This new QLED Fire TV is just $449 — and it's not made by Amazon

Features
By Malcolm McMillan
published

TCL adds Fire TV models to its Q6 Series QLED TV

The TCL Q7 QLED TV on a living room wall.
(Image credit: TCL)

When you think of Fire TVs, you’d probably think of Amazon’s in-house offerings like the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED. And you probably wouldn’t think of TCL TVs — but you’d be wrong.

TCL announced it was adding Fire TVs to its portfolio of 4K QLED smart TVs back in October 2022 with the TCL CF6 Series, but at the time these were limited to Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. They were conspicuously left off the TCL 2023 TV lineup. But now, these 4K Fire TVs are available in the U.S. as the TCL Q6 Series Fire TVs, exclusively from Amazon.

These Fire TVs from TCL come fairly loaded with features as well. The QLED 4K display panel is limited to 60Hz natively but uses Motion Rate 120 to digitally replicate a 120Hz display. And the combination of a quantum dot filter and direct backlighting for the LED display panel should provide excellent color reproduction and incredible brightness.

In addition to the 4K display, the TCL Q6 Fire TV also gets support for HDR content in HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision formats, so basically any HDR show and movies will get a boost from the Q6, even if the TV doesn’t manage to hit the 1,000 nits peak brightness necessary for true HDR picture quality. For gamers, there’s an Auto Game Mode (also known as auto low-latency mode [ALLM]) to keep input lag to a minimum.

Currently, the TCL Q6 Series Fire TV comes in three models:

 TCL Q6 Series QLED TV: Choose your smart TV OS

The TCL Q6 QLED TV on a white background.

(Image credit: TCL)

Of course, this version of the TCL Q6 Series is powered by Amazon’s Fire TV OS. So that means you get support for Alexa voice commands through the included Alexa Voice Remote. The Fire TV Q6 also gets support for Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit, but no Google smart features.

But if you prefer the Google TV smart TV interface or using Google Assistant, there’s good news. The standard TCL Q6 Series is powered by Google TV, and it comes with most of the same features as the Fire TV version. You also get the same 3 HDMI ports and support for eARC and Dolby Atmos, just the smart TV user interface changes. 

Pricing for the Google TV TCL Q6 Series is similar to the Fire TV models, though there is also an 85-inch version if you're looking for an extra-large option:

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Malcolm McMillan
Malcolm McMillan
Senior Streaming Writer

Malcolm McMillan is a senior writer for Tom's Guide, covering all the latest in streaming TV shows and movies. That means news, analysis, recommendations, reviews and more for just about anything you can watch, including sports! If it can be seen on a screen, he can write about it. Previously, Malcolm had been a staff writer for Tom's Guide for over a year, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI), A/V tech and VR headsets.

Before writing for Tom's Guide, Malcolm worked as a fantasy football analyst writing for several sites and also had a brief stint working for Microsoft selling laptops, Xbox products and even the ill-fated Windows phone. He is passionate about video games and sports, though both cause him to yell at the TV frequently. He proudly sports many tattoos, including an Arsenal tattoo, in honor of the team that causes him to yell at the TV the most.