Hisense - 65" Class U7 Series Mini-LED 4K QLED Google TV

This is my first time owning a Hisense. I’ve seen people calling them the best bang for the buck TV for many years so I figured why not. The u7n is one step below the u8n which is this years upper version of the U series this year. I’m replacing an older led 65” which, while it worked well for a while has been having issues with dark clouding. Once I got this big beast unboxed and plugged in I went thru the initial setup. Originally I was going to just do a basic setup but I went ahead and linked my google home account with the tv. The setup took about 10 minutes or so with me forgetting passwords and resetting them. Once I got past the initial setup I decided to just move the cursor around the tv and click on things to see how much lag was happening. I was very concerned that it seemed as though every movement and every click had quite a bit of lag. However after an hour or so everything was smooth as silk and has remained that way since I’ve been using the TV for a week. I guess the initial updates and downloading of apps slows the tv down. I mount all of my tv’s on the wall due to…kids. But I normally do all setup and checking out of the tv on the floor. My first initial viewing of this tv revealed one thing, it is super bright and the color and clarity of 4k shows on the native Netflix app look absolutely amazing. My kids even sat down on the floor with me and started watching some 4K nature show on Netflix, they were enamored. I dialed in calibration settings to where it looked good to me and turned off a lot of the smart features and motion features then I went and checked calibration settings for last years Hisense U tv’s and realized my calibration settings were pretty close to what was recommended so these old eyes haven’t lost much over the years. I will dial it in more once the updated calibration settings come out for the U7N. The connection ports are 4 hdmi (wish it had 5) 2 4k@144Hz and 2 at 45@60Hz, 2 USB, 1 LAN, 1 optical, 1 coax and 1 3.5 headphone jack. You also have Bluetooth and WIFI. My previous tv had 5 HDMI ports and I think 5 should be standard for all 65” tvs. I had to remove my soundbar from running HDMI and run it optical. Not a huge deal but c’mon. Some of the connection ports sit directly on the back and some sit on the left hand side of the tv. Not a big deal for me but some might find that difficult if they’re attempting to mount it flatly to the wall. Once I realized there was no issues or dead pixels or anything that might cause me to replace the tv, I mounted it on the wall. The TV has very thin bezels on left right and top. The bottom is a little bit larger bevel but that’s kind of what holds the tv together. The screen has multiple layers of protection that I left on until I had it perfectly centered and level, then I removed all plastic and screen protection. This tv really has a beautiful display. The Mini-LED with Full Array Local Dimming really shines and when I play something that uses Dolby Vision in 4K, I came away impressed. I know OLED tv’s are absolutely gorgeous but that price is not really in my budget for a 65” TV. I’ve heard some people say that viewing from the side is not good on this tv. I don’t think it’s bad at all actually. You do lose some color but not as bad as some other tvs and honestly don’t think viewing angles are bad at all. I will say I don’t know if I’m a fan of the Google UI. It basically shows you everything available for you to watch, but most of these things you need a subscription for. Like it will show you ads for movies on Disney + even if you don’t carry that subscription. So if you’re not thinking and go to click on it, it either offers the app for you to download or it asks you to sign in. Kind of a weird way to do things and not really my cup of tea but I still use a cable box for most things anyways so all that does is confuse my wife and kids. I do use a soundbar but I wanted to first try the tv with the built in speakers. They’re probably the best speakers I’ve heard on a flat screen since they came out, but they likely won’t be better than any soundbar. However, if you don’t have a soundbar the built in speakers will do fine. The remote is backlit and offers one button clicks for Netflix, YouTube, Prime, Disney+and tubi and offers several other easy to find buttons like the speaker to access google on the tv. There are a lot of settings on this tv….a lot… that I haven’t even delved into yet as I turn most of them off. But I plan to figure out which each of them do and if they’re needed. It even boasts some AI features which I haven’t figured out yet. All in all I’m extremely impressed with Hisense on this TV. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, maybe a TV for the kids play room but nope this one is going in the living room and they can have the old tv because this one is mine. If this starting pricepoint is too high for the average consumer then rest assured it will likely go on sale during different times of the year and you could snag one at a discount. The only bad things I can think about are really just my feelings like the UI and there only being 4 hdmi ports. Other than that, this tv seems to be a great deal from Hisense.

