In the TV market, the fiercest competition is in the $500 to $900 range. These midrange TVs make up a huge chunk of the market share, whereby you can find your first TV or upgrade an aging panel without spending too much money; and they’re getting better every year. This year, the Hisense U6HF takes the competition a notch higher, with impeccable features at a very reasonable price.
The Hisense 75U6HF in this review is a full-featured 4K TV with quantum dot technology for enhanced picture performance and delivers better support for high-dynamic range color modes, including HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ.
It also boasts up-to-600 nits peak brightness and local dimming that’s necessary for the correct reproduction of HDR content. While the U6HF line isn’t the class leader among other best TVs in 2024 like the Sony A95L QD-OLED or even the Hisense U8N, it nonetheless offers stellar performance without a premium price tag.
About the Hisense 75U6HF
Here are the main specs on the Hisense 75U6HF model we reviewed:
- Resolution: 4K (3,840 x 2,160)
- Display Type: Full-array LED with local dimming and quantum dots (VA-style panel)
- HDR support: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG
- Dolby Atmos: Yes (native decoding)
- eARC support: Yes (HDMI 1)
- Native refresh rate: 60Hz
- Smart platform: Amazon Fire TV
- Color: DCI-P3 color space/10-bit chroma resolution
- Processor: Hi-View Engine 4K
- Other features: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Google Chromecast
Design and Features
On design, the Hisense 75U6HF isn’t very outstanding, but it doesn’t look cheap either. It looks beautiful on any TV stand, with the screen featuring a thin plastic bezel that’s a smudge thinner on the top and sides than on the bottom. On the bottom bezel, there’s a quarter-inch-wide brushed metallic bezel that runs from end to end with a white Hisense logo in the middle. Beneath that is a trapezoidal pad that holds the infrared sensor, far-field microphone array, and a multi-use power/input button.
The screen is supported by a pair of inverted V-shaped, gunmetal-colored metal legs, but it also has standard VESA screws should you opt to mount it on a wall.
All ports are located on the left side of the TV on the rear panel, except for the power cable on the right side. The left-facing connections include three HDMI ports (one eARC), two USB ports, a cable connector, and four 3.5mm ports for headphones and composite video input. There’s a fourth HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and an optical audio output facing the back.
Image Quality
The Hisense 75U6HF is a 4K ULED TV with a 60Hz refresh rate and supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, Dolby Vision HDR, and HDR10 Plus. The ULED backlight system on the U6HF has local dimming and a quantum dot layer, a feature that we rarely see on a TV at this price. With these features and technologies, this TV easily exceeds our picture quality expectations for a TV in the sub-$1000 price range, particularly on color performance.
There are several preset picture modes for various use cases: Eco mode for power saving, Standard, Theater Day, Theater Night, and Filmmaker Mode which is designed to turn off most of the video processing and render movies with settings that bring it close to what the director intended as possible. You can adjust the picture settings to your preferences, including tweaking the effects such as picture noise reduction and dynamic range.
In Hulu’s newest hit series, “We Were the Lucky Ones,” the U6HF delivers excellent detail in the 4K picture, and colors are rendered perfectly. Dark clothing popped, while the green hues in the forests were well saturated without bleeding into neighboring grey and teal elements. And skin tones looked realistic, with every scene appearing to be natural and well rendered.
Overall, screen uniformity is great on the Hisense 75U6HF with colors unblemished across the screen from edge to edge. Even challenging scenes in “Planet Earth II” were displayed adeptly, revealing the scenes in the plains without any banding or haloing around bright lights or sacrificing contrast. Desert mesas looked remarkably bright, and there was a distinct lack of motion artifacts in fast action scenes.
Should there be any weakness in the picture performance of Hisense U6HF it’s how it handles some lower-resolution video material. These low-res videos look a little flat with a slight soap opera effect created by the upscaling process. Still, the TV’s color fidelity is good to the point you can’t complain over its minor flaws. And while it handles standard TV broadcasts in 720p with aplomb, it had some difficulty upscaling some content, where contrast suffered in dark corners and image depth appears lacking.
