The Hisense U8/U8K is a mid-range 4k TV released in 2023. It sits between the high-end, limited-release Hisense UX and the Hisense U7K in Hisense's flagship 2023 ULED model. It replaces the Hisense U8/U8H, and while similar, the U8K offers more local dimming zones than its predecessor, a more powerful internal 5-speaker setup, and two HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports that can do up to 4k @ 144Hz. It still has a full suite of gaming features, like variable refresh rate support and Hisense's Game Mode Pro gaming interface. It's compatible with Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, is certified as IMAX Enhanced, and supports DTS and Dolby advanced audio formats. It has the user-friendly Google TV interface, which is easy to use and has a great selection of streaming apps. It comes in a wide range of sizes, from a 55-inch model to a massive 100-inch.
Our Verdict
The Hisense U8K is an excellent TV overall. It's extremely bright in both HDR and SDR and has fantastic reflection handling, so it's stellar in any bright room setting. Its contrast and black uniformity are superb, so it also looks amazing in dark rooms, and highlights pop amazingly well when watching HDR movies and games. Overall, it has very good image processing and supports advanced audio and video formats, making it a great choice for a home entertainment TV. It's great as a gaming TV due to its amazing picture quality, superbly low input lag, and good response time. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is inadequate, so it's not a great TV for any wide seating arrangement, like when watching TV shows or sports with friends.
-
Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Fantastic reflection handling.
-
Image degrades when viewed from the side.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8K is great for TV shows. It gets extremely bright in SDR and has fantastic reflection handling, easily handling extremely bright rooms. It has good image processing, so low-bitrate shows from streaming platforms look good, as does low-resolution content from cable boxes and DVDs. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is inadequate, so it's not the best TV to watch shows in a wide seating arrangement.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Fantastic reflection handling.
-
Low-resolution content is upscaled without any issues.
-
Very good low-quality content smoothing.
-
Image degrades when viewed from the side.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8K is a very good TV to watch sports on. It gets extremely bright in SDR and has fantastic reflection handling, easily handling the brightest rooms. Its response time is good, although there's some blur when watching fast-moving sports like hockey. Its gray uniformity is decent, but in some sports with large areas of bright color, the sides of the screen are noticeably darker than the center. Unfortunately, the TV's viewing angle is inadequate, so it's not the best TV for a wide seating arrangement.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Fantastic reflection handling.
-
Good response time with most content.
-
Low-resolution content is upscaled without any issues.
-
Image degrades when viewed from the side.
-
Some noticeable vignetting on large areas of bright color.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8K is an excellent TV to play games on. Its contrast and dark details look fantastic in Game Mode. It gets extremely bright in SDR and has fantastic reflection handling, so it looks great in even the brightest of game rooms. Its input lag is superbly low, so your inputs are translated to the on-screen action very quickly. Its response time, while good overall, does cause some blur when playing action titles.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Fantastic reflection handling.
-
Superbly low input lag.
-
Good response time with most content.
-
Great selection of gaming features.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8K is an excellent TV to watch the latest movies on. It has truly fantastic contrast, with nearly perfect black uniformity, so it looks outstanding in a dark room. Its HDR brightness is exceptional, so highlights pop next to the TV's very deep blacks. The TV is very accurate even without any calibration, so you don't have to worry about calibrating it to get an accurate viewing experience. Its low-quality content smoothing is very good, so movies played from streaming services look good even when the bitrate is low.
-
Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Nearly perfect black uniformity.
-
Very good low-quality content smoothing.
-
Excellent wide color gamut and amazing color volume.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8 Series is an excellent TV for playing the latest HDR games. The TV looks vibrant and colorful in Game Mode. It has superb contrast and nearly perfect black uniformity, so the TV looks amazing in a dark room. It gets extremely bright in HDR and has fantastic reflection handling, so it looks amazing even in bright rooms. Its input lag is superbly low, so your inputs feel quick and responsive. Unfortunately, its response time does lead to some blur when playing fast titles, although it looks good in slower games.
-
Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Superbly low input lag.
-
Good response time with most content.
-
Great selection of gaming features.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
The Hisense U8K is a great TV to use as a PC monitor. It gets extremely bright in SDR and has fantastic reflection handling, so it easily handles bright offices. It has extremely low input lag, so your mouse movements are quick and responsive. Its response time is good; there's some blur when things start moving quickly, like when playing action games, but it does a solid job overall. Unfortunately, the TV has an inadequate viewing angle, so the sides of the screen are inconsistent with the center when you're sitting close to the TV.
