Hisense 55U8H QLED U8H Series Quantum 4K ULED Mini-LED 55-Inch Class Google Smart TV with Alexa Compatibility, Quantum Dot, 1500-Nit HDR10 , Black

If you’re here, you’ve probably already read the rtings and you know how good the panel in the U8H is (and if you haven’t, google it, post-haste!), and you’ve probably also been the the thread about the U8H on avsForum. I can’t begin to replicate the kinds of detailed tests that rtings does, but I will say that this TV looks great in person — if you have a bright environment or lots of glare, this thing can get eye-searingly bright. The setup process was not entirely smooth — I had to cancel the app-based installation and do it on-screen — but since I’ll only do this once over the decade I’ll have this TV I don’t really see it as a big deal. The on-screen setup proceeded without a hitch and everything worked flawlessly. The pictures attached to this review are screenshots of various bits of system information and benchmark results that I gathered while assessing the built-in smart TV functions (more details on that below).One place where rtings is lacking in their reviews is their evaluation of smart TV features … and indeed, the folks on AVSForum were looking for more information on that as well. I will endeavor to provide it. Here are some specs that I gleaned from AIDA 64:- The motherboard is listed as an “MT9900”, but the SoC is listed as an MT5895, listed as a 4-core Cortex-A73 clocked at 1.8Ghz. I ran geekbench and gfxbench on it, and the CPU performance is slightly better than my Sony X91J (which has an MT5895), but the GPU performance is ~25% worse. This may just be due to implementation, or it may be due to the fact that this TV is running Android 11 while the Sony is still on Android 10.- This TV has 6GB storage and 2GB RAM. I’m happy to see more than the 4GB I’ve seen on some other sets, it gives a bit more breathing room for apps. Another gig of RAM would have been nice for future proofing, but it does well with current apps with the RAM that it has.- In Geekbench 4, this TV scores around 1065 (single-core) and 2925 (multi-core), and in Geekbench 5 it scores around 220 (single-core) and 635 (multi-core). For reference, the Sony X91J Geekbench 4 scores are around 1075 (single-core) and 2763 (multi-core) — it seems very likely to me that this TV is running the same MT5895 as the Sony.- Running the GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen test, this TV was able to render 1920 frames (~33FPS). For comparison, the X91J renders 2446 fraames (44FPS). Both TVs report having a Mali G52 GPU, so either HiSense has a software issue, or the hardware is different in some way (clocked lower, slower memory, etc.)To put this into context, it’s a good deal slower than the current generation Fire HD 10 tablet, a fair bit faster than the Retroid Pocket 3 gaming handheld, and faster than pretty much all stand-alone Google TV Boxes except for the nVidia shield. If you would like to game on your TV, you should easily be able to emulate everything through SNES, and also run some of the easier-to-emulate N64, Dreamcast, and PSP games. It should also run those Android games that support Android TV reasonably well.Subjectively, the interface animations are smooth and it has no trouble running the current TV apps. The Wifi is quite fast, and even when connected to my 802.11AC access point, it was achieving well over 100mbps. I was able to pair a bluetooth mouse and get a cursor, which is a feat that not all Google TVs can achieve (my Sony, for instance, will only work with a mouse that has a dongle). After installing a web browser, pages loaded quickly and rendered correctly. I feel no need to connect my usual Media Center PC to this set, as the built-in Google TV processor is fully sufficient.All in all, I’m very happy!EDIT: A few notes that I forgot in my initial review- I haven’t tried it yet, but since this runs the same SoC as my Sony (which I do use for cloud gaming), it should run GeForce Now just fine- You should also be able to side-load the xBox GamePass app and use the cloud portion of that subscription. The difficulty level there is a bit higher, because you will not be able to install it via the play store (it doesn’t officially support ANY Android TV yet, but the smartphone app works if you install it)- Since this uses the MT5895 chipset, it is likely that if you try to drive it at 4k120Hz, it will halve the vertical resolution. There have been reports of this, and Hisense is said to be working on a fix. In my use case (gaming from ~12ft away), it’s not noticeable. If you’re using it for a PC monitor, it may be bothersome.