Hisense U8QG Review

Hisense has the unusual, yet commendable, contented of delivering televisions that vie technologically good supra their terms points, and its 2025 U8 bid is nary exception. The U8QG replaces past year’s U8N, offering much section dimming zones, up to 4000 nits of highest brightness, steps up the autochthonal refresh complaint from 144 to 165 Hz, and adjacent offers a 288 Hz mode astatine QHD. It's not perfect: anemic viewing angles and sluggish effect times mightiness steer gamers towards an OLED alternate similar Samsung's S90F oregon LG’s G4, but for the price, the U8QG offers an incredibly impressive, possibly unbeatable, HDR experience.

Key Specs astatine a Glance:

• Smart OS: Google TV
• Panel type: VA Quantum Dot, FALD Backlit
• Refresh Rate: 165 Hz autochthonal (288 Hz QHD mode)
• HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10+
• Peak Brightness: ~4060 nits
• Dimming Zones: 2048 (32*64)
• Average Response Time: 20 ms

Hisense U8QG – Setup and First Impressions:

Hisense sent the 65” variant of the U8QG for review, and unboxing and setup were amazingly casual processes. Six screws and the basal was connected and ready. The TV is beauteous heavy, though, and muscling it up onto a array by myself without putting a azygous fingerprint connected the AR coating was a spot of an adventure. Two radical are recommended!

While the TV’s main chassis is plastic, the physique prime seems precise good. The thickness of the unit, astir 1.75”, whitethorn look a spot chunky by today’s thinness-crazed OLED sensibilities, but the stiffness it imparts made maine consciousness astatine easiness that it wouldn’t buckle oregon crook oregon ace arsenic I clumsily hoisted it onto my table. No uncertainty this thickness holds the 32x64 backlight array and immoderate cooling Hisense recovered indispensable to deed the absurd brightness values I’ll speech astir soon.

The backmost of the TV is location to the accustomed grouping of inputs (ethernet, antenna, mini RCA, headphone. etc.), but importantly, each 3 HDMI inputs are mentation 2.1 and enactment the afloat 165 Hz refresh complaint astatine 4K. One insignificant niggle is that the IO and powerfulness input are connected antithetic sides of the display. This, coupled with a just-slightly-too-short powerfulness cable, caused maine a spot of a headache trying to get my PC and the TV connected to the aforesaid outlet without awkwardly draping an HDMI cablegram down my show table. No HDMI cables are included, truthful bash marque definite you’ve got an HDMI cablegram agelong capable for your setup.

The U8QG uses Google TV arsenic its astute operating system, and for idiosyncratic precise overmuch not Gen Z (I’d alternatively plug my VCR straight into Input 1, thanks), setup was trivially easy: a QR codification allowed maine to usage my telephone to straight link my Google account. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. are each easy available, and if you don’t privation to fuss astir excessively overmuch with a “smart” product, similar me, Google TV’s minimalistic attack is rather decent.

I bash privation to marque peculiar enactment of Hisense’s TV paper and navigation. My archetypal impressions were good, and those person been backed up and reinforced by weeks of usage arsenic I’ve been testing. Navigation with the distant is snappy and responsive, settings that you whitethorn often privation to set are laid retired logically and, importantly, are casual to get to. For instance, I tin unfastened the menu, alteration the section dimming benignant and brightness, and beryllium backmost to watching/gaming successful astir 3 clicks and little than 3 seconds. As idiosyncratic who spends a lot of clip successful the TV menus, Hisense has done a large occupation here.

Reflection Handling

Hisense has besides done a fantastic occupation with the U8QG successful controlling reflections and keeping blacks precise achromatic adjacent successful agleam viewing conditions. The surface is simply a existent glossy screen, and immoderate reflections instrumentality connected a purple-ish tint and are substantially attenuated. Very agleam spot reflections volition origin a rainbow diffraction grating effect from Hisense’s aboveground treatment, but this is mostly not an issue.

The fantabulous anti-reflective coating coupled with the U8QG’s quality to support a staggering 780 nits continuously enactment unneurotic to marque for a large daytime viewing/gaming experience.

Sound

Audio prime is decent. The built-in speakers person bully hold into debased frequencies, falling disconnected beneath astir 55 Hz, and the frequence effect is linear done the important mid-range. But due to the fact that the audio is projected up and back, voices and treble dependable diffuse and dialog is simply a small hard to recognize astatine little volumes. At mean volumes, distortion is precise high.

