Well, another CES is in the books, and man-oh-man was it fun…and maybe a little overwhelming! 

As in years’ past, it seems that TCL was the talk of the town. In five short years, we have gone from new-to-the market, to achieving the number 2 market share in the U.S.! And, this year shows no signs of slowing down. While many of the news reports about the show speak to ginormous TV walls and amazing tech we’ll see in a few years from now, I wanted to highlight a few things we talked about in the booth that CES attendees found particularly captivating. 

Simply put, big things are happening in 2020.

Prepare for a new word to enter your vocabulary: Vidrian. Building on our award-winning mini-LED backlight launched in 2019, our next-generation Vidrian mini-LED backlight takes all that technology and makes it simpler and better.

Rather than adding layers to our TVs between the backlight – the source of your bright picture – TCL is doing more with less. We are taking our high-performance mini-LED backlight, all the accompanying semiconductors, and all the “stuff” (layman’s term 😊) and putting it all on one crystal clear sheet of glass. This means more control, better performance, and a great picture for our customers.  While most manufacturers were showing “prototypes” of mini-LED, we are already on our second generation!

 

We’re also working as hard as we can to get technology that was either flagship-exclusive, or not even available yet, into our mainstream TVs…it’s just what we do.

You will see things like our award-winning mini-LED technology, and the amazing performance it delivers, brought to more Series of TVs in 2020. Additionally, the color revolution continues with the addition of QLED color technology to more TCL TVs this year.

And we haven’t forgotten about our gamers. As the Official TV of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, we’ve learned that this group of guys and gals are not only our most demanding users, but some of our most influential. For them (and aspiring gamers everywhere!), we will be introducing cutting-edge features on TCL TVs in 2020. We’re adding variable refresh rate, 120Hz gaming input, and LED Motion Clarity into our awesome gaming suite.

And, to ensure that we continue with the philosophy of making things easy for our users, we are partnering with renowned THX to create a THX Certified Game Mode. This certification simplifies the process of choosing a TV so you’ll know instantly that you’re getting the best performance and the best picture while being immersed in your favorite game!

One of my favorite features of 2019 also gets even better for 2020. If you’re shopping for a new TV, and want to get the best performance from it, you are bound to come across the word “calibration.” Nerdy folks like me spend hours on forums discussing all the various methods, tools and software available for the home theater enthusiast who wants to get every last drop of performance from their TV. Instead of the hundreds (or thousands?) of dollars required to get your TV calibrated, TCL has chosen to let the “everyman enthusiast” get most of the way there.

TCL at CES

Last year, we launched our TCL iPQ Mobile Calibration App on the Google Play store, allowing customers with select phones to accurately calibrate their TVs, so that the colors they know, like the green of the Green Monster, the red of a Coca-Cola can, look right. Not overblown, not hyper-vivid…just right. That’s what’s possible with this app. It’s been met with resounding enthusiasm by the ever demanding videophile community

Now a whole new group of users can benefit from our app! Free to iPhone users, just download the app and in 10 minutes your TV will be looking it’s best!

We haven’t forgotten that a famous moviemaker once said that “great sound is half the moviegoing experience.” With that in mind, we are introducing our first Dolby Atmos sound bar to complement our line of award-winning sound bars. When you combine Dolby Atmos audio with TCL's own RAY·DANZ technology to expand the sound stage even further, you’ll soon see – and hear – why our Alto 9+ won so many awards at the show.

Want some more intimate listening? We’ll also be launching a family of true wireless headphones and improving our existing series to make sure we have everyone covered, from the gym-rat to the business traveler looking for a little quiet on the plane.

So that’s about 10% of what I saw in our booth this year. There are tons of videos out there showing even more of the cool tech we had, but all I can say is that I’m really looking forward to a fun 2020!