The Hisense U8H is a more dazzling TV with juiced-up brightness, color saturation, and very dark darks giving it eye-popping contrast. A lot of folks who saw these TVs side by side would say the high-end Hisense is the better TV at least at first, it's more appetizing looking and by that I mean we watched a lot of content with beautiful full-screen footage and the same footage playing on both TVs looked more appetizing on the Hisense. It makes you want to eat the picture but.

The drawback is it's not as natural looking and less natural in my book means less realistic. The TCL is a more natural looking TV and it can still dazzle you when it should, not only that but it doesn't suffer from overly dark and dark areas nor does it have the motion Shimmer we saw in the Hisense U8H. Its motion resolution is also more smooth and more pleasing to the eye. It's not quite as bright as the high-end Hisense but it can still get plenty bright for most use cases.

For gaming, first let me just be totally transparent here, I think there are more qualified opinions out there about which might be the better TV for gaming from a deep dive perspective. However, I will say from a user standpoint that I like some of the recognition and automation the TCL provided when I connected my Xbox Series X console. I like that it can go up to 144 Hertz other than that though it's a draw they use the same chipsets and have the same connectivity and the same slight limitations honestly they're basically the same.

If it matters to you when it comes to sound quality, it's no contest the high-end Hisense beats the pants off the TCL R655. The TCL series just doesn't have very good audio while the Hisense has surprisingly robust sound. As for looks, take your pick, the central stand on the TCL or the Versatile legs on the Hisense, whatever works best for you.

The TCL R655 is available in an 85-inch model whereas the high-end Hisense U8H tops out at 75 inches so which TV is best? Well that depends on what you want if you want a TV with a lot of bling and are willing to look past some shortcomings to get it, the high-end Hisense U8H is arguably the more dazzling TV. It also has better sound and it runs Google TV.

If either of those steer you in a direction, if you want a more reserved or refined TV that has a bit more finesse, the TCL R655 is the better choice. It can also get very bright but you have to work harder to get it to do what you want and even then there are some levers for adjustment that you will never be able to touch so you'll need to be okay with that.

Which one would I personally pick for my home? Does that really matter well a lot of you seem to think it does so I'll go ahead and say that for myself with my particular needs and preferences, that is all very unique to me, I'd go for the TCL between these two. But that should not necessarily be your decision, weigh everything you've learned today in this video and make the best choice for you. Don't ever let anyone else tell you what your preference is or make you feel weird about what you like.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI have a lot of TV comparison videos to make before the holiday shopping season is in full swing but this one this is the one that I think is going to mean the most to the most people back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and today we're gonna pit the Hisense u8h against the TCL r6556 series TV will it even be close or will one of these TVs blow the other out of the water you may have already heard or seen a few things about each of these TVs and formed your own opinion but I really think you're going to want to hear what I have to say here because spoiler alert I don't necessarily agree with everything I've been hearing about either of these two TVs let alone in the context of a direct comparison so grab a snack get comfy let's have some fun with this by the way like I mentioned earlier I have a lot of TV comparisons I want to do but I'm limited on time and I still have new TVs to review as well so to help me figure out which TVs you most want to see compared would you do me a solid and drop me a comment about that down below and then of course subscribing and ringing the bell we'll make sure you see the video you want to see the most when I put it up thanks as always for your feedback I love it and I need it okay here we go so I know that what most of you want so desperately is for me to jump right into picture quality comparisons and I'm going to get there but before I do we have to talk about the fact that the Hisense uhh runs Google TV and the TCL runs Roku TV not just because those Smart TV platforms influence the overall experience of living with these TVs but because they also influence the picture quality which is going to be a big part of this discussion also this is my shot at trying to make future TVs work even better and you get to be a part of that so now that we all understand that we're changing the world here let's talk about Google TV versus Roku TV first let me mention that from an everyday use perspective I like both platforms I think they both have their pros and cons but overall I prefer these platforms to those made by TV brands themselves but what I want to talk about right now isn't about how easy it is to find the content you want to watch or how quickly the streaming apps load or even whether they support apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast Etc it's about how the TVs work on the back end