TCL's new SQD TVs are so bright they could rival the winter sun

It's official: The competition for the best TV in 2026 has a new contender on the block, with TCL releasing its new SQD-Mini LED range. While most manufacturers are turning to Micro RGB or doubling down on OLED for the next era of technology, TCL is showing off over a decade of research and development on quantum dot material by creating an entirely new panel category. After all, why do the same thing everyone else is when you could just change the game entirely?

What is TCL's SQD technology?

TCL's global TV line up includes the C7L, C8L, and ultra-premium X11L, all of which boast a 144Hz variable refresh rate, HDR10+, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision or Vision IQ. They also introduce TCL's brand new SQD technology to the world.

To understand why SQD (or Super Quantum Dot) is so exciting, first you need to understand QLED and the quantum dot technology behind it. The "Q" in QLED refers to quantum dots, which are tiny crystals that fluoresce a specific colour (depending on their size) when blue light passes through them. Putting a layer of quantum dots in front of a TV backlight is an extremely efficient way to get bright, saturated colours, and has become a key part of the TV technology landscape: QLED.

Super quantum dots are TCL's breakthrough iteration on this technology, with a layered restructure that increases the crystal's lifespan and narrows its spectral response - meaning each crystal is much more precise in the colour it produces. Not only that, but TCL has managed to make them fluoresce colours that conventional quantum dots can't. 

The image then passes through TCL's industry first Ultra Colour Filter, which uses advanced materials to further enhance colour precision and a butterfly-wing-shaped microstructure for superior light shielding and ultra high native contrast ratio. As a result, TCL's SQD delivers a wider colour gamut (up to 100 percent BT.2020 for all models) with incredible vibrance.

Vivid colours shine bright

These stunning TVs may have been designed by someone who was personally hurt by that one Game of Thrones episode, because they're also some of the brightest available. In fact, they're so darn bright it's a bit like bringing home a rectangular indoor sun in the middle of winter.

Unsurprisingly, TCL's flagship X11L is the brightest TV of the lot, topping out at 10,000 nits on the 85" and 98" models. To put that into perspective, an average lightbulb wouldn't surpass 500 nits (after a rough conversion) and a peak brightness of 5,000 nits is considered impossible for OLED and very impressive for LED. Of course, until now.

10,000 nits is the X11L's peak brightness, so you don't get that output where it isn't needed (and it keeps your energy bill a little lighter). However, this much headroom allows the panel to deliver a fantastic viewing experience regardless of room brightness, producing a high dynamic range for an image that pops.

Credit: TCL

How TCL created its new ultra-bright TVs

TCL's stunning backlight is made possible by their ground-breaking powerful light-emitting chip that has made significant improvements to brightness and energy efficiency. A super condensed micro lens then shapes the huge amount of photons being pumped out. Like much of the technology in these TVs, this lens was developed in-house by TCL. It creates soft and even - yet highly directional and controlled - light, which is no mean feat given that "soft" and "precise" tend to be opposite qualities for light. The resulting uniformity and control result in a balanced image with clearer details.

Precise control is the name of the game, with TCL pairing these hyper-powered lights with an utterly staggering number of local dimming zones: a whopping 20,736 on the 98" X11L. Think of this as bringing high resolution to the contrast, with each zone working kind of like a pixel, but just for brightness.

Local dimming was a huge leap forward for TV technology. Early edge-lit TVs illuminated the entire panel from the side, resulting in poor contrast and "haloing" around light objects on dark backgrounds. This caused washed out images and distracting blooms. Local dimming uses backlights directly behind the image, and splits the panel into zones with individual brightness control. This allows for stunning high contrast images with deeper blacks and brighter whites. In fact, using smaller lights to increase the quantity and precision of these zones has been the basis behind much of LED TV advancement.

TCL takes this technology to the next level, with the X11L's almost 21,000 zones being basically unheard of. It exponentially closes the gap on the main advantage of OLED and Mini LED panels: the ability to turn each individual pixel off to achieve truly dark blacks for contrast that gives a sense of depth.

At the core, all panel technology is a different path toward the same goal: a fantastic viewing experience. Each approach brings its own character and feel, so perhaps the best way to understand TCL's SQD-Mini LED TVs is to see them with your own two eyes.