Hisense U7G  TV Review

The Hisense U7G has a very similar design to the Hisense U6G and the Hisense H8G. The bezels are extremely thin on three sides.

Unfortunately, shortly after taking the 2-month photos and measurements, the backlight on the Hisense U7G failed. We discovered that a power cable running between the LED driver board and the power supply had burnt out. The burnt cable, power supply, and LED driver board were replaced, and the TV is now working properly. You can read more about this failure in our 3-month longevity update.

The feet are wide-set, and support the TV well. If you have a narrow table, they can be set closer to reduce the footprint, seen here.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the configuration shown: 47.6" x 10.6". When set in the alternate position, the feet have a footprint of 36.4" x 10.6". The feet lift the TV 2.4 inches above the table in either position, which is a bit low, so most soundbars will partially block the screen.

The back is nearly identical to the Hisense U6G. The back panel is divided into two sections. The panel that covers the display is made of metal, and the section that covers the electronics is made of plastic. Like the Hisense U6G there are clips to help with cable management. The inputs face to the side, and they're easy to access even when the TV is wall mounted.

Unlike the Hisense U8G, the clips on the back of the TV don't seem to be removable, and they stick out about 0.4 of an inch (1cm).

Overall, the Hisense U7G has decent build quality. There's some wobble to the stand, but it's not too noticeable. The metal portions of the back feel well-built, but there's a bit of flex to the plastic portions that cover the electronics.

The Hisense U7G has outstanding contrast, so blacks look black in a dark room. The local dimming feature helps to boost the contrast ratio a bit, but it's not as effective as the Hisense U8G. The 75-inch model has a much worse contrast, as it uses a different type of panel.

The local dimming feature performs the same in Game Mode as in the other picture modes, which is great.

The Hisense U7G has good peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough for most HDR content, and small highlights stand out in most scenes. It's not as bright as the Hisense U8G, but unlike the U8G, it follows the EOTF pretty much perfectly. Most scenes display at the correct brightness, and it rolls off gradually as it approaches the TV's peak brightness, which ensures that bright highlights aren't clipped and there's no loss of fine details. These measurements are in the 'HDR Theater' Picture Mode, which is also the brightest HDR mode on this TV. If you prefer a large TV with much higher HDR peak brightness, then consider the TCL R745 QLED.

Switching to Game Mode results in no noticeable change in the HDR peak brightness. If you play a lot of HDR games and care about HDR brightness, then consider the Sony X95K.

The Hisense U7G has amazing peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to easily overcome glare, but there's some variation in brightness with different content.

These measurements are with the calibrated settings, in the 'Theater Night' Picture Mode with the Backlight set to 'Max' and Local Dimming to 'High'. These settings are the most accurate, and unlike most TVs, they're also the brightest.

The Hisense U7G has an impressive color gamut. It uses Quantum Dot technology to achieve a wider color gamut than traditional LCDs. It can display a wide color gamut for the latest HDR content, with nearly complete coverage of the DCI P3 color space used by most current HDR content. It falls a bit short on all primaries, but this isn't very noticeable with most content. Coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color gamut is just okay, so it's not very future-proof. It has great tone mapping in both color spaces, ensuring fine details are preserved.

The Hisense U7G has impressive color volume. It displays most bright colors really bright, but it's limited by its incomplete color gamut, so not all colors get that bright.

Unfortunately, the Hisense U7G has mediocre accuracy out of the box. The biggest issue is the white balance, which is noticeably inaccurate, especially in brighter scenes. There are also some issues with saturated yellows and blues, and the color temperature is a bit warm. On the other hand, gamma is very close to the 2.2 target for a moderately-lit room, with only a few very minor issues in very dark and very bright scenes. If color accuracy is important to you, then check out the Vizio M7 Series Quantum 2021 instead.

After calibration, the Hisense U7G has much better accuracy. The white balance was easy to calibrate, and it looks incredible after calibration. There's a color calibration system (CMS), but any changes to it actually make the overall color accuracy worse. Some colors are still slightly off, but they're not noticeable to the naked eye.

You can see the full calibration settings here.

The Hisense U7G has decent gray uniformity. There's a fair bit of dirty screen effect throughout the center of the screen, which can be distracting when watching sports. There's very little vignetting, though; the corners appear almost identical to the center of the screen. The near-dark uniformity is even better, with no noticeable dirty screen effect.

The Hisense U7G has good black uniformity. There's some blooming around bright objects in dark scenes with local dimming disabled, but there's very little backlight bleed or uniformity issues.

Unfortunately, enabling local dimming makes the black uniformity a bit worse, as there's significant blooming around our test cross. The better local dimming feature on the Hisense U8G makes a big difference here, as it can dim much tighter to the cross, resulting in significantly less blooming.

The Hisense 65U7G has a disappointing viewing angle, so it's not ideal for a wide seating arrangement, as the image fades as you move off-center. Unlike more expensive competitors, like the Samsung QN90A, it isn't available with a wide-angle filter to improve viewing angles. The 75-inch model has a much wider viewing angle, as it uses a different panel type.

The Hisense U7G has decent reflection handling, but it's a bit worse than the Hisense U8G. The semi-gloss finish diffuses reflections a bit. Thankfully, it can get extremely bright, so you can just increase the backlight to overcome any bright glare.

