Hisense H8F
TV REVIEW
The Hisense H8F is a very good entry-level 4k TV with great picture quality, decent motion handling, and excellent low input lag. It looks great in a dark room, as it has an impressive contrast ratio, outstanding black uniformity, and a full array local dimming feature. It has great peak brightness with SDR content, and has great reflection handling. Unfortunately, motion doesn't look as great, as it has a very slow response time, and although it has an optional motion interpolation feature, it isn't very good and constantly cuts out.
| Design | 7.5 |
| Picture Quality | 8.0 |
| Motion | 7.3 |
| Inputs | 9.5 |
| Sound Quality | 5.7 |
| Smart Features | 8.2 |
- Deep, uniform blacks.
- Excellent low input lag.
- Great peak brightness in SDR.
- Bad viewing angles.
- Slow response time.
Check Price
Market Context
The Hisense H8F is a budget 2019 model 4k TV. Hisense releases fewer models than most other brands, and the H8F appears to be one of their top models this year. Its main competitors are the TCL R617, Samsung RU7100, and Vizio V Series 2019.
Design
The Hisense H8F has a nice design. It has thin bezels and a simple, all-black finish. The feet are very small, but support the TV well. They are made of metal, which is nice, and there are two positions for the feet, which is a nice (and rare) feature.
The feet support the TV well, and are very thin and simple. They can't be reversed, but they can be installed in two positions, which is great if you want to place a soundbar in front of the TV or have a narrow table. Note that in the narrow position, the TV wobbles a bit more.
Footprint of the 55" stand at the narrow position: 35.8" x 9.3".
Footprint of the 55" stand at the wide position: 43.7" x 9.3".
The back of the H8F is quite plain, and very similar to the H9E. Most of the connections are facing the side, so they're easy to access when VESA mounted. There is no cable management.
Picture Quality
The Hisense H8F delivers great overall picture quality. It has an impressive native contrast ratio, a decent local dimming feature, and outstanding black uniformity, so it looks amazing in a dark room. It has great peak brightness in SDR, but HDR content can't quite get bright enough to show off small, bright highlights in some scenes. It has great reflection handling, though, so there shouldn't be any issues watching TV in a bright room. Unfortunately, this TV has only decent gray uniformity with noticeable vignetting, and it has bad viewing angles.
The full array local dimming feature on the Hisense H8F is decent. It strikes a good balance, not dimming too much that small details are crushed, but not dimming too little that there is significant blooming. Fast movement looks good, and as small bright objects transition between zones it isn't very noticeable. Unfortunately, when the screen changes it can be quite slow to adjust, taking as long as 2 seconds to adjust to moving from our 50% slide to anything else.
During testing, we discovered a bug with the local dimming setting. If we turned the TV off with the setting disabled, when we turned the TV back on local dimming would be on again, but the setting itself would still say it was off. In order to disable it, we had to set it back to 'High', and then disable it again.
The 50" model has fewer dimming zones, and the 65" has a few more, so local dimming performance may vary a bit.
Great peak brightness with SDR content. There is some variation in peak brightness with different content, which might be noticeable if you have the backlight at a high setting.
We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration, with the 'Theater Night' Picture Mode and the Color Temperature set to 'Low', and Local Dimming set to 'High'.
If accuracy isn't as important to you, with the 'Vivid' Picture Mode we measured a peak brightness of 659 cd/m² on a 25% window.
Decent HDR peak brightness, significantly brighter than the H9E Plus. There is some variation in brightness with different scenes, which might be noticeable. Really bright highlights in some scenes aren't as bright as they should be.
We measured the HDR peak brightness with no calibration settings, in the 'HDR Theater' Picture Mode with the Color Temperature set to 'Low', and Local Dimming on 'High'.
If accuracy isn't as important to you, the 'Vivid' Picture Mode is slightly brighter. We measured a peak of 680 cd/m², which is very close to Hisense's claimed peak brightness of 700 cd/m².
