So myself along with others had a lot of issues with the tv right when it came out. Not being able to get into apps, settings issues, aspect ratio, etc.
I know I myself was criticized by not knowing the difference between Android OS and Google UI (though to be fair, if I’m having an issue with one, and they’re bundled as the same thing, it doesn’t matter “who” I’m having the issue with, the fact is I’m still having the issue).
Well, 3 weeks later I am still having issues with the GoogleTV TCL 2021 6 series 55” tv. I miss the Roku but I was excited for the new enhancements of this version. I mean, I didn’t know I’d miss the Roku at the time; but I do now.
The aspect ratio game with this tv/software/interface is just… it just doesn’t work. I can launch Ted Lasso on AppleTV+ app and notice they look slightly stretched, and then I’ll navigate into the settings to see the “aspect ratio” set at 16:9 as a default? First of all, why would any manufacturer or OS make that a forced default? So I turned on “auto detect” and it actually corrected it for a second. Giving the picture tiny bars horizontally and everything looked fine - for a minute until it just switched back to the 16:9 look.
For Amazon Prime I was watching both Fleabag and 30 Rock to look into the issue. They both looked terrible. Fleabag suffered even worse than Ted Lasso, because it has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. And it would NOT change it, I just kept looking at her long face looking even longer. As for 30 rock, season 2 episode 1 opens with a Seinfeld montage where he does the deal or no deal cases and it has a text box at the bottom, and it cut off half the sentence. I tried the auto detect and in neither scenario did it fix it.
This is not to mention some of the terrible color and contrast issues I’ve had on certain apps, once again most notably Prime. I tried to watch Late Night, a Prime original, and it looked like I had the brightness set to 20 and contrast 0. I did not.
Also lastly to confirm it’s multiple apps - if you try to watch a vertical video in YouTube (don’t ask; but it’s common for K-Pop groups and usually can exceed 1080 anyways) it retains the correct verticals borders but stretches the image - so you’re only seeing half the image, but in the same borders. Honestly the whole thing makes no sense and I’ve never had a tv experience this messy. And I’ve loved my TCL Roku TVs.
What is happening?
Strangely enough I returned mine for another this week and the new one has a lot less crashes. Also there is an “apps only” option that seems to speed up everything.