Hisense E8Q vs Philips OLED811

Since the E8Q is a twin of the U7Q, it’s no surprise that the quality of the HDR effect is nearly identical. On paper, it looks promising – a peak brightness of 800 nits can impress in many scenes. Moments such as flashes of light in “The Meg” or shots of the sun in “Life of Pi” can indeed evoke a 'wow' effect. But the longer we watch, the more we notice the limitations. The problem arises when small, bright details need to be shown against a dark background. In such situations, the dimming algorithms try to preserve contrast but end up dimming what should shine the most. Instead of dazzling details, we get almost invisible points of light. This is typical for Mini-LEDs in this price segment and is not surprising – but it’s worth knowing that the HDR effect will not always be fully preserved. Fortunately, the colour performance offers reasons to be pleased. Coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut at around 94% is a very good result, and the applied layer of quantum dots (more precisely, PFS) does its job – the colours are saturated and vibrant, especially with 4K content.

Philips OLED811 uses a new generation of WOLED EX panels, also found in models such as the LG C6 and Samsung S90H. After calibration we measured around 1500 nits, which is a very good result for an OLED TV. You can see this clearly in films and series. All kinds of bright flashes have the right intensity, especially when they appear against a dark background. In such scenes the OLED811 can deliver truly impressive HDR. Of course, that does not mean you will see that level of brightness in every shot. When the screen is filled with a large amount of white or a wide explosion, brightness falls to around 600 nits. That is still a good result, but those scenes no longer have the same punch as small, bright elements on a dark background. This is a known limitation of OLEDs and the OLED811 is no exception.

Colours

Aside from HDR brightness, colours also matter and here Philips performs very well. It covers almost the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which contains most of the colours used in HDR films and series. You get saturated reds and lush greens, and when watching it’s hard to find major faults in that respect. It looks a little worse with the much wider BT.2020 gamut, whose most saturated shades are already out of reach for this panel. There is also the issue of the white subpixel that the WOLED panel uses to boost brightness. With very bright colours you can see a certain washout: the colour is bright but loses some of its intensity. It is precisely in such situations that QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display have the advantage. However, in most films and series this is not something that will immediately stand out.

Testing the Hisense E8Q in Filmmaker mode, we were hoping for a possibly neutral image close to the director's vision. Unfortunately – although it doesn't look bad on paper (the colour reproduction errors are not significant), in practice the image appears not entirely natural. The reason? An overly strong boost in blue colour and a lack of red in the white balance. The effect? Scenes look cool, and the white seems slightly bluish. Alongside the U7Q model, we also noticed a specific approach to brightness management here. The brightness mapping curve for HDR content (EOTF) shows that the television can significantly dim small, bright elements on the screen to maintain contrast – but sometimes it goes too far in this. On the other hand, larger, very bright areas can be excessively brightened, which disrupts tonal balance. This is a compromise that may not suit everyone – especially if you want an as faithful image as possible right out of the box.

Film mode on the Philips OLED811 is sensibly set up straight out of the box. Most colour errors remain small, both in SDR and HDR, so you can sit down to watch without adjusting the settings first. There are no major inaccuracies that would immediately distract from the film. It falls a little short of perfection, though. The white balance shows a slight lack of red compared with green, so whites and greys can have a faint greenish tint. It is not a strong colour cast, but measurements clearly show it. There are also minor brightness deviations in SDR: some parts of the image are slightly brightened, and the darkest shades are not always reproduced evenly. In HDR the TV sticks much closer to the reference, although in places it gently lifts detail from the shadows. These are generally areas that could be improved. The factory film mode provides a good starting point, and calibration will reveal how much more can be gained from it.

The calibration of the Movie mode yielded really good results, especially when it comes to SDR content. We managed to balance the white levels, which made the image look more natural – it appeared almost reference-quality. The colours were well-saturated, and the overall perception of the content improved significantly. Unfortunately, when we switched to HDR materials, familiar issues from the U7Q model returned. The television still likes to "do its own thing," as evident from the analysis of the brightness characteristic EOTF – despite calibration, the E8Q still dimmed fine details in the shadows, while the bright areas of the screen could be excessively boosted. In practice, this means that in darker scenes, some of the smallest details could simply disappear. Although it must be acknowledged that the entire calibration process brought a lot of good, not everything can be circumvented – even with the use of professional tools. The E8Q can impress with its picture, but in HDR content, its design limitations become apparent, and it is worth keeping this in mind.

