Hisense U7N (65U7NQTUK) 4K ULED TV Review (2024)

Hisense U7N (65U7NQTUK) 4K ULED TV Review

Just like the U7K from last year, the U7N is the second from top ULED Mini LED TV in the current 2024 range and offers a 4K VA-type panel, a quantum dot layer and a full array local dimming (FALD) Mini LED backlight containing 384 separate zones (we are testing the 65-inch). The Hisense range is positioned to appeal to a mass market audience and offer as many of the latest features possible at competitive prices.

Read the Hisense U7K review

The U7N is available in five screen sizes starting with the 55-inch 55U7NQTUK which sells for an MSRP of £1299, a 65-inch 65U7NQTUK at £1599, a 75in 75U7NQTUK at £1899, a 85 inch 85U7NQTUK at £2799 and a massive 100-inch version 100U7NQTUK at £4799.

Compared to the 2023 model line-up, Hisense UK has added in the additional 85 and 100-inch versions and managed to do so without prices skyrocketing as the real estate gets bigger. We haven’t tested the larger screen sizes, but image quality and features should be similar to this Hisense UK 65-inch review sample we have been testing for a few weeks now.

Build quality remains impressive with a good use of materials and the TV feels well screwed together, with just the panel front feeling a little wobbly. The stand is also solid and does the job while looking decent.

It is not just the build quality that impresses as the U7N supports HDR10, HDR10+, HDR10+ Adaptive, HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma), IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision IQ High Dynamic Range formats. For audio, there is support for DTS:X, IMAX dts and Dolby Atmos formats and the sound system offers 2.1 channels with a rear-facing subwoofer for added low-end weight to film soundtracks.

It is not just the build quality that impresses

Just like last year, the U7N incorporates a MediaTek MT9618 ‘Pentonic’ SoC with the OS running the company’s proprietary VIDAA smart system. The Hi-View Engine Pro utilises AI to add sharpening and other image processing in some of the picture preset modes. For accurate viewing without any unnecessary processing being applied, you can use the Filmmaker Mode and set image brightness to match your viewing room. The Filmmaker Mode is available with HDR10, HDR10+ and SDR sources and is designed to get the greyscale and colour gamut tracking as close as possible to the industry standards, so you can view content as it was mastered and intended to be seen. This is important for TVs in this market segment as owners will be less likely to go down the professional calibration route.

Gaming support on the Hisense U7N includes two full-bandwidth 48Gbps HDMI 2.1 ports with the ability to run at a maximum of 4K/144Hz with a gaming PC. With the latest generation of consoles, you get 4K/120Hz including Dolby Vision HDR, AMD FreeSync Premium VRR support, ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and eARC.

Read more about HDMI 2.1

There is also a menu-based game bar with graphic displays for instant feedback on gaming settings and features. Overall, input lag measured in at 13.2ms for 4K/60 and 5.3ms for 120Hz.

The VIDAA Smart TV system continues to look the part, with an intuitive layout to the smart TV pages and it is joined this year with a Freely tuner for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and C5 content via IPTV. The whole smart TV system looks modern and fresh with excellent app support and it feels responsive and quick to load items. The only drawback in the use of intrusive advertising banners.

The whole smart TV system looks modern and fresh with excellent app support

So, does the 2024 Hisense U7N improve on last year’s offering and does it offer value and performance in equal measure? Let’s find out…

One thing Hisense has consistently managed to pull off over the years is making their budget-conscious TVs look like more premium products. This is certainly true for the U7N with a well screwed together build quality that feels more expensive than it is.

The use of materials is good as is the stand design which is sturdy and solid, with some cable management added to the rear. There are plastics used throughout, but they are good quality and give the U7N a sturdy and solid finish.

Around the back, we have the subwoofer from the audio system and the connections, which are placed sideways and rearwards facing. To the side, we have a USB 3.0, a service jack, CI slot, two HDMI 2.0 (4K/60Hz) ports and two HDMI 2.1 (4K/144Hz, 48Gbps) ports - with eARC on HDMI 3 - an RF (DVB-T/T2/C) and satellite (DVB-S/S2) socket, 3.5mm AV in and a headphone jack. Rearwards we have a USB 2.0 port, digital audio out and a LAN.

This year we have a brand new remote control design from Hisense which includes a solar panel to charge the batteries during use. It is larger than in previous years, but it is also fully featured with direct access keys to the top for VOD services, a central direction pad and menu keys below these, with volume and channel sliders and to the bottom are number keys. The solar panel is a large section at the bottom of the remote. It is well built with a quality feel and sits neatly in the hand.

