The Hisense U6/U6K is a budget-friendly 4k TV. It's the 2023 entry-level model in Hisense's flagship ULED lineup and uses quantum dot technology to display a wider range of colors than traditional TVs. It replaces the Hisense U6/U6H and sits below the higher-end Hisense U7K and Hisense U8/U8K. As it's a budget TV, it lacks some gaming features that Hisense's higher-end models have, like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and a 120Hz panel, but it supports every VRR technology for a nearly tear-free gaming experience. It comes with the user-friendly Google TV 11 interface and supports both Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant for voice commands, with microphones in the remote and the TV for hands-free voice control. It's available in three sizes: 55, 65, and 75 inches.
The Hisense U6K is a decent TV overall. It has excellent contrast and adequate HDR brightness, so it looks pretty good when watching HDR content in dark rooms. It also gets bright in SDR and has decent reflection handling, so it handles bright rooms well. Unfortunately, the TV's viewing angle is inadequate, so it's a poor choice for a wide seating arrangement, like when watching sports or shows with friends. Though it's good for watching content from physical media, thanks to its decent low-resolution upscaling, it isn't as good with content from streaming platforms because of its limited low-quality content smoothing capabilities. Finally, its input lag is fantastic, and this model has a good response time, so it's a very good gaming TV.
The Hisense U6K is okay for TV shows. It has good SDR brightness and decent reflection handling, so it's bright enough to handle glare in bright rooms. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is inadequate, so this is a poor choice for watching shows with a friend sitting beside you. Its upscaling capabilities are decent, so lower-resolution shows from DVDs look sharp enough for a good viewing experience. However, its low-quality content smoothing capabilities are limited; shows watched on streaming platforms have a lot of macro-blocking in dark scenes.
The Hisense U6K is satisfactory for sports. It has decent reflection handling and gets bright enough in SDR to handle glare from bright rooms. It has a good response time, so while there's some blur when watching fast-moving sports, it's still a pleasant viewing experience. Unfortunately, the TV has an inadequate viewing angle, so it's a poor choice for a wide viewing arrangement. While satisfactory overall, its gray uniformity has noticeable horizontal and vertical lines on large areas of bright color, which is noticeable in certain sports, like hockey.
The Hisense U6K is a good choice for gaming. It looks great in Game Mode, although you can't have VRR and local dimming enabled simultaneously in that mode, so you have to choose between having better image quality or a nearly tear-free gaming experience. Still, the TV gets bright in SDR and has decent reflection handling, so it handles bright gaming rooms well. Its input lag is fantastic, so your inputs quickly translate to the on-screen action. Its response time is good overall; there's some blur when playing fast-moving games, but it's still a pleasant experience. However, its response time is worse in dark content, so this isn't the best TV to play horror games on.
The Hisense U6K is good for movies, especially if you like to watch your movies on physical media rather than through streaming platforms. The TV's contrast is excellent, so dark scenes look great in a dark room with deep blacks. Its HDR brightness is adequate; not enough to make highlights pop, but enough to provide a pleasant HDR viewing experience. The TV's color accuracy is great with minimal calibration, so movies look as they should. Unfortunately, the TV's low-quality content smoothing capabilities are limited; movies from streaming platforms have noticeable compression artifacts in dark scenes.
The Hisense U6K is a very good TV to play HDR-enabled games on. Its HDR brightness in Game Mode is only adequate, but as the TV has an excellent contrast ratio, it still looks very good in a dark room. Unfortunately, you can't have VRR and local dimming enabled simultaneously in Game Mode, so you must choose between better contrast or a nearly tear-free gaming experience. The TV's input lag is fantastic, so your inputs are quick and responsive. Its response time is good overall, so blur is only noticeable with fast-moving games. However, its response time is noticeably worse in dark content, so this isn't the best TV for horror games.
The Hisense U6K is a good TV to use as a PC monitor. It has good SDR brightness and decent reflection handling, so it handles bright offices well. Unfortunately, its viewing angle is inadequate, so the sides of the screen look washed out when you're sitting close to the TV. Still, the TV does proper chroma 4:4:4 in Game Mode to give you the sharpest text alongside the lowest input lag possible. Its response time is also good overall, although there's some blur if you quickly move windows around, especially if your operating system is set to dark mode, as the TV's response time is slower when coming out of dark states.
