Hisense Series 7 (65P7) review

Having established a name for itself as a quality TV manufacturer, Hisense can always be trusted to bring the latest technologies to its products each year while still keeping prices down.

Even with its entry-level Series 7 range, which is refreshed alongside the mid-range Series 8 and high-end Series 9 models, Hisense continues to ensure that its customers get an exceptional viewing experience.

This year's 65-inch Series 7 release, the Hisense 65P7, can be seen as a testament to the company's dedication to quality, thanks to the inclusion of top-tier features like ultra local dimming and smooth 200Hz refresh rates. 

Though reasonably priced for a 65-incher, the 65P7's $3,299 RRP may still be a little high for those looking to keep costs down. Thankfully, Hisense's base model ULED TV is going for much cheaper in store and online, with discounts of over a thousand dollars seeming quite commonplace. 

Design

Featuring a minimalist design, the Hisense 65P7 is a television that aims for simple and elegant, achieving both with flying colours. 

Along the sides and top of the 65P7, bezels are practically non-existent. On the bottom edge, you'll find a small bezel that's roughly a centimetre in height, but chances are that you'll forget about it in hardly any time at all.

Inside the box, you'll find the 65P7's stand, which is comprised of two separate chrome prongs which can be screwed into the bottom of the set fairly easily — we suggest laying the TV down on a soft flat surface with some room for overhang to get its feet on with minimal fuss.

Alternatively, you could opt to wall mount Hisense's latest Series 7 telly, though you'll need to purchase a bracket separately. 

On the rear of the TV, you'll find four HDMI inputs — it's worth noting that only the first two ports offer HDMI 2.0, meaning they're the only ones capable of playing 4K video at 60 FPS (ARC is also supported via HDMI 2). HDMI-CEC functionality is also available, allowing you some additional control over connected devices. 

The Hisense 65P7 also offers two USB 3.0 ports, an RF input, an Optical digital audio output and a headphone jack.

Smart TV (VIDAA U 2.5)

Running the latest version of Hisense's VIDAA U smart TV platform (ver. 2.5), the 65P7 offers a straightforward user interface which displays all of your installed apps as easy-to-use tiles. 

Admittedly, you won't find every major catch-up and streaming service here, though the 65P7 does come with apps for Netflix, YouTube (both of which have dedicated buttons on the TV's accompanying remote), Stan and SBS On Demand pre-installed. 

Speaking of apps, Hisense's RemoteNOW phone app can be used to control the 65P7 — that is if you can get the app to launch without immediately crashing. Our attempts to use RemoteNOW on the relatively new Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus proved entirely fruitless, with the app crashing every single time we opened it. 

Eventually, the app worked as intended on a mid-range Nokia 7 Plus smartphone, though users shouldn't have to rely on having access to multiple handsets in order for it to work.

Using the RemoteNOW app, we were able to launch smart TV apps like Netflix and YouTube, with additional onscreen buttons and touchpad controls made available depending on which app is being used. 

Performance

While the 65P7 isn't the thinnest television around (54mm at its thickest point), there's a great reason for that — Hisense has ditched edge-lit backlights this year, instead employing more sophisticated ultra local dimming technology. 

By placing local dimming zones across the entire panel, the 65P7 is able to light specific areas of the television more accurately than if its lights were shooting in from the edges of the display. 

In practice, this allows the Hisense 65P7 to achieve brighter whites and deeper blacks. And while local dimming is unable to light with the pixel-level precision of an OLED display, its inclusion in Hisense's base-model ULED is very impressive indeed.

Generally, we found the 65P7 to tick all of the important boxes when it comes to performance. Its 200Hz refresh rate allowed for incredibly smooth motion video, and high-frame-rate 4K content from YouTube looked exceptional in our tests. 

By default, the Hisense 65P7 will be set to the television's Standard picture setting, though you can also choose to watch in Natural (cooler), Cinema (darker) and Dynamic (vibrant) settings, along with a Football mode that takes full advantage of the aforementioned 200Hz refresh rate for smoother sporting action. 

In terms of its Games Mode, which is said to bypass upscaling and picture enhancements to deliver games at full speed, Hisense's 65-incher performed admirably, showing no clear signs of screen-tearing or input lag during fast-paced gameplay.

Sound

Perhaps as a result of being tested in a fairly quiet office environment, the Hisense 65P7 was surprisingly loud in our experience, even with the volume turned way down. 

While this year's Series 7 ULED does not have a dedicated tweeter, it does have two midrange speakers that are likely tuned for higher frequencies. The television also boasts four woofers which do a good job supplying lower-range sounds. 

Hisense has managed to do a lot with the 65P7's 10W per channel set up, and while we probably wouldn't go around calling its audio performance a selling point, it'll be more than satisfactory for those who don't have hi-fi system to hook their TV up to. 

Verdict

There are many things to praise about Hisense's latest Series 7 television — we really love its ultra local dimming technology, and Games Mode performed well in our tests. 4K content looks especially crisp on the 65P7, and its 200Hz smooth motion capability is also very impressive for a base model 4K television.

If you can find a good deal on the Hisense 65P7 (we're talking around the $2,000 mark), then we absolutely recommend you snag it up. While Hisense's Series 8 and Series 9 quantum dot-powered sets outclass this Series 7 model, it's hard to complain about the many top-end features included here.