Unfortunately, this TV has poor viewing angles. In person, the image degrades significantly when viewed even slightly off-axis, and it looks worse than the current score suggests. The image appears washed-out, and colors rapidly lose accuracy. This is also not ideal for use as a PC monitor, as even just sitting close to it the sides of the screen appear non-uniform.
Excellent accuracy after calibration. There are a few remaining inaccuracies, but most people won't notice anything. Gamma is much closer to the target, but some bright scenes are over-brightened or over-darkened.
You can see our recommended settings here.
The H8F has a great wide color gamut, slightly better than the H9E plus.
The EOTF does not quite follow the PQ curve properly, and dark scenes especially appear darker than they should. In 'Game' mode, the EOTF is identical.
If you find HDR too dim, check out our recommended settings here. With these settings, HDR content appears a bit brighter, as shown here, but really dark scenes are still a bit too dark.
We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.
The pixel structure is identical to that of the H9E Plus. As it uses a sub-optimal BGR layout, it isn't ideal for PC use, although it is possible to correct for this on a PC, by adjusting the ClearType settings.
Motion
This TV has decent motion handling. It has a very slow response time, resulting in noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects, but it has a nearly flicker-free backlight, which is great. It also has an optional black frame insertion feature, that can help clear up motion, but noticeably decreases the TV's brightness. This TV has an optional motion interpolation feature that can interpolate low frame rate content, like movies, up to 60Hz. Unfortunately, the motion interpolation feature doesn't work very well, as it constantly stopped interpolating after a few seconds, resulting in jumpy motion.
The Hisense H8F has an optional black frame insertion feature to help clear up motion. When enabled, the flicker frequency of the backlight is reduced to 60Hz. Like most TVs, enabling this option noticeably reduces the TV's brightness, and there is no compensation mechanism.
See our recommended settings here.
This TV has a 60Hz panel, and has an option to interpolate motion up to 60Hz. Unfortunately, it isn't very effective, and during testing we found that it would stop interpolating every few seconds, causing the frame rate to constantly jump.
Our scoring is simply based on whether or not the TV can interpolate motion, and it does not take actual performance into account. We hope to eventually fix this with a future test bench update.
See our recommended settings here.
The slow response time results in motion with almost no stutter.
The H8F can remove judder from native 24p sources, like a Blu-ray player, and from the native apps. In order to do so, the Motion Enhancement setting must be set to 'Film'.
See our recommended settings here.
This TV has a simply 60Hz refresh rate, and doesn't support any of the variable refresh rate technologies, like FreeSync.
Inputs
The Hisense H8F has outstanding low input lag in game mode, and it supports most of the common resolutions and formats, including 1440p, although this has to be forced. All supported resolutions can also display 4:4:4 chroma properly, but only in game mode. This TV supports Dolby Vision and HDR10, and it has a good selection of inputs, with four full bandwidth HDMI 2.0 ports.
The Hisense H8F has outstanding low input lag, as long as the 'Game' Picture Mode is used. This TV does not automatically switch to 'Game' mode, so you have to manually change the picture modes when you start gaming.
See our recommended settings here.
This TV supports most of the common resolutions, but 1440p has to be forced with a custom resolution. Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly in any format, but only with the Picture Mode set to 'Game'. Some formats require the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.0, which can be obtained by setting the HDMI Format to 'Enhanced' for the port used.
The H8F accepts a 1080p @ 120Hz or 1440p @ 120Hz signal, but as it is only a 60Hz panel, it drops every other frame.
This TV does not support eARC, but can pass both DTS and Dolby Digital via ARC or optical, which is great.
During testing, we encountered a strange bug. When unplugging the ARC connection and switching to optical, the audio would play out of both the TV, and the audio system, and we couldn't adjust the sound on the TV. Power cycling the TV fixed the issue with volume control, but the TV would still output audio to the internal speakers and the receiver.
