On the right low-profile stand, the XT910 would easily pass for ‘posh’ in polite company
Dangerous curves
The screen curvature on the XT910 is quite pronounced – certainly
more so than Sony’s rival S85C. The curved
stand accentuates the look. Hisense is clearly setting out to challenge lovers of classic flat panels
Climate cont rol
In addition to the usual assortment of screen tabs, the TV offers the date and a weather forecast for your local area. Handy!
Tuning opt ions
In addition to Freeview HD, there’s a single generic (not Freesat) satellite tuner. The set will record to a connected USB hard drive from the designated on-board tuner
Net work opt ions
The XT910 has an Ethernet port but is also compatible with dualband Wi-Fi, giving you the option to network in the generally less-congested 5GHz band
around the Hisense app store uncovers Dailymotion, Plex, Picasa, the Opera TV browser and Vevo, plus assorted games and detritus. There’s no other mainstream catch-up service outside of the Beeb. The on-screen Catch-Up button actually pulls up a selection of content from Viewster, so it’s not really catch-up TV at all. All the VOD movies come from Chili but, ironically, there’s not much here that’s hot.
It’s probably best to consider Hisense’s connected offering as ‘smart TV lite’. But, of course, improvements could always just be a firmware update away, so take this with a pinch of salt.
The set proves to be a pretty good media player. The on-board reader will pick up the servers on your network; alternatively, pop in a USB thumb drive to play files. Video compatibility is solid (MKV, WMV, MP4, AVI and MOV). Audio support covers MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC and FLAC. The browsing interface is simple and intuitive. While navigation is fuss-free, the quad-core processor doesn’t seem quite as smooth or nippy as some high-end sets we’ve auditioned.
Picture pe rformance Things begin to get interesting when it comes to picture quality. There’s a varied selection of picture presets available: Standard, Dynamic, Natural, Theatre, Game and Sport. For most of this audition, we stuck with the Standard mode, which proved to be the best bet for most content types.
The XT910 offers interpolation to improve smoothness and motion detail, but it’s not entirely successful. Dubbed Ultra Smooth Motion (SMR), it can be set to Low, Middle or High, or switched off entirely. There are very evident artefacts at the higher settings, in addition to the general icy glaze typical of fast refresh rates.
There are some small touches that rankle: the picture menu reads Color instead of Colour, while on-screen menus are visible for an infuriatingly short time. While Americanisms can’t be fixed, you can at least delve into the menus to adjust the amount of time they remain available.
That Premium set-up mode proves to be astonishingly bright, which suits viewing in rooms with high levels of ambient light. Images are characterised by high contrast and colour. Dim the houselights, though, and this luminosity could prove too strong for movie night. The Premium mode also emphasises issues with black level and backlight uniformity. Adaptive contrast can
darken the screen but this crushes blacks and kills shadow detail.
The XT910 has a sharpness default of ten but it should be trimmed back to zero. Any incremental increase brings unwanted ringing. While this extra edge emphasis may give pictures more subjective ping from a distance, it does nothing for genuine clarity.
The set makes good use of wide colour gamut Quantum Dot processing. We found that the default position over-saturates, but taken down to around 40 the palette becomes a good deal more realistic.
Switching Ultra Smooth Motion processing off will limit motion resolution (to around 950 lines at 6.5 pixels per frame, with a 1080p test pattern), but with the benefit of no motion artefacts. You’ll see judder on horizontal pans, though. Switching the processing to low doesn’t offer any improvement in motion detail, but does smooth out these pans. However, we became aware of what appeared to be a tendency to skip frames.
Placing Ultra Smooth Motion (SMR) on its middle and high settings induces obvious motion noise. In these settings, fine detail is preserved, albeit couched in the kind of smoothness often called a soap-opera effect. The setting is suited to fast sports but not movies.
With native 4K, the screen looks crisp and dynamic. The Adam Sandler comedy (sic) western The Ridiculous 6 (Netflix 4K) is one of the nicestlooking UHD streams available, and on the XT910 looks awesome.
Daredevil (also Netflix 4K) is a grainy show at the best of times, and here the Noise Reduction system really needs to be switched off to avoid undue image fizz.
Regular 1080p content also looks great on the 8m pixel screen, particularly from Blu-ray. There’s no evidence it’s doing much apart from a linear upscale, but the pixel-dense 2160p panel ensures you can sit close and not suffer any pixel-grid intrusion. Images are photographically smooth.
The set is Active Shutter 3Dcompatible, with one pair of glasses provided. The screen exhibits enticing depth, but there’s clear crosstalk double imaging. This makes for a rather uncomfortable 3D experience, but it’s not a trait exclusive to Hisense. Perhaps kids will enjoy CGI 3D toons, but we imagine most users will opt to leave the option well alone.
The set’s audio performance is surprisingly feisty, at least in terms of volume. Hisense has licensed dbxTV DSP audio tech, which works well. The soundstage is more monophonic than stereo, but for everyday viewing it’ll more than suffice.
Given that the screen is a bit of a light cannon, it’s no surprise to hear that an HDR (High Dynamic Range) update is planned for the set. Currently, Hisense is talking about a firmware roll-out in April.
We rather like the XT910. It’s a genuine low(er)-cost challenger to high-end performers from established brands. Sure, we’d like to see some improvements to the screen’s motion handling – Hisense says it’s currently working on a panel update to address this – and the smart platform could do with some more local catch-up options. But in terms of fidelity and cosmetic appeal, it represents great value. We rate this as a promising start for the Chinese brand. There’s a new TV player in town, and it looks set to challenge the status quo.