The Hisense 65U8QF appears on paper as excellent value for money with its integrated JBL soundbar, QLED technology and HDR10+ and Dolby Vision compatibility.

The Hisense U8 series of televisions is certainly one of the televisions of 2020, but it is currently displayed in stores at very attractive prices. Count 899 euros for the 55-inch version and 1290 euros for the 65-inch. Offers to which Hisense is currently applying refund offers which are 200 euros on the first and 300 euros on the largest model. Something to be seriously intrigued and push us to offer you the 65-inch test. On paper, this QLED model ticks a lot of boxes on the long list of criteria that define a good TV.

On the image side first, this 65U8QF uses a VA-type LCD panel whose contrasts are boosted, on the one hand by the Quantum Dot (this is a QLED television), and on the other hand by a powerful LED backlight for which Hisense promises a peak brightness of over 1000 nits. An already very interesting value at this price level, for which we must also consider that the backlighting is broken down into 180 zones, which, in theory, allows us to hope for good control of brightness, contrasts, but above all light leaks.

This TV should also pull out of the game with a sound bar on the front stamped JBL. Let's see what the machine has in the belly.

This test was carried out with a 65U8QF television loaned by Hisense.

Hisense 65U8QF Datasheet

Design and ergonomics: a rather neat presentation

The U8 series is naturally part of the Premium products at Hisense. Moreover, these are identifiable by the mention ULED. Do not confuse and think that ULED is another panel technology: it is just a marketing name for higher-end products.

Obviously, such a classification does not have the same meaning at Hisense as it can have at rank A manufacturers and for good reason, the prices are not the same either. This 65 inch currently available at less than 1300 euros cannot compete with products at 300, 400 or even 500 euros more expensive.

However, once installed in our test space, the U8F clearly does the trick.

Its metal boomerang-style foot contributes to the overall impression of quality of the product and it is even quite interesting since it allows this large 65-inch to be placed on a piece of furniture whose width would be slightly greater than 1 meter. Notice to those who would also like to hang this TV on a wall: know that it still weighs 25 kg. The embedded components weigh on the scale.

Back to a more classic installation with a strong point and a weak point. The weak point first: not only does the foot protrude a lot on the front of the television (problematic to add a better sound bar, for example), but it is the same for the rear. As a result, this television is about 38 cm deep – and a little less than 9 cm without the foot.

You will no doubt answer us that Hi-Fi furniture often measures 40 cm, but this feature prevents the screen from “sticking” to the wall. It may even be problematic to orient it, turning it on too narrow a piece of furniture, for example.

The strong point: you will appreciate the cable management mechanism integrated into the rear part of the stand. Once all the wires have been brought together, they can go down cleanly to your sources and the electrical outlet. At the rear there is enough to centralize all the cables properly, or almost. You may have to compose. If you're the type to prefer good big HDMI cables and Ethernet connections to Wi-Fi, you may find that, in addition to the antenna wire, you'll have to bother to guide everything in the groove provided for this purpose on the back.

The connection is made up of 4 HDMI ports (in addition to Ethernet, an optical input, a USB socket and TNT and Satellite tuners), one of which is located at the back of the panel, alongside the now very rare combo of RCA connectors — which allows you to plug in an old game console or, why not, a VCR or an old camcorder.

On the other hand, forget the headphone output and, you will have probably guessed it, the HDMI connection is standard 2.0 b and not HDMI 2.1. In addition, the USB socket is in version 2.0 and the Wi-Fi in 802.11 n. In short, all this is not of the latest generation and, even if this can be understood for the HDMI 2.1 socket given the release date of the television (and now its price), for the rest it must be recognized that's a bit of a shame.

Note that the edges of the screen are rather thin, which is now fairly standard. You will have noticed on the other hand on the various photos of the back that the design makes massive use of plastic.

On the other hand, at the front, Hisense integrates a soundbar stamped JBL which nicely dresses the product with a strip of acoustic fabric. The result is quite pleasant, even if the relief that this causes in relation to the surface of the slab creates a gap in which dust could easily lodge.

