Is the Hisense 65-inch U7A 4K Smart TV a Budget Shoppers Dream? [Review]
Confession time: I was in the camp that knew how good 4K TVs were, but was very content with my older-model 46-inch standard LED – that was until I spent some time getting to know Hisense’s U7A unit.
The U7A is a 65-inch TV with 4K capabilities, smart functionality, and a colour-sizzling ULED panel, giving the admittedly huge-sized TV an incredibly bright display. With HDR in its arsenal too, colours have a far greater range, especially in darker scenes. The result of Hisense’s ULED technology is a crisper, clearer, and richer image on screen at all time – and for all the marketing mumbo-jumbo, it basically means that this TV rivals anything on the market, and costs about half the price.
From watching 4K Netflix to playing Red Dead Redemption 2 with HDR mode on, the TV manages to perform excellently, with no artefacts or slow images in sight. It may just be due to the size and brightness, but even watching older YouTube videos or movies provides a new sense of ‘enhancement’ to the picture thanks to the quantum dot tech in the panel.
Hisense have managed to create television technology that can deliver top-range quality without the exorbitant cost, and this extends to the design too. The TV itself has a solid build quality, two slick screw-in stands, and an almost bezel-less display. It definitely has that premium ‘feel’ and looks like something you’d see in a higher price-bracket. Coming in at a retail price of R16,499 this TV is sure to appeal to discerning tech shoppers on a budget.
As for some shortcomings, it’s hard not to be grieved a little by the TV’s small storage cache, requiring you to put in your WiFi password every odd day due your TV ‘forgetting’ it. It’s a small gripe, but it’s probably something Hisense can fix with a new smart update. Secondly, the fact that the remote doesn’t have a wand functionality does mean you’ll be punching in characters and navigating around the menus the old-fashioned way – so it’s good to just keep that in mind.
Deciding on whether you want to upgrade to a 4K TV or not used to be equivalent to that of buying a new car; however, with Hisense’s U7A, you get a large TV with a picture quality that’s arguably better than other top-tier brands at a portion of the cost. If you can look past the few small snags and omission of one or two little bells-and-whistles, you’ve got one of the best TVs on the market begging for a spot on your living-room stand.
Disclaimer: the ‘x’ stand on the unit in the header image has recently been changed to the dual-foot stand (see second image) on newer models.