-
Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
-
Superbly low input lag.
-
Good response time with most content.
-
Image degrades when viewed from the side.
-
It's a bit buggy at times.
- 8.5 Mixed Usage
- 8.0 TV Shows
- 7.9 Sports
- 8.8 Video Games
- 8.8 HDR Movies
- 8.9 HDR Gaming
- 8.5 PC Monitor
- Updated May 27, 2024: Mentioned the newly-reviewed Hisense U8/U8N in the Contrast section of this review.
- Updated May 22, 2024: Clarified that the Pixels Sub-Type is VA on all sizes except for the 75" model.
- Updated Apr 03, 2024: Added links to our Best Soundbars For Watching Movies and Best Dolby Atmos Soundbars articles in the Compared To Other TVs section of this review.
- Updated Dec 11, 2023: Retested the TV's VRR and HDR compatibility with firmware V0000.01.00M.N0918. On recent GPUs and consoles, the TV can now do HDR and VRR simultaneously even with the FreeSync toggle enabled on the TV, but older AMD GPUs still can't do FreeSync and HDR simultaneously. Updated the text in the Variable Refresh Rate, Xbox Series X|S Compatibility, PS5 Compatibility text boxes, as well as the Settings page.
- Updated Nov 08, 2023: Mentioned the newly reviewed Hisense UX in the Introduction of this review.
- Updated Oct 27, 2023: Verified that the TV can do HDR with VRR enabled. To do so, the FreeSync toggle needs to be disabled in the TV's Game Settings menu. Updated the Variable Refresh Rate, PS5 Compatibility, and Xbox Series X|S Compatibility text boxes with the updated information, as well as the Settings page.
- Updated Oct 25, 2023: After a recent firmware update, the TV can now do up to 4k @ 144Hz with VRR on NVIDIA cards with no issues. We have updated the Variable Refresh Rate and Supported Resolutions text boxes accordingly.
- Updated Sep 27, 2023: We replaced the real scene HDR Brightness photos. These photos are meant to show the perceived contrast of the TVs only, so this change doesn't impact the measurements in the review.
- Updated Sep 21, 2023: We bought and tested the LG QNED80 2023 and added a few relevant comparisons below.
- Updated Sep 14, 2023: We bought and tested the Sony X95L and added a few relevant comparisons below.
- Updated Sep 11, 2023: Hisense reached out to us and confirmed the panel types for the other sizes. They confirmed that the 85" uses a VA panel. We've updated the Differences Between Sizes And Variants section with the correct information.
- Updated Sep 07, 2023: Review published.
- Updated Aug 31, 2023: Early access published.
- Updated Aug 16, 2023: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Aug 10, 2023: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Jul 24, 2023: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
- Updated Jul 22, 2023: The product has won our suggestion poll, so we'll buy and test it soon.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 65-inch Hisense U8K, and the results are also valid for the 55, 85, and 100-inch models. The 75-inch model uses an ADS Pro panel, so it performs a bit differently than the other sizes, as it has worse contrast and black uniformity, different reflection handling due to its glossy screen coating, and a wider viewing angle. In Canada, it's known as the Hisense U88KM, and it performs the same. There are similarly named international models, like the U8KAU in Australia, but these models perform differently to the North American U8K, so our results aren't valid for those models.
| Size | US Model | Local Dimming Zones | Panel Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55" | Hisense 55U8K | 672 | VA |
| 65" | Hisense 65U8K | 1,008 | VA |
| 75" | Hisense 75U8K | 1,056 | ADS Pro |
| 85" | Hisense 85U8K | 1,296 | VA |
| 100" | Hisense 100U8K | 1,620 | VA |
The unit we tested was manufactured in May 2023; you can see the label here.
Compared To Other TVs
The Hisense U8K delivers incredible performance for the price. Its primary competitor is the TCL QM8/QM850G QLED, which is brighter than the Hisense, but in turn, the Hisense is a much more accurate TV and has much better upscaling, making it a bit better overall. The Hisense supports Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, as well as DTS and Dolby advanced audio formats. This makes it a fantastic home theater TV for a lower price than its competitors, severely undercutting the Sony X93L/X93CL and even the Sony X90L/X90CL, and it's better than most similarly-priced models like the LG QNED80 2023.
