Hisense U7N TV Review: Serious Skills, Minimal Price

Everybody wants something for nothing—or astatine slightest arsenic adjacent to thing arsenic they tin get. When astir radical inquire maine which TV to buy, they usually springiness maine a fund of astir $300 for a 55-inch, oregon maybe $500 for a 65-inch model. I get it, we each similar to prevention money, but if you tin agelong that fund a spot further, things truly commencement to get good.

Hisense’s U7 bid epitomizes the worth of investing supra the baseline. It tin merchantability for astir $1,000 for a 65-inch model, but its thoroughfare terms is regularly $800 oregon less. The caller U7N steps up successful immoderate notable ways supra the already large U7K, offering somewhat higher brightness, amended wide backlighting power to present deeper achromatic levels, alongside quantum dot colors bursting with vibrancy. It’s besides got fantabulous gaming features for its people and an improved Google TV interface for a coagulated all-around upgrade.

You’re inactive dealing with compromises, including throwing the dice connected immoderate quality-control issues similar mediocre surface uniformity. If you’re much persnickety and little of a cutthroat bargain hunter, you’ll privation to see the shockingly agleam Hisense U8N (8/10, WIRED Recommends) oregon adjacent Sony’s posh Bravia 7 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) connected sale. Otherwise, the U7N is simply a tempting bump supra the basal for those acceptable for the existent spectacle of 4K HDR.

Mostly Simple Setup

Putting the U7N unneurotic is amazingly easy. I should cognize since I’ve gotten the pleasance of doing it twice; the archetypal exemplary I received was damaged successful shipping.

Even first-timers volition find the hardware assembly breezy. The sheet is refreshing airy (just implicit 42 pounds for the 65-inch exemplary I reviewed), and the caller pedestal-style stand, which uses 2 legs adjoined by a integrative plate, clicks unneurotic successful seconds without screws. It's besides overmuch much stylish than the anterior U7K’s duck-skate legs. The lone caveat is simply a brace of cablegram guides that protrude unappealingly astatine the backmost of each leg.

Hisense’s mentation of Google TV makes the bundle setup supremely intuitive, particularly if you’ve got immoderate Google services. The app-based strategy connected to my web close away, and acknowledgment to my erstwhile logins, it automatically acceptable up dependable adjunct matching and utilized my saved Google passwords to log successful to immoderate apps. I emotion utilizing my Google Photos arsenic a surface saver, and it's casual to alteration the Ambient Mode later. The interface is beauteous responsive, isolated from a inclination to mute the measurement for a 2nd oregon 2 erstwhile rewinding oregon fast-forwarding.

Optimizing the representation prime is much onerous, though it’s not excessively hard erstwhile you larn Hisense’s quirks. As usual, I urge switching the representation mode to 1 of the cinema-based options for astir content. In SDR, the Theater Night and Filmmaker modes are my favorite, portion Theater Day provides much spark if you person a batch of ambient light. The U7N is among the fewer TVs successful its people agleam capable to usage Dolby Vision Dark regularly, which I employed for each but the murkiest contented adjacent successful mean lighting. I near the Local Dimming and Peak Brightness settings connected High successful each modes, but you tin set highest brightness aboriginal if it's excessively hot.

The TV's optical airy sensor, which adjusts surface brightness based connected country lighting, is confusing. Most TVs supply a planetary mounting you tin crook disconnected successful the Ambient Light oregon Eco settings, which I usually crook disconnected for amended accuracy (and due to the fact that I don't similar my TV dimming without warning). Hisense builds it into each Picture Mode alternatively inconsistently. For example, the mounting is disconnected by default successful the HDR Filmmaker Mode but connected for SDR Filmmaker. Dolby Vision Dark, designed arsenic the astir close Dolby Vision setting, besides has the airy sensor connected by default. If you similar to beryllium successful power of your TV’s dimming tendencies, you’ll privation to marque definite the sensor is disconnected for each mode you use, and marque definite to power each mode from Current to All Sources.