ONE SIGNIFICANT difference between building a home theater around a video projector or a conventional flat-screen television has been image size. Projector fans will point to the immersion that big-screen projection offers, with the screen size limited mainly by your available space, imagination, and budget. Until recently, however, TVs bigger than 65-inches were priced beyond the means of most consumers.
But TV manufacturers such as China’s TCL are pushing hard to change that. Take the new TCL 85QM850G (hereafter referred to simply as the 85QM8). At 85-inches (diagonal) its list price is $2800. But it can be had for less. As I write this both Best Buy and Amazon are selling it on-line for $2200!
But a dash of reality is needed for those who might conclude that the projector and screen setup will soon be antique. A home projector and screen can still trump a TV in picture size. Nevertheless, 85-inches is a big TV, and if you want to further enhance the experience simply sit closer. At 8 feet, the width of your field of vision that an 85-inch diagonal set covers is about the same as a 110-inch (diagonal) screen viewed at 10 feet. Moreover, the 85QM8, as with many 4K TVs, can outperform most home projectors in three important respects: peak brightness, superior performance with HDR sources, and far less sensitivity to room lighting (though for me, even a TV will always look its best in a darkened room).
SETUP AND FEATURES
With its center stand you can position the 85QM8 on a table narrower than the set’s width, though I suspect many buyers will choose a wall-mount (which won’t quite be flush; the TCL’s depth, without the stand, is 2.1 inches). While the 85QM8 is manageable, it’s relatively heavy. In either type of setup, the more
