The Hisense U8H is a mid-range 4k TV released in 2022. It's the second-highest model in Hisense's 2022 ULED lineup, sitting above the Hisense U7H and below the Hisense U9H. It's available in three sizes, ranging from 55" to 75", and all three sizes offer very similar performance. It replaces the Hisense U8G, and while it's very similar, Hisense has upped its specs a bit with a new Mini LED backlight with up to 528 dimming zones and a slightly updated design. It comes with the user-friendly Google TV 11 interface, an upgraded version of the Android TV interface found on the 2021 Hisense lineup. It has a great selection of gaming features, including HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two of its HDMI ports and FreeSync variable refresh rate support. In Canada, this TV is the U88H, which performs the same. There are international variants that use the same or similar names, but they perform differently.
Our Verdict
The Hisense U8H is an excellent TV all-around. It's an excellent TV for watching movies in a dark room thanks to its high contrast ratio and great local dimming feature. HDR content looks incredible as it gets incredibly bright and has a wide color gamut, so the latest movies look incredibly realistic and lifelike. It's a great TV for watching shows or sports in a bright room, but because it has a narrow viewing angle, it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement as the image degrades when viewed off-center. Finally, it's an amazing TV for gaming thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, FreeSync support, low input lag, and fast response time.
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Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Excellent reflection handling.
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Image degrades when viewed from the side.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is an excellent TV for watching movies in a dark room. It has fantastic contrast and an impressive local dimming feature, so blacks are deep and uniform, with very little blooming around bright highlights in dark scenes. It upscales lower-resolution content well, which is great if you have a collection of movies on DVD. Sadly, due to its quick response time, there's some noticeable stutter in slow panning shots.
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Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Excellent black uniformity.
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Low-resolution content is upscaled without any issues.
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Noticeable stutter in low frame rate content.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is a great TV for watching shows during the day. It has exceptional peak brightness and excellent reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue even in a very bright room. It has a great smart interface with a huge selection of streaming apps, so you're sure to find your favorite shows. It also upscales lower resolution content well, which is great if you have TV shows on Blu-ray or DVD. Sadly, it has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not ideal if you have a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on, as the image degrades as you move off-center.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Excellent reflection handling.
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Low-resolution content is upscaled without any issues.
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Noticeable stutter in low frame rate content.
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Image degrades when viewed from the side.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is a great TV for watching sports in a bright room. It has excellent reflection handling and exceptional peak brightness, so it can easily overcome glare in any viewing environment. It also has an okay frequency response, and it gets decently loud. It has great gray uniformity, with just a bit of dirty screen effect in the center, and it has a fast response time, so fast action is clear. On the other hand, it has a sub-par viewing angle, so it's not ideal for a wide seating arrangement, as the people watching it from the sides will see a faded, washed-out image.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Excellent reflection handling.
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Low-resolution content is upscaled without any issues.
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Image degrades when viewed from the side.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H delivers an amazing gaming experience. It has superb low input lag, delivering a very responsive gaming experience. It also has a great selection of gaming features, including FreeSync variable refresh rate support. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, meaning it can take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X and the PS5. Sadly, there's some noticeable red ghosting when gaming.
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Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Superb low input lag.
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Excellent motion handling and a fast response time.
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Great selection of gaming features.
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Red ghosting in some content.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is an amazing TV for watching movies in HDR. Thanks to its fantastic contrast ratio, impressive local dimming feature, and incredible peak brightness in HDR bright highlights look incredible. It tracks the PQ EOTF extremely well, ensuring that most content looks the way the content creator intended. It also has an excellent color gamut, so most HDR content looks vivid and lifelike. Unfortunately, due to its fast response time, there's some noticeable stutter in slow panning shots.
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Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Excellent black uniformity.
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Excellent wide color gamut and amazing color volume.
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Noticeable stutter in low frame rate content.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is an amazing TV for gaming in HDR. It delivers an amazing gaming experience thanks to its low input lag and excellent response, and it has a great selection of gaming features. HDR content looks amazing thanks to its fantastic contrast ratio, impressive local dimming feature, and incredible high peak brightness, so bright highlights look incredible, and it delivers a more realistic picture in some games.
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Fantastic contrast results in deep blacks in a dark room.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Superb low input lag.
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Excellent motion handling and a fast response time.
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Great selection of gaming features.
