TCL kicked off the summer with the release of its first Fire TV Smart TVs in the US, the premium TCL Q6 Class 4K QLED Fire TV. It followed up shortly after with its budget-friendly line of 4K Fire TVs when it released the TCL S4 Class 4K Fire TV. Now, just a few weeks later, TCL has rounded out its Fire TV lineup with the release of its least expensive Fire TV Smart TVs, the new TCL S3 Class Fire TV Smart TVs.
While TCL’s Q6 series of Fire TVs focus on premium features, like QLED panels, and its S4 series focuses on delivering 4K on a budget, the new S3 series of Fire TVs from TCL are here to compete with smaller non-4K Fire TVs, like Amazon’s own recently released 2-Series lineup. The 32-inch TCL S3 Class Fire TV for $169.99 and the 40-inch TCL S3 Class Fire TV for $199.99 both feature 1080p Full-HD screens with basic LED-backlit LCD panels and the standard set of features you’d expect for their sizes and prices.
Unlike the aforementioned Amazon 2-Series Fire TVs, which do support HDR10 video despite also being non-4K TVs, these new 1080p TCL TVs do not support any form of high dynamic range video. That’s not to say that the image quality will be inferior, since HDR-capable TVs at this price point usually just have processors capable of decoding HDR and don’t actually have screens capable of producing the brightness necessary for good HDR viewing. Port selection on these TCL S3 Fire TVs is a bit slim with only two HDMI ports, of which one is an ARC port. There’s also a composite video, optical audio out, and headphone port. Connectivity includes 802.11ac dual-band WiFi 5, 100 Mbps Ethernet, Bluetooth 5.0, and a USB 2.0 port for external media playback through a FAT32 or NTFS thumb drive. Apple AirPlay and Miracast screen mirroring/casting support are also present.
Powering these TVs is a new Amlogic T950D4 quad-core processor not found in any other Fire TV. With a clock speed of 2.0 GHz, it should, theoretically, outperform the Amlogic T950Z that is typically found in low-budget Fire TV Smart TVs like these. This new Amlogic T950D4 processor includes AV1 video hardware decoding and it’s paired with a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU running at 800 MHz. There’s also 1.5GB of RAM but, unfortunately, these TCL TVs have only 8GB of internal storage, making them one of the very few Fire TV Smart TVs released in recent years without 16 GB of storage, like the Amazon 2-Series Fire TVs have.
The TCL 40-inch S3 Class 1080p Fire TV is already available to order at Amazon and is even already discounted from $199.99 to $149.99 at the moment. The 32-inch version will eventually be listed here on Amazon, but the link currently leads to a broken page so the smaller size is not yet available to order. Update: The Amazon product page for the TCL 32-inch S3 Class 1080p Fire TV is now live with a list price of $129.99.
Any idea if Amazon plans on introducing Tvs with ATSC 3.0 tuner built in.
Sorry, but I haven’t heard anything about TVs or DVRs from Amazon with ATSC 3.0.
Does this come with component inputs?
I need a decent screen to watch my taped from tv VHS.
If not this is what i use on my atari and simaler tv
Uzifhdhi RCA to HDMI Adapter Converter, AV to HDMI Converter with HDMI Cable Supports PAL/NTSC for PS2/VHS/VCR/Blue-Ray DVD ect. https://a.co/d/0j3WpGn
Please when are we getting the 200 channels because we are waiting for it ooh boss. Thanks
You can get 1000 free channels from the various apps in the app store.
You can get 1000 free channels from the various apps in the app store.
8GB of storage isn’t enough. Epic fail.
This TV is DOA because of that. You’ll probably be able to install a couple of apps before the next update fills your storage up. No thanks.
Do not rely on TCL warranty.
On label there is 2 year warranty if we buy TV from shop and same buy from online there is 1 year warranty