The Hisense U8N is a television that has been getting a lot of attention lately, particularly among TV enthusiasts and professionals who are looking for a high-quality display with advanced features. In this article, we will take a closer look at the U8N's performance and capabilities.

One of the key features of the U8N is its ability to block creeping in, which refers to the phenomenon where the signals bit rate isn't keeping up with the demands of the content. This can be particularly problematic for TVs that don't have the necessary hardware to handle the increased resolution and frame rates required for modern content. However, the U8N seems to have overcome this issue, at least to some extent.

The reviewer notes that engaging the motion smoothing technology on the TV may bring in artifacts, but it can still provide smoother sports viewing experiences. This is a great feature for anyone who wants to watch sports or other fast-paced content without sacrificing image quality. The reviewer also mentions that they were able to play casual games on the U8N and didn't notice any notable input lag, which is a major plus for gamers.

However, the reviewer did test the TV's high frame rate gaming capabilities at high resolution, but they didn't have the time to do so thoroughly. They mention that this is an area where other TVs may excel more than the U8N. Still, they look forward to seeing what others have to say about it in a comparison video.

One of the key areas where the U8N excels is in its backlight control. The reviewer notes that this system has been "nothing short of outstanding," and that it's hard to detect any issues with it. They also mention that the black levels, contrast, and color saturation are superb, making the U8N a great choice for anyone who wants a high-quality display.

However, there is one area where the U8N falls short: off-angle viewing. The reviewer notes that while the TV's contrast ratio is excellent, it can suffer from decreased color saturation and contrast when viewed at an angle. This is a common issue with LCD TVs, but it's disappointing for anyone who wants to watch movies or sports in a group setting.

Despite this limitation, the U8N remains one of the best budget video files dream TVs available. The reviewer notes that while some measurements could be more exacting, the TV's performance and features make it an excellent choice for anyone on a budget. They also mention that it's easy to overlook some of the technical limitations of the TV due to its stunning image quality.

In conclusion, the Hisense U8N is a high-quality television that excels in many areas, particularly when it comes to backlight control and contrast ratio. While it may not be perfect, with some limitations such as off-angle viewing, it remains an excellent choice for anyone looking for a budget-friendly TV with impressive features.

The reviewer also mentions that the U8N is getting dangerously close to OLED technology in terms of performance, especially when it comes to black levels and contrast. However, there are still some key differences between the two technologies, particularly when it comes to off-angle viewing.

Overall, the Hisense U8N is a great choice for anyone looking for a high-quality TV with advanced features at an affordable price. Whether you're a gamer, movie buff, or just someone who wants a great viewing experience, the U8N has something to offer.

