Big Screen, Low Price

With its 75M7900, Hisense lets you buy a 75in 4K HDR flatscreen for just £2,500. Bigscreen-lover John Archer goes in search of the catch

- John Archer

THERE CAN BE no clearer sign of just how disruptive Chinese brand Hisense has the potential to be within the UK AV market-place than its 75M7900 TV. After all, despite serving up a 75in Ultra HD screen that’s capable of playing HDR and 3D (although no glasses for the latter were provided for this review), the 75M7900 costs just £2,500. That’s an impressive £1,500 cheaper than the next most affordable 75in TV we’ve tested, Sony’s KD-75XD9405. It's therefore sure to catch the eye of those seeking a display to offer even more screen real estate than popular 65in models. But does it really represent a bona fide bargain?

Back to basics

It has to be said that Hisense's 75M7900 does wear its pseudo-budget heart on its sleeve. The design here is basically just a dark rectangle (albeit a nicely slender one) on a pair of silvery feet. Maybe the brand saved money on the TV’s production costs by sacking its design department. If you want a style icon – or one of these curved displays that some people apparently love – look elsewhere.

The mounting feet are positioned towards the corners of the bottom edge, which could be a problem if you don’t have a seriously wide piece of AV furniture (more than 1.5m) to sit the TV on. This lack of design flair, though, will no doubt prove easy to live with if Hisense has channelled its R&D efforts into delivering a good picture performance.

With that in mind, it’s concerning to find the 75M7900’s screen apparently only capable of 400 nits of brightness. Usually we’d be looking for at least 700 – and ideally 1,000 nits or more – for an HDR screen.