Hisense 110 UX Review The Ultimate Big-Screen TV

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Guys, I so wish that you could really see what  I'm seeing here. I wish you could experience   what I've gotten to experience for the past two  weeks. I mean, there are times when I know that   no matter how hard I work on a review, my  narrative is just going to fall short of   expressing the true impact that watching a  TV in your home is going to have. And I feel  

like that's kind of the case here. But that...  that doesn't mean I'm not going to try my best. Ready? Welcome back, everyone. I'm Caleb Denison,  and this is my review of the Hisense 110 UX,   a massive TV that I've been anticipating since I  first saw it at CES earlier this year. It has been   a long wait, but now that it's here, you know  what? The wait was worth it. This TV is almost  

peerless when it comes to the total experience you  get. Projectors don't quite match it, micro-LED   displays don't quite match it. The only other TV  you can buy that really competes at this size,   anyway, is the TCL 115-inch QM891G, and we'll talk  a little bit about that by the end of this review. In a way, the fact that this is only  one of two consumer TVs that you can   buy in this size class—that would be the  well-over-100-inch size class—well, that   could make my job a little easier, right? Like,  you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit,   because you only have two options. So, if  the 110 UX doesn't perform as well as a   reference-grade TV in a smaller size, we probably  shouldn't be shocked. This is new territory,  

so we expect first-gen problems. And if you  want a TV this big, well, this is what you get. Well, for my part, I went into this  review prepared to be a little forgiving,   but it turns out I don't have to, because—and  I can't believe I'm saying this—this TV is one   hell of a performer. I keep looking for a  smoking gun, and I'm not finding one. Now,   it doesn't get everything right. There's certainly  room for improvement, at least if you're a purist   with super high standards. But I gotta say, if  you're going to spend a small fortune on a TV,  

the 110 UX is the best argument in  favor of that move that I've ever seen.   Not only that, but this TV is a clear sign  that Hisense has the processing chops to go   toe-to-toe with the best in the business, which  is not something I've been able to say before. Guys, when this processing technology  trickles down to TVs like Hisense's U8 series,   watch out. I'm getting a little ahead of myself,   though. Let's start out by talking about  all the non-picture quality considerations. This is a big TV—I'm sure you got that—and it's  also very heavy. Yes, it can safely be mounted   on your wall, but make sure a professional does  that. That way, if anything were to happen, it's  

on them, not you, and you're covered (earthquakes  and hurricanes notwithstanding, obviously). Now, surprisingly, this TV has a footprint that  allows it to be placed on larger media cabinets,   as you can see here in our studio on this BDI.  From the outside edge of one foot to the other,   you're looking at 44 inches, which is not that far  off from the spacing that I routinely see on many   65-inch TVs with feet. Do consider this, though:  placing this TV on a media cabinet means the top   edge of the TV will probably be over 7 feet high.  When seated, that means you do have to tilt your   chin up a bit. It’s a little like sitting in  one of the forward rows of a movie theater,   where you have to lean your head back a little or  recline to get the best, most comfortable view.

Now, that's not something I really noticed  with the TCL 115-inch, because we have that   TV on a floor stand, so the center of the  TV is much closer to eye level when seated. Next, the screen. Guys, the screen is glossy.  Now, a lot of folks are going to prefer that.   It really does give the image a bit more  luster. However, anyone hoping that this   was going to be the ultimate bright-room TV should  probably temper their expectations a bit. Sure,   the TV can get more than bright enough  to do battle in a sun-soaked room,   but bright light sources are reflected with  more intensity here than with a TV that has   a more aggressive anti-glare coating. On the  other hand, there's absolutely zero rainbow  

effect when a light does shine on it. So, like I  said, some people will prefer it; others will not. Now, if I had to guess, I'd say Hisense  probably went with what was going to   look best in a dark room, figuring this TV is  more likely to land in a dedicated media space   than it is to land in a living room. So it's kind  of hard to dock points for the glossy screen,   but I feel like I must, since  even dimmer sconce lighting is   going to be a little distracting  when watching dark movie scenes. Now, a very quick word on the user  interface. This TV runs Google TV  

better than any other Hisense  TV I've ever tested. In fact,   as well as any TV I've tested. So it gets two  enthusiastic thumbs up from me on that front. Finally, folks, the audio system. I wish  my takeaway here was a bit more positive,  

but here's the thing: Hisense clearly made audio  performance a priority in their design because   they had to know that these side-mounted  speakers were going to be polarizing. Now,   to Hisense's credit, they made  them as stealthy as they could be,   and I applaud Hisense for not phoning it  in with down-firing speakers on this TV. On the positive side, I will say this TV  does produce a significant amount of bass,   which can at times give the TV a very big feel,  or a big presence. I'll also say I appreciate  