The brightness is something else. It will light up a room. The colors were also surprisingly vibrant. Contrast is not the best but when you have dark scenes the dimming zones help. Overall, a great mid-range tv.

I bought this TV as a replacement and decided to spend a little more than the last TV. After a lot of research, I decided on the the U7K despite being skeptical of the Hisense brand. I tried looking for the U7K knowing the U7N replaced it but couldn't find any. This was well worth the money and way better than I expected. Reviews say the viewing angle is pretty narrow but I didn't find that to be an issue at all. The sound is absolutely amazing for base TV speakers thanks to the included rear-mounted subwoofer. The colors and the refresh rate (an amazing 144hz with 4k) are a noticeable upgrade from our last TV. The UI being a Google TV is super easy to set up and use and the hands free is great when your kids hide the remote which is another great feature. It's elegant, sturdy, beautiful, and back lit which is great for night time viewing. There are so many great things to say about this TV

I've had this TV for a few days and I'm blown away by its clarity! I wanted something to replace the LG TV in my living room and am really happy that I chose this brand. I've always noticed that Hisense had really amazing picture quality on their in-store displays. With both a better price AND warranty than the other brands, I felt like it was definitely time to check them out. So far I'm 1000% pleased and plan on converting all of my TVs to Hisense in the future. The clarity while I was watching Spiderman as shown through my camera speaks for itself. It's even better in person.

TL;DR Excellent Picture Quality Great feature set for value Sound Quality Good for built-in speakers but keep your soundbar if already using one Android TV OS on version 12, when 13 is available 19GB of Storage for Apps and Content Excellent packing saved the screen from delivery company Always appreciated MIC OFF/ON physical switch Unboxing was fairly simply by just removing the plastic straps the “cover” slides straight up. Like most unboxing of TV’s it leaves the other components at the top of the box, so if you don’t have long arms (for a 65” sized box) just open the top of the box, its much easier. I have to give props to the R&D team on packaging care. I’m sure these TV’s get tossed around pretty good. This TV was delivered by a company called Seko and it had some nice gouges and holes in the box. However, the inside packing material saved the screen from certain death. This is my 3rd Hisense TV I have personally owned, recommended a few budget versions before, but this is the second of the top end models. The 65U7N is replacing the once premiere 65H9G. Hisense definitely has some more premium models above the U7N series. From a cost perspective the U7N is a lateral move in pricing, but thankfully the feature set has increased and so the U7N is definitely a better TV. OLED is definitely the best for inky blacks, but I have been pleased with the HDR quality of U7N. I am also glad to see Hisense didn’t skimp on the storage. I don’t know exactly how much was available before initial setup as those options were not available yet. Under Settings > System > Storage it shows 19GB total and 16 GB available with 2.7GB being from Apps. Way better than the 4GB total of my H9G. Software The TV is running Android TV OS 12 with Security Patch from Dec 5, 2023.The Kernel version is Feb 3, 2024. Android TV OS 12 was released on Nov 30, 2021; Version 13 was on Dec 2, 2022. Not sure of the decision for Hisense to not have the latest OS, but it at least has the most current updates from Google for the platform. There were no updates out-of-the-box that I was alerted to and a manual check showed everything to be the most recent as stated by Google’s Support pages; once I was able to get to that screen. Unboxing to power-on took about 7 minutes. Setup took about 10 minutes, then comes signing in to your apps. So all in about 20-25 minutes before you're watching any content. Smart Features I don’t want to talk to much about Android TV (previously Google TV) as I feel this comes down to preference. My preference is that of ROKU platform as it is simple, clean, and unobtrusive. However, I only prefer Roku as a standalone device/platform. I wish TV’s were not “Smart” as those platform wars are better left to standalone devices, however, I do like how Android TV gives the option to setup as Basic TV (if it were Roku that option is not available) at unboxing which will skip the account sign-in, Wi-Fi login, etc and make it a dumb TV. I was not impressed with the Google TV platform on the 65H9G or with the Chromecast w/ Google TV (horrible name) device as it was just too slow and performance lagged and definitely didn’t age well. On initial use I found the U7N to be equally slow and lag in performance, but with use it seems to have sped up when jumping through the on screen menus, especially on the App/Home Screen. I did choose to setup as an as Google TV (not sure why its not called an Android TV since the OS is), as I wanted to see if the features are any better/different. I have been using the Roku 4K Ultra for a few years now and have Roku’s on all of my other TV’s, but for now I think I will keep using the Android TV platform to continue testing. Sound Quality This was