X
CNET logo Why You Can Trust CNET

Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. How we test TVs

Hisense Now Offers Its Own Fire TV Starting at $530

The 50-inch TV with Amazon's smart TV system is available now, followed by a 58-inch version for $600 this fall.

Sarah Lord Writer
Sarah Lord covers TVs and home entertainment. Prior to joining CNET, Sarah served as the tech and electronic reviews fellow at Insider, where she wrote about everything from smart watches and wearables to tablets and e-readers. She began her career by writing laptop reviews as an intern and subsequent freelancer at Tom's Hardware. She is also a professional actor with many credits in theater, film and television.
Expertise TVs, Home Entertainment, Streaming, Computers Credentials
  • Member of Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity Association
Sarah Lord
2 min read
A Hisense 4K Fire TV on a purple background

Hisense 4K Fire TV

Hisense

Hisense now makes a Fire TV. Today the manufacturer announced a partnership with Amazon to produce Hisense's first television featuring the Fire TV platform. 

The 50-inch, 4K LED TV has better picture quality specifications than many current Fire TVs made by Toshiba, Insignia and Amazon itself. It will include quantum dot technology and, according to the company, reach up to 600 nits of brightness. It also features Dolby Vision HDR, full-array local dimming, a 60Hz refresh rate and HDMI 2.1 connectivity. The TV costs $530 and will be available starting today exclusively on Amazon. A 58-inch model will be released sometime this fall for $600.

Fire TVs offer deep integration with the Amazon ecosystem, including Alexa, Amazon's smart assistant. The new Hisense TVs come with an Alexa Voice Remote, which can be used to search for content while controlling the TV, as well as for other compatible smart home devices. 

The Fire TV platform allows users to download apps from Prime Video and other popular streaming services, but in CNET's reviews we prefer the Roku and Google TV systems. One reason is that Fire TV prominently displays too many ads and promotions for Amazon content throughout the OS -- for example, its screensaver mode can seem like the TV turns into a giant rotating billboard. Fire TV's search results are also less accurate in our experience than the other two.

Hisense joins a growing list of TV manufacturers that have partnered with Amazon to produce Fire TVs, most of which are less-expensive and come without many extras. Toshiba's M-Series of Fire TVs is a recent exception, however. It also comes with full-array local dimming but sports a 120Hz refresh rate, which can reduce blurring in fast motion -- a feature that the Hisense lacks. 

Meanwhile, Amazon's Fire TV Omni offers its own distinctive feature: It doesn't require a remote at all, though one is included. The Omni comes with its own built-in, far-field mic, meaning that it works like an Echo speaker and can be completely controlled through voice commands alone. 

Of course, you can always add an Amazon Fire Stick to any TV. For example, you could buy a similarly priced non-Fire TV and add a Fire stick to get the same experience.

Correction, May 18: This story initially misstated that a feature was missing from the Hisense Fire TV.  The TV includes full-array local dimming.