TCL S5L: what it ships with and what can come off

The S5L is the odd one out in TCL's 2026 catalogue. The whole L range this site already covers (C7L, C8L, X11L, P6L, P7L and P8L) is 4K and runs Google TV. This one is neither.

It is a Full HD set at 60 Hz running Google's older interface, Android TV. And, against appearances, that is not entirely bad news: the method for cleaning it up is the same, but the names change and it ships with less commercial noise. Let us take it in order, starting with what you need to know before buying one.

First things first: it is not 4K#

In its spec sheet the Resolution: field says FHD and the Panel Resolution: field says 1920×1080. On all four sizes. This is a television with a quarter of the pixels of any other model in the range.

The refresh rate is 60 Hz, without any of the marketing words TCL uses on the P8L. The connectivity matches: HDMI Version: 1.4b, with HDMI2.1 (eARC&ARC): No.

That HDMI 1.4b matters more than it looks. It is a 2010 version that cannot carry 4K at 60 Hz even if the panel asked for it, so here it limits nothing: the panel is already 1080p. What it does limit is the sound. With no eARC, a soundbar connected over ARC gets compressed audio and little else; the Dolby Atmos over cable that a modern living room takes for granted does not come down that wire.

And a third figure almost nobody looks at: Wi-Fi: WiFi 4, on all four sizes. Not Wi-Fi 5, not 6. Wi-Fi 4 is the 2009 standard. If the router is far away, or the building is full of neighbouring networks, this shows up before anything else does.

Translated: this is a kitchen, bedroom or study television. It is not the living-room set, and no amount of cleaning will change that.

The system: what TCL leaves out, and how to work it out#

Here is the interesting part, and it has to be told carefully because TCL only does half the job.

On the spec sheet for the 32, 40 and 43 inch sizes, the Operation System: field is empty. It does not say Android TV, it does not say Google TV: it says nothing. On the 50 inch sheet the field is not there at all.

What is there is a marketing bullet on the product page, in the feature list next to QLED and Full HD: · Android TV. That bullet is attached to all four sizes, the 50 included.

There is one more wrinkle. On that same page, the internal tags TCL uses to file each model say Android TV for the 32S5L, the 40S5L and the 43S5L, but for the 50S5L they say Google TV. So the 50's feature list says one thing and its catalogue tag says the opposite.

Going only on what is published, the honest reading is this: the 32, 40 and 43 are Android TV, and the 50 has to be checked on the set itself. That costs nothing:

adb shell pm list packages | grep launcher

If com.google.android.leanbacklauncher comes back, it is Android TV. If com.google.android.tvlauncher does, it is Google TV. Without ADB the settings menu answers it too: if Settings → Device preferences → About exists, it is Android TV; if there is a Settings → System → About instead, it is Google TV.

What changes between Android TV and Google TV#

If you have arrived here from another page on this site, this is the part you need, because nearly everything else carries over.

The launcher has a different name. On Google TV it is com.google.android.tvlauncher. On Android TV it is com.google.android.leanbacklauncher. Same job (with no launcher the set boots to a black screen) but any list copied off the internet that names the first one is no use to you here.

The home screen is a different thing. Android TV shows a row of apps that you arrange yourself, with the channels each app contributes underneath. Google TV shows rows of content recommendations, mixing what you subscribe to with what you do not. The first is a screen for launching apps; the second is a shop window.

There is less to remove. That change of philosophy means fewer recommendation packages and less commercial wiring out of the box. Cleaning up an Android TV set is usually a shorter job than cleaning an equivalent Google TV one.

The menus sit elsewhere. On Android TV, apps are listed from Settings → Apps, and almost everything to do with the system hangs off Settings → Device preferences. Follow a guide written for Google TV and that is where you will get lost.

The differences between sizes#

It is not the same machine across all four diagonals, and the differences are not the ones you would expect.

• 32": Audio Power: 2x8w, the only one with less power. Contrast 4000:1(typical).
• 40": 2 × 10 W and contrast 5000:1(typical), the best of the four. Oddly, the small one in the series declares the best contrast.
• 43": 2 × 10 W and 4000:1.
• 50": 2 × 10 W and 4000:1, but its sheet parts company with the rest in several places: it is listed as LCD rather than LED, it carries Bluetooth 5.4 against the 5.0 of the other three, it declares HDR 10+ rather than plain HDR 10, and its VESA mount is 200×200 mm instead of 100×100.

That 50 inch looks like a different product filed under the same series name. The page is in fact titled "TCL S5L-2K QLED TV-32/40/43 Inch": the 50 came later.

What TCL does not publish#

Neither RAM nor storage, exactly as in the rest of its range. On an entry level set that weighs: once storage fills up, apps stop updating and the system ends up unable to apply its own updates.

Over ADB two commands settle it: df -h /data tells you what is left free and cat /proc/meminfo gives you the total memory.

Brightness. There is no nits figure in any source.

Colour gamut. The Color Gamut: field contains literally /, that is, nothing, even though the page sells "Ultra-wide Color Gamut" and QLED. A figure that is not published is a figure that cannot be checked.

The Android version. Not there either.

How to tell whether this page is about your set#

Settings → Device preferences → About holds the model and the Android version. Over ADB, getprop ro.product.model gives the same without walking through menus. The model ends in the series name: 32S5L, 43S5L.

What it ships with#

Google's part. The launcher (com.google.android.leanbacklauncher), voice search (com.google.android.katniss), the services (com.google.android.gms) and, depending on the version, the recommendations engine (com.google.android.tvrecommendations).

TCL's part. Apps prefixed com.tcl.: their own channel, the setup assistant and the odd utility. The exact names change between firmware versions, so list your own rather than trusting somebody else's list.

Third parties. Netflix, Prime Video and company, installed by commercial agreement.

What comes off without much thought#

The streaming apps you do not use. On a set whose storage you cannot know until you measure it, each one is room you may need. Subscribe tomorrow and it reinstalls from the store.

The free content channels that creep into the home screen are the second clear case.

What not to touch#

Google Play services: they are the foundation of the store and of accounts.

The launcher, as long as you have no other one installed and working. And mind the name: here it is com.google.android.leanbacklauncher.

Anything starting with com.android. that you cannot identify. com.android.systemui is the interface and com.android.settings are the settings themselves.

What you actually notice#

On a set in this bracket, quite a lot. Every process that stops running in the background shows up in menu navigation and in the seconds after switch-on.

What does not change: the resolution, the refresh rate, the HDMI 1.4b or the Wi-Fi 4. No cleanup turns a Full HD set into a 4K one.

All of this is reversible#

Packages disabled over ADB come back with one command, and a factory reset returns the set to the state it left the box in. Nothing here touches the system: it is only told not to load something that was already installed.

If you own one#

Two things are missing from this series that TCL does not tell us: the output of df -h /data and of cat /proc/meminfo, and above all which launcher turns up on the 50 inch. That contradiction between the feature list and the catalogue tag is settled by a single command on a real television.