when they run on a third-party platform like Google TV or Roku TV with the Google TV platform which we also see on Sony TVs as well as the Hisense u8h here there don't appear to be a whole lot of restrictions imposed by the platform itself in fact if we compare Sony's implementation to high senses we can see that there's a little bit of wiggle room in terms of what kind of picture presets can be used and what kind of picture adjustment options you can touch and I consider that a good thing that's why I tend to prefer Google TV for Android over Roku even though I I'd argue that Roku is a lot easier for the shall we say less tech savvy Among Us I mean honestly if I were buying a TV for my grandparents I'd probably get them a Roku TV because it's just easier to use but there's an issue with the Roku TV platform in terms of how much control a person can have over the picture it puts out there's stuff going on in the background that a user can't touch at all and furthermore some of the more granular controls that are available can't be touched unless you use the Roku app on a smartphone or tablet now for a Roku TV like the TCL 5 series or 4 Series or even some of the lower end Hisense Roku TVs that's not a problem at all in fact I think it's a bonus because it helps keep things simple for folks who want simple but for a TV like the r6556 series here are even some of tcl's higher performance TVs I'm starting to see that limited access cause a few concerns for me and anyone else who really wants to get the best out of their team V let me show you what I mean now I'm about to go a little deep into the tech stuff right now so if you just want to skip this part and go straight to the Takeaway on picture quality feel free to skip to that section by clicking the timestamp link down in the description but for the rest of you my friends and fellow knit nerds I think we have to start with brightness I imagine that many of you already know that the Hisense u8h is on balance a brighter TV but it isn't just the peak brightness for HDR highlights that's brighter the u8h is just bright bright bright bright bright bright it is brighter all the time now whether that's good for you or not is something I'll try to get to in a moment but for now if we accept that the Hisense u8h is a bright TV we naturally want to find out how the TCL 6 series Compares right and figuring that out has taken up a lot of my time here's why I'll start with HDR content for comparison first because well it's just a lot easier for me right now I pulled up some of this a hdr10 content on YouTube and ran it simultaneously on both of the TVs using their built-in YouTube app the Hisense picture preset again this is for HDR is set at filmmaker mode though I got similar results with HDR theater mode even though it was darker the TCL is set to dark HDR but here within this we also have other options darker dark normal bright and brighter this seems like it would be a sort of backlight level preset but if we look at the backlight setting in HDR it's always going to be maxed out so while it's nice to have this quick way to just brighten things up maybe depending on whether you're watching in the dark or a gloomy day or a really bright day this kind of goes against the idea of having a backlight control at all not only that but within the dark HDR picture mode it appears that there are limits on just how bright it will go if we go to The Brighter HDR setting I find each of these selections here are bright lighter than the same version within dark HDR which points to the fact that we're dealing with a sliding scale like the goal posts get moved and the issue I have with that is that you give up on some of the other accuracy Focus settings that are set in dark HDR when you move to a brighter HDR setting the color temperature changes and so if you wanted the brighter average Picture level but the more accurate white balance and color rendering you have to do a lot of work and it seems like there's some limitations here that you will not be able to get past so that makes it hard to do in Apples to Apples comparison between these two TVs but I do feel like the brightest setting in the tcl's dark HDR preset does get fairly close to the Hisense u8h without skewing a bunch of other picture quality elements so if we compare things that way what we see is that the u8h is a brighter more zingy more bling blingy TV there's more pop and it seems seems more contrasty too than the TCL the TCL by comparison seems a bit more reserved but it also looks a lot more realistic which I suppose you could also call more accurate the colors on the TCL don't seem artificially overdriven to the naked eye and by the measurements I took the TCL is indeed more accurate but I don't think that accurate is what a lot of folks are looking for I think a lot of folks want Dazzle and the Hisense u8h delivers a bit more of that than the tcl6 series in the side by side I think non-experts would say the Hisense looks better when playing HDR content at least from a sheer brightness and contrast perception perspective the u8h though does have some issues that might unwind that enthusiasm for example in HDR especially the u8h has a processing issue that causes Shimmer in highly detailed portions of an image with bright highlights this scene is a great example when there's version you get this Shimmer artifact on the u8h that you do not get on the tcl6 series and it's really obvious also again in HDR the u8h over darkens some