Like most TVs on the market, the Hisense 65U7G uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional Red-Green-Blue layout. This reduces text clarity when using the TV as a PC monitor, but there are workarounds for this. For video content, including games, it doesn't make any difference. You can read more about this here.

The Hisense 65U7G has a very good response time. It's a bit slower than the Hisense U8G, but motion still looks good when gaming. Like most VA panels, there's worse motion smearing in dark scenes, but there's no noticeable overshoot. Unfortunately, due to the flicker of the backlight, there are noticeable duplications in motion.

Some 2021 Hisense TVs have an issue with red fringing, including the Hisense U8G. This issue is also present on the U7G, but it's not as noticeable as the U8G.

The 4k @ 120Hz response time in Game Mode is a bit slower than the 60Hz response time out of Game Mode. The 80% average response time is 4.6ms, and the average 100% response time is 14.5ms.

The Hisense U7G isn't technically flicker-free, but it flickers at such a high frequency that it won't bother most people.

The Hisense U7G has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as (BFI), which reduces the appearance of persistence blur by reducing the backlight flicker frequency. Unfortunately, this causes noticeable duplications in motion with 60fps content, as it can only flicker at 120Hz. There's also noticeable strobe crosstalk, which can be distracting. The replacement model to this TV, the Hisense U7H, can flicker at both 60 and 120Hz, so there's no duplication in motion with 60Hz signals.

Note that our BFI scoring is only based on the refresh rates and frequencies supported and doesn't reflect how the BFI feature performs.

The Hisense U7G has an optional motion interpolation feature that can improve the appearance of motion. Subjectively, it appears to perform similar to the Hisense U8G. It's not as good as more expensive competitors, like the Sony X90J or the Samsung QN90A QLED, and there are more noticeable artifacts, especially in busy scenes.

There's some stutter when watching low frame rate content, like movies. It's especially noticeable in slow panning shots.

The Hisense U7G automatically removes judder from any source, ensuring a smooth movie-watching experience.

The Hisense U7G has a fast refresh rate, and it supports variable refresh rate technology (VRR) to reduce screen tearing. Unfortunately, G-SYNC Compatible doesn't work properly, as it doesn't prevent tearing at all.

The Hisense U7G has outstanding low input lag, as long as you're in the 'Game' Picture mode, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience. While it's not as good as most dedicated gaming monitors, it's still low enough for most serious gamers.

The Hisense U7G supports almost everything. 1440p resolutions are supported, but they're not exposed in the EDID, so they have to be forced. You can do this either through custom HDMI settings on an Xbox or through your graphics card's control panel software as a custom resolution. It can display proper 4:4:4 chroma in most supported resolutions, but the Picture Mode has to be set to 'Game'. Unfortunately, like many 2021 TVs, chroma 4:4:4 isn't displayed properly with 4k @ 120Hz signals, as the resolution is vertically halved. This isn't really noticeable when gaming, but causes text clarity issues with a PC.

The Hisense U7G supports all the features of the new generation of gaming consoles, except for 120Hz Dolby Vision, which isn't currently supported by most TVs. The resolution halving issue with 4k @ 120Hz 4:4:4 signals is still present, but it's not really noticeable when gaming on a PS5 or Xbox Series X.

Like the Hisense U8G, the Hisense U7G has two HDMI 2.1 ports. One of them doubles as the eARC/ARC port, so if you're planning on using an external receiver connected over eARC, you can only connect one other HDMI 2.1 device to the TV.

The Hisense U7G supports eARC and can pass all of the common formats through to a supported receiver or soundbar.

The Hisense U7G has mediocre sound quality. The low-frequency extension (LFE) is very high, resulting in very limited bass response, with no thump or rumble. Above the LFE, the frequency response is okay at moderate levels but lacks a bit in the upper treble range. It gets very loud, but there's a bit of compression at max volume.

The Hisense U7G has decent distortion performance. There's very little audible total harmonic distortion at moderate volume levels, but it's worse at high volume levels. This depends on the content, though, and not everyone will even notice it.

The Hisense U7G's smart interface has been updated to Android 10, from Android 9.0 on the Hisense H8G. Unlike Sony TVs, Hisense has opted not to switch to Google TV. The underlying platform is nearly identical, but the interface is a bit different. Overall, the interface is fast and easy to use.

We experienced a strange bug when connecting a PC to the TV. Plugging in the HDMI to the back of the TV caused the image to appear washed out as if a filter was applied to the screen. The only way we found to remove it was to switch the Smart Scene feature on and then off again. We didn't have this issue with any other source.

Unfortunately, like almost all TVs on the market, there are ads, and they can't be disabled directly from the TV. The rows of suggested content can be disabled, though, which is nice.

The Hisense U7G has a huge selection of apps from the built-in Google Play Store.

The Hisense U7G comes with the same remote as the Hisense U8G. There are more dedicated app buttons than last year. It has built-in voice controls that allow you to change inputs, open or search in specific apps, or ask basic questions like "What time is it?". Unfortunately, the voice controls can't change settings on the TV.

The controls under the TV are pretty standard and work in a pinch. Hisense has a few extra features here, though, that are a nice touch. There's a built-in mic on the TV that can perform the same function as the voice commands on the remote, but here Hisense has added a switch to disable the mic if you're concerned about privacy. From the menu that pops up when you press the power button there's a unique "Find my remote" feature.

• Quick Setup Guide
• Remote
• Batteries
• AV Composite adapter
• Power cable