Review: Hisense 75-inch ULED 8K TV (75U80G)

8K TV remains an enigma. There aren’t 8K telecasts in Australia. Our streaming movie services offer 4K at best. Why then have an 8K set?

8K TV remains an enigma. There aren’t 8K telecasts in Australia. Our streaming movie services offer 4K at best. Why then have an 8K set?

8K will be the future, and it will make more sense as TV sizes stretch beyond 75 inches to 100 inches and more. At these resolutions, 4K won’t look as sharp, and 8K will come into its own. We’ll start to see games in 8K.

For the time being, 8K TVs may serve one useful purpose, to offer finer resolution upscaling of lower quality video. At 7680 x 4320 pixels, an 8K image has 16 times the pixels of a 1920 x 1080 pixel full definition TV. Finer upscaling is what Hisense sets out to achieve with this set.

Of course, there’s price. 8K TVs have been priced through the roof, but the cost is coming down. Samsung has a 75-inch 8K TV in the market for under $7000 and so does Hisense.

Last week I tried Hisense’s ULED 8K TV (75U80G) which goes on sale this month for a recommended $6999.

Hisense ULED 8K TV Android TV menu system

The 65-inch and 85-inch models will follow.

This LCD/LED TV is capable of fast frame rates, displaying 4K and 8K content at up to 120 frames per second. That should please gamers.

It has a minimalist look with a tiny bezel around the screen and an unobtrusive stand beneath it.

This is an Android TV and runs Google’s Android TV interface. Normally Hisense uses its home-baked VIDAA operating system which, although capable, lacks the breadth of local Australian catch-up TV apps and other services. Android TV has the full complement and that’s available here.

You can use Google Assistant commands to control the TV and Hisense has tweaked the operating system to offer some support for Amazon Alexa. You need a separate Alexa device on your home network and Alexa support is limited to the TV. It won’t operate other devices on the network.

Remote control

Google is fully supported. You can issue Google commands through the remote and Chromecast is built in, so you can transfer a movie running on an Android phone to the TV for telecasting.

Hisense says Android TV was a better option for this set given the limited availability of chipsets and ability to build software during the pandemic. However VIDAA will be back and will carry more Australian relevant apps.

Hisense says it has also tweaked the local dimming control offered by Android TV. It thought the standard dimming control wasn’t good enough. Hisense also incorporated dbx-tv sound which it says offers a better quality and options such as auto volume levelling and dropping bass volume at night.

Hisense’s definition of ULED for this TV is a collection of features – an LED display, quantum dot for colour accuracy and improved brightness, full array dimming and Dolby Vision.

Universal search shows movie source options

Full array local dimming on a LED TV is not as premium as, say, the self emitting light pixels on an OLED (organic LED) set, but it’s better than edge lighting. This set has a layer of 100 lights in the display panel and a software layer that cuts that light into smaller squares.

Hisense will start to use a finer resolution mini-LED system later this year. It announced this technology at January’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but it’s not available yet. The display also has an antiglare layer.

Hisense says the upscaling goes beyond increasing pixels and cleaning the image to using artificial intelligence/machine learning to recognise objects and upscale them separately with different enhancements.

The set has the usual four HDMI ports. Two support HDMI 2.1 and can transmit 8K content at 60Hz. Another HDMI supports an audio return channel. The TV supports a 4K input at up to 120 frames per second. It can display content from a games console at this rate.

The TV offers “game mode pro” which includes a variable refresh rate, and an automatic low latency mode. Users can connect a games console and the TV will adopt the correct display settings for that console.

Movie cast on the Hisense ULED 8K TV

The Android TV interface is clean and simple to follow. The top row of apps is followed by successive rows of app services and recommended content. You can customise these rows. Movement around the menu system is fast. You can use voice commands to run apps, and the TV offers voice command universal search through the remote.

When I asked for movies by Nicole Kidman, a large selection of movies was displayed. Clicking on one would reveal various sources for streaming that movie.

I could use the remote and say: “Play The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix”. The TV would open Netflix and queue that movie.

The remote is compact, with dedicated buttons for Netflix, YouTube and the Google Play store.

Display quality is crisp but not as crisp as, say, an OLED TV. If I stand directly in front of the TV, I can see some artefacts at the edges. but they are not noticeable from a metre away.

I watched 1080p and 4K movies from Netflix and the upscaled content looks sharp, but it is near impossible to tell how much better the quality is without a comparable 4K set beside it.

In the end, it was a struggle for me to see a clear benefit in 8K TV even at 75-inches where 4K TV still can be impressive. I think we’ll have to wait for sets at 100-inches and beyond for 8K to be a clear winner.

In other respects this is a really good TV and its very fast operation, the latest Android TV with universal search, and suitability for gaming with a fast refresh rate should find a market.