Hisense UR9S vs Samsung The Frame Pro 2026 (LS03HW)

The Hisense UR9S is without a doubt a show of strength from the Chinese manufacturer when it comes to luminance. On a synthetic test pattern the panel reached as much as 2600 nits, which is an impressive result. But you have to clearly separate lab results from film realities. In real material the UR9S behaves much more restrained. Peak brightness in balanced scenes hovers around 1500 nits. In demanding, dark shots—where the algorithms must at the same time preserve deep blacks and precisely light small details—brightness can drop drastically, even down to around 400 nits. The gap between the chart and reality is therefore huge. This is a direct consequence of conservative local-dimming behavior. When a bright object occupies a large portion of the frame, the system can easily maintain a high luminance. But in night scenes the priority becomes protecting black levels and fighting the halo effect (unsightly glows around bright edges). To avoid degrading contrast, the TV drastically limits its light output. Even so, the UR9S can still produce a very powerful, engaging HDR effect that impresses in bright, spectacular sequences.

Color gamut coverage

On test patterns the Hisense UR9S performs excellently in terms of color. DCI-P3 coverage is nearly 100%, and BT.2020 coverage reaches 93%. Those are figures even the best QD-OLED TVs don't achieve. But again, synthetic measurements are one thing and movies and series are another. In real-world scenes the numbers fell to 93% for DCI-P3 and 81% for BT.2020. That's still great, but the advantage of RGB Mini LED is no longer as dramatic as manufacturers promise in marketing materials. You could even say their capability is now close to TVs equipped with quantum dots, the so-called QLEDs. Why does this happen? Largely, color reproduction depends on how the local dimming zones operate. When a highly saturated color appears next to white or another, more complex element, a single zone must handle both parts of the image at once. Under those conditions the backlight cannot maintain extreme saturation of a given color on the screen, because the emitted light takes on a character closer to white. Hisense refined this quite well in the UR9S, but still not enough for the TV to sustain such high color saturation in every situation.

You can't deny The Frame Pro one thing: brightness. We measured a maximum of around 850 to 900 nits, so the TV already has enough power to render many HDR scenes really impressively. Bright, full-screen shots and more colorful frames look best here. In those scenes The Frame Pro can make a good impression because the image is bright, strong, and delivers the effect we expect from HDR. In our measurements some scenes reached over 800 nits, and even in trickier sections the TV maintained a fairly decent brightness level.

The problem starts when HDR relies on small bright elements shown against a dark background. Individual lamps, stars, or highlights can be bright, but very often the black level across much of the image also lifts. As a result, the bright point itself may look good, but the whole frame loses a lot of quality. That is why The Frame Pro shows HDR best in scenes that are simply full-screen. If a movie or series contains many such shots, the effect can be really enjoyable. In darker material the limitations of local dimming become much more noticeable.

Colors

The Frame Pro deserves praise for its color gamut coverage. The TV uses quantum dots, a solution known as QLED, which allows it to produce very well-saturated colors. In our measurements coverage of the important film color space DCI-P3 was about 94.5%, while the more demanding BT.2020 was around 72%.

Those are very solid results that in most scenes deliver pleasant, saturated colors. Of course, these values are not as striking as those in the latest displays using RGB backlighting, but The Frame Pro makes up for that with something else: color stability. Regardless of the scene, color saturation remains fairly consistent, and there is no situation where the TV loses a lot of color in more demanding shots.

We tested the Hisense UR9S in Filmmaker Mode, which, by default, provides the most accurate image reproduction. In HDR content the TV performed quite well in that regard. White balance did not show large errors, and the luminance curve, though typical for Hisense, was at a reasonable level. So the image was neither overly bright nor noticeably color-shifted. The same mode fared much worse with SDR content, meaning the content we watch most often, such as broadcast TV or YouTube. 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 starts to drop, so brighter parts of the image can have a slightly warmer tint. A bigger difference is visible in the gamma, that is how screen brightness is managed. Across most of the range it runs below our reference point, which means the TV brightens midtones a bit. As a result the image can appear slightly brighter and less contrasty than it should. The color errors themselves are not huge, but they are visible enough that calibration can still make a substantial improvement. In HDR content the white balance looks similar: across much of the range it is fairly even, with larger deviations appearing only at higher brightness. The EOTF curve is more revealing. The Frame Pro follows reference values fairly well in the brighter parts of the image, but noticeably brightens the darkest portions. This stems mainly from the TV’s backlight design. That also affects colors. With less saturated colors the errors are still moderate, but they grow significantly as saturation increases. In ColorChecker measurements a large portion of samples already register high error values. The out-of-the-box HDR can therefore be considered decent, but it is definitely not an image we would call very faithful.

