Hisense U7K - Review

Hisense has been making some of my favorite affordable LED televisions for the last three years, which is why I should not be so surprised at the performance of the U7K. But, somehow, I regularly caught myself with a slack jaw at just how much this television is capable of at an asking price well below $1,000. 

As a spoiler, this is a very good television that hits new highs for a mid-range display and plays on the same field as what some of the big brands are doing for less than half the asking price. No, it’s not perfect, but the sheer value of this display begs for applause. 

Hisense U7K – Design and Build

Hisense has never blown me out of the water with its design and that doesn’t change here. The U7K doesn’t take any risks with how it looks and operates, but it gets the job done. The bezel is very thin, the frame even thinner, and the only interruption of the screen from the front is on the base which has a subtle but very visible Hisense logo located at the front. 

The U7K is very light, most likely due to the largely plastic design, feet excluded. I’m okay with this since it doesn’t look cheap and the lighter parts make it much easier to set up than other more premium options. 

The aforementioned feet are also about average for flatscreens in 2023 and while they do offer some level of cable management, it’s the bare minimum via simple plastic clips that route cables behind each foot. I will say that if you’re not planning to wall mount the U7K, the included feet do elevate the television a good amount above a media console. It is more than enough to fit most soundbars below the display comfortably, which is nice to see. 

In years past, I have been very hard on Hisense regarding one feature, which has to do with what happens when you mute the microphone. Previously, flipping a switch on the front of the TV that mutes the microphone would light up a line of bright LEDs that are incredibly distracting and make watching in a dark room very unpleasant. While those LEDs do make a reappearance here when you flip that switch on the U7K, they do eventually go off (it was under an hour). Finally, I can feel fully comfortable recommending a Hisense TV again, as the previous televisions always felt like I was compromising privacy.

The rear of the television is quite simple. On the right side (looking at the display) is the port for power while on the left side are all the other ports, which include four HDMI ports (two of which support 4K at up to 144Hz, although one of those is the eARC port) while the other two can handle 4K at up to 60Hz. It also has an Ethernet port, digital optical, a headphone jack, and two USB ports (one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0). It also supports both WiFi 6e and Bluetooth. 

Hisense U7K – The Remote

The U7K uses the same remote design that Hisese has employed for a few years now and makes very few changes, although the addition of some new features does mean there are some buttons worth calling out. 

For example, Hisense changed the “hamburger” button on the left side above the shortcut buttons to a “Menu” button. This doesn’t necessarily change the functionality but it does do double duty. When gaming, it is the button that brings up Hisense’s new game bar – a great feature I’ll get into below. 

The remote has six shortcut buttons, and my review unit came with Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+, and Tubi but also with one that just says “Apps.” This is my favorite button because it just brings up all the apps you currently have installed on one screen on Google TV. I don’t know if Hisense just did not sell this last spot or if this was always the intended design, but it’s great. 

Everything else is basically pretty par for the course when it comes to remotes. While this isn’t a particularly pretty remote, it gets the job done. 

Hisense U7K – Software and UI

Just like Sony, Hisense uses Google TV which is right now my personal favorite among all the possible options. If you’ve ever used it (or Android TV before it), the system is largely identical. What I like most about Google TV is that with a little bit of digging in the menu, you can set it to Apps Only Mode, which removes most of the suggested watch items that clutter up the home screen and leaves just the top rotator and your apps. You can’t do away with all the “ads” in Google TV, but you can get rid of most of them and that’s more than I can say for some of the other operating systems. 

Either television processors have finally caught up or Google TV is fairly lightweight as an operating system because it has felt particularly snappy on the last few televisions I’ve tested it on, and that experience carries through on the U7K. Navigation is quick and fluid, the television launches apps quickly, and changing settings is simple and without trouble. 

As a note, Hisense doesn’t enable peak performance out of the two high-end HDMI 2.1 ports right out of the box. You do need to go through the settings and enable maximum bandwidth on those in order to get high resolution and high framerate, an extra step that Hisense has required for the last three television series I’ve reviewed and which really should just be removed. I cannot think of a single instance where I would want to intentionally restrict bandwidth on my HDMI ports and having them restricted by default is another layer of weird. 

The U7K is loaded for bear when it comes to picture options. It supports Dolby Vision (which kicks on by default when such content is detected), HDR 10, HDR 10+, and HLG. In picture settings, you also get a ton of options ranging from your mainstays like Vivid (gross, don’t use this) and Standard as well as Theater Day and IMAX Enhanced. I typically use the latter two depending on what I’m watching, as they will be the most color-accurate. The U7K also lets you toggle the blue light and the overall warmness of the picture, should you want that. 

There are also motion options (which at low levels do a good job reducing stutter and judder), clarity options if you want them, and other layers of customization that allow you to turn the viewing experience into whatever fits you best. 

I may be misremembering, but I believe Hisense used to call the overall brightness of the television “luminance,” which is actually more accurate than saying brightness, but that is not the case on the U7K. If you want the backlight to give you the most juice, crank up the brightness.