the stereo effects this TV produces—the wide  spacing of the speakers makes that all the   more convincing. However, I'm afraid my praise  ends there, folks. Despite Hisense's efforts,   I'm just not a fan of how this TV sounds. I  know most folks who buy this TV will likely   also invest in an equally impressive audio  system if they don't already have one. But,  

well, these polarizing speakers were a gamble  that I'm afraid just don't pay off here. Honestly, it hardly seems fair to Hisense.  I'm sure there would be complaints either way,   right? Kind of a lose-lose situation. If they had  not put this much effort into the audio system,   we'd complain that a TV this expensive should  have had more effort put into the sound. But with  

these speakers here, I feel like they really  needed to bowl me over, and they just don't. Now, I don't have a measurement graph to show  you what's going on. I can just say that when   I fire up this TV, well, I just immediately wish  that I had a soundbar running. It's such a big,  

beautiful image; I want the sound  to match. And what I'm getting is   just not right. There's a big hole  in the frequency response somewhere,   and the fidelity is just not what I  want. Oh, and any virtual surround sound,   including Atmos effects, are just nonexistent  in this room. Your mileage, as always, may vary. Now, if it sounds like I'm kind of  down on this TV right now, I mean,   that's fair. It sounds like I've started out  negative, but it just so happens that most of   my complaints are around non-picture quality  factors. Because, as you'll soon hear, when it  

comes to the viewing experience this TV offers,  well, frankly, it is delightfully excellent. I'm going to explain exactly what it's been  like to enjoy this TV for the last two weeks   in just a moment. But before I do that, it's  time for a little segment that I like to call   "Numbers for Nit Nerds." This is a section  where we get into the measurement data on   this TV. And if that sounds a bit nerdy  for you, no worries—you can skip right  

ahead to the next section using the time code  links that we have down in the description,   where I'll pick up the story on what  it's like to have this TV in your home. For all you nit nerds out there, I have some  shocking numbers to share with you. Now,   I have to preempt these numbers with a  bit of a caveat. Over the past few years,   as we've been chasing down the best HDR  performance from TVs, we've been excited   about high peak brightness numbers. Not only do  we want dazzling HDR highlights when watching HDR,   which you need brightness for, but we also enjoy  a nice, bright, vivid TV when watching SDR content   in brighter rooms. However, the obsession over  peak brightness measurements has, I feel, gotten a  

little out of hand. I realize the irony of saying  that when I've nicknamed a community "nit nerds."   For sure, I've been part of the hype train that  some manufacturers have now fed into, but I want   to explain first and foremost here that the peak  brightness numbers I got from this TV are, in many   ways, kind of a party trick. What's more important  than the numbers is what the image actually looks   like when viewing content, so I'll be sure to put  all of this in context for you toward the end. I measured this TV using the Filmmaker Mode  picture preset in both SDR and HDR. For Dolby  

Vision, I used primarily Dolby Vision Dark,  though I did play with the higher APL Dolby   Vision Custom Mode, which I tweaked to have the  right color temperature while also disabling all   motion smoothing. In SDR Filmmaker Mode, with the  default brightness setting of just 20 out of 100,   I measured peak brightness of about 680 nits,  which is well higher than the SDR standard but   more to the liking of most viewers. When  I bumped the brightness setting up to 45,   I got 1,650 nits, and when I maxed it out at 100,   I got a blistering 3,700 nits. And this was  all with a standard 10% window, by the way. Now, you'll notice in some of these charts  that the white balance is a bit off,   with the red channel a little high, but those  readings changed after the TV had been in   operation for about five minutes. When I  went back and reran those measurements,   the white balance settled into excellent  performance, with Delta errors of less than   three across the entirety of the measured  grayscale. This is excellent performance,   considering no calibration was performed to  get there, and I'd hope for that from such an   expensive TV. Now, to make sure this wasn't a  fluke, I remeasured several times, and as long  

as the TV had been in operation for about five  minutes or so, those measurements held true. So,   I guess the TV needs a little warm-up time  until it gets to its most accurate point,   and before then, it's just a tad  warm, like when you first turn it on. Color performance was very good, with Delta errors  of less than three almost across the board, and   the color checker test came out really well, too  — most errors under three. Not reference quality,   but in the same ballpark as some of the best TVs  on the market before calibration. Switching to   HDR, though, is where things got really  interesting — and, I dare say, shocking. First, this is the only real  negative I have to call attention to:   this TV over-brightens everything in HDR. It  tracks well above standard on the EOTF test,  