We tested the 65-inch Hisense U6K, and the results are also valid for the 55 and 75-inch models. In Canada, it's known as the Hisense U68KM and performs the same. This TV has many variants. There's the U68K in Canada, which doesn't have Mini LED. There's also the U6KR, which uses Roku TV instead of Google TV, and even the U68HF, which is an Amazon variant with the Fire TV operating system. These models perform differently from the North American U6K/U68KM, so our results aren't valid for those models.
Size | US Model | Canadian Model | Dimming Zones |
---|---|---|---|
55" | Hisense 55U6K | 55U68KM | 120 |
65" | Hisense 65U6K | 65U68KM | 192 |
75" | Hisense 75U6K | 75U68KM | 256 |
Our unit was manufactured in May 2023; you can see the label here.
The Hisense U6K is a budget-friendly TV that offers good value for its cost, especially compared to budget models from brands like Samsung, LG, and Sony. Compared to other products from Hisense, Roku, and TCL, it's nothing special; it's not a noticeable upgrade over the 2022 Hisense U6/U6H, and the TCL Q6/Q650G QLED has more gaming features. The Hisense A6/A65K is dimmer and doesn't have local dimming, but it's cheaper and otherwise almost as good as this TV. The Roku Plus Series QLED has slightly better image quality but has fewer features than the Hisense. Overall, the Hisense U6K is a good low-cost option for a TV that can do many things well.
See our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best smart TVs, and the best 4k TVs.
The Hisense U6/U6N is better than the Hisense U6/U6K in most ways. The U6N has a higher contrast ratio and much better black uniformity for deeper blacks in a dark room, and its slightly better HDR brightness makes highlights stand out a bit more in HDR content. The U6N also has better SDR brightness, meaning it overcomes more glare in a room with the lights on. Additionally, the U6N has a faster response time for less blur behind quick motion, supports DTS audio formats, and has slightly better upscaling capabilities. On the other hand, the U6K is the more accurate TV in both SDR and HDR due to its much better pre-calibration accuracy and better PQ EOTF tracking.
The Hisense U7K is essentially a better version of the Hisense U6/U6K. The U7K has better contrast and black uniformity, so blacks are deeper when viewed in a dark room. Its better SDR brightness makes it better suited for a bright room since it can overcome more glare, and its better HDR brightness makes highlights pop more in HDR content. The U7K also has a quicker response time for less blur behind quick-moving objects and is the better choice to pair with modern gaming consoles due to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for 4k @ 120Hz and its more functional VRR feature.
The Hisense U6/U6H and Hisense U6/U6K are extremely similar TVs. The Hisense U6K is more colorful and has better contrast, so it's just a bit punchier overall. It also has a faster response time, so it's the better TV for fast-moving action in sports and games. The U6H, for its part, has a wider viewing angle, so it's better for a wide seating arrangement, and it has much better black uniformity with less blooming around bright highlights, which makes up for its lower contrast.
The TCL Q7/Q750G QLED is better than the Hisense U6/U6K. The TCL is a much brighter TV, with deeper contrast and vastly better black uniformity, so content looks better on it in bright and dark rooms. It also has more features for gamers with its two HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports, up to 4k @ 144Hz support. Unfortunately, the TCL's pre-calibration color accuracy is poor, so you need to calibrate it if you care about color accuracy.
The Hisense U8/U8K is much better than the Hisense U6/U6K, as they're in two very different tiers regarding overall quality. The U8K outmatches the U6K in every way, as it's much brighter, has much better contrast, has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, is more colorful overall, and is the most accurate TV of the two. The U8K also has good image processing overall, while the U6K has poor low-quality content smoothing, so it's a bad choice for streaming content. Still, the Hisense U6K is a much cheaper TV.