dark areas to the point where you lose some detail you can see that in this scene here where there's some detail to be seen in the shadowy area of this object that's not easily visible on the u8h but it is on the 6 series and this isn't a backlight problem this is a processing thing because there is plenty of light surrounding the dark area this is the panel clamping down on light output not dimming of the backlight that's HDR but what about SDR still watch plenty of that stuff right well here we're playing the same SDR clip on both TVs and again we have to really work to try to equalize the TV's outputs due to very different picture settings options on each TV since we're not worried about Peak HDR highlights there's no information above 200 nits here we're really talking about average Picture level how bright do we want this content to look well it should come it's no surprise that the high sense can be a lot brighter than the TCL but what stands out to me is that in the movie mode even with the brightest setting turned on this TV is not getting anywhere near as bright as it could that makes sense for movie mode but it lacks contrast somehow there's not enough pop yet if I go into normal mode wow there's the pop it's a bit brighter and the perceived contrast is definitely much better but also the color temp is way off and there's motion smoothing among other things I want to fix so now we have to go and make most of the other settings available look more like they are set in the movie mode including color temperature and when we do that we get a much brighter picture on average but it took much more work to get there and it's still way too blue like fixing the white balance is going to take a lot more work turns out best as I can tell the best best move is to go with the movie mode pick the brightest setting then go into fine picture control and jack up the backlight the white balance will still be a little too warm and needs some adjustment but if you do all that work you can get an image that is pretty close in brightness to the u8h why it continues to take so much work to get to what I want escapes me but you know what I don't blame TCL I think it's a Roku TV platform thing I just wish it wasn't this way by the way TCL did not abandon Roku for Google TV and then decide to come back to Roku that's not what happened TCL is doing both at least that's been their plan all along I guess we'll see if it comes out with another Google TV after the bugs it experienced with the first version but I'm betting they will anyway moving on to motion resolution in general the TCL r655 is better it has smoother more natural motion with fewer artifacts than the u8h even without the HDR Shimmer stuff I mentioned before I honestly think that's enough said on that as for Blooming control is one TV significantly better than the other no not in a meaningful way I think both TVs have excellent backlight control in general and I think both do a great job of mitigating most blooming I went ahead and did the usual closed captions on letterbox bar test and both TVs did a great job can more expensive TVs do better some of them perhaps but other TVs aren't a part of this comparison are they so I'm calling a draw on blooming so after all of that detail what's the Takeaway on picture quality the Hisense u8h is a more dazzling TV it's Juiced up brightness Juiced up color saturation and very dark darks give it eye-popping contrast I know a lot of folks who if they saw these TVs side by side would say the high sense is the better TV at least at first it's more appetizing looking and by that I mean we watched a lot of content with beautiful full food footage and the same footage playing on both TVs looked more appetizing on the Hisense it makes you want to eat the picture but the drawback it's not as natural looking and less natural in my book means less realistic the TCL is a more natural looking TV and it can still Dazzle you when it should not only that but it doesn't suffer from overly dark and dark areas nor does it have the motion Shimmer we saw in the Hisense u8h its motion resolution is also more smooth and more pleasing to the eye it's not quite as bright as the high sensor 8h but it can still get plenty bright for most use cases and for general image processing the TCL is doing a better job overall now as for gaming first let me just be totally transparent here I think there are more qualified opinions out there about which might be the better TV for gaming from a deep dive perspective however I will say from a user standpoint that I like some of the recognition and automation the TCL provided when I connected my Xbox series X console I like that it can go up to 144 Hertz other than that though it it's a draw they use the same chipsets and have the same connectivity and the same slight limitations honestly they're basically the same and if it matters to you when it comes to sound quality it's no contest the Hisense u8h beats the pants off the TCL r655 the tcl6 series just doesn't have very good audio while the Hisense has surprisingly robust sound as for looks take your pick the central stand on the TCL or The Versatile legs on the Hisense whatever works best for you and the last thing I want to point out before I give you my big wrap up is that the TCL r655 is available in an 85 inch model whereas the Hisense u8h tops out at 75. so which TV is best well that depends on what you want if you want a TV with a lot of bling and are willing to look past