Hisense UR9S vs Samsung The Frame Pro 2026 (LS03HW)

Hisense UR9S is without doubt a show of force from the Chinese manufacturer when it comes to luminance. On a synthetic test pattern the panel hit as much as 2600 nits, which is an impressive result. But it’s important to clearly separate laboratory results from filmic realities. In real-world content the UR9S behaves much more restrained. Peak brightness in balanced scenes hovers around 1500 nits. In demanding, dark shots, where algorithms must both preserve deep blacks and precisely light small details, brightness can fall drastically, even to around 400 nits. The discrepancy between the chart and reality is therefore huge. This is a direct consequence of conservative local dimming behaviour. When a bright object occupies a large part of the frame, the system can easily maintain a high brightness level. However, in night scenes the priority becomes protecting blacks and fighting halo artefacts (unsightly glows around bright edges). To avoid contrast degradation the TV drastically limits light output. Even so, the UR9S can still produce a very powerful, engaging HDR effect that impresses in bright, spectacular sequences.

Colour gamut coverage

On test patterns the Hisense UR9S performs excellently in terms of colour. DCI-P3 coverage is almost 100%, and the wide BT.2020 as much as 93%. Those are figures even the best QD-OLED TVs don't reach. But again, synthetic measurements are one thing, films and series are another. In real-world scenes the figures dropped to 93% for DCI-P3 and 81% for BT.2020. That’s still a great result, but the advantage of RGB Mini LED is no longer as dramatic as manufacturers promise in marketing materials. One could even say their capability is now close to that of quantum-dot-equipped TVs, the so-called QLEDs. So why is that? To a large extent, colour reproduction here depends on the way the backlight zones operate. When a strongly saturated colour appears next to white or another, more complex element, a single zone must handle both parts of the image at once. Under such conditions the backlight can't maintain extreme saturation of a given colour on the screen, because the emitted light takes on a character closer to white. In the UR9S this has been refined quite well, but still not enough for the TV to maintain such high colour saturation in every situation.

You can't fault The Frame Pro for one thing: brightness. At peak we measured about 850-900 nits, so the TV has plenty of power to make many HDR scenes look really impressive. Bright, full-screen shots and more colourful frames perform best. In those scenes The Frame Pro can make a good impression — the image is bright, punchy and has the effect we expect from HDR. In our measurements some scenes reached over 800 nits, and even in tougher passages the TV maintained a fairly respectable brightness level.

The problem starts when HDR depends on small bright elements shown against a dark background. Single lamps, stars or reflections can be bright, but very often the black level across a larger part of the image also rises. As a result the bright point itself can look good, but the whole frame loses a lot of quality. That means The Frame Pro shows HDR best in scenes that are simply full-screen. If a film or series contains many such shots, the effect can be genuinely enjoyable. In darker material the limits of local dimming become much more noticeable.

Colours

The Frame Pro deserves praise for its colour gamut coverage. The TV uses quantum dots, the solution known as QLED, so it can deliver really well-saturated colours. In our measurements coverage of the important DCI-P3 palette was around 94.5%, while the more demanding BT.2020 was about 72%.

Those are very solid results that in most scenes produce pleasant, saturated colours. Of course they are not as eye-catching as the values from the latest panels using RGB backlights, but The Frame Pro makes up for that in another way — colour stability. Regardless of the scene, colour saturation remains fairly consistent and there aren't situations where the TV loses colour badly in more demanding frames.

We tested the Hisense UR9S in Filmmaker Mode, which out of the box provides the best image reproduction. In HDR content the TV performed quite well in that regard. The white balance didn't show major errors, and the brightness response, while following Hisense's typical curve, was kept at a reasonable level. The picture therefore wasn't overly brightened or noticeably colour-distorted. The same mode fared much worse with SDR content, the kind we watch most often, like broadcast TV or YouTube. The white balance was strongly shifted toward red and blue, giving the image a slightly pink tint. This also affected the gamma curve. Instead of approaching the reference value of 2.4, it was closer to 2.0, which made the image look too bright, especially in midtones and darker areas. Filmmaker Mode therefore remains the best out-of-the-box choice, but it's not without flaws.

In SDR material The Frame Pro in Filmmaker mode performs quite well, though it falls short of perfect. White balance is relatively even, but as brightness increases the blue component diminishes, so brighter parts of the image can have a slightly warmer tint. A bigger difference is visible in the gamma, i.e. the screen’s brightness handling. Across most of the range it runs below our reference point, which means the TV brightens the midtones a little. As a result, the image can appear a little brighter and less contrasty than it should. The colour errors themselves aren’t huge, but they’re noticeable enough that calibration can still make a significant improvement.

In HDR content the white balance looks similar, being fairly even across much of the range, with larger deviations appearing only at higher brightness. The EOTF curve, however, is more revealing. The Frame Pro holds up fairly well against the reference values in the brighter parts of the image, but clearly lifts the darkest parts. This is primarily due to the TV’s backlight design. This also affects the colours. With less saturated colours the errors are still moderate, but they become significantly larger as saturation increases. In Colour Checker measurements many samples already show high error values. So the out-of-the-box HDR can be considered decent, but it’s definitely not an image we’d call very accurate.

