Hisense says its magnificent 116-inch RBG-MiniLED TV has gone on sale in the U.K. at select retailers including Selfridges, Harrods, Currys, Harvey Norman and others – a record-breaking size for a consumer television.
It arrives on these shores just a couple of weeks after it went on sale in the U.S., and at 116-inches, it’s just one inch bigger than Samsung Electronic’s equivalent TV, the Samsung Micro RGB TV that boasts the same cutting-edge display technology.
The Hisense 116UX TV is an impressive TV in many ways, offering compelling colour reproduction, stunning precision, thousands of local dimming zones and sky-high brightness. It also boasts what is perhaps the biggest box that HDTVTest’s chief reviewer Vincent Teoh has ever seen – so big, in fact, that our pint-sized TV reviewer extraordinaire could probably sleep in it very comfortably.
That may be something he has no choice but to do, should he decide to shell out the thousands of pounds needed to keep the model sent to him by Hisense for review.
According to Hisense, RGB-MiniLED technology offers a preview of “where the industry is headed”, surpassing the capabilities of existing Mini-LED TVs.
Instead of using white backlights and red, green and blue quantum dots to create colours, Hisense’s RGB-MiniLED employs TriChroma display technology with dedicated red, green and blue Mini-LEDs. These emanate “spectrally pure” light at the source. According to Hisense, it hits up to 8,000 nits of peak brightness once the TV's warmed up, and it achieves 95% of the BT.2020 color space – far surpassing the range of the best existing Mini-LED TVs.
The Hisense 116UX also boasts a 165Hz panel and has more than 10,000 local dimming zones, which, combined with the incredibly high brightness, should ensure perhaps the most incredible contrast ever seen on a non-OLED television. The result will be incredibly realistic details in shadowy scenes, and it will do this even if the TV happens to be basking in direct sunlight, thanks to the application of Anti-Reflection PRO tech in the display.
According to Hisense, the 116UX and 110UX are powered by the company’s Hi-View AI Engine X chipset, which powers tons of fancy AI processing and 4K upscaling for lower-resolution content. HDR support, including Dolby Vision, and IMAX Enhanced certification are present, while the audio promises to be punchy as hell thanks to the integrated 6.2.2-channel CineStage X surround sound system that’s been fine-tuned by Opéra de Paris and Devialet.
The TV boasts AI algorithms that track the picture in order to match the sound to what’s happening on the screen, with the audio outputted by a combination of side-firing and front-firing speakers. Dolby Atmos is onboard to enable spatial surround sound.
In his first look video, Vincent Teoh gives us a good idea of just how insanely huge the Hisense 116UX RGB-Mini LED TV really is, but he said that it’s not just the incredible size that he’s impressed by. In addition, it was able to deliver “the richest colours ever seen on an LCD TV,” and the incredible realism, combined with its massive screen size, is “redefining immersion”, he said.
Hisense said the 116UX and 100UX are available to buy right now from its official website and from its authorised retailers, but be warned that the £24,999 recommended retail price will put quite a dent in most people’s wallets.
If you’re looking for a more affordable option, you may want to wait until later this year, when the smaller, 100-inch Hisense 100UX RGB-Mini LED TV launches in the U.K. The company has not yet confirmed a price for the latter model, but it’s a given that the dent in your wallet will be somewhat less significant.
As good as the 116UX and 100UX look and sound, they’re unlikely to be the best TVs Hisense rolls out this year, for it has an even more monstrous model in the pipeline known as the Hisense 136MX, which is the company’s newest MicroLED TV, weighing in at a massive 136-inches.
MicroLED is regarded as the creme de la creme of display technologies, featuring self-emissive pixels that deliver perfect blacks, high contrast and exceptional brightness. At 136-inches, it will become the largest consumer-focused MicroLED TV ever launched, but we don’t know yet when it will go on sale.
