Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch review: An affordable yet competent smart TV

The Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch is not perfect, but its affordable price tag makes up for its limitations. The TV impresses with premium design, good audio-visual experience, and modest performance

Super Plastronics Private Limited (SPPL), the official brand licensee of Thomson smart televisions in India, recently launched the range of Google TV platform-based QLED smart TVs. The 55-inch model in the series boasts bezel-less design, QLED screen with support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision high dynamic range formats, 40W stereo speakers with support for Dolby Atmos and DTS Trusurround, and dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity. Priced at Rs 40,999, the Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch is among the most affordable QLED smart TV currently available in India. Is it a good one? Let’s find out:

Design

The Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch boasts a bezel-less design with its screen covering almost the entire front. The TV looks premium from a distance, but look up-close and you would notice cost cutting measures. The culprit here is not the plastic frame and legs, but the uneven distance between the screen and bezels, and excessive glue visible at several joints. Nevertheless, the TV comes with wall mount accessories, besides legs for table-top installation, in the box. For a 55-inch screen smart TV, the Thomson QLED Google TV is appropriately built with nothing excessive anywhere. It is not the thinnest smart television, but the affordable price tag makes up for it.

Display and audio

The Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch shines in terms of audio-visual performance. Starting with the screen, the TV sports a 55-inch QLED panel of 4K resolution stretched in 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+ -- two commonly used high dynamic range (HDR) formats used by over-the-top platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, and Amazon Prime Video. Details aside, the screen is bright (550 nits) and vivid (10-bit panel). It supports multiple picture profiles, including vivid for saturated colours, sports for bright colours, and movies for warm colours. Besides, there are different colour profiles for HDR content such as ‘HDR10+ Dark’ and ‘HDR10+ Bright’. These colour profiles help users custom-tune the colour profile based on personal liking. The screen’s contrast is good, if not exceptional. Overall, the picture quality offered by the QLED panel is good. It is no match to the top-end QLED screen panels available in premium LG and Samsung televisions, but certainly better than LED panels usually seen in smart TVs in its segment.

Coming to audio, the Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch impresses with its 40W stereo speakers. The speakers are loud and clear. These support Dolby Atmos and DTS Trusurround audio formats to deliver an immersive audio experience.

Performance

Powered by MediaTek MT9062 processor, paired with 2GB RAM and 16GB on-board storage, the Thomson QLED smart TV has decent on-paper specifications. However, the specs do not translate to a smooth experience. The default Google TV interface is rich with content recommendations from supported apps, but scrolling through the content is slow and sluggish. The performance deteriorates further if you add multiple user profiles. The interface is slow but the TV handles apps well. The in-app experience is smooth and the TV keeps up the pace even with 4K HDR content. That said, there is nothing to write home about the performance but it all looks good from a price-performance perspective.

Verdict

The Thomson QLED Google TV 55-inch is not perfect, but its affordable price tag of Rs 40,999 makes up for its limitations. In its own right, the TV impresses with premium design, good audio-visual experience, and modest performance. Rounding up the package is an all-round connectivity, including two-way Bluetooth for Google Assistant-powered voice remote control and other Bluetooth-enabled accessories, dual-band Wi-Fi, 3 x HDMI with support for CEC and ARC, 2 x USB-A, and optical for digital audio output.