The Hisense U6/U6K is much better than the Samsung CU8000. The Hisense has an unspectacular but functional local dimming feature, giving it a vastly deeper contrast than the Samsung CU8000. It's also brighter than the Samsung, so the Hisense has the edge in both dark and bright rooms. The Hisense is better for color purists, as it has much better PQ EOTF tracking in HDR and is much more accurate in SDR, alongside a wider color gamut for a more vibrant and accurate picture overall. It's also better for gamers than the Samsung TV due to its much faster response time, 1440p support, and basic VRR capabilities. The Samsung model does have better low-quality content smoothing, so it does a better job clearing out compression artifacts from streaming content.
The Hisense A6/A65K and Hisense U6/U6K are closely matched, with the U6K being a bit better overall. The U6K has a local dimming feature, leading to much better contrast in dark scenes. It also gets brighter than the A65K, so it's the more vibrant TV. While the U6K is a bit more colorful overall, the A65K is surprisingly colorful for a cheap TV. Outside of that, both TVs are pretty similar in terms of features.
The Hisense U6/U6K is better than the Samsung Q60D QLED. The Hisense has an effective local dimming feature, so blacks are deeper in dark scenes, and they stay that way when bright highlights are on screen. The Hisense also has a faster response time for much less blur behind quick motion, and its wider color gamut delivers more vibrant and lifelike colors.
The TCL Q6/Q650G QLED and Hisense U6/U6K appeal to different users. The Hisense has local dimming, so it has much deeper contrast and can emphasize bright highlights next to dimmer parts of the image. The TCL can't emphasize highlights like the Hisense, but its overall image is always bright and vibrant, although dark scenes are washed out when bright highlights are present. Unfortunately, the TCL has poor color accuracy without calibration, and it's noticeable as colors often don't look quite right. The TCL is particularly interesting for gamers on a budget, as it can do 1080p @ 120Hz and 1440p @ 120Hz with resolution halving, with a wide VRR range to match.
The Hisense U7H is better than the Hisense U6/U6K, except if you care about color accuracy, as the U7H's accuracy is middling before calibration. If you don't care about accuracy, the U7H is a much brighter and more colorful TV with more features for gamers with its two HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports and very wide VRR range. The U6K does have a faster response time, so there's less blur on that TV with fast action.
The Hisense U6/U6K is better than the Samsung CU7000/CU7000D. The Hisense has much deeper blacks thanks to its local dimming feature, so it’s better for use in a dark room. The Hisense gets much brighter in HDR, supports a wider color gamut, and has better color volume, so colors are more vibrant and lifelike, and highlights pop a lot more than on the CU7000. The Hisense also gets brighter in SDR, so it overcomes glare better in a bright room. Finally, the Hisense is better for gaming as it supports VRR for much less screen tearing than the CU7000.
The Hisense U8/U8H is much better than the Hisense U6/U6K, as they're in two very different tiers regarding overall quality. The U8H outmatches the U6K in every way, as it's much brighter, has much better contrast, has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, is more colorful overall, and is even the most accurate TV of the two. Still, the Hisense U6K is a much cheaper TV.
The Hisense U6/U6K and Roku Plus Series QLED are very similar TVs, with little to differentiate them. Still, the Hisense has a slight edge due to being much more accurate after changing only a few settings, and it has a few more features than the Roku, like VRR support and removing 24p Judder from more sources. The Hisense TV also sharpens upscaled content much better than the Roku TV. Still, the Roku does look a bit better than the Hisense, as it gets just a tad brighter, has slightly better contrast with much better black uniformity, and has a faster response time for less blur with fast-moving sports and games.
The Hisense U6K and the TCL 5 Series/S555 2022 QLED are similar TVs, but some differences exist. The TCL gets brighter, so it's a better option if you're placing it in a bright room. The TCL also has much better black uniformity and a higher contrast ratio, so it's also a better option for a dark room. The Hisense has better upscaling capabilities, so it's a better option if you regularly watch low-resolution content like DVDs.
The Hisense U6/U6K is significantly better than the Samsung TU690T. The Hisense has a full array local dimming feature that delivers a much wider dynamic range, with brighter whites and deeper blacks. The Hisense also gets significantly brighter, so it delivers a better experience in a bright room. Finally, gamers will appreciate the VRR feature on the Hisense, which helps smooth out the frame rate and reduce tearing in games.
