Hisense A65K  TV Review

The Hisense A65K has a nice design for a budget model, with thin bezels and a sleek design overall.

The stand consists of two V-shaped feet that don't take up a lot of space. Sadly, they don't support the TV very well, and it wobbles easily. There are two stand positions on the Hisense 65A65K and the Hisense 75A65K, either the narrow position as shown or a wider position (shown here) that offers better stability but requires a larger table to support it. Sadly, the smaller sizes don't have the narrow stand position.

• Footprint of the 65-inch model in the narrow position: 25.4" x 11.5".
• Footprint of the 65-inch model in the wide position: 50.3" x 11.5"

Both stand positions lift the TV about 3.1" above the table, so most soundbars fit in front of the TV without blocking the screen.

The inputs are housed in the center of the TV and are difficult to access if you wall-mount the TV. Unfortunately, there are no cable management features on the back to help keep your cables neat.

The overall build quality of this TV is just decent. The stand doesn't support the TV well, as it wobbles easily in either stand position. The back panel flexes easily, which is fairly common, and won't cause any issues. Overall, the materials used don't feel premium, but there are no serious issues with its assembly or quality.

The Hisense A65K has an excellent native contrast ratio, so blacks are deep and true in dim and dark scenes. Since it lacks a local dimming feature, blacks are raised and appear washed out when very bright highlights appear on the screen. For a similar TV but with better contrast, look up the Hisense U6/U6K. Unfortunately, the model that replaces this TV, the Hisense A6N, has significantly worse contrast.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no blooming around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes. But as the TV can't brighten highlights without impacting the rest of the image, dark scenes look washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones.

Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference in dark scene performance.

Unfortunately, this TV has mediocre peak brightness in HDR. HDR content looks flat and dull overall, as the TV isn't bright enough to bring out specular highlights, and with the lack of a local dimming feature, bright spots don't pop at all.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: FILMMAKER Mode
• Backlight: 100
• Color Temp: Low

Switching to Game Mode causes a slight decrease in overall peak brightness, but it's not a noticeable difference.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: HDR Game
• Backlight: 100
• Contrast: 100
• Color Temp: Low

Unfortunately, the PQ EOTF tracking of this TV is just decent. Almost all scenes are darker than the content creator intended, even in dim and moderately-lit scenes that aren't limited by the TV's low peak brightness. Dark shadow details are crushed, and near blacks are raised a bit by the TV's lack of a local dimming feature, so true black isn't black.

Unfortunately, the peak brightness of this TV in SDR is just okay. There's no distracting variation in brightness with different scenes, which is great, but it's not bright enough to overcome glare in a very bright room. If the content that you watch is mostly in SDR, look up the brighter Roku Select Series or Hisense CanvasTV QLED 2024.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Theater Night
• Backlight: 100

The Hisense A65K has an impressive color gamut, and it displays a wide range of colors with HDR content. Although this TV doesn't use Quantum Dot technology, it achieves a similar color gamut to mid-range QLED TVs like the TCL Q7/Q750G QLED thanks to the inclusion of a PFS phosphor coating, as confirmed by the TV's spectral power distribution (SPD). Similar to the Samsung CU8000, this results in a much wider color gamut than similar budget models.

Unfortunately, the tone mapping is poor with content mastered at a high brightness level, so some colors appear off. The results here are with a 75% stimulus corresponding to 1,000 cd/m² content. With dimmer content, the tone mapping is significantly better, as shown with this color gamut measured with a 50% stimulus instead, which corresponds to roughly 92.2 cd/m².

Overall, this means that the majority of HDR content is displayed well, with vivid colors that are displayed properly and accurately. Bright scenes, however, are less accurate, as the TV sacrifices accuracy to reach the brightest highlights it can display.

The color volume of this TV is decent. It displays a wide range of colors at all luminance levels, and dark saturated colors are displayed well thanks to its high native contrast.

The Hisense A65K has impressive accuracy in SDR even before calibrating it. Gamma is very close to the 2.2 level for a moderately lit room, and the color temperature is nearly perfect. Color accuracy is excellent overall, but bright, saturated blues are noticeably off.

The TV's calibration system is finicky, and the TV is difficult to calibrate. Even after calibration, the white balance is still a bit off, and saturated blues aren't displayed accurately.

You can see the full calibration settings we used here.

Unfortunately, the gray uniformity is mediocre. The sides of the screen are significantly darker than the center, which is noticeable with all content. The center of the screen is also a bit darker, and there's noticeable dirty screen effect. Uniformity is better in near-black scenes.

This TV's black uniformity is good overall. There's no local dimming feature, so the entire screen is a bit raised and cloudy when bright highlights are on the screen. There are no bright spots, though, and there's no noticeable backlight bleed or anything like that.