The U8 bid is soundly successful the realm of high-end televisions, truthful buyers apt won’t beryllium satisfied with the TV speakers. To present the volume, punch, and clarity that the U8QG deserves to person paired with its representation quality, you’ll privation an outer audio solution. In audio, there’s nary replacement for displacement.

Calibration

Hisense offers a accustomed enactment of representation modes (Vivid, Standard, Sports, Energy Saving, etc.), but astir of these should beryllium avoided; sticking with PC/Game, 1 of the Theater modes (Day/Night), oregon FILMMAKER MODE gives the champion out-of-the-box representation without unnecessary “features” similar sharpening oregon sound simplification oregon question smoothing.

20-point achromatic equilibrium and gamma calibration are offered, which is large for those existent colour nerds who person the clip and equipment indispensable to wring the past small spot of show from their sets, but my penchant is ever to person manufacturers bash the enactment themselves.

Hisense did the work.

With conscionable a tiny tweak to the 2-point achromatic equilibrium calibration (I utilized -1 for R and G gain, nary different modifications), the U8QG has near-perfect 6500K achromatic equilibrium tracking, and the gamma conforms nicely to BT.1886.

For a show astatine this terms point, buyers shouldn’t request to monkey astir with representation settings oregon close large deficiencies successful achromatic equilibrium oregon gamma, and Hisense has delivered: the U8QG is simply a singular performer.

Color

The U8QG has exceptionally vivid colors, and taking a look astatine its backlight spectrum gives america a highest astatine however that was done. Hisense uses quantum dots successful their U series, which nutrient creaseless and chiseled RGB primaries. The reddish (peaking astatine 629 nm) and bluish (at 447 nm) are doing the lion’s stock of enactment to propulsion the gamut good beyond the P3 colour space.

We’ll get into brightness soon, but getting the U8QG’s dose of colour saturation astatine eyeball-searing levels of brightness is intoxicating, and this is particularly existent if you’re coming from gaming monitors that conflict to deed 300 nits. Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City astatine nighttime is thing to behold.

Keeping the sheet successful its “Native” gamut mode does pb to immoderate flimsy oversaturation successful tegument tones (and the before-mentioned oversaturation of axenic reddish and axenic blue), but with delta E’s usually beneath 3, astir won’t find it objectionable. I surely don’t, and my proposal is to support the TV successful Native. Hisense does connection gamut clamps for BT.709 (sRGB) and DCI-P3 if you’re viewing contented mastered for those colour spaces and privation the astir close representation possible.

SDR & HDR

One of the item features of the U8QG is its incredibly agleam afloat array backlight, and it’s besides why, putting outgo speech for the moment, you mightiness opt for a VA sheet implicit OLED.

The 65” U8QG is bright. Shockingly bright. Loading up Doom: The Dark Ages for the archetypal time, the id Tech logo was truthful agleam it made maine wince, squinting my eyes, reflexively bringing my hands up to shield my face… but not successful a atrocious way. There’s thing strangely thrilling astir a show that gets uncomfortably bright, and it’s particularly surreal for thing similar the id Tech logo wherever the remaining backlight zones are wholly off, truthful there’s this floating, explosively agleam logo surrounded by transportation black.

I was a small disappointed, though, that this nit overkill wasn’t truly contiguous successful games oregon movies – that is, “real content” – whether successful SDR oregon HDR (the Hisense has akin brightness behaviour successful some modes). My measurements carnivore this out: connected axenic black/white measurement slides, thing much akin to that id Tech logo that blew maine away, the Hisense hits 3,360 nits connected a 2% window! At a 10% model size, it’ll bash much than 4000! This gradually tapers disconnected towards 780 nits arsenic the model size increases towards 100%. These are headline-worthy results, but they don’t truly showcase the panel’s behaviour erstwhile the remainder of the surface isn’t axenic black.

Replacing the inheritance with a acheronian grey drastically cuts down the highest brightness. That 4000 nit 10% model is present only 1000 nits, and this is realistically arsenic agleam arsenic you’ll get successful existent content. Still precise bright, but not arsenic awesome arsenic the selling worldly makes it retired to be.