Finally, the remote control is the same as the one delivered with the brand's other ULED televisions. It is complete, rather very reactive, it even includes a microphone and a button dedicated to its activation. Hisense does not have a voice assistant within its own operating system, VIDAA, but it is possible to follow a procedure to connect the TV to Amazon Alexa. If necessary, we take advantage of access to some practical voice commands, such as adjusting the volume or sources. We told you about it in particular in the test of the Hisense 65U7QF.

Audio and video quality: well-used QLED technology

Unlike manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, LG or even Panasonic, which offer high-performance and AI-enhanced chips, Hisense is one of those who remain fairly discreet about the power of the processors integrated into televisions. What is certain is that it is powerful enough to run the home operating system very smoothly. Each button press on the remote control is reflected on the screen.

Regarding image processing, even if Hisense does not particularly emphasize in its remarks any artificial intelligence capable of working miracles, its Hi-View Engine circuit is doing relatively well in most situations. . The upscaling is certainly less good than that offered by the competition with very degraded or lower definition sources. On DTT, for example, we say that the giants of the sector offer a quality of upscaling all the same much higher. But with the various programs that we watched on Netflix, Amazon Prime or even via Molotov (recently available on VIDAA), the rendering is satisfactory. For some, we had to manually manage some settings. Sometimes to compensate for the automatic but too random management of the compensation engine, sometimes to choose for ourselves which level to apply to local dimming management.

It must be recognized that if the electronics are not always miraculous, at least the main options in the menus of the television do have an impact on the image. In the present case, this presents a major advantage for managing the high light output of the slab as well as possible. This naturally benefits content in HDR10 and Dolby Vision – a double compatibility which is also another strong point of this television – but it is sometimes necessary to tweak the settings. Note then in passing that we find in the menus, in addition to the HDR Standard, HDR Cinema or even HDR Sport modes, bright and dark Dobly Vision modes.

If VIDAA does not act as a benchmark in terms of available applications, this operating system does not have to be ashamed of the best TV OSes. The multitude of options makes it possible to take control of the panel settings often very effectively. Taking a look in the expert parameters allows you to act on precious settings such as local dimming, backlighting, adaptive contrast… and so on (gamma, black intensity, etc.).

These options allowed us to sometimes contain the high light output of this panel to reduce the light leaks specific to LCD technology. As you can see from the photos above, there's nothing terrible about the production of subtitles on Marco Polo when we're at an angle to the screen — and even when the camera has tends to highlight flaws.

At this stage of our tests, we can only appreciate the available resource, moreover managed by 180 microdimming zones, where Samsung only offers 48 on the Samsung QE55Q80T for example. Be careful, in theory as in practice, the more zones there are, the better the management of brightness, contrasts and light leaks, but that is not everything. The management of electronics also makes a big difference. As you can see in the photos above, despite the large number of zones, QLED LCD technology and, a fortiori, on a VA type panel (whose viewing angles are not optimal) light leaks remain visible in the most complex situations.

Either way, this U8QF produces a contrasty and vibrant image. Be careful, however: we have noticed that the anti-reflective filter integrated into this television is not extremely effective. If ever the room is bathed in light, you might be embarrassed.

To conclude this chapter, we must approach the audio part and there… we expected better! The presence of the JBL logo gave hope for a detailed and rich output, but it's relatively powerful at best. Relatively, because the system here is only 20 watts and it finally delivers enough spatialization and detail: difficult to do better with only two integrated speakers. However, they have the advantage of being oriented towards the spectators, which quickly turns out to be more flattering than tracks arranged under the chassis or the rear, for example.

Rather, the catch is the dynamic range of these speakers seems to collapse on both ends of the audio spectrum. Clearly, the bass is never very present and the highs are sometimes drowned out in the rest of the spectrum. Is the result catastrophic? Nope ! To tell the truth, it is even in the good average of what exists on the market. Especially since here too, the options in the audio adjustment menus really have an impact on reproduction. The voice mode, for example, isolates vocals very well, but significantly crushes everything else. Basically, it's never excellent!

