Hisense U7K 4K TV review: An affordable QLED perfect for movies and gaming

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It's not always easy being the middle child. Sandwiched between Hisense's budget-friendly U6K and the premium-leaning U8K, the U7K 4K QLED TV could get overlooked. Instead, it does a fine job making a case for itself as the go-to pick for most buyers. Available at an enticingly low price on sale, the U7K is more accessible than the U8K, while its performance rises above its junior sibling to provide uncommon value in a market overflowing with it.

Hisense has packed everything and the kitchen sink into this mid-tier TV, including quantum dots for vibrant colors, a high-refresh panel for gaming and fast-paced sports, and Mini LED backlighting capable of flashy brightness and inky black levels.

The U7K tops things off with plenty of features and an intuitive (if sometimes laggy) Google TV interface. The result is a QLED TV that feels more sophisticated than its price point suggests, earning its place as a top choice among the best TVs for picture enthusiasts looking to stretch a thin budget.

The design is basic but delightfully easy to set up

While the U7K outperforms expectations in impressive fashion, its budget design keeps it under the radar. The panel weighs about the same as the cheaper U6K. That makes it easy to move around, but we generally expect some extra heft in an LED TV with lots of dimming zones.

Like the U8K, the U7K sits on large footstands that are reminiscent of skinny ice skates. That said, the TV looks smart enough on your console thanks to relatively thin bezels and a flash of smoked chrome at the panel's base. We also appreciate the option of both narrow and wide stand configurations, making it easier to fit larger models on smaller cabinets.

The best part about this kind of utilitarian design is that it's simple to set up — just twist a few screws, connect the power and your components, and you're ready to go. If you don't like the look of the feet, you can always mount the panel for a more understated aesthetic.

Around the back, you'll find four HDMI ports, two of which offer HDMI 2.1 support for connecting next-gen gaming consoles and gaming PCs. One of these is also the HDMI eARC port, which means you'll be down a next-gen input if you connect a soundbar or receiver. That's also true of the pricier U8K and even some premium TVs like Sony's extravagant A95L, so it's hard to get too bent out of shape there.

The picture quality is fantastic for the money

The U7K's loaded arsenal of display technologies allows it to impress 4K newcomers and picture purists alike across a wide array of content. It all starts with its Mini LED backlight that serves up notably deep black levels. While we appreciated the U6K's balanced picture that provides excellent shadow detail in dark scenes, the U7K's richer black levels provide better contrast for a more engaging and immersive backdrop. 

The U7K is also much brighter than the U6K and other cheaper rivals like the Roku TV Plus, without any noticeable haloing (the haze some LED TVs produce around bright images on a dark background). Hisense claims around 1,000 nits of peak brightness in HDR, which lines up with most measurements, and translates well to hands-on testing. 

HDR (High Dynamic Range) scenes like the police flashers in "Ant-Man" as he escapes the holding cell or the blazing space battles in "Guardians of the Galaxy Volume II" pop with appropriate sizzle to make you sit up and take notice. The same goes for flashy SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) scenes in HD films like "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Volume II." The luminous Hogwarts shield that blazes across the screen ahead of Voldemort's final assault looks close or on par here with what you'll see in the pricier U8K.

That's not quite the case when it comes to shadow detail. Even with a screen that generally keeps reflections at bay, the U7K can't match the U8K when rendering the murkiest scenes like the overhead shot of the Death Eaters on the hill above Hogwarts, obscuring some of the finer nuances when viewed in moderate lighting. You can adjust for this by raising the Black Level a few notches, and it's a very tough scene for any TV, but it's worth noting for bright-room viewers deciding between the two.

Speaking of shadow detail, like a lot of TVs, the U7K's Dolby Vision Dark setting is simply too dark for some content. We did most of our testing using Theater Night Mode and HDR Theater Mode with a few tweaks. In Dolby Vision, we switched from the default Dark mode to Custom, which provides much more clarity for darker shows and movies. If you do so, you'll likely want to switch the Color Temperature from Standard to the more cinematic Warm 1, or the colors can look more dingy than usual.

Once done, the U7K's quantum dot-backed colors really sing in Dolby Vision, from the vibrant coral reefs awash in neon tropical fish in Netflix's "Our Planet" to the verdant islands and azure blue waters of "Moana." These are the moments that will impress guests and have you secretly patting yourself on the back for all the money you saved on such spectacle. Colors look great across the board, especially noticeable in skin tones and highlight shading.