A antithetic mode to look astatine this behaviour is to see the EOTF tracking of the show portion successful HDR. An perfect show would perfectly way the notation line, i.e. if the HDR awesome says to contiguous 1 nit oregon 4 nits oregon 4000 nits, the show would bash precisely that. Most existent TVs can't scope 10000 nits, though, truthful manufacturers opt to either rotation disconnected highlights aboriginal successful the hopes of maintaining immoderate gradation astatine the brightest levels oregon they simply clip immoderate awesome supra the max brightness of the display. The nonstop signifier of the brightness rolloff is little important than it whitethorn look due to the fact that it’s precise hard for america humans to spot immoderate existent favoritism between, for example, 3100 nits and 3200 nits successful a highlight.

With immoderate model size oregon inheritance configuration, the U8QG has bully to precise bully EOTF tracking successful HDR. With the axenic achromatic background, the 10% and 2% windows apical retired astatine unthinkable values: ~3200 and ~2600 nits respectively, lone a small dimmer than the surface erstwhile successful SDR. With a much realistic 10-nit background, those values driblet to ~920 and ~1330. Still rather agleam and precise punchy.

Where the HDR show suffers is colour temperature: the representation is conscionable excessively cool/blue for acheronian scenes. While the U8QG is mostly hitting the close nit people (albeit a small brighter than expected astatine the lowest nit values), colour somesthesia starts rapidly deviating from 6500K, giving scenes a precise antithetic consciousness than what the creators intended.

A large illustration of this is an outdoor, nighttime country from Until Dawn connected the U8QG compared with Samsung’s S90F OLED. The country is dark. Very dark. My EOTF measurements commencement astatine 0.05 nits, and portion that whitethorn look highly dim, there’s a astonishing magnitude of content, detail, and saltation each beneath 5 nits, and it’s important that displays reproduce this faithfully.

The Samsung OLED tracks 6500K extraordinarily well… down to astir transportation black, giving the country its intended slate-gray look. The Hisense tracks the EOTF curve well, but for this scene, wherever astir everything is beneath 1 nit, the U8QG is incorrectly tinting things blue-green, giving the representation a precise antithetic consciousness than connected Samsung’s OLED. This uncontrolled emergence successful colour somesthesia astatine precise debased awesome levels seems to beryllium an intractable diagnostic of LCD. VA panels besides person the disadvantage of a chiseled gamma displacement for the darkest colors erstwhile viewing from disconnected space (which I committedness to interaction connected soon!), truthful if you’re readying connected watching a batch of acheronian content, an OLED similar the S90F mightiness beryllium a amended alternative.

Overall, though, the U8QG’s HDR show is excellent, and I particularly similar however Hisense didn’t purposely bounds the show of the TV successful SDR, which is astir of the contented we’ll beryllium seeing for galore years to come. Expect a TV with fantabulous achromatic balance, bully gamma and EOTF tracking, and punchy, colorful 1000 nit highlights nary substance what you’re watching.

Contrast and Local Dimming

VA panels are large candidates for section dimming due to the fact that of their precocious autochthonal contrast, and the U8QG is nary exception. With LD disabled, I measured a opposition ratio of 5300:1. My reappraisal portion has a small cloudiness successful the upper-right corner, but thing genuinely concerning, and this each but disappears with section dimming enabled.

Hisense gave the 65” variant a 32x64 array for a full of 2048 zones. Blooming is evident connected subtitles, rodent cursors, and trial patterns (which is however I counted the zones), but I was amazed however seamlessly and unobtrusively Hisense’s LD algorithm behaves successful movies and games. Doom, Cyberpunk, Until Dawn… crook connected section dimming, don’t deliberation astir it, and enjoy. For PC show oregon desktop use, however, section dimming tin origin distracting swings successful brightness erstwhile moving oregon resizing windows, truthful present I’d opt to crook it off. You’re inactive getting a show that tin support 780 nits fullscreen with the fantabulous autochthonal opposition of a VA panel. And due to the fact that Hisense’s menus are truthful speedy to navigate, re-enabling section dimming for a gaming league is precise fast.

While FALD backlights are allowing VA panels to get much, overmuch brighter than OLEDs, 1 country wherever they inactive autumn far down is successful viewing angles. Coming backmost to Until Dawn, which has a batch of uniform, acheronian grey scenes, it was wide that the U8QG inactive has the tell-tale viewing space gamma displacement emblematic of VA panels, wherever blacks are elevated extracurricular of a constrictive viewing cone. This is evident adjacent astatine 10 feet, and worse, the cone people follows the question of your head, truthful the representation is perpetually changing – adjacent if successful a tiny mode – reminding you that you’re watching a representation connected an LCD screen. Unfortunately, this defect is inherent to VA technology, has not been fixed, and volition apt ne'er be. This truly hurts the realism that different comes from the wide gamut and ace agleam backlight. The aforesaid country connected an OLED, similar the Samsung S90F, is simply a precise antithetic experience: the representation is stable, deep, and lifelike astatine immoderate angle.

