Hisense U8Q vs Haier K85F

When it comes to HDR, Hisense U8Q shows its claws. On paper, meaning in synthetic measurement tests, the television can "score" nearly 4000 nits of peak brightness. That's a value that most models can only envy. In practice, this translates to very strong lighting effects in films – in some scenes, we managed to measure a real 1500 to 2000 nits, which is a level usually reserved for the absolute top of televisions on the market.

Of course, it's not always that perfect. With small, pinpoint elements, brightness can drop – a good example is scene number 4 from the movie Sicario 2, where instead of thousands of nits, we get around 500. But it's worth noting that the effect doesn't vanish completely – the light is still visible, and the image doesn't feel artificially dimmed. This is a typical drawback of Mini LEDs, so it's hard to consider it a significant minus.

On the huge plus side, color reproduction deserves high praise. Thanks to additional coatings that improve color saturation, the U8Q nearly covers the full DCI-P3 color space (98%), and in the case of the wider BT.2020 gamut, it achieved a score of over 80%. This is an excellent result, making HDR films look juicy, vibrant, and simply very cinematic.

Now let's move on to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, which is the quality of HDR effect. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we must unfortunately make it clear: if you are looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should steer clear of this model. The main issue is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what this means – such a value is okay for watching standard SDR materials, but it is absolutely insufficient to show any real benefits of HDR. The image simply lacks the "power" to generate bright, striking bursts. All our measurements and tests on specialist patterns only confirmed this. As if that weren't enough, the television also struggles with color reproduction. In this budget model, we won't find any technologies that expand the color palette, such as quantum dot layers (known in marketing as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which is crucial for HDR materials, is only about 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of vibrant, saturated colors that the director wanted to show us.

We have to admit that when the U8Q arrived at our editorial office, we were slightly surprised… and positively so. Usually, televisions require immediate white balance correction – it can be too warm or too cold, which immediately leads to strange color errors. Meanwhile, here the situation looks really good right out of the box. Of course, we are talking about our unit, so there’s no guarantee that every model will be tuned as well, but in our case, the first impressions were very positive. The only more pronounced issue was related to how the television manages brightness. Looking at the EOTF chart, it is evident that the U8Q tends to brighten small elements on the screen. This, in turn, caused what we mentioned earlier – slight overexposures and the impression that the entire scene can sometimes be a bit too bright. However, this is not a flaw that undermines the image, rather it is a characteristic effect of this model.

Well, how does the television perform with colors straight from the factory, without any intervention from our side? The Haier K85F offers a full range of picture modes, such as Dynamic or Eco, but for anyone who wants to watch movies according to the creators' intentions, only one really matters: Film mode. This is the mode we focused our tests on, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture in the factory settings is far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires many adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a clear lack of red color. In practice, this means that the whole picture has a cool, bluish tint. The situation is even worse when it comes to brightness management, specifically gamma curves (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a real rollercoaster, which has a disastrous effect on the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in the shadows to get lost, and in the case of HDR – excessive brightness, which further exacerbates the issue of highlights. This combination, meaning too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and excessive blue color saturation, causes enormous errors in color reproduction. Our measurements on a specialized ColorChecker chart showed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. In simpler terms: errors above the threshold of 3 are easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colors on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

Of course, we wouldn't be ourselves if we didn't make adjustments to the white balance. After calibration, we managed to align the SDR signal to near perfection – older movies, YouTube content, and classic television looked almost perfect on the U8Q. This is truly an outstanding level that shows this model can do a lot if given a little help. Unfortunately, the situation is different with HDR content. The colors themselves aren't a major issue, but the biggest flaw of the U8Q remains the EOTF brightness characteristics. In practice, the TV tends to "blow out" beyond how the image should look in its original form. It's that slight "blown out" effect we saw earlier in comparisons with the best screens on the market. It's a bit of a shame that this characteristic can't be fully tamed – if we could maintain similarly good control over brightness in HDR as we do in SDR, we would have an absolutely reference-quality image.