The reviewer also thanks the viewers for watching and invites them to share their thoughts on the U8N in the comments section below. They also encourage viewers to like and subscribe to their channel if they enjoyed this video.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enDangerously close to OLED that's a phrase TV geeks love to hear when talking about mini  LED TVs especially when that mini LED TV costs way less than an OLED TV so does the  Hisense U8N get dangerously close to OLED for a fraction of the price let's talk about thatWelcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and in today's video we're going to dive into  the Hisense U8N TV now I'm going to pop up the suggested retail prices for you understanding  that these will change over time but for reference the 65 in U8N I'm showing you here goes for just  under $1,500 I'll put that into context for you a little bit later in the video now before I  get into the U8N here I want to tell you about a little change in strategy that I'm implementing  for this review and if y'all like it I'll do it for as many TVs as I can this year I'm going to  have a knit nerd section of this review in which I dive into some of the measurement numbers and some  of the deeper TV enthusiasts type stuff that's not going to change but I am going to reserve  some of the super deep nitty-gritty stuff for a future comparison video the reason behind that  decision is that a lot of that super deep stuff is more meaningful in the context of a comparison  to another TV or TVs plural so if you are one of my nit nerd fam and you find that  there's more you want to know about this TV after you've watched the whole review worry  not it will be covered in a future video and I would encourage you to leave your  unanswered questions for me down in the comments so I can attack as many of them  as I possibly can in that next video cool awesome now let's talk about the U in herenow for anyone who doesn't follow TVs closely the Hisense U8 Series has been something of  a hit for TV enthusiasts on a budget over the past few years it has reliably offered picture  quality that punches so high it kind of calls into question the way other brands price their  TVs a lot of folks who have bought the U8 series after my recommendation have told me they feel  like they stole something because the price to picture performance ratio is just off the  charts and you'll be pleased to know now that the U8N carries on that Legacy in some ways it  does get dangerously close to OLED in other ways it does not and we'll cover that but if  there was any doubt in your mind about whether the Hisense U8N really is a hype worthy TV worth your  consideration I'm here to tell you it very much is TVs are about more than just picture quality  though even though it's a great deal the U8N is still a long-term investment that costs a chunk  of change a lot of you are going to interact with this thing on a daily basis and I know you want  to enjoy owning this TV so we're going to talk a bit about all the other touch points you'll want  to know about before you pull the trigger so let's start with what this TV is it's a mini  LED backlit Quantum LCD TV Hisense calls it uled but it competes directly with qled TVs marketed  by other brands those mini LEDs are densely packed and broken down into a bunch of individual dimming  zones in an effort to deliver both High brightness and deep black levels which combine for awesome  contrast the quantum dots in use help expand the number of colors that the TV can produce and they  help make for brighter colors as well the U8N runs on the Google TV platform which means that just  about every streaming app you could possibly want is available and navigating the TV is intuitive  and easy Google TV makes it easy to pick up where you left off on shows or movies that you watch  across a wide array of apps YouTube and YouTube TV are especially well integrated since those  are Google properties you have access to Google Assistant for voice search and information and for  that specifically you can either use the remote or you can enable a built-in always listening  microphone for handsfree Google Assistant you get a full-size remote that has just the right amount  of buttons including dedicated settings button an input selector button volume Channel control  play pause menu button even AO profile hotkey so family members can switch to their Google  TV profile and YouTube accounts so everyone gets their own feed and the remote is backlit so you  can see what you're pressing in the dark the U8N supports HDR10 HDR10 plus Dolby vision and HLG  it has two HDMI inputs that support 4K up to 144 Hz for you Gamers out there and it does support  VRR and is freesync premium Pro certified also it does have an ATS C 3.0 tuner in it for the  latest broadcast TV standard in short it's a very full featured TV with all the bells and whistles  you would expect for a TV at this level and I am super pleased to report that the U8N is a Snappy  and responsive TV I can click around through all these tiles and apps and there is no noticeable  lag no matter how impatiently I click around which is a big deal to me I hate waiting for a TV to  catch up to my clicks apps load really quickly too and there's nothing funky or unexpected  about how you operate in those apps as far as how to access extra features or how you pause or scrub  back and forth through content it's just a super easy to use TV now there is one user interface  Quirk and it's a little thing but for whatever reason it really sticks in my craw that is when  you turn the volume all the way down you're stuck with this mute icon as if you've press the mute  button on the TV there's no way to get rid of this if your volume is down at zero so far as I know  also while the TV does pop up a Dolby Vision icon when you're watching Dolby Vision content  it doesn't do that for HDR10 and I'm just concerned that this may cause folks to think  they aren't getting HDR when they really are there's no indication that the picture mode  that you're in is HDR either which I think might further the concern but I can assure you when you  feed this TV and HDR10 or HDR10 plus signal it is definitely going into HDR now in the unboxing  video I showed you the pedestal style stand which can be placed in two heights a raised option if  you're using a soundbar and a lower option for a sleeker look and I showed you the stability  and the cable management I also showed you these subwoofer drivers on the back but I didn't talk  about how the TV sounds so let me do that now this TV