Measurement results: high-level luminosity

On the side of the measures, the good news follows one another. This slab is indeed very well calibrated. We measured a Delta E of 2.88, a value below the average Delta E 2000 of 3 that we like to see on TVs. However, Hisense could have further improved its copy by taking care to better calibrate the white point. As can be seen in the measurements below, the 100% white is too red on the side and this can be seen very well with the naked eye during the tests.

This calibration results in a Delta E which varies from about 3 to 6 on the gray scale. We measured it at exactly 4.1 in day cinema mode, which is incidentally the mode used here for these measurements.

Note that the cinema night mode is substantially calibrated in the same way. The average Delta E 2000 is raised to 3.12 still due to a calibration that draws too much towards the red. In fact, in this mode, only the light intensity is really different. If it is measured here at nearly 400 cd / m² in daytime cinema mode (100% target), it is 217 cd / m² in night cinema mode.

Players can also rejoice in finding particularly well-calibrated modes. And for good reason, at Hisense, this mode is activated simply by checking an option in the TV menus. It is not a mode strictly speaking and it is possible to activate the game option on the cinema day mode to have an equally good colorimetry. In this case, the color fidelity is perfect since our probe recorded an average Delta E 2000 of 3.04, except that in addition the electronics automatically deactivate certain treatments to speed up the response time of the panel. If we are not equipped to measure this, we can assure you that the input lag (the display delay) is excellent: 14 ms!

We tested this 65U8QF with a few PlayStation 4 Pro titles, the result is quite satisfactory. It is important to favor the HDMI 4 socket which allows you to reach the 4K@60 Hz mode, to have the best possible experience, even if you are not using a next gen console.

Last important point: in game mode, the brightness is also a little unbridled since we measured 406 cd / m² with a target at 100%.

In HDR night mode and HDR Day mode (we have seen that the colorimetry changes little between one and the other), the color fidelity is also very good! We measured an average Delta E 2000 of 3.09 on the DCI-P3 color space. If the REC.709 coverage is 99% on this television, it is however largely perfectible on the DCI-P3 (84% approximately) and the REC.2020 (60% approximately). In this HDR night mode, we measured a peak of brightness at 530 cd / m², visibly largely restrained by the electronics. Indeed, it is by disabling the “automatic black” management option that the panel is freed up, without completely disrupting the other colors.

Thus, still in the HDR Day mode, the peak brightness is raised to 754 cd / m² with a target at 10%. The impression of a very bright image that we mentioned later in the text is now confirmed by these measurements.

And that's not all since we also measured a peak in brightness which this time reached 1115 nits in Dynamic HDR mode. This is real performance and undoubtedly the strong feature of this 65-inch television that you can buy for around 1000 euros.

With these many bright areas, this QLED panel is capable of producing fairly intense blacks. In fact, if we limit ourselves to a too basic contrast measurement, the probe will detect a very, very high contrast ratio (nearly 400,000:1). This is why it is important to measure the contrast with this so-called "interframe" pattern. Each of the 16 squares on the screen changes from black to white and it is after having carried out 32 measurements that we can therefore indicate a contrast ratio, based on average black and average brightness.

The results speak for themselves with very good contrast ratios which are respectively 9927:1 in HDR Day mode and 8810:1 in HDR night mode. Note that the calculation of the white/black ratio does not give rise to the same results as those indicated by the Calman test software from Portrait Display and, failing to be able to explain why, we prefer to rely on what is shown here.Finally, these measurements also give an idea of ​​the homogeneity of the slab and, as can be seen, there are sometimes significant differences under this measurement procedure.

Where to buy the Hisense 65U8QF?

The Hisense 65U8QF is already available and can be found around 1300 euros at certain retailers such as Amazon for example, or Fnac/Darty.

It also exists in 55 inches: