Court Rules TCL's 'QLED' TVs Aren't Truly QLED (techradar.com) 43
A German court ruled that TCL misled consumers by marketing certain TVs as "QLED" when they "do not deliver the color reproduction expected from QLED TVs." It has ordered the company to stop advertising or selling those models in Germany. TechRadar reports: The case was filed by Samsung, which claimed that TCL was running deceptive advertising, and more court cases on the same topic are coming in other countries, including the US. The lawsuits all make the same claim: that what TCL calls a QLED isn't a QLED as it's commonly understood, and that consumers are being mis-sold TVs as a result. The court found that TCL's quantum dot TVs, such as the QLED870 series available in Germany, didn't deliver the characteristics of a quantum dot LED, and that consumers were being misled as a result.
The tests were commissioned by Seoul chemicals company Hansol Chemical (which, it's worth noting, works with Samsung, a key TCL rival, and which heavily promoted the results of these tests alongside launching the court case) and carried out by Geneva's SGS and the UK's Intertek. According to ET News (via Google Translate), "no indium (In) or cadmium (Cd) was detected in three TCL QD TV models. Indium and cadmium are essential materials that cannot be omitted for QD implementation... if neither is present, QD technology cannot be said to have been applied." You can see the test results here.
TCL disputed the findings -- "The QD content may vary depending on the supplier, but it definitely contains cadmium," it responded -- and published its own tests, including a test by SGS, the same firm that conducted tests for Hansol. The results contradicted Hansol Chemical's tests, but those tests used a different methodology: where TCL's tests focused on TCL's quantum dot films, Hansol's commissioned tests were on finished TCL TVs. [...] Hansol Chemical has filed a complaint against TCL with the US Federal Trade Commission, alleging false advertising, and TCL is also facing class action lawsuits in several US states making the same claim. TCL isn't alone here: Hisense has also been targeted in the US.
The tests were commissioned by Seoul chemicals company Hansol Chemical (which, it's worth noting, works with Samsung, a key TCL rival, and which heavily promoted the results of these tests alongside launching the court case) and carried out by Geneva's SGS and the UK's Intertek. According to ET News (via Google Translate), "no indium (In) or cadmium (Cd) was detected in three TCL QD TV models. Indium and cadmium are essential materials that cannot be omitted for QD implementation... if neither is present, QD technology cannot be said to have been applied." You can see the test results here.
TCL disputed the findings -- "The QD content may vary depending on the supplier, but it definitely contains cadmium," it responded -- and published its own tests, including a test by SGS, the same firm that conducted tests for Hansol. The results contradicted Hansol Chemical's tests, but those tests used a different methodology: where TCL's tests focused on TCL's quantum dot films, Hansol's commissioned tests were on finished TCL TVs. [...] Hansol Chemical has filed a complaint against TCL with the US Federal Trade Commission, alleging false advertising, and TCL is also facing class action lawsuits in several US states making the same claim. TCL isn't alone here: Hisense has also been targeted in the US.
Re: Bought a TCL smartphone with removable battery (Score:2)
The finding is not comprehensive (Score:3)
Re:The finding is not comprehensive (Score:4)
QLED quality
QLED isn't a quality, it's a technology. The quality may vary within that technology.
The company must be forced to pay back to all affected consumers worldwide
Why? The TVs do exactly what they did on day one. If customers were not happy with the image quality they could have returned them. I know of no shop these days that doesn't have such a return policy.
If you're suggesting that people bought TVs based exclusively on a term they didn't understand assuming it's a quality metric (like you postulated incorrectly) should be re-imbursed I can't disagree more. Stupid people should be punished for their stupidity.
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QLED isn't a quality, it's a technology
It's a technology that's supposed to have a higher quality. This isn't just misleading, it's cheating. I know very well that the TV works, but the quality/technology that it was advertised with doesn't exist. I call that deception. The customers wouldn't have known to return them because they don't have the technologies to test and determine that the screen was not QLED. I'm surprised that you're even arguing this. And I'm not talking about returning it to the shop. I'm talking about the company being unde
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It's a technology that's supposed to have a higher quality. This isn't just misleading, it's cheating.
No, you're begging the question out of ignorance. At no point has anyone said that TCL's QLED panels don't have a higher visual quality than non-QLED panels. Samsung's complaint was that they quality wasn't as good as Samsungs and they made the claim they weren't really QLED.
The really rich part here is that Samsung perverted this in the first place since quantum dot LEDs were supposed to produce even better image quality than what Samsung first demonstrated because Samsung cheapened out, applied QD technol
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If the claim was all true then it's not just a misleading advertising. Customers paid for QLED quality and didn't get it. The company must be forced to pay back to all affected consumers worldwide, once all the lawsuits in various countries finalize.
This may come as some surprise to Americans but in most countries it's illegal to advertise something that isn't true, doubly so if you know it's not true.
And what may be even more surprising is that you usually don't need to start a class action to get your refund (besides, a class action usually results in you getting about $3.50 back because the lawyers hoovered up most of the settlement, especially after the appeal).
This is just part of those evil "consumer rights" that Americans seem so dead agai
Totally Crappy Lemon (Score:2)
All TCL products are garbage.
Just 1 gold bar away from greatest! (Score:3)
1) For the price of 1 lawyer, buy a gold brick
2) put a plaque on the brick
3) gift or award it to the "right" person.
4) problem solved. you are now the greatest QLED ever. and made in the USA too.
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TCL is taking over Sony's tv line...
Pot calling kettle black (Score:4, Insightful)
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Common we all knew they choose the term QLED to at quick glance make people think they were getting an OLED TVs.
Sure, but it IS a legitimate improvement to LCD TVs and TCL should be held to account for not delivering what they're claiming.
The graphic similarity between QLED and OLED is a lesser marketing evil.
Re: (Score:2)
LCD with LED backlighting being advertised as LED TV's preceded mainstream availability of OLED TVs.
Should Samsung then market theirs as QLED-LCD TVs when the previous generation was still being marketed as LED TVs? For technical correctness sure, but it's not entirely fair, QLED is a major advancement over white LED light with colour filters.
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The use of "LED TV" came after the advent of the OLED TV (though not its widespread adoption), and well after the switch from CCFL to LED.
I.e., it's not a stretch to suspect that "LED TV" as a term was *also* meant to mislead about upcoming OLED TVs, which were already widely in the tech literature.
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LCD with LED backlighting being advertised as LED TV's preceded mainstream availability of OLED TVs.
Should Samsung then market theirs as QLED-LCD TVs when the previous generation was still being marketed as LED TVs? For technical correctness sure, but it's not entirely fair, QLED is a major advancement over white LED light with colour filters.
[not GP]
depends what you mean by "should', but i certainly would have respected them if they had.
The introduction of the "LED TV" term for the "LCD w/ LED backlight" was the first obnoxious marketing move meant to mislead. So the QLED didn't invent it, but certainly took advantage of it.
and BECAUSE the marketing people already claimed "LED TV" this way... now we have "MicroLED TV" instead of what "LED TV" should be. or maybe "OLED" could have claimed the "LED TV" label... and now we'd have "ILED TV
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but QLED is "quantum dot" LED Whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.
It means they use quantum dots to convert blue light into red and green, rather than having color filters in front of white light.
There are a few advantages to doing it that way.
TCL (Score:2)
Total Cunt Liars
Quantum Injustice (Score:2)
I learned this myself recently after buying a 75" Hisense QLED TV. I expected vibrant colors... but instead got a lot of color banding and flicker. I learned that the panel itself was actually a cheap 8-bit panel and unable to actually display these colors, so even if they did use "quantum dots" they weren't doing much. There's a lot of deception going on here. I think a lot of the progress in TVs lately has been around how to dress up these cheap panels, since the underlying panel tech on the low end hasn'
Re: Quantum Injustice (Score:2)
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"HD-Ready" is still prevalent amongst the smaller TVs.
I've just had to replace a 10-year old 32" FHD dumb LCD TV as the backlight failed (and repair was uneconomic) and at least half of the current offerings are less than 1920*1080, even from otherwise-reputable makers.
Worse still, many have dropped the "-Ready" part, so now you have to drill down quite a long way to find the actual resolution and, for some strange reason, vendors don't always make that information obvious.
Coincidentally, I ended up with a
Re: Quantum Injustice (Score:2)
I used to favour LG but the last ones I bought are increasingly too smart for their own good, either running an OS that demands too much from the hardware - rendering the UI unusably slow and clunky - or doing what Samsung do and adding "features" that I don't want and can't disable.
Seriously, has anyone ever the the "LG Content Store"?
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That is because 1280Ã--720 is also HD.
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i'm a big fan of the rtings.com website since they provide both instrumented testing and broader impressions and comparisons.
For me it's practically impossible to evaluate a complex product (and even most simple products) just from marketing specs and kicking the tires...
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* There are isolated cases where you can catch it, but for the most part, you simply cannot tell. You will fail the Pepsi challenge.
What you are suffering is called "Shitty Chinese TV syndrome."
Why would you do a chemical test? (Score:2)
Don't quantum dots show up under an electron microscope?
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Yes. It should be even easier to see if a TV uses quantum dots though. If the backlight is white it probably doesn't. If it's blue then it does.
You could also remove the backlight and shine a blue light on the remainder of the screen. If it lights up straight blue then it's not quantum dots. If it's got red and green in it then it is. None of this arguing over cadmium is necessary.
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There are non QD phosphors you can use, but the spectrum available is more limited. The advantage of quantum dot phosphor is that you can tune the peak exactly where you want for the colour space.
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Yes, that's an even easier way to check. Look at the TV with a $30 spectrometer.
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A matter of cost and effort.
This may be the only time (Score:2)
a company would fight to say cadmium is in a product.
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It's also used in artist's pigments. Cadmium yellows, oranges and reds that really have cadmium in them are actually pretty expensive.
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So customers were mis-LED? (Score:5, Funny)
Couldn't restrain myself. The entire point of my post is in the subject line.
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Pretty l-CD behavior
Ugh.
2nm (Score:2)
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No. Process "sizes" are not sizes. They are process descriptors. If that were actual measurements, this would have run afoul of EU laws a long time ago.
So... (Score:1)
What does John DeLancie have to say?
Presence of Cadmium (Score:2)