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Red ghosting in some content.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
The Hisense U8H is a good TV for use as a PC monitor, but there are a few issues with it. It has very good uniformity, so there's very little dirty screen effect in areas of uniform color, like a website with a uniform background. It has low input lag and a fast response time, ensuring a smooth, responsive desktop experience. On the other hand, it has a suboptimal BGR subpixel layout, which causes some text clarity issues in certain apps. It also has a narrow viewing angle, so the sides of the screen appear non-uniform if you're sitting too close to the screen.
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Exceptionally bright in both SDR and HDR.
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Superb low input lag.
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Excellent motion handling and a fast response time.
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Image degrades when viewed from the side.
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International variants use the same name but perform differently.
- 8.7 Mixed Usage
- 9.0 Movies
- 8.3 TV Shows
- 8.3 Sports
- 9.0 Video Games
- 8.9 HDR Movies
- 9.0 HDR Gaming
- 8.3 PC Monitor
- Updated Apr 27, 2023: We took additional photos and PQ EOTF measurements with FreeSync enabled.
- Updated Apr 11, 2023: We checked the PQ EOTF tracking with both 'HDMI Input Optimization' settings. We also took some pictures in-game, as the 'Text Clarity Optimization' setting results in blown out highlights in HDR.
- Updated Apr 03, 2023: We uploaded the brightness measurements and uniformity photos after running the TV for four months in our Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Mar 09, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 1.10. With this update we've revamped our Gradient testing, added a new test for Low Quality Content Smoothing, and expanded our Audio Passthrough testing.
- Updated Mar 01, 2023: With the latest firmware update M1103, G-SYNC Compatible mode is now working properly. Hisense has also added a new HDMI Input Optimization setting, which allows for proper 4k @ 120Hz 4:4:4 from a PC, so we've updated the list of supported resolutions. We've also updated our pre-calibration settings to match the new setting names used by Hisense.
- Updated Feb 06, 2023: We uploaded the brightness measurements and uniformity photos after running the TV for two months in our Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Jan 11, 2023: Updated to Test Bench 1.9, modifying our Contrast testing and splitting our local dimming testing into multiple sections covering Blooming, Black Crush, and Lighting Zone Transitions. You can see our full changelog here.
- Updated Nov 24, 2022: We bought and tested the TCL 6 Series/R655 2022 QLED, and added a few relevant comparisons to this review.
- Updated Nov 17, 2022: We uploaded the initial brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Oct 19, 2022: We bought and tested the Vizio M Series Quantum X 2022 and added a few relevant comparisons to this review. Check out our full comparison here.
- Updated Oct 17, 2022: We bought and tested the Hisense U7H, and added a few comparisons in this review. See our full comparison between these two TVs here.
- Updated Sep 23, 2022: Review published.
- Updated Sep 20, 2022: Early access published.
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 65-inch Hisense U8H, and the results are also valid for the 55-inch and 75-inch models. In Canada, it's known as the Hisense U88H, and it performs the same. There are similarly named international models, including the U8HG, U8HSG, and the U8H in Australia, but these models use a completely different panel and smart platform, and these results aren't valid for those models.
| Size | US Model | Local Dimming Zones | Panel Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55" | 55U8H | 336 | VA |
| 65" | 65U8H | 504 | VA |
| 75" | 75U8H | 528 | VA |
The unit we tested was manufactured in May 2022, and you can see the label here.
Compared To Other TVs
The Hisense U8H delivers incredible performance for the price, significantly outperforming any other TV in its price range like the TCL 6 Series/R655 2022 QLED, making it by far the best mid-range TV on the market in 2022. It has limited processing capabilities compared to the more expensive competitors, resulting in worse gradient handling and slightly higher input lag. Sadly, there are still some bugs and issues with it, including red ghosting in some scenes.
See also our recommendations for the best 65-inch TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best TVs for bright rooms.
The Hisense U8H is better than the TCL 6 Series/R655 2022 QLED. The Hisense has a better local dimming feature, as blacks aren't raised as much in dark scenes and there's significantly less blooming, as the local dimming feature on the Hisense dims closer to bright objects in dark scenes, whereas the TCL tends to spread the highlights out across many zones. The Hisense also has a faster response time, making it a better choice for gamers.
The Hisense U8H is significantly better than the Hisense U7H. The U8H delivers much better picture quality, as it has a better local dimming feature with a Mini LED backlight. The U8H also delivers a better gaming experience, as it has a significantly faster panel with much less ghosting behind fast-moving objects. Finally, the U8H looks better in a bright room as it has much better reflection handling and gets much brighter in SDR, meaning it can handle more glare.
