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My wife won a Hisense 50" R7F television at her company's Christmas party. Wait, that's not a 50" TV...
We were in the market for a new TV for the basement (my balliwick) and I had my eyes set on a new Sony or Samsung, possibly a TCL. When she came home with a Hisense TV, a brand I had never heard of, I was a bit slow to show enthusiasm. Throw in the fact the 50" TV was smaller than my old LG 55" set and I was not jumping for joy.
But it had built-in Roku, a streamer's dream (and voice activated Roku, very cool, more on this in a bit.) So I immediately went online and searched for reviews and found this review of the R7E, last year's model of the same TV:
https://www.pcmag.com/review/361289/hisense-50r7e
I also went to Best Buy's website and saw that this TV had a 4.5 out of 5.0 rating and 431 reviews. Hmmm...interesting.
My opinion of the TV was now flipped to positive, but I was still disappointed it was a smaller TV than my old TV. I learned this Hisense TV came from Target and decided to try to return it for a 55" version of the same model and pay the difference in cost to move up in size. Problem was I had no receipt, no gift receipt, no payment method. Target would not allow a return of a TV without one of those three items and I can't ask my wife to go to her boss for a receipt!
A couple of phone calls to Target corporate and I was able to get the pathway smoothed for me to return the TV, get a merchandise gift card issued in my name, apply the gift card to the new, larger Hisense TV and then pay the difference.
This is where the story gets better.
When the person at the returns and exchanges counter scanned the smaller 50" TV it came up as costing $30 more than the 55" TV I was "buying." I told the guy that was wrong, the 50" TV should be $249 and the 55" should be $299. He said they were both on sale but when he scans the 50" it comes up as $329 and said he owed me $29 plus tax and he would put it on a gift card. "Merry Christmas", he said.
Stunned that I had just swapped a TV out for a larger TV of the same brand and was given $32 to boot, I smiled all the way home.
I got the TV hooked up, tweaked the settings, and was shocked at the quality of the picture. I keep looking for flaws and so far I haven't found any. The built-in Roku is incredible and when I installed the Roku app on my phone I gained even more functionality.
The voice activated remote is fantastic. Say you want to watch a particular TV show or movie, you simply hold down the microphone button on the remote and speak the title of the show you are seeking. Example, "Yellowstone". The Roku app will find all streaming services that "Yellowstone" is currently airing on and list them in increasing order of cost, starting with free and going up from there.
If anyone is in the market for a new TV and wants to save some money, take a good look at the Hisense brand. The picture quality is very good--I can't find fault with it. The one I got is their budget model, they have other models with more features. As I said, the 55" TV with built-in Roku was on sale for $299. That's crazy.
We were in the market for a new TV for the basement (my balliwick) and I had my eyes set on a new Sony or Samsung, possibly a TCL. When she came home with a Hisense TV, a brand I had never heard of, I was a bit slow to show enthusiasm. Throw in the fact the 50" TV was smaller than my old LG 55" set and I was not jumping for joy.
But it had built-in Roku, a streamer's dream (and voice activated Roku, very cool, more on this in a bit.) So I immediately went online and searched for reviews and found this review of the R7E, last year's model of the same TV:
https://www.pcmag.com/review/361289/hisense-50r7e
I also went to Best Buy's website and saw that this TV had a 4.5 out of 5.0 rating and 431 reviews. Hmmm...interesting.
My opinion of the TV was now flipped to positive, but I was still disappointed it was a smaller TV than my old TV. I learned this Hisense TV came from Target and decided to try to return it for a 55" version of the same model and pay the difference in cost to move up in size. Problem was I had no receipt, no gift receipt, no payment method. Target would not allow a return of a TV without one of those three items and I can't ask my wife to go to her boss for a receipt!
A couple of phone calls to Target corporate and I was able to get the pathway smoothed for me to return the TV, get a merchandise gift card issued in my name, apply the gift card to the new, larger Hisense TV and then pay the difference.
This is where the story gets better.
When the person at the returns and exchanges counter scanned the smaller 50" TV it came up as costing $30 more than the 55" TV I was "buying." I told the guy that was wrong, the 50" TV should be $249 and the 55" should be $299. He said they were both on sale but when he scans the 50" it comes up as $329 and said he owed me $29 plus tax and he would put it on a gift card. "Merry Christmas", he said.
Stunned that I had just swapped a TV out for a larger TV of the same brand and was given $32 to boot, I smiled all the way home.
I got the TV hooked up, tweaked the settings, and was shocked at the quality of the picture. I keep looking for flaws and so far I haven't found any. The built-in Roku is incredible and when I installed the Roku app on my phone I gained even more functionality.
The voice activated remote is fantastic. Say you want to watch a particular TV show or movie, you simply hold down the microphone button on the remote and speak the title of the show you are seeking. Example, "Yellowstone". The Roku app will find all streaming services that "Yellowstone" is currently airing on and list them in increasing order of cost, starting with free and going up from there.
If anyone is in the market for a new TV and wants to save some money, take a good look at the Hisense brand. The picture quality is very good--I can't find fault with it. The one I got is their budget model, they have other models with more features. As I said, the 55" TV with built-in Roku was on sale for $299. That's crazy.