Hisense U6NQ vs XIAOMI S Mini 2026 (55"-75") 60Hz

Hisense U6NQ offers a stable HDR effect, which is a rarity in TVs with local dimming. On most streaming platforms, in films and series recorded in 4K, the TV delivers consistent performance – in every tested scene, regardless of difficulty level, brightness is around 450 nits. This is a pleasant surprise, as many models in this class exhibit distinct differences – some scenes are well-lit, while others are heavily dimmed by dimming algorithms. However, the Hisense U6NQ prioritises maintaining higher brightness, which comes at the cost of blacks, as noted in the paragraph about the contrast test.

The HDR effect on the U6NQ is satisfying, offering a noticeable 'punch' of light in bright moments, although it's worth remembering the aforementioned blooming, which can be visible in challenging scenes. In terms of colour, the TV also performs adequately – the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is 89%, while BT.2020 is 71%. While these are not results that would impress more demanding users, for beginners in the world of high-quality materials, the U6NQ is a solid choice. As such, it presents an interesting option as an 'entry-level' TV for home cinema.

When it comes to HDR, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 performs really well, especially given the segment this model sits in. The TV can reach around 1000 nits of brightness without much difficulty, so in bright scenes it can deliver a very pronounced HDR effect. The sun, highlights or very brightly lit parts of the picture can be intensely bright and at times really hit you with their intensity. It’s a bit different in dark scenes, though. Very small light sources surrounded by black are rendered at much lower brightness, so they lack the pinpoint intensity seen on the best TVs. That’s not unusual for a Mini LED. The local dimming algorithm reduces the backlight in those cases to preserve as deep a black as possible, which in such scenes matters more than a few extra nits.

HDR colours

Colour reproduction also fares well. Xiaomi markets the S Mini 2026 as a QLED TV, although the solution used here is in practice based on a PFS phosphor. What matters is the result, and that is pretty good. Measured DCI-P3 gamut coverage was around 94%, while in the much wider BT.2020 colour space it was about 74%. That means the TV can show most of the colours used in HDR movies with suitably high saturation. Its limitations are most noticeable with very intense shades of green, where the colour range begins to run out.

Hisense U6NQ in Filmmaker mode offers really decent colour reproduction, although it's worth remembering that differences between individual units can be noticeable. The model we tested was pleasantly surprising, especially with HD content in SDR quality. The white balance was correct here, and errors in the range of 3–4 ΔE should be acceptable for the average viewer. The television performed slightly worse in reproducing colours with 4K HDR material. The dominance of blue tones led to unnatural cool shades on the Colour Checker chart, giving the image a "store" character. Combined with issues in brightness characteristics – gamma and EOTF curve caused some parts of the image to be too dark – the Filmmaker mode in this case loses some of its credibility. Although the factory settings of the tested unit deserve praise, particularly in SDR, there were still minor shortcomings that would require adjustments to fully utilise the television's capabilities.

We tested the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 (55–75 inch models) in Film mode, which compared with the other presets offered the most accurate colours. That did not mean the image was correctly set up straight away. In our unit the white balance was noticeably shifted toward warmer tones. There was too little blue and too much red, giving whites and greys a slightly warm cast. The TV also tended to brighten darker parts of the image too much. This was due to the gamma, which instead of staying around 2.4 fell in places to about 2.0. That made shadow detail more visible, but the image lost some depth. So the factory settings weren't bad, but they still needed some adjustment to reproduce the picture accurately.

Although the factory settings of the Filmmaker mode on Hisense U6NQ were quite good, we decided to undertake calibration to fully assess the capabilities of this model. Only after such a procedure can one see how the television performs under ideal conditions. In the case of SDR content, which was already at a high level, we managed to further improve the white balance. However, the biggest change came from adjusting the brightness characteristics – gamma was optimised and no longer causes excessive darkening of the image, which improves its naturalness.

For 4K HDR content, calibration also yielded positive results. We eliminated the issue of blue dominance, which resulted in a more balanced and natural image. However, managing brightness in HDR materials remains a more complicated issue. The EOTF curve, although it had problems with image darkening in the 10–30% brightness range under laboratory conditions, reveals other shortcomings in real scenes. The television tends to overly brighten the smallest elements on the screen. As a result, this leads to noticeable halo effects around bright objects. This phenomenon, which we mentioned earlier in the context of contrast and HDR, arises from the technological limitations of the model and is often difficult to eliminate.

In short: although the Filmmaker mode with factory settings performed decently, calibration allowed us to achieve an even better effect – minor adjustments resulted in a more balanced image, particularly in HDR content. For users seeking the highest quality picture, calibration will be a beneficial step.