After calibration the Philips OLED811 produces an image very close to the reference. We managed to correct the white balance and eliminate the slight tint visible in the factory settings. Errors in the Color Checker measurements for SDR and HDR fell to around 1 to 2, and many samples are even below 1. That's a level at which differences from the reference image are hard to spot with the naked eye. We also improved the gamma, and only in the brightest whites is there a slight brightening remaining. In HDR the EOTF curve also tracks the reference closely, although the TV still tends to gently boost the brightness of small elements, such as stars or on-screen text. This gives the picture a little extra sparkle that shouldn't be there, but otherwise there's little to fault. It was already good out of the box, and after calibration we managed to refine most of the remaining shortcomings.

In the case of older materials with lower quality, a gentle smoothing of tonal transitions often comes in handy. The Hisense E8Q, like the U7Q, features an "Smoothing and Gradient Image" function, but unfortunately – its effectiveness leaves much to be desired. The "Low" mode is almost imperceptible in operation, and the higher settings do not improve transitions but simply blur the details. The good news is that the function does not compromise film grain, meaning it does not worsen the structure of the image. On the plus side, scaling is commendable. The television is able to sensibly upscale older content to a higher resolution – without artificially accentuating contours or excessive sharpening. Although it does not match the best models in this category, it performs quite well for its class.

OLED811 handles lower-quality material reasonably well, though it falls well short of perfection. The "Banding reduction" function helps to smooth tonal transitions and on the low setting gives a fairly good result. It does not remove bands between shades as effectively as similar solutions from some competitors, but at least it does not introduce new artefacts in the process. This is a sensible setting for everyday viewing. There is still some dissatisfaction, however, because the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset used here can, in other manufacturers' implementations, cope with the effects of heavy compression more effectively even at similarly low settings. Much therefore depends on how a given manufacturer makes use of its capabilities. We have a few more comments about the upscaling to 4K. There is a lot of detail, but the overall image looks rather soft. Edges are heavily smoothed, which robs the picture of a bit of sharpness and clarity. This can be partly corrected with the sharpness slider in the menu, though that will merely accentuate outlines rather than recover detail. On the plus side, there is no overscan; even with an SD signal the TV does not crop the edges of the picture.

Similar to the U7Q, the E8Q model is a fast television designed for dynamic content. It supports a refresh rate of 144 Hz at 4K resolution, and if, for some reason, someone is still gaming in Full HD – it can even reach 240 Hz. This is a significant advantage, especially for PC users looking for maximum smoothness. In everyday use, the television performs very well. The "Ultra Motion Smoothness" mode offers two sliders that allow you to customise the picture to your preference – whether more cinematic with the film frame preserved or highly smoothed, almost "series-like". It's good that the manufacturer provides a choice here instead of imposing one style. On sports material, live broadcasts, or in games – movement looks clean and stable. Of course, it is not at the OLED level, but for this price range, the E8Q performs really well.

In terms of motion handling the OLED811 performs excellently. At 120 Hz, which is useful for console gaming and watching sport, the picture stays clear and moving objects do not leave noticeable smears. The fast response of OLED pixels helps here; this is clear in the UFO test, even on dark backgrounds. There are also motion smoothing controls. For films you can adjust the level of smoothing to suit your taste, ranging from preserving a cinematic character to much smoother motion. A separate blur reduction setting is useful for fast-paced material such as sports broadcasts.

Hisense E8Q does not hide its gaming heritage. Even the specifications reveal that we are dealing with a television that will perform excellently as a gaming screen. Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)? It's there. Automatic switching to game mode (ALLM)? That's there too. Additionally, there is impressive refresh rate – 120 Hz in 4K or even 240 Hz in Full HD. Such a set is rare in this price segment. Everything works smoothly and without major surprises. The only missing element – similar to the U7Q – is support for HGiG. It’s a shame, as this feature facilitates adjusting the brightness curve to the capabilities of a specific television, improving visual compatibility with the intentions of HDR game creators. Without it, one has to manually fiddle with the settings, which does not always yield a satisfactory result.

OLED811 has almost everything you could expect from a TV for gaming. It supports 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p and 4K, and when connected to a PC it can reach 165 Hz. It also has VRR, which helps prevent screen tearing when frame rates fluctuate, and ALLM, which automatically switches to game mode. So you don't have to dig into the settings every time you power up your console.

Another plus is that HGiG works correctly, so once HDR is set on the console the TV doesn't apply its own changes to image brightness. There's also a Game Bar to check signal parameters and quickly change settings useful while gaming. The list even includes Dolby Vision for gaming, but there is a significant catch, which you can read about below.