Smart TVs have become a central part of home entertainment, but accessibility is still often treated as an afterthought. For visually impaired users, choosing a TV is not just about picture quality or smart features, it’s about whether the device can be used independently and reliably.
In this review, I’m sharing my personal experience with the TCL 65V6C Google TV from an accessibility-focused perspective. Rather than listing specifications alone, I’ll focus on how the TV behaves in real-world use with TalkBack, the remote control, and everyday apps.
This is not a first-impression review. After using the TV daily for two months, I want to highlight what works well, what doesn’t, and what potential buyers—especially screen reader users—should realistically expect from a Google TV device.
Table of Contents
Background and Previous smart TV Experience
I’ve got a 2015 LG Smart TV at home, which my parents have been using without any issues so far. LG started including a built-in Voice Guide with their TVs shipped in 2016, so unfortunately I can’t really use that TV at all.
When I moved and set up my own room, I purchased a 43-inch Samsung M7 Smart Monitor. It runs Tizen OS and includes a screen reader that works with some well-known apps such as YouTube and Netflix. I had always wanted to try Google TV (formerly Android TV), so I later bought a Xiaomi Mi Box S (2nd gen). It connects via HDMI, and my Samsung monitor already has it.
The main issue with the Mi Box is performance. With TalkBack enabled, it feels quite slow, and apps take a noticeable amount of time to load. This is especially obvious when using IPTV apps or file managers to play music or watch videos.
Before getting a Google TV device, it’s important to keep in mind that the experience is quite different from using an Android phone or tablet. It will never feel as fast, and some apps may not work at all or may behave differently.
Hardware Overview and Impressions
TCL is a well-known name in the TV and display industry, and their recent Google TV models really caught my attention. I bought the TCL 65V6C Google TV to see how they are doing in terms of software and accessibility.
I can’t complain about the memory and processor, as this is a mid-tier model released in early 2025. It comes with 8 GB of storage, 2 GB of RAM, and runs Google TV based on Android TV OS version 12. In terms of connectivity, the TV includes three HDMI ports and one USB-A port; there is no USB Type-C port available. It also supports Bluetooth 5.2. The TV is rated E under the EU energy efficiency standards.
The TV itself is very large and visually impressive. It has extremely slim bezels and a clean design, which looks great when wall-mounted and doesn’t take up much space visually aside from its size, of course, which is hardly something to complain about given the experience it offers.
Setup and Accessibility
The TV arrived, and I booked an installation appointment. The team came two days later to set it up. We were able to turn on TalkBack by long-pressing the mute button, which is located at the top left when holding the remote. On the right side is the power button, marked with a raised dot similar to the one commonly found on the number 5 key on many remotes.
Google TTS was able to speak Turkish out of the box, although the speech rate was quite slow for my ears, so we increased it. Once the setup was complete, we made sure the accessibility shortcut was enabled so I can turn TalkBack on and off at any time. It was disabled by default, and the only available shortcut is a long press of the mute button.
The remote includes number keys, a mode selector that lists HDMI inputs, an apps screen, and a direct shortcut to TV mode. The TV has a built-in digital satellite receiver, so you can watch terrestrial broadcasts without needing any additional hardware.
Above the arrow keys and the OK button in the center, there are three buttons from left to right: Back, Google Assistant, and Home. Long-pressing the Home button opens the Control Panel, where you can access Settings and perform quick actions related to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, display, and sound.
You can long-press the Google Assistant button and speak commands. You can even ask it to switch directly to a specific TV channel without manually selecting TV mode. That was a pleasant surprise. The system first switches to TV mode and then tunes to the requested channel.
Compared to my previous TV box, it responds much faster to voice commands. Below, there are volume up and down buttons, as well as channel up and down buttons. On each channel change, TalkBack announces both the channel number and its name. Pressing the OK button brings up information about the current program and the TV schedule, if supported.
Another surprise is that the remote can also control music playback in Spotify, allowing you to move between songs and start playback. Finally, the remote includes six dedicated shortcut buttons for TCL Live TV, Media Player, YouTube, YouTube Music, Netflix, and Prime Video. Unfortunately, these buttons cannot be customized. If any of the associated apps are uninstalled, pressing the corresponding button simply opens the apps list.
The Home screen works in two simple directions: left–right and up–down.
At the top level, you move left and right to switch between main apps such as TV, File Manager, Control Panel, YouTube, or Netflix. Each app is treated as a main section.
