Review: Hisense U8N

How much brightness do you need? That's a big question worth considering as TV makers ramp up the nits in what TV folks sometimes call “the brightness wars.” Hisense’s U8N, one of the brightest 4K HDR TVs of the season, is among the first recruits in this year’s battle to arrive on my doorstep. It boasts significantly higher peak brightness than its predecessor, the U8K (8/10, WIRED Recommends), which was one of 2023’s brightest TVs.

Part of the U8N’s arsenal is a “Peak Brightness” setting which can juice up whatever you’re watching to eye-popping levels (literally, it can bleed into discomfort in some settings). Luckily, it’s easy enough to shut off or adjust to enjoy the same fine-tuned mini LED backlighting and vivid quantum dot colors—things that have helped make the U8 series a top performer in any light.

Atomic brightness aside, there’s plenty to like about Hisense’s latest flagship TV. From its stylish new design and punchy picture to loads of gaming and smart features, the U8 series once again stakes an early claim as one of the best TVs in its class. If you're shopping for a new model (and especially if you watch in a sunlit room), this is a good option.

Updated September 17, 2024: This review applies to the 65-inch model we reviewed. The 55-inch model offers lower peak brightness, while the 75-inch model offers a different panel type. The 85 and 100-inch variations have similar brightness and should test similarly.

Better Style, Swifter Smarts

Due in part to its loaded full-array backlight system, the U8 series has always been a heavy lift. Its dapper new pedestal stand ups the ante even more. The thick metal plate adds 12 pounds to the package, pushing the 65-inch model I evaluated to over 68 pounds. It takes a bit more time to set up than last year’s easy-peasy screw-on feet.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

The end result is worth the extra sweat, trading the duck-skate stands from previous models for a more elegant solution. The centered stand fits on nearly any console and includes a raised position for fitting a soundbar. The TV’s thick backplate gives way to a luxe look up front, with slim bezels and sharp lines that stand tall with pricier options from Samsung, Sony, LG, and others.

The U8N's Google TV operating system makes setting up network and smarts about as painless as possible between the Google Home mobile app and on-screen prompts that let you swiftly lock in apps and services. Signing in with a Google account lets you end-run some options like voice prompt personalization for Google Assistant commands, and you can use Google Photos as screen savers.

The hardest part is figuring out which ad services you can duck and dodge to keep your personal info private. You can ditch it all if you want to simply use the U8N as a dumb display with a separate streaming device. Otherwise, you’ll want to read the fine print and click on “Advanced System” in the settings menu to check the box that says “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information.” Despite my best efforts, this was still turned on by default. You'll also want to turn off the mic on the TV's bottom plate unless you want it always listening for a wake word.

Google TV is still among my favorite TV interfaces for its easy navigation and conveniences like jumping back into shows and movies from the home screen. Google leaves no shortage of ads, and I wish Hisense’s version made it easier to find connected devices, but it's an inviting system even for newcomers. Apart from a few slow-loading videos, the U8N's response was also snappier in my testing than last year’s sometimes sluggish U8K (8/10, WIRED Recommends).

Fully Loaded

The U8N piles on the features, including a few subtle upgrades such as a stylish new remote (now with backlighting!) and a revamp of its HDMI layout. As before, the TV provides dual HDMI 2.1 ports for 4K HDR video at up to 144 Hz with gaming PCs, but unlike the U8K, the new TV moves eARC to one of its other HDMI slots. This lets you use eARC for connecting outboard audio devices like a soundbar or receiver without hogging one of those precious gaming ports.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

The U8N also lets you control the volume output of its optical port with the TV remote, making it much simpler to control older audio systems that don’t support HDMI ARC/eARC, like my original KEF LSX speakers. If you decide to settle for the onboard sound, the U8N’s 2.1.2 speaker system offers some decent detail, and a bit of extra bass punch for its woofers.

The TV is well stocked on the gaming front, including VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro for fluid high frame-rate gaming, as well as ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) for low input lag. Gaming feels realistic and responsive, with impressive HDR performance. I like the variety of available picture settings, including both Theater and Game modes, which provide rich contrast and vibrant colors for details like Kratos’ ruby red armor in God of War Ragnarok.

