The NBA and Hisense have a $20,000 110-inch TV — and I got to test it

Sometimes a brand partnership truly makes sense — like the NBA and Hisense’s 110UX Championship Edition TV, a 110-inch Mini-LED set fit for the biggest sports fan and the tallest players in the league. Yes, in the quest to make the best TV for people with large rooms, Hisense has designed one that’s even bigger than basketball star Victor Wembanyama’s wingspan. Sitting down in front of the set, though, and remembering that I’d actually seen a version of this TV that wasn’t NBA-branded back at CES 2024, I started to wonder, “Why does this exist?”

That question only got louder as I looked at the 110UX Championship Edition’s $19,999 price tag, the kind of bottom line that places it out of reach for most folks, even if they have the space for it. While its release date is TBA (it was supposed to go on sale today, but Best Buy lists it as “Coming Soon”), this is the perfect time to separate the facts from the hype. As CNN Underscored’s electronics writer and resident TV settings-fixer, it would be my pleasure to walk you through what it’s like to use a TV bigger than a regulation basketball backboard (which is 83 inches).

Sports and cable TV aren’t quite ready for a 110-inch TV

Primarily, the people who need a 110-inch TV are the self-selecting crowd with the space in their home, the desire to have a super-duper-sized screen and a budget that’s able to handle a sizable investment. We’re guessing many of these folks love their sports, so we streamed replays of the NFL and WNBA from Prime Video.

The action looked pretty good for color (once we switched the default picture setting from HDR Energy Saving mode to HDR Sports), with the Jets uniforms and turf popping in the correct shades of green. Don’t just take my word for it: My colleague Mike Andronico (a seasoned and long-suffering Jets fan) told me that “for once, the words ‘Jets’ and ‘accurate’ belong in the same sentence.” Then, watching a replay of a recent game from the ever-thriving New York Liberty, I noticed bright color output and strong contrast when Breanna Stewart and Nyara Sabally prepared for another play.

Unfortunately, neither game truly rendered crisply, an issue that’s less about the 110UX than it is the current state of how live sports are streamed. While the Prime Video app only promotes its games as streaming in HD (which could be as low-res as 720p), the availability of Full HD 1080p or Ultra HD 4K sports games online is ridiculously sparse considering the proliferation of 4K TVs. And stretching out a non-4K video onto a 110-inch canvas of a screen gives you a resolution that isn’t properly suited to watching in a small testing room the way I did. That means you might not notice the lack of clarity as much as I did, as I’m sure the people who use this gargantuan TV won’t be sitting so close to it. Mounted on a wall a bit farther away from you, the Hisense 110UX’s picture quality probably looks a bit better.

To see how the rest of the stuff I watch looked, I booted up live-TV purveyor Sling, which mostly broadcasts at 720p (i.e., HD, not Full HD). Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer appeared in good-enough clarity — but not crystal clear — while the network’s on-screen text registered clearly and its signature red looked slightly brighter than I expected.

Then, for the sake of putting the largest people on the largest screen I’ve ever tested, I turned on the WWE’s Last Monster Standing match from a recent edition of “Monday Night Raw.” This was one of the first times that the 110UX felt appropriate, as it tried to render the massive Braun Strowman and “Big” Bronson Reed at sizes somewhat close to reality. The TV’s size made the wide-angle shot of the collapsed wrestling ring littered with downed bodies all the funnier too.

4K TV and movies look better

To get a better sense of the 110UX’s full capabilities, we also tested 4K content, both via streaming and optical media. First, we turned on Disney+ to watch an episode of the “X-Men ’97” animated series, where the yellows of Storm’s outfit and lightning popped alongside the blues and reds of her teammate Bishop’s outfit.

But first, I had to fiddle with clarity settings to remove the dreaded soap opera effect that made the show difficult to watch. Curiously, I found that I had to switch from Dolby Vision IQ to Dolby Vision Custom, which wasn’t necessary when I had moved over to watch “Thor: Love and Thunder.” Speaking of that Marvel movie, I’ll note that Chris Hemsworth’s long-flowing hair, bulging biceps and vest all looked crisp on the screen.

