Compare LG OLED C6H (TANDEM OLED) vs Hisense U7S / U77SE

The C6H is an even more interesting TV, because the use of a Tandem OLED panel has pushed the C series into territory until now reserved for much pricier models. We still get all the advantages of the regular C6, but the panel's capabilities are on a completely different level. HDR shows this best. In many scenes we measured around 2000 nits, and at times even 2300 nits, results previously seen only in flagship TV lineups. Add a wider BT.2020 gamut and, above all, much stronger colors at high brightness. In that respect it's hard to call this a typical mid-range OLED. What's more, the rest of the TV doesn't lag behind the panel. We get excellent image processing, 165 Hz, a full set of gaming features, and a convenient webOS with the Magic remote. If we judged the C6H solely by its capabilities and specs, it could easily be placed alongside much more expensive top-of-the-line TVs. Unfortunately the whole charm fades a bit when evening comes and you want to watch a movie on it. In near-black areas our C6H unit showed pronounced dithering and annoying image flicker. It was most evident in difficult, very dark scenes, and it's the kind of flaw that's hard to ignore in an OLED TV. After all, we buy such a panel partly to enjoy perfect blacks during evening viewing. It's all the more disappointing because otherwise the C6H is a truly outstanding TV. Everything indicates this is not a limitation of the panel itself, but a software issue, similar to the one we also observed in the LG G6. So we hope LG will fix it with an update, as it has done in other markets. As of today this one issue keeps us from fully recommending the C6H. Until LG fixes it, the safer choice is the regular C6 or a competing OLED that doesn't struggle with this near-black behavior. If, however, an update actually resolves the problem, the C6 with Tandem technology will immediately become one of the most interesting OLEDs of 2026.

Hisense U7S is the latest iteration of the U7 series, whose biggest advantage remains its price-to-quality ratio. You get a Mini LED TV with local dimming, which really improves black levels and gives the picture depth for evening viewing. During the day, the generous brightness headroom is useful, so you don't have to immediately cover the windows. It's not a device without compromises, but as an everyday TV it makes a lot of sense. Gamers benefit a lot as well. The U7S supports high refresh rates from consoles and PCs, has an extensive set of gaming features, and responds very quickly to controller input. Pleasingly, the low input lag is preserved in Dolby Vision too. Add in the smoothly running VIDAA, which offers both Smart features and handy extras for regular TV, and the package is fairly versatile, though compared with last year's U7Q it's hard to call it a big step forward. Unfortunately there are also things that clearly bother us. The first is motion blur. The panel has a high refresh rate, but its pixels don't always keep up, so visible trails follow moving objects. Fans of sports and fast-paced games will notice this especially. The second issue is HDR, which the TV shows somewhat "its own way." Instead of sticking to the brightness encoded in the content, it strongly brightens parts of the image. That was probably meant to look more impressive, but it often has the opposite effect: the scene becomes over-bright, loses depth, and clearly departs from the creators' intent. It's a shame this behavior can't be effectively corrected even during calibration. Despite these remarks, the U7S remains an interesting choice if you're looking to get as much as possible for a reasonable price. Compared with basic LCDs without local dimming, which you can still find at a similar price, it primarily offers much better blacks. And that's exactly its greatest strength. You don't have to reach for an expensive model to get a Mini LED whose advantages are actually noticeable when watching. If you accept its flaws, the Hisense U7S can above all be a cost-effective purchase.

The Tandem OLED panel gives the C6 noticeably greater capabilities in several image areas, but when it comes to black nothing needed to change. As with every OLED, individual pixels can be completely switched off, which provides perfect black and practically infinite contrast. So it doesn't matter whether bright text on a black background, tiny stars, or small light sources appear on the screen. You won't see the halo typical of LCDs around them, and transitions between bright and dark areas are very precise. In terms of black itself, the Tandem OLED version has no advantage over the regular C6, because both panels can switch pixels off with single-pixel precision. Differences between them only appear in brightness and color. However, if we look solely at contrast and black level, both variants offer the same reference level.

