Thomson has been one of the lesser-known but growing players in the Indian TV market for a while now.
With its own manufacturing and R&D in place, the company deals in a number of categories of TVs, including Mini QD LED TVs, which it also launched a couple of months back in 65 and 75-inch sizes.
I have been using the 65-inch model, which is priced at Rs 61,999, for a few weeks now.
The look and build of the TV are very familiar and nothing much we haven't seen before on a big TV.
The table-top stands near the two ends, while the indicator LED sits at the middle next to the bottom-facing physical button for power.
You get slim bezels and Thomson branding at the front. The plastic back houses the side-facing LAN port, 3 HDMI 2.1 ports (one with eARC), audio out, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, optical in, and the other end has the power port.
Coming to the remote control, it's a long bar with app shortcut keys for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and so on. The remote control had to be at a similar height to the bottom of the TV when adjusting something, slightly lower in height, and it wouldn't catch the signal, which was annoying at times.
The 65-inch Ultra HD (3840x2160) display (16:9 aspect ratio) is sufficiently bright that you wouldn't miss out on many details when viewing HDR10 or even Dolby Vision content on it.
There's local dimming, but that may not always work well when viewing something with fast-moving objects; otherwise, the TV did well to handle the dimming part.
You get good viewing angles, so you don't miss out on contrast and colours from different angles, which is nice to see from a big budget TV, giving richer black points than a regular LED TV. It also handled live sports well with no jarring effects seen.
The TV is powered by 2GB RAM and a MediaTek chip with Mali G52 GPU that handles 120Hz refresh rates in compatible games quite well, though you might find it to handle games at their highest settings better at 90Hz, such that the game would have fewer drops in frame, as well as just be more enjoyable to play.
The built-in storage of 16GB had around 10GB available out of the box. The TV is smooth in navigating, changing apps or hopping between Chromecast and AirPlay.
I was able to play media from an external disk just fine, be it just about any audio and video codes except for DTS:X, which isn't supported here.
The TV has 6 speakers and 2 sub-woofers in trial, giving out about 108 Watts of total output and that resulted in pretty loud and deep sound from the TV that you could use for a 10x10 room for sports and music playback just fine.
While dialogue delivery isn't bad either, it is still not as clear and crisp as you might want to compare with using a set of speakers or a soundbar with it to see.
In my experience, the soundbar would just do a better job, but then you would also have to invest in one. The Dolby Atmos effect in movies and TV series is also not bad for the price tag here.
In conclusion, the Thomson Mini QD LES Masterclass is a really good performing smart TV that does justice to the price tag with its good video output and more than decent sound output that can be recommended if you're looking for a 65-inch TV under the 65k price tag.
