Ameya DalviSep 16, 2020 4:54:42 PM IST

Overall rating: 4/5

Price: Rs 34,990

Hisense, the brand may have debuted in India quite recently, but interestingly, the A71F series was here earlier under a different name. We know it as Vu's Premium 4K series or their Ultra 4K series. While the Hisense 55A71F is pretty much the Vu 55PM (Review) we reviewed earlier this year in terms of design and specs, there are a few minor changes and one big improvement that make it a very attractive proposition. So, is this the perfect Smart TV one can buy in India for less than Rs 40,000? Let's find out.

Hisense 55A71F

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Design and Connectivity: 8/10

As I just mentioned, this TV looks exactly like the Vu 55PM model, except for the black borders instead of gray. It has extremely thin bezels on three sides and a not so thick bottom bezel. The power LED and IR receiver sit on a tiny chin below the company logo in the center of the bottom bezel. A pair of bottom-firing speakers are neatly concealed. The TV isn't as slim as the OnePlus TV U1 but not too bulky either. It can be wall mounted or placed on a desk using the included brackets. The necessary screws and brackets are supplied in the package along with a wireless remote control and a pair of AAA batteries.

The TV comes with three HDMI ports, two USB 2.0 ports, optical audio, a 3.5mm headphone output and a LAN port.

In the connectivity department, you get three HDMI ports – one of which supports ARC, two USB 2.0 ports, optical audio, 3.5mm headphone output and a LAN port – all along the left edge of the module center, while the AV input ports are placed on the back of the TV. Just like the Vu 55PM, the connectivity ports are located more than a foot and a half inwards from the edge, making it quite difficult to reach if you're wall-mounting the TV. Ideally they should have been at least 9 inches closer to the edge. Wireless connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band WiFi.

The connectivity ports are located more than a foot and a half inward from the edge, making it quite difficult to reach if you're wall-mounting the TV

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Features and Specs: 8.5/10

The Hisense 55A71F features a 55-inch VA panel with an Ultra HD (4K) resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and a refresh rate of 60Hz. The company didn't disclose panel brightness figures, but it does is bright enough and supports HDR10, HLG and, more importantly, Dolby Vision for HDR content. Like all smart TVs, WiFi is built in, but unlike many budget TVs these days, it supports dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi networks with support for b/g standards /n/ac. Like all official Android TVs, it has Chromecast built-in and lets you cast content to the screen from compatible apps on your phone or tablet.

The specs of this TV are pretty good for the segment. It is powered by a quad-core processor with ARM Cortex A55 cores and a Mali-470 MP GPU. Each of the four processor cores can throttle between 1100 MHz and 1400 MHz. You get 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage here, some of which is taken up by the Android Pie 9.0 TV operating system. You still have more than 10 GB of space left for your needs; much higher than what the OnePlus TV offers. Much like its Vu twin, audio output is rated at 30 Watts RMS, but with one major upgrade – this TV is compatible with Dolby Atmos audio. More on this in the section on audio quality.

It comes with a full remote that supports IR and Bluetooth, and looks exactly like the one you get with several Vu Smart TVs, but with a Hisense logo. Looks like Hisense didn't just make signs for them, as commonly believed. It's one of my favorite remotes in smart TVs, so I'm not going to complain. Although the remote is nice and well built, the spacing of the buttons in the center is still problematic. The buttons above and below the d-pad blend almost seamlessly into the D-pad, and you often end up hitting the wrong button when you're not looking at the remote.

Although the remote is nice and well built, the spacing of the buttons in the center is still problematic.

The remote has hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, YouTube and Google Play along with navigation keys, enter key, volume control, mute button, settings and a D-pad. Most of the redundant keys you see on many other remotes have been destroyed, but none of the important keys are missing. The power button on the remote communicates with the TV using IR when powered on, then everything works via Bluetooth. The remote is voice activated, so you can issue voice commands and they work flawlessly.

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – UI: 9/10

This Hisense TV runs the official Android Pie 9.0 TV operating system and has a standard user interface that you see on most certified Android TVs without any third-party launcher. It is simple and easy to use even for a novice user. You have a row of your favorite installed apps, shortcuts that you can add, remove or mix and match. The other rows display the last played or suggested content from various online streaming services. The TV is preloaded with Google Play Store and apps for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Hisense TV runs Android Pie 9.0 TV operating system and has a standard user interface.

Just like most Android Vu TVs, the Hisense 55A71F also lets you change sound and picture settings on the fly while watching content from any source, be it Netflix or Prime video or an HDMI source like DTH, or just when watching something via USB. All you have to do is press the settings button on the remote to bring up the menu and make the necessary adjustments while the content is playing in the background. You can have different picture and audio profiles for each input source, or apply your favorite settings or presets across the board. Speaking of picture presets, you get different sets when playing SDR, HDR10, and Dolby Vision content. You are allowed to further tweak the image in each scenario.

