Hisense UR9S vs TCL RM7L

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.

The TCL RM7L is a bright TV. In our measurements its peak brightness hovered around 1600 nits. That's clearly less than the C7L, which can approach 2600 nits, but in real movie scenes the difference between the two models isn't that big. In less demanding shots with many bright elements on screen, the RM7L can hold around 1000 nits, and sometimes a bit more, approaching 1500 nits. It performs worse in dark scenes with small highlights; then their brightness can fall to around 500 nits. However, this behavior is not accidental. The TV intentionally dims small elements to better control the backlight and maintain higher contrast. This comes at the cost of their intensity, but it's typical behavior for local-dimming TVs in a similar price bracket.

Color gamut coverage

In HDR it's not only brightness that matters, but also color. And here the RM7L has a lot to show. Colors are strongly saturated, and a wide color gamut is one of its bigger strengths. In measurements it reached about 96% of DCI-P3 and around 83% of BT.2020. It's worth remembering, though, that on a TV with this kind of backlight the result can vary depending on the scene. On test patterns colors look best, while in movies their saturation can be a bit lower than on SQD Mini LED or QD-OLED TVs. The backlight construction itself is also interesting. The RM7L doesn't use the classic red, green and blue diode set. TCL used two green diodes and one blue, and obtains the red color using a PFS phosphor. You can see this in spectrometer measurements, but it doesn't have a major impact on the picture. Colors are still produced correctly.

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.

We checked the factory colors in Filmmaker Mode, the best picture setting available to the user. TCL has been using it in its TVs for two years, and its purpose is to present the image as faithfully as possible in line with the creators' intent. On the RM7L this was indeed the best-calibrated mode, although it wasn't without flaws. The biggest issue was the white balance. An excess of red and blue caused the picture to take on slightly pinkish tones. This was visible in both SDR and HDR. Additionally, the luminance response was slightly boosted, which made the image appear a bit brighter but also less contrasty than it should have been.

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.

Thanks to a fairly extensive calibration menu, we were able to correct the vast majority of the errors described earlier. The biggest change was to the white balance. After calibration it looks very good, so the image lost its pinkish cast and became much more neutral. The luminance response itself also improved. Both the SDR gamma and the HDR EOTF curve are now much closer to the reference values. The image is no longer unnecessarily brightened, and darker areas look more natural and have more depth. Better luminance accuracy also affected the colors, which after calibration are noticeably more accurate. Not everything could be set perfectly, though. In HDR material the RM7L still interprets part of the signal its own way and does not always follow the reference curve exactly. This is most apparent in some darker scenes, where the TV can either slightly lift the shadows or darken them completely. That was the source of the earlier impression of a slightly brightened, less contrasty image. Even so, the calibration delivers a very good result here. It removes the most visible errors and, above all, makes the image much closer to how it should look.

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.

Upscaling and digital image processing are not the RM7L's strong suit. TCL used a MediaTek Pentonic 700 SoC here, designated MT5896, which isn't among the best processors at handling lower-quality content. The biggest problems show up with heavily compressed material from YouTube or regular broadcast TV. The processor can't effectively hide posterization and the characteristic color banding. The feature meant to smooth them does little here, and it often interferes too much with the picture, smoothing faces or fine textures, for example. For that reason, it's best to simply leave it off.

Straightforward upscaling to 4K looks better. Lower-quality sources remain reasonably sharp and retain enough detail. It's not on par with the best processors on the market, but for everyday viewing the result is entirely acceptable.

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 RM7L uses a 144 Hz VA panel, so right out of the box it's a TV well suited for sports, gaming, and other fast-moving content. The high refresh rate also gives the motion interpolation engine more room to work, allowing it to generate extra frames. On the RM7L it works well, and with the right settings it can noticeably improve motion smoothness without causing an excessive soap opera effect.

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.

You can say almost nothing but good things about the RM7L when it comes to gamer features. The TV supports ALLM, VRR, Dolby Vision Gaming and works correctly with HGiG, so it’s hard to point out any major omissions in that area. In practice this means automatic switching to low-latency mode, a smoother picture with variable frame rates, and accurate brightness reproduction in HDR games. There’s also a handy Game Bar. From it you can quickly check the frame rate, VRR status, signal format, and aspect ratio, and change key settings without leaving the game. TCL also added a few extra options, like a crosshair and brightening of dark parts of the image, which can be useful in some titles. The biggest downside comes from the use of the Pentonic 700 processor. Only two of the four HDMI ports support the full HDMI 2.1 standard. With a single console this won’t matter much, but when connecting two consoles and a PC you may run out of space. Especially since one of those ports may also be needed for eARC and a soundbar.