Hisense U7S Pro vs Dreame S100

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.

The Dreame S100 is a relatively bright television. In movie mode, the brightness we measured reached around 600 nits. This is a really good result, although not the highest considering the competition in this price range. In full-screen scenes, it's clear that the television can generate an image that hits the mark in terms of brightness. Unfortunately, when more complex scenes appeared on the screen, the local dimming algorithm in this model tried above all to maintain the deepest blacks. However, this came at the expense of the HDR effect – and in a drastic way. In such scenes, the brightness of the bright elements fell below 100 nits, which is a downright tragic result, far from any HDR effect. This aspect can be improved, but there are caveats. You just need to change the local dimming setting in the television's menu; however, then the blacks in such scenes simply turn grey. It's a pity that Dreame wasn't able to refine the local dimming algorithms better, and the S100 is another example that the number of local dimming zones doesn't always translate into a better picture. As a consolation, it's worth noting that the Dreame S100 is marketed as a 'QLED' type television, although it actually uses a PFS LED filter. As a result, the colours are appropriately saturated, and our measured DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage exceeded 94%.

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.

We tested the Dreame S100 in "movie" mode and definitely recommend using this setting for watching all kinds of content. Interestingly, in the deeper settings of the TV, we also find a dedicated "Filmmaker" mode, which is now available from almost every manufacturer. However, in the case of the Dreame S100, we do not recommend using it – it blocks all settings related to the picture and does not allow for any configuration in the menu - not even a motion smoother. So how do the factory colours fare in the S100? Not too bad, but not great either. The TV itself had a noticeable blue tint, which is clearly evident in our white balance measurements. As a result, the picture was artificially brightened, and the colours had a slight bluish tint. This is also confirmed by the Color Checker palette, which showed how the colour samples leaned towards blue, generating quite significant colour errors. On the other hand, the picture looked definitely better in HDR mode, where the colour errors were not as prominent, although they were still far from ideal. Here, the white balance was also too heavily skewed towards blue, causing quite significant errors in color 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.

The Dreame S100 has proven to be a device very amenable to professional calibration. In its menu, we found a plethora of advanced options that allowed us to effectively correct factory errors. Thanks to the advanced white balance correction – both in SDR and HDR content – we completely eliminated excess blue components. The image instantly became much more natural and pleasant to view. After fully tuning the colours, the errors in the Color Checker test dropped below a Delta E value of 2-3. For the average viewer, this means that any colour distortions became almost impossible to see with the naked eye. It's really a nice surprise, as often new brands in the TV market have significant problems with the correct implementation and functioning of sliders in the calibration menu. Here, everything worked as it should. The only thing we need to criticise is the way the TV manages its brightness in HDR. Due to the specific nature of the local dimming algorithms, our measured EOTF curve shows anomalies. In places where high highlights should appear, there is a slight bump in the curve above the reference line. In practice, this results in unnatural brightening of certain, the brightest elements in movies or games. Despite this minor flaw, professional calibration brings a huge, very positive change to this model.

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.

For scaling and digital processing in the Dreame S100, the technology used is proudly called Dreamind™ Pro AI by the manufacturer. However, it must be clearly stated that this is not a proprietary processor but rather a marketing term for a chip from MediaTek – specifically, the model MT5889. Unfortunately, we are talking about a rather outdated unit from a time when MediaTek lagged significantly behind the competition in terms of performance. This, unfortunately, has a direct impact on the image, as this chip also handles that. The upscaling in the S100 is fairly average, and the processor has a tendency to artificially over-sharpen edges (fortunately, this can be somewhat tempered with the sharpness slider in the menu). In the options, we also find a feature called "Contour Smoothing," which theoretically is supposed to improve tonal transitions. In practice, it contributes almost no improvement – setting it to any level rarely eliminates visible colour banding, but it can unnecessarily blur elements of the image that should remain sharp.

Another issue is the phenomenon of overscan (cropping the edges of the frame), which is practically visible all the time. Although there is the possibility to set the screen to display the full frame in low-resolution materials, it requires activating the aforementioned Filmmaker mode. And as you may know, this mode completely blocks any changes to other sliders in the picture menu. In our test tables, we noted that the television offers an option to disable overscan, as such a function technically exists in the system – however, in everyday use, while maintaining reasonable picture settings, you will not be able to take advantage of it.

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.

When it comes to motion fluidity, the Dreame S100 performs really well. It features a 144 Hz refresh rate panel, although in reality, the vast majority of people using it in a conventional way will still be limited to 120 Hz (as this is what today's hardware allows aside from PCs). Thanks to the high refresh rate, the image in motion remains really sharp, largely due to the well-functioning MEMC motion smoother. In the menu, we find predefined modes that enable the TV to efficiently generate artificial frames, which effectively enhances the fluidity of dynamic sports shots, but also helps eliminate motion judder in film and TV series material recorded at 24 frames.

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.

The Dreame S100 seems almost like the ideal screen for gamers. The television is equipped with 2 HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 40 Gbps, allowing features such as automatic game mode (ALLM) or VRR frame synchronization in the range of 48-144 Hz to work seamlessly on consoles. On board, we also find a well-designed gaming panel (Game Bar). It allows you to continuously preview the most important parameters - from the activated picture modes, to the number of frames rendered by the console, right through to the option of adding a crosshair in the centre of the screen. All of this looks great on paper; however, the biggest issue with the S100 is its implementation of HDR in games. The television does not have a correctly implemented HGiG format. This means a clueless user may misconfigure the console during the initial setup of the screen. Poor configuration can result in an image that is too dark or overexposed (as a guideline: we suggest setting the brightness in the Xbox console menu to around 600 nits, and in the PS5 to 12 clicks). The Dolby Vision format also proves problematic, as it often did not activate at all on the XBOX – Dreame S100 line. And when it was eventually activated, playing was impossible due to the very high input lag often exceeding 100ms. If the manufacturer manages to improve the HDR gaming experience with an update, the S100 will be truly outstanding hardware for gamers. For now, however, compromises must be accepted.