Peaky Blinder

The U8N provides an almost intimidating level of picture settings for deep-dive adjustments. The Peak Brightness setting is the most confusing. When applying my usual picture modes during setup, like Theater Night for standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR Theater mode for HDR10, Peak Brightness was set on High by default, which really pumps up the overall picture. This can result in raised black levels and white-hot highlights in content and menu bars, especially with HDR video, leading my wife to call the U8N “the hurty TV” at first.

There are a few things going on here. First, Peak Brightness is primed for daytime watching in bright rooms with sunlight pouring in, allowing even the darkest scenes to pop. Hisense also includes an adjustable Automatic Light Sensor under the General picture settings, something most reviewers tend to turn off for consistent performance but is all but necessary for Peak Brightness. It does a relatively good job taming the splashy brightness in low lighting, even if I don’t always love how it reacts to each environment.

Still, Hisense’s decision to quietly set Peak Brightness on High (often without the light sensor engaged) in picture modes that are usually more restrained is confounding, even for someone used to digging through picture settings. A colleague suggested that the TV’s default Energy Saving mode—a dimmer setting that includes the light sensor on for Peak Brightness—is the one Hisense expects most viewers to experience since most folks apparently don’t change their picture settings. The light sensor is also helpfully engaged by default in some other modes, like Dolby Vision Dark.

If you decide to use Peak Brightness, which is necessary to reach the TV’s highest brightness levels, I suggest starting on Low and turning the light sensor on, especially for any night viewing. This worked well for illuminating challenging SDR content like Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows during daylight hours, where the darkest scenes seemed to have even less pop than the U8K without the peak brightness setting on.

My brightest HDR testing content often looked overcooked and oversaturated in this mode. That's not surprising, considering the TV can reach over 3,000 nits, or triple the brightness at which most videos are currently mastered (though this baseline will change with the latest mastering tools). I usually left the setting off for HDR, but it can be useful in brighter rooms, especially for the always murky Dolby Vision Dark mode. I couldn't help but marvel at how vibrant and flashy some scenes looked with the setting on, such as the monster scene in Moana, where the giant crab Tamatoa's golden shell burst to life in disco psychedelia.

Slackjaw Spectacle

However you utilize the U8N’s picture settings, it’s capable of the signature beautiful picture we’ve come to expect from the series, with deep black levels, fabulous backlight control, very little “haloing” around bright objects, and intense colors that sparkle like jewels in sunlight.

This is showy performance, especially for high-quality 4K HDR productions like Netflix’s Our Planet. Episode 4’s coral scene looks incredible, with dashing neon yellows, sapphire blues, and lifelike sunlight sparkling across it all. Occasionally the TV tends to oversaturate reds, especially when using the Warm1 color temperature, but even so it’s stunningly beautiful. It’s the kind of picture that makes you just want to sit there, slackjawed and dumbfounded, as the pretty colors and bright sparklies dance before your eyes.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

The U8N’s thousands of dimming zones help to preserve rich black levels in the letterboxes and within scenes. The TV can obscure or “crush” some shadow detail, especially in HDR, but there are loads of ways to adjust for that, including the dedicated Black Level setting. With so much brightness on reserve, you can watch virtually any content in any lighting, with solid upscaling of 1080p and even 720p content.

The TV has its minor struggles, including some jerky motion handling (the Film motion setting helps), as well as a tendency to oversharpen content, leading to some moiré effect (or “shimmering”) with images like a graph check shirt or overhead nature shots. Off-axis viewing seems mildly improved over last year, but it’s still notably worse than OLED TVs and even premium LED TVs like Samsung’s QN90C, betraying some panel artifacts and color fading when sitting off to the side. Otherwise, there’s not much to nitpick.

The U8N isn’t the easiest TV to tame for picture purists, but the latest in the series remains one of the most satisfying packages at or near its price, especially once its inflated MSRP inevitably falls. It’s loaded with gaming features, its new design is a real upgrade, and its powerful backlighting is capable of weapons-grade brightness, making it an excellent daytime TV for splashy rooms.

If all that extra brightness sounds like overkill, you can save a lot of money on last year’s U8K, or even the step-down U7K while they’re still available. Otherwise, if you’ve got brightness fever, the U8N is the cure.