Hisense Dual Cell 65SX TV review – the blacks of an OLED with the brightness of LED

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• VERDICT

Hisense has really delivered with the Dual Cell 65SX TV and engineered this new technology to offer a stunning picture quality that’s also backed by outstanding audio to create a memorable entertainment experience.

Hisense has combined the best of both worlds with its new 65SX Dual Cell TV – the black levels that would compete with an OLED and the colour and brightness of an LED TV in one unit.

What Hisense has achieved here is impressive and it has also priced the 65SX sensibly as well for it to sit below the price of an OLED TV.

If the Hisense was more expensive, we think customers would just buy an OLED.

Priced at $3,499, the 65SX Dual Cell TV not only offers excellent picture quality but also a remarkable audio experience thanks to the onboard speakers and a separate subwoofer.

On the design side, the Hisense 65SX has a sleek look with a stand that runs the width of the TV and this gives the front speaker the space to perform to fire down and out.

And the subwoofer actually makes up part of the stand and can rest behind the TV yet still be clearly heard because it is a non-directional speaker.

But if a customer wants to wall mount the Hisense Dual Cell TV, the subwoofer can rest on the floor and offer precisely the same effect.

Dual Cell – as its name suggests – means there are two 65-inch panels bonded together.

There is one monochrome and one colour panel.

The mono panel controls the luminance – the backlight – and can more effectively block that light when it needs to produce black.

The reason why an OLED panel creates such deep blacks is because there is no backlight to block. It is made from material that is self-illuminating so the pixel is either on or off.

In the case of the Hisense Dual Cell TV, it has done a good job of imitating this with pixels on the monochrome panel (there are more than two million of them) making it possible to precisely darken even very small areas of the screen.

And then with the colour cell this brings in the brilliant colours and, more importantly, the brightness which is OLED’s only weakness.

That’s not to say an OLED isn’t bright – but an LED panel can achieve more brightness because it has that backlight.

Tech Guide took a look at the Hisense Dual Cell 65CX and watched 4K programs on Netflix and 4K discs.

We were immediately impressed with the Hisense 65SX picture quality.

Brightness, colour and black levels were on point.

The first thing we noticed was the warmth of the image with flesh tones rendering more on the red side and other colours having a little more richness to them.

It didn’t get to the point where we were looking at something artificial.

When we were watching Lost In Space on Netflix there were a number of scenes with characters wearing black clothes against a light background there was hardly any light bleed.

We did notice a minute haze and juddering when the black objects were moving as the pixels adjusted on the fly.

It was hardly noticeable on the Hisense TV but it just doesn’t happen on an OLED TV.

Yet when you’re viewing s star field – like the opening crawl of a Star Wars film, the panel looked great and was able to clearly create the points of light that make up the stars against a black background.

Overall, the black levels and contrast on the 65SX were way above average and not far from the levels achieved by an OLED TV.

It was still easy to identify the detail in the shadows as well.

And while the TV has the advantages of an LED in terms of brightness and rich colour – it also has some of its faults as well.

There were some scenes where we noticed a little noise in some of the darker areas of the image.

This graininess was noticeable but not too great as to be distracting but, for us, it was hard not to see it at times.

The panel also offers 200Hz refresh rate which smooths out fast moving scenes nicely and would also make watching sports a lot more enjoyable as well.

One area where OLED is superior is the viewing angle. OLED, even watching almost side on, maintains it brightness and contrast.

The Hisense TV picture did degrade at those side-on angles but no more than other LED TVs.

But overall the Hisense Dual Cell 65SX TV offers a mostly pristine viewing experience that is a step above regular LEDS TVs and almost on par with OLED.

LG is the undisputed king when it comes to OLED TVs and, while the Hisense doesn’t quite match it in terms of contrast and black levels, it’s not far off.

On the audio side, the Hisense Dual Cell TV also has some solid credentials with Dolby Atmos capabilities.

That subwoofer does add a lot to the sound experience but it’s the onboard two speakers and four tweeters that also come in to play and create a stimulating surround sound experience.

There is no 3D surround like you’d get from a dedicated Dolby Atmos speaker set up or sound bar with sounds descending on you, but it’s still quite impressive.

You’ll also be surprised how loud the TV can be which is good to know when you want to crank the volume on your favourite scenes.

There is enough detail and clarity in the sound as is – so no need to even consider a soundbar.

The Hisense Dual Cell also includes the VIDAA 4 operating system which is easy to navigate and get to the input or streaming source you want.

Users will find Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime and YouTube onboard but it’s still lacking Disney+ and Apple TV at the moment with the company working towards adding these services in a software update in the not too distant future.

The TV also comes with two remotes – the larger remote the ships to all countries and the smaller remote with the shortcut buttons for Australian customers like Stan and ABC iView.

The Hisense Dual Cell 65SX TV is available now and is priced at $3,499.

VERDICT

Hisense has really delivered with the Dual Cell 65SX TV and engineered this new technology to offer a stunning picture quality that’s also backed by outstanding audio to create a memorable entertainment experience.