Sound Quality
The Hisense H8F has disappointing sound. It has almost no bass, and it lacks airiness in its treble. It can get very loud, though, with very few compression artifacts, which is great. For better sound, dedicated speakers or a soundbar are recommended.
The H8F has a disappointing frequency response. The low-frequency extension (LFE) is bad, and this TV has almost no bass; there is no thump or rumble, and very little punch. Above the LFE, the frequency response is flat in the mid-range, but drops off quickly in the mid-to-high treble range, so dialog is clear for the most part, but lacks airiness.
This TV has very little compression, which is great.
Smart Features
The Hisense H8F has great smart features. It runs Android TV 8.0, the same as most recent Sony TVs, including the Sony X950G. The interface is easy to use, is fast, and it has an impressive selection of available apps. The interface is also completely ad-free, which is great. This TV also offers voice control functionality, including the ability to pair it to an Amazon Alexa device for hands-free voice control.
The interface is relatively easy to use, especially if you're already used to Android TV, as the interface is identical to the one found on recent Sony TVs. It is very fast, so you can spend more time enjoying your favorite content, and less time navigating menus.
Like the other Hisense TVs we've tested, the H8F is completely ad-free, which is rare these days. This is somewhat unexpected, as we were under the impression that Google was forcing ads on Android 8.0 powered TVs.
If you find any ads on your H8F, please let us know in the discussions down below, and we will update our review.
The available remote app works decently, and can replace the remote for almost all functions, but doesn't offer voice control. In order for the remote app to work properly, the Anyview Stream setting must be enabled under the Network Settings menu on the TV.
Differences between Sizes and Variants
We tested the 55" H8F (55H8F), and we expect our results to also be valid for the 50" (50H8F), and the 65" (65H8F) models.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their Hisense H8F doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review. Note that some tests such as the gray uniformity may vary between individual units.
| Size | US Model | Panel Type | Refresh Rate | Dimming Zones |
| 50" | 50H8F | VA | 60Hz | 32 |
| 55" | 55H8F | VA | 60Hz | 56 |
| 65" | 65H8F | VA | 60Hz | 60 |
The 55H8F we reviewed was manufactured in Jan. 2019.
Compared to other TVs
The Hisense H8F is a surprisingly good budget TV, and it outperforms many more expensive models. See our recommendations for the best LED TVs, the best budget TVs, and the best TVs under $300.
The Hisense H8F and the TCL 6 Series/R617 are very similar overall. The R617 is a lot brighter than the H8F and has better motion handling. The H8F looks much better in a dark room and has better reflection handling.
The Hisense H8F is much better than the Samsung RU7100. The H8F has a full array local dimming feature, and significantly better black uniformity, resulting in a much better dark room viewing experience. The H8F also has better reflection handling and is much brighter.
The LG UM7300 and the Hisense H8F use different panel types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The H8F is better for watching movies or playing games in a dark room, but has worse motion handling. The LG looks better in a bright room, especially if you have a wide seating area, so it is a better choice for use as a PC monitor or for watching sports.
The Hisense H8F is much better than the Vizio V Series 2019. The H8F has a full array local dimming feature, is much brighter, has an optional black frame insertion feature, and has less input lag. The V Series, on the other hand, despite having the same type of panel, has better viewing angles. The H8F also has a more versatile smart interface, running Android TV 8.0.
The Hisense H8F is a significantly better TV than the oshiba Fire TV 2019. The H8F has better contrast, a full array local dimming feature, and significantly better black uniformity. The H8F also has an optional black frame insertion feature, much lower input lag, and it can remove 24p judder from 24p sources. On the other hand, the Toshiba has a faster response time.
Conclusion
SEE PRICE
Amazon.com
Recommended Articles
Unlimited access to full product reviews, test measurements and scores
Product prices across the site on reviews, tables and tools
Additional votes for our
next reviews
Early Access
to our reviews and test measurements