When an app is focused, moving down takes you into that app’s own content rather than switching to another app. For example, when YouTube is selected and you press down, you start browsing YouTube recommendations and categories.
Inside an app, left and right moves between items, while up and down moves between different rows belonging to the same app. If you move up far enough, you return to the main row again, where up and down switches to another sub-category.
Audio, Casting, and Smart Features
The TV comes with dual 10W speakers and AI-powered Dolby Atmos audio. You can either manually choose the content you want to watch or let the AI automatically adjust the sound profile based on the app you’re using. I’m genuinely satisfied with the overall sound quality and the loudness of the speakers.
You can also fine-tune the audio settings depending on your setup, whether the TV is placed on a TV stand or wall-mounted. In addition, you can connect a Bluetooth soundbar or a home theater system if you prefer external audio.
Since this is a Google TV device, it includes built-in Google Cast, allowing you to cast content directly from your phone to the TV. You can even use the TV as a Bluetooth speaker. When performing screen mirroring, the performance with TalkBack was better than I expected. It was extremely slow on my Mi Box, but here it feels much more usable. Just out of curiosity, I launched Instagram, scrolled through Reels, and mirrored the screen to the TV.
The TV also supports Google Meet. All you need is a USB webcam to start a video call on a large screen.
Apps, Input Methods, and Customization
During the initial setup, we signed in with my Google account, and the TV immediately appeared in the Google Home app as a smart TV. The Google Home app is particularly useful in situations where typing on the TV is required. Whenever a text field appears on the TV, you can open Google Home on your phone, select your TV, and a keyboard pops up on your phone. Anything you type there is instantly transferred to the active text field on the TV.
The TCL Home app itself is not very accessible, so I prefer using the Google Home app whenever I need remote or input-related features.
If you want to sideload apps on the TV, an app called Send Files to TV works well. You need to install the app both on your phone and TV to transfer files in between. It also has a really accessible file manager that is TV remote friendly so you don’t need any other file managers to find the file that you’ve transferred from your phone. As a test, I extracted my Acapela TTS app, which is not officially supported on Android TV. I sent the APK file to the TV and installed it successfully. After installation, I launched the app, signed in with my Google account, and was able to see the voices I had already purchased. I downloaded one voice and switched the system TTS to Acapela.
Compared to Google TTS, Acapela performs noticeably faster, although it takes a bit longer to load when the TV is first powered on. The good news is that I can legally use my Acapela voices on the TV, which is a big plus for me.
The Google TV launcher itself is quite slow. I can say this confidently, as I’ve tried several alternative TV launchers. Unlike Android phones or tablets, you cannot set a third-party launcher as the default launcher on Google TV. These launchers can appear as your home screen, but pressing the Home button on the remote always takes you back to the Google TV Home interface.
There are claims online about various tricks to completely bypass the Google TV launcher, but none of them worked on my TV. Even though your chosen launcher may still appear after turning the TV off and back on, pressing the Home button again forces you to manually reopen the launcher from the Apps list.
The on-screen keyboard provided by the TV is not very accessible with TalkBack. Navigating it with the arrow keys doesn’t work properly, which makes an external keyboard almost necessary. TCL also restricts enabling alternative keyboards by default. To work around this, I installed Gboard and disabled the TCL keyboard from the app settings. Since no other keyboard was active, the system then allowed me to enable Gboard and set it as the default keyboard.
One final point worth mentioning—this seems to be common across most Android TVs—is that navigation through long lists is always item by item. Even if you long-press the arrow keys, you can’t jump quickly through large lists; the focus still moves one item at a time.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, this TCL TV stands out in terms of build quality, sound performance, display, and overall product support. However, the Google TV experience still has a long way to go.
The inaccessible TCL on-screen keyboard, the noticeably slow Google TV home launcher, and the remote’s strictly one-step-at-a-time navigation are the main drawbacks. The experience may be better on flagship models, but I can’t comment on that without having tried them myself.
Most Android TV apps are customized to match the TV interface, and because of this, many of them include unlabeled buttons. In some cases, the remote cannot properly interact with certain UI elements, as they are positioned in a way that requires TalkBack to be disabled in order to activate them.
Unlike smartphones, TVs do not receive frequent software updates. This means you may eventually reach a point where the TV hardware still looks and feels brand new, but the software is significantly outdated. For this reason, I would have expected TCL to provide long-term software support similar to what LG offers with its webOS TVs.
What a great review. I enjoyed reading and helped in my decision making. Many thanks.