Hisense wowed attendees at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January when it showed off its flagship Mini-LED TVs for this year. They included the 98-inch Hisense 98UX, which boasted a peak brightness of 5,000 nits, more than 10,000 local dimming zones and super-fast refresh rates with its 144Hz panel.
Although the Hisense 98UX has plenty of gamer-friendly functions, including a new Game Bar, support for ALLM, G-Sync compatibility, Dolby Gaming, Freesync Premium Pro and a new Game Mode Pro feature, the company appears to have decided that it’s still not quite enough to satisfy the most hardcore video games players.
As such, Hisense has decided to launch an even more gaming-friendly TV, known as the HiSense TV 98S57, which boasts a super-fast-blazing refresh rate of 264Hz. The launch was first reported in the Chinese language press.
The increased response times do appear to come at the expense of some of the other specifications, though. The company has obviously decided that some consumers might be interested in a more affordable, yet massive television that’s dedicated to gaming. And so, rather than a Mini-LED panel, the HiSense TV 98S57 is equipped with a 4K resolution Direct LED panel that can only reach up to 1,000 nits in terms of brightness, and the number of local dimming zones has been scaled back rather dramatically, to just 384. What’s more, it only covers 95% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, as opposed to 98% on the Hisense 98UX.
Gamers may want to proceed with caution though, for although the HiSense TV 98S57 features two HDMI 2.1 ports (in addition to two regular HDMI ports), it seems that neither is able to support the television’s astonishingly high response rate. Rather, both ports appear to cap out at a maximum bandwidth of 4K at 144Hz.
Other specifications, according to Hisense, include an unspecified system-on-chip with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 CPU cores, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. The TV’s connectivity options extend to Wi-Fi 6 and RJ-45 Ethernet, and there are two USB Type-A ports as well.
Like the Hisense 98UX, the HiSense TV 98S57 comes with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence, with algorithms that can detect the type of content on screen in order to adjust brightness, contrast and audio. AI also helps to support the TV’s voice commands, including providing real-time translation of any content that lacks proper subtitles. There’s a powerful sound system onboard too, with integrated 2.1-channel speakers.
The company said the HiSense TV 98S57 is going on sale in China on August 7 for the very reasonable price of 9,999 RMB, which works out at around $1,400 or £1,099. That’s an incredibly low price tag for an enormous and very gamer-friendly display, and we can imagine lots of gamers will be waiting with bated breath to see if it launches in other markets. But there’s no word yet if that's likely to happen.
Hisense has also launched a range of more affordable, yet still very gaming-compatible Mini-LED TVs this year, for gamers looking for a more premium option.
