I'm NOT Keeping the World's Biggest TV

Despite its groundbreaking RGB backlight technology and high brightness, the Hisense 116UX, the world's largest TV, was ultimately not kept due to noticeable blooming, motion performance issues, and better overall processing and dimming zone count in the existing TCL TV.

• The Hisense 116UX RGB Mini-LED has groundbreaking color volume but struggles with blooming and motion blur.

• TCL's higher traditional dimming zone count and better processing provided a sharper visual experience.

• RGB Mini-LED is a promising future display technology that needs further refinement in processing and zone density.

While the new Hisense 116UX, featuring RGB backlight technology, offers unprecedented color volume and superior contrast in certain scenarios, it struggles with visible blooming and motion performance, especially compared to the TCL's higher traditional dimming zone count and processing. Extensive lab testing revealed that despite some impressive technical specifications like high SDR brightness and good HDR color accuracy, the Hisense's current implementation of RGB Mini-LED technology still falls short of expectations, leading to the decision to keep the TCL.

Hisense vs. TCL Initial Impressions

• 00:00:00 The Hisense 116UX initially impressed with its RGB backlight technology and touted superior contrast and color volume compared to the existing TCL TV, which features 20,000 LED dimming zones. However, upon direct comparison, the TCL's higher local dimming zone count made objects 'pop' more on screen, and the Hisense's claims of 10,752 zones (counting individual RGB elements) were found to be less effective in practice, still exhibiting noticeable blooming.

Technical Performance Evaluation

• 00:08:07 In SDR content, the Hisense 116UX demonstrated stupidly high brightness, reaching over 1100 nits in a 100% window, which is nearly 300 nits brighter than the TCL. While it achieved an average Delta E2000 of 1.74 in BT709, a noticeable blue spike contributed to this, though many swatches were under one. For HDR, it peaked at 6500 nits in 'vivid mode,' but only 5500 nits in 'filmmaker mode,' falling short of Hisense's 8000-nit claim, though it tracked light nicely and achieved 92.5% BT.2020 color space coverage.

Gaming and Motion Performance

• 00:10:38 The Hisense 116UX utilizes a VA panel, resulting in subpar viewing angles, and its pixel response times were not ideal, averaging 8.5 milliseconds with a maximum of over 46 milliseconds, leading to a 'smear fest' even at 165Hz. This motion blur was noticeable even in movies, which was a significant drawback. However, input latency was impressively low at 4.6 milliseconds, nearly a theoretical perfect score, making it suitable for responsive gaming despite the motion blur.

Future of RGB Mini-LED

• 00:12:03 RGB Mini-LED is considered a potentially magical future technology, dictating color and brightness for over 20,000 RGB backlight clusters. While the Hisense's new 'High View AI Engine X' processor is capable, it is believed that more processing power and a higher traditional zone count could further refine the technology. Competitors like Sony and Samsung are also developing this technology, with Sony particularly known for excellent image processing, which could push the technology over the edge. Smaller, more affordable versions of RGB Mini-LED TVs are anticipated in the coming years.