Hisense U6/U6H TV Review

The Hisense U6H is a simple-looking TV that has a redesigned back and bottom bezel compared to its predecessor, the Hisense U6G.

The TV has wide-set feet, so you'll need a large stand to place it on if you get the larger sizes. The metal feet raise the display enough off the table that placing a soundbar in front won't block the screen. Sadly, there's noticeable wobble if you shake the table, but it's fine if you have a stable media stand.

Footprint of the 65-inch TV: 39.5" W x 13.6" D x 3.5" H to the bottom of the screen.

The back consists of metal on the top portion and plastic where the inputs are. Most of the inputs are side-facing, and unlike the Hisense U6G, they aren't set into the TV, so they're easy to access unless you have the TV mounted flush against the wall. The feet also have clips for cable management.

The Hisense U6 has decent build quality. The materials used feel nice, and the TV is constructed well without any issues around the bezels. The metal feet are sturdy, but it doesn't prevent all wobble if you shake the table, but it's stable if it's just sitting there. There's flex around the plastic housing of the inputs, but the metal portion of the back feels solid.

Our unit has one issue with quality control where it looks like there's dust caught between the layers of the TV, resulting in gray spots as you can see here. There are reports online of units with dead pixels, but this appears to be a different issue, and we don't expect many other units to have the same problem as ours.

The Hisense U6H has a great contrast ratio, but it's not quite as good as the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series 2022. Its full-array local dimming feature helps it improve the contrast with Local Dimming on 'High'. Note that the 75-inch model has a different panel type with a worse contrast ratio.

The TV has okay blooming performance. There's some visible blooming around bright highlights or in dark areas when they're next to brighter ones.

The TV has decent lighting zone transitions. The leading edge of bright moving objects is visibly dimmer, and there's visible haloing behind fast-moving objects.

Switching to Game Mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance.

The Hisense U6H has okay HDR brightness. Small highlights aren't as bright as they are on the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series 2022, but real scenes are a bit brighter overall. It gets bright enough to make some highlights stand out, but because of the raised black levels with local dimming, smaller highlights don't pop against a dark background. Still, it's enough for a satisfying enough HDR experience, especially for a budget-friendly TV.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: HDR Theater
• Backlight: Max
• Local Dimming: High
• Color Temperature: Low

The TV's HDR brightness in Game Mode is okay, and there's no noticeable difference in peak brightness from 'HDR Theater' mode.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: HDR Game
• Brightness: Max
• Local Dimming: High
• Color Temperature: Low

The Hisense U6H tracks the target PQ EOTF very well. Although all scenes are slightly brighter than intended, it's still great, especially with shadows and midtones. There's a slow roll-off towards the peak brightness, meaning it preserves bright details well. The EOTF looks nearly the same in 'FILMMAKER MODE', but that mode locks you out of most settings. If you find the image too dim, use the 'HDR Theater' Picture Mode with the Backlight Level at its max, and Local Dimming, Color Temperature, and Active Contrast each on 'High'. This makes midtones appear brighter, as you can see in this EOTF, but it doesn't change bright highlights.

The TV 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. These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Theater Night
• Backlight: Max
• Local Dimming: High

If you don't care about image accuracy and want the brightest image possible, it reaches 560 cd/m² in the 25% window in the 'Theater Day' Picture Mode with the Backlight Level at its max, Local Dimming on 'High', Color Temperature set to 'Low', and Active Contrast disabled.

The Hisense U6 has an impressive HDR color gamut as it displays a wide range of colors. It has incredible coverage of the commonly-used DCI-P3 color space, as well as decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space. Tone mapping is decent in each, but some brighter details are lost, and the TV struggles with accurately portraying saturated colors in the Rec. 2020 space.

The HDR color volume is good. It displays dark colors well, but it struggles with some brighter colors, and it's limited by its incomplete color gamut.

The TV has fantastic pre-calibration accuracy in SDR. Most colors and the white balance are accurate, and the color temperature is also close to the 6500K target. Gamma is good, but some bright scenes are over-brightened.

The TV has incredible accuracy after calibration to the 6500K white point. It's a bit hard to calibrate as adjusting the white balance values too aggressively makes the image look worse, but because it already has fantastic accuracy nearly out-of-the-box, you don't need to calibrate it too much for an accurate image.

You can see the full calibration settings we used here.

The gray uniformity is decent. There's some vignetting towards the corners and a bit of dirty screen effect in the center that could get distracting during sports, but neither is a major problem. You can also see gray spots with large areas of bright, uniform colors (see the Build Quality section for more).

The Hisense U6 has good black uniformity, but it looks worse than the Hisense U6G because there's more blooming around bright highlights with local dimming enabled. Without local dimming, the screen looks closer to blue as there's some backlight bleed, but it isn't too bad, and the local dimming helps further deepen any blacks.