The Hisense U8H is much better than the Sony X90K. The Hisense has much better reflection handling, and it gets significantly brighter, so it's a better choice for a bright viewing environment as it can better overcome glare. The Hisense delivers a more impactful HDR experience, as it gets significantly brighter in HDR and can display a wider color gamut.
The Hisense U8H is a bit better than its predecessor, the Hisense U8G. The U8H has a more effective local dimming feature, significantly increasing contrast with local dimming enabled. The U8H is also a lot brighter, and it displays HDR content much closer to the content creator's intent. Finally, the U8H has been updated to the latest Google TV interface, which is a bit faster and smoother than the older Android TV interface on the Hisense U8H.
The Hisense U8H and the Samsung QN90B QLED deliver very similar picture quality overall, but the Samsung is a bit better overall. The Hisense has better native contrast, and it displays content closer to what the content creator intended. On the other hand, the Samsung TV has much better processing overall, so upscaled content looks a bit better, and there's less banding in areas of similar color. Thanks to its wide-angle filter, the Samsung is a much better choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains consistent when viewed from the sides.
The Hisense U8H and the Samsung QN90A QLED offer very similar picture quality overall, but the Samsung has better processing and a wider viewing angle, so it's slightly better overall. The Hisense has better native contrast, and it has better accuracy in HDR, as most content is displayed at the brightness level the content creator intended. On the other hand, the Samsung TV has much better processing overall, so upscaled content looks a bit better, and there's less banding in areas of similar color. Thanks to its wide-angle filter, the Samsung is a much better choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains consistent when viewed from the sides.
The Hisense U8H is significantly better than the LG QNED85. The U8H has much better contrast, with significantly less blooming around bright areas of dark scenes. The Hisense also gets significantly brighter in both SDR and HDR, and it has a better anti-reflective coating, so it can better overcome glare and bring out highlights in HDR better. The LG has a much wider viewing angle, but unless you're in a moderately-lit room with a wide seating arrangement, the Hisense is still much better.
The Hisense U8H is significantly better than the LG QNED80. The Hisense delivers much better picture quality in dark rooms thanks to its higher contrast and better local dimming. It's also much better for HDR because it supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, which the LG doesn't support, and it gets much brighter for better highlights and more vivid colors.
The Hisense U8H is much better than the Sony X90J. The Hisense looks much better in a bright room, as it has much better reflection handling, and it gets significantly brighter so it can better overcome glare. The Hisense also delivers a more impactful HDR experience, as it gets significantly brighter in HDR and can display a wider color gamut.
The Hisense U8H is significantly better than the Vizio M Series Quantum X 2022. The Hisense delivers much better picture quality, with better reflection handling, better uniformity, and higher peak brightness. The Hisense also has much better dark room performance thanks to its Mini LED backlight, which delivers much higher contrast than the Vizio, with significantly less blooming around bright objects in dark scenes.
Test Results
The Hisense U8H has a premium design that looks great in any room. It has extremely thin bezels on three sides, and even the bottom bezel is incredibly thin, so it blends well into your surroundings. The feet are slim and don't take up much space.
The feet are wide-set and support the TV well. They're very thin, made of premium materials, and there's just a bit of wobble front to back.
Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the wide position: 44" x 14.76". In the narrow position, the 65-inch stand has a footprint of 31.3" x 14.76". In either position, the feet lift the TV about 3.4" above the table, so most soundbars fit in front without blocking the screen.
The back of the TV is made of plastic, with a textured horizontal pattern and vents along the top. There's also a built-in subwoofer on the back of the TV near the center. There are clips built-in to the feet to help with cable management. The inputs are on the left-hand side of the TV when facing the front, and they're easy to access.
The Hisense U8H has good build quality. There's a bit of front and back wobble, but the feet support the TV well overall. It's mainly made of a mix of hard plastic and metal, and it looks and feels well built overall. There are no obvious quality control issues with our unit. There's a bit of flex in the back panel, but it doesn't cause any issues.
The Hisense U8H has fantastic contrast. Blacks are deep in a dark room, and the local dimming feature is extremely effective at boosting bright highlights while maintaining low black levels in bright scenes. It's an noticeable improvement over the Hisense U8G, especially with local dimming enabled, which is nearly twice as effective at boosting contrast.
The local dimming feature performs the same in Game Mode as in the other picture modes, which is great.
