Hisense E7NQ PRO vs Samsung Q7F

Based on the luminance chart, which indicates around 550 nits, it can be considered that Hisense E7NQ PRO theoretically has the potential to somewhat "enchant" us with its HDR image. Testing various scenes from movies, we noticed that the television continually tries to balance between maintaining appropriate brightness and preserving the deepest blacks. In favourable conditions – such as in a scene from “The Meg”, where the screen is flooded with bright light – this brightness can indeed impress us. At such moments, we feel that HDR actually adds that "something" to the image. Unfortunately, when difficult shots with fine, bright elements on a dark background appear on the screen, the situation looks much worse. Brightness then drops to 200-300 nits, which is definitely too little to really distinguish HDR from standard SDR.

It is clear that the television is trying, but the hardware limitations – mainly the small number of local dimming zones – prevent it from fully spreading its wings. The end result can therefore be quite inconsistent and as average as the contrast tests. On the plus side, it deserves credit for its impressive coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut at 97%. This allows the television to present a truly wide range of colours, which, in the right scenes, can give us at least a glimpse of the real HDR effect. It’s just a shame that the whole picture isn't complemented by better control of brightness and contrast.

Unfortunately, the Samsung Q7F is not one of the bright televisions, which directly impacts the quality of HDR films. The peak brightness of the panel is only around 250 nits, which is definitely insufficient for claiming a true cinematic experience. In practice, the HDR content does not differ significantly from classic SDR, making it difficult to talk about any "wow effect" that usually accompanies us when watching such films. During testing of film scenes, the image simply looked dark, and the brightness almost always hovered around the aforementioned 250 nits. The worst performance came from shots with small, intensely glowing elements – the global dimming technique used reacted very aggressively in those cases, dimming the entire screen to maintain the black effect. However, it is worth noting the presence of a QLED coating that broadens the colour spectrum. For a budget QLED model, the Q7F performs quite decently here: the DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage is around 93%, and BT.2020 reaches 70%. This means that despite the low brightness, the colours can still look quite vivid and attractive.

When we took our copy of Hisense E7NQ PRO out of the box, we immediately started checking the available picture modes. Among them, the Filmmaker mode seemed the most promising, although it wasn't without its flaws. With standard SDR content, we noticed a clear tendency to overemphasise red, making the picture appear unnaturally warm. This was particularly evident in the comparison photo attached below. Conversely, when we switched to HDR content, the situation took a turn in the opposite direction. This time, blue was dominant, and there was hardly any red, resulting in a cool, at times almost "store-like" appearance — although not as drastic as in modes specifically designed for showcasing in displays. As a result, in our tests assessing colour reproduction, these disturbances in colour balance led to significant errors.

Additionally, the television had trouble reproducing brightness characteristics. At lower resolutions, it clearly brightened the darkest elements of the image, and with HDR content, the brightness curve (eotf) simply wouldn't align as it should. Initially, the television excessively darkened the smallest details, only to then over-brighten larger areas. Fortunately, the E7NQ PRO provides us with a lot of calibration tools, so knowing there was potential within it, we decided to take matters into our own hands and try to set it up to eliminate these issues.

The reproduction of factory colours in the Samsung Q7F is definitely not one of its strong points. In Filmmaker mode, which theoretically should be closest to neutral, the white balance issue is immediately noticeable. There’s too much red on the screen, while blue is lacking. The effects are very easy to notice – white, instead of being neutral, takes on warm, almost slightly orange tones. In the long run, this makes the entire image appear a bit unnatural, while bright areas of the scene can seem unrealistic. The problems are even more evident in HDR content. The charts show that the TV has significant errors in the Color Checker palette, which results in visible inaccuracies in the real image. In practice, this means that colours are not presented as they should be. The Q7F also heavily manipulates brightness; darker elements are overly boosted, causing them to lose their cinematic feel, while bright parts can be dimmed. This makes the image seem flattened, and contrast, instead of helping to bring out details, only highlights its own limitations. In HDR materials, this is particularly frustrating because every detail matters. In scenes where a subtle play of light and shadow should be felt, the Q7F either overdoes the lighting or, conversely, suppresses elements that should attract the eye. This causes the image to lose its depth, and instead of cinematic realism, we have a rather simplified effect.

Thanks to the tools available in E7NQ PRO, we've managed to squeeze a pretty decent image out of it, especially with lower quality content. After fine-tuning the white balance of the SDR materials, the colours look much more natural, and what we see on the screen seems closer to the vision the producer intended to present. Additionally, we've improved the brightness characteristics (Gamma), so the TV no longer tends to over-brighten, and everything looks noticeably better than before our intervention.

With HDR materials, we also achieved some improvements, although it's not as rosy here. Yes, the white balance has approached an acceptable level, but the problem lies elsewhere. It's about the EOTF curve, which is how the TV manages brightness and tonality of the image. At first glance, one might think that the biggest issue concerns only the mid-tones, which are overly brightened. However, after more detailed testing and activating the EOTF curve visualisation filters, it becomes clear that the receiver has a tendency to brighten the entire screen. This seems to be a limitation due to the small number of local dimming zones and generally modest brightness management capabilities. Such hardware limitations are simply insurmountable. Nonetheless, after our calibration, the image is noticeably better than at the start. One just needs to be aware that in terms of contrast and brightness management, this model has its limits, which even a good calibration cannot fully overcome.

After professional calibration, we managed to bring the Q7F to order – at least in terms of SDR content. The image in this mode looks really good: the white balance has been set correctly, the colours appear natural, and the errors in the colour palette have dropped to levels practically invisible to the eye. Gamma behaves exemplary, and the only minor flaw remains a slight lightening of smaller elements, which stems from the lack of local dimming. For everyday watching of television or films in standard quality, the Q7F performs surprisingly well.

