Hisense PT1 UST Triple Laser Review

About The Hisense PT1

Hisense’s new PT1 launches with an MSRP of $2,999 and is a triple laser ultra short throw projector that is rated to output 2,500 lumens, while having 25,000+ hours of laser life. The PT1 slightly exceeds this lumen rating in my testing. ** (measuring UST lumens is based on angle, and varies widely). Hisense also claims a native contrast ratio of 3,000:1, which again it surpasses in measurements.

The PT1 Features:

• LPU™ Digital Laser Engine 2.0
• Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos
• HDR10+, IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Modes
• 3D Playback Support
• HDMI 2.1 with high refresh rate gaming
• Front and Top Firing Speakers

With over 3,000:1 measured native contrast ratio and solid color accuracy the PT1 delivers excellent overall image quality. Google TV operating system runs very smoothly and I never experienced any lag navigating the menus. Google TV OS has every major app available, and many prefer the UI and design of it over other smart TV operating systems.

The built in audio of the PT1 isn’t quite as good as the bigger L9Q brother, but still holds up pretty well.  If you don't have an external solution, general TV watching would be fine for most with intelligible dialogue. The PT1 has great connectivity with 3 HDMI ports, 2 of which are HDMI 2.1. eARC is also supported on the HDMI 2.0 port.

Gaming performance is also great with fast responsiveness, excellent feature set, and solid image quality. Hisense claims as low as 12ms of input lag at 120hz when the resolution is 1080P. It also features a game bar for easy game settings access while in game mode. It features two HDMI 2.1 ports for modern gaming consoles or PCs.

User Interface and Menu System

Initial Setup and Impressions

Hisense continues to use Google TV OS on the L9Q which is considered by many the best built in OS for streaming services. The navigation of the menu is quick and easy to understand, and the backlit remote is great to have in a dark room. Downloading new apps can be done from the home menu and/or voice search through the microphone on the remote. You can also sync to your Google cloud storage of your photos to play as a screensaver if you want to have a large display doubling as a digital photo album when not actively watching.

There are plenty of picture mode presets available to choose from such as Filmmaker, Theater, Standard, Vivid, IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Vision Bright and Dark, and more which will automatically change depending on if the source is SDR, HDR10 or Dolby Vision. For accuracy enthusiasts using Filmmaker mode would be recommended as by default it has motion smoothing and other processing features disabled.

The PT1 slots in under the PX3-Pro in the Hisense UST line up, with lower light output. I found the PX3-Pro to handle 100-120” ALR screens well. The PT1 doesn’t have enough light output ability to hit 100 nits on an ALR screen of that size, and would recommend to pair the PT1 with a higher gain screen or a white screen in a dark room.

For motion testing I used the scene from Baby Driver as he walks around the city and the camera is constantly moving. Native 24Hz motion handling with interpolation settings set to Film is excellent and what I used for my review. Any higher setting of interpolation had visible Soap Opera Effect (SOE) which I personally don’t like though many do. Going above the Film setting has moderate SOE that gets stronger as the setting is increased. However, if you like to have some SOE, it did so very cleanly with minimal visible artifacts until the highest setting. I also looked at Spears & Munsil 60FPS motion test and didn’t notice any stutters or skips.

In content we can see how the Super Resolution setting behaves. In some situations like in the Spears and Munsil demo footage the fur is sharpened nicely without looking over-processed. However in 300, a very grainy film, the face begins to go pale and the edges have more artifacts.

Color performance of the PT1 after correcting white is as good as we have come to expect from Hisense UST projectors recently. All colors are very accurately represented and skin tones are very natural and free of any gradient artifacts or posterization issues.

Also in John Wick on the train with the bright red lights shining on Keanu’s face, the red saturation and hue/tint of the red look correct and well handled.

Continuing with Hisene’s excellent color lately, posterization is essentially non-existent on the PT1. I checked my stress test scene from 1917 and the desert scene from Furiosa. Color transitions on the back wall from the glow of the oven are smooth and free of any rings or sudden shifts. And in the desert there are no noticeable steps in the gradients of the sand storm.  

Taking a look at some scenes from Inside Out that show red, green and blue colors outside of P3 and take advantage of BT2020 coverage. I also looked at the cave scene near the end of It Chapter 2 where the green lights and casts on the cave walls are all dark BT2020 green. The PT1 shows very saturated and impressive color performance across the board.

