Last week, a package showed up at my door. I’m used to packages coming to my door (obviously) but this one was particularly interesting. It came in an unmarked box truck and required myself and the driver to get it out of the back and into my house.
This, my friends, is a 98-inch television. It is by far the largest TV that’s ever been inside my house, shattering the previous record of 65 inches. It’s from my friends at TCL who emailed me to let me know that this particular TV, a member of the baseline S5 series, is on sale for $1,000 off its asking price of $3,000, bringing it down to $2,000.
That’s quite the deal for a TV of this magnitude, so naturally, I had to try and procure a review unit of my own. Sure enough, they agreed to send me one and I’ll be publishing a full hands-on piece on ZDNET sometime this or next week.
I’m saving my full thoughts on the TV for that particular post, but I did want to touch on what it’s like living with a 98-inch television. Living in a single-family home that’s by no means a mansion by the sea, there’s nowhere to put a TV of this size, so we had to get two folding tables to prop it up on and completely block our mantle and fireplace, while our 65-inch TV hangs out in the corner.
It’s a bit unwieldy, but we’ve gotten used to its presence. Our couch can’t go back any further than it is now, so we’ve gotten to see the TV up close and personal. On the plus side, everything you watch feels way more immersive than any conventional TV, ranging from the likes of cinematic masterpieces like Oppenheimer to cable television shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
This 4K, 120Hz, Google TV-powered behemoth will reside in my home for a little while longer until a) my article is done and b) we figure out how to repackage it and send it back to TCL. The packaging itself was complicated to sort out, and it was impossible to lift the lid straight up in our living room due to our drop ceiling. We’ll likely have to take the whole thing outside—or at least into some other room—to wrap it back up for transportation back to wherever it came from.
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