you can download countless applications that are adapted to the TV.
The screen does come with very few applications (Netflix, YouTube, etc.), but you can easily download additional applications from the store - such as Next TV, Cellcom TV, Partner TV and StingTV.
The operating system even allows you to define personal users in the family, and accordingly you can also limit the content that the children watch.
You can also hold the remote and give it voice commands in Hebrew, and it manages to retrieve everything possible from Google - starting with the weather tomorrow in Paris, going on vacation in New York in December and ending with the result of yesterday's game in the World Cup.
The remote itself is very convenient and includes dedicated buttons for Netflix and YouTube.
However, when it's dark in the living room it's a little hard to see what you're pressing due to the lack of backlighting for the buttons.
In the end we can say that the TCL screen gives great value for money.
The display is sharp, the sound is excellent, the colors are beautiful, and the operating system is comfortable, rich and simple.
Just to see what performance this screen can achieve, we entered special 4K videos on YouTube (animals, nature, etc.).
Your jaw will really drop there.
And what about warranty?
On the occasion of the World Cup, TCL provides a three-year warranty at no extra charge.
After the football month ends, the warranty will be for one year only (additional two years with an additional payment of NIS 99).
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