In darker scenes the PT1 holds up well and has really good contrast for a DLP based projector. Using filmmaker mode I measured around 3,500:1 native contrast with a black level of 0.024 nits and white of 82.5 nits. While contrast is strong, the overall light output is pretty low when paired with a 100” ALR screen with a real world gain of approximately 0.5. On a unity gain 1.0 screen we could expect double both of those numbers to 0.048 nits for black and 165 nits for white. Contrast doesn’t change with a different screen, just the range at which the contrast (or dynamic range) can be in. I would recommend pairing the PT1 in a dark home theater room with a larger white unity gain screen, say 120-130”. I would expect 100nits to be achievable on a 120in white 1.0 gain screen after calibration with a black floor of around 0.03 nits.

Watching the now famous scene from 1917 Waking Up On The Stairs scene, shadow detail and black levels are very good. Color is held well in this low luminance scene, nicely hanging on to the blue shade on the face. The straps on his shoulders are visible as he begins to move, and nothing takes you out of the scene.

In Spears and Munsil Dynamic Range Low pattern the PT1 does very well at showing nice even steps in the code values coming out of black without any major tinting issues.

When it comes to Dynamic Tone Mapping, the PT1 is no exception from its more expensive siblings in that I strongly recommend leaving it enabled all the time in HDR10. The limited output of the PT1 definitely needs it more often than the PX3-Pro and L9Q, and even still can have some loss of detail or clipping in really bright small highlights. It handles higher APL scenes without very high brightness highlights without issue though as seen here with this high APL (average picture level) Aquaman scene.

Looking at Mecha-Godzilla red laser breath, and the fiery explosion in the fight between Superman and Batman show decent color retention around the edges but does seem to struggle with high brightness smaller highlights. On a brighter / higher gain screen this would be less of an issue and likely not noticeable.

At the end of Moana in the fight with te fiti the PT1’s dynamic tone mapping seems to handle that well and the color and contrast performance really seem to help it hold together overall.

The PT1 also has a setting called “Scenario Enhancement” which can be off, set to “Dark Detail Enhancer” which can lower the black level a bit (with a small hit to peak brightness) or to “High Dynamic Contrast” which seems to change the upper brightness level in brighter scenes a bit, but is very subtle and hard to tell (even with measurements) what it is really doing aside being a dynamic laser adjustment focused on adjustments to brighter scenes. There have been multiple firmware updates that have continued to adjust how these settings work, or if they are even available. Your results may vary, but in general I have left this on set to High Dynamic Contrast in HDR and Dolby Vision. The Dark Detail Enhancer I enabled in SDR, though it was pretty difficult to find a scenario it made a noticeable improvement. At least at the time of review, as Hisense is continually improving with additional firmware updates.

Hisense PT1 SPD

Measurements and calibration were done using Colorimetry Research CR-250 spectroradiometer and CR-100 colorimeter (Klein K-10A used in this review), Murideo 6G pattern generator, and Calman Ultimate software.

Considering projectors are a three part system (projector, screen and environment) and all three parts affect the “Out Of The Box” accuracy I will be doing all OOTB color observations AFTER correcting the white point (Gain control setting) to D65. This not only gives a fair playing field for different projectors used with different screen materials but also shows how the color performance not just of a projector but any display is from the factory (factory variation from unit to unit). As all the colors will shift together as the white point is corrected.

After correcting SDR Filmmaker grayscale to D65 and 2.4 gamma before evaluating color performance, we can see there was a loss in overall brightness (with maintained black level, resulting in contrast reduction). This is due to the large change needed in the white balance gain controls to reach D65, almost running out of control to even get there. Also “D65” measured looks too green visually due to metamerism, but that is for a later in depth discussion at another time. For review consistency, measured D65 is used for all reviews.

Checking SDR Rec709 color Saturation Sweep and ColorChecker SG with the white correction shows the PT1 continues to offer Hisene’s excellent color accuracy. Both came in with an average dE2000 well below 1, with Saturation Sweep at 0.58, and ColorChecker a 0.76.

Moving on to HDR10, EOTF tracking is quite low. Mostly due to the limited light output of the PT1. In looking at the ColorChecker with and without luminance we can see that the color errors are very low for saturation and hue, but very high for luminance. With an ALR screen and sub 100nits, the PT1 just doesn’t have the grunt for accurate color luminance in many scenes.