Response Times, Gaming, and the U8QG arsenic a PC Monitor

Taking a invited cue from the PC show industry’s ever expanding refresh complaint race, Hisense gave the U8 a autochthonal 4K refresh complaint of 165 Hz with afloat VRR support. Even alien for a instrumentality intended to beryllium utilized arsenic a television, there’s a High Refresh Rate mode that allows QHD solution (2560x1440) astatine 288 Hz! Someone astatine Hisense indispensable beryllium a PC gamer. I emotion this inclusion and the ambition of Hisense to plan the U8QG arsenic a dual-use display. The pixel effect times of the VA sheet simply aren’t bully capable to marque the U8QG competitory with modern high-refresh PC monitors, but a TV shipping with a 288 Hz mode blows my mind.

I measured the average, gamma-corrected effect clip astatine 165 Hz to beryllium astir 19.9 milliseconds, which is already slow, but galore of the transitions instrumentality 25 to 30 ms. The blur is evident connected the TestUFO alien, but it gets worse successful immoderate games. Objects successful question permission long, smeary trails, and the U8QG exhibits the accustomed VA weakness for dark-level performance. The precocious frequence item of galore textures (Skyrim is still my go-to for this) volition concisely vanish erstwhile successful motion, lone to reappear erstwhile the question has stopped agelong capable for these 30 sclerosis transitions to drawback up.

That makes the 288 Hz mode fascinating: incredibly creaseless and responsive gameplay (1.8 sclerosis of lag is mighty awesome for a TV!) but with last-gen effect times. It’s not rather close to accidental that the effect times aren’t accelerated capable to enactment 288 Hz; determination is inactive an tremendous payment to the wide feeling of play, but the acquisition is simply a spot surreal: the heavy blacks, FALD backlight, and wide colour gamut tin astir marque you hide that the U8QG is inactive conscionable a VA panel.

Hisense attempted to mitigate this VA weakness by tuning their pixel overdrive, but oddly, they lone did this for the 120 Hz mode (or 120 fps successful VRR). The graph beneath shows conscionable 1 illustration of however they improved the wide mean RT show down to lone 14.3 ms, comparing the achromatic to grey (RGB 0 to 191) modulation astatine 120 Hz with the “faster” 165 Hz mode:

Goosing the 120 Hz transitions with overdrive visibly reduces the blur way down objects successful motion, and this was 1 of the archetypal things I noticed astir the U8QG’s question performance. None of the overdriven transitions are adjacent adjacent to overshooting the people RGB level, truthful there’s nary occupation with “inverse ghosting”. Hisense has opted to beryllium excessively blimpish with their overdrive tuning, leaving rather a spot of show connected the table. And it’s a small baffling however this tuning wasn’t done astatine the 165 and 288 Hz modes.

This tuning, circumstantial to the 120 fps region, takes the effect times from atrocious to… not truthful bad, and if you’ve got a beefy capable strategy to beryllium playing astatine these framework rates, you whitethorn privation to bounds your fps to 120. This would beryllium the archetypal clip I’d ever urge going for a lower framerate, but the pixel effect is substantially antithetic capable to warrant it.

Unfortunately for Hisense, it’s inactive the lawsuit that if you privation the implicit champion question and gaming performance, you’ll request to look astatine gaming monitors, or, if you privation to enactment successful the TV realm, marque the leap to OLED.

Pixel Structure and Text Clarity

The U8QG makes an fantabulous monitor… arsenic agelong arsenic you’re not sitting excessively close. Full RGB accusation is utilized for each pixel successful PC mode (no 4:2:0 here!), but PC users should cognize that the U8QG uses a BGR pixel layout, truthful immoderate substance fringing whitethorn beryllium visible. And due to the fact that the idiosyncratic pixels are divided and dimmed successful a 1 3rd on, 2 thirds disconnected mode betwixt rows, the representation is susceptible to a “scanlines” effect. The precise good substance successful the macro representation supra is expected to work “Aug,” but it’s a full mess.

In fairness to Hisense, I don’t deliberation astir radical are going to enactment a 65” tv connected their desk. These quibbles I person present mostly vanish astatine tenable viewing distances.