Hisense R6090G TV Review

The Hisense R6090G is an entry-level 4k TV in Hisense's 2020 lineup. The Roku-based R6 Series sits alongside the Hisense H65 Series, which has Android TV instead, and below the Hisense R8 Series. It competes with the TCL 4 Series 2020, Toshiba Fire TV 2020, and the Vizio V Series 2020.

The Hisense 55R6090G looks a lot like the Hisense H6570G with a decent style. It has slim borders on three sides and a slightly thicker bottom border, and it looks nice in any setting. It's made entirely out of plastic, and even though there's nothing premium about it, there's nothing bad about it either.

The stand consists of two plastic feet that are almost as wide as the TV itself and they can't be moved inwards to accommodate smaller tables. The TV wobbles fairly easily when you move it around.

Footprint of the 55" inch TV: 40.6" x 8.2".

The back of the Hisense R6090G is exactly like the Hisense H6570G. It has a thin plastic back panel that feels like metal, and the plastic at the bottom feels more solid. Sadly, there's no cable management.

This TV has thin borders that aren't distracting.

The panel itself is fairly thin, but the TV may stick out a bit when you wall-mount because of the way the bottom part comes out.

The Hisense R6090G has okay build quality. It's entirely made of plastic, which feels solid near the inputs, but bends easily everywhere else. It wobbles quite easily and feels like you can torque the entire screen. These shouldn't be issues if you just leave it in one spot, but it may pose a problem if you constantly need to move it around.

The Hisense R6090G has an amazing contrast ratio, which is expected from a VA panel. It displays deep blacks when viewed in the dark. Note that contrast may vary between units.

Update 02/25/2021: We retested SDR peak brightness after measuring the HDR peak brightness in Game mode. This resulted in slightly lower SDR peak brightness.

The Hisense R6090G's peak brightness is disappointing. It doesn't get bright enough to combat glare, even in dim-to-moderately lit rooms. It maintains its brightness extremely consistent across different content, except small highlights are slightly less bright.

We measured peak brightness after calibration in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with Backlight at its max and Gamma at '2.2'.

If you don't care about image accuracy and want a slightly brighter image, set the Picture Mode to 'Normal', Color Temperature to 'Normal', Gamma to '1.8', and TV Brightness to 'Brighter'. We reached 306 cd/m² in the 10% window using these settings.

Update 12/04/2020: We incorrectly listed it as being edge-lit, when the backlight is direct LED.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

Update 02/25/2021: We retested HDR peak brightness after measuring the HDR peak brightness in Game mode. This resulted in slightly lower HDR peak brightness.

This TV has poor peak brightness in HDR. It doesn't get brighter than in SDR and it's not enough to make vivid colors pop. Once again, small highlights are slightly more dim than larger highlights.

We measured HDR peak brightness in the 'Dark HDR' Picture Mode with Backlight at its max and everything else at their default settings.

The EOTF follows the target curve fairly well until the roll off at its peak brightness, except some scenes are slightly over-brightened.

If you find HDR too dim and want a brighter image, use the 'Dark HDR' Picture Mode with Gamma set to '1.8', Color Temperature set to 'Cool', and Contrast and Backlight each at their max. This results in a noticeably brighter image, as seen in this EOTF. However, the image is inaccurate as increasing Contrast makes the image too blue, as seen in this color gamut photo.

The HDR brightness in 'Game' mode is the same as outside of 'Game' mode. We used the same settings as the testing for the regular HDR peak brightness.

The Hisense 55R6090G has mediocre gray uniformity, but this may vary between units. Our unit actually looks a lot worse than it does in the picture as the edges are visibly darker. It's noticeable in real content with any full-sized image or videos where there isn't a lot of movement. There's also dirty screen effect in the center, which could get distracting during sports. The uniformity is better in near-dark scenes, but the vignetting is still visible.

The Hisense 55R6090G has outstanding black uniformity. However, it looks worse in person, and like with the gray uniformity, there's noticeable backlight bleed and vignetting along the edges. It's visible in real content and could be distracting when watching movies in dark rooms. Note that black uniformity may vary between units.

The Hisense R6090G has narrow viewing angles, which is expected from a VA panel. You lose image accuracy when viewing from the side, so it's not ideal for a wide seating arrangement.

The reflection handling is good. It performs well with a moderate amount of light directed towards it, but it's best to avoid placing it in a well-lit room as the reflections may become too distracting.

The Hisense R6090G has good out-of-the-box color accuracy, but this may vary between units. White balance and most colors are only a bit inaccurate, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, gamma seems to follow a target of 2.3 instead of 2.2, so most scenes are darker than they should be.

The Hisense 55R6090G has outstanding color accuracy after calibration. Any remaining inaccuracies can't be spotted with the aid of a colorimeter, and the color temperature is almost spot on with the 6500K target. Gamma follows the target much better, except some really bright scenes are slightly too bright.

