Hisense 43H6D Review: Budget-Friendly 4K HDR

Our Verdict

The Hisense 43H6D offers a sharp 4K picture with HDR support at a sugariness low price, simply display-quality issues and a meager app choice hold this set up dorsum.

For

4K HDR support
Affordable price
Plenty of HDMI ports
Easy-to-use interface

Confronting

Mesomorphic design
Low brightness
Backlight isn't compatible
Limited app selection

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Hisense 43H6D offers a precipitous 4K flick with HDR support at a sweet depression toll, simply display-quality problems and a meager app selection hold this set back.

Pros

+
4K HDR support
+
Affordable toll
+
Plenty of HDMI ports
+
Easy-to-use interface

Cons

-
Chunky design
-
Depression effulgence
-
Backlight isn't compatible
-
Limited app selection

The Hisense 43H6D is a 4K Ultra Hard disk Goggle box, but don't presume it's out of your price range. The 43-inch Hisense offers smart-TV functionality and HDR for less than $500 and is the sibling to the Hisense 43H7D that we included in our roundup of the best inexpensive 4K TVs. While this TV may not offer all the smoothen and features of more expensive 4K sets, it nevertheless delivers equally a smart TV with 4K resolution and HDR support, and does so at a price that'due south piece of cake to tummy.

Pattern: Indigestible, enough of ports

The Hisense's chassis measures 38.ane x 22.1 x three.4 inches, with plastic construction and a indigestible design. With the stand attached, the fix actually measures 7.5 inches deep, simply VESA mount-compatibility means yous can hang this set on a wall just every bit easily every bit you tin can ready it up on a table or shelf. Information technology's not as graceful and stylish as a premium prepare, like the Samsung Q7F, but the utilitarian design gets the job done.

On the dorsum and left side of the set, you'll find iv HDMI ports, 3 USB ports (2 USB two.0, one USB 3.0), an Ethernet port, an RF connector for antenna, and both component and blended video. Fifty-fifty with a box for cablevision or satellite, a Blu-ray player and a game panel, you lot should have ample connections available for annihilation else y'all want to connect to the set. With built-in Wi-Fi, you can become online for streaming content without running a networking cablevision across your living room.

Performance: Good on color, but uneven backlighting

The Hisense 43H6D 43-inch display uses an edge-lit LED console with low (only tolerable) brightness, registering a maximum brightness level of 296 nits in our lab testing. Bright colors came through clearly, whether the ready was playing back 4K content from a UHD Blu-ray or upscaling over-the-air channels from an antenna.

Blithe M&One thousand's popped in a Idiot box commercial, and the rainbow-hued suits of the Power Rangers looked good in 4K.

The set offers high dynamic range (HDR) processing, but the pick is buried in the user settings and called Dynamic Backlight Control instead of the more than standard terminology. The 43H6D supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10 formats, but with less than 300 nits of brightness, the effect was minimal.

Withal, the lack of compatible backlight illumination across the panel overshadowed the newer standard. Regardless of the fabric nosotros viewed, unwanted shadows were frequently visible along the peak and bottom edges of the screen, and the corners of the 43-inch panel were always dimmer than the rest of the picture. Conversely, the correct and left edges of the screen were often over-illuminated, with noticeable flaring visible when displaying black backgrounds.

The 43H6D's colour accuracy is fairly good, as the set registered a Delta-E rating of two.4 (closer to 0 is ameliorate), which is better than many budget 4K sets achieve. The Westinghouse Amazon Fire TV (v.five) and the LG 43UJ6300 (4.5) both fared worse, while the TCL Roku TV (2.2) was quite similar similar. The Hisense also produced 98.7 percent of the Rec. 709 color space; we consider anything close to 100 percent or higher to be quite practiced.

Black levels, on the other paw, frequently overwhelmed shadowy details. Black portions of Deadpool's adapt, for instance, were inky-black, losing the fine folds and creases seen in other sets.

The 43H6D produced surprisingly skillful bass for a system without a subwoofer.

