Hisense has announced it’s adding a 100-inch mini-LED TVs to its lineup, outdoing the already stacked 98-inch TV market that includes the likes of TCL, Sony and Samsung.
The 100-inch Hisense TV, which is part of its U7KQ range in Europe, will be available in September or October 2023 and retail at €3,500-5000 (£5,000), according to FlatpanelsHD. In the US, it will be part of the U8K range and will be available for $9,999, according to Displayspecifications. There has been no official announcement on other regions as of yet.
After TCL recently announced its new 98-inch TV lineup – including its flagship super-bright X955 model, which we recently saw at IFA 2023 – Hisense has decided to give consumers more choice within the big-screen value TV market.
Looking at the specs of both the Hisense 100U7K and 100U8K, they both feature up to 144Hz refresh rate and two 2.1 HDMI ports with VRR and ALLM capabilities for gaming. They also offer support for a large array of HDR formats, including both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, Dolby Atmos and a 2.1 speaker configuration, although the U8K’s configuration adds in two speakers for Dolby Atmos, making 2.1.2. The U7K in Europe will use Hisense’s Vidaa platform, whereas the U8K will use Google TV.
The Hisense 100U7K reportedly has just over 1,600 dimming zones (via DisplaySpecifications), which doesn’t quite hit the dazzling brightness of some of TCL’s 98-inch models, including the X955 with its reported 5,000 dimming zones. In our review of the U8K, we measured its peak brightness at 1,500 nits, which again falls short of the 5,000 nits claimed by TCL on the X955.
With more and more TVs appearing in the big-screen market and 98-inches being a very popular size amongst manufacturers, consumers are seeing more choice in screen technologies to choose from, but what does this mean?
So much choice!
When you’re looking to buy a new TV, you’ll research what ranks amongst the best TVs and be presented with lots of options to choose from, in both size and screen panel type. As demand for bigger screen sizes grows, companies will look to compete with one another and provide consumers with the best choice and this usually means falling prices.
TVs of 98-inches generally hover around the $8,000-10,000 mark with Samsung, Sony and TCL all having TVs at this price. But TCL recently released a 98-inch TV, the S5, for $5,000. And with Hisense’s 100-inch U7K going for roughly $5,000 in Europe, big screens are becoming more affordable (for the screen size) and more accessible to people. You won’t have to fork out $237,000 for LG’s 118-inch micro-LED TV any time soon!
It’s worth noting that the cheaper sets may not have the same specs as the more premium models within the 98-inch TV market. For example, the TCL P745, the affordable TV mentioned above, only uses local LED dimming as opposed to some of the mini-LEDs from Samsung, Sony, Hisense and higher range TCLs.
But when you see its host of gaming features, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The Hisense 100U7K has a lot of these features and the mini-LED backlight for a similar price. Is this just to compete with TCL? If it is, it can only be good news for consumers as more competition like this is likely to occur.
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