After calibration, the biggest improvement was in SDR, although we also refined the HDR picture. Hisense offers plenty of calibration controls in the menu, so we were able to precisely correct the white balance and other picture errors. The most important change was removing the pink cast that had been clearly visible in SDR material. After calibration the image looks much more natural, especially in everyday content like TV and YouTube. Colour reproduction errors on the ColorChecker chart are very small after calibration. The vast majority of colours fall below values of 2–3, which is at a level very hard for the human eye to detect. The only thing we couldn't completely eliminate is the way Hisense TVs map tones in HDR. It affects how brightness is distributed in films and can subtly 'beautify' the image, rather than strictly following the creators' intent. For less experienced viewers this can create a stronger 'wow' effect, but it won't always fully match how the material should look.

After calibration, the biggest improvements are seen mainly in SDR material. We managed to even out the white balance, but an even more important change was the gamma correction, which before calibration had the greatest effect on the picture's character. After the adjustments the gamma curve is now very close to the reference, so the image is not as bright in the mid-tones and simply looks more natural. Colour errors have also been noticeably reduced, so the effect of calibration in SDR is clearly visible.

In HDR the situation is a bit more complex. White balance was improved and in some ranges the TV tracks the reference much better, but at higher brightness levels deviations still appear. The same goes for colour reproduction; some errors can be corrected, but not all stem from the settings themselves. This reveals the limitations of the TV's design and the way its backlight and local dimming affect the HDR image. So with The Frame Pro, calibration makes the biggest difference to everyday content. Regular TV, YouTube and films and series in SDR (mainly those from cheaper streaming service tiers) can look noticeably better afterwards.

Digital image processing has been one of Hisense's strengths for the past two years, and the UR9S is no different. The manufacturer uses the Hi-View AI Engine RGB processor, which in practice is based on the well-known MediaTek Pentonic 800 platform, previously used in models such as the U8Q. The TV handles upscaling lower-resolution material to 4K very well, and copes with low-bitrate content, where various compression artefacts can easily appear. Thanks to a function called "Smooth and gradient image", the picture stays detailed without looking overly sharpened or artificially smoothed. When watching regular broadcast TV or older, lower-quality material, the UR9S can get a surprising amount out of it. In terms of digital image processing, this is one of the most finely tuned LCD TVs we've had the chance to test.

The Frame Pro uses the NQ4 AI Gen3 processor, so in terms of image processing it behaves very similarly to other recent Samsung TVs. Upscaling works really well, with lower-resolution material being sensibly sharpened and the picture remaining readable without over-emphasising edges. With regular TV broadcasts or lower-quality YouTube content this can deliver a noticeable improvement, although viewers watching even older sources, such as VHS tapes, may notice a slight cropping on the left side (overscan).

It’s a different story for heavily compressed footage and the reduction of noise and posterization artefacts. The "Noise Reduction" feature can improve poorer material, but it fairly quickly starts to interfere with the picture and removes fine detail and film grain. So it’s best used sparingly and mainly when the source genuinely needs it.

The Hisense UR9S is one of the first TVs on the market with a 4K panel and a 170 Hz refresh rate. In the larger sizes, 75 and 85 inches, that goes up to 180 Hz. Such a high refresh rate will mainly benefit owners of very powerful computers. Films and TV series are still most often watched at 24 fps, and sports broadcasts at 50 fps, so in everyday use the panel's response time and the behaviour of the motion smoothing are more important. In that respect the UR9S performs very well. Panel motion blur is low, as our UFO test also confirmed. Moving objects do not leave a pronounced smear, so the picture remains clear even in fast scenes.

The Frame Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel and, when connected to a PC, also supports 240 Hz at Full HD. That's mainly a feature aimed at PC gamers, but the TV also handles the standard 120 Hz refresh rate used for watching sport or gaming on consoles very well. A major plus is the low smearing. For a VA panel, The Frame Pro performs really well in this regard. You don't see the strong, dark trails behind moving objects that are fairly common on TVs with this type of panel. That keeps fast sport and dynamic games clear in motion. There's also a motion smoothing feature with adjustable strength, so for films and sports broadcasts you can tailor the motion to your preferences. You can find our recommended settings in the photo.

The Hisense UR9S is very well set up for gaming. All three HDMI ports are HDMI 2.1 and offer the full 48 Gb/s bandwidth. The TV supports 4K at 170 Hz, and on larger screen sizes even 180 Hz. You also get VRR, ALLM, NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync, so it's hard to fault the basics. PC gamers can additionally enable DLG mode. After switching the resolution to Full HD the refresh rate can rise up to 330 Hz. That's more of an option for a narrow group of users, but it shows how much headroom the panel has. Hisense also added a Game Bar, where you can quickly change the main settings, check the refresh rate, or enable a crosshair and minimap zoom.

The biggest drawback remains the lack of a properly working HGiG implementation. The TV still uses its own tone mapping, which makes setting up HDR on consoles a bit awkward. In our case values around 1500–2000 nits worked best, but it's worth checking which setting keeps all the detail in the brightest parts of the image.

For gamers, The Frame Pro has a lot to offer. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz, VRR, ALLM and a correctly implemented HGiG. When connected to a PC you can also run 144 Hz at 4K, and even 240 Hz if you drop to Full HD. Samsung also bundles its usual set of gamer extras: an expanded Game Bar that lets you quickly view and change the key settings, and Game Motion Plus to improve smoothness for games running at 30 or 60 fps. There’s also the Gaming Hub and the ability to play in the cloud without needing to connect a console. The only real omission is Dolby Vision Gaming, which Samsung doesn’t support. Aside from that, The Frame Pro offers pretty much everything you’d expect from a well-equipped gaming TV today.