Review: TCL RM9L RGB-Mini LED Smart TV

Size matters when it comes to televisions, but it can also reveal some problems. At a bigger size, it’s easier to see flaws in clarity, brightness, and contrast. When a television uses brand new display technology, any visual imperfections are even more obvious.

The TCL RM9L RGB-Mini LED is a good example of a large television that reveals too much but—like the more vibrant LG Micro RGB Evo that’s around the same price—is still worth considering. More than anything, it shows how the settings you choose can make a world of difference in a Mini RGB television.

The 85-inch model I tested costs $7,999.99, but it’s typically discounted by $2,000. There’s also a 98-inch model ($8,999.99, which is usually $1,000 off) and a 115-inch size ($24,999.99). Most TV makers offer a 65-inch or 75-inch size, but TCL must have decided to go big or go home.

Photograph: John Brandon

In this case, going big felt a little overwhelming at times. The movies I watched on this TV in an average size living room certainly had luscious colors and phenomenal brightness, but a few of the streaming apps I tested lacked some crispness and clarity. Blaming TCL isn’t entirely fair, though, and the workaround is to play high-res content using apps like Fandango at Home in 4K or stick with 4K Ultra HD discs. That said, the picture quality was not as exceptional as I would have expected at a price point in the same league as Samsung and LG.

Also, the Mini RGB tech is so new that it’s barely out of the gate. Mini RGB televisions like the TCL RM9L emit red, blue, and green light through an LCD panel. OLED TVs do not use backlighting at all and can control each individual pixel. At the 85-inch size, there were some lingering questions about whether OLED still has a leg up in terms of brightness, deep and rich blacks, and contrast for movies, shows, games, and even news channels. Once I tweaked picture quality settings, I found RGB and OLED to be roughly equal in quality, but OLED models cost around $2,700 or less right about now, so it’s somewhat of a tough sell.

However, judged by the quality of the display, the overall experience, the exceptional size, and the ease of use, the TCL RM9L RGB-Mini LED still impressed me quite a bit.

Monster Setup

I had to make some tough decisions about the TCL RM9L RGB-Mini LED right away, including where to put it in my house. Your room size should dictate the size of your TV. Choose a model that’s too big for the room and you’ll feel like you are staring at a lightbulb. If the TV is too small, you won’t be able to read captions as easily and it won’t look as impressive. I chose my larger upstairs family room but didn’t have a TV stand that was big enough. For testing, I had to use a long folding table for a while until I upgraded to a larger IKEA stand later on.

Like many TCL televisions I’ve tested, the install process was straightforward and involved sliding the two legs into place and screwing them tight. I do like how some Samsung models don’t even require screws, though. Maneuvering the TV is challenging because of its massive size. The 85-inch model weighs more than 114 pounds, and it’s hard to get a good grasp on the edge, since it’s only 1.4 inches thick. I had to ask two friends to help me position this beast.

Photograph: John Brandon

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.

Photograph: John Brandon

The massive size became an issue at times during my benchmarking. Even though my tests are in 4K, it was easier to see some artifacts like blotchy patterns and jaggy lines. One interesting discovery was that using the Intelligent picture mode did help smooth those over.

I watched several scenes in the movie The Last Duel to test for color, brightness, and contrast, and the RM9L did not look as vivid as the LG Micro RGB Evo or the Hisense UR9. The blotchiness came up again during a throne room scene until I tweaked some more settings related to color temp. I would imagine someone with a much larger living room using this 85-inch television would not notice these minor artifacts and blotches.

Tron: Ares on Disney+ is an excellent way to test deep blacks, and the RM9L easily matched the quality of both the LG and Hisense RGB models. In fact, when the main character stood up early in the movie, watching at this larger size, I felt as if he were in the room with me. The shadowing on his helmet looked ultra-realistic, and the blacks looked rich and intense.

I loved watching Hoppers on Disney+ on the RM9L, because you can see individual strands of hair on the animals. The color accuracy (such as it is for animated characters, which do not exist in the real world) looked stunningly vivid. It was almost overwhelming how the colors just exploded off the screen. Project Hail Mary had equally explosive colors during a scene showing the rings of a planet. Some practical effects with (spoiler alert) the creature in the movie looked incredible and realistic.

For sports, I watched a few World Cup matches in all their 85-inch glory. The Sports picture mode made one match look overly saturated until I dialed down the settings a bit. The motion blur on the soccer ball was not bad at all, matching the other RGB models I’ve tested. A live CNN broadcast showed the anchor in a red shirt that was almost too vivid. Once again, Mini RGB is a bold display tech and requires tweaking the settings.

HBO Max and Hulu both streamed from my iPhone 17 Pro perfectly fine without any issues. I could fast-forward and pause without any glitches, watching the first Dune movie.

Games and Everything Else

Photograph: John Brandon

I didn’t have to think too much about which HDMI port I used for testing video games, since all four of them support low-latency gaming and a 144Hz refresh rate. I started by working through yet another level in Crimson Desert, which I’ve been playing for far too many hours now. I had no problems enabling game mode, since TCL does an excellent job of making the gaming settings intuitive and easy to find. Crimson Desert looked stunningly crisp and smooth. One ding against the LG Micro RGB Evo is that the VRR refresh rate of 330Hz didn’t actually work (LG calls it Motion Booster), but on the RM9L it kicked in perfectly. I did have to enable an advanced setting called High Refresh Rate to get it to work at 330Hz, though.

Next, I tried 007: First Light on both PC and Xbox Series X. The blue and green ocean looked colorful and clear, and I noticed the 85-inch size made it feel like I was James Bond driving a boat in Vietnam even more so than other tests at smaller screen sizes. Forza Horizon 6 on both PC and the Xbox looked utterly real when I drove a BMW M5, although the PC version felt more responsive and the picture clarity, refresh rate, and color were even more impressive.

I’ve covered art televisions now for a few months, and the RM9L doesn’t pretend to be one at all. It doesn't have a matte finish or replaceable wood bezels. That said, a shipwreck painting looked glorious at the larger size. While the painting lacked texture, the display did dim automatically in screensaver mode (which shows photos and artwork).

In the end, what impressed me the most was that the Mini RGB display tech was so customizable, even if it was fussy at times. Think of Mini RGB as similar to a sports car. At this point, the default picture modes do not do it justice, similar to how driving a BMW M4 can feel dull and boring if you stick to city streets. However, the TCL RM9L RGB-Mini LED is one of the best models I’ve tested from TCL, and the picture looked incredible once I found the right modes. It’s on par or exceeds the vibrancy of the Hisense UR9 and beats out the Sony Bravia 7 Mark II.

Judged for performance, picture quality, gaming, and everything else, it’s one of the best Mini RGB models around, ranking just below the LG Micro RGB Evo and the Samsung Micro RGB R95H. The main issue is the price. For $5,999.99, you can upgrade to an 85-inch OLED that has deeper blacks. If the whole idea behind Mini RGB is to make larger screen sizes more affordable, we’ll have to wait for that to happen.