The Hisense U8H gets exceptionally bright in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in any viewing environment, even outdoors in indirect sunlight. It can't get quite as bright with extremely bright scenes that cover close to the entire screen, but it's still bright enough to overcome glare.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Theater Night
- Backlight: Max
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm 1
The Hisense U8H is incredibly bright in HDR. Bright highlights stand out incredibly well, delivering an impactful HDR experience with both games and movies.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: HDR Theater
- Backlight: Max
- Contrast: 90
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm1
There's no noticeable difference in brightness in 'Game' mode. These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: HDR Game
- Backlight: Max
- Contrast: 90
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Temperature: Warm1
The Hisense U8H tracks the target PQ EOTF extremely well with the most accurate picture mode. There's a slow roll-off as the brightness approaches the TV's peak brightness, so fine details in bright scenes are preserved well. The EOTF in 'FILMMAKER' mode looks nearly the same as the 'HDR Theater' Picture Mode, but that mode locks you out of most settings. Setting Local Dimming to 'Low' results in a less accurate EOTF overall.
The HDMI Input Optimization setting has an impact on the PQ EOTF tracking. With it set to 'Text Clarity Optimization', there's more noticeable clipping in bright areas of the scene when gaming at 4k @ 120Hz, so the image looks a bit more washed out. The 'Picture Quality Optimization' setting more accurately tracks the PQ EOTF, and HDR games look much better. For the best results, you should only use the 'Text Clarity Optimization' setting when displaying text from a PC, not when gaming or watching media.
| Text Clarity Mode | PQ EOTF | In-Game Photo 1 | In-Game Photo 2 |
| Text Clarity | PQ-EOTF |  |  |
| Picture Clarity | PQ-EOTF |  |  |
The brightness and EOTF tracking behave a bit differently depending on the FreeSync setting:
| FreeSync Setting | PQ EOTF | In-Game Photo 1 | In-Game Photo 2 |
| On | PQ EOTF |  |  |
| Off | N/A |  |  |
The Hisense U8H has an excellent HDR color gamut. It can display almost all of the DCI-P3 color space used by most Ultra HD Blu-ray movies. It also has very good coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, which is gaining in popularity, especially in animated films and some nature documentaries.
The Hisense U8H has amazing color volume in HDR. Thanks to its high peak brightness and fantastic contrast ratio, it can display colors well across at all luminance levels. Colors are bright and vibrant, and it displays dark saturated colors well.
The Hisense U8H has excellent accuracy out of the box. Gamma follows the 2.2 target we chose nearly perfectly, and the white balance is great. Color accuracy is excellent, and except for pure blues, there are no noticeable issues. The color temperature is very close to the target.
The Hisense U8H has incredible accuracy after calibration to a 6500K white point. It's a bit tricky to calibrate, as minor changes to one point would make another look worse, but because it already has fantastic accuracy out-of-the-box, you don't need to calibrate it too much for an accurate image.
You can see the full settings for our calibration here.
The Hisense U8H has great gray uniformity. There's a bit of vignetting in the corners but very little dirt screen effect in the center. Dark scenes look even better, as there are almost no noticeable issues.
The Hisense U8H has excellent black uniformity. With local dimming disabled, there's some noticeable backlight bleed, especially in the corners, and there are a few bright patches throughout the screen. With local dimming enabled, however, the uniformity is much better. There's a bit of blooming around the test cross, but it's very minor, thanks to the high native contrast ratio and full-array local dimming feature.
Sadly, the Hisense U8H has a sub-par viewing angle. The image fades and looks washed out as you move even slightly off-center. It makes it a poor choice for a wide seating arrangement, as anyone sitting off-center will see a degraded image. Unlike high-end TVs from other manufacturers, like the Sony X95J or the Samsung QN90B QLED, there's no wide-angle filter to improve the viewing angle.
The Hisense U8H has excellent reflection handling. The semi-gloss coating significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections. Unlike many high-end TVs, there's no rainbow smear with bright lights.
Like most TVs on the market, the Hisense U8H uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional Red-Green-Blue layout. For video content, it doesn't cause any issues, but if you're planning on using this TV as a PC monitor, this reduces text clarity a bit, although there are easy workarounds for it. You can read more about this here.
The Hisense U8H upscales 480p content, like DVDs, well, with no noticeable issues.
720p content, including most cable TV stations, is upscaled well, with no noticeable issues.
Like most TVs we've tested, 1080p content looks almost as good as native 4k content.