After calibration we saw the biggest improvement in SDR mode, though we also refined the HDR picture. Hisense offers a lot of calibration settings in the TV's menu, so we could precisely correct the white balance and other image errors. The most important change was removing the pink cast that had previously been clearly visible in SDR content. After calibration the picture looks much more natural, especially in everyday content such as TV or YouTube.

Color reproduction errors on the ColorChecker chart are very small after calibration. The vast majority of colors fall below a Delta E of 2–3, meaning at a level very hard for the human eye to detect. The only thing we couldn't completely eliminate is the characteristic HDR tone mapping typical of Hisense TVs. It affects how brightness is distributed in movies and can subtly "beautify" the image, rather than strictly following the creators' intent. For a less experienced viewer this can produce a stronger "wow" effect, but it won't always fully match how the content should look.

After calibration the biggest improvement is visible primarily in SDR content. White balance was evened out, but the more important change was the gamma correction, which before calibration had the greatest impact on the picture's character. After adjustments the gamma response is now very close to the reference, so the image is not as bright in the midtones and simply looks more natural. Color 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 over part of the range the TV tracks the reference much better, but deviations still appear at higher brightness levels. The same applies to color reproduction, as some errors can be corrected but not all result from the settings themselves. This reveals the limitations of the TV's design and the way the backlight and local dimming affect the HDR image. That's why, for The Frame Pro, calibration makes the biggest difference for everyday content. Regular broadcast TV, YouTube, and SDR movies and series (mainly those from cheaper streaming tiers) can look noticeably better after calibration.

Digital image processing has been one of Hisense's strengths for two years, and the UR9S is no exception. The manufacturer uses the Hi-View AI Engine RGB processor, which is essentially based on the well-known MediaTek Pentonic 800 platform, previously used, among others, in the U8Q. The TV handles upscaling lower-resolution material to 4K and low-bitrate content very well, where various compression-related artifacts are common. Thanks to a feature called "Smooth and Gradient Picture", the image remains detailed without appearing overly sharpened or artificially smoothed. When watching regular TV or older, lower-quality material, the UR9S can pull a surprising amount out of them. In terms of digital image processing, this is one of the most refined 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 Samsung's other recent TVs. Upscaling works really well; lower-resolution material is sensibly sharpened and the image remains clear without overemphasizing edges. With regular broadcast TV or lower-quality YouTube clips, this can provide a noticeable improvement, although viewers watching much older material, for example from VHS tapes, may notice a slight left-side cropping (overscan).

It's a bit different when it comes to improving more heavily compressed images through noise reduction and artifact suppression for issues like posterization. The "Noise Reduction" function can improve weaker material, but fairly quickly it starts to interfere with the image and remove fine detail or grain. So it's best used sparingly and mainly when the source truly 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 be useful to owners of very powerful PCs. We still watch movies and series mostly at 24 fps, and sports broadcasts at 50 fps, so in everyday use panel response time and the performance of motion smoothing are more important. In that respect the UR9S performs very well. Motion blur is minimal, as our UFO test also confirmed. Moving objects do not leave a pronounced trail, 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 resolution. That’s, of course, a feature aimed mainly at PC gamers, but the TV also performs very well at the standard 120 Hz refresh rate we use for watching sports or playing on consoles. A big plus is its minimal motion blur. For a VA panel The Frame Pro does really well in this regard. You don’t see strong, dark trails following moving objects that are fairly common on TVs with this type of panel. As a result, fast sports and dynamic games remain clear in motion. It also includes motion smoothing with adjustable smoothness, so for movies and sports broadcasts you can tune the motion character to your preferences. Our recommended settings can be found in the photo.

The Hisense UR9S is very well prepared 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. On top of that there are VRR, ALLM, NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync, so in terms of core features there’s little to complain about. PC gamers can also enable DLG mode. After switching the resolution to Full HD the refresh rate can increase to as much as 330 Hz. That’s probably an option for a narrow group of users, but it shows how much headroom the panel has. Hisense also added a Game Bar that lets you quickly change key settings, check the refresh rate, or enable a reticle and minimap zoom. The biggest downside remains the lack of a properly working HGiG. The TV keeps using its own tone mapping, which makes setting HDR on a console a bit more difficult. In our case values between 1500 and 2000 nits worked best, but it’s worth checking which setting still preserves all the details in the brightest parts of the image.

Function-wise for gamers The Frame Pro has a lot to offer. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz, VRR, ALLM and correctly implemented HGiG. When you connect a PC you can also use 144 Hz at 4K, and even 240 Hz if you drop to Full HD. Samsung also adds its standard set of gaming extras: a robust Game Bar that lets you quickly view and adjust key settings, and Game Motion Plus, which can improve the smoothness of 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. Otherwise The Frame Pro offers practically everything you can expect today from a well-equipped gaming TV.