Hisense U8H (55U8HQ) 4K Mini LED TV Review (2024)

Hisense U8H (55U8HQ) 4K Mini LED TV Review

The Hisense U8HQ is an entry point to Mini LED and comes at a value price point that will appeal to many. There are the usual drawbacks with LCD technology, even using Mini LED, with DSE (Dirty Screen Effect) and clouding due to uneven panel uniformity, with halo effects seen around bright objects against black backgrounds. Used in a normal living room environment with good ambient lighting and watching directly onto the screen, the image quality is good with natural colours and reasonable upscaling and motion. The image also measures accurately out of the box in the Filmmaker Mode which means that users could see content as it was mastered and intended to be seen in SDR. HDR on the Hisense U8H has over 1400 nits in the most accurate picture mode, although haloing and blooming are issues within certain scenes and become distracting at times, and blooming suppression hinders small highlight areas by making them darker to try and mitigate haloing around them. Off-axis viewing is also a downside, even using the IPS panel, but head-on and the image quality for the price point is decent. Gaming is also well catered for with two HDMI 2.1 inputs compatible with 4K/120, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). If you are looking for a value option TV for a bright living room, second room or gaming, the Hisense U8H offers a good mix of features, all the current HDR formats including Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive and provides picture quality that is best described as mixed at this level of the LCD market with its Mini LED local dimming backlight.

The UK version of the Hisense U8H is completely different from the model of the same name available in the US. It is important to note as the US U8H offers a different performance as it uses a different panel and Mini LED backlight with a far greater number of zones.

So with that out of the way, the UK model of the 55-inch U8HQ uses an IPS-ADS panel with a Mini LED FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) backlight with 112 zones. Its two HDMI 2.1 inputs means it could appeal to gamers and our Best Gaming TVs article will provide plenty of further options too.

It is available in this 55-inch version we have for review as well as 65- and 75-inch screen sizes and pricing is at the value end of the market, with this 55-inch review model available for £899 in November 2022.

... the US U8H offers a different performance as it uses a different panel and Mini LED backlight

In terms of features the U8H offers up all available HDR formats and variants such as Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10, HDR10+ Adaptive and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) plus, Hisense boast a peak brightness of 1300 nits and we’ll come back to that in the measurement area of the review. In terms of accurate picture presets the U8HQ provides IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Modes to provide content with greyscale and colour accuracy to the industry standards. Hisense also boasts about its Hi-View Engine processor which uses deep learning on a scene-by-scene basis to improve image quality. The manufacturer is vague on the details of exactly what this entails, but it more than likely adds edge enhancement, noise reduction and upscaling algorithms. Using a clean mode such as Filmmaker will bypass that processing. Audio is also comprehensive for a modern TV with Dolby Atmos and IMAX Enhanced DTS Immersive support.

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Gaming is well catered for with two HDMI 2.1 inputs compatible with 4K/120, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). The smart TV system is powered by VIDAA U6.0 from Hisense and features Freeview Play with all the catch-up terrestrial services including BBC iPlayer, plus, it also features the major VOD apps such as Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and a whole host of others such as Pluto, Rakuten and so on.

What is...?

So, you get a Mini LED equipped QLED TV with Full Array Local Dimming, all the current HDR formats supported, a decent smart TV system along with plenty of gaming features and all for under £900! So what’s the catch? Let’s find out.

The design of the U8H is nothing unusual and par for the course when it comes to how a TV looks these days. The chassis is a dark grey colour with a central stand that lifts the panel up off the TV unit. To the bottom of the panel is the built-in speaker bar which is covered in a grey fabric to hide the forward-firing speaker units. The panel front is thin with just a slight bezel around the edge. The side of the chassis is a bit thicker width-wise thanks to the FALD backlight being used and a Hisense logo appears centrally at the bottom of the screen. Around the back, we have the connections.

The main connections are sideways facing and consist of a USB port, a service jack, four HDMI inputs with 1 and 2 being HDMI 2.0b and 3 and 4 being HDMI 2.1 compliant, an RF and Satellite antenna, a legacy AV input and headphone jack. The rearwards facing selection is a further USB slot, digital audio output and a LAN port.

The supplied remote control is a traditional long black plastic unit with individual sections. At the top, we have power and source keys and this is followed by 12 direct access white keys for streaming services. The middle of the remote has the directional, enter and menu keys with the bottom section taken up with the volume and channel rockers and numbered keys. Overall, the remote fits neatly in the hand and is intuitive and easy to use.

Out of the Box

As we do with all TV reviews, we factory reset the Hisense U8HQ 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) as it tries to follow the industry standards for SDR and HDR content. This means that you can see film and TV material as the creator intended.

Filmmaker Mode (FMM) is accurate out of the box on the Hisense U8H and that is what we had hoped for, given very few users will ever pay for a full calibration at this price point

We use Portrait Displays' Calman colour calibration software, a Murideo Seven Generator and Klein K-10A meter for measurement and calibration.

Filmmaker Mode (FMM) is accurate out of the box on the Hisense U8H and that is what we had hoped for, given very few users will ever pay for a full calibration at this price point. The greyscale tracking is very good and our DeltaE errors are all under two with an average of 1.1 meaning no issues are visible with TV and film content as they are well under the visible threshold of three.

The same is true for the Rec.709 colour gamut results with no major issues seen at all for saturation or hue. Almost all of the points are exactly where they should be and, with an average DeltaE as low as it is, there are no visible issues seen with TV or film content when it comes to SDR colours. This is very good from Hisense, especially at this price point.

The Hisense U8H has all the calibration controls you need to get the image looking incredibly accurate and we set about doing that with just minor adjustments required.

As you can see the greyscale tracking is now perfect along with the gamma and our DeltaE errors are now well under 1 with an average of 0.6, which is well below the visible threshold of three, meaning no errors are visible at all with normal TV and film content viewed on the U8H.

Our Rec.709 results are also superb, with just a slight clean-up of some points, but overall, there are no visible issues with colours at all. Again this is an excellent result from the Hisense.

With this Hisense U8H featuring a Mini LED backlight and claims of over 1300 nits of peak brightness, there should be a decent HDR performance from the TV. With it being a Mini LED QLED it will also have blooming suppression built in that will try to dim down smaller areas of peak highlights against dark backgrounds, to stop it any blooming or halo effects and we see that in the measured results.

On an industry-standard 10% window, we saw a peak brightness measurement of 1454 nits in the HDR Filmmaker Mode, with 100% topping in at 565 nits. You can also see that blooming suppression is in effect with 1, 2 and 5% results being well below the measured 10% while 25% was higher still before coming back down again quickly. This certainly measures higher than claimed by Hisense but also points to a heavy suppression algorithm to combat halo and blooming problems, and that is likely to impact performance.

The PQ EOTF tracking to ST.2084 is excellent in the HDR Filmmaker Mode with no issues seen with over-brightening and just a slight darkening popping up in the lower black areas, but nothing we are concerned about at all. This is a great result again from the Hisense U8HQ in the FMM.

Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) performance is also reasonable, but with some hue and saturation errors when tracked to the standard. The tracking is off and errors are visible, but there is nothing here that will impact in any noticeable manner when it comes to colours seen with HDR content. It could track better, but most users will never see any issue at all. Plus, given the price point, the Hisense manages to cover a good amount of the gamut size with its QLED-based panel.

We measured BT.2020 at 79% XY and 82% UV with P3 coming in at 95% XY and 98% UV.

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We are reviewing the 55-inch version of the Hisense U8HQ but it shares roughly the same panel and features as the 65- and 75-inch versions, so image quality shouldn’t be that different across the screen sizes, but there will be panel variance to take account of.

Panel uniformity on the U8H is disappointing with dark edges to the panel and brighter central areas. Plus, we noted quite a bit of DSE (Dirty Screen Effect) which was very noticeable watching sports content, and with dark scenes, within films, the screen had pretty severe clouding present, with no signs of deep blacks to the image or the black bars on films. We noted that off-axis viewing was also surprisingly poor for an IPS panel and contrast was pretty bad for most content that required some dynamics. Most of the issues were at their worst when watching in dim surroundings and improved somewhat when adding in some ambient light to the room. Panel uniformity remained patchy even in good lighting conditions.

... the Hisense U8H prefers a bright room and bright onscreen content to give its best performance

Given a well-lit room and the Hisense U8H offers up decent accuracy to SDR colours with nice-looking skin tones and natural-looking colour palettes. Detail levels are good with native 4K UHD content and slightly softer with SD and HD upscaled footage. Video processing is decent and motion handling is managed with 24fps material played back with 5:5 pulldown when motion processing is switched off. We noted some mild frame skipping with some 50Hz broadcast material, especially around fast edits within programs.

As with most LCD TVs, the Hisense U8H prefers a bright room and bright onscreen content to give its best performance and in such surroundings and with bright content there are very few flaws to distract you from the image quality on offer. But sadly, as soon as anything becomes dark on screen or requires some dynamic range around bright objects against dark backgrounds, the picture falls apart with severe blooming around those objects. It’s the same with subtitles and black bars never get dark within scope ratio movies as the light bleeds across the panel. Sadly, the local dimming is poor and the U8H suffers badly from the usual technical constraints placed on a backlight image. It’s frustrating to see given that with more dimming zones, a VA panel and slightly better local dimming, the Hisense might just have been the bargain we all hoped for, but it misses that open goal.

... I cannot see why the decision to change the UK U8H so drastically from the US specs was justifiable

HDR content, just like SDR can look amazing with bright scenes and here the set's strengths with colour and accuracy can be exploited. It loves a bright room environment and with everyday TV programs there are fewer instances of those backlight niggles. But as soon as things do get tricky, especially with HDR content that requires small highlight detail areas, like street lamps on a wall during a dark scene, you can see those peaks being dimmed to reduce blooming, but also a reduction in overall APL, meaning there is less dynamic range available and blooming is still present, even with suppression being applied.

So, should we be cutting the U8H some slack given it is a budget TV built to a price point and it looks good 70% of the time in a bright room with bright content? If that is your use case and you don’t think the issues we have raised will impact your use of the TV, then that’s a call you can make. For me, there are just too many issues present in this current guise of the U8H when it comes to dynamic range, contrast and Mini LED local dimming backlight issues. Compromises do have to be made to achieve price points, but I cannot see why the decision to change the UK U8H so drastically from the US specs was justifiable, given the universal praise the US set has achieved in comparison to the compromised performance we are given on this UK model. Perhaps Hisense can take the feedback on board and make their model lines universal in performance terms globally in future.

The built-in speakers on the U8H are actually a surprise when it comes to performance as they sound much better than we expected, especially with everyday TV programs. The stereo soundstage is wide and detailed with excellent vocals with music numbers played on the TV. With films, this is the same with a nice detailed sound and the rear sub adds a nice weight to proceedings, taking into consideration its size and that it can’t possibly compete with a stand-alone subwoofer. We did notice a few odd instances of the sound becoming a little bit lightweight and distant when playing some film content, and believe this is a bug with some playback of Dolby Atmos tracks, which was inconsistent and didn’t occur every time we played some Atmos content. Overall, the sound quality was very good for a TV at this price point.

The built-in speakers on the U8H are actually a surprise when it comes to performance

Gaming is well catered for with two HDMI 2.1 inputs compatible with 4K/120, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). Added to this is the game master mode with the option to see frame rates and other information while gaming on the set. Input lag measured in at 16.1ms with a 4K/60 signal and 8ms with a 120 signal.

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The smart TV system is powered by VIDAA U6.0 from Hisense and features Freeview Play with all the catch-up terrestrial services including BBC iPlayer, plus, it also features the major VOD apps such as Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ and a whole host of others. The system also manages to aggregate content from each provider to offer you easy viewing choices and the system supports 4K UHD Dolby Atmos on those apps that feature them. We didn’t have any issues of crashing, slowdowns or missing features in our time with the U8HQ.

Hisense U8H (55U8HQ) 4K Mini LED TV Review