Hisense H55U7A: a convincing Ultra HD TV

Presentation

The Hisense TV has a 10-inch VA panel (8-bit + FRC) of 55 inches (≈140 cm) displaying an Ultra HD definition (3,840 x 2,160 px) and whose refresh rate reaches 100 Hz. DVB-T2 / C / S2 tuner (TNT, cable and satellite), a 2 x 10 W audio system, a quad-core processor and a home operating system with some popular applications like YouTube or Netflix.

This Hisense H55U7A TV is sold for around € 800. It competes with the Sony KD-55XE7005 and the TCL U55C7006 sold at around 700 €. It is also available in 50 (≈127 cm / H50U7A) and 65 inch (≈165 cm / H65U7A) versions at the respective prices of € 700 and € 1,200.

All the brightness and colorimetric measurements mentioned in this article were carried out with a SpectraCal C6-HDR probe and the CalMAN Ultimate software.

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Image quality

The Hisense TV has a VA panel which therefore provides good contrast, but narrower viewing angles than those of the Oled or LCD IPS models. On this television, we have measured a loss of brightness of up to 78% to 45%. Finally, the glossy screen has a hard time with reflections. It is important to choose the location of the TV in the living room and avoid vis-à-vis a window if possible.

In "Cinema day" mode, the Hisense television offers a very beautiful image with faithful colors. We have measured an average Delta E of 2.5, and therefore less than 3 - threshold below which the human eye can no longer perceive the drift of a color.

The default BT.1884 gamma is a bit low, but setting it to 2.4 allows the average to rise to 2.27. This value is slightly below that of reference, but the curve is rather stable on the whole of the spectrum.

The color temperature is stable across the spectrum, but is a bit high. Indeed, the average measured at 7,780 K is a little far from the 6,500 K reference, which results in the image by a slightly cold image.

The contrast ratio of 5,300: 1 is very good for a television and even excellent for an LCD model. If he can not compete with Oled TVs, the Hisense model is clearly one of the best students using LCD technology. This contrast is reflected in the image by deep blacks, even in the dark.

The scaling engine implemented by Hisense smooths the original source, which results in a slight loss of sharpness of the image. On this point, the Chinese manufacturer is still lagging behind the best players in the market, including Sony, Philips and Panasonic. The motion compensation motor is also not very efficient, despite the presence of a 100 Hz panel.

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HDR

With a maximum HDR signal of 10,000 cd / m², Hisense's Display Tone Mapping behaves fairly well at the start of the spectrum, but the manufacturer does not follow through. Indeed, if the television is capable of a light peak at 554 cd / m², it hardly ever exploits it. The maximum light peak is only reached with a 100% HDR signal, which is rarely the case in practice. In practice, the television sets on 290 cd / m² and only grows to 550 cd / m² on very bright stages. Hisense avoids the phenomenon of clipping, but is exposed to pumping which can be quite annoying. In the end, it's a shame that the brightness of this TV is not properly exploited.

We also measure the color accuracy in HDR mode. We have chosen the HDR Day mode which offers the best color rendering. The average delta E is measured at 4. The colors cannot therefore be considered as perfect.

The Hisense TV has only 65% coverage of Rec.2020. It is little, but common to most televisions on the market. Cinema is currently content with the DCI-P3 color space and the Hisense television unfortunately does not do much better with only 68% of this space when most televisions display more than 90% of P3.

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Video games

The Hisense TV is not really a good gaming partner. The remanence time measured at 22 ms is too high to hope to avoid ghosting and the delay in displaying 33 ms is not among the best on the market. In comparison, Samsung drops to 15 ms on its 65Q9FN and the latest Oleds like the Panasonic 55FZ950 or the LG 55C8 show a delay of 21 ms.

We are now evaluating the color fidelity in Game mode, because the atmosphere designed by the creators of the game must be respected by the television, just like that of a film. On this point, Hisense had the good idea to let the user activate the Game mode on any image preset. It is therefore possible to reduce the input lag to 33 ms while keeping the color fidelity of the "Cinema Day" mode.

