Hisense A6N vs TCL P7L / P79L

Unfortunately, the HDR effect quality on A6N is not impressive. A peak brightness of 250 nits doesn’t allow for spectacular highlights, and HDR looks rather muted, more like ordinary SDR. This will not satisfy more demanding users who want to enjoy high-quality movie content. Additionally, the color gamut coverage is not very impressive either: DCI-P3 at 82% is an average result that doesn’t let you fully enjoy vivid colors in HDR material.

The biggest limitation of the TCL P7L in HDR is simply brightness. The TV doesn't have a large luminance headroom, so strong highlights, sunlight, or small light sources can't clearly "pop" out of the image. As a result, even well-produced HDR material looks fairly restrained and in terms of dynamic range is closer to good SDR than to what brighter models show. That doesn't mean the P7L can't handle HDR at all — the issue is mainly a lack of sufficient backlight power.

Looking at color, the situation is a bit better. The TV covers about 91% of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 68% of the wider BT.2020 color space, so for its price class the color range is quite decent. TCL markets this model as QLED, though the nature of the solution used is closer to a PFS phosphor-based backlight than a classic quantum-dot layer. What matters most to viewers, however, is the result: more saturated colors are available.

In the color reproduction category, the Hisense A6N in Filmmaker Mode leaves much to be desired. Although the mode's name suggests we should expect faithful movie color reproduction, the reality is different. The TV has significant picture quality problems. The white balance issue is particularly noticeable for both HD and 4K material, as it is heavily skewed by a dominance of blue. This results in artificial, cool tones, clearly visible in the comparison photo below. The ColorChecker test further confirms these errors, which are compounded by low color gamut coverage.

The gamma luminance curve shows a serious problem maintaining the 2.4 level, with the plot well below the reference value. That leads to excessive image brightening and washed-out blacks. The EOTF curve for 4K material also indicates brightness problems. At the low end there is a pronounced bump caused by the TV's excessive brightening, which negatively affects picture quality. This image behavior prevents fully enjoying movies and requires manual correction.

In Film mode the TCL P7L performs fairly well without major adjustments, especially with typical SDR material. The white balance is relatively even, although as brightness increases there is a slight rise in red and blue and a bit of a shortage of green. This does not produce a strongly noticeable tint and most colors remain close to their reference points. The ColorChecker confirms this, with a large portion of errors falling below a level that would notably bother viewers during normal watching. We have more concerns about the gamma response. In the darkest parts of the image the TV runs it noticeably above the reference, so some shadow detail can be a little too dimmed. The curve then settles and for much of the range it is close to the intended target. As a result SDR generally looks natural, but in dark scenes the P7L can lose some subtlety. In HDR the factory setting is less precise. As brightness increases an excess of blue becomes more pronounced, making the image look cooler than it should. The number of larger color deviations also grows, particularly in brighter hues. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly conservatively, with the TV showing the image darker than the reference over a large portion of the range. For a budget model, however, the factory Film mode settings are not bad.

Hisense A6N offers in its settings options and tools to adjust many picture parameters, which we used. As for the white balance, we managed to remove the excess blue; this is clearly visible in the comparison photo below, where the boy in the image practically "comes to life". A large improvement can also be seen in the gamma brightness response, as the TV no longer has serious issues with overbrightening the entire picture. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for 4K content, where the EOTF curve could not be fully corrected due to this model's exceptionally low brightness. For HDR content we use dynamic tone mapping, which allows recovery of many details despite lifting the midtones. For this TV that brings more benefits than drawbacks. The errors that remain visible in the color gamut test and the ColorChecker for 4K content stem from the low color gamut coverage and are difficult to eliminate because of the TV's characteristics. Even so, the image tonality is much better, so we recommend calibrating the factory settings, which are far from ideal.