The TV has a narrow viewing angle that makes the image look washed out from the sides. It means it isn't ideal for wide seating areas, but note that the 75-inch model has a different panel type with a better viewing angle.

This TV has good reflection handling. It handles moderate amounts of light well and, combined with its good peak brightness, you won't have problems using it in most living rooms. However, don't place it opposite a window with direct sunlight because it struggles a bit more with handling that type of glare.

The TV has great HDR gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding in dark reds and greens, but 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.

The TV has decent upscaling capabilities. Fine details in upscaling content are preserved decently well, with some, but not excessive, blurring.

Sharpness processing was calibrated for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, with the following setting:

• Sharpness: 10

The Hisense U6H uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video content, it doesn't cause any issues, but it impacts text clarity if you're planning on using this TV as a PC monitor, as some text looks blurry. You can read more about this here.

The TV has an okay response time, but there's noticeable smearing and motion blur with fast-moving objects. The backlight flicker also causes image duplication, as you can see with the trail R behind the logo. The motion handling looks the same in Game Mode as outside of it, as the motion blur is still there. If you like this TV but would prefer something with a faster response time, look up its successor, the Hisense U6/U6K.

The Hisense U6 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight at all brightness levels in all picture modes. It's high enough that it shouldn't be too distracting, but it can also cause headaches if you're sensitive to flicker. If you like this TV but need something with a higher flicker frequency, take a look at the newer Hisense U6/U6N.

The Hisense U6H has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to reduce persistence blur. It isn't that effective as it causes image duplication and even some smearing.

The Hisense U6H has a motion interpolation feature to bring 30 fps content up to 60 fps. It doesn't seem to do much in the test pattern, but it interpolates some slow-moving content well. Unfortunately, there are artifacts with fast-moving content. You can enable motion interpolation in Game Mode, but it still looks the same as it can introduce artifacts.

Due to the slow response time, there isn't too much stutter with fast-moving content, as each frame isn't held on for too long.

The Hisense U6H automatically removes 24p judder from native apps and sources with a Match Frame Rate feature, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies. However, it doesn't remove 24p judder from 60Hz sources like a cable box.

Unlike the Hisense U6G, the Hisense U6H has variable refresh rate support to reduce screen tearing. It works without issue from most devices, and on PCs with AMD graphics cards, you need to enable PC Sync on the TV for FreeSync to work.

The Hisense U6H has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience in Game Mode. The input lag is very high outside of Game Mode, so if you feel like the delay bothers you while scrolling through menus, switch to Game Mode to reduce the lag.

The TV works with all common signals up to 60Hz. It also displays proper chroma 4:4:4 with any of its supported resolutions, which helps with text clarity when using it as a PC monitor. If you'd like more options regarding resolutions, check out the similar TCL Q6/Q650G QLED.

As the TV is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, it can't take full advantage of the PS5. Still, 60Hz signals and VRR work without issue.

As the TV is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, it can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X|S. Still, 60Hz signals and VRR work without issue.

Although Hisense advertises the inputs as HDMI 2.1, the TV doesn't support HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. Instead, it's limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth.

While all the video and audio inputs are on the right side of the back, the power input is on the left side.

Unlike the Hisense U6G, the Hisense U6H now supports eARC, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver with a single HDMI cable. It supports both common high-end audio formats, which is great as you can take full advantage of a variety of content.

The TV has a mediocre frequency response. While it has a well-balanced sound profile at moderate listening levels, which is good for dialogue, it doesn't produce much bass, so you need a soundbar or a proper sound setup for the best sound possible.

The Hisense U6H TV has mediocre distortion handling. There isn't too much at moderate listening levels, but it gets much worse at its max volume, particularly with mid-range sounds.

The TV comes with Google TV 11, which is an updated version of the Android TV platform Hisense TVs previously used. It's redesigned with a few extra accessibility features, but other than that, it's the same user-friendly platform.

Like most modern TVs, there are ads and suggested content throughout the interface. You can opt out of suggested content, but it just switches the ads to non-personalized ads instead.

The Google Play Store has a ton of apps you can download, and the interface is very smooth and pleasant to use.

The TV comes with a redesigned remote compared to the remote that came with 2021 Hisense TVs. Like most modern remotes, it lacks a Numpad, and there are quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. The mic built into the remote and on the TV gives you access to Google Assistant and Alexa, so you can ask it to search for content, open apps, and switch inputs.

There's a button underneath the center to turn the TV on/off and switch inputs. There's another button to turn off the mic built into the TV if you're concerned about privacy, and you can also use it for the Find My Remote feature.

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