sounds great guys now admittedly the bar for  built-in TV speaker sound is set pretty low most of them just sound like crap but this TV really  does sound better than most TVs on the market part of what makes it sound so good is the hearty amount  of bass that it puts out and saying hearty amount of bass that kind of sells it short the depth and  the presence of the bass that this TV puts out rivals some of the subwoofers that you would  find in inexpensive soundbar systems in some ways it's actually better base because it's so well  integrated with the TV's down firing speakers now I haven't tested the sound with with the TV wall  mounted but mounted on a stand like this it sounds really far better than I think any of you will be  expecting so if you get this TV be prepared for that pleasant surprise when you crank up your  favorite music video or movie TV also does well at delivering clear dialogue but don't expect much in  the way of surround effects or stereo separation I just mean that the TV on the hole has a big robust  sound to it that will not have you racing back to the store for a soundbar because the built-in  sound is so terrible all right we're about halfway through this video and that means it's time to  talk about picture quality and that can only mean one thing it's time for numbers for Nit Nerds  now for those of you who don't want to geek out on measurement data and such please feel free to skip  ahead to the next section there's a time code link down below and I'll recap all the key takeaways  so you don't miss out on anything crucial all right but for my Nit Nerd fam here we go to test  the Hisense U8N I use the SpectraCal C6 profile to an X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2 using Calman Ultimate  by Portrait Displays I started out measuring by using the default settings in the filmmaker mode  picture preset and that little detail right there is super important so let's just get into that  Hisense is chosen for its default filmmaker mode preset typically a very purist oriented accurate  picture mode that it would have the TV's automatic light sensor turned on with auto white balance  also turned on now from a purist perspective this is a no no at least I think that's the perception  but for most folks I actually think this is a good idea one of the chief complaints about filmmaker  mode is that it is often too dark or that it lacks vibrancy that's because filmmaker mode  is designed to look right if you're viewing the TV in pretty much a pitch black room and most folks  simply don't do that I have a whole video coming out about filmmaker mode soon so keep an eye out  for that anyway I do like the idea that a user can select filmmaker mode on the U8N and not be doomed  to an overly dark picture causing them to bounce off to use some other picture mode though theater  day is not too shabby for a brighter picture mode however because I have to level the playing field  I went and I turned this off the other super important thing for you to know is that the  warm one color temperature setting that is used by default in filmmaker mode is as I will soon  show you quite accurate in most respects the warm two color temperature setting however is very much  not I know I've said this in Prior years but I've always felt it odd that Hisense would make warm  2 which is usually a warmer color temp setting on other brands the cooler of the two options  on this TV the blue channel is way aggressive in the two-point white balance this results in very  vibrant very cool crisp whites and Grays and it appears to be even brighter to the eye but from  an accuracy standpoint it kind of doesn't feel like this is what you should be getting in the  filmmaker mode preset I should also mention that warm one being accurate and warm two being kind of  inaccurate is true across the theater day and theater night settings as well so if you want  accurate white balance and more accurate colors the warm one color temp setting is your friend now  here's the measurements in Ence drr the default filmmaker mode setting plus the local dimming and  Peak brightness settings at high which again seems to Buck the intention of filmmaker mode  but I digress with those default settings Peak brightness in SDR measured over 1,300 nits for  a 10% window guys that's very bright for SDR two white balance came in looking awesome with  Delta errors of less than three for both the 30 and 100% stimulus measurements and that is  is great and as we track the grayscale errors stay below the visible threshold throughout all right  that's exactly what we want to see from a really high-end TV color accuracy in SDR was also very  good we see some minor errors in blue and San but nothing to get worked up over considering this is  a stock picture mode without any calibration done to it moving now to HDR and the news I know a lot  of you want to hear Peak brightness from a 10% white window came in at over 3500 knits and full  screen white measured a solid 1,000 nits without a doubt this TV can get extremely bright and  that's going to be a trend here for the rest of the review now the white balance in HDR was not  nearly as accurate as it was in SDR as we creep up to those super bright levels you can see the TV's  white balance skewing heavily in favor of blue this does not mean that your TV will look blue  this just means that whites will have a very cool color temp and some folks like that in the bright  whites it's just not technically accurate so I have to point this out and this can by the way be  corrected by a calibrator color accuracy was very respectable in HDR as well we see some visible  errors in the most challenging colors but nothing to be upset about we're still talking excellent  performance especially for the price of this TV and finally if we look at DCI-P3 and BT 2020 color  gamut coverage we're looking at about 98% and 83% coverage respectively one thing actually I have  got to point out the EOTF that's electrooptical transfer function tracking is pretty hot there's  no getting around that this TV over brightens HDR at pretty much every level and I'm going to show  you what that looks like shortly it's not an issue for most folks and in fact some would argue it is  preferred by most folks that HDR be juiced up a bit but from from a measurements perspective I  think the HDR performance skews a little outside of what I was hoping to see especially because  I like to think of the Hisense U8 series as the budget video files dream and I still think it is  though we'll want to see how the competition does around this price point I'll