Out of the Box

As always, we factory reset the Hisense U7N and then measured the picture presets to find which is the most accurate to the industry standards, out of the box, so we can view content as it was mastered and intended to be seen. The best picture preset for this is Filmmaker Mode (FMM), which tries to follow the industry standards to view content as it was mastered and intended to be seen.

We use Portrait Displays’ Calman colour calibration software, a Murideo Seven Generator and a Klein K-10A meter profiled to a JETI Spectraval 1511-HiRes spectroradiometer for measurement and calibration.

Looking at the greyscale and gamma we can see that in Filmmaker Mode (FMM) the Hisense U7N is reasonably accurate with just an excess of red in the mid greys pulling the DeltaE errors over the threshold of three. This is not overly obvious when viewing content and is not a concern to worry about, given all other picture presets are overly blue and massively inaccurate. We would encourage Hisense just to take that little bit extra care to try and remove any errors in the FMM mode in future. For almost all users, this result is very good.

The Rec.709 SDR HD colour gamut results are also very good with no major issues to report and the DeltaE errors are low enough that there shouldn’t be any visible issues for most viewers of TV and movie content. Results are decent for this level of the market and provide a good level of image accuracy.

Calibrated

We have plenty of options when it comes to calibrating the Hisense and there is also a new Autocal feature with Calman software. We did try to get that working with our review sample, but it wasn’t running smoothly enough for us to use it at this stage. I understand this will be updated soon. We set about a manual calibration for this review but found that the level of control was not perfect with the CMS in particular remaining very coarse and somewhat inaccurate.

We did manage to get the greyscale and gamma looking very good following manual use of the menu controls with DeltaE errors averaging just one which is well below the visible threshold of three, meaning there are no visible issues with any TV or film content.

Rec.709 SDR HD colour gamut results are very good with no major issues in saturation tracking to the standards. The 100% points are over the Rec.709 gamut size, but we concentrated on the 75% and below points, as that is where the vast majority of our viewing takes place and here the accuracy was good.

As we do with all our TV reviews we used the most accurate picture preset that gets as close as possible to presenting HDR content as it was mastered and intended to be seen. With the Hisense U7N that setting is HDR Filmmaker Mode which follows the PQ EOTF ST.2084 standard, D65 white point and the DCI-P3 colour gamut within Rec.2020. Dynamic Tone Mapping (Active) was switched off during the testing as it deviates from the industry standards.

As we always do with our HDR testing, we started by measuring the peak brightness across a number of window sizes from 1% to 100%. The Hisense U7N measured 1130 nits on an industry-standard 10% window and 658 nits fullscreen in the most accurate Filmmaker Mode. This is an improvement over last year's U7K model, with better highlight brightness. However, it is not all positive and with 25% coverage being close to 1250 nits, it creates an imbalance in the HDR image with mid tones being too bright, whereas it should be the much smaller windows that are the brightest, as those represent specular highlights.

The windows (1, 2 and 5%) are much lower than the 10% results, meaning that the image is missing dynamic range and contrast as the TV is trying to combat blooming artefacts. By taking this approach it causes a lack of dynamic range and an imbalance in the HDR image making specular highlights not as bright as they should be and mid tones look overly bright and washed out.

Moving to PQ EOTF tracking to the ST.2084 standard and the Hisense U7N in Filmmaker Mode, with the local dimming at the default of Mid, we can see that the tone mapping is decent with good tracking of the standards before a gentle roll-off to the peak brightness capabilities of the set. That does point to the issues we have already mentioned with specular highlights losing dynamic range as they are not as bright as they should be.

While the Wide Colour Gamut performance is short of the entire DCI-P3 gamut coverage, it is very good at this level of the market, with accurate saturation tracking and good colour brightness, thanks to the QD layer and panel brightness capabilities. However, this is dampened somewhat by the hard clipping and over-brightening of the PQ curve which does detract from the overall HDR10 experience. Dolby Vision did track much better thanks to its use of dynamic metadata matching better with the TV set's native capabilities.

We measured BT2020 at 70% XY and 74% UV with P3 coming in at 95% XY and 98% UV. These are smaller results than we measured on last year’s U7K model.

We are testing a 65-inch Hisense U7N which has been provided to us for review by Hisense UK. It was a brand-new unopened example. The picture quality should be similar for the other screen sizes available in the range, but we haven’t personally checked or measured those at this point.

Starting with screen uniformity; displaying a 5% brightness slide the Hisense U7N has edges that are slightly brighter than the centre of the panel with some clouding being visible even at this low brightness level in dim viewing surroundings. This is much less noticeable once you introduce ambient lighting to the viewing environment.

Moving up the brightness slides we noted darker edges to the panel and slightly lighter central areas, with some Dirty Screen Effect (DSE) also present and noticeable. Uniformity is patchy in places and sports content, where we have pitches that are a more uniform colour and cameras panning over them, highlights this DSE and makes it more noticeable. This is true in both dark and bright viewing environments, with bright room viewing making the noted issues less noticeable.

... at this price point, the Hisense U7N handles motion very well

We noted that motion with 24fps content was very good with correct pulldown applied resulting in no induced judder being seen. Movement is very good with no artefacts or trails behind objects that are travelling quickly through the frame. 50Hz broadcast is also displayed well with no obvious signs of micro stutters (though they are visible now and again for the eagle-eyed) and overall, at this price point, the Hisense U7N handles motion very well.

Adding in motion interpolation produces smooth-looking images that also exhibit edge break up and other artefacts the more the processing is applied. Soap Opera Effect is also a by-product of using the motion smoothing features on the Hisense, with edges and fine detail also suffering from break-up and smearing effects. We always suggest using the non-smoothing settings (or the off switch).

The video processing and upscaling are also good on the U7N but the SD channels do tend to look the worst with soft and fuzzy edges and a lack of definition, as you would expect on a 4K panel. Broadcasts in 1080i look impressive for the majority of the time, however, we did see some softness and image artefacts from time to time, with over-the-air broadcast. Freely, did look good for the majority of our viewing, but this could vary depending on the channel content. Gardeners World looks good on most TVs and the U7N handled this with aplomb, looking detailed and sharp with accurate colours.

... Freely, did look good for the majority of our viewing

As we found with last year's U7K, watching SDR TV and film content on the U7N in a normal well-lit living room poses no problems at all and images look natural and colourful. The inherent traits of LCD are masked to good effect when used on such surroundings and the Hisense is capable of producing some very bright, yet accurate image quality. Blacks can at times look a little washed out, but for the majority of our bright room testing, they appeared to be deep and fluid with little sign of black crush when set up correctly in Filmmaker Mode. Gardeners World looks good on most TVs thanks to the care taken with its filming and cinematography and the U7N handled this with aplomb, looking detailed and sharp with accurate colours.

Moving to HDR10 (including HDR10+) content and we do see some niggling issues with the U7N, which are similar to those we encountered last year with the U7K. Because of the way it is handling HDR10 content, either streaming or external source, the image PQ EOTF is washed out and displays artefacts that shouldn’t be visible. This appears to be an upshot of the new processor and the way that the set is tone-mapping HDR10 content with its blooming suppression added to overly bright mid-tones and an EOTF result that just appears to be washed out. It doesn’t appear to be mastering metadata-related either. It is one for Hisense to try and resolve as it does detract slightly from an overall impressive performance standpoint. It is encouraging that Hisense is actively trying to resolve and improve image performance year on year, so this will hopefully be tweaked soon. It is certainly something that will be more noticeable to enthusiast users and probably missed by the majority of consumers, but it still needs to be addressed.

... it does detract slightly from an overall impressive performance

Dolby Vision is much more successful as it uses dynamic metadata which tells the set how to map the content to its capabilities. This is certainly an improvement over last year, where Dolby Vision Dark mode looked too dark compared to the reference. Dolby Vision IQ works well for those who will be using the U7N in a normal environment with good lighting as it adjusts the gamma and tone mapping to match the room conditions, but be aware this does add in undefeatable processing and image smoothing. The best approach is to use the light sensor with Dolby Vision Dark for bright room viewing.

In terms of contrast performance of the Hisense U7N in HDR picture modes measured an ANSI 4x4 on/off contrast at 5895:1 with local dimming set to high and 4976:1 with it set to off.

The Hisense U7N employs a 2.1 sound system with a dedicated subwoofer unit on the rear of the panel. There is also support for DTS:X, Dolby Atmos and IMAX dts sound formats.

... sound is clean and clear with good localisation of dialogue with normal TV show

In terms of sound quality, we found the U7N is perfectly serviceable for everyday TV viewing in a normal living room. The sound is clean and clear with good localisation of dialogue with normal TV shows and dramas. With film content, there is a lack of bass weight and things can start to get distorted at higher volumes, so a soundbar is certainly a must-buy if you intend to watch movies on the U7N. For all other uses it does the job well within the limitations of the speakers and power on offer.

Hisense U7N (65U7NQTUK) 4K ULED TV Review