NOTE: In the helicopter scene from Sicario 2 we noticed graininess and flickering in the darkest parts of the image. This looks like a software bug that LG should fix with an update. The effect is even more noticeable in the Tandem OLED version, and we observed similar behavior in the flagship LG G6 as well.

The Hisense U7S shows good black levels, especially for one of the entry-level Mini LED models. The 55-inch unit we tested uses 192 local dimming zones that work well with the VA panel. In most of our scenes contrast ranged from about 21,000:1 to over 51,000:1, and in one it even exceeded 500,000:1. In many films you can see it — dark scenes have depth, and blacks don't glow gray like on many cheaper LCDs without local dimming.

It gets worse when the screen contains a lot of small bright objects on a dark background (for example, in the scene shown below). There aren't enough zones to illuminate each one separately, so you can see a bright halo around the small objects. This so-called halo effect is easiest to notice when watching in a dark room. In the most demanding shot contrast fell to about 5,650:1, and here the backlight limitations are clearly visible. Even so, given the TV's class, it's hard to call this a fault, because many Mini LED TVs in a similar price range will have similar problems.

And it's with HDR that the Tandem OLED panel shows its biggest advantage. The C6H's brightness is simply very high and in our measurements it hovered around 1900–2300 nits in most movie scenes. That's already a level at which bright highlights, the sun, or small light sources can look truly spectacular. The biggest impression on us, however, was the fifth scene from the film The Meg. It is exceptionally demanding for OLEDs because practically the entire screen is very bright. Even so, the C6H reached about 1650 nits there. For comparison, the regular C6 with a classic WOLED panel delivered around 600–700 nits in the same spot. So we're talking about more than double the brightness, and in places the difference approaches threefold. That is probably the best example of what Tandem OLED brings. It's not just a higher result on a small test patch. The C6H can sustain very high brightness even when much more of the screen is lit. Thanks to that, HDR has a significantly greater dynamic range and in this respect the C6H is much closer to flagship OLEDs than to typical mid-range models.

Colors

Tandem OLED also brings improvements in color. DCI-P3 coverage remains practically full at about 99%, while in the much wider BT.2020 gamut we measured roughly 82–83%. That's about 7 percentage points more than the regular C6. In everyday use this won't be a visible difference in every scene, since most films don't use such a wide gamut. However, when very heavily saturated colors appear, the C6H already has noticeably greater capabilities, especially in reds. Reds benefit the most, becoming deeper and more saturated. It's still not at the level of the best QD-OLED panels or SQD TVs, but for a WOLED panel the result is really very good.

The Hisense U7S has considerable HDR potential, but it can't use it in every scene. On a test pattern it reaches around 1,100 nits, so the backlight itself is very strong. In our brighter film scenes we measured about 640 to 745 nits. That's still enough for the sun or bright highlights to have a noticeable glow and to show an advantage over SDR material. When the TV needs to illuminate a larger portion of the image, it does quite well.

The problem appears with small lights on a dark background. Each of the 192 zones covers an area much larger than a tiny point on the screen. If the TV were to strongly light such a zone, it would also brighten the surrounding area along with the light. Hisense tries to avoid that and dims the entire zone. Black levels therefore look better, but a small bright object that should draw the eye also loses intensity. That's why in two tougher scenes we recorded only 297 and 154 nits. The difference is large: in one shot HDR can impress, and in the next small lights are noticeably muted. The U7S therefore prioritizes maintaining deep blacks, even at the expense of bright details. With this number of zones that's an understandable compromise, but it's worth remembering — the 1,100-nit peak tells us about the backlight's capability, not how brightly the TV will render every element of a film.

