Hisense’s new 4K laser TV delivers up to 150 inches of picture, and 6.2.2 channels of Dolby Atmos sound -

The Hisense L9Q delivers 100 to 150 inches of 4K picture
Comes with a new-gen light-rejecting projector screen in 5 sizes
Dolby Atmos/DTS:X support with 6.2.2 built-in speaker channels

Hisense has revealed its new laser TV ahead of CES 2025, called the Hisense L9Q. The update to its previous L9 laser TV model is all about going bigger and better: specifically, going up to 150 inches in projection size instead of 120 inches, and adding a new, powerful suite of Dolby Atmos speakers on the projector itself.

If you’re not familiar with laser TVs, they’re basically ultra-short-throw projectors with a few key spec tweaks to make them work more in the way that the best TVs work, rather than the best projectors.

For example, home theater projectors often don’t have streaming or TV tuning tech built in, so they rely entirely on other boxes to provide content – but the Hisense L9Q not only has Google TV built in for streaming, it also has an ATSC 3.0 tuner for broadcasts.

Laser TVs also tend to come with a matching projector screen, and the Hisense L9Q will come with an Ambient Light Rejection (ALR) screen, which comes in five sizes: 100, 110, 120 136 and 150 inches. ALR screens massively boost the brightness of projector images by reflecting only the light you’re supposed to see – I’ve written about the difference this kind of projector screen makes, with images, before.

The L9Q will debut with Hisense’s next-gen ALR screen with “nano-scale light enhancement” that promises to be able to deliver 1,500 nits of peak brightness when used with the L9Q or the Hisense PX3-Pro UST projector. This will put the brightness at the same level as the best OLED TVs, which will make things interesting.

But enough about the overall concept of a laser TV, let’s get into the specs and design of the new Hisense L9Q.

Let’s talk numbers

The 4K laser projection of the Hisense L9Q is promised to be much brighter than its predecessor’s, delivering a claimed 5,000 lumens of brightness, which is way up from the 3,000 lumens of the L9. On top of this, it’ll supposedly deliver 110% of the BT.2020 color space, which is the same as is claimed for the extremely impressive Hisense PX3-Pro, which we rate as the best ultra-short-throw projector overall.

As I mentioned above, it has a built-in sound system, which Hisense describes as being 6.2.2 channels, and “ensuring rich, multidimensional sound that rivals professional theaters”. I would approach that statement from Hisense with a healthy amount of skepticism, given that I’ve seen this projector in the flesh, and while it’s a big beast, it’s far from large enough to deliver ‘professional theater’ sound, but it should stand up to a good-quality soundbar.

Hisense says there’s 116W of power across those 10 speakers, and that the “15° tilted sound bin, inspired by Roman amphitheaters, creates an immersive sound stage with Dolby Atmos [and] DTS VirtualX”, so perhaps this is one for the classicists out there.

In a world where TVs are getting continuously larger in size, laser TVs can be a great-value way of getting the scale of projectors in an easier-to-use package that’s closer to the convenience of TVs – especially with this new higher-brightness screen. Alas, Hisense hasn’t announced a price or release date yet, so we won’t know exactly how good-value the new model is until later, though I suspect it’ll be pretty premium. The company has also announced a range of giant TVs made with more traditional screen tech at CES 2025.

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