Hisense U7K – Picture Quality

The Hisense U7K uses a combination of over 500 zones, a Mini LED backlight, and a Quantum Dot layer to produce a shockingly good level of contrast and color. 

Let’s start with color: for a television that is regularly available for less than $850, the color quality and uniformity of this panel are spectacular. The U7K covered 98.5% of t sRGB, 80.5% of Adobe RGB, and 95.1% of DCI P3 color gamuts and logged a Delta E of less than one. Delta E is a metric we use to describe how the human eye perceives differences in color. For reference, high-end monitors typically shoot for a Delta E of less than two and the human eye only starts to really see a problem beyond a Delta E of between three and four. The U7K is hitting numbers typically reserved for reference displays, which is extremely impressive. 

Uniformity is also very good, with weakness only showing at the very bottom of the display and in the upper right-hand corner. The rest of the display was very clean. As a note, panel uniformity is where we see the most variation among models, so my tests here won’t necessarily be indicative of what to expect if you pick up a U7K. 

Moving on to contrast, I am really impressed with the black levels of this television. Not only is it hitting deep, nearly ink-black levels, halo around bright objects is remarkably well-controlled. I’ll see the most halo around pure white objects set against a black background, and a perfect example of this is in captions. With my face inches from the screen, I could not see any major halo around the letters in the pure black areas of the screen while watching Dune, which is a very good showing. It’s there, but it’s ever-so-slight and most won’t notice it.

In HDR movies, colors look bright and vivid but no one particular color jumps out as over-saturated. The viewing experience of the U7K would be what I would describe as “even” as a result and the excellent brightness of this display really helps HDR content in particular pop. 

Speaking of brightness, the U7K boasts up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness, which is more than enough to see the most of what HDR content can give you. It’s not the brightest television I’ve ever watched, but it is up there and Hisense continues to be a leader in that space. 

It’s a good thing the U7K can get so bright because the panel doesn’t fight glare well on its own. The display is strong enough to overpower even bright reflections though, so in most situations, glare won’t actively bother you. 

The only real negative to point out when it comes to picture quality is that off-angle viewing gives you a significantly worse experience. When looking directly at the U7K, everything is great. But move just a few degrees left or right or even up or down, and that changes – fast. It really is a matter of just a few degrees and you’ll immediately see it, and this experience is the only thing keeping this television from “flawless” territory.

Hisense U7K – Gaming Performance

I think I enjoyed gaming on the U7K the most out of any television I’ve reviewed this year. It’s not going to blow you away with how games look – OLED takes the cake there – but the overall experience was just so good. 

Firstly, because it’s so bright, the U7K is able to present a fabulous gaming experience regardless of the time of day. OLEDs will get better pixel response times, but the difference is negligible. And while OLEDs are kings when it comes to true blacks, LED televisions like the U7K are better at showing the in-between grays, which I think is an advantage in many games – especially competitive shooters – when you need to be able to see everything in all in-game conditions. 

The U7K also packs AMD FreeSync Premium Pro (AMD Adaptive Sync), variable refresh rate, Dolby Vision Gaming, and the ability to hit 1080p at 240Hz or 4K at up to 144Hz. This is actually not the first television I’ve used that can hit those kinds of numbers through an HDMI port, but it is the first time those numbers have been packed inside a television of this size with this level of color, contrast, and brightness performance. It’s a very, very good overall gaming package that puts my dedicated gaming monitors to shame. 

When gaming, the backlights and dimming zones work well to assure there is no lag between brightly lit areas and dim areas, which also means the Hisense processor is up to the task of making for the best kind of gaming experience.

The U7K also has a new feature for Hisense: a game bar. Basically every television company now has some version of this feature which is great to see, and I think the implementation by Hisense is one of the better. It looks very similar to what Samsung is doing and while I think the one LG uses looks flashier and has more customization which makes it my number one pick, Hisense is not far behind thanks to the style, the amount of information, and how easy it is to access on the U7K.

Hisense U7K – Audio Quality

Maybe it’s the slightly thicker overall chassis of the U7K, but the audio quality is actually not bad. Just as is the case with every flat panel, the lows are pretty weak, but dialogue is easy to understand and the television gets very loud. I think most people would be happy with the audio quality, unless they want a truly immersive movie experience. 

For that, I still recommend a soundbar or bookshelf speakers. As mentioned, the U7K’s feet do elevate the display a few inches above a media stand, leaving you plenty of room for that soundbar. 

I’m satisfied with the audio quality and you can certainly do much worse. 

Hisense U7K –  The Competition

Hisense packs so much performance into this television that I would probably recommend it above some televisions that cost more than twice as much, like the Samsung QN90C, for example. 

That said, Hisense probably has its sights set much lower, competing with the likes of the Samsung Q70C, LG QNED 80, or the TCL Q7 series. Against these, the U7K won’t necessarily be the cheapest, but it will give them all a run for their money when it comes to value.

I want to point out that having a television that is color-accurate, extremely bright, and offers super-fast refresh rates of 4K gaming is highly unusual. To get that all, plus a price under $1,000 is nearly unheard of.