Unfortunately, this TV has poor off-angle viewing. The image degrades rapidly as you move off-center, as colors fade rapidly and brightness decreases, causing the image to appear washed out. This makes it a poor choice for a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on. If you want something similarly priced with a wider viewing angle, check out the LG UQ7590 or the Vizio Quantum QLED.

The overall reflection handling of this TV is good. Bright reflections from a lamp or window are diffused a bit more than the LG UR8000, reducing their intensity.

The Hisense A65K has decent gradient handling in HDR. There's some distracting banding in darker shades, especially in grays, but it's also a bit distracting in darker colors. Bright shades are displayed well, though, with minimal banding.

Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is limited. It doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well at all.

The Hisense A65 has good sharpness processing. Fine details in upscaled content are preserved well, and fine lines are straight and detailed without oversharpening. These results are with Sharpness set to '10'.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout, which doesn't impact the image quality, but it makes text look blurry in some applications that don't support the BGR layout, which is important if you want to use it as a PC monitor. You can read more about it here.

The Hisense A65K has a good response time, and motion is fluid and smooth for the most part, with just a short blur trail behind fast-moving objects. Dark transitions are a bit slower than average, so there's some black smear in shadow details, but it's not bad. If you'd like a faster response time, the newer Hisense A7N is slightly quicker.

Unfortunately, the backlight uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight, and there's a low flicker frequency at all backlight levels below the maximum. This low-frequency flicker causes duplications in motion and can cause eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker. The good news is that the backlight is flicker-free at max backlight, and since the TV can't get very bright, if flicker bothers you, just make sure that the backlight is at maximum and you won't have any issues. This backlight behavior is consistent across all picture modes.

This TV doesn't have an optional backlight strobing feature, also known as BFI. Instead, the backlight always flickers at 180Hz with the backlight below max, which helps reduce persistence blur but introduces severe image duplication below max brightness.

The optional motion interpolation feature on this TV is poor overall. It struggles in most scenes, and there are noticeable artifacts around any fast-moving areas of the scene. It even struggles in slow panning shots, which will be easy for the TV to interpolate.

The TV's good response time results in decent overall stutter performance. There's some stutter noticeable in slow-panning shots, but it's not too bad.

The TV removes judder from most sources automatically, without the need for any additional motion settings. Strangely, it can't remove judder from 60Hz interlaced sources. Many cable boxes support either 720p or 1080i, so if that's your case, make sure you select 720p instead for a judder-free experience.

All sizes of the Hisense A65K support VRR, which is great for gamers. The refresh rate range is narrow, so its usefulness is limited. It doesn't support low framerate compensation, so you'll see tearing if your game's frame rate drops below 48Hz.

This TV has incredibly low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming and desktop experience.

The TV supports most common resolutions. It displays chroma 4:4:4 signals properly at all supported resolutions, which is essential for clear text from a desktop PC. If you'd like a similar TV with more supported resolutions, check out the TCL Q6/Q650G QLED or the TCL Q5/Q550G QLED.

This TV can't take full advantage of the PS5, as it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. As such, it's best suited for gamers who prefer the 'Graphics' preset in their games and not competitive gamers who prefer 'Performance' presets with higher frame rates.

Like the PS5, this TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X. It supports a few advanced features, including HDR and VRR, but it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. This makes it a better choice for more casual gamers who prefer immersive graphics over higher frame rates.

This TV is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth on all four HDMI ports.

Unfortunately, this TV can't passthrough some 7.1 audio formats like DTS:X or DTS-HD MA, and is instead limited to 5.1 channel audio. For the best audio experience, connecting your external source directly to your soundbar or home theater receiver is best.

The frequency response is mediocre overall. It has a very high low-frequency extension (LFE), meaning there's very little thump or rumble. Above the LFE, the frequency response is well-balanced, ensuring that most dialogue sounds crisp and clear. It can't get very loud, though, and there's significant compression at max volume. It also lacks a room correction feature to adjust the frequency response to your room conditions.

The distortion performance of this TV is decent overall. There's very little distortion at moderate listening levels, and increasing it to max only slightly increases the total distortion.

The Hisense A65K runs the Google TV smart interface. It's fairly smooth overall, and apps open quickly.

Unfortunately, like most TVs, there are ads throughout the interface. You can opt out of suggested content, which is great, and you can limit ad-tracking, but this just limits the type of ads you'll see, not the number of ads.

The Google Play Store has a great selection of streaming apps, and all major streaming services are available.

The included remote is simple, with no number buttons and six sponsored buttons that vary between regions. It has a built-in mic for voice control, and you can use voice commands to change inputs or launch apps, but you can't use it to change settings on the TV.

• Remote
• 2x AAA batteries
• Power cable
• User manual