Hisense H8G TV Review

The Hisense H8G has a nice and simple design, similar to the Hisense H8F. The stand is made out of metal, and you can change the position of the feet to accommodate smaller tables, which is a nice feature.

After 22 months, the backlight continues to fail on this TV, and it's now lost ~66% of its original peak brightness.

The feet are made out of metal and are adjustable. The stand supports the TV fairly well, especially when the feet are in the widest position possible, but there's still some wobble.

Footprint of the 55" stand at the narrow position: 35.9" x 9.7"

Footprint of the 55" stand at the wide position: 43.9" x 9.7"

The top half of the back is metal, while the bottom half where the inputs are housed is made out of textured plastic. There are hooks for cable management which is something 2019's Hisense H9F doesn't have.

Three of the borders are thin while the bottom is a bit thicker, but it shouldn't be distracting.

This TV isn't very thick and doesn't stick out much when well-mounted.

The Hisense H8G has a decent build quality, but it doesn't have a premium build like other high-end TVs. The metal on the back and the plastic parts are solid. There's a bit of wobble when nudged, but overall, there aren't any obvious issues.

As is the case with most VA panels, the Hisense H8G's contrast ratio is excellent, allowing it to produce deep blacks. There's a local dimming feature; however, it doesn't improve the black level by much. Note that the contrast ratio can vary between individual units.

If you want a similar TV with a higher contrast ratio, check out the Vizio M8 Series Quantum 2020.

Great peak brightness. The Hisense H8G gets bright enough to combat glare and it's a good improvement over the Hisense H8F. Sadly, the brightness changes with varied content. If you want a brighter TV, look into the TCL 6 Series/R635 2020 QLED.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Theater Night' Picture Mode, with Backlight set to 'Max' and Local Dimming set to 'High'.

If you don't mind losing a bit of image accuracy, you can get a brighter image by setting the Picture Mode to 'Vivid' and Local Dimming to 'High'. We achieved 666 cd/m² in the 10% window with these settings.

Update 07/09/2021: We've added two new videos demonstrating the local dimming feature with real content.

The Hisense H8G has a decent full-array local dimming feature. It handles blooming pretty well and zone transitions are quick, but it tends to crush small light sources. In regular content, small lights in the background don't stand out at all, even though there's some blooming around them.

Update 07/09/2021: We've added two new videos demonstrating the local dimming feature with real content.

The local dimming feature performs identically in Game Mode, with no reduction in picture quality or increased blooming.

The HDR peak brightness is just okay, but it isn't enough to bring out highlights and varies a lot depending on the content. If you want a similar TV that gets much brighter in HDR, check out the Hisense H9G.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration in the 'HDR Theater' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming set to 'High', and Backlight set to 'Max'. Use these settings if you want the brightest image possible, as they allowed us to reach 679 cd/m² in the 10% window.

Our Hisense H8G has decent gray uniformity; however, this can vary between units. There's a lot less vignetting than on the Hisense H8F, but there's still some dirty screen effect in the center, which is visible during sports or panning shots. In near-dark scenes, the entire screen is a bit more uniform.

Black uniformity is decent, but this can vary between units. Without local dimming, there's visible backlight bleed in the corners and some clouding and here and there. Uniformity is better throughout with local dimming enabled, but blooming around the test cross is much more noticeable.

Like most VA panel TVs, the viewing angles are poor and you quickly lose image accuracy when viewing from the side. There's an Enhanced Viewing Angle setting, but it doesn't improve the viewing angles and causes some sub-pixel dithering.

The Hisense H8G has decent reflection handling, but it's not as good as the Hisense U6G. It handles a small amount of light well but struggles in well-lit rooms, so it's not ideal to place opposite a window. If you want a TV with better reflection handling, then check out the LG NANO90.

The Hisense H8G has okay out-of-the-box color accuracy, but this can vary between individual units. Most colors are fairly accurate, but white balance is noticeably off. The color temperature is a bit warmer than our 6500K target, giving the image has a red/yellow tint. Gamma doesn't follow the 2.2 target all that well, as both dark and bright scenes are over-brightened.

After calibration, the color accuracy is outstanding. There's almost no visible inaccuracies in colors and shades of gray, and the gamma is closer to the target curve. The color temperature is much closer to the 6500k target but still slightly on the warm side.

You can see our recommended settings here.

The Hisense H8G upscales 480p content, like from DVDs, well without any issues.

720p content, like from cable boxes, is upscaled well.

1080p content looks almost as good as native 4k content.

4k content is displayed perfectly and there are no visible issues. If the Enhanced Viewing Angle setting is enabled, there's some sub-pixel dithering, so it's not recommended to use it.

The Hisense H8G can't display an 8k signal.

Like the Hisense H8F, this TV uses a BGR pixel layout. Enabling the Enhanced Viewing Angle setting causes sub-pixel dithering, as you can see here.

This TV has a very good wide color gamut. It has outstanding coverage of the DCI P3 color space used in most HDR content, but it has limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space. If you want a similar TV with an even wider color gamut, check out the TCL 5 Series/S535 2020 QLED.

The EOTF follows the target curve very well until it rolls off at its peak brightness. The EOTF in 'Game' mode is nearly identical, as you can see here.