It was significantly more challenging to tame HDR content. Despite adjusting the white balance, the television still heavily manipulates brightness, causing scenes to appear unnatural – what was meant to be subtly darker can sometimes be overly bright, and the bright parts of the image can occasionally be dimmed. The final effect is better than in factory settings, but it’s clear that the construction limitations of the Q7F do not allow for fully utilising the potential of HDR materials.

When it comes to the tonal transition smoothing function in lower quality materials, the “smooth and gradient image” feature in Hisense E7NQ PRO unfortunately does not impress. At the lowest setting, the change is barely noticeable – it's more of a cosmetic improvement. Switching to “Medium” mode does produce a noticeable effect, but it's still nothing special, and the TV starts to excessively interfere with other elements of the image, which can look unnatural.

Image scaling is also rather average. On the test screen, where a portrait of a model and text are displayed, there are slight frays at the edges, making the overall presentation less smooth and aesthetic than we would expect in this class of device. It's just hard to talk about really effective improvement of lower resolution quality here.

Upscaling and digital image processing in the Q7F is a bit of a rollercoaster. On one hand, we have really nice upscaling – weaker sources look better than you might expect. The image becomes clearer, sharper, and even older films or free-to-air TV hold up well. Samsung has been strong in this area for years, and the Q7F confirms that. On the other hand… things start to get tricky. The TV has a problem with overscan – part of the image is simply cut off, and it doesn't look very elegant. Additionally, we were let down by a feature called "noise reduction," which should improve the smoothness of tonal transitions in weaker materials. In other Samsungs, it works relatively well, but here it practically makes no difference – the banding in gradients is still there. It's a bit of a shame because we expected more from a model that is aimed at users looking for a display for SDR content.

Thanks to the use of a 144 Hz panel, E7NQ PRO performs exceptionally well with almost any type of content. Whether we're watching fast-paced matches, dynamic games or action films – the fluidity of motion leaves a good impression. When it comes to movies, the manufacturer has equipped the TV with two key tools: “motion blur reduction” and “judder reduction.” Each of these functions can be adjusted on a scale from 1 to 10.

At lower values, the processing is subtle, barely noticeable, and gently smooths motion without ruining the cinematic character of the image. The higher we move up the scale, the more clearly the TV interferes with the presented material, smoothing motion more aggressively, thereby minimising any judders or micro-cuts. Conversely, the highest settings can resemble the so-called “soap opera effect,” which makes the image look overly smooth, slightly losing its cinematic atmosphere. Thanks to this scale, however, we can find a happy medium, adjusting motion fluidity to our own preferences.

Motion blur and motion fluidity in the Q7F is probably the most budget-friendly aspect of this television. The 60 Hz panel makes the motion blur quite noticeable, especially in dynamic scenes, and it's rather hard to consider this model as equipment designed for watching sports or playing fast-paced games. In tests with the little green man, there was a long trail, similarly, the ball in a football match would leave behind streaks.

On the positive side, the presence of motion smoothing is worth noting. In films, it really makes a difference – especially since most materials are recorded in 24 frames. Here we can decide whether we prefer a more "cinematic" image, with a slight judder typically found in cinema, or a smoother, more “TV-like” one. This actually works quite well and helps improve the viewing comfort for series or movies.

If we sometimes like to turn on the console and immerse ourselves in the world of games for long hours, E7NQ PRO can make a really good impression. Thanks to the 144 Hz refresh rate, the gameplay is surprisingly smooth, and support for HDMI 2.1 and VRR ensures that the image doesn't "tear" even during the most dynamic actions. Additionally, there's ALLM, which automatically sets the lowest latency as soon as we switch to the console – so we don’t have to fiddle around in the options ourselves.

A big plus is also the ability to launch games in Dolby Vision, which makes colors and contrast simply look better. Hisense has also included a clear "gamebar," allowing us to continuously monitor the key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. The only thing we might slightly regret is the lack of HGIG support. It may not be a crucial element, but for some gamers, it can matter if they aim for the most faithful reproduction of the creators' vision. Nevertheless, in practice, the E7NQ PRO performs excellently and delivers truly enjoyable gaming experiences.

The features for gamers on the Samsung Q7F is a topic that stirs up quite a few mixed emotions. On one hand – no reasonable person was expecting miracles here, after all, it’s a 60 Hz television and it was clear from the get-go that this wouldn’t be equipment to squeeze the maximum from a console or PC. On the other hand, since the manufacturer promised specific solutions in promotional materials, it is only natural that we wanted to see them in practice. At the start, it’s looking pretty good. The automatic game mode (ALLM) works, so there’s no need to manually fiddle with the settings; the console switches the TV to low latency mode by itself. Plus, we have the Game Bar, which looks impressive and allows you to check a few basic parameters without leaving the game. And this is where the good news ends.

The biggest problem with the Q7F is VRR, or rather its absence. Indeed, the appropriate icon appears in the menu, you can even see it in the Game Bar, but throughout the entire test, the function remained dead and could not be activated in any way. Even more disappointing is the matter of HGiG; this option was actually available in the beginning, but after a software update, it disappeared completely, which is just unprofessional. Therefore, the Q7F is only suitable for absolute basics. Sure, you can turn on the console, play calmer titles, and enjoy low input lag, but if someone is counting on more advanced features that the manufacturer promised, they will be disappointed. This is not a television one buys with gaming in mind, and it’s better to be aware of this before purchasing.