Colors

Hisense calls the U7S ULED, but that's a marketing name; the wider color gamut here comes from a PFS phosphor backlight. In our measurements the TV covered about 91% of DCI-P3 and 71% of BT.2020. Those are good results, although it falls short of the best screens on the market. The biggest shortfall is in green — the TV doesn't even reach the DCI-P3 target there, so the most saturated shades will be less intense than they should be. Most colors in HDR films and series, however, still look suitably rich. A positive is the repeatability of the results. Gamut coverage on test patterns and in film scenes is practically identical.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well calibrated, especially if you select Filmmaker mode. In SDR content the white balance is quite good, although as brightness increases it starts to show a slight lack of red. The picture becomes a bit cooler as a result, but not enough to be very noticeable during normal viewing. More is happening in the luminance response. Gamma is a bit low and, instead of holding at 2.4, it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 across much of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens the midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses some depth compared with how it should look in a dark room.

The situation is a bit more interesting in HDR. The start of the grayscale looks very good, but from roughly 20–30% brightness the white balance begins to drift increasingly. As brightness rises, red increases and blue becomes noticeably lacking. In the brightest areas the difference is already substantial and also affects the reproduction of some colors. The EOTF curve itself is, however, fairly well followed over most of the range. The C6 only tends to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw during our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest sections, where the TV begins to map the signal to the panel’s capabilities.

The out-of-the-box Filmmaker mode in HDR is therefore not perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

The out-of-the-box colors on the Hisense U7S are decent, but there are a few things to improve. In SDR there's a red bias in the white balance, which makes the image too warm and in places slightly pink. You can notice this on faces and on bright, neutral surfaces. Gamma also runs below the reference, so the TV brightens the image, especially in darker areas. That makes shadow details easier to see, but the scene loses some of its depth.

In HDR the white balance is a bit more even, but not completely neutral; midtones lack blue, and the brightest areas lack red. A bigger problem is how brightness is reproduced. The EOTF curve shows that a large portion of midtones is being brightened, so the image looks brighter than the source material intends. Color Checker measurements also perform worse than in SDR: many errors are around 3 to 4, and individual ones reach as high as 8. Colors can therefore look attractive, but they are not always faithful to what we should be seeing. There's room for improvement, and we'll check how much can be corrected with calibration.

LG TVs have been very receptive to calibration for years, and the C6 is no exception. After correction we were able to set the white balance almost perfectly, and most color errors (Delta E) fell below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate color reproduction in both SDR and HDR. The only curiosity showed up with the HDR luminance response. On the standard EOTF chart everything looks nearly perfect and at first glance it would be hard to fault anything. Only when we measured the TV’s behavior using filters based on actual movie scenes did it become apparent that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It’s not a huge difference and many people may even take it as a positive, since HDR looks a bit more striking because of it. From the perspective of fidelity to the source material, however, this isn’t ideal — some scenes are simply a bit brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is rather atypical for LG. In previous generations LG TVs usually adhered closely to the reference picture curve after calibration. With the C6 we’re still very close to the standard, but that subtle brightness "boost" can indeed be noticed in movies and TV shows.

Calibration of the Hisense U7S helped most with SDR content. We managed to even out the white balance, so the previous warm cast is gone and whites and grays look neutral. Gamma is also now very close to the reference, and the TV no longer brightens the image unnecessarily, so darker scenes have regained depth. Color Checker measurements confirm the improvement: most errors fall below 2. That yields a really well-calibrated picture for regular TV and SDR movies. It didn't go as smoothly in HDR. The TV lacks an effective way to correct the EOTF curve, so Hisense still interprets the content's brightness a bit on its own. It brightens parts of the image and can dim the brightest elements depending on the scene and the local dimming behavior. Calibration couldn't eliminate this. It shows up in the Color Checker results as well, where many errors remain around 3–4 and individual ones exceed 7. So in SDR the result is very good, but in HDR we have to accept that the TV adds its own interpretation of brightness to the image.

In terms of tonal transitions alone, the C6H performs really well. Gradients are smooth, colors don’t break into obvious bands, and in both bright and dark scenes it’s hard to find major posterization issues. In most material the image looks very clean in this respect.