just take note that  what I'm commenting on here is default settings if you back down the peak brightness setting or the  local dimming setting you can get that EOTF curve to track just right you just lose a little bit of  brightness I just I kind of wish Hisense treated filmmaker mode as the purists setting and stuck to  track in the EOTF a little more Faithfully with the out of the box setting and kept the bright  white HDR highlights a bit closer to accurate uh I mean you could always make the theater day  and theater night modes more interpretive you know but there's no doubt about it the U8N has  character and when we put the science nerd tools away and we get to watching wow this TV delivers  a lot of wow factor and visual impact now if you're just rejoining us after skipping the  NIT nerd section the key takeaways are that the Hisense U8N is capable of being a very accurate  TV in SDR but it likes to get a bit spirited with the brightness in HDR which I think most folks are  going to like a lot this TV is zesty it's got a lot of vim vigor and spirit to the picture and  it will will dazzle you it's one of the brightest TVs on the market certainly under the $4,000 mark  But it handles that brightness with an air of sophistication which I respect I mean it's hard  not to just love watching this TV 4K SDR and 4K HDR content looks fantastic all your favorite  Netflix Disney plus mac Apple TV Plus shows they are going to look outstanding and I'm thrilled to  report that lower resolution cable and satellite TV also looks outstanding lesser TVs will really  show a lot of color banding and blockiness on lower quality programming but the U8N appears  to be doing a pretty impressive job of cleaning it up and this is definitely a step up from last  year's U8K the U8N does seem to have an achilles heel in its processing though and that's moiré as  you can see here it can struggle with super fine line patterns like this gentleman's jacket on this  MSNBC show it shows less with higher resolution content but it just goes to show there is still  a little room for improvement in the processing World though I should point out that we are now  very much in torture test territory here where most TVs will absolutely fall apart it's just  a question of to what degree they fall apart color contrast vibrancy all look outstanding  here here's another example this show is in 720p but the U8 cleans it up really nicely not a ton of  color banding or macro blocking it looks totally respectable so if you watch a lot of cable or  satellite TV I think you'll be really pleased with the U8N as for motion Hisense has a film motion  setting that does a really solid job of reducing jutter in 24 freames per second film content I've  had no issues watching movies on this television for fast motion Sports well it's kind of hard to  show you anything here because Sports content gets us flagged faster than anything else but I  watched a soccer match and the fast-paced motion looked really solid where the image kind of fell  apart was in large blocks of color during super fast motion you could see some blur creeping and  blocking creeping in because the signals bit rate wasn't keeping up with the demands of the content  and this is nearly impossible for a TV to clean up so I can't score the U8N down for this I will say  though that you can engage the motion smoothing Tech in this TV and while it will bring in motion  smoothing artifacts you can get smoother sports that way and I think folks are going to appreciate  that a lot now as many of you already know I am not a hardcore gamer and I prefer to leave gaming  commentary to others but I did do some casual gaming and both SDR and HDR looked solid in game  mode I wasn't able to sense any notable input lag for what I played and historically the U8 series  has super low input lag so that's no surprise what I did not test was super high frame rate gaming at  high resolution but I look forward to seeing what others have to say about that myself plus we'll  dig in a bit deeper into gaming in a comparison video I will say though the casual gamers will  be absolutely thrilled with this TV okay then so does the Hisense U8N get dangerously close  to OLED well yes in some very key ways it does I had the LG G4 set up below the U8N for a while and  I did some Direct comparisons first thing I'll point out is that the U8 's backlight control  so far has been nothing short of outstanding I was a little concerned with all the zones it was  trying to manage that it might get a little bit sluggish but it hasn't the backlight system has  been basically undetectable the black levels are superb low luminance performance has been  surprisingly good though I haven't gotten to the torture tests just yet but I am very optimistic  but just the contrast color saturation blooming and Halo control at this price it's borderline  unbelievable if you've never owned an OLED TV before the U8N could absolutely fool you into  believing that it was one save two factors one as you can see it's over brightening HDR a little you  can see that in this little illuminated area here and you can see that it isn't appropriately dark  coming out of shadows here but the one thing that really prevents this TV from slam dunking OLED at  half the price it's the off angle viewing the U8N has a pretty tight Optimum viewing window  you really need to be sitting right in front of it to get all the rich deep goodness when you step  too far off to the side you lose color saturation and contrast bonus points for not seeing a ton of  backlight bleed which I owe to the dense mini LED system and high dimming Zone count but there's no  getting around the fact that where OLED holds up well at extreme angles the 8N can't quite keep  up and that's true of pretty much every LCD TV out there now for TV enthusiasts this comes as  no surprise but as many LED TVs go I swear the U8N is the most OLED Light TV I've tested to date in  terms of black levels and overall contrast it's just a truly remarkable TV is it still the budget  video files dream I'm going to go ahead and say yes for now I do wish that a few measurements  were a bit more exacting but if I take off my nerd hat and just speak to the world about this  TV it's freaking awesome to behold easily one of the best buys of 2024 maybe even the Best Buy of  the year thanks so much for watching everyone what do you think of the Hisense U8N so far drop those  comments down below please give this video a like if you enjoyed it subscribe if you want to see  more I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like\n"