as you can see here. Now, this would be fine if  this was the result in any other picture preset   than Filmmaker Mode, but the Filmmaker  Mode is meant to be the accuracy mode,   and this is not correct. Will most people enjoy  it? I'd argue the answer to that question is yes,   but it is not correct for Filmmaker Mode,  and I'd like to see Hisense fix this. Now, you ready for the shocking stuff? I  know I wasn’t. Peak brightness with a 10%  

window was 4,200 nits — impressive but  not unexpected from a TV that claims to   get up to 10,000 nits peak brightness for HDR  highlights. I reduced the window size to 5%,   and the 110UX started at 10,000 nits, then  pushed up to 13,000 nits, and then it dropped,   which is typical. TVs can only do  the ultra-high brightness stuff in   small areas for short periods of time.  Then I reduced the test window to 2%,   and the TV came in at a roaring 18,000 nits  before falling off after a couple of seconds. Folks, this is really important: the meter that I  use is only rated to be accurate to 10,000 nits,   though we know that it can read higher than  that. But I think the margin for error here is   probably in the hundreds of nits, not thousands,  so seeing a number in the 18,000s is insane. Now,  

it's important to note that while it is  exciting to know that a TV can do this in   a testing scenario, you are never, ever going  to get 18,000 or even 15,000 nits from this TV   in real performance. You'll be hard-pressed to  get 10,000 nits. Most HDR content is mastered   to 1,000 nits and doesn't have information  directing the TV to go over that number.   There is a handful of content mastered  to 4,000 nits — we like to use Mad Max,   for example — and no doubt this TV can do  that without blinking. There is virtually   no content that you can access that is mastered  at 10,000 nits, except the Spears & Munsil disc,   so this TV will never be called to do any higher  than 10,000 nits, not with instructions. However,   if you turn on dynamic tone mapping, this TV will  push HDR highlights as hard as it can, and folks,   it's kind of insane just how bright this TV can  get. I'm going to do my best to show you shortly.

One last note here: perceived brightness does not  have a linear relationship to the measurement.   What I mean is, double the nits is nowhere close  to double the brightness. So, the difference   between 10,000 nits and 18,000 nits is not nearly  as much as you'd think, but the notion that this   is the brightest TV that I've ever tested?  Well, there is no doubt about that. It's clear   when watching content — this is definitely  the brightest TV that I have ever tested.

Before I go any further, I feel like I need to  clarify something. This TV's brightness power,   so far, for me anyway, has not been a liability.  I know a lot of people hear these ridiculous   brightness claims, and they worry that they're  just going to get blasted out of their room. In a   dark room with properly rendered HDR, it was never  a problem. In a bright room, where you really   juice it up, also never a problem. I do think that  if you sit really close to the TV in a dark room,   and you turn on dynamic tone mapping, this TV does  have the ability to make your eyes uncomfortable.  

But the thing is, it doesn't have to do that.  It's not part and parcel of the TV's screen.   It generally only gets bright when it's supposed  to, and artistically done, that's not a problem. Now, as exciting as it can be, we've got to  move away from peak brightness measurements.   The 110UX performs very ably with HDR color,  showing marginal deviations from the standard   with luminance errors factored in. Rec. 2020  color gamut coverage came in at 83% — we're   used to seeing about 76% for context — and  the TV did about 99% of DCI-P3 coverage,   as expected. Overall, the TV measures  extremely well before calibration,  

and Hisense makes the tools available  to dial it in to near perfection. Outside of those measurements, I continue to  get outstanding results in other performance   areas. I put this TV through a gauntlet  of torture tests, and the 110UX just did   extremely well with all of them. In some ways,  it was outperforming some of the best-rated   TVs on the market. Thanks to Classy Tech  Calibrations for suggesting this scene in 1917,  

where on some TVs you can see posterization around  the flames that results in pinkish and greenish   rings surrounding the flames — not present on  this TV. Now, the TV does crush black ever so   slightly with its local dimming setting on  high, but not so much that a significant   amount of shadow detail is lost. As long as the  lights are dimmed, I'm still seeing low-light   detail in the walls in this scene. I feel like  the scene is pretty accurately represented. For motion, I am shocked to say that I was  downright impressed. Due to the very quick   response time on this TV, I do see a little bit  of flashing from bright objects during slow camera   pans, but it's nowhere near as noticeable as it  is on an OLED TV. I have not had a problem with   film judder or dropped frames on this TV, and I  have watched a lot of content — I think I would   have seen it by now. Upscaling and cleanup of  low-quality content? Frankly, this is the best  

