Hisense U6NQ vs XIAOMI S Mini 2026 (55"-75") 60Hz

Hisense U6NQ offers a stable HDR effect, which is rare in TVs with local dimming. On most streaming platforms, in movies and series recorded in 4K, the TV presents consistent performance – in every tested scene, regardless of difficulty level, brightness is around 450 nits. This is a pleasant surprise, as many models in this class show significant differences – some scenes are well-lit, while others are heavily dimmed by dimming algorithms. However, Hisense U6NQ prioritizes maintaining higher brightness, which comes at the expense of black levels, as mentioned in the paragraph about contrast testing.

The HDR effect on the U6NQ is satisfying, offering a noticeable "hit" of light in bright moments, although it is worth remembering the previously mentioned blooming, which can be visible in more challenging scenes. In terms of colours, the TV also performs decently – the coverage of the DCI-P3 palette is 89%, and BT.2020 is 71%. Although these are not results that would impress more demanding users, for beginners in the world of high-quality content, the U6NQ serves as a solid choice. Thus, it presents an interesting option as an "entry-level" TV for home cinema.

When it comes to HDR, the capabilities of the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 are really good, especially given the segment this model belongs to. The set reaches roughly 1,000 nits of brightness without much trouble, allowing it to deliver a very pronounced HDR effect in bright scenes. Sun highlights, reflections, and brightly lit parts of the image can be very intense and at times almost blindingly bright. It’s a little different in dark scenes, though. Very small light sources surrounded by black are shown at significantly lower brightness, so they lack the point-like intensity seen in the best TVs. This is not unusual for a Mini LED. The local dimming algorithm limits the backlight to keep blacks as deep as possible, which in those scenes matters more than a few extra nits.

HDR Colors

Color reproduction also performs well. Xiaomi markets the S Mini 2026 as a QLED TV, although the solution used here is practically based on a PFS phosphor. What matters most is the result, and it’s quite good. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut, while in the much wider BT.2020 space it was around 74%. That means the TV can reproduce most of the colors used in HDR films with suitably high saturation. Its limitations are most visible only with very saturated shades of green, where the color range starts to fall short.

The Hisense U6NQ in Filmmaker mode offers truly decent colour reproduction, although it is worth noting that differences between individual units can be noticeable. The model we tested surprised us positively, especially with HD content in SDR quality. The white balance was correct, and errors around 3–4 ΔE should be acceptable for the average viewer. The TV performed slightly worse in colour reproduction with 4K HDR materials. The dominance of blue hues led to unnatural cool tones on the Colour Checker chart, giving the picture a "store-bought" character. Combined with issues in brightness characteristics – gamma and EOTF curve caused some parts of the image to be too dark – the Filmmaker mode loses some of its credibility in this case. Although the factory settings of the tested unit deserve praise, especially in SDR, there were still minor shortcomings that would require adjustment to fully leverage the capabilities of the TV.

We tested the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 in 55–75-inch sizes in Film mode, which offered the most accurate colors compared with the other presets. That said, the picture wasn't perfectly set up out of the box. In our unit the white balance was clearly shifted toward warmer tones. There was too little blue and too much red, so whites and grays had a slightly warm tint. The TV also tended to brighten darker parts of the image too much. This came from the gamma, which instead of staying around 2.4 sometimes dropped to about 2.0. That made more shadow detail visible, but the picture lost some depth. The factory settings weren't bad, but they still needed tweaking to reproduce the image correctly.

Although the factory settings of the Filmmaker mode on the Hisense U6NQ were quite good, we decided to carry out calibration to fully assess the capabilities of this model. Only after such an adjustment can you see how the TV performs in ideal conditions. In the case of SDR content, which was already at a high level, we managed to further improve the white balance. However, the biggest change came from the brightness characteristic correction - gamma was optimized and no longer causes excessive dimming of the image, which improves its naturalness.

For 4K HDR content, calibration also yielded positive results. We eliminated the problem of blue dominance, which translated into a more balanced and natural image. However, managing brightness in HDR materials remains a more complicated issue. The EOTF curve, although it had problems with dimming the image in the range of 10-30% brightness under laboratory conditions, reveals other shortcomings in real scenes. The TV tends to excessively brighten the smallest elements on the screen. As a result, this leads to noticeable halo effects around bright objects. This phenomenon, which we mentioned earlier in the context of contrast and HDR, stems from the technological limitations of the model and is often difficult to eliminate.

In short: although the Filmmaker mode with factory settings looked decent, calibration allowed for an even better effect - minor adjustments resulted in a more balanced image, especially in HDR content. Calibration will be a beneficial step for users seeking the highest quality image.

