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$3998 (10% back Prime Visa w PRIME) TCL 98 Inch Class QM8L Series | SQD-Mini-LED QLED Smart TV | 98QM8L, 2026 Model | 144Hz | Ultimate Color Brightness & Contrast
$3,998
$6,000
33% off
Amazon
Amazon
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Based on what I've seen, the QM8L is only a minor upgrade from the QM8K:
2 more HDMI 2.1 ports, and a marginal improvement to brightness and color gamut - indistinguishable in daily use for the most part.
The QM9K is in a different league. Lock that bad boy in, and congrats on getting a flagship TV for a upper mid range sale price.
I'll throw one more into the mix. The X11k is now $5100 at Best Buy.
IMO this $3k 98 QM9K is the Real Slickdeal, worthy of its own post, if you are so inclined:
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/t...J36QYTQZCF
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Based on what I've seen, the QM8L is only a minor upgrade from the QM8K:
2 more HDMI 2.1 ports, and a marginal improvement to brightness and color gamut - indistinguishable in daily use for the most part.
The QM9K is in a different league. Lock that bad boy in, and congrats on getting a flagship TV for a upper mid range sale price.
The main benefit to the 8L is the Pentonic 800 SoC (vs Pentonic 700 in the 8K/9K versions). The differences in color space between the 8K/9K and 8L are going to be negligible to imperceptible to almost all users (and most masters on most streaming platforms don't even utilize the extra color space).
However, the Pentonic 800 supports Dolby Vision 2. Yet again, very little content available now - but there will be in the future. If full DV2 over DV IQ is your must have - then decision made. Otherwise (and I would think most fall in this category, the 98QM8/9K at $500 cheaper is probably a better choice (SQD and extra 2.1 ports really not worth that much from what we've seen on reviews thus far). Also, I would think the 8L will be 2999 or less on BF (and probably again, even cheaper, before Super Bowl Sunday).
But if you need a TV in this category for this season, it's not a terrible price on the 8L.
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Meanwhile, the newer QM8L will likely hit that same $3,000 mark during October Prime Day or Black Friday. If you hold out for that, you might be able to stack a 10% Prime cashback offer or Best Buy installation included. For context, I paid exactly $2,999 for my 98-inch QM8K last summer, including free delivery and installation.
To put the actual differences between these two TVs into perspective:
* QM9K = 2025 Lexus ES350
* QM8L = 2026 Toyota Camry
Yes, the QM8L is the newer release, but the QM9K is the true luxury model. The QM9K's ~6,000 local dimming zones and ~6,500 nits of peak brightness are absolute marvels of engineering. In real world viewing, that sheer brute force contrast and brightness will be drastically more noticeable, and feel significantly more premium than the incremental bump in color volume you get from the QM8L's SQD technology.
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