Part of the fun of buying items like this is doing the research. If you let the echo chamber of negativity guide you, then this set is an abomination. AVOID!!!! It will implode upon arrival, inject your kids with a virus, and give your dog pink eye!!!
Or you can balance expectations and take a breath. Currently, Hisense is in a race with TCL for bargain televisions with good features. It sits somewhere above Insignia and quite a bit lower than either Samsung or LG. Then again, it sits where it sits because it sells at a discount to those higher-tier brands (and whoever is buying Insignias, or even Vizios, needs to stop) with some noted QC issues (more on that later).
This TV was replacing a five-year-old regular 4K LG 75 inch from Costco. It still works just fine, even if it is starting to show slight degradations in color. And I wanted a bigger TV with slightly better tech specs. OLED? Nah. I can’t afford that right now.
My choice of this TV vs the comparable one from TCL came down to a coin toss, with the factual component being I didn’t need a higher brightness level and liked what this one offered anyways.
It arrived well packaged. Set-up was a breeze. I already have a Google ecosystem in my house, so the GoogleTV baked-in was a plus. The basic design is, well, basic. And I appreciate that. I don’t buy a TV that wants to make its design features obtrusive. The bezel is fine. And I like that the back of the set doesn’t have that ‘pregnancy bump’ that some older and even newer sets have, given that I was mounting this on the wall. But I should mention: yes, this is a two-person job. The TV is north of 100lbs.
I have had the TV for four days. Initial coloring was a garish mess. I mean, a trash fire of smudgy/blurred images, out of sync color saturation, and pixelation all over the place. Thing is, I knew that would be the case. So, I tinkered (again, I like doing the research). And my initial adjustments got things just about where I wanted them. But it was still a touch off. So, I went back online. First thing, regardless of whatever else you do, do this: adjust the brightness way, way down to somewhere in the region of 45-55. The improvement is instantly noticeable. If you are more engaged, do this: look up a Reddit post by a fellow named Darkness_Moulded. Use his suggestions for both HDR and Dolby Digital. Voila! This is what this TV was meant to do. No real sense of the ‘Soap Opera Effect’ (which, to be fair, some people really enjoy). Great contrast. Good, sometimes great, black levels. This guy should get an award of some kind.
But this is a five-star review with reasonable caveats. Again, you are not going to get OLED quality pictures from this. You will also likely notice some lag and odd dumps with the home menu apps. The workaround is to use a Fire Stick, which seems to work much better. The settings menu takes a bit to figure out. And you are still going to get some pixelation and artifacts in certain instances. You also need to make sure that, if you are using Darkness_Moulded’s adjustments, that you set them specifically/individually for both HDR and Dolby Logic. Otherwise, your adjustments might cancel each other out and be applied to both. Trust me, the differences are slight; but there are differences. And they matter. Me? I made a couple of slight adjustments to his suggestions. But, again, great help!
Now a couple of additional observations. First, as with any set, this TV will do the best it can with what it is given. In numerous tests, in both HDR and Dolby Digital Format, I noticed that the quality of the source matters. It always does. So, if you are watching a SD show and it looks horrid, guess what? It will look horrid on any LED set no matter what you do. Streaming will suffer when compared to a Blu-ray. This is akin to what happens when you listen to your favorite old tunes on a quality DAP: if it was recorded on a budget, you will hear that budget way more noticeably than you did on a crappy tape or a mid-rate, non-lossless player. Same rules apply to what you see on TVs. Second, as to other reviews. If it arrived damaged, that is on the shipping company with which Amazon contracts. So, your review should be about that company and not the TV. On the other hand, if you have a QC issue, that is on Hisense and Amazon and/or Hisense should make you whole. Then again, you and I both took a risk when we allowed a company to send us a TV (just as I did with my LG TV). And we are the ones that have to deal with the problems that sort of choice incurs. It is also the case that some of these reviews suggest a whiff of, well, what do you call it? I call it “wanting Cartier at the Dollar Store” or “Swap Meet Louie.” Rant all you want about the evils of Hisense. Go ahead. Do it. Feel better? I bet you do. But you still rolled the dice. So, who is responsible? You. And you can go buy an equivalent TCL set for a similar price. Or upgrade to the next notch in the Hisense lineup. Or spend a lot more money for a Samsung or LG. Heck, you could even buy a Vizio or an Insignia. Your choice, right?
I am currently happy with this TV. Why? Because it works like I hoped it would and the compromises I expected were mitigated by the fact that I knew there were compromises going in. Now, if this thing explodes in the next month or year, I will provide an update. But I went in with a clear-eyed knowledge of what I was purchasing. For the price, you could do a lot worse.
| Brand Name | Hisense |
|---|---|
| Item Weight | 64 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 3.1 x 57.1 x 33.1 inches |
| Item model number | 65U7K |
| Batteries | 2 AAA batteries required. (included) |
| Output Wattage | 40 Watts |
| Color Name | Black |
| Special Features | Game Mode, Multiple Voice Assistance, Bezel-Less Design, Local Dimming, Wide Color Enhancer |
| Item Weight | 64 Pounds |
| Standing screen display size | 65 Inches |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Voltage | 120 Volts |
| Wattage | 220 watts |