The Hisense U8H has an excellent response time. There's some blur around fast-moving objects, but it's mainly due to persistence blur. Games look great, and it's easy to make out fine details in fast action when watching sports. Unfortunately, like the Hisense U8G, there's noticeable red ghosting in some content.
Unfortunately, like most TVs on the market, the Hisense U8H uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight. Thankfully, it flickers at a very high rate at any backlight level, and it's not noticeable unless you're very sensitive to flicker.
The Hisense U8H has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to reduce persistence blur and improve the appearance of motion. It can flicker at both 60Hz with 60fps content and at 120Hz for 120fps content, ensuring that you don't see any duplications in motion. Note that the BFI score is based on the support flicker frequencies and don't indicate the performance of the BFI feature itself.
The Hisense U8H has an optional motion interpolation feature. With motion interpolation at its highest settings, there's noticeable artifacting in any fast motion, with visible halos in some scenes.
Due to the Hisense U8H's relatively fast response time, there's noticeable stutter when watching 24p content, like movies, as each frame is held longer on screen. It's especially noticeable in slow panning shots.
The Hisense U8H automatically removes judder from any source, ensuring a smooth movie-watching experience.
The Hisense U8H supports a variable refresh rate (VRR), and it's compatible with all sources that support VRR.
The Hisense U8H has superb low input lag, resulting in a responsive gaming or desktop experience. It's a bit higher than the best TVs on the market, like the LG C2 OLED, but it's not a significant difference.
Most common resolutions are supported by the Hisense U8H, and it displays chroma 4:4:4 properly, which is essential for clear text from a PC. 4k @ 120Hz is also displayed properly, even with chroma 4:4:4, as long as you set the HDMI Input Optimization setting to 'Text Clarity Optimization'.
The Hisense U8H can take full advantage of the PS5. It's compatible with all supported features of the PS5, including variable refresh rate support and 1440p support. There's also noticeable banding and posterization in gradients, but we don't know if there are any plans to fix this.
The Hisense U8H can take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X. It's compatible with all supported features of either Xbox, including variable refresh rate support and 1440p support. There's also noticeable banding and posterization in gradients, but we don't know if there are any plans to fix this. The manufacturer advertises it to support 4k @ 120Hz Dolby Vision gaming, but it's not working at the moment, and with the Xbox, Dolby Vision is limited to 4k @ 60Hz. If you start playing a game that supports Dolby Vision and have the refresh rate set to 120Hz, it'll fall back to HDR10 instead.
Two of the HDMI inputs support HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, with a maximum bandwidth of 48Gbps. Unfortunately, one of them is also the eARC port, so if you're planning on using an eARC device, you can only connect one other HDMI 2.1 device on the TV.
Unlike most TVs, the Hisense U8H supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. There are some reports of raised blacks with Dolby Vision content, but we couldn't reproduce the issue with our unit.
The U8H has an ATSC 3.0 tuner, allowing you to stream 4k channels over the air with an antenna. It's not working properly at the moment, though, as there are some reported issues with audio sync, and it appears to be downmixing Dolby 5.1 signals to PCM 2.0.
Unfortunately, there's no direct connection for composite sources. Instead, it requires an external breakout adapter, which is no longer included in the box.
The Hisense U8H supports eARC and can pass all the common formats through to a support receiver or soundbar.
The Hisense U8H has an okay frequency response. Thanks to the new built-in subwoofer, it produces more noticeable low bass than the Hisense U8G, but it's still not as good as an external subwoofer with a receiver system or soundbar. It's a bit boomy in the high-bass and high treble sounds are a bit under-emphasized, but otherwise, it has a well-balanced sound profile, and it gets decently loud.
This TV has good distortion performance. There's some audible total harmonic distortion, but mainly at high volume levels; it's not noticeable at moderate volume.
The Hisense U8H comes with Google TV 11, which is essentially an updated version of the Android TV platform used by 2021 Hisense TV models. It's redesigned with a few extra accessibility features, but other than that, it's the same user-friendly platform.
Like most modern TVs, there are ads and suggested content throughout the interface. You can opt-out of suggested content, but this just changes the type of ads you'll see, not the quantity.
The Google Play Store has a ton of apps you can download.
The Hisense U8H comes with a slightly redesigned remote compared to the remote that came with 2021 Hisense TVs. Like most modern remotes, it lacks a Numpad, and there are quick-access buttons to popular streaming services. The mic built into the remote and on the TV gives you access to Google Assistant and Alexa, so you can ask it to search for content, open apps, and switch inputs.
