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 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.

The Hisense R6090G's peak brightness isn't bad. This TV gets much brighter than the Hisense H6510G, and even though it should be bright enough for a dim-to-moderately-lit room, it's not enough to combat intense glare. 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.

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.

This TV has disappointing peak brightness in HDR. It only gets a bit 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.

If you want a slightly brighter image and don't mind losing image accuracy, set the Picture Mode to 'Normal HDR', Color Temperature to 'Normal', Gamma to '1.8', and Contrast to its max. We reached 313 cd/m² in the 10% window using these settings.

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 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 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 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.