The Hisense U6K has a simple design with thin bezels on three sides. The bottom bezel is slightly thicker but doesn't stand out much when watching TV. On its back, the TV has visible screws (shown here) around its border, which looks a bit cheap overall.
The TV comes with a pair of adjustable feet that don't take up a lot of space. They support the TV decently well, although it wobbles easily. There are two stand positions: the wide position, as shown above, which offers more stability and is great for wider tables, and a narrow position shown here, better for smaller tables.
The footprint of the 65-inch stand in the wide position is 46.5" x 12". In the narrow position, the 65-inch stand has a footprint of 27.8" x 12". In either position, the feet lift the TV about 3" above the table, so most soundbars fit in front without blocking the screen. Some longer soundbars don't fit between the feet when they're set in the narrow position.
The back has a flat metallic top part and a thicker plastic housing on the bottom half. Most of the inputs are side-facing and aren't set into the TV, so they're easy to access unless you have the TV mounted flush against the wall. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't have any clips or channels for cable management.
The Hisense U6K has an excellent contrast ratio with local dimming enabled, leading to deep blacks in a dark room, even when bright highlights are shown on the screen. With local dimming disabled, the TV's contrast ratio is decent, but blacks are raised and appear washed out when bright highlights are present. For better contrast, check out the 2024 Hisense U6/U6N.
The TV has sub-par lighting zone transitions. The leading edge of bright moving objects is visibly dimmer. For fast-moving small objects, the objects are almost completely obscured due to how dim they get in the transition.
The Hisense U6K has okay HDR brightness. It gets bright enough to make some highlights stand out, but smaller highlights don't pop against a dark background. Still, it's enough for a fairly satisfying HDR experience.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
The TV's HDR brightness in Game Mode is okay. There's no noticeable difference in peak brightness from 'HDR Theater' mode. As Game Mode disables local dimming when VRR is enabled, these results are valid with VRR 'Off'.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
The TV has great PQ EOTF tracking. It tracks the curve very well, although not perfectly, as all scenes are slightly overbrightened, especially in dark scenes. There's a slow roll-off when content approaches the TV's peak brightness, preserving bright details.
The Hisense U6K has good SDR peak brightness. It gets bright enough to fight glare in a well-lit room and maintains its brightness well across different scenes, although smaller highlights are considerably dimmer than bigger ones.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
The Hisense U6K has an excellent color gamut, and it displays a wide range of colors with HDR content.
Unfortunately, the tone mapping is average 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. Very bright scenes, however, are less accurate, as the TV sacrifices accuracy to reach the brightest highlights it can display. The measurements above are in the 'Native' Color Space as it's more accurate than 'Auto'.
The TV's color gamut changes as the window size changes. This impacts calibration readings, but for most people, this isn't an issue as the vast majority of content takes up 100% of the screen. You can see how the color gamut changes with the window size here.
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 the TV's excellent contrast.
The Hisense U6K has impressive accuracy in SDR even before calibrating it. Gamma is very close to the 2.2 target for a moderately lit room, and the color temperature is nearly perfect. Color accuracy is great overall, and the white balance is very good: there are some slight accuracy errors here and there, but nothing dramatic. Some colors, like saturated yellows, blues, and greens, have more accuracy errors than others, but this isn't noticeable in actual usage.
The TV's calibration system is finicky, but it's rather straightforward once you figure it out. Effectively, when calibrating points between 55-80, each calibration point adjusts the point above it: 55 adjusts 60, 60 adjusts 65, etc. Even after calibration, the TV's color accuracy isn't perfect; saturated yellows, blues, and greens are still very slightly off.
You can see the full calibration settings we used here.
The TV has decent gray uniformity. The backlight is visible on large areas of bright, uniform color, which is distracting when watching sports or browsing the web. Uniformity is better in dark scenes, although the sides of the screen are lighter than its center.
