Hisense U7Q vs Samsung Q7F

Since the algorithms responsible for blacks are performing quite well, we expected a similarly good outcome when it comes to brightness and overall HDR quality. Unfortunately, we have to disappoint you a bit here.

The U7Q is quite a bright television – under the best conditions, it can reach around 800 nits, which indeed impresses in some scenes, especially in scenes like those from the movie The Meg. Bright segments can shine, and the HDR effect is noticeable. The problem arises when very small, bright elements appear on a dark background – for example, in Sicario 2 or in the second scene from Life of Pi. At such moments, the dimming algorithms operate too aggressively. Yes, the blacks look great at that point, but the brightest spots can almost completely disappear, causing the HDR effect to vanish and details to be barely visible. That’s just the charm of this technology in this price segment.

As a consolation, it is worth mentioning that the U7Q is marketed as a QLED (in practice, a PFS layer is used, which operates very similarly), and it can indeed display a wide colour gamut – a DCI-P3 coverage of around 94% is a very good result for this class.

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.

We tested the U7Q in the best possible picture mode, which is Filmmaker Mode. This mode is supposed to provide the most "cinematic" experience that aligns with the creators' intentions – straight out of the box. Unfortunately… even this professionally sounding name doesn’t guarantee a perfect image.

In our unit, the problem lay in the poorly set white balance. In both HD and 4K content, the image had too much blue and red, resulting in a slightly pinkish hue on the screen. It didn’t look terrible, but it was noticeable – especially in bright scenes and on white backgrounds. That alone could have been forgiven, but the biggest issue is managing brightness in HDR content. The EOTF curve from the measurements confirms what we saw earlier during scene tests: the television can overly dim the smallest bright elements, causing them to nearly disappear, or conversely – excessively brighten the brightest parts, which affects the naturalness of the image.

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 specialist tools, we managed to correct the colour quality in SDR content to almost perfection. In materials with lower dynamics, delta E errors dropped below 0.5, which can be considered an almost reference result. The picture on television, YouTube, or classic Full HD looks really good after calibration. Well then – but where was it not so easy to improve the image? Primarily it concerns HDR quality content. Although we managed to somewhat "tame" the white balance and eliminate pink tints in most scenes, unfortunately, we did not have full control over brightness management. We set the local dimming settings according to the best observations – SDR: Medium, HDR: High – but the U7Q still did everything a bit its own way. There were still cases of overly strong dimming or brightening of details that calibration simply could not eliminate. And although the overall reception of content is much better, one must reckon that the U7Q will always have something to say at the end with "but".

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.

There are situations where we would like to smooth out tonal transitions a bit, especially in older materials – those with limited source quality. The U7Q has been equipped with a feature called “Smooth and Gradient Image,” but unfortunately… it works very poorly. In the “Low” option, the effects are practically unnoticeable, and other settings smooth out the details but don’t improve tonal transitions. The only positive thing is that the feature doesn’t interfere with the film grain, so it doesn’t ruin the natural structure of the image.

Fortunately, content scaling performs quite well. The image is not overly sharpened, there is no artificial clarity – and while it’s known that this isn’t the level of high-end TVs, the U7Q has no problem displaying really old content in a completely acceptable manner.

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.

U7Q is a truly fast TV, much like its more powerful version “PRO”. At 4K resolution, it supports up to 144 Hz refresh rate, and if someone wants even more – in Full HD, you can achieve up to 240 Hz! This will mainly benefit PC gamers, but it’s worth appreciating – it’s a rare feature in this price segment. Right from the start, it’s clear that the U7Q has been designed with dynamic content in mind, such as games or sports. In films, we’re not left “out in the cold” either – the U7Q offers an “Ultra Motion Smoothness” feature, where with two sliders, you can adjust whether you want a smoother, theatrical picture, or something closer to cinematic style with a visible frame. It’s good that, like most manufacturers, we have a choice here and can customise it 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.

The Hisense U7Q is a TV designed with gamers in mind – and you can see that straight away with its gaming capabilities. It has practically everything you could wish for: Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) – check, Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) – check, and high refresh rates of up to 240 Hz in Full HD, along with support for various resolutions, not just 4K. It’s truly an impressive set of features that makes the U7Q perform well with both fast-paced shooters on consoles and more demanding titles on PC. Of course – like most Hisense models – it lacks a proper implementation of the HGiG feature. It’s a shame because HGiG allows the console's brightness to be adjusted to the specific TV, which in practice makes it easier to display HDR games according to the creators' intentions. Without this, you just have to deal with some limitations in the final HDR image in games.

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.