Hisense who earlier this year were bragging that they were the #1 TV brand in Australia untill ChannelNews pointed out that Samsung still held this position has launched a $9,900 75″ TV that is very similar to the $2,000 75″ TV from Kogan.
The Chinese brand who is currently is a spat with Sharp over the use of their brand name in the US market, is desperate to be seen as a premium, hence their lift in pricing for their new TV’s that were launched this week in Australia. The only problem for Hisense is that they are not an LG, Samsung, Panasonic or Sony who can justify the premium price tag for their TV.
Last week Samsung significantly cut the price of their TV’s in Australia with some significantly under the pricing for Hisense TV’s.
The new Hisense 65-inch Series 8 is priced at $4,999, the quality is similar to the $2,296 Hitachi 65″ UHD TV that is selling at JB Hi Fi. They are also going to have to compete upgainst the Brauhn 65″ UHD TV selling at Aldi for sub $1,200. both the Hisense and Brauhn models look
Hisense who earlier this year were bragging that they were the #1 TV brand in Australia until ChannelNews pointed out that Samsung still held this position has launched a $9,900 75″ TV that is very similar, to the $2,000 75″ TV from Kogan.
The Chinese brand who is currently is a spat with Sharp over the use of their brand name in the US market, is desperate to be seen as a premium brand, hence their lift in pricing for their new TV’s that were launched this week in Australia. The only problem that Hisense has is that they are not in the same league as LG, Samsung, Panasonic or Sony who can justify the premium price tag for their UHD TV’s.
The new Hisense 65-inch Series 8 is priced at $4,999, the quality is similar to the $2,296 Hitachi 65″ UHD TV that is selling at JB Hi Fi. They are also going to have to compete up against the Bauhn 65″ UHD TV selling at Aldi for sub $1,200. both the Hisense and Braun models look similar. The big advantage is that Bauhn is currently offering the new 4K Chromecast dongle that not only delivers Netflix and Stan it also gives users access to a host of Play Store apps not available via the Hisense offering.
In the USA, the Hisense brand was rejected by consumers, this led to the Chinese Company doing a deal to manufacture TV’s under the Sharp brand but within 18 months Sharp took legal action demanding their brand name back claiming that TVs bearing its name broke US rules on electromagnetic emissions and that Hisense had made false claims about picture quality.
As well as accusing the Hisense-made TV sets of breaking emission guidelines, Sharp said the devices also broke Federal Trade Commission rules on pictures sizes and did not meet wider industry standards covering device safety.
Sharp’s legal papers said its brand was at risk of being “destroyed” by the “shoddily manufactured” TV sets.
In Australia, the brand has struggled to make a profit with their competitors accusing them of “buying market share”.
Hisense claims that their new 4K UHD ULED TVs offer enhanced picture quality, HDR (high dynamic range) along with easy access to streaming content including Netflix and Stan, this is despite the fact that the brand is not officially approved by Netflix as a UHD or HDR or premium TV partner. They do now have a Netflix button on their remote which fires off the app, unlike the LG TV’s which have Netflix built into the chipset which delivers faster streaming and management of Netflix content.
They said that their Series 9 is also the brightest TV Hisense has ever produced at 2200 nits. Both their new TVs have HDR Plus but this does not kick in when watching Netflix content according to Netflix.
They have also jumped onto the Quantum Dot technology bandwagon a technology that has been in Samsung TV’s for more than 3 years.
This technology is used to deliver phosphorescent crystals to produce even brighter and more accurate colour.
Another feature is DBX Pro Audio technology which compensates for unwanted changes in volume between commercials and regular programs as well as offering virtual surround sound.
The 65-inch Series 8 is priced at $4,999 while the 75-inch Series 9 is priced at $9,999.
The Hisense Series 8 and Series 9 ULED TVs are available at JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, Radio Rentals, RT Edwards and Bing Lee.
