Hisense UR8 and UR9: what they ship with and what can come off

These two sit at the top of the Spanish Hisense catalogue: the UR8, from 55 to 100 inches, and the UR9, from 65 to 85. Both introduce the same new backlight, RGB Mini LED, and both declare the same system in their spec sheet: HomeOS U9.5.

That second figure matters as much as the first. HomeOS is not Android: there is no ADB, there are no packages to disable, and there is no way to install anything from outside. The most expensive television the brand sells is also the most closed. One thing at a time.

What RGB Mini LED is, in Hisense's own words#

A normal Mini LED lights the screen with thousands of white diodes, and the colour comes afterwards, when the liquid crystal filters that light: to produce a red, the filter throws away nearly everything else.

Not here. Hisense describes it the same way on both series: "each LED in this backlight uses three individual red, green and blue diodes that work independently to create the colour". The light leaves already coloured, the filter discards less, and that is where both the high peaks and the colour gamut figure come from: BT2020 100 % on all eight models.

What does not change: there is still an LCD in front, with its halo around bright objects on black. It raises the bar for LCD; it is not an OLED and it is not a MicroLED.

One point of vocabulary that helps when comparing. TCL, which is launching the same technology, has stopped calling its own "dimming zones" and now calls them colour zones. Hisense keeps the usual label, Local Dimming Zones, so its numbers can still be set beside those of previous years.

The zones, model by model#

UR8: 704 on the 55", 936 on the 65", 1,296 on the 75", 1,728 on the 85" and 2,520 on the 100".

UR9: 1,056 on the 65", 980 on the 75" and 1,320 on the 85".

Read that again, because there are two odd things and both are in the sheet.

The first: the 75-inch UR9 declares fewer zones than the 65-inch, 980 against 1,056. Within the same series, the larger model goes down.

The second is more awkward: the UR8 declares more zones than the UR9 at both sizes where they overlap. 1,296 against 980 at 75 inches, 1,728 against 1,320 at 85. The set above has fewer zones than the set below.

It is not impossible (the UR9 may distribute them better, or use a different panel) but Hisense explains neither. So it stands as a published figure that runs opposite to what the price suggests.

The headline brightness is not your television's#

The peaks declared in the table, one by one. UR8: 2,500 nits on the 55; 3,500 on the 65, 75 and 85; 3,800 on the 100. UR9: 3,500 on the 65, 4,000 on the 75 and 5,000 on the 85.

Now the headline. On all three UR9 pages (including the 65, which declares 3,500) there is a block announcing "Up to 5000 nits of peak brightness". On all five UR8 pages, including the 55 that declares 2,500, the block says "Up to 3500 nits".

That "up to" belongs to the series, not to the set. Your television's number is in the specifications table, not in the colourful block.

Typical brightness, which is what carries a whole scene, is far more modest and almost always the same: 800 nits on all of them except the 55-inch UR8, which declares 500.

Three HDMI on the expensive one, four on the cheaper one#

You do not see this until you scroll to the bottom of the sheet. All five UR8 declare four HDMI 2.1 ports. All three UR9 declare HDMI4: NA, that is, only three inputs.

If the living room has a console, a soundbar and a set-top box, that is the lot. And one of the three carries eARC (HDMI3 on all eight models) which is exactly the one the soundbar takes.

180 Hz, with one exception#

They all declare 180 Hz vertical frequency and VRR at 4K 180 Hz on their ports, except the 65UR9S, which declares 170 Hz in both places.

There is an entertaining slip on the pages themselves: the UR8 block titled "4 x HDMI 2.1" boasts of "up to 165 Hz" a few lines from the table that says 180. And the 65UR9S page carries two consecutive blocks, one for 180 Hz and one for 170.

The label: VIDAA, HomeOS, or both at once#

Here is the confusion that will send a lot of people searching online for why their new television says one thing and the box says another.

All eight declare Smart TV Operating System: HomeOS U9.5. On the UR8 pages, the promotional block is titled "Home Comes to Life--HomeOS". So far, so consistent.

On the three UR9 pages, that same block is titled "Home Comes to Life--VIDAA" and the text underneath says "HomeOS uses artificial intelligence to personalise your experience". Both names, in the same paragraph.

And one step up, the 100- and 116-inch UXQ sets (also RGB Mini LED) declare VIDAA U9 in the operating system field, plain and simple.

These are not different systems. It is the same VIDAA renamed to HomeOS, with the change half done across the catalogue. We cover it in full, including what you can and cannot do, in Hisense with VIDAA: what you can clean up when there is no ADB.

One warning, because the table invites it: the only row that says "Android" is Anyview Stream, and it refers to the phone app. The television does not run Android.

What Hisense does not publish#

Neither RAM nor storage, on any of the eight. It is the figure that decides how many years the set has left and, on a system without ADB, you cannot look it up yourself either.

Half the panel table comes back as zero. Contrast, black level, response time and input lag all appear as 0 on the five UR8 and on the 65UR9S. Only the 75UR9S and 85UR9S fill them in: the 85 declares 8000:1 contrast, 0.1 nits of black, 6 ms response and 8 ms of latency at 4K 120 Hz.

The 100UR8S sheet is practically empty: energy class, consumption, contrast and latency, all at zero. And the five UR8 leave the screen size row as "-", which the UR9 do fill in.

The UR9's USB-C does not appear under connectivity. A block on its pages announces a USB-C port that shares files, projects at 4K 165 Hz and charges at 10 W. The connections table lists one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0, and no USB-C.

To place the range: the 136-inch MicroLED, which sits above all of this, has a page promising "up to 10,000 nits of brightness" and a specifications table that is simply blank. Not even an operating system.

What they ship with#

All eight declare the same apps: Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, MAX, SkyShowtime, DAZN, Movistar+, YouTube and PlutoTV, plus miTele, Atres Player and RTVE a la Carta in Spain. Twelve in total, and Hisense's own browser, Odin.

On top of that comes ConnectLife, which turns the television into a control hub for Hisense appliances, and hands-free voice control.

What can come off#

There is no pm disable on HomeOS. What there is, is this, and it is not nothing.

Select an app on the home screen and, if the system allows it, a bin icon appears. System apps and those there by commercial agreement do not have one. The rest go.

Reorder the home screen and push what you do not use to the end. It does not disappear, but it stops being the first thing you see.

Turn off content recognition and personalised advertising in the privacy settings. That is the single biggest change, and it takes two minutes.

And do not link an account if you are not going to install anything from the store: the television works without one.

What cannot be done, whatever you read#

Installing apps from outside the store. Changing the launcher. Disabling system components. Connecting over ADB. None of that exists here, and anyone promising otherwise is selling you something.

What is worth using#

All eight declare PVR, time shift and channel ordering that can be exported and edited on a PC, which is a serious and fairly unknown feature. The ERF6P66H remote is solar and recharges over USB-C, so it uses no batteries. And the declared warranty is 36 months.

If you own one#

What is missing is what Hisense does not say: how much free storage the information menu reports, the consumption the 100UR8S sheet leaves blank, and whether the UR9 carries the USB-C its own page advertises. Write in and we will add it.