The TCL 25G64 makes a strong case for itself as an affordable high-refresh-rate gaming monitor. That's all down to the speedy panel and QD-Mini LED tech (not to mention a few tricks up its sleeve). It offers plenty to get excited about without ever venturing into properly expensive territory.
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Design
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Performance
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Features
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Value
These days, gamers seek OLED panels, ultra-high refresh rates, and an even vaguely attainable price when it comes to picking out a new monitor. A couple of years ago, that would have been a pipe dream. That future still hasn’t arrived, but companies like TCL have delivered two out of the three with the 25G64 QD-Mini LED monitor.
That’s not a typo. It may be lacking a proper OLED panel, but TCL does its best impression of the tech here with a fast IPS panel, and QD-Mini LED tech to back it all up. You’re sacrificing unfathomably deep blacks for only slightly shallower blacks, a 300Hz refresh rate, and a price of R5,000 if you’re unlucky enough to snag it off sale.
Versatile as f-
It’s not quite dressed to the nines, but you’ll only need to look at the mostly grey plastic build during assembly. Which we’re glad to say took us all of five minutes, if that. The stand does seem a little too big for this monitor’s 24.5in britches, but the effect is a pleasant one. It’s solid as hell, and does more than just hold it up at eye-level.
It’ll glide up and down that sturdy stand with only a little force on the user’s end to reach the desired height. Tilt it in whichever direction you need to get some much-needed versatility. Flip it sideways, and it even performs in portrait if you’re Shorts-maxxing, or even just reaching for the ports.
Speaking of, the 25G64 is certainly well-endowed in that area. You’ll find two HDMI 2.1 ports ’round the back, though if you’re serious about unlocking its gaming capabilities, the single DisplayPort (1.4) is your best friend. There’s a headphone jack that you may want to use for some external speakers, seeing as they aren’t built-in.
That all supports the flat 24.5in FHD (1,920 x 1,080px) QD-Mini LED IPS panel. You know, the reason you’re here. It’s got a matte coating on top that does nothing for the overall quality, but does minimise glare tremendously. The bezels are thin enough, aside from the bottom bar bearing the ‘TCL’ logo. You’ll fiddle with the settings by way of the four-way nubbin (five if you count ‘in’ as a direction) right under the logo.
Nearly OLED?
Right out of the box, TCL’s 25G64 was gunning for our eyeballs’ attention. So much so that we felt the colours were pre-calibrated to perfection, with our interference only dampening the experience. We did opt for a warm colour temperature, a little unintuitively. Local dimming, too, required a bit of input on our end before we finally settled on ‘Fast’. Go any higher, and you may find yourself running into some ghosting artefacts. Not fun.
This is a gamer’s monitor at heart, but it still runs a tight ship when presented with the odd spreadsheet. We’re rocking a 240Hz refresh rate on our Windows machine with a simple HDMI, which might seem like overkill. It is. We don’t care. But to unlock the 25G64’s 300Hz abilities, you’ll need a DisplayPort 1.4 cable (and a GPU that supports it). Do that, and you’ll gain an immediate competitive advantage over the rest of your mates.
It’s Nvidia G-Sync compatible and supports AMD’s FreeSync tech to lessen any tearing effects. Anyone repping something less capable will know. It lived up to that promise here, as did the 1ms grey-to-grey response time. You’re not quite getting that 10-bit colour at 300Hz with HDR enabled, however, but rather 8-bit. Mozy on down to 240Hz and you’ll get the full 10-bit depth with HDR. If you struggle to see a difference, continue as you were.
The 600 nits peak brightness was a welcome surprise, and never left us wanting for more. You’ll still want to keep those curtains closed if you hope to experience anything close to OLED black levels. It won’t just crumble under a slight bit of glare, though, if holing up in the darkness isn’t an option. If you’re a gamer, that’s unlikely.
Get a hit of that 300HZ refresh rate, and you’ll never go back. It may not be spitting out a 4K image, but HDR does a lot of heavy lifting to make up for it. Funnily enough, it’s those sufficiently deep blacks that are the shining point here, and do well to elevate the experience. Console gamers are still getting many of those perks, but would be overpaying for 300Hz.
TCL 25G64 QD-Mini LED verdict
The TCL 25G64 is the sort of monitor that makes you wonder why you’d bother spending considerably more, unless 4K visuals are a must. The QD-Mini LED panel can’t quite conjure OLED’s perfect blacks, but it gets impressively close while throwing in a ridiculously speedy 300Hz refresh rate, punchy HDR, and great motion handling. For anyone spending most of their time with fast-paced PC titles, it’s a rather tasty combo.
At R5,000, the value argument is harder to ignore. There are some compromises, naturally — FHD at 24.5in isn’t going to win any competitions and 300Hz is wasted on many hardware setups and every console. But if you’ve got the right GPU, the 25G64 gives gamers an awful lot to work with without asking for an awful lot of cash in return.
