Hisense has a nice alternative for those who’re still worried about returning to cinemas where social distancing might be problematic. It comes in the shape of its 100-inch, 4K resolution L5F Laser TV ultra-short-throw projector.
The Hisense L5F Laser TV was first seen at the Consumer Electronic Show in January, and is able to emulate the brightness and colour reproduction of a standard TV while offering a much bigger viewing window. This year’s model is the first Hisense laser TV to run the Android TV platform, and it comes with a peak brightness of 2,700 lumens, which isn’t bad for a projector by any means. It also features an ambient light-rejecting screen and costs less than Hisense’s previous laser TV models.
Still, that’s not to say it’s cheap. It isn’t at all, as it’s priced at $4,000 (around £3,050) in the U.S., where it has gone on sale. That, unfortunately, makes it far more expensive than most 75-inch 4K TVs.
Specs-wise it’s pretty near though. The Hisense L5F Laser TV lasts for more than 25,000 hours, or nearly three solid years of use. It comes with a DLP chip made by Texas Instruments that helps it to produce a “vivid, crystal-clear picture” via techniques such as pixel shifting and fast scanning. It also supports the HDR10 and HLG high dynamic range formats, and can produce over a billion colours, including 83% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. It comes with built-in 30 watt speakers and can be hooked up to most surround sound systems.
Of course, many people will say it’s not worth buying laser TV, especially when most large-sized 4K TVs are just as bright and colourful, and cost a whole lot less. And TVs generally support a wider range of HDR formats, and can last longer than 25,000 hours.
But proponents of Hisense’s laser TVs point to their greater versatility, as they can be accommodated in a much smaller space and you don’t need to buy a TV stand to place it on. Indeed, the Hisense L5F laser TV can just be set on the floor, and needs just 11.4 inches of space to throw up a 100-inch image on the wall.
The Hisense L5F laser TV is available to buy in the U.S. now, but there’s no word yet if the model will go on sale in the U.K.
