TCL S5 4K (2024): The Best $299 TV You Can Buy

Not every TV buyer needs or wants to spend $700, $1,000, or $2,500. For bedrooms, guest rooms, dorm rooms, first apartments, or households that simply watch casual TV content without demanding cinema-quality picture accuracy, a $299 television that does the basics well is the right purchase. The TCL S5 4K (2024) is that television.

What makes the S5 compelling at this price is not what it does better than Mini-LED TVs or OLED panels — it obviously does not compete with those. What makes it compelling is what TCL has managed to include that competitors at this price tier omit. Google TV is the best smart platform available, and most $299 TVs ship with Roku OS or Fire TV, which offer narrower app libraries and less capable voice control. The S5's Dolby Vision support is genuinely surprising at this price and gives the panel access to the richest HDR content format for streaming services. And TCL's build quality has improved markedly in recent years — the S5 does not feel like a compromise product.

We used the 55-inch S5 for three weeks in a bedroom and a home office setting — typical use cases for this class of TV. The picture quality is good for the price. The smart TV experience is excellent. The gaming capabilities are limited. These are the expected findings, and they match what the specifications promise.

The S5 uses a direct LED backlight without local dimming. This means the backlight illuminates the entire panel uniformly — there is no zone-by-zone brightness control to lift bright highlights or deepen dark areas independently. The practical consequence is a contrast ratio that is limited by the panel's minimum achievable brightness, typically around 1,000:1 for VA-panel displays of this type.

In practice, this means dark scenes have some black uniformity issues and limited shadow detail in truly dark content. Horror films, space scenes, and night-time sequences look noticeably less impressive than they would on a Mini-LED TV with local dimming. Bright scenes, daytime content, and well-lit TV shows are where the S5 performs best — the panel produces clean, accurate color with good sharpness at these brightness levels.

Dolby Vision support is the S5's headline feature for picture quality. While the panel hardware limits how good Dolby Vision can look (the peak brightness of ~400–500 nits caps HDR highlights well below what they look like on premium TVs), having dynamic tone mapping metadata means the TV adapts its processing intelligently to each scene. HDR content on the S5 looks better than it would with static HDR10 tone mapping.

Color accuracy in Movie mode is solid for this price tier. DCI-P3 coverage measures around 87–90%, adequate for streaming content though short of the 95%+ that quantum dot panels achieve. White balance tracking is reasonably consistent, with no severe color casts that would require calibration.

Upscaling of 1080p content from cable boxes, Blu-ray players, and older streaming sources is handled by TCL's built-in processing with acceptable results. The image is clean and artifact-free for casual viewing, though it does not match the AI upscaling quality of Sony's Cognitive Processor XR or LG's Alpha9.

The TCL S5 is not a gaming TV. The 60Hz panel limits the maximum frame rate to 60fps, and there is no Variable Refresh Rate support. For console gaming on PS5 or Xbox Series X at 4K, the maximum output is 4K/60Hz — the high-frame-rate 4K/120Hz modes that make those consoles shine are not accessible.

ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) functions and reduces input lag when a console is detected. Measured input lag in Game Mode is approximately 14–16ms at 4K/60Hz — acceptable for casual gaming, slower than dedicated gaming TVs but not significantly worse than the average TV from three years ago.

For casual gamers who play story-driven titles, RPGs, or sports games at 30–60fps, the S5's gaming limitations are not practically meaningful. For anyone who cares about smooth motion, VRR, or high-frame-rate gaming, the extra investment for a 120Hz panel with HDMI 2.1 is worthwhile.

Google TV is the best thing about the TCL S5, and it alone justifies choosing the S5 over competing entry-level TVs running less capable smart platforms. The Google Play Store provides access to virtually every streaming service, game, and app. Google Assistant handles natural language voice commands with accuracy that Alexa and Siri integrations on competing TVs cannot match. Chromecast built-in enables one-tap casting from any Google or Chrome device.

The home screen default is Google's standard layout with promotional content rows, but the core interface navigation is fast and well-organized. App launch times are 2–4 seconds, which is acceptable for an entry-level processor. The TV's hardware handles Google TV's demands without significant lag in routine use.

For households already invested in Google's ecosystem — Android phones, Chromebooks, Google Home smart home devices — the S5's Google TV integration is seamless and immediately useful.

The TCL S5 is slim and light with a reasonably thin bezel that does not look embarrassingly budget. The stand is functional. Wall mounting is straightforward with a standard VESA pattern. Build quality is better than the price suggests — there is no significant flex or rattling, and the materials feel adequate for the intended use case.

The built-in audio system produces TV audio of the least-impressive variety. Dialog clarity is acceptable at modest volumes, but the lack of any meaningful bass extension and the limited power output make movies, music, and action content sound flat. A budget Bluetooth soundbar in the $80–$150 range will dramatically improve the audio experience — pair one with the S5 and the combination punches well above the S5's standalone capability.