Note: The situation is much worse when it comes to dithering around black. In very dark parts of the image you can notice clear flickering and graininess, which from close viewing can be quite pronounced. The Tandem OLED panel version shows this effect noticeably more than the regular C6. That’s a shame, because the tonal transitions themselves are at a very high level. It’s precisely the behavior of the image just above black that is the main reason we can’t rate this category higher.

The smoothness of tonal transitions is one of the Hisense U7S’s stronger points. HDR10 material performs especially well, with colors blending gently into one another without noticeable banding. Even in dark scenes it’s hard to find major issues. Minor color stepping is visible only in brighter shots, but during typical viewing it usually doesn’t attract attention. It looks a bit worse in Dolby Vision, where boundaries between shades can be more apparent. That’s why Hisense loses some points from us, although overall this is still a very good result and one of the better performers in its class.

Here the LG C6 has taken a really big step forward. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very similar. That's a big plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" feature works especially well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly banding and artifacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it on the "Low" setting. That way the improvement is noticeable, and the TV doesn't yet start blurring fine details. Higher levels smooth the image more, but can start to remove some of the natural texture of objects on screen. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution material is properly sharpened, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine details. In this respect the C6 is already very close to LG's best TVs, and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

The handling of lower-quality material on the Hisense U7S is fairly mediocre. The Pentonic 700 chipset used here doesn't cope well with the effects of heavy compression. The menu includes a "Smooth & Gradient" picture option, but its performance leaves much to be desired. At the low setting it's hard to notice any improvement in tonal transitions, although at least the image isn't degraded. The medium and high settings still don't remove visible banding between shades and begin to smear details; in our test clips even parts of characters' faces disappeared. Interestingly, film grain remains untouched at every level. If you use this feature, we'd stick with the low setting. Its current behavior needs refinement, but that's mainly down to the processor used. Upscaling to 4K performs much better. Lower-resolution footage gains clarity, edges are well reconstructed, and fine elements look crisp. That doesn't mean it can recover details that weren't in the recording, but the TV makes good use of what it gets from the source. Another plus is that it doesn't crop the image edges, even with an SD signal.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel can also operate at refresh rates up to 165 Hz. PC gamers will get the most use out of that, of course, because for consoles, movies, or sports we’re still talking about a maximum of 120 Hz. The panel itself performs excellently in motion. OLED pixels respond virtually instantly, so even with fast-moving objects you don’t see the typical motion blur behind them. The image stays clean whether you’re watching sports or playing fast-paced games.

If you care more about smoothness than motion clarity, TruMotion is available. LG lets you adjust two parameters separately. De-Judder works mainly with films and series shot at 24 fps and helps reduce the judder typical of them. De-Blur, on the other hand, is intended for 50/60 fps material, so it’s especially useful when watching sports or TV.

Motion handling on the Hisense U7S is pretty good thanks to the 144 Hz refresh rate. For movies we also have a motion smoothing feature that lets you adjust judder and blur reduction. You can therefore keep a more cinematic motion or increase smoothness if abrupt camera shifts bother you. In sports and games the high refresh rate is also useful, but unfortunately it doesn't solve this panel's biggest problem.

The culprit is pixel response time. Fast-moving objects leave long, noticeable trails, as our UFO test shows. It's worst on dark backgrounds, where the trail behind the object is especially pronounced. So motion can be smooth, but the moving object itself loses sharpness, and that difference on the U7S is fairly easy to notice.

The C6H offers basically a full package of gaming features. On consoles we can easily use 4K at 120 Hz, while PC users can push the refresh rate up to 165 Hz. The TV also supports VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a proper implementation of HGiG. Dolby Vision is also available in game mode, which remains a significant advantage for Xbox owners. We can view all the key information in the Game Bar, which provides quick access to VRR settings and current signal parameters. The OLED tandem therefore doesn't change the actual feature set for gamers, but with such high panel brightness HDR games can make an even bigger impression. Functionally, the C6H is simply a very complete TV for console and PC.

