Hisense U7NQ is a lower mid-range TV series released in 2024 to replace Hisense U7KQ. The TV is equipped with modern features such as local dimming, HDMI 2.1 ports, 4K @ 144 Hz, VRR and Dolby Vision support. It delivers higher peak brightness than its predecessor and uses the new Hi-View Engine PRO chipset designed to deliver a better overall picture.
The TV uses the Vidaa U7.6 interface, which offers smart features such as voice control and is generally quite loaded with apps. The built-in 2.1-channel speaker system produces 40 W of power. In our review of the Hisense 65U7NQ, we will take a detailed look at the capabilities of the new model, and also describe its strengths and weaknesses.
Hisense U7NQ review
Design
The Hisense 65U7NQ TV has a nice overall design. It has, as usual, thin bezels on the sides and top (1cm) and a slightly wider bottom bezel. Unlike the 2023 Hisense U7KQ , the TV uses a solid stand instead of a circular one. This centrally mounted plastic stand does not require a large table.
It raises the TV by about 8cm, so most sound bars fit underneath it without obstructing the screen. The stand protrudes forward a bit, meaning you’ll need a little more desk space to place the soundbar in front of it. The back is made of plastic and looks identical to last year’s Hisense U7K.
Most of the entrances are located on the side. They are close enough to the edge of the TV to be accessible when you use the wall mounting option. But the USB, Ethernet and optical ports are located in the rear-facing recess. And unfortunately, they will not be available if the TV is installed on a fixed bracket close to the wall.
The top of the TV has a built-in subwoofer, and the TV stand has clips to make cable management easier. Overall, the build quality of the Hisense U7NQ TV is good. Although it is made entirely of plastic, it is quite durable and solid. The maximum 7.8 cm thick case wobbles a little on the plastic center stand, but this does not cause any stability problems.
The remote control is the same as in Hisense U8NQ . Those. it is powered by a solar panel and can recharge the built-in battery via the USB-C port. It has dedicated buttons for domestic online cinemas, as well as a block of digital buttons. In other regions, a remote control without number buttons is used. Voice control from the remote control does not give access to the TV settings, which is a pity.
Image quality
The 65U7NQ TV uses Mini LED backlighting . The company calls this series ULED. The native VA contrast of the QLED matrix is quite decent – approximately 5000:1. But with local dimming set to High, the contrast approaches 89,000:1. The effective local dimming feature provides very deep blacks in a dark room, and in most cases they remain deep even when there are bright areas on the screen.
But it’s true that there is some blur around those bright highlights or text on a black background, making the blacks look less deep. Full array (FALD) backlighting is divided into 384 zones. Overall lighting zone transitions are decent, but the TV struggles to reproduce very fast-moving content. Ghosting is noticeable, and the leading edge of bright, fast-moving objects becomes noticeably dim.
The U7NQ has excellent HDR brightness, so bright moments really pop out in dark scenes. Combined with high contrast, HDR viewing leaves a good impression. The manufacturer claims 1500 nits of peak brightness. Even if we imagine that the actual measured values will be slightly lower, this is still a good result. Both formats with dynamic metadata are supported – HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.
For normal content, the Hisense U7NQ produces approximately 1000 nits of peak brightness. Against this background, coverage of the widely used DCI-P3 color space (95%) looks fantastic, providing incredible color accuracy. Dark, rich colors look good thanks to stunning contrast, and even at high brightness levels the TV displays a wide range of colors.
Matrix uniformity and viewing angles
The Hisense U7NQ series has good gray color uniformity, which is important when watching football broadcasts, for example. Sometimes there is some dirty screen effect in the center of the panel and vignetting in the corners. As for black uniformity, it is high, which is traditional for VA matrices. This is important for viewing dark scenes in a dark room.
The matrix pays for its performance with poor viewing angles. Therefore, the TV is not suitable for wide seating arrangements. As you move away from the center, there is a significant shift in gamma, color and loss of brightness. Ideally, it turns out that this is a good home theater, but for one or two people. Let’s add that the semi-gloss coating of the panel copes well with reflections.
