After releasing its first TVs with Google’s Android TV software last June, at this year’s CES the Chinese electronics giant announced that it will be shipping TVs in 2021 that run on the search giant’s new Google TV software.
It is unclear which of TCL’s television lines will run the software or what features the TVs will have. In 2020 TCL kept Roku, its longtime software partner for its popular televisions, as the software platform for much of its line, including its highest-end 6-Series and 8-Series TVs. Android TV, at least in the US, was relegated to being an option for the brand’s more affordable 3-Series and 4-Series TVs.
TCL is updating its 6-Series at CES with 2021 models sporting 8K resolutions, though the new TVs that it has announced thus far all run Roku’s platform, not Google TV.
Introduced last year alongside the Chromecast with Google TV, Google’s new TV software features a revamped user interface that better integrates finding shows and movies from a host of different apps and services. In our review, we found Google TV to be a marked improvement over what was offered in Android TV.
Although TCL already has some Android TVs on the market, it remains unclear if those televisions will be getting a software upgrade to Google TV.
A TCL spokeswoman declined to comment on which of its lines would be getting the option for Google TV or about the upgrade plan for current Android TVs, saying it will have more information to share on both “later this year.”
In embracing Google TV, TCL joins Sony, which announced last week that its entire 2021 lineup of televisions will run Google’s latest software.
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