Unfortunately, the Hisense has some bugs: its brightness sometimes resets itself to its default value, and the TV sometimes reboots into a diagnostic mode when changing some settings or starting a game. It's a great performer, but it doesn't feel as reliable as more expensive models from name brands and more expensive models, like the Sony X95L.
See also our recommendations for the best 65-inch TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best TVs for bright rooms. If you're looking for a new soundbar to pair with your TV, consider our picks for the best soundbars for watching movies, or for the best possible sound, look up the best Dolby Atmos soundbars.
The TCL QM8/QM850G QLED and Hisense U8/U8K are similar TVs, although the Hisense is a bit better overall. The Hisense has marginally better contrast than the TCL, but the TCL gets brighter than the Hisense in both SDR and HDR. The TCL has a better response time than the Hisense when running at a fixed refresh rate, but with VRR enabled, the TCL's response time varies much more than the Hisense. The Hisense is the more accurate TV of the two, so it looks great without needing to be calibrated. The Hisense also has better upscaling than the TCL, so low-resolution content looks a bit better.
The Hisense U8/U8N is better than the Hisense U8/U8K. It has even better contrast, so blacks are deeper when viewed in a dark room. The U8N is also brighter overall than the U8K, so it handles more glare in a bright room, and highlights stand out more in HDR content. On top of that, the U8N has a faster response time for less blur behind quick motion. On the other hand, the U8K has better pre-calibration accuracy, so it doesn't require calibration if you care about SDR color accuracy.
The Hisense U8/U8K is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Hisense is brighter than the Sony with much better reflection handling, so it looks better in a bright room. It also has better contrast, black uniformity, and local dimming feature, so the Hisense looks better in a dark room. The Sony has the edge in response time, upscaling, and HDR gradient handling, although the Hisense also has good image processing. However, the Sony is the more stable TV overall, as the Hisense is a bit buggy.
The Hisense U7K and Hisense U8/U8K are similar: they have the same feature set, but the U8K is a higher-tier TV, so it has better overall performance. The U8K gets brighter than the U7K, and this also gives it a higher color volume: colors are brighter and pop more on the more expensive model. It also has a more powerful local dimming feature, giving it better contrast in dark rooms. The U7K does have a better response time than the U8K, which is good for gamers or sports fans.
The Hisense U8/U8H and Hisense U8/U8K are nearly identical TVs, with the U8K being a marginal improvement over its predecessor. The U8K has slightly better contrast and gets slightly brighter, but it's hard to notice. The U8K has significantly improved low-quality content smoothing compared to the U8H; it's a good TV for streaming content. Its response time is slower than the U8H, but it doesn't have the U8H's noticeable red ghosting in some content. The U8H is the more accurate TV, but the U8K is still very accurate overall.
The Hisense U8/U8K and LG C3 OLED are different TVs, each with their own strengths, although the LG is better overall. The Hisense gets much brighter than the LG and is a bit more colorful, so it's much better suited for bright rooms. The LG, however, has a nearly infinite contrast ratio due to its OLED panel, leading to much better dark room performance. The LG also has better image processing overall, a vastly wider viewing angle, and a near-instantaneous response time with no quirky VRR performance.
The Samsung QN90C/QN90CD QLED and Hisense U8/U8K are closely matched, although the Hisense is slightly better overall. The Hisense has better contrast than the Samsung, is a bit more colorful, gets brighter, and pops more in dark and bright rooms. It also has better low-quality content smoothing than the Samsung TV. However, the Samsung has a faster response time, no VRR quirks, and lower input lag, so it's better for gamers overall.
The Hisense U8/U8K and the TCL Q7/Q750G QLED are both great TVs, but the Hisense is a bit better. The Hisense is brighter in SDR and has better reflection handling, so it overcomes more glare in a bright room. Highlights in HDR content stand out more on the Hisense due to its better HDR brightness, and colors are more vibrant and lifelike due to its wider color gamut and much better color volume.
The LG B3 OLED and Hisense U8/U8K excel in different ways. The LG is an OLED, so it looks amazing in dark rooms due to its nearly perfect contrast. Inversely, the Hisense's LED panel is far brighter than the LG's, so it looks superior in rooms with bright lights or windows. The LG is a bit better for a wide seating arrangement due to its wider viewing angle, and it's also a bit better for gamers due to its nearly instantaneous response time, although the Hisense does have two 4k @ 144Hz ports, while the LG has two 4k @ 120Hz ports. Ultimately, the choice between the two might come down to whether you mostly watch content in bright rooms or dark rooms.