If you find HDR too dim, set the Picture Mode to 'HDR Theater' and Local Dimming to 'High'. This doesn't make the picture that much brighter, as you can see the EOTF here.

Decent color volume. Due to its excellent contrast ratio, it can produce deep, saturated colors. It has trouble displaying very bright blues, which is typical for LCD TVs.

The Hisense H8G has decent gradient handling, better than the Hisense H8F and closer to the Hisense H9F. There's banding in every dark color, and it's more noticeable with dark grays and greens. The Noise Reduction and Digital Noise Reduction settings don't improve the performance.

There are no signs of temporary image retention, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes. Note that temporary image retention can vary between units.

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

Good response time, much better than the Hisense H8F. There's no visible overshoot, but it's a little slow in the 0-20% transition, causing a bit more motion blur in dark scenes.

Note: There are reported issues of ghosting on Hisense TVs, particularly with their 2021 models like the Hisense U8G. We received a report from a user that their 75 inch H8G experienced the same ghosting issues. While we don't expect this to be a problem for everyone and that the ghosting depends on the content, it's a known issue with some Hisense TVs.

Although the backlight uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, the flicker frequency is extremely high and shouldn't bother most people.

There's an optional Black Frame Insertion feature, called Motion Clearness that helps reduce motion blur. It reduces the flicker frequency to 60Hz, and there's less duplication in motion than the Hisense H8F.

This TV can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 60fps, but it isn't very effective as it seems to come on/off during movies. That said, it shouldn't be noticeable for most people. To use motion interpolation, set both Judder and Blur Reduction to '10'.

See our recommended settings here.

Since this TV has a good response time, there's a bit of stutter with 24fps content as each frame is held longer, but almost none with 60fps content.

The Hisense H8G can remove judder from native 24p content, like Blu-ray players or native apps. To remove judder, set Motion Enhancement to 'Film'.

This TV has a 60Hz refresh rate and doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology. If you want a similar TV that supports VRR, check out the Vizio M7 Series Quantum 2020.

The Hisense H8G has an incredibly low input lag, low enough to please most casual most gamers. To get the lowest low input lag, set the Picture Mode to 'Game'. Sadly, it doesn't automatically change picture modes when you start playing.

This TV supports all common resolutions at 60Hz, but 1440p must be forced through a custom resolution. It displays proper chroma 4:4:4, which is important for reading text, as long as it's in 'Game' mode. To get HDMI 2.0's full bandwidth, set HDMI Format to 'Enhanced'.

Update 05/19/2021: We updated the TV to firmware K1016 and it now has an Auto Low Latency Mode. For it to work, you need to enable Content Type Auto Detection. With this update, it's also able to support 4k @ 60Hz gaming in HDR with both the PS5 and Xbox Series X, whereas it only worked with the PS5 before the update.

The Hisense H8G supports any resolution up to 60Hz from either gaming console.

Update 11/02/2021: We received reports of flickering issues with Dolby Vision content, particularly from native apps. We viewed Dolby Vision content from the built-in Netflix app and Netflix on the Xbox and didn't notice anything wrong. Another user also reported that reducing the Brightness setting to '47' stops the flickering. These settings aren't validated by Dolby as accurate, though, so we don't recommend changing this unless you notice the flickering and it bothers you. This reported issue is only with Dolby Vision and not HDR10. If you experience this problem, let us know, and we'll update the review.

Update 06/27/2020: Hisense claims that this TV supports HDR10+, but we weren't able to get it to work with Amazon Prime Video. We can't currently test this more than that, unfortunately, but we've decided to list HDR10+ support based on the manufacturer's reported specifications.

This TV can pass both DTS and Dolby Digital via ARC or optical, which is great, but it doesn't support eARC.

The Hisense H8G has an okay frequency response, better than both the Hisense H8F and Hisense H9F. The bass has some punch to it, but it doesn't get low enough to produce any thump or rumble. It gets very loud and is reasonably well-balanced, which is great for dialogue.

Mediocre distortion performance. There's only a bit of distortion at moderate listening levels, but it increases significantly at max volume. However, it isn't always audible as it depends a lot on the content.

The Hisense H8G runs on Android TV. It's fairly easy to use and operates somewhat smoothly.

Update 02/25/2021: We still haven't seen any ads, even though they appear on the Hisense H9G. Let us know if you've noticed any ads on your H8G.

This TV is currently ad-free, but it's possible to include ads in the future, as seen on other Android TVs, such as the H9G and the Sony X950H.

Update 11/02/2021: We received reports of flickering issues with Dolby Vision content, particularly from native apps. We viewed Dolby Vision content from the Netflix app and didn't notice anything wrong. We also checked with Netflix on the Xbox, and once again, everything was fine. Users have also noticed this issue while using Disney+, but we don't have an account to check. If you experience this issue, let us know, and we'll update the review.

Android TV's Google Play Store offers a massive selection of apps available to download.

The Hisense H8G has the same remote as the one from past models. It has quick-access buttons to popular streaming services and it has a built-in mic for voice control through Google Assistant.

There's a single button underneath the TV that allows you to power on/off and change inputs.

• Quick Start Guide
• Remote
• Batteries
• Power cable