In Dolby Vision, there is DV Dark and DV Bright picture modes. DV Bright is able to track EOTF much more closely to accurate, and the best way to enjoy any HDR content on the PT1.

Even in DV Bright the PT1 starts to roll off way too early at around 10-15% stimulus however. On a different screen this would be different. I generally like to see accurate EOTF tracking up to 50% stimulus (81nits) before any rolloff and since in this scenario peak white is coincidentally 81 nits, there is no way that would happen. This is where if your budget allows for it, going up to the PX3-Pro or best yet, the L9Q, would be beneficial.

Settings Recommendations

Setting recommendations for any advanced or calibration menu settings are unlikely to apply to your specific sample, screen and room combination

For SDR:

• Filmmaker or Theater picture mode
• General Menu - All Off
• Laser Luminance Menu - Laser Luminance (locked with SE enabled), Scenario Enhancement - Dark Detail Enhancer, Contrast 40, Black Level 0, Dark Detail Off, Gamma 2.4, HDMI Dynamic Range Auto, HDR Enhancer Off
• Color Menu - Color 50, Hue 0, Color Temperature Warm 1, Color Temperature Adaptation Off, Color Space Auto, Dynamic Color Enhancer Off
• Clarity Menu - Sharpness 0-7 (or to preference), Smooth Gradient Off, Super Resolution Off (On if preferred) , Noise Reduction Off, MPEG NR Off, Motion Enhancement Film (or to preference)
• Calibration Menu 2pt (not recommended due to large changes needed)

For HDR:

• Filmmaker picture mode
• General Menu - All Off
• Laser Luminance Menu - Laser Luminance (locked with SE enabled), Scenario Enhancement High Dynamic, Contrast 50, Black Level 0, Dark Detail Off, Gamma ST2084 Locked, Active Contrast Off, Brightness Enhancer Off, Dynamic Tone Mapping On, HDMI Dynamic Range Auto
• Color Menu - Color 50, Hue 0, Color Temperature Warm 1, Color Temperature Adaptation Off, Color Space Auto, Dynamic Color Enhancer Off
• Clarity Menu - Sharpness 0-7 (or to preference), Smooth Gradient Off, Super Resolution Off (On if preferred), Noise Reduction Off, MPEG NR Off, Motion Enhancement Film (or to preference)
• Calibration Menu 2pt (not recommended due to large changes needed)

For Dolby Vision:

• Dolby Vision Bright Picture Mode
• General Menu - All Off
• Laser Luminance Menu - Laser Luminance (locked with SE enabled), Scenario Enhancement High Dynamic, Contrast 50, Black Level 0, Dark Detail Off, Gamma 2.2 Locked, Active Contrast Off, Brightness Enhancer Off, HDMI Dynamic Range Auto
• Color Menu - Color 50, Hue 0, Color Temperature Warm 1, Color Temperature Adaptation Off, Color Space Native Locked, Dynamic Color Enhancer Off
• Clarity Menu - Sharpness 0-7 (or to preference), Smooth Gradient Off, Super Resolution Off (On if preferred), Noise Reduction Off, MPEG NR Off, Motion Enhancement Film (or to preference)
• Calibration Menu 2pt (not recommended due to large changes needed)

Final Conclusions

The Hisense PT1 is an entry triple laser UST projector with great contrast and color performance and loaded with features. The built in audio is serviceable for general watching if external audio is not available. Very quiet operation, small and light weight, and easy to set up. Hisense has been very good at releasing firmware updates quickly that have been making notable improvements and changes. The black level is a strong suit of the PT1, though light output is a bit too low to be used with an ALR lower gain screen of decent sizes. So I would recommend pairing the PT1 to a white unity gain screen, or high gain ALR (if you aren’t bothered by laser speckle). Visible rainbow effect and laser speckle are expected with the technology and how noticeable that will be will vary person to person and depending on what screen is used.

The PT1 supports every HDR format, has 3D support, low input lag for gaming, eARC support with 3 HDMI ports (2x 2.1), all for a very reasonable price. At the time of writing it is on sale for $2,699 from its $2,999 retail price. It would be difficult to find a better dark room viewing UST projector that performs as well as the PT1 for this price range, and offers the same feature set.