Hisense H8F  TV Review

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.

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.

Note: We have received a report that the 50" model does not have adjustable feet.

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.

The borders of the TV are thin and not very distracting. The bottom border is a bit thicker, but still looks good.

The H8F is quite a bit thicker than the H9E, but still thin enough that it looks good wall-mounted.

The Hisense H8F has decent build quality. It's sturdy and doesn't wobble very much. The feet are made of metal and support the TV well, but the back feels like it's made of cheap plastic.

The Hisense H8F has an impressive contrast ratio, and delivers deep blacks in a dark room. The local dimming feature is effective at boosting contrast even further.

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. If you want a brighter TV, check out the Hisense H8G.

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.

Decent gray uniformity on the H8F. The corners of the screen are noticeably darker, and there is some clouding throughout the center of the screen. In near-dark scenes the overall uniformity is better, but there is noticeable clouding on the sides of the screen.

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.

The Hisense H8F has impressive black uniformity. There is very little clouding visible, and no backlight bleed, which is outstanding.

The H8F has great reflection handling. The semi-gloss finish does a great job at blocking most reflections, but they are not completely diffused. Bright lights opposite the TV may be distracting.

With our pre-calibration settings, the H8F has decent accuracy. There are some noticeable inaccuracies in most shades of gray, as well as in some colors. The color temperature is warm, and gamma is slightly higher than our target of 2.2, so many scenes appear a bit darker than they should.

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.

480p content, like DVDs, look great. Subjectively, it looks nearly identical to the H9E Plus.

720p content, like cable TV, looks great.

1080p content is displayed properly, and looks almost as good as native 4k content.

Like the H9E Plus, 4k content is displayed perfectly. There are no noticeable pixel issues.

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.

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.

Decent color volume. It can produce dark saturated colors, thanks to the excellent contrast ratio, and most colors are almost as bright as pure white, which is great. Like the vast majority of LCD TVs, it can't produce very bright blues, though.

Decent gradient performance. There is noticeable banding in all shades, but it is most noticeable in shades of gray. Unfortunately, there is no smooth gradation feature on this TV.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on the H8F, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

The Hisense H8F has a slower response time than other TVs we've tested recently. This results in more noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects.

Due to some very slow transitions, the graphs are not all at the same scale.

Although the backlight uses a combination of direct dimming and PWM (pulse width modulation), the flicker frequency is extremely high and shouldn't bother most people.

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.

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.

The Hisense H8F supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

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.

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.

This TV has decent distortion handling. At lower volumes, there is very little harmonic distortion, but it does increase noticeably at max volume.

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.

Update 02/04/2020: We retested the H8F with the latest firmware, version V0000.00.01A.J1008, and HDR is now working within YouTube.

The H8F runs Android TV, and as such has access to a massive selection of apps through the integrated Google Play Store.

The remote is surprisingly good for a budget model. It has a few dedicated buttons, and there is an integrated mic for voice control, which works well.

The controls are located on the left side of the TV, underneath the screen. Like most TVs, they are very basic, and can be used to power-cycle the TV or change inputs.

• Quick Start Guide
• Remote
• Batteries
• Power Cable (not shown)