Haier H65S90GUF

Design

• Four screen sizes
• Reflective screen
• Pedestal stand

The S90 in its 65-inch guise (there’s also 55-, 75-, and 85-inches) feels well built for a TV of its price.

The stand is a little flimsy to pull together but eventually works, the pedestal sticks out from both the front and back but leaves enough room if you’re thinking of adding a soundbar later. Assembling the TV took me less than five minutes, which is not the quickest and the stand is the main reason for taking up that much time.

This Haier TV could also do with a bit more labelling. It took me longer than I’d like to admit (including a search online) to figure out which HDMI input was eARC (it’s HDMI 3), simply because there seems to be no mention of which HDMI input is listed as which on the TV.

It’s a smart-looking TV and reasonably, though as you might expect for an affordable TV, it’s not too great with reflections in a brighter room. Viewing angles are decent, though they do fall off as soon as you go off-axis – which is not different from many TVs at this price.

Connectivity

• Four HDMI 2.1 inputs
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

The Haier S90 technically has four HDMI 2.1 inputs, but don’t get too excited. Two of those are stated as restricted to 4K/60Hz refresh rates, while HDMI 3 is where you need to plug in your soundbar.

There’s a headphone jack, a USB port, Ethernet, optical digital out and tuner inputs. Wirelessly, you’re covered with Wi-Fi 6 (naturally) and Bluetooth 5.2.

User Experience

• Fire TV support
• Alexa voice control
• Freely

Fire TV is onboard, although this isn’t the All-New Fire TV experience that’s rolled out to Amazon’s Ember models – and that could be a good thing.

In its support for the older version, it avoids some of the quirky issues with the current incarnation, specifically, having to enter a PIN code every time you visit the settings. You do, however, still get the Ambient Experience, which adds a bit more flavour and personality to the set when it’s not in TV watching mode.

There’s a remote, and it supports Alexa, and she’s speedy to respond to queries and understands what you’re saying.

If you don’t prefer to use Alexa, you can navigate with the remote, and scanning the interface via this method is surprisingly zippy. The remote control even has a Settings button, something Amazon’s Ember TVs keep omitting, although there are, strangely, two buttons for Freely.

Speaking of, Freely carries all the UK-specific catch-up and on-demand services such as iPlayer and Channel 4. Like its integration on a few other TVs, Freely isn’t the quickest or the most responsive, but this is unlikely to be a massive issue unless you use it heavily. The global apps are all present, so whether you’re subscribed to Disney+, HBO Max or something else, you’ll be well-served by Fire TV’s app offerings.

I still have a hang-up with Fire TV in that it’s burdened with too much content to sift through. There are about 45 rails to slide down, and each one tends to have about 40 titles – some have as many as 100.

For an experience that seems to pride itself on being personalised, I still don’t get the feeling that the titles I’m seeing are tailored to my interests. It’s much of muchness when I – and imagine others – are looking for specificity.

Features

• Lots of HDR formats
• AI processing
• KEF sound system

The Haier S90 offers a full house in terms of HDR support with HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, HDR10+ Adaptive, Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision IQ. Covering all those formats is not always common at this price, let alone TVs that cost thrice as much – the Haier seems to have more Dolby Vision modes than it knows what to do with.

At the very least, the Haier will optimise HDR programming as best it can with these formats so you get the best experience it can deliver, whether that’s in a bright or dark room thanks to the support for HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ.

Haier isn’t looking to miss out on the AI-powered boat either with features such as AI HDR Enhancer, AI Colour Boost, AI Motion and AI Noise Reduction. These types of AI features are becoming more common, and look to enhance colour, detail, contrast, smoother motion with fast-moving content and reduce noise for the best image quality.

Brightness is about what I’d expect for an affordable TV, with the Haier reaching a high of 531 nits in Standard mode, though unexpectedly, the Vivid mode is a great deal less bright, registering at 452 nits.

The panel is a QLED one, and the D-LED backlight isn’t the more advanced Mini LED backlight in the Samsung M80H. That does mean that contrast and black levels won’t be the most precise, but the Haier does manage to be brighter than the Samsung.

There’s some backlight bleed with brighter HDR content that makes the black bars above and below the picture carry a blue tint and contrast isn’t the best. For the money, I’d call this HDR-lite compared to the type of performance you can get from the best 4K TVs.