You can see our recommended settings here.

This TV upscales 480p content, such as from DVDs, without any issues.

The Hisense R6090G displays 720p content well and there aren't any artifacts.

1080p content, such as from Blu-ray players, is displayed almost as well as native 4k content.

This TV displays native 4k content perfectly, and unlike the Hisense H6570G, there aren't any obvious artifacts.

This is a 4k TV that can't display an 8k input.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout, which may affect the way text is rendered when using it as a PC monitor. Read about it here.

Like the Hisense H6510G, the Hisense R6090G has an okay color gamut, but it's not considered a wide color gamut for HDR content. It has good coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3 color space, but limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020.

The EOTF follows the target curve fairly well until the roll off at its peak brightness, except some scenes are slightly over-brightened. It's the exact same with Game Mode enabled because you can enable it in any Picture Mode, as seen in this EOTF.

If you find HDR too dim and want a brighter image, use the 'Dark HDR' Picture Mode with Gamma set to '1.8', Color Temperature set to 'Cool', and Contrast and Backlight each at their max. This results in a noticeably brighter image, as seen in this EOTF. However, the image is inaccurate as increasing Contrast makes the image too blue, as seen in this color gamut photo.

The color volume is disappointing. It displays dark, saturated colors well thanks to its amazing contrast. However, it's limited by the lack of a wide color gamut and by its low peak brightness.

The Hisense R6090G has okay gradient handling. There's noticeable banding in all shades, especially with gray and green. The Noise Reduction setting in the Roku app doesn't improve the gradient handling at all.

There are some very minor signs of image retention after displaying a high-contrast static image, but it's not detected in our testing. However, this may 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.

The Hisense R6090G has a decent response time, but you still may notice some motion blur in fast-moving scenes. There's a bit of overshoot in dark transitions, so you may notice some motion artifacts in dark scenes as well.

This TV uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight at all brightness levels below 100. It's flicker-free with Backlight set to its max.

The Hisense R6090G doesn't have a Black Frame Insertion feature. The backlight flickers at 180Hz at all backlight levels below 100.

This TV doesn't have a motion interpolation feature.

Due to the TV's somewhat slower response time, there's not much stutter when displaying lower-frame rate content.

The Hisense R6090G automatically removes judder from native 24p sources, such as from Blu-ray players or native apps. There's no setting needed to remove it.

This TV doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology.

The Hisense R6090G has an excellent low input lag, and it's a significant improvement over the Hisense H6570G and the Hisense H6510G. It stays low as long as you have Game Mode enabled, but it significantly increases with a 1440p resolution, so it's not ideal for 1440p games with the Xbox One Series X. If you want to use it as a PC monitor and want the lowest input lag possible, you just need to enable Game Mode.

This TV supports most comment resolutions at 60Hz and displays chroma 4:4:4 at any resolution. If you want to use it as a computer monitor and for it to display chroma 4:4:4, you just need to enable Game Mode. It also accepts 1080p and 1440p @ 120Hz signals, but it skips frames and doesn't display proper 4:4:4. For full-bandwidth signals, enable HDMI 2.0 for the input you're using.

The Hisense R6090G has one USB input, but the Hisense R6E3 variant at Walmart has two.

This TV can pass both DTS and Dolby Digital via ARC or optical, which is great, but it doesn't support eARC. For ARC to work, simply enable ARC and set S/PDIF and ARC to 'Auto Passthrough'.

The Hisense R6090G has a bad frequency response. It doesn't produce any bass and doesn't get loud, either. However, it has a fairly well-balanced sound profile that helps with listening to clear dialogue.

This TV has decent distortion performance. There's minimal distortion at moderate listening levels, and even though it slightly increases at its max volume, most people won't hear it and it depends on the volume.

The built-in Roku TV interface is easy-to-use and the menus are very smooth to navigate. We did experience one bug during testing; when we went to the 'Home' page and back to the input we were originally on, the screen would cut in half vertically, as seen in this photo. Returning to the 'Home' menu and back to the input once again resolved the issue the majority of the time. If you have this TV and experience the same issue, let us know.

There are ads and suggested content on the 'Home' page and there's no way to opt-out of them. We couldn't get a picture of them, but you can see the ads on the TCL 5 Series/S535 2020 QLED in this photo.

The Roku app store has a great selection of apps you can download and they run smoothly for the most part.

The Hisense R6090G comes with the same Roku remote as other TCL Roku TVs, such as the TCL 6 Series/R635 2020 QLED. It's a basic remote with quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. It doesn't have voice control but you can use the voice control feature in the Roku app on your mobile device. It allows you to change inputs and search for content, but you can't ask it to change settings on the TV.

There's a button underneath the TV that allows you to power it On/Off and change inputs.

• Remote (with 2x AAA batteries)
• User manuals