OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in review

There is none of that moving soundbar gimmicks on the Q series telly. The Q2 Pro is as straightforward as premium TVs come. The 40W Horizon Soundbar sitting under the display is very similar to how Bang and Olufsen design their products. It doesn’t look identical but the horizontal lines under it remind us of it.

Around the back, things are a bit complicated for a telly. The spine running through the centre is not straight or flat so to speak. It’s protruding towards the bottom and tapers along the top. It’s not a problem if you place the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in on its included table stand but if you want to go with a VESA mount that’s already fixed on your wall then it might be a bit bothersome.

The non-flat rear will place the telly in a skewed position on a typical VESA flat wall mount. Our VESA wall mount placed the telly with the bottom half pushed out and the top half closer to the wall. OnePlus does provide a wall mount with its telly in the box but our review unit didn’t come with one so we have no way of telling how good that would be. Bear in mind, if you have an adjustable VESA mount already bolted into the wall then it might be easy to adjust the tilt on the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in.

That said, if you’re keeping it on the included metal stand then it’ll look like a delectable piece of tech. It’s gorgeous and made of metal. All things considered, this is a handsome TV for your living room and we haven't even started talking about the display quality yet.

No more running around the bush. This is a proper premium QLED television. OnePlus might be wrestling with the masses in the budget segment but customers who are ready to pony up a lakh for this won’t be left stroking their chin. It’s a solid QLED telly and comes in 65in with all the feature bits you’d expect from something twice its price.

It can reach a peak brightness of 1200 nits which is very good for watching HDR content and the 500 nits of brightness for regular content never feels too dim. Even with sunlight bashing on the screen, the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in never felt it needed more brightness to get the job done. Perks of rocking a QLED I guess. OnePlus hasn’t put a light diffusing coating on the screen so the screen can be quite reflective in brightly lit rooms. For a lakh though, we’re not even complaining because the colours are thoroughly enjoyable.

HDR and Dolby Vision content look natural. The OnePlus also has contrast control and flesh tone which are better left turned off. Motion processing is handled surprisingly well too. We didn’t expect the OnePlus Q2 Pro 65in to have a thoroughly entertaining picture quality out of the box. You won’t find a Filmmaker Mode here like the LG G2 OLED Gallery Edition 65in but that’s alright because even if OnePlus added it, the telly isn’t spec-ready to take on the ₹3-4lakh costing beasts for HDR content. To that extent, it’s sufficiently capable with natural tones and a problem-free viewing experience.

Even with 120 local dimming zones, you will find some amount of backlight bleeding around the edges. It’s never prominent in a 16:9 aspect ratio content but if there’s a pitch-black scene, you will see some backlight bleeding. The opening minutes of MH370: The Plane That Disappeared on Netflix catches the local dimming folly once the Twitter scene starts flooding the telly. It’s noticeable in the black bars because of the 21:9 aspect ratio. Gaming doesn’t suffer as much since there are no pesky black bars on top and bottom.

In fact, the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in is a fantastic gaming TV. It’s got HDMI 2.1 on the bottom two HDMI ports and a ‘fake’ HDMI 2.1 on the top port which has eARC support as well. The HDMI 2.1 port on the top doesn’t support VRR, ALLM and 4K at 120Hz. Only the bottom two ports (HDMI ports 2 & 3) are true HDMI 2.1 and plugging your PlayStation 5 is an absolute treat. It’s absolutely responsive and we experienced no screen tearing. We even plugged in a high-end Intel NUC for PC gaming and the OnePlus handled it like a gaming monitor.

The 2.1Ch Horizon Soundbar is surprisingly very detailed for soap opera shows and reality TV. The 40W front-facing speakers do a better job than many TVs in this price range meanwhile the 30W subwoofer around the back provides perceivable bass to cinematic movies and games. The Horizon Soundbar sounds forward and airy. The first race scene where the coins move into Wade Watts’ DeLorean in Ready Player One sounds crisp with depth. You will definitely need a proper subwoofer to recreate the aggressive stomps and thumps from the raging gorilla in that scene but this Dynaudio-tuned speaker is refreshing and capable of handling everything in the mid and the upper range. It’s very good for a TV speaker.

Android TV is gone and has made way for Google TV which is much lighter and faster than its predecessor. The OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in doesn’t feel sluggish this time. The Q1 and even the U1S have slowly become slow over the course of the year. We suspect you keep a streaming stick handy for the future if this Q2 Pro suffers the same fate. For now, this is working smoothly. Google Assistant springs to action when beckoned and all OnePlus devices communicate with each other to provide ecosystem comforts. You can check this handy reel we made on the OnePlus ecosystem (no dance moves included).

The remote still continues to be a pain to use. It’s neither ergonomic to hold nor does it offer all the useful buttons. There’s no mute or input button on the remote which makes it frustrating to use. You will have to press the settings button on the remote then navigate to Inputs on the menu and then change your HDMI inputs. As for mute, you have to double press on the volume down button to mute the telly. If you want to reduce the volume two notches down, it’ll mute it instead. Most Android tellies have cookie-cutter remotes which offer basic navigation control, and OnePlus is no different. If you’re demanding a lakh, there has to be a better remote at this price point. At least give us a dedicated mute button and another one for changing inputs. You do get hotkeys for Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar which is great.

Though it's not perfect, the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro 65in still manages to feel tempting at a very good price. The QLED performance is clearly the central focus here and having a good sound quality makes it very, very good for people who won’t be adding a soundbar anytime soon. The OS and features are quite straightforward but not hindered by the lack of processing as the previous telly did. You will enjoy using this if you’re already wrapped in the OnePlus ecosystem. The lack of a proper remote and fiddly wall mount keeps it from being perfect but if the competition doesn’t catch up, this could be a great telly for folks who are focused on picture quality.