When the content takes advantage of BT.2020, the difference is real and, at times, striking. Pair that with the highest D65 window brightness I’ve measured and sustained full-field muscle, and you have a display that devours bright rooms and high-APL scenes like few others.
If you're prepared to pay a premium, the Hisense 116UX is the brightest and most colorful TV you can buy, thanks to its innovative RGB mini-LED backlight system.
So if you're looking for the biggest, brightest, most colorful TV that I've probably ever seen [...] just be aware, it's going to
12:41
cost you a pretty penny.
The Hisense 116UX, the first RGB Mini LED TV available to consumers, acts as a halo product and proof of concept. While it largely lives up to expectations surrounding this new technology, which many major TV brands are set to release soon, Hisense's rush to market might explain some of the backlight inconsistencies and issues I observed. This raises the question of whether other manufacturers are taking more time to perfect their processing power and local dimming algorithms.
So, thank you Hisense for sending over what could very well be the TV of the future. Part of me still, even just looking at this scene that's up here right now, wishes it was the TV of today. I really don't know who I was rooting for in that coin flip.
I actually bought this TV, I was given a good deal for being the first person in my country to purchase one (it costed me a little bit under 15,000$) and if your curious, I live in Saudi Arabia. I came before it from an LG CX 77", while the size difference is massive, there are some complaints about the TV.
1-Colors: I thought the colors of the LG were overall better and much more consistent, specially at darker scenes, the LG being an OLED had superior contrast and that's even when we compare it to a 6 years old OLED. I guess mini led can never win the contrast battle no matter how hard they try. But Still, at times the UX116 does impress me with the colors, but it depends a lot on the content and the streaming provider. Something that was always really good with the LG no matter what content I was watching on it or what app was streaming it.
2-Clarity: Something is not right with this TV when it comes to motion, its just a little bit blurry when its displaying objects that are in motion, and I did not experience that whatsoever with my old LG OLED. You can even say I did not know what ghosting was before having to deal with this TV.
Another clarity issue I did not like was how it displays tree leaves and vegetation, if the scene is a far away shot of vegetation and you look at those tree leaves in motion, its just a hot mess. I tried different denoise and jagger settings but they did not help whatsoever.
3-Brightness and local dimming: the TV is seriously bright, too bright infact, to an extend that every time I stop using the TV I switch the picture mode to energy saving so my son does not get his eye balls burnt from how bright it is. Me personally , am getting used to the brightness and HDR looks just amazing on this TV, I have a feeling that in the future when I switch this TV to something else and that my next TV is not as bright, I might just be disappointed and find it dim.
There is a brightness and contrast sensor on the TV, the unfortunate truth is that its garbage, its too slow to react it to scene on screen. I have them turned off, I would have turned it on if they were a little bit faster in adjusting to the scene, but they are horribly slow and it could change 2 or 3 times in a single scene and the increase or decrease is not smooth so a change in brightness and color is quite noticeable.
local dimming, I just do not think there are enough local dimming zones for a TV at this size, I think it needed at least double the amount of dimming zones, you will notice some haloing coming from white objects at dark backgrounds, it is not horrible, you will not see halo on white text subtitles for example, I tested that before buying because that would have been a deal breaker for me as I only watch with subtitles. But still coming from an Oled... I understand now what haloing is.. something I never encountered before.
Remote Control: the remote might be the worst thing about this TV, when it works it works, but most of the time I press once right or left on the TV and it jumps 5 or 6 times as if I pressed it 5 or 6 times. and that happens alot. acceptable. I run this TV with a 5.1 surround home theater with AV received and I have the TV remote control everything through eARC, so I use the TV remote to control the volume, and one time at 3 AM I was watching alone and my family were all deep asleep, I wanted more volume I started pressed volume up on the remote one press at a time, and the last press it kept pressing volume up for 10 seconds straight my home theater is really really loud and it woke up the entire house up, I did not have a choice except to turn the TV off because pressing volume down was not doing anything. Just unacceptable quality at this price point.
Gaming: Response time is OK, not as fast as an OLED obviously but I don't do any competitive multiplayer on this TV, its okay for single player games I would say, I have a high end PC with an RTX 5090 connected to the TV, for some reason it doesnt feel like 165hz refresh rate. I dont know, maybe because I use a 480hz oled on my main gaming PC, so 165 is just too little nowadays or this TV does not do a great job at refreshing the image.
Settings: My TV came with VIDAA OS and not an android TV setup, its probably related to where you purchase this TV, and this VIDAA OS is just not great. First of all , there is alot of settings, and alot of menus for those settings, so at the begging when I was adjusting the settings to my likings , I had to do alot of presses to go to meus and sub-menus just to find what I want to adjust, its really frustrating when you are adjusting settings for motion and clarity, because you pause the streaming service, and you go to the settings to adjust whatever you are adjusting, and you have to quit everything to resume the streaming, only to find out that it did nothing and you want to try another setting so you spend alot of time just hitting menus and sub-menus again. They could have done a better job with menus.
Is it for you?: if you can afford it and size is the most important aspect for you then yes, Dont get me wrong, the image is still great, after adjusting a few settings you can get good results, I watched the F1 movie on it and it was an amazing experience, I felt like I was at the Cinema, I do not even think the Cinema could display this level of brightness. So if your source of video is good, BT20.20/dolby vision or HDR10+.. the picture is just amazing.
My wife now does movie nights with her friends and they are loving it, but I think women in general do not care much about image quality (specially my wife).
I still have not watched any sports on it, so am not sure how it will handle motion, but there is a sport picture setting, so they probably have it handled.
I Think its a worthy purchase at a discount. Is it worth the ask price of 30k USD in the US, hell no. is it worth the 15k USD I spent on it... maybe.
I hope this review helps someone, as I could not find honest normal people reviews like you and me before I bought this TV.
Overall
Value
Ease of use
S Hamouri
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Aug 25, 2025
When the content takes advantage of BT.2020, the difference is real and, at times, striking. Pair that with the highest D65 window brightness I’ve measured and sustained full-field muscle, and you have a display that devours bright rooms and high-APL scenes like few others.
Connor TheDisplayGuy
Home Theater Reviw
read full review
Jul 30, 2025
If you're prepared to pay a premium, the Hisense 116UX is the brightest and most colorful TV you can buy, thanks to its innovative RGB mini-LED backlight system.
Will Greenwald
PCMAG
read full review
Aug 07, 2025
So if you're looking for the biggest, brightest, most colorful TV that I've probably ever seen [...] just be aware, it's going to 12:41 cost you a pretty penny.
The Display Guy
The Display Guy
read full review
Oct 08, 2025
The Hisense 116UX, the first RGB Mini LED TV available to consumers, acts as a halo product and proof of concept. While it largely lives up to expectations surrounding this new technology, which many major TV brands are set to release soon, Hisense's rush to market might explain some of the backlight inconsistencies and issues I observed. This raises the question of whether other manufacturers are taking more time to perfect their processing power and local dimming algorithms.
Phil Hinton
AVForum
read full review
Oct 04, 2025
So, thank you Hisense for sending over what could very well be the TV of the future. Part of me still, even just looking at this scene that's up here right now, wishes it was the TV of today. I really don't know who I was rooting for in that coin flip.
Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
read full review