TCL LE48FHDF3300ZTA

Glad you like it 2 yr warranty is good I looked at TCL's on line ended up with a 50 Plasma different brand on sale at BB.
TCL is FWIHR a very large manufacturer and the top brand in China owners seem to like them .
Edited by tubetwister - 3/18/13 at 4:50pm

Was this a BJ's purchase? I was actually looking at this same TV on BJ's website and was going to go see if my local store has it, since its such a good deal. Glad to see some positive reviews about it. I'm always instantly skeptical about off-brand TVs (at least in the US).

Also, can you comment on the reflectiveness/glossiness of the screen? This is a big thing for me, as I have a window and some lights positioned at the seating area (i.e. directly in front of the tv), so I'm looking for a matte or at least coated screen that isn't going to reflect everything straight back at me while I'm watching tv.
Edited by drocpsu - 3/15/13 at 7:26am

I want to concur with OP. I just bought this TV about three weeks ago and this TV is amazing for the price. The pictures are gorgeous and beautiful both on regular HD cable TV and on Blu Ray movies. I found the following settings are the best for my taste:

Brightness: 49
Contrast: 94
Sharpness: 0
Backlight: 20
Color: 44
Tint: 0
Color Temp: 0
Light sensor: Off
Dynamic Backlight: Off
Noise Reduction: Low
SABC: Off

Thanks for starting this thread... We picked up this TV yesterday at Fry's for $499 as we were looking for a decent size and decent featured TV for the money, after reading up here on the other TCL thread and also some Amazon reviews, I have a few thoughts...

1. Sharpness is required for text to not be blurry, I like around 50 myself.
2. Lower backlight level will eliminate cloudiness and improve black levels. 20-35 should be what almost everyone uses. Compensate with higher contrast, 85-95.
3. motion blur is non-existent but also no SOE either, so I'm curious how the "240Hz" works on this too.

Just a few thoughts for now, I will keep posted on this thread!
Edited by danbfree - 3/19/13 at 5:56pm

Backlight is way too high IMHO. Have you tried higher contrast and lower backlight? I have found that is better for black levels and cloudiness, but then again not everyone cares about that, they simply like BRIGHT.

Scene Adaptive Brightness Control. Since it sounds like you prefer brightness over any kind of color accuracy or black level, I'd just leave it off.

I came from having a plasma that was nice, but just too hot, heavy and big for our small living room. Plasma's are not super bright so I learned to appreciate true color accuracy and black levels. This LED thing is WAY too bright and washed out looking at those settings you listed. They are set that way out of the box to try to attract buys based on brightness on the showroom floor. I.E. people simply buy them because they think bright looks good. I'm not trying to be snob here, but I thought the point of this enthusiast site was to go for true picture quality and not just washed out brightness so I just want you to know where I'm coming from when I post here, and that's why you don't see anyone else recommended a backlight above more than 35, It simply ruins the black levels.

So ya, I DO think you are insane, like you said yourself.
Edited by danbfree - 3/19/13 at 9:09pm

brendan127

I believe your backlight setting is way too high. Try to lower your backlight down to below 40 and see how you like it. I would also lower the sharpness setting too. I found that set it below 30 would be good as high setting would cause background and edge noises.

For me, text gets blurry if I set it any lower than 50 or so, I wonder if there are different software versions out there on this?

I use 40 myself so we really aren't too far off... I was just giving you a hard time to encourage debate and so we all have more ideas on how to max out our set... Personally I'm not seeing cloudiness at 40 at all, I just bump my contrast to 90 with backlight at 40 and that happens to be the sweet spot for me...

Thanks again for starting this thread!

Yes, it should, it is a very popular model actually! It has 400 reviews on Amazon now.

Oh yeah, since your model number ends in "ta" I should have known... Ones sold at retail stores have no "ta" at the end of the model number and have a colorful box, no other difference... How do we make it "Official"?

Also... I am sold on Backlight of 50 and Contrast of 50 now, thanks for the suggestion!

Oops! I meant 40-50 backlight and 80-90 contrast

The only difference of sharpness makes total sense as TV quite often needs some to read text, etc... I'm still sticking with a backlight of 40 as cloudiness and overbrightness occurs... I also need to try calibrating with a Disney Blu Ray and I will post results.