Surprisingly, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 responds quite well to calibration. After our adjustments we were able to noticeably improve the white balance and the picture stopped leaning toward overly warm tones. In SDR material the result is really good, with the TV able to reproduce such content very accurately and hard to fault for colour reproduction. We made similar adjustments in HDR, although not everything could be corrected there. Colours look better than on the factory settings, but the TV still tends to display the picture a little brighter than it should. You can see this from the EOTF curve, which sits above the reference. In practice this means some HDR scenes are brighter than the creators intended. It's a quirk of this TV and we can't do anything about it.

With high-quality materials like 4K, tonal transitions on U6NQ look really good – colours blend nicely and the image is consistent. Unfortunately, when we switch to lower resolution content, the television doesn’t offer any extra features that could improve this aspect. An example is the test with the light bulb, where it’s clearly visible that the television struggles with reproducing subtle tonal transitions.

On the other hand, digital processing performs quite well. The image looks lively, is pleasantly soft, and free from excessive artifacts. Moreover, thanks to the sharpness settings, it can be tailored to individual preferences – whether towards a softer or sharper image. Overall, while upscaling lower quality materials could be better, the television handles image processing well.

The MT5896 processor handles digital image processing in the Xiaomi S Mini 2026. Unfortunately, in this respect the TV is fairly average. Low-resolution content isn't upscaled very well, and its limitations become obvious on a large screen. The picture looks quite digital, and the TV can't pull out many extra details. You also can't turn off overscan for low-resolution content. The handling of posterisation smoothing is even worse. On the smaller models there's not even a separate setting to reduce the visible banding between similar shades. So if those imperfections are already present in the source material, Xiaomi effectively doesn't mask them.

Hisense U6NQ offers native refresh rates of 60 Hz at a 4K resolution, but the manufacturer has added a feature that allows for an increase in refresh rate to 120 Hz, at the cost of reducing the resolution to Full HD. This is a solution we have previously seen in TCL televisions, such as C655 or C655 PRO. This gives the user the option – higher motion fluidity or full resolution. This makes sense, especially considering that many new generation console games do not achieve full performance in 4K at 120 Hz.

When it comes to movies, the television is equipped with a motion smoother feature, which allows you to adjust the motion characteristics to your own preferences. This enables a more cinematic effect or increases fluidity in dynamic scenes. Overall, Hisense U6NQ offers sensible solutions in terms of motion fluidity that should satisfy both gamers and movie enthusiasts.

The smaller variants of the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 use a 60 Hz panel, and that's their biggest limitation when it comes to motion. For films and TV series this isn't yet a major problem, because the TV has a classic motion interpolator for 24/30 fps material. So you can reduce the characteristic judder and adjust motion to your own preferences. Sports and other 50/60 Hz material fare worse, because there’s no additional feature to improve smoothness. In such content we’re therefore limited by the panel itself.

In terms of motion blur the TV performs fairly typically for a VA panel. The most trailing is visible behind objects moving against a dark background, while in brighter scenes the effect is noticeably smaller. It’s not at a level that completely ruins the perception of motion, but in dynamic scenes you can see that the panel isn’t one of the fastest.

Hisense U6NQ gives the option to choose between 4K at 60 Hz and Full HD with 120 Hz refresh rate. This solution may appeal to gamers who want to decide what is more important to them – higher resolution or smoothness. The TV supports features like ALLM and VRR, which help in providing smoother gameplay. A nice addition is the GameBar – an easy-to-use panel that allows quick adjustments to picture settings and checking statistics. We also find the Dolby Vision Game mode here, which operates with low input lag, a big plus for console enthusiasts. Unfortunately, it lacks HGiG, which could further improve HDR quality in games. Nevertheless, the Hisense U6NQ performs quite well as a gaming TV, especially for those who play occasionally and do not require the highest refresh rate in 4K. It is a solid choice for less demanding users.

In the larger sizes the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 becomes a far more interesting option for gamers. The panel runs natively at up to 144 Hz, so when you connect a PC you can use the high refresh rate even at 4K. At lower resolutions the TV can go even further, reaching up to 288 Hz. It also offers ALLM, automatic switching to Game Mode, and a Game Bar that keeps the most important settings within easy reach. Of course, the TV has two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports. So in terms of smoothness the difference compared with the 55–75 inch versions is substantial and particularly easy to notice when using a PC or console. However, not everything works perfectly. As with the smaller variants, we have reservations about the HGiG implementation. The HDR setup screens on the PS5 and Xbox don't precisely reflect the TV's actual capabilities, so if you set the console according to those prompts the brightest parts of the image can be blown out and lose some detail.