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Picture quality: 8/10

The picture quality of this TV is quite good for the segment. The 4K panel can get quite bright with good contrast, and detail in dark areas in high-contrast scenes in our test videos was clearly visible most of the time. Black levels aren't perfect, but par for the course in this price bracket. The color reproduction of this TV is very good and the colors look quite natural after a bit of adjustment. Out of the box the colors are a little muted, but bumping them up a bit in the picture settings brings them to life.

This TV supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and 4K HDR content encoded in this format looks vibrant. But with HDR-enabled content on Prime Video, there was some noticeable flicker in some areas of high-contrast scenes. Interestingly, a similar problem was also observed when testing the Vu 55PM TV, but the magnitude of the problem is lower here.

Non-HDR 4K content also looks crisp on this TV, with accurate colors and plenty of detail. Full HD 1080p content is upscaled well and looks just as good. Most 720p videos were also perfectly watchable, but not as sharp. Anything below 720p looks a little too soft, which is the case with almost all budget 55-inch 4K TVs. Viewing angles are good, but not as good as with IPS panels. There is a bit of color shift when watching TV from sharp angles.

As I mentioned earlier, you have a good amount of picture adjustment options such as brightness, contrast, sharpness and color to adjust it to your liking. Besides, you also get advanced options to adjust white balance, color temperature, digital and MPEG noise reduction, etc. I didn't spot any motion control settings here. The overall picture quality is slightly better than the Vu 55PM and a notch better than other competitors such as Xiaomi's Mi TV 4X 55 and TCL's iFFALCON 55K31, priced at around Rs 35,000 The only 55-inch TV in this price segment that does a bit better in this department is the Vu Cinema TV 4K.

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Audio Quality: 8.5/10

A pair of lower speakers rated at 30 watts RMS provide very good audio output. In fact, it's one of the best I've heard on LED TVs. It's comparable to the Vu Cinema TV with a built-in soundbar, but not better. But it's significantly better than the Vu 55PM could manage. The output is loud and clear with a good amount of warmth in the sound. The bass is punchy and there's good clarity in the vocals too. The speakers are nicely tuned out of the box, but if you want to tweak the audio further, you have a bunch of sound tuning options too.

The speakers can get quite loud even at 20% volume level, and everything from music to movies to web series on OTT platforms sound surprisingly good on these TV speakers. What's even better is that they support Dolby Atmos. It's something I don't usually take seriously on TV speakers, but it makes a difference on the Hisense 55A71F and you get more than a hint of positional audio. While the sound is clearly better than what you get on most LED TVs, it's not quite as good as a soundbar with a dedicated subwoofer. But it's one of the few TVs that didn't make me miss a soundbar, and that's saying a lot.

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Overall Performance: 7.5/10

The TV takes around 40 seconds to boot up when you switch it on from the mains, which is average for Android TVs these days. I'm still waiting for an Android TV that exceeds the 30 second mark. This TV supports Instant Resume, so if you turn it off and on from the remote control, the TV will almost immediately turn back on from standby. There was no noticeable stutter in the UI or during video playback up to 4K HDR content. It also manages to play 4K videos via USB smoothly with the default player, or via a third-party app like VLC.

There is a noticeable amount of backlight background on all four edges of the TV, as you can see in the picture.

Although the company ticked most of the crucial boxes, there is one major issue that I would like to highlight. There is a noticeable amount of backlight background on all four edges of the TV, as you can see in the image. Now, this is something Hisense's QC team should have taken care of before launch. I thought it might be a problem with our test device, but I remembered noticing a similar issue in the Vu 55PM model, which is more or less the same TV. Luckily, this is mostly noticeable when loading screens or still images, and doesn't impact the overall viewing experience during video playback. But this is something that could and should have been avoided by the company.

Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV – Price and Verdict

The Hisense 55A71F UHD Smart TV can be had for Rs 34,990 in India with a one-year warranty. They offered 5 years warranty on the panel at launch, so check if the option is still available at the time of purchase. At this price, you get a good all-around TV with crisp picture and vivid colors, support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, a wide range of connectivity options, and excellent audio output.

It certainly has its nose ahead of the majority of its 55-inch competitors in the sub-40K segment such as Xiaomi, TCL and most Vu models, except for their Cinema TV 4K, which is perpetually out of stock. . So if you can look past the backlight issue, there's no reason not to buy the Hisense 55A71F if you're looking for a feature-rich big-screen TV on a modest budget.

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