After calibration, the TCL P7L can deliver a really pleasant picture, especially with classic SDR material. We managed to very effectively even out the white balance, and the gamma curve now tracks close to the target value of 2.4. You can also see this in the color measurements, as most errors dropped noticeably, and in everyday viewing it's hard to find any strongly visible inaccuracies. Movies, series, YouTube, or regular TV therefore look more natural, without unnecessary warming or a cool cast. For a model in this price range, the result in SDR is really very good.

With HDR the situation gets more complicated. Calibration helped improve the white balance and tidy up some deviations, but here the panel's limitations become increasingly apparent. The P7L has relatively low brightness and can't maintain appropriate luminance for more saturated colors, so some errors remain even after careful tuning. In other words, settings can improve how the TV interprets the signal, but they can't overcome its physical capabilities. That's why calibration makes the most sense for this model primarily with SDR.

Let's see how A6N handles low-quality material. When it comes to smoothing tonal transitions, the lack of a function to reduce posterization or smooth tonal transitions in low-quality sources, such as broadcast TV or DVD, may be noticeable to more demanding viewers. As for digital processing, the model was rendered correctly and the branches were free of the typical jagged edges. The image has a pronounced sense of plasticity and is soft, which may appeal to those who prefer that kind of picture style.

In this regard the TCL P7L performs surprisingly well, especially for such an inexpensive TV. The tonal transition smoothing feature, which in many budget models does little or almost nothing, actually manages to improve the picture here. It doesn't remove all banding completely, but it can noticeably reduce posterization and make trickier gradients look more natural. At this price point that's a genuinely pleasant surprise.

Upscaling itself also performs well. Lower-resolution material is scaled correctly, without excessive sharpening or adding artificial outlines around objects. Of course the P7L won't turn a very poor source into 4K-quality footage, but for regular TV the result is simply solid. For a model in this class there is little to criticize.

The 60 Hz panel in Hisense A6N will likely please people who enjoy watching movies, because the TV offers an "ultra motion smoothing" feature that lets you adjust the image's motion, making it choppier or smoother and more cinematic. As for motion blur, it is rather average. You can see quite noticeable blur, especially on dark backgrounds, which is a common trait in this class of TVs.

The TCL P7L uses a panel with a native 60 Hz refresh rate at 4K resolution, and that's how it should be treated in everyday use. For movies the TV mainly offers frame interpolation, so it can smooth motion and reduce the typical judder, but it does not deliver the smoothness of true 120 Hz panels.

Hisense A6N is a TV that will likely appeal to casual gamers, mainly because of its 60 Hz panel, which may not satisfy more demanding players. Still, it offers several features that can make gaming more enjoyable. The TV supports functions such as ALLM (automatic low-latency mode), VRR (variable refresh rate) and Dolby Vision, which let you enjoy better picture quality and smoother motion in games that support those technologies. Moreover, the low input lag means in-game reactions are fast, which is crucial, especially in fast-paced titles. Thanks to these features, although the TV isn’t the ideal choice for demanding gamers, it provides solid support for those who value comfortable gaming without complicated settings. It’s an ideal solution for people who want to enjoy gaming without high hardware demands while still having access to modern technologies that enhance gameplay quality.

For such an inexpensive TV, the P7L has quite a lot to offer gamers. It has ALLM, VRR, Dolby Vision for gaming, and TCL adds its Game Bar, which lets you quickly view key information or change some settings without leaving the game. Not everything is perfect, though, because HGiG doesn't work here as it should, but at this price point it's hard to complain much about the feature set. The most interesting thing starts when you give up on 4K. At that resolution the TV runs at a maximum of 60 Hz, but at 1440p and 1080p it can already display at 120 Hz. And that's not just a spec-sheet curiosity. In fast-paced games that support that frame rate you can really notice the difference in smoothness, so if you care more about smoother motion than maximum image sharpness, that mode can make a lot of sense. Of course that doesn't make the P7L a true 120 Hz TV. Even so, it's precisely those extra modes that make the P7L perform really well for gaming.