The TV has okay black uniformity. With local dimming disabled, the black uniformity is poor, as the entire screen is blue, with lighter bands near the TV's edges. Uniformity is much better with local dimming set to 'High', but it's only decent; the screen has a blue tint, and there's noticeable blooming around bright highlights.
Sadly, the TV has an inadequate viewing angle. The image fades and looks washed out as you move even slightly off-center. This makes it a poor choice for a wide seating arrangement, as anyone sitting off-center sees a degraded image.
This TV has decent reflection handling. It handles moderate amounts of light very well and, combined with its good peak brightness, you won't have problems using it in most living rooms. However, don't place it immediately opposite bright lights or windows, as it struggles with handling that type of glare.
The TV has good HDR gradient handling. There's some banding in dark grays and reds, as well as in bright greens. Other color gradients have minimal banding.
Unfortunately, this TV's processing with low-quality content is poor. It just doesn't smooth out macro-blocking and pixelization well. You can see what it looks like with boosted exposure here.
The Hisense U6K uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout. For multimedia usage, this doesn't cause any issues, but it causes text clarity issues when you use this TV as a PC monitor. There are easy workarounds for these issues, however, and you can read about them here.
The Hisense U6K 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. Like many TVs, it's noticeably slower when coming out of a dark state, so there's some black smear in shadow details.
The Hisense U6K uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight. It flickers at 480Hz in every picture mode except FILMMAKER MODE, where it flickers at 600Hz. The TV's flicker frequency is high enough that it won't be distracting unless you're sensitive to flicker.
The TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion. This feature is meant to reduce persistence blur and improve the appearance of motion. With it enabled, the TV flickers at 60Hz, and it isn't very effective as it causes image duplication and even some smearing.
The TV's good response time results in an overall adequate stutter performance. There's some noticeable stutter in slow-panning shots in 24p content, like movies. The TV's stutter performance is exceptional with 60 fps content.
The TV removes judder from most sources automatically, without the need for any additional motion settings. However, 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.
The Hisense U6K supports every VRR technology, which is great for gamers. The refresh rate range is narrow, so its usefulness is limited. It also doesn't support low framerate compensation in that range, 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 has a 1080p @ 120Hz mode, but it doesn't work well, with very high input lag and diminished text clarity. The 'High Refresh Rate' mode slightly lowers input lag at 1080p @ 120Hz but dramatically increases it in every other case. Here are some input lag measurements with 'High Refresh Rate' mode enabled:
The TV supports most common resolutions. It displays chroma 4:4:4 signals properly at all resolutions except 1080p @ 120Hz, which is essential for clear text from a desktop PC. While the TV seems to support 1080p @ 120Hz, setting it to that resolution results in very high input lag, skipped frames, and a muddier image overall. If you'd like a TV with a faster 120Hz refresh rate, look up the similarly priced TCL Q5/Q550G QLED.
This TV can't take full advantage of the PS5. It supports a few advanced features, including HDR and VRR, but it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. While 1080p @ 120Hz does show up as available on the console, running the TV at that resolution results in frame skipping, slow input lag, and a muddier image overall. 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.
This TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X|S. It supports a few advanced features, including HDR and VRR, but it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. While 1080p @ 120Hz does show up as available on the console, running the TV at that resolution results in frame skipping, slow input lag, and a muddier image overall. As such, it's best suited for gamers who prefer the 'Graphics' preset in their games 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 TV's frequency response is okay 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 gets moderately loud, but there's significant compression at max volume.
This TV has decent distortion performance. There's some audible total harmonic distortion, but mainly at high volume levels; it's not noticeable at moderate volume.
The Hisense U6K uses version 11 of Google's popular Google TV OS. It's relatively easy to use and especially fast and smooth, with a large selection of apps.
The TV comes with a great remote. Like most modern remotes, it lacks a numpad, and there are quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. The remote has a built-in mic, and so does the TV for hands-free voice control, giving you access to Google Assistant and Alexa, so you can ask it to search for content, open apps, ask for the time or the weather, and switch inputs.
There's a button underneath the center of the TV to turn the TV On/Off and switch inputs. There's another button, seen here, to turn off the mic built into the TV if you're concerned about privacy.