Hisense A4 Series 40A4K 39.5"

The Hisense A4 Series 40A4K is a budget 1080p smart TV with an excellent Google TV interface and built-in Chromecast. Picture quality and HDR are weak, but for a small secondary TV under $200, the smart features and price make it a reasonable pick. Casual gamers will appreciate the low input lag, but serious viewers should look for a 4K alternative.

The A4 Series 40A4K runs a 1080p Full HD panel with a direct LED backlight, which Hisense says creates a sharper, more colorful picture. In practice, the picture is decent for the price. Colors are reasonably accurate out of the box, and the full array backlight helps with uniformity compared to edge-lit budget sets. But the display metrics tell the real story. This panel lands in the 6th percentile for display quality in our database, which means it's near the bottom of what we've tested. That's not a surprise for a sub-$200 TV, but it's worth knowing before you buy.

Gaming performance is a mixed bag. The 60Hz panel with Game Mode does reduce input lag noticeably, and several owners mention using this as a budget gaming display for consoles with no complaints about lag. But the HDMI 1.4 ports limit you to 1080p at 60Hz, so don't expect 4K gaming or high refresh rates. The gaming score sits at the 38th percentile, which is below average but workable for casual play. Audio is also middle of the road at the 44th percentile. The DTS Virtual:X processing tries to fake height effects from the built-in speakers, but it's still a pair of small TV speakers. You'll want a soundbar if you actually care about audio.

Stacked against the competition, the Hisense A4K holds its own on smart features but falls behind on picture quality. The TCL Q6-Series 65Q651G is a much bigger 4K set with quantum dot color and better HDR, though it costs more. If you're set on a small screen, the Roku Plus Series 55R6C7 is a step up in size and resolution with a similarly simple smart platform, but Roku's interface isn't as feature-rich as Google TV. The Samsung Neo QLED QN70F and LG QNED 65QNED82AUA are in a completely different league on picture quality, but they're also way more expensive and much larger.

For a 40-inch secondary TV, the A4K's real competition is whatever cheap 1080p set is on sale this week. The Sony BRAVIA 2 II K75S20M2 is a 75-inch 4K TV that costs significantly more, so it's not really a direct rival. What the Hisense does well is the smart platform. Google TV with 800+ free channels and Chromecast built in is a genuinely useful feature set that some pricier TVs don't match. If you mostly stream and don't care about 4K or HDR, the A4K is a smarter buy than its display specs suggest.

At $120 to $318 depending on where you shop, the A4 Series 40A4K is priced like a budget TV and mostly delivers like one. The smart features punch above the price tag, and the Google TV experience is better than what you get on some sets costing twice as much. But the picture quality and HDR performance are weak even for this price range. If you can find it at the lower end of that spread, around $120 to $150, it's a reasonable deal for a secondary TV. At $300 or more, you're getting into territory where a 4K set from TCL or Roku starts to make more sense. The price gap between vendors is wide enough that it's worth shopping around before you commit.

If you're hunting for a small TV for a kitchen, bedroom, or dorm room, the Hisense A4 Series 40A4K is one of those budget picks that keeps popping up. It's a 39.5-inch 1080p LED panel with Google TV built in, which means you get access to a huge library of streaming apps plus over 800 free live TV channels without needing a separate streaming stick. For a set that regularly sells between $120 and $318 depending on the vendor, that's a pretty tempting package.

Hisense has positioned this as a no-frills smart TV that covers the basics well. The smart features are actually a standout here, ranking in the 83rd percentile in our database, which is impressive for a budget set. Google TV is snappy enough for daily use, and having Chromecast built in means you can beam content from your phone without any extra hardware. The voice remote with Google Assistant is a nice touch too, especially if you're the type who loses remotes in the couch cushions and just wants to yell at the TV instead.

But let's be real about what this is. The display itself sits in the 6th percentile for display quality, and HDR performance is nearly nonexistent at the 14th percentile. This is a 1080p panel in a world where 4K is the default, and while that's fine for a 40-inch screen viewed from across the room, it's not going to blow anyone away. If you're looking for a budget TV that nails the smart features and doesn't cost much, this is a solid candidate. If you care about picture quality, keep scrolling.

Skip the Hisense A4 Series 40A4K if you're buying a primary living room TV. The 1080p resolution, weak HDR, and limited HDMI ports will frustrate anyone who cares about picture quality or wants to connect multiple 4K devices. Movie buffs should look elsewhere too, since the movies score in our database is a rough 18.8 out of 100. If you want a small TV but still want 4K, check out a 43-inch TCL or Roku set instead. And if you're planning to wall-mount this in a bright room, the limited brightness and mediocre viewing angles might leave you squinting.

Should you buy the Hisense A4 Series 40A4K? If you need a small, cheap TV for a bedroom, kitchen, or dorm and you mostly stream content, yes. The Google TV interface is excellent, the free live TV channels are a nice bonus, and the price is hard to argue with when you catch it on sale. It's also a decent casual gaming display if you're running a console at 1080p and don't need high refresh rates.

But if picture quality matters to you, even a little, this isn't the TV. The 1080p panel, weak HDR, and limited HDMI ports make it feel dated. For a primary living room TV, spend a bit more and get a 4K set. For a secondary screen where convenience and price matter more than pixels, the A4K does the job without making a fuss.