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Back in 1926,Scottish engineer John Logie Baird demonstrated the world’s first ever working television when his mechanical technology transmitted flickering shadows from just 30 lines of resolution. The images were tiny and blurry, but the TV worked, and it’s just one of the many inventions from Scotland that have shaped the modern world. Soon after, picture quality started to take its first major steps when better cathode-ray tubes and electronic cameras replaced those mechanical systems.By 1954, NBC gave the world its first color television broadcast, and by the ’60s, shows like “Star Trek” and “Bonanza” were bringing vibrant images to living rooms everywhere.
Toward the end of the last century, the digital revolution took picture quality to a critically important new level.
Once upon a time, buying a budget television meant accepting a considerable gulf in picture quality with pricier sets. That’s no longer the case, with brands like TCL gaining real traction against more-established brands. In 2025, the Chinese company flipped the expectations of a budget TV when it finally perfected mini LED picture quality. Previously, TCL prioritized extreme brightness over balance – but a new approach saw a shift in focus to light control. The result was displays delivering rich contrast with deep blacks sitting beautifully alongside luminous highlights,while colors were vibrant and saturated and detail remained consistent – which prompted What Hi-Fi to bestow TCL with multiple awards in 2025 for bringing genuine premium picture quality to the budget market.
One of those award-winning sets was the TCL C7K, also known as the TCL QM7K in the U.S. With its extreme brightness, genuine black depth, minimal haloing around bright objects, and vivid and smoothly blending colors, it easily outperforms its price. Other TVs in the 2025 Mini LED lineup include the lower-tier budget model, the QM6K, and the higher-tier flagship, the QM8K. The former offers remarkable value, with even the 85-inch model available for under $1,000.
Hisense is another brand from china that is helping to redefine budget TV picture quality expectations.But just how are they doing it? Massive investment in Mini LED technology,that’s how. Hisense packages this as ULED, AKA Ultra LED. It combines thousands of tiny Mini-LEDs for precise backlight control with Quantum Dot technology for vibrant, accurate colors and advanced local dimming zones for deep blacks and lifelike HDR. Together,these features boost brightness,contrast,and color performance,while high refresh rates ensure smooth motion for movies and fast-paced gaming and sports. This complete approach helps Hisense deliver picture quality as notable as that on the Hisense U8QG. Like most Hisense TVs, there are settings you should change instantly on this model. But once you’ve done that, you’ll be more than satisfied with what you’re seeing. The brightness goes way beyond what typical LEDs can. Wired even called it a “brightness bonanza … not for the timid,” while Tom’s Guide measured an astonishing 3,916 nits in HDR. Those Mini-LED zones produce genuine darkness approaching OLED depth and colors that are so accurate that nature documentaries look like you could actually be there. Reds are rich, blues are true, and the whites are never off-tint.
