Premium upgraded stand and anti-reflective screen. Lots of brightness and deep black levels. Improved image processing for impressive detail. Vibrant colors, especially with high-quality video. Excellent gaming support. Snappy Google TV interface. Solid sound quality.

Middling off-angle performance. Default settings on picture modes look weird. Better TVs are coming soon.

When does a midrange TV become a premium one? Hisense’s latest U7 model, the U7SG, certainly looks the part. Its new industrial stand and anti-reflective matte screen are reminiscent of Samsung’s top-shelf QN90 and S95 TVs, while its mini-LED backlighting is spectacularly bright. It’s fully loaded for gaming, comes in a fleet of sizes (up to 116 inches!), and its snappy Google TV interface is among the best streaming platforms available.

Hisense's U7 is at a bit of a crossroads this year. Hisense’s usual step-up model, the U8, is now the UR8, which hosts the hottest new display tech, RGB LED. It trades regular blue or white mini-LED backlighting for RGB backlights, which means more vibrant colors, higher brightness, and other performance upgrades. We’ll soon find out how much this spanking new tech delivers on its promises—and how much more you’ll pay for it in later models—but the U7SG can’t help but feel some FOMO.

What’s more, the TV doesn't look quite so premium with some testing, with familiar budget flaws like poor side-view performance and o...