definitely better than expected with the 20W speakers and built-in 20W woofer. It’s by no means audio bliss, but if you are primarily a sports and news watcher they are more than adequate. The mids are definitely missing and audio can sound a “tinny” depending on the content, but a quick switch of the settings and it can sound pretty good. There is an auto-content feature that will match the sound setting to the content, but I did not find it very accurate. My normal audio setup is via HDMI-Arc a Vizio 5.1.2 setup so I didn’t last but a day and half using the built-in speakers. The marketing, however, is a little ambitious “get a 2.1 Surround Sound experience without any additional equipment”, key word being “experience”, of which it won’t be a good one. At 40 watt total output, don’t expect this to be better than a traditional 2.1 soundbar and subwoofer setup. Picture Quality This is not a massive upgrade from the 65H9G in most areas so I wasn’t expecting too much improvement over an only 4 year old TV. I think where the U7N is better is mostly because Hisense got better overall. I always turn-off all the features for picture quality or at least to low. I left these on at first this time. For 4K HDR streaming content it doesn’t really suit my viewing preferences. But in 1080p SDR content like with Tron: Legacy it can definitely upscale the content to make it look really good. The film loses the original grittiness that makes it feel like a movie and not real life, but black picture quality definitely increases. Of course any type of cartoon or content with minimal dark scenes looks fantastic. Definitely going to take some time to dial it in to my liking. I have not tested any 4K content via Blu-Ray yet to see how it really handles this content, but based on the streaming capabilities, I know it will look even better. Reflections are going to be highly dependent on your positioning in relation to windows, but it does handle them well. The screen is not a high-gloss, but it is not a full matte either. One feature I have on a different TV brand that is made possible by the Full-Array Local Dimming and many zones, is when viewing 21:9 (letterboxed) content the black bar areas of the screen are turned off. This is great as it limits light bleed and really makes the content pop. This is pretty much only in movies that use that aspect ratio. I don’t know if Hisense is doing something similar, but I could definitely tell that these areas are much darker than on the H9G the U7N is replacing so it helps the content to pop even more. Gaming I am seriously interested in getting to test this out with the native 144hz panel, but it's finals week in my household and trying to help with the distractions so studying is achieved. The weekend is coming soon! Ports Port location is a design upgrade I am happy about as all of the ports you are most likely to use are now located on one side, instead of split between side and back. There are two 4K60 ports and two 4K144 ports. HDMI-ARC is Port 1 4K60. There is an A/V (composite) all-in-one so if you have an older device like a VCR or Wii for nostalgia you will need to pickup an adapter; I am happy they included this legacy port as we do still like to watch our old home videos from VCR (one day I’ll get around to digitizing them!). A USB 1amp, headphone port, and Coax/Serial connector finish the side and on the back is a LAN, Digital Audio Out, and a USB 0.5amp. Power Input is located on the opposite side (right). Voice Features While I do like Smart home features like plugs and switches, I don’t like Smart Indoor Camera/Audio devices, so this feature is not turned on. The setup is similar to setting up an Android phone and assistant features can be setup or skipped. One area that I love about Hisense is the physical switch located on the bottom of the tv that turns the mic off/on so there is no wondering if it is really listening or not. Out-of-the-box the switch is ON (right), turning OFF, slide the position left. This is also covered in the Quick Setup Guide. The Mic light then switches from white (ON) to amber (OFF). To me these are the most important areas to speak on. I’m sure if you are coming from a tv set that is 5 years or more older and depending on the quality it was at the time of purchase, your impressions will be more enthusiastic than mine. I wasn’t expecting a huge jump in performance, but from what I have seen so far I am impressed so definitely worth it. Definitely lots of value for the money with this set. OLED is the ultimate picture quality, but from family members' homes that have them, they are the worst in high ambient light rooms and the picture quality is really lost on streaming service content that lowers the bitrate of the original content. The only way to get the best quality is via 4K Blu-Ray or full source files from a local server and a typical movie is going to need between 50GB-75GB of storage space. You can chase the rainbow on specs, but bare minimum is going to be high nits for bright rooms, Full-Array Local Dimming with a lot of zones, and panel refresh rate. Then you just have to pick your size. 65” for me is the new 55”, doesn’t feel gargantuan in my living room can sit close enough without getting a sunburn, and can sit far enough away to comfortably still see the content if you have a lot of guests over. The 65U7N definitely hits all the right specs and delivers.