On the sound front it’s 2.1-channel, 20W system that supports Dolby Atmos, so it can hand over spatial audio to a soundbar or sound system. The system is co-developed with British audio brand KEF with the aim of delivering clear dialogue and rich bass. As always with the sound system, we’ll hear if that’s true…

Gaming

• ALLM and VRR support
• AMD FreeSync Premium for PC gamers
• Up to 240Hz refresh rates

The Haier S90 is a sly gaming powerhouse. I measured input lag at 13.2ms, which is speedy for general gaming, and there’s ALLM and VRR support too, the latter is not always a given for TVs at this price. It goes as far as adding AMD FreeSync Premium for PC gamers, another feature you wouldn’t normally see from a TV at this price.

There’s a mention of 144Hz refresh rates, and through Dual Gate processing, the Haier S90 can push it to 240Hz.

I give Street Fighter an outing on the PS5 and the Haier delivers a colourful image. There feels like some slight motion processing going on but response and latency from the PS5 feel snappy and good.

So far, on the features and spec front, it’s been a confident showing from Haier, but what about the picture quality?

Picture Quality

• Not the brightest for HDR
• Colourful image
• Red push to colours

I’ve mentioned the Haier S90’s lack of brightness with HDR content, so contrast, black levels and outright brightness aren’t the best, but the Haier proves itself to be a capable enough set with the usual reservations that come with any affordable TV.

Colours are rich, though I wouldn’t describe the image as being the most accurate out of the box with a definite red push to skintones and colours, making skintones in Alien: Romulus look more rosy than they should be.

Switching to Predator: Badlands and you get rich, saturated colours of the alien world the Yautja lands on, though it’s worth highlighting the set requires some assistance from Dolby Vision – without Dolby Vision the image looks less bright, less colourful and with less contrast.

HDR10+ is not far behind Dolby Vision, and watching Alita: Battle Angel in both shows there’s a little more punch, contrast and saturation in Dolby Vision, with more detail and contrast that’s apparent in the HDR10+ version, which can look a little washed out. Most of the time, there’s not much of a difference between Dolby and HDR10+, but I’d say that Dolby has the edge overall.

It’s with HLG programming where the Haier S90 seems to suffer most. Season three of The Capture in HLG HDR does not look bright – pretty dim, in fact – and a more expensive Hisense U7S sitting next to the Haier pops up with brighter, more natural colours.

Vivid mode introduces even more of a red push, acting as a colourful, punchier alternative to Movie mode but as I mentioned earlier, the Standard mode is the brightest and most colourful. If you want the best in terms of brightness and colour that this TV can do, it’s in the Standard mode than the Vivid mode.

More affordable TVs don’t often have motion processing, and for good reason – they’re not very good at it. However, the Haier is unexpectedly good.

At its maximum Action Smoothing setting of 10/10, there’s judder and a softness to the image with blurriness during some motion and a lack of sharpness. The optimal settings are 5/5, which provide smooth motion but avoid introducing judder, blurriness or stuttering. The only issue here is a slight lack of sharpness to the image. Nonetheless, it’s a good, confident motion performance from the Haier.

Upscaling

• Red push to images
• Solid levels of detail

Issues with red push continue with SDR content. Season four of Game of Thrones features complexions that look a little ruddy, and the image is slightly brighter than I think it should be for SDR, but it’s an attractive, if not necessarily accurate, looking image.

Colours are rich, varied punchy, with a reasonably good sense of detail and clarity for a 65-inch TV when fed HD content. There are some eccentricities – pink-ish skintones in Succession look a little odd – but it’s a good looking image.

Drop to SDR and things can get a little rougher – there’s noise in a DVD of Constantine and Men in Black with the expected lack of sharpness, but detail levels look solid, black levels appear rock solid, and the Haier doesn’t appear to introduce any more noise to the image, which in my books is a win.

Sound Quality

• Lacks bass
• Big soundstage
• Clear with dialogue

With the KEF badge on the sound system, I was expecting something better than decent, but if there’s one area where the Haier S90 is average, it’s in the sound department.

The sound system is audibly clear with dialogue, and the soundstage is big – it avoids sound tinny or small like some affordable TVs can and there’s height conveyed as well, with the audio system able to pan sounds across the screen well enough.

Bass is an issue in that there isn’t really much of it. Any attempts to convey bass depth in a film like Dune come across as feeble. The system lacks power, almost as if the .1 channel isn’t there.

Highs come across clear and sharp, the midrange is mostly clear enough too – the problem with the Haier S90 is that the sound system doesn’t sound exciting. It’s competent but lacks thrills and a soundbar is certainly worth considering to go with this TV.

Should you buy it?