Contrary to appearances, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 responds quite well to calibration. After our adjustments we were able to noticeably improve the white balance, and the picture stopped leaning too warm. With SDR content the result is really good, the TV can display such images very accurately, and it's hard to find major faults in its color reproduction. We applied similar corrections in HDR as well, though not everything could be fixed. Colors look better than at factory settings, but the TV still tends to render the image slightly brighter than it should. You can see this in the EOTF curve, which sits above the reference value. In practice this means some HDR scenes are brighter than the creators intended. This is a quirk of this TV and we can't do anything about it.

With high-quality materials, such as 4K, tonal transitions on the U6NQ look really good – the colours blend nicely and the image is cohesive. Unfortunately, when we switch to content in a lower resolution, the television does not offer any additional features that could improve this aspect. An example is the test with the light bulb, where it is clear that the television has trouble rendering subtle tonal transitions.

On the other hand, digital processing performs quite well. The image looks plastic, pleasantly soft, and free of excessive aliasing. Moreover, thanks to the sharpness settings, it can be adjusted according to personal preferences – whether towards a softer or sharper image. Overall, although scaling lower-quality materials could be better, the television does well with image processing.

Digital image processing in the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 is handled by the MT5896 processor. Unfortunately, in this respect the TV performs rather average. Low-resolution content is not upscaled very well, and its limitations become quickly apparent on a large screen. The image looks quite digital, and the TV can't extract many additional details from it. Additionally, you cannot disable overscan for low-resolution material. Things are even worse when it comes to smoothing posterization. On the smaller models there isn't even a dedicated feature to reduce the visible banding between similar shades. So if such imperfections are already present in the source material, Xiaomi effectively does not mask them.

The Hisense U6NQ offers a native refresh rate of 60 Hz at a 4K resolution, but the manufacturer has added a feature that allows increasing the refresh rate to 120 Hz at the cost of reducing the resolution to Full HD. This is a solution we have seen before in TVs from TCL, such as the C655 and the C655 PRO. This gives the user the option to choose – higher motion fluidity or full resolution. This is a sensible approach, especially considering that many games on new-generation consoles do not achieve full performance in 4K at 120 Hz.

As for movies, the TV is equipped with a motion smoothing feature that allows adjusting motion characteristics to personal preferences. This can create a more cinematic effect or increase fluidity in dynamic scenes. Overall, the Hisense U6NQ offers reasonable solutions for motion fluidity that should satisfy both gamers and movie lovers.

The smaller variants of the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 use a 60 Hz panel, and that's their biggest limitation when it comes to motion. For movies and TV series this isn't yet a major issue, because the TV has a classic motion smoothing for 24/30 fps content. So we can reduce the characteristic judder and adjust motion to our own preferences. Sports and other 50/60 Hz content fare worse, because there is no additional feature to improve smoothness. With that kind of material we are therefore limited by the panel itself.

In terms of motion blur the TV performs quite typically for a VA panel. Most trailing is visible behind objects moving on a dark background, while in brighter scenes the effect is noticeably smaller. It's not at a level that completely ruins motion perception, but in dynamic scenes you can tell the panel isn't among the fastest.

The Hisense U6NQ offers the option to choose between 4K at 60 Hz and Full HD with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. This solution may appeal to gamers who want to decide what is more important to them – higher resolution or smoothness. The television supports features such as ALLM and VRR, which help in achieving smoother gameplay. A nice addition is the GameBar – an easy-to-use panel that allows for quick changes to picture settings and checking statistics. It also includes a Dolby Vision Gaming mode, which works with low input lag, a big plus for console enthusiasts. Unfortunately, it lacks HGiG, which could further enhance HDR quality in games. Nevertheless, the Hisense U6NQ performs quite well as a gaming television, especially for those who play occasionally and do not require the highest refresh rates in 4K. It is a solid choice for less demanding users.

In larger sizes the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 becomes a far more interesting option for gamers. The panel natively runs at up to 144 Hz, so when connected to a PC we can take advantage of the high refresh rate even in 4K. At lower resolutions the TV can go even further and reach up to 288 Hz. There’s also ALLM, automatic switching to game mode, and a Game Bar with the key settings at hand. Of course, the TV is equipped with two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports. In terms of smoothness, the difference compared to the 55 to 75 inch versions is therefore substantial and especially noticeable when using a PC or console. Not everything works perfectly, though. As with the smaller variants, we have reservations about the HGiG implementation. The HDR setup screens on the PS5 and Xbox don’t exactly match the TV’s real capabilities, so if you configure the consoles according to those prompts the brightest parts of the image can be blown out and lose some detail.