The Hisense U7S has a lot to offer gamers. You get two HDMI 2.1 ports and support for 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p, and 4K, so modern consoles’ capabilities are well used. When connected to a PC you can use 144 Hz at 4K or switch the resolution to Full HD and run 240 Hz. So there’s a wide choice, although it’s worth remembering the motion smearing mentioned earlier, which the high refresh rate does not eliminate. VRR and ALLM are also present. The first helps prevent tearing when frame rates in a game change. The second automatically switches the TV into game mode, so you don’t have to dig through the menu each time. VRR works from 48 to 240 Hz, with the highest refresh rate available in Full HD. Xbox users can also play in Dolby Vision, including at 120 Hz. Importantly, this format does not introduce significant input lag here. The Game Bar also looks very good. It’s easy to read, visually appealing, and lets you quickly check what signal the TV is receiving. There are also handy gaming settings at your fingertips, including shadow brightening. If it’s hard to spot an opponent in a dark game, you can improve visibility without digging through the entire menu.

Our biggest complaints concern HGiG. Hisense continues to do its own tone mapping, which makes setting HDR on the console confusing. You adjust a checkerboard test pattern and the TV continuously adapts how it looks. As a result, the moment the pattern disappears does not correctly indicate the screen’s brightness limit, and it’s easy to set the value too high. For this model it’s better to set the target HDR peak brightness on the console to about 900 to 1000 nits, rather than relying on the configurator.

In terms of input lag, the C6 performs like a good gaming TV should. At 120 Hz we measured about 5 ms, so controller input is practically instantaneous. At 60 Hz the result rises to around 14 ms, but that's still a good figure. Latency is a bit higher in Dolby Vision. At 120 Hz it's about 14 ms, and at 60 Hz about 22 ms. In practice, when playing normally on an Xbox, this is unlikely to be something that would actually bother you.

In terms of input lag the Hisense U7S performs excellently. At 60 Hz we measured 14–16 ms, and at 120 Hz just 9–10 ms. Input is responsive, and even in fast-paced games the TV doesn't introduce any noticeable delay. Importantly, Dolby Vision performs just as well, with 14 ms at 60 Hz and 9 ms at 120 Hz, so you don't have to give up that format for fear of added latency. The motion smearing described earlier is a separate issue: the panel responds quickly to input, but the pixels don't always keep up with color changes.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel also works very well as a computer screen. When working with text the most important thing is that the TV correctly supports 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, so small fonts, icons and UI elements are rendered clearly. The only thing you can notice up close are subtle color fringes caused by the unusual subpixel layout. At a normal viewing distance for such a large screen that practically stops mattering, and text is very readable day to day. The C6H is even better when the PC is used for gaming. The TV can run at up to 165 Hz, supports G-Sync and VRR, and input lag at the maximum refresh rate is about 5 ms. Combined with the very fast response time of the OLED panel, that creates excellent conditions for PC gaming. There’s no smearing, the picture is very smooth, and inputs respond virtually instantly. In that respect the C6H can easily be treated not just as a TV but also as a very large gaming monitor. Just remember that with 77- or 83-inch sizes, positioning your desk sensibly can be a real challenge. 😉

When connected to a PC, you can use 4K at 144 Hz with G-Sync enabled and about 10 ms of input lag. It's a good setup for gaming, although panel smearing is still noticeable in fast-moving scenes. Chroma 4:4:4 also works correctly, even at the maximum refresh rate, so colorful on-screen text and small desktop elements remain legible.

The U7S is quite suitable for web browsing or occasional work, but not all fonts look equally sharp. Our main issue is with small, dark text: thin parts of letters can disappear and characters look uneven. It's hard to notice from the couch, but when working up close, especially with text or spreadsheets, it can be distracting.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel also offers very wide viewing angles. You can watch the TV well from far off to the side and the image still retains high contrast and saturated colors. As you’d expect from an OLED, it’s one of those screens where you don’t have to fight for the exact center spot on the couch. Only TVs with QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display actually perform better in this regard. The slightly lower rating for the C6H comes from our unit showing a somewhat greater tendency to shift toward a greenish tint when viewed at very extreme angles. However, that’s a subtle difference we mostly noticed during direct side-by-side comparisons. In normal viewing, most people probably won’t notice it.