What never ceases to amaze me is the quality of TV one can get for their dollar these days – and the Hisense U7 is a shining example of this. I’ve been using this TV for a couple of weeks now, and there’s a lot to love about it. However, there are also a few things that I wish were a bit different. The box includes the display, a stand, a power cord, and a remote. I chose to use the stand for the viewing area, but as with all TVs nowadays, standard VESA mounts are available. Unboxing and setting up are pretty easy—but bring a friend, as it’s almost impossible and definitely not safe to do alone. The stand attaches easily with a Phillips screwdriver, and from the time I started unboxing to the time I turned it on, it took less than 10 minutes. The initial setup is cumbersome. You have to set up Google TV, accept a handful of EULAs and privacy notices, and then accept some Hisense EULAs and privacy notices as well. You also end up signing into your Google account and answering a few questions along the way. Overall, the initial TV setup experience is a drag. Once the initial setup is complete, you’re presented with the Google TV experience. The Google TV experience on this TV leaves a lot to be desired. I found the interface to be slow to respond to remote commands. Occasionally, the interface “buffers” a few commands when you click, you end up thinking the interface is unresponsive, and then it catches up, executing all commands all at once. I’ll preface my following comments by saying I have a network at home that would rival any enterprise network—with enterprise-grade access points, switching, and firewalls in place, all connected to a gigabit synchronous Internet connection. This TV is connected to the AP in the same room as the TV. My TV watching primarily consists of watching YouTube content – with the occasional sit-down to watch a movie. Watching YouTube on the native GoogleTV OS was a subpar experience. The app was unresponsive at times, but more importantly, watching 4K YouTube content was hit or miss. Enabling “stats for nerds” on YouTube would frequently show that it was doing 1080P at best rather than 2160p. Sometimes, videos would change between 1080p and 2160p during playback, but I could find no rhyme or reason for this. Network bandwidth was adequate, as was the connection to the AP in the same room. I use this TV primarily as a monitor. Once I hooked up the AppleTV 4K streaming device to it, it really started to shine. Usability issues with the UI/UX were no longer a concern, and the focus turned to analyzing the picture. The picture on this TV is phenomenal from my “average guy” perspective. I used to really nerd out and pixel peep, but not anymore. Up close or at viewing distance, this unit delivers a head-turning picture. Blacks are inky black with absolutely no light bleed from adjacent light areas on the TV. Highlights are bright, and in a dark room, it takes your eyes a minute to adjust to the contrast and dynamic range this TV offers. The colors are vivid. I did have to turn off the motion enhancement – which creates the “soap opera” effect. Motion enhancement is a love-it-or-hate-it feature, and for me, it creates an unnatural viewing experience. Whether it’s a new feature in 4K from AppleTV, older content from Max, or a YouTube video, it looks great on this TV. For me, watching fast sports is a good measure of motion performance on a TV - I watched a bit of a basketball game – and the motion was very clean – no notable flicker or jitter. Watching NFL games this season will surely be a treat on this display. Playing Nintendo Switch on this TV was a good experience – vivid colors, no artifacts or jitter with fast motion. This TV has built-in speakers – and a rear-firing subwoofer that provides above-average sound – but I rely on a soundbar with an external subwoofer for regular viewing. Overall, this TV delivers a lot of features. It’s not the thinnest or lightest TV I’ve seen or owned, but I’ve found that those are things that sell a TV. Once you set it up, you’re not paying attention to how thin or light it is. This TV nails that sweet spot between budget models and those that cater to enthusiasts. It has high-end features, like full-array QLED, that just a few years ago cost thousands of dollars at a much more affordable price for the average consumer looking for a TV that can fit at the center of their main entertainment area. I’m not a fan of the GoogleTV interface – but it will work if you’re a Google Home home or don’t mind a bit of lag when using the interface. If you’re going to connect an external streaming device like an Amazon FireStick or AppleTV – then there’s very little not to love about this TV.