The Samsung S90C OLED is better than the Hisense U8/U8K. The Hisense is slightly better for bright rooms due to it being the brightest TV of the two, especially when watching HDR content. The Hisense is also great for movie purists due to its Dolby Vision support and advanced DTS audio passthrough. Still, the Samsung is a bright TV with tremendous reflection handling, so it's no slouch in bright rooms, but it truly excels in dark rooms due to its nearly infinite contrast ratio. The Samsung also has a vastly wider viewing angle, making it better for wide seating arrangements. Plus, it's the far better gaming TV, with a faster response time and four 4k @ 144Hz HDMI ports, versus two on the Hisense.
The Hisense U8/U8K and Sony X93L/X93CL are closely matched, each having strengths. The Hisense is brighter, has better contrast, and is slightly more colorful; it pops more than the Sony. For its part, the Sony has better PQ EOTF tracking, a better viewing angle, and better image processing. The Sony also has a faster response time than the Hisense, with no quirky behavior when VRR is enabled. Ultimately, the Hisense does more than the Sony, but the Sony is more accurate and stable overall than the Hisense.
The Hisense U8/U8K is significantly better than the LG QNED80 2023. The Hisense looks much better in a dark room thanks to its higher native contrast ratio and highly effective Mini LED local dimming feature. This also lets the Hisense get significantly brighter, especially when displaying HDR content, and HDR looks much better overall.
The Sony X95L and the Hisense U8/U8K deliver similar picture quality overall, but the Sony delivers a much smoother experience, with fewer bugs or glitches and a better user experience. The Sony TV also has much better processing, so upscaled or low-quality content from streaming services looks better.
The Hisense U8/U8K is better than the Hisense U7N. The U8K is brighter in HDR and SDR and has a better contrast ratio, so it looks better in dark and bright rooms. It's also slightly more colorful than the U7N and is more accurate in SDR before any calibration, although the U7N has slightly superior HDR accuracy. One advantage that the U7N has over the U8K is in its response time; it's noticeably more responsive than the more expensive U8K, so gamers looking for a good deal could save some money by going for the cheaper model, especially as they have the same gaming features otherwise.
The LG C4 OLED is better than the Hisense U8/U8K, but they excel in different ways. Being an OLED, the LG TV is amazing in dark rooms due to its nearly infinite contrast without blooming or zone transitions. The Hisense, however, is far brighter than the LG and looks far more impressive in brighter rooms. Otherwise, the LG is the better option for gamers due to its near-instantaneous response time and four 4k @ 144Hz HDMI 2.1 ports; the Hisense is limited to two 4k @ 144Hz HDMI ports. Another area where the LG has the edge is its viewing angle; it's far wider than the Hisense's, making the LG a far better choice for a wide seating arrangement.
The Hisense U8/U8K is much better than the Hisense U6/U6K, as they're in two very different tiers regarding overall quality. The U8K outmatches the U6K in every way, as it's much brighter, has much better contrast, has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, is more colorful overall, and is the most accurate TV of the two. The U8K also has good image processing overall, while the U6K has poor low-quality content smoothing, so it's a bad choice for streaming content. Still, the Hisense U6K is a much cheaper TV.
The Hisense U8/U8K and Hisense UX are very similar TVs, with the Hisense UX being just a bit better overall. The UX gets brighter, has better contrast, and has a higher response time than the U8K. The UX also has a significantly wider viewing angle, making it much better for wide seating arrangements. The U8K, however, has lower input lag, better HDR gradient handling, and is much more color-accurate before calibration. The U8K is also capable of up to 4k @ 144Hz on its two HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports, while the UX is limited to 120Hz.
The Hisense U8/U8K is better than the Samsung QN85D/QN85DD QLED. The Hisense is far brighter in HDR and SDR, with a wider color gamut and much better reflection handling, so it looks significantly more vibrant in bright rooms. The Hisense also looks better in dark rooms due to its better black uniformity. The Samsung does have a slight edge in response time, but for gamers, the Hisense compensates by offering up to 4k @ 144Hz support, while the Samsung is limited to QN85D. Ultimately, the Hisense is the better product.
