Ultra-big-screen bargain home cinema

For movies, TVs and games, this value set-up has to be seen to be believed

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Now this one is a bit bonkers, really. A full Dolby Atmos home cinema with, practically, a 100in screen for three grand?

If you had asked us to estimate the overall cost of that lot a decade or so ago, we'd have had to double that price. At least.

And ease of use? Forget it. This was the realm of the full home cinema projector (with a decent screen) and a good multichannel amplifier with a full surround-sound speaker system to go with it. We're talking at least £6000 all-in for any system of quality. And hours of painstaking setup to go with it.

TCL seems intent on finishing off the home projector business as quickly as possible. To get this screen acreage on a TV for less than £2000, and for it to have the performance it does, is astonishing.

Cinematic impact

Yet here we are. How TCL has managed to deliver so much TV for so little money is, frankly, beyond us. The 98C7K is an all-out assault on the supersized screen market. And it achieves the seemingly impossible: a 98in 4K Mini LED TV for a price that would make many 65in sets blush.

The raw cinematic impact of a 98in picture never grows old, but this TV is far more than just screen acreage. It is built on a foundation of spectacular picture quality, driven by its Mini LED backlight and Quantum Dot colour system. TCL claims 3000 nits' peak brightness. This, when married to more than 2000 separately controlled local-dimming zones, results in a picture that is dazzlingly bright and contrast-rich. Small HDR highlights, such as the glint of metal or the gleam in an eye, look bold and lifelike, while bright daylight scenes maintain much more brilliance than even the best OLEDs can muster.