This TV’s 4K picture quality looks great. Our couch is about 10’ from the TV and it looks crisp and crystal clear. Nice fluid motion on high definition streaming and 4K UHD content. Multiple picture mode options for setting screen preferences like Dolby Vision IQ (when streaming at that quality), Vivid, PC/Game, Theater Day and Night, Sports, etc. Colors are vibrant and pop. The eARC works perfectly with our (Sonos) Dolby Atmos sound system. Setup was very fast and easy. It walks you through it under 10 mins. We have 4 streaming services and all of them were easy to login, setup, and then access right from the TV on home screen. The fast on feature and Google integration to simply tell Google to “Turn the TV” on is great. Google integration works well – for example I tested saying “Watch Yellowstone” and it found the show and that I had it available on Peacock and took me right to it. Pretty impressive. The remote is very intuitive and also controlled our Apple TV out of the box. Airplay works great as part of the TV to stream or mirror from your phone or tablet. To be honest, I’m not sure we even need the AppleTV anymore as this handles all the streaming services and mirror easily without it. The stand was straightforward to setup (just 4 screws) and even with the size of the TV it is stable, however it’s not quite tall enough to be above the soundbar in our situation. Our soundbar blocks the bottom 1 inch of the TV because we have the TV on a stand that is taller than our viewing height from the couch. If we had the TV lower this probably wouldn’t be an issue, so just something to consider based on your TV stand height. We are just going to mount the TV on the wall to raise it above the soundbar. Note that the stand is included, but a wall mount isn’t.

I was looking for a new TV for my den. I currently have an older Vizio 65” 4K TV that has worked well, but it’s a traditional LED backlighting is nothing exciting. I considered an OLED TV, but the price on those is still fairly high. I found this new model from Hisense that boasts QLED technology as well as the new Google TV interface. Since I use YouTube TV as my primary service, I thought this would be a good combination of price, features, and picture quality. The TV was well packaged. The delivery carrier had hit the front of the box hard enough to put a large 8-inch gash in the cardboard, but the inner packaging protected the TV so that no damage was done. Unpacking is easy and everything was well-organized with clear instructions on how to assemble the base. The TV is fairly light as I was able to lift it (with the base attached) onto the table by myself. I believe it’s around 40lbs, so if that seems heavy, enlist the help of a friend. The base is actually very attractive – very modern looking – and it has a few simple cable management clips on it. On the stand, the screen sits above the table by nearly 3 inches, with an overall set height of 35¼ inches . The back housing of the TV uses a metal panel that supports the screen well, making it easy to handle when moving or hanging without worrying about flexing the screen. The bezel is very thin – just over 1/8 of an inch - but there is additional “black space” border on the outer edges of the screen itself, so total border size is just over ½ an inch. The set has a very sleek look. My only complaint about the bezel is that the bottom edge has an additional slightly shiny metallic strip on it that catches ambient light and glare. It’s an unnecessary embellishment and is distracting. The remote is not bad. Like the rest of the TV, it’s sleek looking and spots a faux brushed aluminum finish. Most buttons are backlit (all except the D-pad and the 6 quick-access app buttons). The backlighting is motion activated, which is a very useful feature. I have no major complains about the remote except that the D-pad looks like a round “click wheel” lifted from an old original iPod. It’s not a touch-sensitive wheel – it’s just a donut that still operates four directional switches underneath it. It does, however, make it easy to identify without looking at it, so the design does have some value. I am ambivalent about the Google TV interface. It does seamlessly interact with YouTube TV with favorite shows and channels directly linked on the home screen, but it does the same thing with other apps, too. For example, I do not subscribe to Disney+, but the top half of the home screen is an advertisement for a series on that service. I even disabled the app (it cannot be removed) and it still shows this. It shows ads for programming on other streaming channels that I do not subscribe to or even have installed. I find that makes the interface very cluttered. It reminds me of those “click bait” websites with lots of busy things meant to grab