Experience the 98-inch TCL P8LS: a true Mini LED, beautiful design, great for watching movies

A few years ago, every time I went to choose a TV, the first thing I noticed was that the bigger the screen, the better. The bigger the screen, the happier it was. But in the past year or two, I've seen the habits of people playing with technology have changed a lot. Nowadays, when buying a TV, everyone examines the quality of the panel, the depth of the black color and asks each other what the true definition of Mini LED is.

In fact, Mini LED technology has exploded since 2024 and until now still remains hot, even in many devices from laptops, tablets to large TVs, it even surpasses OLED in brightness and durability. In this race, TCL holds the number one global Mini LED TV shipment market share in both 2024 and 2025, with its market share skyrocketing from 12% to 31%. These past few days, I had the opportunity to actually experience the 98-inch version of the TCL P8LS in the living room, watching movies, playing soccer while plugging in the game console to share my real-life feelings with you guys.

What is true Mini LED and the performance of 512 Local Dimming zones

When talking about the true concept of Mini LED, I personally always look at 3 core criteria. First, the Mini LED chip size must be extremely small to be able to be packed very densely. Second, the full-array backlight system must spread evenly over the entire rear area. And the third factor, which also determines image quality, is the number of local dimming zones.

A true Mini LED TV must have many independent dimming zones to accurately turn on and off the brightness for each small detail, avoiding the situation where light is smeared into surrounding dark areas. On this TCL P8LS, the company equips up to 512 local dimming zones, a number thick enough to control light on a giant 98-inch frame.

Mini LED is in the top row

The ability to control the backlight actually greatly affects the feeling of watching movies every day. I tried opening blooming test clips with white light spots moving continuously on a pure black background. This TV responds very quickly, wherever the light spot passes, the backlight area responds immediately, leaving almost no ghostly trail behind and the halo phenomenon around the object is gathered very neatly.

Quantum Dot color is gentle on the eyes and naturally reproduces human skin

In addition to the backlight system, this TV's color reproduction ability is supported by a multi-color Quantum Dot layer, achieving 93% DCI-P3 color coverage. My opinion on TV colors so far is that bright colors are not bad, but they are only beautiful when the viewer sits for a long time without eye strain.

Many TVs in supermarkets deliberately push the color saturation up really high to catch the buyer's eye, but when you take it home and watch it for a long time, it's easy to get glare and headaches. With the TCL P8LS, when I turned on 4K and 8K natural landscape videos, the colors were bright but overall remained neutral and gentle, watching continuously all evening still felt very comfortable.

One more detail that I always advise people when choosing a TV is to turn on movies with close-ups of the actors' faces. Reproducing human skin tone is the harshest test for color accuracy.

On this TV, the character's facial skin is reproduced very naturally and warmly, glowing with a healthy rosy color, not white like chalk, nor blue or gray like some cheap screens. Seeing the characters in the movie as soulful and realistic makes the experience of enjoying cinema much more pleasant.

TSR AI PQ processor chip optimizes images and 144Hz smoothness when playing games

To smoothly control a panel up to 98 inches wide, the TV is equipped with a TSR AI PQ processor chip with a series of artificial intelligence features running in the background such as AI Clarity Master, AI SR 2.0, AI Contrast Master and AI Color Master.

These algorithms work automatically without you even realizing it during use. When I reopen family videos recorded many years ago with a resolution of only 720p or 1080p, this chip automatically analyzes the low-quality source to compensate for details, increase sharpness and eliminate noise, helping the memorable images appear clearer and smoother on a large screen.

For fast entertainment needs, the screen supports 144Hz native refresh rate and AI Motion Master algorithm. When I sit and watch top football matches or high-speed chases, the ball's flight and the player's movements take place very seamlessly, and the phenomenon of jerky ghosting is minimized.

I'm not a professional gamer myself, only occasionally plugging in the PS5 to play a few soccer matches or play a few rounds of entertainment racing, but the low latency and smoothness of this 144Hz screen still brings a very pleasant feeling when pressing the handle, good enough to meet family entertainment needs.

Immersive Onkyo 2.1 sound and flat-back design turn the TV into a painting

The listening part of this TV is handled by the Onkyo 2.1 Hi-Fi speaker system that supports the Dolby Atmos standard built into the rear. Built-in speakers on thin TVs are often difficult to satisfy, but the Onkyo speaker cluster on this device produces quite rich sound quality and has clear bass.

When I sat about 1.5 meters away from the screen, the surround sound effect was relatively clear. For example, the sound of a plane gliding from the left corner to the right corner of the screen was reproduced in the right direction, creating a feeling of quite lively space without needing to turn on separate soundbars.

In terms of design, this TV uses the Slim and Unibody language with a completely flat back, completely eliminating the convex hump back often found on many other TV lines. Thanks to this flat back design, when hanging the 98-inch TV on the wall, the body can be pressed against the drywall or brick wall, the overall living room look is very neat and does not protrude harshly.

The TV's operating system interface is also intuitive and easy to click. In particular, the T-Screen Art Gallery application is something I turn on almost every day to display static or moving art paintings when not watching movies, turning this large TV into an electronic painting that adorns the living room when friends come over.

With a price of around 55 to 56 million VND for a true Mini LED TV up to 98 inches in size, I find the TCL P8LS is a very worthy choice for those who have a large enough living room and want to bring the cinema experience home. Do you think this price range for a 98 inch Mini LED TV is attractive enough? Share your opinion below.