Well, is there anything we can do about this image? Can professional calibration save the situation? The answer is: both yes and no. It must be clearly stated that there are certain things we cannot overcome. The limitations of the construction itself, namely a poor panel and its narrow color coverage, mean that you can forget about achieving meaningful HDR – we won’t sugarcoat it for you. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is precisely for watching such content, after calibration, that this television begins to make sense. We managed to tame the white balance in our own way. Although the TV only offers basic 2-point adjustment (instead of precise 20-point), it’s not perfect, but we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the image. Above all, however, we recorded a significant improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the TV can finally display images without artificially dimming or brightening them. The conclusion is simple: even in the case of such a cheap television, professional adjustment of the settings can achieve a lot and draw out its maximum potential.

The Hisense U8Q handles lower-quality materials quite well. The TV can smooth out tonal transitions thanks to the "Smooth and Gradient Picture" feature – it works best when set to Medium. At that setting, it nicely reduces unwanted bands and unevenness in the image, but importantly, it does not remove cinematic grain or fine details.

The upscaling itself is also at a good level. Images from lower resolutions look smooth and soft, at times even a bit too much – we get a plastic effect that may not appeal to everyone. Fortunately, this can be easily adjusted with the sharpness slider to fit personal preferences.

Let's move on to digital processing and image scaling, that is, how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, for example, from standard television. Right from the start, we encounter an extremely annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – the overscan feature is enabled by default. This means that the television artificially enlarges the image, cropping its edges, and this occurs on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig into the screen settings every time and manually switch the format to "stretch to 16:9." It's a detail, but incredibly frustrating. The scaling of content to 4K resolution can be described in one word: acceptable. And that's basically it. The image processor does not strip the image of details, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any fireworks. It's fine, but nothing more. The biggest and most noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is the absence of a banding smoothing function. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not implement such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality materials in all their glory.

Hisense U8Q has a display that can refresh the image up to 165 Hz in 4K resolution. In practice, this will mainly be utilized by PC gamers, but as they say – it’s better to have it than not 😊. For movies and series, we have a built-in smoothness enhancer called Ultra Smooth Motion. In the settings, it can be easily adjusted to personal preferences – whether we want more of a "cinematic" frame rate or a smooth, theatrical spectacle.

The panel in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which already sets certain expectations for smoothness of the image right from the start. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found not one, but two separate sliders for motion control in the settings menu: one labeled "Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder." Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as usually manufacturers offer at most one common option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm quickly dwindled as fast as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for blur reduction is simply a dummy. Moving it does not produce any visible effect on the screen; thus, only one of the two options actually works.

In terms of features, the Hisense U8Q has practically everything one could expect from a modern gaming television. Thanks to the new processor, the manufacturer has managed to implement as many as three HDMI 2.1 ports, so there is no problem connecting multiple consoles or a computer. In addition, it includes all the key technologies – Game Bar with parameter monitoring, variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM)... in short, a complete set.

But as is often the case with Hisense, it falls a bit short of perfection. The biggest drawback remains the lack of support for the HGiG format, which allows you to adjust the television's brightness to the console and get the most out of HDR in games. It's a shame because if this feature were included, we would have a device practically made for gamers. As it stands, the U8Q remains "just" a very good choice 😉

Let's move on to the features for gamers, although we must point out right away that this is more of a proposal for "casual" players. The manufacturer boasts in the specifications about the presence of HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it is largely a marketing gimmick. What good is a modern port when the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which takes away HDMI 2.1's most important advantage. That's a shame. (That’s why we mark it as HDMI 2.0 ports in our tests). Another oddity is the television's response to attempts to calibrate HDR from the console. Changes in brightness settings cause very unnatural behavior of the image, which might suggest an incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, however, you shouldn't worry too much about this, because as we have mentioned multiple times, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to make it not so bitter, the Haier K85F also has two significant and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or Auto Low Latency Mode, which switches the television to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise is support for VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate. Although it works in a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its very presence is commendable. Thanks to this, the image in games can stutter less, which truly improves the gaming experience.