Hisense E7Q PRO / E79Q PRO vs Hisense U7S Pro

When it comes to HDR effect quality, the E7Q PRO unfortunately is not a television that impresses with brightness alone. In real film materials, we measured around 250–300 nits, which is simply not enough for HDR to look spectacular. There's a lack of that "spark" in bright details, flashes, and light effects, and in many HDR scenes, it can resemble more of a good SDR than true cinematic HDR. The silver lining in all this is the colours. We managed to confirm that the E7Q PRO is a PFS type television, which means it has an additional filter that improves colour gamut coverage. Because of this, even if the brightness doesn't deliver, the colours in HDR content can be properly saturated and pleasing to the eye, without the impression of a "washed-out" image.

Let's start with the fact that the U7S Pro is an impressively bright television – in calibrated mode, our measurement equipment indicated a staggering 2200 nits of peak brightness! This is an absolutely remarkable result, considering this model is positioned rather as a mid-range option.

However, as we know, peak brightness on test patterns is one thing, and actual movie scenes are another. Unfortunately, in real video materials, the backlight power clearly drops. Admittedly, in the most demanding moments, the television can still exceed the 1000-nit barrier – which is still an excellent result, perfectly aligned with the mastering standards of most HDR films – but the real challenge comes from aggressively tuned local dimming algorithms. Because of these, small bright details, such as stars or the moon in the night sky, become noticeably dimmed. The television tries to maintain deep blacks at all costs, which is of course understandable, but unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the dynamics and brilliance of the HDR effect itself.

It's worth praising the colour reproduction. The new U7S Pro is a QLED type construction that provides a very wide coverage of the colour palette. Unlike last year's model (U7Q Pro), this year's variant is a "true" QLED, not a solution based on a PFS filter. As a result, color saturation has significantly increased, and the coverage of the most demanding BT.2020 space has exceeded the 81% barrier.

In terms of colour reproduction, we tested the Hisense E7Q Pro in Movie mode, which undoubtedly turned out to be the best built-in preset. It is this mode, unlike the Eco, Standard, or Dynamic settings, that offers the most natural colours straight out of the box. While no factory mode is completely free of flaws, the E7Q Pro deserves high praise for its colour rendition in standard SDR content. The colour palette has been very well tuned, and errors in the Color Checker tests often did not exceed a value of 3, which is an outstanding result rarely seen in such affordable TVs. The only drawback we noted in SDR is the tendency to darken certain elements of the image, as indicated by a slightly raised gamma curve. The TV performs slightly worse with colours in HDR mode. Here, colour errors become noticeable to the naked eye, mainly due to a deficiency of blue in the white balance. This causes the colours on screen to appear too warm, and for some viewers, they may seem almost "too cinematic." Of course, to improve these parameters, we proceeded with professional calibration.

We've tested the U7S Pro model – as we always do – in the best factory-tuned picture mode, which is Filmmaker Mode. We can assess the displayed colours in two ways. The most disappointing was the profile intended for watching SDR content, that is, traditional television, YouTube, and other less demanding materials. The picture was clearly too yellow, which was a direct consequence of a poorly set white balance. As our graphs show, there is a huge deficiency of the blue component here, which drastically affected the overall colour temperature. This is clearly evident on the ColorChecker charts and the colour palette graphs, where most samples leaned towards yellow. Fortunately, the factory HDR mode performed much better – there the colour errors hovered around a Delta E value of 3, which is already a really solid result.

In the case of materials with standard dynamic range (SDR), our actions in Filmmaker mode turned out to be largely cosmetic 😉. We mainly focused on a subtle adjustment of the white balance and equalising the gamma curve, which allowed us to recover details in the darker areas of the image that previously tended to get lost. However, it's worth noting that the E7Q Pro unit we tested happened to be exceptionally well-made from the factory. We remind you that these parameters depend on the specific unit – with mass production, factory calibration can be random, so your unit may require slightly different adjustments. The biggest beneficiary of professional calibration was undoubtedly HDR mode. This is where we did the most work, which brought spectacular results. We successfully tamed the excessive warmth of the image, caused by a factory shortfall in blue colour. After calibration, colour errors were reduced to a significantly lower level, which will certainly please those watching a lot of streaming content in HDR format, expecting faithful reproduction.