that I've ever seen from Hisense. I mean, I'm  looking for reasons to complain, and I'm just   coming up empty-handed. This TV far exceeds the  performance I've seen from the likes of Hisense's   U7N and U8N. I watched some really rough content,  and it looks better than I expected on a screen of   this size. I will say that when watching content  with film grain — whether digitally inserted or   carried over during a digital transfer from an  actual film — that's where you notice the screen   size, if you're sitting pretty close. This is true  of just about every TV on the market, where the  

grain can seemingly take something away from the  sharpness while also adding depth and character. It's just that the grain is more obvious  on a big screen if you're sitting very   close to it. I have no complaints, though,  about how the 110 UX handles film grain.   I also lucked out with an exceptionally  clean panel here—zero perceivable dirty   screen effect. Your mileage will vary,  but man, when it's clean, it is clean. Guys, test after test, even the torture  tests, the 110 UX does extremely well.   I feel like it delivers the experience  that you would expect from an extremely   expensive TV and borders on reference quality  in most cases. I've said this too many times,  

but I'm going to say it again: I am shocked  at how good this TV looks. Pulling up Mad Max,   where we know that the flames and sun reflections  off the windows are intensely bright, I've never   seen them pulled off with such intensity,  even with dynamic tone mapping turned off.   But turn on dynamic tone mapping, and  man, this TV really juices things up.

Now, I would definitely leave dynamic tone mapping  off in a dark room, but in a bright room, it makes   HDR content sing, even in the most challenging of  environments. Sports—man, sports are a treat to   watch on this TV. Even low-quality streaming  sports looked surprisingly good, and again,   I should caveat that a bit by saying from a screen  of this size, when you blow up even a 1080p cable   or satellite signal to this size, the low bit  rate of that signal makes itself pretty apparent.   Still, I was never distracted by excessive  noise, blockiness, or banding on this TV.

So, if you're just rejoining us after skipping  the nit nerd section, the shorthand is this:   the 110 UX is an exceptional big-screen TV. It  very much backs up its asking price, not just   with size but with a very high-quality image.  By the way, I don't know where Zeke is going   to put this in the video, but I did measure the  TV's heat output, and with just kind of average,   everyday content, it measured about 110 to  115 degrees on the screen surface. There is   a lot of screen surface, though, so it is a  TV that's going to warm up a smaller space. But ditching all the nerdy stuff, I've  just had an absolute blast watching   this TV and playing video games on it.  Everything has been a treat. It's bright,  

vivid, punchy, colorful, and everything I've  watched on it has just looked really good,   not just really big. This TV isn't just  fun, though, it's downright impressive.   It is easily one of the most brag-worthy TVs I've  ever had the pleasure of experiencing and testing. Now, I know some folks have concerns  about longevity and reliability,   and it's an ongoing frustration that I'm  not able to do more long-term testing.   But what I have noticed is that the  last two generations of Hisense TVs   that I've tested seem to be performing just  as well now as the day I got them. I think   Hisense is taking some pretty big strides  in terms of build quality and reliability.

Unfortunately, this TV has to  go back to Hisense very soon,   so we're going to miss out on the opportunity  to put it head-to-head with the TCL 115-inch.   But I can say, having watched both of these  TVs side by side for a couple of weeks now,   that the 110 UX is cleaner looking and has far  more accurate measurements out of the box than   the TCL model. Now, I'm not sure that is going  to be all that meaningful to that many folks.   I know a lot of folks would just prefer to  get five more diagonal inches for about the   same price—bigger TV for the same money. But if  you're more of a purist, there is no question   that the 110 UX has tested better than the TCL  QM891G, which frankly I did not see coming.

For now, I'll applaud Hisense for doing something  that is unprecedented—creating a flagship-level   TV at a monumental screen size. I've never  seen anything like it before. For later,   I'm going to ask that Hisense apply everything  that makes the processor, the build quality,   and the overall performance capabilities of  this TV so great, and hurry up with trickling   that down to some of their more affordable  models. I get that this is the moonshot,   cost-no-object TV, but now that we know that  you can do it, Hisense, you are on the hook   for bringing it to a larger audience. And if that  isn't a big tease for CES, I don't know what is. Thanks so much for watching, everyone. What's  your take on this TV? Let the people know  

down in the comments. Like this video if you  enjoyed it so it gets shared with more people.   Subscribe if you want to see more content  like this. I'll see you on the next one,   and until then, here's two other  videos I think you might like. Really.

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