some shortcomings to get it the Hisense u8h is arguably the more dazzling TV it also has better sound and it runs Google TV if either of those steer you in a direction if you want a more reserved or refined TV that has a bit more finesse the TCL r655 is the better choice it can also get very bright but you have to work harder to get it to do what you want and even then there are some levers for adjustment that you will never be able to touch so you'll need to be okay with that which one would I personally pick for my home does that really matter well a lot of you seem to think it does so I'll go ahead and say that for myself with my particular needs and preferences that are all very unique to me I'd go for the TCL between these two but that should not necessarily be your decision weigh everything you've learned today in this video and make the best choice for you don't ever let anyone else tell you what your preference is or make you feel weird about what you like in the end these TVs are both winners in my book actually I think as consumers we're the real winners they're both Stellar performers at prices that are well below what you'd expect for the picture quality I'll say this it's nice to be able to have to make such a tough decision thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think of this video did I make you feel comfortable about making a decision or maybe comfortable about the decision that you already made let me know about it down in the comments don't forget to like And subscribe and here's two other videos that I think you'll likeI have a lot of TV comparison videos to make before the holiday shopping season is in full swing but this one this is the one that I think is going to mean the most to the most people back everyone I'm Caleb Dennison and today we're gonna pit the Hisense u8h against the TCL r6556 series TV will it even be close or will one of these TVs blow the other out of the water you may have already heard or seen a few things about each of these TVs and formed your own opinion but I really think you're going to want to hear what I have to say here because spoiler alert I don't necessarily agree with everything I've been hearing about either of these two TVs let alone in the context of a direct comparison so grab a snack get comfy let's have some fun with this by the way like I mentioned earlier I have a lot of TV comparisons I want to do but I'm limited on time and I still have new TVs to review as well so to help me figure out which TVs you most want to see compared would you do me a solid and drop me a comment about that down below and then of course subscribing and ringing the bell we'll make sure you see the video you want to see the most when I put it up thanks as always for your feedback I love it and I need it okay here we go so I know that what most of you want so desperately is for me to jump right into picture quality comparisons and I'm going to get there but before I do we have to talk about the fact that the Hisense uhh runs Google TV and the TCL runs Roku TV not just because those Smart TV platforms influence the overall experience of living with these TVs but because they also influence the picture quality which is going to be a big part of this discussion also this is my shot at trying to make future TVs work even better and you get to be a part of that so now that we all understand that we're changing the world here let's talk about Google TV versus Roku TV first let me mention that from an everyday use perspective I like both platforms I think they both have their pros and cons but overall I prefer these platforms to those made by TV brands themselves but what I want to talk about right now isn't about how easy it is to find the content you want to watch or how quickly the streaming apps load or even whether they support apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast Etc it's about how the TVs work on the back end when they run on a third-party platform like Google TV or Roku TV with the Google TV platform which we also see on Sony TVs as well as the Hisense u8h here there don't appear to be a whole lot of restrictions imposed by the platform itself in fact if we compare Sony's implementation to high senses we can see that there's a little bit of wiggle room in terms of what kind of picture presets can be used and what kind of picture adjustment options you can touch and I consider that a good thing that's why I tend to prefer Google TV for Android over Roku even though I I'd argue that Roku is a lot easier for the shall we say less tech savvy Among Us I mean honestly if I were buying a TV for my grandparents I'd probably get them a Roku TV because it's just easier to use but there's an issue with the Roku TV platform in terms of how much control a person can have over the picture it puts out there's stuff going on in the background that a user can't touch at all and furthermore some of the more granular controls that are available can't be touched unless you use the Roku app on a smartphone or tablet now for a Roku TV like the TCL 5 series or 4 Series or even some of the lower end Hisense Roku TVs that's not a problem at all in fact I think it's a bonus because it helps keep things simple for folks who want simple but for a TV like the r6556 series here are even some of tcl's higher performance TVs I'm starting to see that limited access cause a few concerns for me and anyone else who really wants to get the best out of their team V let me show you what I mean