Review: Hisense 55A85H (A85H-serie) OLED TV

Hisense 55A85H – Design

As long as you only look at the screen, the OLED design of most manufacturers is very similar. The slim panel steals the show with a fine metal edge as a frame that seamlessly merges into the back. At the bottom right you see the Hisense brand in a silver accent.

The entire device is about seven centimeters deep, but that’s only at the bottom where the speakers are hidden. The back of the housing is beautifully finished in a diamond pattern.

One detail we can really appreciate, namely the device is on a swivel base. The footplate is completely open at the front, which contributes to an elegant appearance.

Hisense 55A85H – Connections

Just like on the 55U8HQ, this OLED model is also equipped with two HDMI 2.0 connections and two HDMI 2.1 connections . On HDMI 3 and 4 you have 48 Gbps bandwidth, support for ALLM, VRR and eARC and you can game in 4K120.

There are also two USB connections, a composite video and stereo minijack input, optical digital audio out, and a headphone connection. The Ethernet connection and WiFi provide connectivity to your home network and there is Bluetooth for audio. The Ethernet connection, optical digital output and one USB connections point to the back, but are a bit deeper in the back so that tight wall mounting may just be possible.

Hisense 55A85H – Ease of use and smart TV

VIDAA U, Hisense’s smart TV platform, has a lot to offer. In this version, VIDAA U6, you can use user profiles to give each family member their own favorite apps, although this is not mandatory. You can use the TV perfectly, including all apps, without a VIDAA account.

You install the TV either with the remote or via the VIDAA app. We noticed an oddity. The installation procedure does not allow you to connect to your home network via Ethernet (even if the TV is connected via Ethernet), you can only connect via WiFi. We skipped that step and connected the TV to the network via the menus after installation, then you can opt for a wired connection. So it’s just a cosmetic flaw. We informed Hisense, it is possible that the installation procedure can be adjusted with a software update.

The VIDAA U interface is compact and well-arranged, but the Home screen is not very economical with screen space. The large central VIDAA banner is of no use. At the top you will find icons for the search function, inputs, settings, notifications, user profile, and voice commands. There is room for twelve apps under the banner. Once you select one, everything will slide up, giving you recommendations from that service, if available. You can determine the apps and the order in that row yourself. The interface responds smoothly.

Hisense 55A85H – Image processing

Live TV from a set-top box, or images from your Blu-ray player, they all look great. The image processing does not show any major glitches, but on the other hand cannot excel either. For live TV, the deinterlacing and upscaling are fine, although we liked to give sharpness a push to, for example, five to make fine detail a little more visible. The Hisense is very careful with noise reduction, if you want to eliminate random noise, you should quickly put that setting in the ‘medium’ position. The only point where we definitely see room for improvement is MPEG noise reduction. The TV has a hard time getting rid of blockiness and color bands in soft color gradients remain inexorably visible (photo is overexposed so that the effect is clearly visible).

OLED screens provide excellent motion sharpness, and you can count on that with this Hisense. It doesn’t deliver Black Frame Insertion, but we don’t find that a problem. After all, the current panels only allow 60 Hz BFI and that flickers visibly, making it rather disturbing. Switch ‘Ultra Smooth Motion’ to ‘Clear’ mode if you find excessive judder in movie images distracting. The Standard and Smooth modes provide smooth pan shots with relatively few image artifacts, at least as long as the camera doesn’t move too quickly. If that is the case, it seems that the processor cannot follow fast enough and you clearly see some stuttering.

Main settings

Hisense 55A85H – Image quality

Judging by the spectrum of this Hisense’s OLED panel, it’s not one of the brand new panels. So it remains to be seen what the maximum brightness is that Hisense gets from the panel.

Two remarkably good points can be seen immediately. The uniformity is excellent, both for dark and bright images. There are no streaks or other traces of dirty screen effect.

The Filmmaker mode is a good guarantee for correct calibration, but the mode is very dark and really only suitable for viewing in darkening conditions. The Cinema Night and Day modes are slightly better, but set the Maximum Brightness to Medium to be on the safe side.

The Filmmaker mode is a good guarantee for correct calibration, but the mode is very dark and really only suitable for viewing in darkening conditions. The Cinema Day mode is slightly brighter, or just set the Maximum brightness to Medium yourself and disable the light sensor. The gray scale deviates a little to yellow. The color reproduction is very good, colors correctly retain their saturation, but are slightly darker than desired. All these deviations will never be noticed, because the error values ​​are very small. In other words, an excellent result.

Hisense 55A85H – HDR

Hisense opts for broad HDR support, a choice that we always welcome. Both HR10, HLG, Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ are supported.

In terms of peak brightness, the A85H certainly scores well better than last year’s A90G. On the 10% window it reaches 726 nits and the Average brightess limiter should not intervene excessively hard. Only on the completely white test image does it fall back a bit stronger to 148 nits. Those are nice numbers, but it should be clear that you can see a difference with the top OLED models.

The color range is also good, we measure 96% P3 and 69% Rec.2020. What is striking is that it displays colors less brightly than desired, but that is something that you see with more OLED screens.

Hisense 55A85H – Conclusion

We already came to the conclusion in our review of the 55U8HQ that Hisense aims for affordable viewing pleasure and that also applies perfectly to this TV. We can’t point to many negatives. VIDAA You are somewhat behind in terms of app support, although this is mainly the case for local content. Hisense promises to get well soon, but you should always keep in mind that the one app you absolutely want will not come. The processor cannot eliminate color bands in soft color transitions, which can be very noticeable in certain images.

In any case, the OLED panel provides excellent image quality, as we are used to from OLED. The perfect contrast and beautiful color range are ideal for film, the HDR performance is good, and with support for HDR10 + and Dolby Vision IQ you have everything you need to enjoy the best HDR sources. The good motion sharpness is fine for sports and gaming. And unlike last year’s models, there are now also HDMI 2.1 connections that are suitable for real gamers. Solid audio performance and a smoothly operating VIDAA U platform round off the package. But it is mainly the price that catches the eye. It is particularly attractive for what it has to offer.