TCL 55-Inch Class S5 UHD 4K LED Smart TV with Fire TV (55S551F, 2024 Model), Dolby Vision, HDR PRO+, Dolby Atmos, Alexa Built-in with Voice Remote, Apple AirPlay 2 Compatibility, Streaming Television

I bought this TCL tv back in July 2025 so this is about six months later. So far, it works great, no complaints, nice picture, easy remote use and settings, not bad for the $249 sale price (now I see it costs about $100 more today, yikes!) I would recommend at the price I paid, but no more.

Price is really good, it's slow but that's on purpose to make it more affordable. I recommend pairing it with an Amazon Fire TV Cube. This will make it a lot faster + allow you to use maximum resolution. No complaints at all.

I have owed this TV, and watched it daily, for five months now. I can honestly say I regret purchasing it. There are so many negative traits, I don’t know where to start. It is slow. Sometimes it can take up to 30 seconds to change the channel, or to switch apps, or to even stop playback on a streaming show. It has many glitches… for example, sometimes when I am playing PS5, the screen will just go to black, it will still have audio, but the screen will be completely dark and I I’ll have to relaunch the system to fix it. On the home screen, there is an option to continue watching a show where you left off, but it doesn’t work correctly, and it will start the show on some past episode that you already watched, and you have to go through the hassle of going back to the menu to find the correct show, which since this TV is so clunky, is a real pain in the butt. Speaking of the home screen, it is one big, annoying advertisement for Amazon. Also, this TV does not display old TV shows properly. Any show from the 1980s or earlier, before the advent of widescreen technology, will appear crushed on the screen, making it impossible to enjoy. I actually talked to TCL technical support about this, and they are aware of it, but offered no solutions. Also, you cannot download the Spectrum app on this TV. Because for some reason, Amazon considers Spectrum a competitor they won’t allow you to download their app, so if you use the app to watch spectrum TV, you’re out of luck. How pathetic is that? It’s not enough that Amazon makes $1 billion a day, they have to crush the competitors too. Like allowing people to watch a. competitor’s app with somehow affect their bottom line. Ridiculous. It does have a nice picture, but the sound is average at best, and sometimes I have to turn the volume up to above 70 to hear the dialogue, depending on the app I am using. The really interesting thing is I also own a 55 inch TCL TV with a Roku operating system, and it is great. So IMO the issue is not with the manufacturer, TCL, but with the operating system, Fire TV. I would highly discourage anyone from purchasing any TV with the Fire TV operating system, and in particular this TV.

The TCL TV works great. The picture is sharp, the sound is good, and the Smart system is fast and easy to use. It sets up in just a few minutes and works smoothly. Very satisfied with the purchase.

UPDATE 12/10/24: While everything I wrote still stands, I have discovered you CAN NOT disable the SLEEP TIMER.! This is a HUGE DESIGN FLAW and IMMENSELY AGGRAVATING & INCONVENIENT! Example: Every time I pause a show (to answer phone etc), the TV goes into Sleep Mode and I have to Start the process All Over again; Go to & click Hulu (any app), click my name, scroll to show I was watching, Click on show, then Click "play". Unbelievable waste of time and IRRITATING to No End! While researching how to disable the sleep timer, I found so many forums with many, manh people discusing this issue and how P!ssed off everyone is about this horrible issue. Why they don't have "Never" option in the sleep timer is the most idiotic oversight. If I had discovered this within my return window, I would have got rid of this TV. Unless they fix this in the future, I will NEVER EVER buy another Fire TV! ROKU is so much more user-friendly and not trying to force things on the user (like Amazon TV). Are there work arounds? Yes there are but they are only temporary and jusr another step you have to redo offten. The Color is fantastic and the picture is pretty great as far as backlight, brightness, and sharpness. It seemed smaller than my last TCL 55" but I measured it and it was the same size. I'm still trying to get used to the Home page layout of the Fire OS - I prefer Roku. 3 things that bothered me about this T.V.: 1.) I'm disappointed that the 3.5 mm headphone jack will not output to my multimedia speakers (with subwoofer), like my last TCL. I did all the proper settings and no sound at all. Luckily, the onboard TV speaker sound is better than most TV's if you tweak the settings a bit. It's good enough that I didn't feel compelled to buy a sound bar immediately (may get one eventually). 2.) Like other reviews mentioned, there is a lag sometimes. It's just enough to be annoying but nothing to pull your hair out over...so far. I will update if anything gets worse with time. 3) This is my worst pet peeve about this TV - I hate the remote! It's too long, overly sensitive (easy to trigger), and not very efficient with the button layout imo. But I have small hands so maybe that's why. Having Alexa makes up for some of my dislikes. All in all, this is an excellent TV for the price and a great deal. I like that it has a Media Player (app) so I can see stuff from a thumb drive right on my T.V. Lets see how long it lasts. The T.V. that I was replacing, a 55" TCL 5 series with Roku, the video went out 4 months after the 4 year extended warranty expired. Good thing I didn't pay for the extended warranty lol.