The 60-Hz refresh rate on this set is disappointing simply expected, and Hisense's use of Motion Rate 120 pushes this set to an effective refresh rate of 120 Hz. While we adopt true 120 Hz or higher, peculiarly for watching sports, you lot aren't likely to find that rate at this toll. Nevertheless, there was none of the flickering that I saw on the similarly priced Hisense 43H7D or the Westinghouse Amazon Fire Television set, fifty-fifty though I'm fairly sensitive to information technology.

There was a scrap of a screen-door consequence when some tightly patterned details moved across the screen, and images of a chain-link fence nigh shimmered when the camera panned across the scene. Turning on digital noise-reduction slightly improved the issue simply didn't solve it.

Audio: Surprisingly good

When I listened to the Foo Fighters' "The Sky Is a Neighborhood," the 43H6D produced surprisingly practiced bass for a organisation without a subwoofer. The 43H6D's two 7-watt speakers produced enough book to fill a living room, and song lyrics were more often than not articulate, though some sounds were a scrap dirty. Preset sound profiles let yous choose from amid Standard, Theater, Music, Oral communication and Late Dark modes.

The Hisense supports Dolby Digital surround sound, with a digital-optical output for 5.one speaker systems. The 43H6D has no Bluetooth back up, then you don't have that selection for wireless headphones or speakers.

More than: 9 Cheap Soundbars (Under $100) Ranked Best to Worst

Remote: Complicated

While many smart-TV manufacturers are simplifying the remotes for their role-filled sets with minimalist, wand-style designs, Hisense has fabricated its remote bigger and crowded with number buttons, channel and volume controls. A square band of arrow buttons lets y'all navigate through menus along with buttons for habitation, dorsum and exit. Defended buttons for Netflix, Amazon, Vudu and YouTube let you spring direct into streaming apps. The remote has 44 buttons in all, as compared to vii on the remote for the Samsung Q7F.

More-esoteric features like voice search or gesture command are nowhere to be found, but the one missing feature that felt like an oversight was backlighting. If y'all're going to give someone a remote with 44 buttons, and then a bit of illumination – whether an LED backlight or but glow-in-the-night labels – would be helpful. I could see myself frequently fumbling as I try to figure out which blackness button is which on the black, plastic remote, peculiarly after dimming the lights to savor a movie.

Smart TV Features: Stripped down

Hisense uses the Opera TV operating arrangement for the 43H6D, instead of a more than pop interface, like Roku or Android TV. The carte du jour layout is simple and easy to navigate, with a unmarried row of carte du jour items coming upwards when yous hit the abode push and a simple grid menu for things like input selection or apps. Getting around with the directional buttons on the remote is very straightforward.

Yous tin choose from a scattering of popular app options like Netflix, Amazon Video and YouTube, but there are fewer than 30 apps total. You won't observe many mutual streaming services, like Hulu, Crackle or Crunchyroll. Music apps are similarly hitting-and-miss; you'll get Pandora and iHeart Radio, just non Spotify.

Bottom Line

While it'due south impressive that the Hisense 43H6D offers 4K HDR for less than $500, the affordable price comes with its share of caveats. Some are expected, like the beefy design or the off-white but not fantastic sound quality. Others are unwelcome surprises, similar backlighting that'southward far from uniform and screen effulgence that'due south dim enough to blunt any benefit from HDR. And while this set does come with several pop apps preinstalled, other common services are nowhere to be found, leaving the Hisense 43H6D feeling a little dumber than most smart TVs. On the whole, information technology's a bargain for a 4K set, only the caveats might put you off regardless of the cost.

For a better budget Ultra HD Television set, look to the Insignia Roku TV NS-55DR620NA18 or the TCL Roku Boob tube 55P607, which both offer Roku'due south richer app option and crave fewer compromises in display quality.

Credit: Hisense

Brian Westover is an Editor at Tom's Guide, covering everything from TVs to the latest PCs. Prior to joining Tom'south Guide, he wrote for TopTenReviews and PCMag.