I'll be honest: So far, most of the TV-related surprises of CES 2025 haven't really caught me off guard. But I did not expect to see a major TV brand take Mini-LED backlighting back to the drawing board.
Meet the Hisense 116UX TriChroma Mini-LED TV. It's innovative, it's unexpected, and it's 116 inches big. To best understand what makes it so compelling, it's worth starting with the technology itself.
RGB Local Dimming Technology: what is it?
What sets the 116UX TriChroma apart from its high-end Mini-LED competitors is how its Mini-LEDs work. While TVs like the Samsung QN90D and the Sony Bravia 9 convert blue light into color by way of microscopic nanocrystals (what we call quantum dots), Hisense's new TV harnesses clusters of tiny lenses, each reacting to red-, green- and blue-colored LEDs.
Hisense claims that this twist on Mini-LED tech is flush with benefits, from better brightness to energy efficiency. What most caught my attention in a chat with Hisense representatives, however, was a claim about color.
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According to Hisense, RGB Local Dimming is what allows this TV to hit 97% coverage of the BT.2020 color space. That's much better than what we've seen on QD-OLEDs like the Sony A95L and the Samsung S95D, both of which settle around 90%, according to our test results. Both of those TVs currently lead the pack.
If RGB Local Dimming technology really is this effective, it could shake things up in the Mini-LED space. But you might have to wait a while to bring it to your living room in a smaller size.
Hisense 116UX TriChroma Mini-LED TV: outlook
From all I've heard, I get the impression that the 116UX is specialty model for a very particular type of shopper. It's only available in one ridiculously large size and it marks the introduction of newfangled technology. Those two components typically make for a model that's prohibitively expensive for most people. It's also possible that, from a cost perspective, the formula is only justifiable at extra-large sizes.
If the 116UX proves successful, perhaps Hisense revisits the formula next year. In due time, the new hardware approach could prove scalable, with more popular size points represented like 55 and 65 inches.
It's the outcome I'm rooting for. It would shake up the Mini-LED space.
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