- RATING
The Hisense U8Q is a powerhouse of a TV that offers exceptional picture and audio quality no matter what you’re watching, what sport you’re enjoying or what game you’re playing.
The Hisense U8 ULED MiniLED smart TV is an all-round entertainment powerhouse that can provide a powerful experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, sports and games.
Tech Guide looked at the 75-inch U8QAU 4K model with an RRP of $3,999.
The size of the TV is one of its best features but there is more to this TV than just the inch measurement of the screen.
Under the hood is the Hi-View AI Engine PRO – the brains of the TV that can deliver optimised picture and audio quality in real time and pick up every little detail and enhance it.
It looks after the whole experience – picture and audio.
But this improvement can only be to the limits of the TV’s proficiencies. The great news is the Hisense U8 has stunning capabilities.
For a start it has the Mini-LED Pro backlight system which is controlled with extreme precision to ensure every pixel is looking its best whether it’s in the brightest area of the screen or in the shadows of the scene.
Viewers can enjoy up to 5000 nits brightness which means even the brightest viewing environment won’t do a thing to dull the experience.
What also helps in this situation the Anti-Reflection PRO which did a pretty good job sidestepping the glare and reflections.
We still saw some but they didn’t distract us from enjoying what we were watching.
The QLED colour filter provides outstanding colour that’s pure and natural – just like real life.
The Hisense U8Q even has a Pantone validation so it can come up with extremely accurate colour.
We saw this for ourselves when watching free-to-air TV, movies, streaming content and sport.
The colour rendering was really impressive – pure and natural.
It is not oversaturated and overly bright – this is what inferior TVs tend to do to mask any imperfections.
The black levels were also excellent as was the contrast. The dimming zones did a remarkable job putting bright colours next to darker areas without any blooming or light bleed.
And it’s got the complete HDR (high dynamic range) set of standards – Dolby Vision IQ, HDR 10+ Adaptive, HDR 10 and HLG.
This does the heavy lifting with those deeper blacks and enhanced detail in darker areas and super bright parts of the screen.
Apart from picture and sound, AI also looks after the scenario with enhancement based on what’s in the scene and energy to make the TV more power efficient.
And it sounds great as well.
We know many customers rightly focus on the picture quality but sound plays a huge part as well and the Hisense U8Q really delivers here as well.
Out of the box it has 4.1.2 multi-channel surround and Dolby Atmos through the onboard side speakers, rear subwoofers and upfiring speakers that have been tuned by Devaliet.
The sound quality is remarkable. You can easily hear the separation of the channels including the Dolby Atmos which is the result of the upfiring speakers bouncing off the ceiling and back down on your viewing position.
The quality out of the box is impressive but you can make it even better with the Hi-Concerto mode when connecting a Hisense soundbar.
This way you can utilise all the TV speakers and combine them with the soundbar to add even more richer and detailed sound.
The result is a truly cinematic experience.
The TV is also IMAX Enhanced so it’s capable of delivering IMAX picture quality and DTS powered audio which is available on the Disney+ streaming service.
Content has an aspect ratio of 1.90:1 which equates to up to 26 per cent more of the original image.
And for movie purists, there’s also Filmmaker Mode which adjusts your Picture to its original settings like aspect ratio, sound and frame rate to recreate the original vision of the filmmaker.
The Hisense U8Q is also a gamer’s paradise thanks to the native 165Hz Game Mode Ultra with VRR (variable refresh rate) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro compatibility to make your games run smoothly without screen tearing.
Another strong feature of the Hisense U8Q is the VIDAA platform which puts all your favourite streaming services and apps at your fingertips and allows for fast navigation of the features.
And it works hands-free with voice control so you can search effortlessly just by talking to the TV.
With AI onboard it also allows for more detailed searches that include what happens in the movie or TV show.
For example, you might ask to find the Spiderman movie that includes scenes set in Venice.
The redesigned remote control has shortcuts to Stan, Netflix, Prime and YouTube and has a solar panel at the bottom so there is no need to replace any batteries.
The Hisense U8 ULED MiniLED smart TV is available now in 65-inch ($2,999), 75-inch ($3,999) and 85-inch ($4,999).
VERDICT
The Hisense U8Q is a powerhouse of a TV that offers exceptional picture and audio quality no matter what you’re watching, what sport you’re enjoying or what game you’re playing.
