Review: Hisense 100-inch 4K HDR TriChroma Laser TV
Hisense‘s 100-inch TriChroma Laser TV brings even better screen quality to ultra short throw projector-based TVs.
Hisense Laser TVs offer consumers a large screen experience at an affordable price. A 100-inch Hisense Laser TV sells for as little as $3495, and Hisense has a recommended $7999 price tag for its 120-inch Series L5F Laser TV.
You’ll easily pay over $10,000 for a similar size in a regular TV.
The difference is that Hisense’s 4K Laser TV comprises a short throw projector which beams light onto a large screen above it. The projector sits about 30 cm from the screen.
To me, this laser TV lies at the intersection of a large-screen TV and home theatre.
You can buy ultra short throw projectors with an in-built TV tuner and screens as separate items, but Hisense achieves its quality by offering both items as a single calibrated set. The projector is designed to work optimally with the screen.
Features such as Dolby Atmos, High Dynamic Range (HDR10+) that come with regular TVs are available with this set.
Another benefit is a lack of wires going up your wall. Nothing connects to the screen. You attach your gaming consoles and set-top boxes to the HDMI ports on the projector near the ground.
The size of these Laser TVs are destined to increase, with Hisense unveiling a 150-inch model at the January 2020 Consumer Electronics Show just before the pandemic. There is now talk of even larger screens.
With this 100-inch 4K TriChroma Laser TV review set, Hisense is concentrating on quality improvements, employing a new lighting technology. Instead of one blue light laser as on previous models, the projector has blue, red and green lasers.
To generate colours, the single laser projector shined a blue laser light through a fast spinning yellow phosphor wheel and applied filters.
The new projector’s “X-Fusion laser light engine” combines the red, blue and green laser lights to generate more than a billion colours which Hisense says offers more colour accuracy than quantum dot technology. Hisense says the set complies with colour standards DCI-P3 (used in the film industry), Rec 2020 (for 4K and 8K TVs) and Rec 2021 (which adds HDR colour).
The projector has a single TV tuner and offers up to 3000 lumens of brightness. The “ambient light rejecting screen” is designed to repel reflected light. There was no window available where I tested the set, but in general, I’d recommend installing a laser TV screen perpendicular to any window. Nevertheless the screen image was bright with the lights on.
The screen is now delivered rolled up. You assemble it to its backing in your home. Hisense realised that at 100-inches plus, consumers had problems getting the old rigid screens through the front door. Hisense says it plans to offer foldable screens to all Laser TV models.
Hisense has a novel way of ensuring the picture from the projector is precisely centred on the screen. I chose the “auto geometric connection” option in the settings menu, and uploaded a photo of the screen taken with my smartphone to a web page designated by a displayed QR-code. The projector automatically adjusted picture size and position.
I found the TriChroma Laser TV offered subtler colour variations. Some people like highly saturated colour on their TVs with everything bright and vivid. I prefer natural colour; the big screen leaves you immersed in a beautiful real life environment.
The greens and reds separate out in a close-up photo of white text. It’s very different to the magnified view of pixels from a backlit TV. However the letters on the projected image are precisely formed.
The back of the short throw projector houses the ports you normally see on the back of a TV: 4 HDMI 2.0 ports, two USB ports for movie playback, digital audio out, Ethernet, and even old fashioned RCA composite and VGA. Hisense says it will migrate to HDMI 2.1 in future models but it’s not on this set.
Currently the TVs HDMI connection will support games outputting 30 frames per second at 120Hz.
Being near ground level, Hisense has included a safety cut off switch that turns off the projector light should anyone or anything get too close to the front of the light source. This is to present curious toddlers sustaining serious eye damage.
The 100-inch 4K TriChroma set uses Hisense’s VIDAA U4 operating system launched in mid 2020 and Hisense says it offers frequent over-the-air firmware updates. You won’t get the newer VIDAA U5 that has been rolled out on conventional Hisense ULED and A7G UHD TV series.
Nevertheless the menu system is intuitive, with settings and access to the HDMI ports at the top left and main menu rows dedicated to apps and displaying content choices for that app. You can click straight into a movie from the main menu.
The TV’s app offering includes Netflix, Stan, Foxtel, YouTube, Prime Video, Kayo sports along with ABC iView and SBS On Demand. There’s no catch up services for 7, 9 and 10, and in general, Hisense continues to have a meagre offering of installable apps. There are though dedicated buttons on the remote for Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Stan and ABC iView.
The TV menu has provision for Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant however personal assistants are not supported on this model and the remote doesn’t offer microphone support. The remote itself is well set-out and uncluttered albeit standard fare.
At $6999 you pay much more for the TriChroma technology with three lasers, but if you like big screen TVs or want a near home theatre TV experience, and hanker for high quality, it could be for you. Available now – $6999 RRP.