The Hisense U8/U8K is significantly better than the Hisense U7H. The U8K delivers better picture quality, as it has better contrast and a better local dimming feature. The U8K also delivers a better gaming experience, as it has a faster panel with less ghosting behind fast-moving objects. The U8K looks better in a bright room because it has much better reflection handling and gets much brighter in SDR, so it can handle more glare. It also gets brighter in HDR, so very bright highlights pop more than on the U7H.
The Hisense U8/U8K is significantly better than the Vizio Quantum Pro QLED. The Hisense has much better contrast and a significantly better local dimming feature, so dark scenes look better, with much less blooming around bright highlights. The Hisense also gets much brighter, so bright highlights in HDR stand out better, resulting in a more impactful HDR experience overall. Finally, the Hisense has a much better smart interface, with a wider selection of apps and a smoother user experience.
The Hisense U8/U8K and the Sharp AQUOS XLED FV1 are similar TVs, but the Hisense is cheaper and outperforms the Sharp. The Hisense has a higher contrast ratio and better black uniformity with less blooming and haloing, so it looks better in a dark room. The Hisense also has significantly better pre-calibration accuracy, so colors in SDR are much closer to the content creator's intent. On top of that, the Hisense is better for PC gamers due to its 4k @ 144Hz support.
The Sharp AQUOS FS1 OLED and the Hisense U8/U8K are better than each other in certain ways. Being that the Sharp is an OLED, it has better contrast with zero blooming or haloing, so it looks better in a dark room. The Sharp also has a much wider viewing angle, which makes it the better option for watching TV as a group. However, the Hisense has much better image processing and gets significantly brighter in SDR, so it can overcome much more glare in a bright room than the Sharp TV. The Hisense also gets brighter in HDR, so bright highlights in HDR content pop much more than on the Sharp.
Video
Test Results
The TV has a premium design that looks great in any room. It has thin bezels on three sides, with a thicker, but still thin, bottom bezel. The feet are slim and don't take up much space.
The TV comes with a pair of adjustable feet that support the TV well. They're very thin, made of metal, and have minimal front-to-back wobble.
Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the wide position: 44.4" x 12.6". In the narrow position, the 65-inch stand has a footprint of 31.4" x 12.6". In either position, the feet lift the TV about 3.2" above the table, so most soundbars fit in front without blocking the screen. Some longer soundbars don't fit between the feet when they're set in the narrow position.
The back of the TV is made of plastic, with a textured horizontal pattern and vents along the top. There's also a built-in subwoofer on the back of the TV near the center. There are clips built into the feet to help with cable management. The inputs are on the left-hand side of the TV when facing the front, and they're easy to access when the TV is wall-mounted.
The TV has good build quality. The TV is stout and looks and feels well-built. It's mainly made of hard plastic, with metal feet and borders. There's a bit of front and back wobble, but the feet support the TV well overall. There are no obvious quality control issues with our unit. The back panel has a bit of flex, but it doesn't cause any issues.
The TV's contrast is fantastic. Its native contrast is great, but with local dimming enabled, the TV's contrast ratio is superb, leading to extremely deep blacks in a dark room, even when bright highlights are shown on the screen. For even better contrast, check out the newer Hisense U8/U8N.
The TV has great blooming performance, as the small size of its dimming zones minimizes any blooming around bright objects or subtitles in darker scenes. However, there's still noticeable blooming with bright objects on a black, or near black, background.
Overall, the TV's processing keeps up very well with fast-moving objects, and lighting zone transitions aren't very noticeable, with minimal haloing.
Switching to Game Mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance, which is great.
The Hisense U8K's HDR peak brightness is fantastic. Even though the TV's brightness is significantly dimmer in large bright scenes, it's still easily bright enough to overcome any number of lights. Highlights are extremely bright and stand out very well. There is a bug where the TV's brightness setting randomly defaults back to 78 in HDR and then looks overbrightened upon setting it back to 100. Restarting the TV fixes it.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: HDR Theater
- Brightness: 100
- Gamma: ST2084
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm 1
- Dynamic Tone Mapping: Off
The TV's HDR brightness in Game Mode is fantastic. There's no noticeable difference in peak brightness from 'HDR Theater' mode.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: HDR Game
- Brightness: 100
- Gamma: ST2084
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm 1
- Dynamic Tone Mapping: Off
The TV has great PQ EOTF tracking. It tracks the curve very well, although not perfectly. The TV is a bit too dim in dark scenes for content mastered at 600 and 1,000 nits but is then overbrightened in brighter scenes. For content mastered at 4,000 nits, the TV is overbrightened with most content. The TV has no issue handling content mastered at 600 and 1,000 nits, and for content mastered at 4,000 nits, it slowly rolls off when it hits its peak brightness, preserving bright details.