We do know, however, that the company Hisense is capable of much more – as previous generations have proven – which is why we simply couldn’t leave the factory flaws of the U7S Pro model unaddressed in everyday content. As always in such cases, we had the television undergo professional calibration. The conclusions? This process brought about a colossal change. After manually adjusting the white balance and compensating for deficiencies in the blue component, the annoying yellow tint disappeared as if by magic. White became naturally clean, and skin tones gained the proper, healthy hue. Importantly, the calibration not only tamed the capricious SDR mode but also maximised the potential of the panel, reducing average colour reproduction errors to values nearly imperceptible to the human eye. The only thing we need to criticise after the whole process is the very nature of the Mini-LED backlighting and its specific interaction with the HDR signal. The aggressively tuned local dimming algorithms significantly interfere with the EOTF brightness curve. As a result, the backlighting doesn’t always work perfectly with the creator’s intent – depending on the scene being watched, the curve can noticeably run either above or below the reference, occasionally disrupting the ideal dynamic of HDR images.

When it comes to upscaling and digital image processing, the E7Q PRO deserves praise. The scaling performs really well here and doesn't fall dramatically short of much more expensive, advanced TVs. Lower quality materials can look clear and reasonable, without the impression that the image is artificially "overdrawn." The smoothing function, however, presents a bit worse. Yes, it can be effective and improve tonal transitions in low-quality materials, but at the same time, it can introduce unwanted effects. Sometimes it removes film grain or adds unwanted artifacts, giving the image a more "digital" character. Therefore, we mainly recommend it to those who prefer a smoother, less cinematic image style.

The digital processing of lower quality signals is at a very high level here, all thanks to the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor used in the U7S Pro. The upscaling also performs well, which is the TV's ability to enhance lower resolution signals to 4K. We did not notice any unnatural, sharp contours on the screen, and our test image featuring a model simply looked appealing.

In the category of motion blur and fluidity, the E7Q PRO has one very strong argument. At this price, Hisense has added a 120 Hz panel, and in PC mode, it can even operate at 144 Hz. This immediately provides greater possibilities in motion settings, as more options for smoothing the image appear in the menu. Among other things, we have frame interpolation options, allowing us to adjust the fluidity for sports or movies, depending on whether we prefer a more cinematic character or a "theatrical" smoothness.

Hisense U7S Pro uses a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz in 4K, and in gaming mode, it can even reach 330 Hz at Full HD resolution. However, it is important to remember that these highest numbers do not have much significance in everyday usage, as most content supports a maximum of 120 Hz (e.g., when playing on a console). Nevertheless, the TV handles motion quite well and performs really well for an LCD construction.

It's hard to fault the fluidity. In the menu, we find a motion smoother called "Motion Enhancement," which has two sliders: motion blur reduction and judder reduction. They allow for manual configuration of the smoother, which works well in both movies and sports, effectively enhancing the raw TV signal.

E7Q PRO is a phenomenal screen for gamers. Besides the typical "issue" with Hisense, which is the lack of support for the HGiG format due to constantly active tone mapping, we get practically everything one could expect from a TV that is supposed to have a gaming tag. There are two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a full set of key features. We have variable refresh rate, automatic switching to game mode, and support for 4K at 120 Hz. On top of that, all the important settings are at hand in the clear Game Bar. This tool not only looks modern, but it also has a typically "gaming" edge and actually makes life easier while gaming.

If you're planning to connect a console or PC to the U7S Pro, you'll be more than pleased – this TV is great gear for gamers. Hisense hasn't held back, featuring 4 HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gbps. So you don't have to juggle cables, as each port will handle the full suite of features. We have an automatic game mode (ALLM) and VRR, which operates over a wide range from 48 Hz to a whopping 330 Hz. Of course, that 330 Hz is currently just a gimmick for owners of powerful PCs, as consoles will cap at 120 Hz, but it's good to have that headroom for the future. The Game Bar also works really well when gaming. It's a handy menu bar for gamers, where you can quickly change the picture mode, turn on a crosshair in the middle of the screen, and even switch the display aspect ratio to ultra-wide, which PC simulation fans will appreciate. The only downside worth noting is the incorrect implementation of the HGiG format in games. The issue is that the TV ignores instructions from the console regarding the image generated in HDR10 and constantly butts in, trying to "enhance" the image in its own way. This makes proper HDR configuration in the console menu (where brightness is set on the logo/checkerboard) a bit more challenging.