For gamers, the Hisense U6HFs motion rate of 240 and 11.3ms input lag are great, despite the 60Hz native refresh rate. That input lag is well below our 20ms threshold for good gaming performance, but still above the 10ms barrier that represents a truly special set for gaming (Samsung and LG often hit that threshold, others not so much). Nonetheless, it’s a better performer just like the Hisense U8H and you won’t worry about sluggish controls while gaming on the U6HF.
Fire TV OS And Alexa
For you to get the most out of Fire TV features, you’ll need to sign in with your Amazon account, which is very typical of Fire TV streamers, which are built around using your account for transactions like purchasing the app and renting media. However, on the Hisense 58U6HF, you don’t need an Amazon account to use the TV. There is an optional Basic mode that lets you use the TV as a TV, without access to most streaming features in the interface but provides access to the TV’s varied inputs.
Still, most of us would want to use our Amazon account to access the full features of the Hisense 58U6HF Fire TV Edition, bearing in mind how robust it is as a smart TV platform. For instance, it lets you access most streaming services, including Amazon Video and Music, Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV, Spotify, and Twitch. Curiously, Google Play Movies & TV, as well as Google Play Music, are absent, and YouTube loads only via Firefox or Silk web browsers.
Not surprising at all, while the Fire TV OS is ideally based on Android, rarely do you see Amazon and Google get along much on content. The Fire TV includes access to the Alexa voice assistant, which you can easily use on the Insignia Fire TV Edition by pressing the microphone button on the remote and speaking into it. Sure, it may not be as hands-free as the Echo or Echo Spot, but it’s still functional out of the box with the press of a button.
Remote and Sound Quality
The included remote is made of plastic and looks typical with other basic remotes we’ve seen before with a large, white, circular navigation pad near the top. On the top of the remote, there are power, input, settings, user account, and Google Assistant buttons along with a pinhole microphone and indicator LED. At the bottom, there are dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, Peacock, Tubi and YouTube. Volume and channel rockers as well as playback controls are just below the navigation pad.
The Hisense 58U6HF is a visual powerhouse in the price range, but its audio is a typical case with budget TVs. If you afford to buy a pair of speakers or a soundbar, you should do so. That’s not to say that the audio quality here is terrible, and if we can compare it with previous-gen Hisense TV, it does seem like Hisense’s budget TVs are getting better.
Should you buy the Hisense U6HF?
Yes, unless you’re after better motion handling or advanced gaming support
The Hisense U6HF delivers more bang for the buck than most LED TVs in its price range. On average, it’s better looking than the Amazon Fire TV Omni, it’s roughly on par with the Samsung Q60C, and it’s among the few TVs out there to offer up to 220 dimming zones and quantum dot layer at this price point. That said, the Q60C offers better motion handling than the U6HF, so keep in mind if you’re keen on motion.
For gamers shopping for a TV that’ll last a few more years into the future, spending on something like the Hisense U8N or the 2021 TCL 6-Series with Google TV is recommendable, as both of these TVs support 4K gaming at 120Hz (something the Hisense 75U6HF sadly does not.)
If your budget is cast into this price range, however, there aren’t many new TVs that offer this much value for the money. Also, considering the U6HF’s performance against those pricier TVs, it earns our Editors’ Choice award for budget LED TVs.
Recommended Configuration
Hisense 75-Inch Class U6HF Series ULED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (75U6HF, 2024) - QLED, 600-Nit Dolby Vision, Game Mode Plus VRR, HDR 10+, 240 Motion Rate, MEMC, Voice Remote, Compatible with Alexa, Black
The Review
Hisense U6HF
The Hisense U6HF (75U6HF) offers one of the best picture performance, forward-looking features and admirable color fidelity all at a bargain price.
PROS
- Extraordinary value
- Good brightness for its category
- Low input lag
CONS
- Poor audio
Review Breakdown
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DW RATING