The Hisense U8K's SDR brightness is fantastic, so glare isn't an issue even in the brightest rooms. The TV's Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) does dim the TV significantly when bright highlights take up a significant portion of the screen, but they're still very bright.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Theater Night
- Brightness: 100
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm 1
- Gamma: 2.2
- Active Contrast: Off
The Hisense U8K TV has an excellent HDR color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, with stellar tone mapping. The TV also has very good coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, although it struggles with saturated greens, blues, and cyans.
The TV's color volume in HDR is fantastic. It displays colors well across all luminance levels thanks to its high peak brightness and fantastic contrast ratio. Colors are bright and vibrant, displaying dark, saturated colors well.
The Hisense U8K has excellent pre-calibration accuracy. Gamma follows the 2.2 target for a moderately lit room extremely well, and the white balance is great, with only minor accuracy errors in bright whites. Color accuracy is excellent, with no noticeable issues. The color temperature is fantastic; neither too warm nor too cold.
The TV has incredible accuracy after calibration. It's a bit tricky to calibrate, as you need to calibrate it at a lower stimulus than usual; otherwise, the calibration settings don't stick. Still, it already has fantastic accuracy before calibration, so you don't need to calibrate it too much, if any, for an accurate image.
You can see our full calibration settings here.
The TV has decent gray uniformity. There's some vignetting in the corners, with some dirty screen effect towards the center. There's noticeable backlight bleeding in dark scenes, especially on the TV's bottom edge.
The TV has stellar black uniformity. It even looks fabulous with local dimming set to 'Off', which is impressive. With local dimming enabled, there's a bit of blooming around bright objects on dark backgrounds, but it's very minor.
Sadly, the Hisense U8 has an inadequate viewing angle. The image fades and looks washed out as you move even slightly off-center. This makes it a poor choice for a wide seating arrangement, as anyone sitting off-center sees a degraded image. If you have a wide seating arrangement in a bright room, a TV with an IPS panel, like the LG QNED80 2023, is a better choice.
The TV's reflection handling is fantastic. Its finish reduces the impact of reflections enough that this TV can easily handle even very bright rooms. Unlike high-end TVs from competing manufacturers, there's no rainbow smear with bright lights.
The TV has decent HDR gradient handling. There's some banding in bright grays, bright blues, and dark reds, but other color gradients have minimal banding.
This TV has very good low-quality content smoothing. It's great at avoiding macro-blocking in dark scenes and preserves fine details well.
The TV has good upscaling capabilities. The resulting image looks sharp overall, with some, but not excessive, blurring. Fine details are preserved well, and text is easy to read. It's good overall, but more expensive models like the Sony X95L offer better upscaling.
Sharpness processing was calibrated for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, with the following setting:
- Super Resolution: On
- Sharpness: 10
The Hisense U8K uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout. For multimedia usage, this doesn't cause any issues, but it causes text clarity issues when you use this TV as a PC monitor. There are easy workarounds for these issues, however, and you can read about them here.
The TV has a good response time at 4k @ 60Hz, but its behavior when VRR is enabled is peculiar. The Hisense's response time tuning is different when the TV's refresh rate is below and above 100Hz; it's more aggressive above 100Hz, leading to a faster overall response time but with more overshoot errors. While this doesn't cause any issues when running at a fixed refresh rate, with VRR enabled, the TV can find itself having its refresh rate hovering around the 100Hz mark, leading to its response time behavior quickly changing as it goes above and below that threshold, which is very noticeable. You can see the two response time behaviors here:
With VRR disabled the TV can do 1080p @ 240Hz without any issues, but it can't do 1080p @ 240Hz with VRR enabled; it instead locks itself at 1080p @ 72Hz.
Here are measurements taken at 1080p @ 240Hz:
- With VRR set to 'Off'
- With VRR set to 'On' (running at 72Hz)
Like most TVs on the market, this TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight. Thankfully, it flickers at 4000Hz, which isn't noticeable. There's no flicker if you turn off local dimming and set the backlight to 100 (Max).
The TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion. This feature is meant to reduce persistence blur and improve the appearance of motion. It works well on the Hisense at both 60Hz and 120Hz, leading to a sharp image, but at the cost of some image duplication.
The Hisense U8K has an optional motion interpolation feature to interpolate content up to 120 fps. It works well with slower content, like slow panning shots, but there's a lot of artifacting the moment the action ramps up.
Due to the Hisense U8K's good response time, there's some stutter when watching 24p content, like movies, as each frame is held longer on screen. It's especially noticeable in slow panning shots. However, the TV's stutter performance when playing 60 fps content is exceptional.
The Hisense U8K automatically removes judder from any source, ensuring a smooth movie-watching experience.
The TV supports all three variable refresh rate (VRR) technologies, and its VRR range caps out at 144Hz. It can also do 1080p @ 240Hz, but not with VRR enabled. With VRR enabled, the TV sets itself to 72Hz with resolution halving when you attempt to run it at 1080p @ 240Hz.
Our TV had strange handshake issues at times when the TV would sometimes reboot and go into a diagnostic mode. This happened when changing some settings, like when enabling or disabling VRR, but also when turning off the PC the TV is connected to. Turning off the TV and then back on when it happens fixes it.
Note that on older AMD graphics cards (RX 5000 series and earlier) the TV can't display HDR content while having FreeSync enabled.
The Hisense U8K has extremely low input lag, resulting in a responsive gaming or desktop experience. Unlike the TCL QM8/QM850G QLED, the TV's input lag decreases accordingly as the refresh rate increases. The TV outputs proper chroma 4:4:4 when in Game Mode, so you can have clear text and the fastest possible input lag when using this TV as a PC monitor.
The TV can't do proper 1080p @ 240Hz when VRR is enabled; it instead locks itself to 72Hz with resolution halving, with a measured input lag of 36.1ms. With VRR disabled, the TV does proper 1080p @ 240Hz, with a measured input lag of 3.3ms.
Note that these numbers were measured with the 'High Refresh Rate' mode disabled except at 1080p @ 240Hz, as it locks itself to 'On' at that refresh rate. Enabling the setting at refresh rates lower than 240Hz increases input lag by about 6ms.
The TV supports up to 4k @ 144Hz on HDMI ports 3 and 4. The TV does proper 1080p @ 240Hz on HDMI ports 3 and 4, but only with VRR disabled.
The TV supports chroma 4:4:4 at 4k @ 144Hz with Game Mode enabled, so you can simultaneously have the sharpest text and lowest input lag.
The TV takes full advantage of the PS5, with 4k @ 120Hz support on HDMI ports 3 and 4 and variable refresh rate (VRR) support.
The TV can take full advantage of the Xbox Series X|S consoles, with 4k @ 120Hz support on HDMI ports 3 and 4, as well as variable refresh rate (VRR) support. It's also one of the few TVs on the market that does Dolby Vision at 4k @ 120Hz.
The TV has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on HDMI ports 3 and 4, with both supporting up to 4k @ 144Hz. Unfortunately, HDMI 3 is the eARC port, so you lose one HDMI 2.1 port when you plug a soundbar into the TV. It has an ATSC 3.0 TV tuner, so it streams 4k content over-the-air. Its wireless tuner supports the Wi-Fi 6E standard, so it can use the 6GHz spectrum with compatible devices.
The TV supports eARC and can pass advanced DTS and Dolby formats from a connected source to your soundbar or sound system without reducing audio quality.
The TV has a satisfactory frequency response. Like on almost all TVs, there's very little bass, although it's alright for a TV. The TV gets loud, but there are many compression artifacts at max volume. The TV is extremely well-balanced at moderate volume, so dialogue is very clear.
This TV has decent distortion performance. There's some audible total harmonic distortion, but mainly at high volume levels; it's not noticeable at moderate volume.
The TV uses version 12 of Google's popular Google TV OS. It's relatively easy to use and especially fast and smooth, with a large selection of apps.
Like most TVs on the market, this one has ads throughout the interface, and you can't disable them.
The TV has a great selection of streaming apps, with every popular streaming app being present. The interface is very smooth and pleasant to use.
The TV comes with a great remote. Like most modern remotes, it lacks a numpad, and there are quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. The remote has a built-in mic, and so does the TV for hands-free voice control, giving you access to Google Assistant and Alexa, so you can ask it to search for content, open apps, ask for the time or the weather, and switch inputs.
There's a button underneath the center of the TV to turn the TV On/Off and switch inputs. There's a switch to turn off the mic built into the TV, which is great if you're concerned about privacy.
