PerfectRec’s gaming score measures a TV's performance when it comes to playing video games. It is based on several factors that can significantly impact the quality of the gaming experience, including screen response time, input lag, and refresh rate. Screen response time is a critical factor that determines how quickly the TV can transition from one color to the next, while input lag measures the delay between the gaming console output and the TV display. Refresh rate refers to the number of times per second that the TV displays a new frame, which can impact the smoothness of the gaming experience. The gaming score also takes into account two other features: local dimming in gaming mode, which can enhance contrast and picture quality, and black frame insertion, which can reduce screen brightness and create a smoother gaming experience.

The TCL Q7 is ideal for watching movies and cinematic TV due to its high contrast, which allows for deep blacks and a more immersive viewing experience, and excellent black uniformity, ensuring that dark scenes appear evenly black without patchiness. While it has good local dimming to enhance contrast in different areas of the screen, suboptimal viewing angles and gray uniformity might detract from the experience if watched from an angle or during scenes with uniform color backgrounds.

The TCL Q7 LCD TV is good for watching cartoons and animation because it displays colors accurately straight out of the box, ensuring that the vibrant hues typically used in such content look as intended. Additionally, an expansive color gamut means the TV can produce a wide range of colors, further enhancing the animated visuals.

PerfectRec’s bright room score is a proprietary score of a television's performance in a bright environment, taking into account the following factors: screen brightness, reflections, and color volume. A higher score indicates better TV performance in bright conditions, minimizing glare and producing a more pleasant viewing experience. Brightness is crucial in how well the image displays in direct sunlight, and low reflections reduce glare. Color volume contributes to color vibrancy and depth, which are vital in a bright environment.

The TCL Q7 television exhibits excellent picture quality, primarily due to its high contrast, which provides deep blacks and vibrant brightness levels, and its effective local dimming that enhances this contrast, especially important in darker viewing environments. Additionally, the TV offers a strong color performance out of the box and maintains a wide color gamut, ensuring a vivid and diverse color representation for a more lifelike viewing experience.

The TCL Q7 has a poor viewing angle so the picture quality will drop when viewed from the side, which can be an issue in a group setting during sports events. It also struggles with reflections which could be bothersome when watching games during the day or in well-lit rooms.

The TCL Q7 offers poor performance in upscaling lower resolution content which is important for watching standard definition news or talk shows, and while the initial colors straight out of the box are fair, they may not appear as vibrant or accurate without further calibration, affecting the viewing experience for programs where accurate color reproduction is important.