now I'm about to go a little deep into the tech stuff right now so if you just want to skip this part and go straight to the Takeaway on picture quality feel free to skip to that section by clicking the timestamp link down in the description but for the rest of you my friends and fellow knit nerds I think we have to start with brightness I imagine that many of you already know that the Hisense u8h is on balance a brighter TV but it isn't just the peak brightness for HDR highlights that's brighter the u8h is just bright bright bright bright bright bright it is brighter all the time now whether that's good for you or not is something I'll try to get to in a moment but for now if we accept that the Hisense u8h is a bright TV we naturally want to find out how the TCL 6 series Compares right and figuring that out has taken up a lot of my time here's why I'll start with HDR content for comparison first because well it's just a lot easier for me right now I pulled up some of this a hdr10 content on YouTube and ran it simultaneously on both of the TVs using their built-in YouTube app the Hisense picture preset again this is for HDR is set at filmmaker mode though I got similar results with HDR theater mode even though it was darker the TCL is set to dark HDR but here within this we also have other options darker dark normal bright and brighter this seems like it would be a sort of backlight level preset but if we look at the backlight setting in HDR it's always going to be maxed out so while it's nice to have this quick way to just brighten things up maybe depending on whether you're watching in the dark or a gloomy day or a really bright day this kind of goes against the idea of having a backlight control at all not only that but within the dark HDR picture mode it appears that there are limits on just how bright it will go if we go to The Brighter HDR setting I find each of these selections here are bright lighter than the same version within dark HDR which points to the fact that we're dealing with a sliding scale like the goal posts get moved and the issue I have with that is that you give up on some of the other accuracy Focus settings that are set in dark HDR when you move to a brighter HDR setting the color temperature changes and so if you wanted the brighter average Picture level but the more accurate white balance and color rendering you have to do a lot of work and it seems like there's some limitations here that you will not be able to get past so that makes it hard to do in Apples to Apples comparison between these two TVs but I do feel like the brightest setting in the tcl's dark HDR preset does get fairly close to the Hisense u8h without skewing a bunch of other picture quality elements so if we compare things that way what we see is that the u8h is a brighter more zingy more bling blingy TV there's more pop and it seems seems more contrasty too than the TCL the TCL by comparison seems a bit more reserved but it also looks a lot more realistic which I suppose you could also call more accurate the colors on the TCL don't seem artificially overdriven to the naked eye and by the measurements I took the TCL is indeed more accurate but I don't think that accurate is what a lot of folks are looking for I think a lot of folks want Dazzle and the Hisense u8h delivers a bit more of that than the tcl6 series in the side by side I think non-experts would say the Hisense looks better when playing HDR content at least from a sheer brightness and contrast perception perspective the u8h though does have some issues that might unwind that enthusiasm for example in HDR especially the u8h has a processing issue that causes Shimmer in highly detailed portions of an image with bright highlights this scene is a great example when there's version you get this Shimmer artifact on the u8h that you do not get on the tcl6 series and it's really obvious also again in HDR the u8h over darkens some dark areas to the point where you lose some detail you can see that in this scene here where there's some detail to be seen in the shadowy area of this object that's not easily visible on the u8h but it is on the 6 series and this isn't a backlight problem this is a processing thing because there is plenty of light surrounding the dark area this is the panel clamping down on light output not dimming of the backlight that's HDR but what about SDR still watch plenty of that stuff right well here we're playing the same SDR clip on both TVs and again we have to really work to try to equalize the TV's outputs due to very different picture settings options on each TV since we're not worried about Peak HDR highlights there's no information above 200 nits here we're really talking about average Picture level how bright do we want this content to look well it should come it's no surprise that the high sense can be a lot brighter than the TCL but what stands out to me is that in the movie mode even with the brightest setting turned on this TV is not getting anywhere near as bright as it could that makes sense for movie mode but it lacks contrast somehow there's not enough pop yet if I go into normal mode wow there's the pop it's a bit brighter and the perceived contrast is definitely much better but also the color temp is way off and there's motion smoothing among other things I want to fix so now we have to go and make most of the other settings available look more like they are set in the movie mode including color temperature and when we do that we get a much