Chinese TV giant Hisense is pushing more firmly into the premium TV market with its latest range of TVs. Tagged ULED, the Series 7 TVs offer improved picture quality and plenty of smart features.
On the picture front, the TVs sport what Hisense is calling HDR Plus, by which it means High Dynamic Range plus Wide Colour Gamut. HDR broadens the brightness range available in TV signals by up to four times. Wide Colour Gamut allows more colours to be provided. The colour standards used by TVs until recently have generally only delivered about one third of the “colour space” which our eyes can see. Wider colour gamuts broaden this range.
Importantly, the TVs also feature “Local Dimming”. The TV technology uses an LCD screen with LED backlighting. LCDs cannot entirely stop the light from the backlight, so often there’s some leakage of light through parts of the picture that are supposed to be back. Local Dimming turns down or off the backlight in the sections of the picture that are supposed to be dark, improving black levels.
For access to the smart functions, the TV uses a single “ribbon” interface – a horizontal bar of items from which users can choose what they want to do. Amongst the features available is access to the streaming services Stan and Netflix. The latter supports the higher level subscription services, providing 4K and HDR content. Assuming, of course, that you have a fast enough Internet connection to permit these.
The TV also supports Freeview Plus, the free to air TV enhancement which integrates catch up TV for the main stations into an Electronic Program Guide.
The Hisense ULED Series 7 TVs are available from the major consumer electronics retailers in four sizes: 50 inches ($1699), 55 inches ($2499), 65 inches ($3499) and a massive 75 inches ($4999).