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Clouding

The Hisense H55U7A television uses an Edge Led backlighting system consisting of a single bar located at the base of the panel. We did not find any clouding problems on the model we tested or light leaks in the corners. The diffuser filter of Edge Led models is quite sensitive to shocks and a problem during transport can result in clouding (grayish spots on a gray background).

We have measured the average difference in white uniformity over the entire slab at only 6%; an excellent figure, well below the 20% beyond which the eye perceives a difference in uniformity.

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Ergonomics

The design of the Hisense H55U7A is fairly classic and versatile. The frame is quite thin and the base of the chrome slab provides a small premium side.

This year, Hisense adopts a central Y-shaped foot at the Samsung. This foot allows the TV to be placed on a narrower TV stand, but its width remains significant (88 cm). The fairly airy design leaves space on the furniture, but it complicates the installation of a sound bar.

The screen edges are quite thin for a 55-inch TV. The frame is black except for the base and the top of the slab which are chromed.

In profile, the Hisense TV is thin. It measures only 5.2 cm. However, the size on the TV stand remains linked to that of the stand, the depth of which is limited to 26.2 cm. This TV is quite comfortable on our reference cabinet (160 x 40 cm).

The back of the TV is very classic. We find the power connector on the left, the connector on the right and the speakers in the center on each side of the stand.

The connectivity grouped at the back of the TV consists of four HDMI inputs including two HDMI 2.0, two USB ports including a USB 3.0, an Ethernet port, a composite input, an optical digital audio output, a headphone output, a TNT antenna socket / cable and a satellite antenna socket. The TV also has 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. However, it ignores the headphone output.

Hisense's proprietary Smart TV interface is fairly standard. It offers the basic functionality of a connected TV, including popular applications like NetFlix, YouTube, DailyMotion, Rakuten TV as well as a media player that supports a large number of file types and containers (H.264, Xvid, AVI, MWV, MKV , etc.). The interface is fluid and responsive and that's all you would ask for a TV of this type. Hisense remains a notch behind Android TV, Tizen and WebOS which now offers a more convincing experience, particularly in terms of the number of applications and voice search.

The remote control is classic, but effective. Light, it fits well in the hand and the rubber keys fall naturally under the thumb. The click after each press is audible. The remote control gives access to all the settings and even offers multimedia keys. Dedicated keys also allow direct access to Netflix, YouTube and the media player. The buttons are not backlit and the remote control does not carry a microphone.

The first start-up of the television takes approximately 15 seconds, a figure in the good average. The shutdown is instantaneous while the recovery is done in less than 4 seconds, an excellent time, especially since the TV consumes less than one watt in standby.

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Audio

The fairly standard audio system consists of two 10-watt speakers. Unpretentious, it offers fairly average performance. The bass and low mids are absent. The TV focuses on reproducing voices and it does it pretty well. The frequency response is ensured very correctly between 300 and 10,000 Hz, enough to cover almost all uses. This system obviously cannot compete with a sound bar, a home cinema kit or even a PC speaker kit.

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Consumption

We measured the consumption at 90 W on our target with a white set around 150 cd / m². The relative consumption is 108 W / m², which is slightly higher than the average of the TVs tested (around 100 W / m²), but it is higher than that of the TVs equipped with an Edge Led backlight system, including the Sony KD- 65XD9305 (which is limited to 69 W / m²), the Samsung UE55KS9000 (72 W / m²) and even the Sony 65XF9005 equipped with a Full Led system (71 W / m²). Standby consumption is always less than 1 W.

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Conclusion

The Hisense H55U7A TV could have been a credible alternative to the Sony KD-55XE7005 and TCL U55C7006 which have been enthroned for some time in our guide to buying the best Ultra HD TVs, especially thanks to its interesting light peak in HDR. Unfortunately, the latter is badly exploited. Fortunately, this TV is doing much better with SDR sources.

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