brighter picture on average but it took much more work to get there and it's still way too blue like fixing the white balance is going to take a lot more work turns out best as I can tell the best best move is to go with the movie mode pick the brightest setting then go into fine picture control and jack up the backlight the white balance will still be a little too warm and needs some adjustment but if you do all that work you can get an image that is pretty close in brightness to the u8h why it continues to take so much work to get to what I want escapes me but you know what I don't blame TCL I think it's a Roku TV platform thing I just wish it wasn't this way by the way TCL did not abandon Roku for Google TV and then decide to come back to Roku that's not what happened TCL is doing both at least that's been their plan all along I guess we'll see if it comes out with another Google TV after the bugs it experienced with the first version but I'm betting they will anyway moving on to motion resolution in general the TCL r655 is better it has smoother more natural motion with fewer artifacts than the u8h even without the HDR Shimmer stuff I mentioned before I honestly think that's enough said on that as for Blooming control is one TV significantly better than the other no not in a meaningful way I think both TVs have excellent backlight control in general and I think both do a great job of mitigating most blooming I went ahead and did the usual closed captions on letterbox bar test and both TVs did a great job can more expensive TVs do better some of them perhaps but other TVs aren't a part of this comparison are they so I'm calling a draw on blooming so after all of that detail what's the Takeaway on picture quality the Hisense u8h is a more dazzling TV it's Juiced up brightness Juiced up color saturation and very dark darks give it eye-popping contrast I know a lot of folks who if they saw these TVs side by side would say the high sense is the better TV at least at first it's more appetizing looking and by that I mean we watched a lot of content with beautiful full food footage and the same footage playing on both TVs looked more appetizing on the Hisense it makes you want to eat the picture but the drawback it's not as natural looking and less natural in my book means less realistic the TCL is a more natural looking TV and it can still Dazzle you when it should not only that but it doesn't suffer from overly dark and dark areas nor does it have the motion Shimmer we saw in the Hisense u8h its motion resolution is also more smooth and more pleasing to the eye it's not quite as bright as the high sensor 8h but it can still get plenty bright for most use cases and for general image processing the TCL is doing a better job overall now as for gaming first let me just be totally transparent here I think there are more qualified opinions out there about which might be the better TV for gaming from a deep dive perspective however I will say from a user standpoint that I like some of the recognition and automation the TCL provided when I connected my Xbox series X console I like that it can go up to 144 Hertz other than that though it it's a draw they use the same chipsets and have the same connectivity and the same slight limitations honestly they're basically the same and if it matters to you when it comes to sound quality it's no contest the Hisense u8h beats the pants off the TCL r655 the tcl6 series just doesn't have very good audio while the Hisense has surprisingly robust sound as for looks take your pick the central stand on the TCL or The Versatile legs on the Hisense whatever works best for you and the last thing I want to point out before I give you my big wrap up is that the TCL r655 is available in an 85 inch model whereas the Hisense u8h tops out at 75. so which TV is best well that depends on what you want if you want a TV with a lot of bling and are willing to look past some shortcomings to get it the Hisense u8h is arguably the more dazzling TV it also has better sound and it runs Google TV if either of those steer you in a direction if you want a more reserved or refined TV that has a bit more finesse the TCL r655 is the better choice it can also get very bright but you have to work harder to get it to do what you want and even then there are some levers for adjustment that you will never be able to touch so you'll need to be okay with that which one would I personally pick for my home does that really matter well a lot of you seem to think it does so I'll go ahead and say that for myself with my particular needs and preferences that are all very unique to me I'd go for the TCL between these two but that should not necessarily be your decision weigh everything you've learned today in this video and make the best choice for you don't ever let anyone else tell you what your preference is or make you feel weird about what you like in the end these TVs are both winners in my book actually I think as consumers we're the real winners they're both Stellar performers at prices that are well below what you'd expect for the picture quality I'll say this it's nice to be able to have to make such a tough decision thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think of this video did I make you feel comfortable about making a decision or maybe comfortable about the decision that you already made let me know about it down in the comments don't forget to like And subscribe and here's two other videos that I think you'll like\n"