CES 2020

Sound & Vision’s earlier post on Hisense’s CES product lineup included detailed info on the company’s 65XD9G 65-inch 4K LCD TV. What’s most notable about that model, shown above, is a dual-cell design that uses a 2K black-and-white panel as a backlight for a 4K full-color LCD panel, effectively giving the display two million local dimming zones.

But that’s not the whole story with the 65XD9G. The dual-cell panel further features an LED backlight with 132 local dimming zones and is compatible with the Dolby Vision and HLG HDR formats. According to a Hisense rep I spoke with at the company’s CES booth, Hisense is so confident that the 65XD9G “will give OLED a run for its money” that they are waiting for 2020 OLED TVs to arrive before announcing pricing for the set, which is slated to arrive in Q3. As you might expect, pricing will be several hundred dollars below new OLED models in the 65-inch screen size.

Other features to look for in the 65XD9G include an Android TV OS, far-field voice control via Google Assistant, and Dolby Atmos sound certification. The set’s HDMI 2.0b inputs won’t support HDMI 2.1 features such as eARC, and there’s also no ATSC 3.0 tuner, which the company says is coming to its TV lineup for 2021.