You’ll be hard-pressed to discover a higher 55-inch TV—a minimum of within the decrease finish of the market—than Hisense’s mannequin H9F. At $600 ($900 for the 65-inch), it’s $100 lower than the lately reviewed Samsung Q60R, and it affords twice the height brightness, plus the identical correct quantum dot coloration. It doesn’t render element and blacks as sharply as a few of its rivals, however the total picture and HDR are excellent for the cash.
Design and specs
The H9F is among the nicer wanting TVs I’ve seen lately. It sports activities a really, very skinny bezel, and is barely rather less then three inches at it’s thickest. There’s a 400mm by 200mm VESA mount level, and the 54.5-inch (55-inch class) mannequin I examined weighs solely somewhat greater than 33 kilos.
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Though not as skinny as some, the Hisense H9F nonetheless wall-mounts effectively.
I particularly appreciated the good-looking removable stand that mounts nearer to the middle of the TV than many, permitting it to take a seat on narrower platforms. It’s my favourite after the iMac-like pedestal on the Samsung Q90R. The two halves additionally screw in from the underside, relatively than from the again, which makes it a lot simpler to safe them whereas the TV mendacity safely display-side up. That creates a barely weaker be a part of, however don’t play handball off of it and also you’ll be effective.
Hisense retains a lot of the H9F’s electronics within the traditional TV fanny-pack. Note that the precise back-facing ports are empty on this image. See the picture under to see what they’re crammed with.
The energy wire extrudes from the right-hand again aspect of the unit and the ports are recessed right into a nook on the left. Present are 4 HDMI 2.0a ports, two USB ports, coax for antenna and cable connections, ethernet, and RCA composite video and stereo audio inputs. There’s additionally a headphone jack and 3.5 mm RS-232C port.
Hisense offers all of the ports you’ll discover in TVs costing extra, together with RS-232c for A/V system management.
The decision is 3840 by 2160 (4K UHD), quantum dots are used to reinforce the colour, and there are 100 zones within the direct backlight array. The bigger 65-inch mannequin has 132 zones.
Remote and interface
While motel-style in look, the H9F’s distant is environment friendly and simple sufficient to be taught. The predominant onscreen interface comes courtesy of Google’s Android TV, and Hisense has rendered it suitably minimalist by way of the variety of icons. Android TV is simple to get round, and naturally helps each well-liked app within the universe in addition to fairly a a number of that different smart-TV working techniques don’t. VLC—which I exploit at house instead of DLNA when doable—involves thoughts. Not that there’s something mistaken with the Media app that Hisense offers for native streaming or playback from USB mass media.
The TV settings menu is a separate deal, properly organized, and at all times accessible with out fully displacing or pausing what you’re watching. Adjustments to the picture are utilized immediately, which is helpful certainly for tweaking. There are superior settings—resembling white stability, RGB ranges, and so on.—for many who need to calibrate their TV. Most TVs today come effectively adjusted from the manufacturing facility, so until you’re serious about a one-percent distinction you seemingly can’t see, avoid these.
Hisense makes use of Android TV because it’s predominant interface. Apps galore and simple navigation.
There’s no grid information to indicate you what leisure lies sooner or later, however there’s a good channel itemizing that permits you to choose favorites. When the checklist of favorites is chosen within the channel information, the channel change button skips others. It’s the little issues.
Performance
The H9F delivers very correct coloration because of using quantum dots, and it generates lots of peak brightness (1,218 nits in my measurements) for dramatic HDR (Dolby Vision and HDR10). Indeed, with most motion pictures, the overwhelming majority of the time, I actually loved my time viewing the H9F.
Fine particulars, then again, are a tad missing in definition on the default settings. At least in comparison with a TV such because the Samsung Q60R. Increasing the sharpness stage even reasonably past the default revealed that the H9F doesn’t cope with vibrant particulars notably effectively. Hisense is hardly alone on that rating.
When a TV is producing the excessive peak brightness ranges requested by the HDR materials we take a look at with, shifting vibrant highlights in regards to the display with out moiré, shimmer, flicker, and so forth turns into an increasing number of tough by the nit. Unless you utilize an entire lot of processing energy (because the costlier TVs do), or double down on the pixels (as 8K TVs do), you gained’t get a picture that’s each sharp and artifact-free (comparatively—no producer has achieved perfection on that depend).
The upshot is that some distributors dial down the definition of particulars to make the general picture smoother. You lose acuity, however fewer prospects. It’s additionally a matter of desire: If you want easy, the H9F’s processing is excellent at its default sharpness setting (and a hair larger).
The H9F really glitched much less within the more durable coloration, line drawing, sample, and so on. exams than the Samsung Q60R I’ve been evaluating it to. Motion compensation was additionally fairly good, however there’s fairly little bit of bleed from the array backlighting. A shifting star area seems as if the celebrities are surrounded by a skinny strata of plasma gasoline, or a minimum of the Hollywood model of such. With an OLED, you’ll see nothing however pure black surrounding the celebrities. With a greater LCD TV, you gained’t get black, however you gained’t get as a lot “gas”.
HDR and coloration are Hisense H9F’s strengths. Black and sharp particulars should not.
Note that Hisense is creating a way of stacking two LCD layers, utilizing the one in again because the filter for the precise backlighting, chopping down on mild bleed tremendously. By all studies, it units a brand new normal in black ranges for LED-backlit LCD TVs. We need to evaluation that one, although to date it’s solely been seen at commerce reveals. It’s not a straightforward trick to tug off, because the hole between layers have to be precise all through or distortion will wreck the entire deal.
The H9F’s display uniformity was good, if not wonderful, because the corners had been ever-so-slightly darkish and cloudy. Off-axis viewing was greater than acceptable, and glare wasn’t a noticeable difficulty both.
An excellent deal
Overall, with the overwhelming majority of fabric, I’m sure you’ll just like the H9F: It delivers wonderful peak brightness, and coloration will take a TV a good distance. In this case, to a high spot on the quick checklist within the value vary.
That mentioned, should you’re searching for deep blacks and sharp element, you may need to spend a bit extra. Compare the Hisense H9F to the Samsung Q60R and the TCL 6-series.