your attention and entice you to click. In addition to the busy, commercialized interface, it’s also not very responsive. I’m not sure if this is an issue with Google TV or the Hisense TV, but more often than not, selecting an app or options within apps takes a fraction of a second longer than expected. Getting the onscreen keyboard to display takes over a second after clicking on the text input field. Of course Google Assistant is the preferred way of completing complex searches. Once the remote is paired in Bluetooth mode (it will instruct you onscreen), you can use the voice assistant from the remote. It works well – just as well as it does on my computer or Android phone or tablet. Note that with the remote in Bluetooth mode, it does not have to be aimed at the TV to control it, except for initial power on. The built-in speakers are barely tolerable. There are some tweaks, but not enough to make me want to use them. Luckily, I have a Samsung soundbar, and connecting it was super easy. It supports both HDMI/ARC and Bluetooth. The TV’s HDMI 1 input offers eARC and it’s plug and play. I also tried the Bluetooth connection, and I was unable to tell any difference in quality between the two. Speaking of wireless connections, the TV supports WiFi 6e. I have an Asus mesh system that supports 802.11ax speeds. I subscribe to my ISP’s 500Mpbs speed, but most Internet-based tests report speeds closer to 600Mpbs. Using Google TV’s built-in browser app and accessing Fast.com and Speetest.net, I was seeing speeds around 375Mbps, but then I found the TV’s native speed test in the network menu, and it reported my full 500Mbps+ ISP bandwidth. I guess the difference is with the browser app’s overhead. In terms of hardwired connections, the TV offers plenty. I like that all the HDMI, primary USB, analog audio, antenna and power cord jacks are all side plug-ins so they don’t interfere with slim wall mounts. If you need to use the optical audio output, the 2nd USB port, or the hardwired Ethernet jack, those are on the back and will interfere with a slim wall mount. For most people, that may not be an issue as those are the least used ports, but I prefer hardwired network connections, so it’s a consideration. Making that worse, the connection is toward the bottom of the TV, so it means to get a nice slight downward tilt of the screen, the top has to be mounted even further away from the wall. Just to note, this TV’s ethernet port supports a max speed of 100Mpbs (no gigabit). That’s not an issue as it’s plenty of bandwidth for 4K streaming and typical of most smart TVs. Now, for the part of the TV that probably matters the most: picture quality. First of all, I will say that I am very impressed. I have two LG OLED TVs and while the picture quality of this Hisense can’t eally compete, it’s still very, very good! It’s definitely a world of difference compared to the old Vizio that it replaced. Black levels are excellent for an LCD/LED screen. This is definitely a very good implementation of QLED micro-dot technology. I never noticed any bad artifacts in the picture, and after experimenting with various settings, I landed on using the TV’s auto mode for picture definition. That’s actually a first, because I usually prefer to tweak each setting, finding just the right balance between a clear picture but without looking “overprocessed”. The screen does have an anti-glare coating, but it’s not any sort of high-tech polarized or colored filter – it’s really just a matte finish. That makes placement important, although the bright QLED screen helps hide reflections. There are plenty of picture adjustments available and they can be tailored by input or set for all inputs. It did take me a minute to figure out how to turn off “soap opera” mode, but I finally found the “clarity” setting on the full menu screen. Speaking of the menus, the TV has three different sets – a bottom-panel quick menu that can be user-configured as to what setting appear, a side-bar menu with more comprehensive options, and a full-screen menu with everything. At first it seemed confusing, but I think once you make your initial settings, this works well. Overall, I like this TV. The only reason for my 4 out of 5 star rating is because of the Google TV interface. I normally use Roku, and I like that it allows all those “advertisements” to be disabled. I prefer a clean interface with a simple search function as opposed to a busy barrage of ads. I fixed that problem by just not using Google TV and instead I’ve connected my Roku Ultra.

I bought this for my girlfriend and I own the U8l 75 inch. This 65 U7N looks comparable to my U8k.. fantastic picture and processing and for the sale price you cant beat it. The pictures attached are only 1080p streaming and it still looks fantastic.