And because this is 2024 and AI is everywhere, I should note that the 110UX’s picture quality is optimized by Hisense’s AI-drive Hi-View Engine X chipset, though this TV has seemingly nothing to do with the generative AI tech that’s thrown in nearly every other gadget I’ve seen.

Thinking about contrast and brightness, I commend the 110UX for how good the fire of burning buildings looked in a “Love and Thunder” fight scene, especially against the black backgrounds of New Asgard at night. That scene’s super-bright colors almost made me wonder about accuracy, as it seemed to err on being as bright as possible, but that might be what you’re looking for. The 110UX maxes out at 10,000 nits of brightness, the kind of luminance that will be great for rooms with plenty of natural light coming in. I certainly have that condition in my own living room, where I find my LG C2 OLED TV sometimes not getting bright enough.?This, in a microcosm, is why people will choose Mini-LED over OLED, and who am I to tell them not to?

My attention to settings menus continued to prove worthwhile when I enabled the IMAX Enhanced mode for DTS:X-capable TVs, which amped up the oomph factor of the soundtrack and clanging weapons. My colleague Mike Andronico didn’t think there was a huge difference, so not everyone will see a noteworthy gain here.

Then, to see the maximum amount of clarity, we plugged in a Blu-ray player to see how the 4K disc for “Top Gun: Maverick” looked. Not only did every wince in Cruise’s face show in only-slightly-wrinkled detail, but Miles Teller’s mustache and Glen Powell’s winning smile looked super clear.

What you get with your NBA Championship Edition TV

While our testing focused on the picture and audio quality, the Hisense 110UX Championship Edition earns its moniker with a slew of NBA-focused bonuses (which I, unfortunately, didn’t get to see) that position this Mini-LED TV as the perfect TV for hoop-heads with a big spot in the living room.

The TV itself (which wasn’t lit to make this obvious) features a platinum “NBA Championship Edition” inscription on the bezel, and it comes with a plaque that acts as a certificate of authenticity for its limited-edition status. Hisense also throws in a membership to something called the x110 Champions Club (no details on that yet), as well as “Victory,” an exclusive book about the “story and symbols behind the NBA’s trophy program,” written by designer Victor Solomon.

Thankfully, there’s also actual basketball content included, as you can expect some sort of integration with NBA League Pass via the NBA app (we’re waiting for more detail on what this means). The NBA’s partnership with Hisense continues with a weekly social media series called “X-Factor Moments.”

What you need to know about the Hisense 110UX’s specs and features

The Hisense 110UX runs on Google TV, which performed about as well as I expected. Navigating image-heavy content recommendations sometimes meant running afoul of slight slowdowns and delays, but the TV got snappier when I was clicking through settings menus. The highest compliment I can pay, though, is at least it’s not a Fire TV, which are often the most bogged down under the weight of promoted advertisements. The Google TV Streamer — one of my favorite streaming devices I’ve tested recently — was faster.

Otherwise, you get a pretty standard spec set for an ultra-premium TV, with touch-free voice commands (which we manually enabled under Privacy > Google Assistant) and a privacy switch on the underside of the front of the TV. It’s also got the relatively recent Wi-Fi 6E wireless standard (which is still a step behind the Wi-FI 7 spec), four HDMI ports and a backlit remote with voice commands. I personally think the remote’s pretty neat, as it lights up with a mere tap; you don’t even need to pick it up if you’re feeling truly lazy.

The takeaway

If you can afford the Hisense 110UX and it fits your life, congratulations. It’s a beast of a TV that gets super bright and has decent picture quality. Yes, Mini-LED TVs aren’t as picture-perfect as their OLED counterparts, but that tech doesn’t go above 100 inches (yet). I’m not ready to endorse the 110UX Championship Edition as worthy of a rookie superstar’s first paycheck, though; we’d need to spend far more time with it to get there.

Instead, we recommend checking out Hisense’s U9N Mini-LED QLED TV, a premium-tier TV that starts at a fraction of the cost at $3,000 for 75 inches (a pricier 85-inch version is also available). You could save even more money with the Hisense U8N, one of our favorite midrange options available.