Viewing angles are unfortunately a weak point of the Hisense U7S. As soon as you move to the side, colors lose saturation, blacks become lighter, and the picture looks washed out. At a 45-degree angle we measured a 74% drop in brightness, so the difference compared with watching head-on is really large. That's a typical limitation of VA panels. When sitting centrally you can appreciate its strong contrast, but people seated at the far ends of a wide couch will see a noticeably weaker picture. The U7S is therefore best suited to setups where viewing positions are as close to directly in front of the screen as possible.

The version with the Tandem OLED panel performs noticeably better in daylight. The screen coating itself behaves very similarly, it is glossy, suppresses reflections fairly well, and maintains black levels with the lights on. A bright window or lamp will still be visible on the screen, but the picture does not lose much of its depth because of that. The biggest difference, of course, is brightness. In typical SDR content the C6H reaches about 690 nits, which is clearly more than the regular C6. In a bright living room you can really notice this — the image has more punch and cuts through the incoming light much better. Tandem OLED also handles scenes with a lot of bright elements on screen better, although brightness still drops with near-full white. So they have not completely eliminated one of the usual characteristics of OLEDs, but the limitation is much less noticeable here. If the TV will be used often in a bright living room, this is one of the C6H’s advantages over the regular C6 that you can actually feel in everyday use.

The Hisense U7S performs well for daytime viewing. In SDR we measured an average of about 664 nits, and depending on the screen content the brightness ranged roughly from 500 to 800 nits. Even with an all-white image it stays above 500 nits, so a sports broadcast or a bright TV program won't suddenly look dim. That's enough headroom for comfortable viewing in most living rooms. The satin finish does a decent job of reducing reflections, but a window opposite the TV will still be visible. In the photo you can clearly see that its reflection can obscure part of the picture, so high brightness alone doesn't solve everything. On the plus side, blacks and colors hold up in daylight and don't become excessively gray. Overall the U7S works well in a bright room, though you should position it to avoid direct window reflections.

Smart TV: webOS

No matter which C6 version you get, the feature set stays the same. The heart of the TV is, of course, webOS, the system LG has been developing for many years. It runs fast, is well optimized, and above all offers access to virtually all popular apps. Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, YouTube, Max and other streaming services — in this respect it's hard to find significant gaps. The system itself also provides a lot of extra options. There’s AirPlay, easy screen casting from a smartphone, smart home device control, and the ability to personalize the home screen. LG has been expanding webOS heavily for several generations, and at times the number of available tabs or recommendations can be a bit overwhelming, especially with background ads, but once you get used to it the system is convenient and, most importantly, runs smoothly.

Classic TV features

The C6 also performs very well when you want to use it like a regular TV, not just a screen for Netflix. Over-the-air TV reception, the program guide and channel switching work smoothly and there’s little to complain about. LG still offers the ability to record programs to USB, so in terms of classic features the set is really well equipped. There are really only two things missing. The first is PiP, the ability to display two video sources at the same time. The second is a backlight for the remote, which would be handy for evening viewing. Apart from that, the C6 has basically everything you’d expect from a modern TV.

Magic Remote: DIFFERENT VERSIONS

When buying the C6, it’s worth paying attention to the remote, because LG has created some confusion here. During our tests we had, among others, the C64 variant commonly found in large retail chains. The package included the new, much smaller Magic Remote Slim. It has fewer buttons and looks much more modern, but it still retains two of LG remotes’ most characteristic features: the scroll wheel and cursor control by moving the remote. The C6E we tested came with the older, larger Magic Remote. It works basically the same, but it has a traditional numeric keypad and many more physical buttons. It looks less modern, but some people, especially those used to classic remotes, may find it more convenient. So there’s no single answer as to which remote is better. The new one is smaller, simpler and more contemporary, while the older one gives faster access to a larger number of functions without navigating menus. It’s worth knowing that depending on the C6 designation, the box may contain either variant.