The display also offers impressive motion smoothing, something we've come to appreciate with newer TVs. Using Custom motion with Blur and Judder at their lowest settings helps iron out tough panning scenes and jerky motion, without making things look overtly unnatural. The panel's high refresh rate keeps up well on its own with fast-paced content like sports.

There are some downsides at this budget. Off-axis viewing is pretty poor, dulling colors and revealing some minor inconsistencies in screen uniformity, sometimes called the "dirty screen" effect. There's also an odd bar in the lower right-hand corner that looks almost like a line of jumbled pixels, but it's possible this is just an issue with our sample model, and it only stood out with test patterns.

The local dimming also tends to distract in scene-by-scene adjustments on its default High setting. Switching to Medium all but eliminates the issue, while still providing a rich and immersive picture. If you want to see just how great the local dimming is, try switching it off and you'll find a sea of backlight patches and black levels that look more like charcoal gray.

Minor quibbles aside, even persnickety viewers will find few complaints about the U7K. From its vibrant colors and natural skin tones to its gleaming HDR highlights and deep-space black levels, this is a QLED TV armed to impress.

The Google TV interface is simple and intuitive (if laggy)

Like so many TVs we test these days, the U7K uses a version of Google TV as its operating system, which makes setup and navigation quick and intuitive. Using the Google Home app for your iOS or Android device, the TV connects to your network in minutes. From there it's a straightforward run through the onboard setup guide, and you're ready to watch in no time.

Logging in with your Google account makes things especially easy, letting you do things like add Google Photo albums as a background, and even log into select streaming services with a single click. Even if you don't have a Google account (somehow), it's still relatively painless, with all the best streaming services readily available. 

Google Assistant works great for voice search from either the remote's quick key or the TV's onboard microphone system. One note there: The microphone is on and listening by default. If you're concerned about privacy, you'll want to slide the off switch from below the front panel control bar, which will temporarily show a line of red LEDs with the TV on. You'll also want to read the fine print for privacy settings and potentially skip options like "Enhanced Viewing" if you're not interested in targeted ads. 

As with other Hisense TVs, we noticed some lag in basic navigation over several days of testing. That said, it may be that this is just the luck of the draw with Google TV, as we've found it to be somewhat inconsistent when it comes to smooth operation, even with pricier TVs. It's never a major issue, but don't be surprised if you've got to pause for the TV to catch up at times. 

Hisense has also made some clever tweaks to operation over time for convenience. For example, you've got to manually change HDMI inputs from Standard to Enhanced to get the full features of 4K HDR components, but the TV asks you to do so during setup instead of making you track them down. Similarly, the U7K only scans for live TV channels when you hit the remote's dedicated TV button.

Speaking of the remote, it's well laid out and easy to use, but it would be nice if it had backlighting.

The TV offers excellent gaming features

Alongside its other talents, the U7K is something of a ringer thanks to its 120Hz panel (which extends to 144Hz for compatible gaming PCs) and gaming extras like its Gaming Mode Pro system that models similar setups from Sony, LG, and others.

Firing up your PS5, Xbox Series console, or gaming PC puts the TV into low lag mode automatically via ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) support. A tap of the Menu key pulls up the Gaming Mode Pro hub to adjust settings on the fly like Dark Detail and HDR. It also lets you toggle VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) on or off and informs you of your current frame rate to match your source device. 

You can tap into a deeper menu from the gaming bar, letting you adjust the sound, picture, and other features directly so you can jump right back into your game. HDR Game mode looks particularly good and optimizes performance for gaming that's responsive and immersive, especially for a TV in this price range. 

Should you buy the Hisense U7K?

If you're looking for excellent performance and a ton of features without breaking the bank, absolutely. You can save even more cash by going with the U6K, our favorite budget TV, but if you're serious about picture quality, it's worth investing more for the U7K. That's doubly true if you do a lot of next-gen gaming, as the TV's faster refresh rate and more capable display take things to the next level. 

If you have the money, and especially if you do a lot of bright-room viewing, you may want to consider jumping up to the U8K. It's brighter, and provides better contrast and shadow detail, making it a stunner in any light. There's also the TCL Q7 which costs about the same as the U7K and offers similar performance and features, with the notable exception of Mini LED backlighting, which equates to less control over contrast.

We frankly can't think of any TV that can beat the U7K in its class. Fortified with top-notch features and impressive picture quality, it's a great value, and at its typical sale price, a steal.