Hisense Tornado 55-inch 4k TV? | In-depth Review

 Is Hisense Tornado 4k TV Worth All Its Hype?

With the release of Hisense Tornado 4k TV, Hisense surely has created ripples in the television industry by gracing its TV with a 102 Watts speaker system, which is the first in any TV released in India. Though on paper, the TV looks highly alluring, it needed to be seen whether it deserves all the hype created around it or not. To find out the truth we purchased a 55 inches’ model of Hisense Tornado and tested it rigorously for its merits and shortcomings.

The video review of this TV is there on our YouTube Channel Techiebeez India, if you are considering buying this TV, do not miss that review. To watch that video, CLICK HERE.

The built quality of this TV is pretty decent, with an ultra-slim bezel. At the bottom, a soundbar with a Black fabric finish has been fused in. The rear gets a Black plastic finish with horizontal & vertical designing on it. The TV has 3 HDMI & 2 USB ports along with a dual-band Wi-Fi. Along with HDMI ARC, it also has HDMI CEC.

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CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO REVIEW OF HISENSE TORNADO

It has DLED backlighting & VA panel. It comes with HDR10, Dolby Vision & HLG support. Leaving aside the audio, all other specifications are similar to the previous models of Hisense. The picture quality of this TV is good, but no improvement in picture quality from the previous models can be seen. The company stakes claim to more than 400 Nits brightness, but in reality, the brightness lies somewhere near 360 Nits only. Though in normal usage the TV appears bright, the performance of HDR 10 & Dolby Vision fails to impress.

However, considering it to be a budget category TV, the performance can be said to be acceptable. Here, it would not be out of place to mention that HDR10 & Dolby Vision performance in Budget TVs is more of a marketing gimmickry. For an effective performance of these videos, a brightness level of at least 1000 Nits is required.
The Blacks in this Tornado TV are good, but, many a time, they tend to hide details in the scene. As wide colour gamut goes missing on this TV, it falls short of creating multiple shades of any colour. Because of this, the colour accuracy on this TV is not that good and the colour reproduction falls short of expectations. Alike its previous models, in this TV too, Dirty Screen effect is pretty visible, which can irritate some while watching sports.
Unlike Local Dimming, ultra-dimming in budget TVs is more of a marketing gimmickry as it fails to play any significant role in enhancing the picture quality.

Motion blur does not irritate while watching normal contents, but during fast action scenes, the 60 Hz refresh rate fails to impede it. MEMC, if at all, present on this TV, fails to stop the motion blur thus exposing the hollow claim of the company. On a grey background, the backlighting peeping from sides become all the more prominent, which does irritate a few times. The non-compatibility of this TV with some phones during casting is pretty annoying, however, when connected to a phone, the casting is smooth.

The upscaling capability of this Hisense TV is above average. 720p & 1080p videos do get up-scaled, but not anywhere close to a 4k resolution. Here, it would not be out of place to apprise you of the fact that none of the TVs upscale contents through a set-top box. When you connect a TV to any set-top box, to a large extent, the picture quality depends on the quality of transmission provided by that set-top box operator. For example, TataSky HD box gives better performance than Dish TV, cable Network or Airtel. If the transmission quality is bad, even the best TV will not be able to give a good performance. If the transmission by the service provider is good, you will get the best performance on a TV having an inherent good picture quality. Sony X9500H TV does work towards removing judder from even any external source playing 24p contents, but even that TV fails to upscale the contents through a set-top box. Upscaling works only through the internal hardware of a TV when you watch contents through USB or while playing OTT contents through the Internet. In the budget category, I have found some Vu TVs displaying really good picture upscaling capability, like the 65-inches Vu Pixelight model that came at a price of Rs 1,20000.

Now, coming to the USP of this TV! The 102 Watts JBL speaker system offers some really decent performance. There is a crispness in dialogue delivery and the audio is sufficiently loud too. However, if you think the 102W audio of this TV can replace even an 80 Watts external soundbar, then you are pretty mistaken. With deeper bass & more audio details, a 100W separate soundbar gives you far better audio quality than this integrated TV soundbar.

Though the audio of this TV is pretty decent, it fails to meet the high expectations, that we have from its power output and JBL. Dolby Atmos fails to create any noticeable impact.
Many amongst you are unaware of the difference between Dolby Atmos & Dolby Digital. They can click here to watch that video on Techiebeez India, which will clear all their doubts. But I do feel that the company deserves appreciation for fusing-in a 102W soundbar in any TV for the first time.

Now coming to its operating system; Hisense Tornado, alike its previous models is an Android TV, which comes with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. Apart from side-loading outside apps, you get the liberty to play almost all applications on this TV. The UI is pretty smooth and all applications play wonderfully.

Overall, Hisense Tornado is a fairly decent TV with good picture quality & pretty good audio, but it cannot be termed as the best as many better TVs like Vu, Nokia, Motorola & Toshiba are already there in the market. Toshiba, which is also from the same company, surpasses Hisense TV in picture quality and still it comes at a cheaper price. In my opinion, the company should have also worked on the picture quality of this TV rather than creating ripples just by augmenting the audio. After all, TV is all about picture quality, which is inherent & cannot be augmented later on.

Sound can always be boosted later on, at any stage through a soundbar or any home theatre system. Now coming to the aftersales services, right now, the services of Hisense are not satisfactory. Lots of complaints keep pouring in. If there is any fault in your TV, then you might face difficulty in getting it repaired. Apart from this, the Indo-China Standoff might create further problems in days to come. If the relations get soured further, these Chinese companies might depart from India, leaving your product unserviceable.

Though almost all electronic products are Chinese only, to be on the safer side, it would be better if you go with a TV that is marketed by an Indian company or one, which is from some other country, so that later on, you do not face any problem in its aftersales services.

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