Scaling
The U7NQ series has very good smoothing of low-quality content. The TV does a great job of smoothing out artifacts in low bitrate content while preserving detail. And in general, upscaling of low-resolution content such as DVDs is good. The details are quite clear, but finer details are of course difficult to discern.
The matrix uses a BGR (blue-green-red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content this does not cause any problems, but when using the TV as a PC monitor it can become an issue as it affects the clarity of text. Although, again, not everyone will notice this.
Motion Processing
The Hisens U7NQ TV has an excellent response time (6 ms) and minimal blur behind fast-moving objects. But when exiting the dark state, it is slower, so when transitioning from dark scenes to light scenes, there is some blurring of the black color. With VRR enabled, the response time is further reduced, but with more overshoot errors.
To improve clarity when displaying motion, backlight strobing is used by inserting a black frame. But the Hysens 65U7NQ TV can only do this with a 120Hz refresh rate, and the image remains slightly blurry due to some edge duplication. The interpolation function doesn’t work very well either. Distracting artifacts, ghosting, and screen tearing are present.
Hisense U7NQ supports all three types of VRR, including G-Sync and FreeSync Premium Pro. At 4K resolution the maximum refresh rate is 144Hz. At 1080p and 240 Hz with VRR enabled, the TV freezes at 72 Hz, there are frame drops, desaturated colors, and 4:4:4 color does not display properly. With VRR disabled, 1080p resolution at 240 Hz works without problems.
Games
The TV is fully compatible with the latest generation game consoles. In game mode, it has a low output latency of 10ms, resulting in a highly responsive gaming experience with minimal latency between your controller or mouse inputs and the on-screen action. Automatic switching to game mode is supported.
There is a game panel to display the necessary parameters. The Hisense U7NQ has two HDMI 2.1 ports (number 3 and number 4), both of which support resolutions up to 4K at 144 Hz. Luckily, the eARC port is HDMI #1, so you won’t lose a high-bandwidth port when connecting the soundbar to your TV.
Smart TV
The Hisense U7NQ comes with VIDAA U7.6 operating system, while the US variant (Hisense U7N) runs Google TV 12.0. The system differs from platforms of other brands in the relatively small number of applications. There is no official option to install an application from a third-party source.
The OS was originally developed by Hisense, but is now managed by an independent company. This means that VIDAA has started to appear on TVs from other manufacturers such as Toshiba or Loewe. The interface is tiled and looks no different from Tizen or webOS. The system boots very quickly and runs smoothly, without freezing.
Sound
The U7KQ’s 2.1-channel audio system lacks Atmos height channels. And since the TV supports Dolby Atmos audio, that means virtual processing is involved to render the audio on top. As fancy as it all sounds, TV can’t create a true cinematic experience. The 40W power is divided into 2 x 10W for the two main channels and 20W for the subwoofer.
The sound quality of the U7KQ definitely doesn’t match the picture quality. Yes, it will be more than good for everyday use. Dialogues are clear and the TV sounds loud enough. But in heavy blockbusters it lacks depth, expansion and true surround sound. Its subwoofer helps a little with low frequencies, but even that’s not enough when the action gets intense. As an alternative, we can suggest using the Hisense AX3100G soundbar .
Connections
Everything here is the same as in 2023. In the side niche there are 4 HDMI ports, a USB 3.0 port, antenna jacks, a headphone output and an AV input (via a 3.5 mm adapter). Another USB port (2.0), an optical audio output and a LAN port are directed perpendicularly. Wireless connectivity is WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0.
Conclusion
The Hisense U7NQ is a very good TV for a wide variety of uses. It looks great in a dark room thanks to its stunning contrast, and highlights stand out in HDR content thanks to the high brightness of HDR. Fast response times mean minimal motion blur during fast motion, making the TV great for watching sports, playing video games, or using it as a PC monitor. But it’s not very suitable for group viewing due to the narrow viewing angle.