Smart TV: VIDAA

VIDAA HOME OS on the Hisense U7S is feature-rich, runs quickly, and doesn’t complicate everyday use. In addition to apps, it supports AirPlay for streaming from Apple devices and Miracast for mirroring a computer display. Voice search in Polish also works, so instead of typing a movie title with the remote you can just say it. You can also connect a keyboard and mouse. In terms of smart features there’s little to complain about, though before buying it’s worth checking the availability of specific apps you use, as it isn’t as extensive as competing systems.

Classic features and the remote

Hisense hasn’t forgotten viewers who watch regular TV. The U7S lets you record over-the-air programs to a USB drive and schedule recordings for later. There’s teletext, the option to listen to audio with the screen off, and support for Bluetooth headphones. Conveniently, headphones can operate at the same time as the TV speakers, so one person, for example a senior, can use them while others still listen normally. The main notable missing feature is picture-in-picture, or PiP.

We weren’t fond of the remote itself. It’s very plastic and looks rather "cheap", but it does its job well. It has a full numeric keypad, plenty of shortcuts, and controls the TV via radio, so you don’t have to point it at the screen. It’s only a shame the buttons aren’t backlit. Hisense reserves more elegant remote versions for higher-end models, such as the U7S Pro.

During our tests the TV handled virtually all the most popular video formats we put on a USB flash drive without any problems. There were no issues with high bitrates, subtitles, or more demanding files, so it's hard to fault it in that respect. The only exception was content with a DTS audio track. That's not surprising, since the TV simply doesn't support that codec. Besides, the built-in player is good enough that most users will be fine without installing third-party apps or connecting an external media player.

The USB player in the Hisense U7S handles most common files. It played our H.264 and H.265 material without issues, including high-bitrate 4K recordings and the test Dolby Vision file. SRT and SUB subtitles work, including Polish characters and font color changes. Not everything worked, however. AV1 and H.266/VVC files did not play, nor did ASS and TXT subtitles. Audio is good, from basic MP3s to FLAC 96 kHz/24-bit, though AIFF and DSD are not supported.

Our biggest issues are with photos. Supported formats are extensive: in addition to JPEG and PNG, WebP and TIFF work as well, but HEIC won't open. Resolution handling is also odd. The TV displayed 4, 6, 8, 16 and 32 MP images, but couldn't handle 10, 12 or 24 MP files. So it's not a straightforward size limit. The player is perfectly fine for videos and music, but when showing vacation photos you may find that some files need to be converted beforehand.

The USB player in the Hisense U7S handles most common movies and music well. It supports 4K content, including a Dolby Vision file we tested, and it correctly displays Polish characters in subtitles. It should be sufficient for everyday use with a USB flash drive, although it can have problems with less common formats. Our biggest issue is with photos. The TV handles their resolution rather selectively: it may open a larger photo but refuse to display a smaller one. When browsing a vacation album this can be annoying, because we can't be sure all the photos will display. Some of them will need to be prepared on a computer beforehand.

LG OLED C6H (TANDEM OLED) vs Hisense U7S / U77SE

Advantages

Disadvantages

Our verdict

TV appearance

Where to buy

Contrast and black detail

HDR effect quality

Colors

Colors

Factory color reproduction

Color reproduction after calibration

Smoothness of tonal transitions

Image scaling and smoothness of tonal transitions

Blur and motion smoothness

Console compatibility and gaming features

Input lag

Compatibility with PC

Viewing angles

Daytime performance

Panel details

TV features

Classic features:

Smart features:

Sound connection options

Supported audio formats (external HDMI eARC audio):

Senior accessibility

Smart TV: webOS

Classic TV features

Magic Remote: DIFFERENT VERSIONS

Smart TV: VIDAA

Classic features and the remote

Apps

Playing files from USB

Sound

Sound Quality Test

Acoustic Measurements