The Hisense HS214 just came into my hands recently, in case I haven’t guessed yet this is obviously a fantastic soundbar built by Hisense at a fairly modest price for what it promises.
Anyway, it’s been a while now that I’ve adopted it as my main solution for music, movies and gaming and today I finally feel ready to talk to you about it in detail. Is it worth the money asked for? Does it have any flaws? If you are curious, stay here with me and we will find out together!
Hisense HS214, a soundbar that has its why
I start immediately with briefly describing the product, and then deepen everything with unboxing. As already mentioned, this is a soundbar manufactured by Hisense which is sold at a very affordable price given the type of product we are talking about.
The dimensions are quite compact and the functions that Hisense HS214 offers you are so many. Everything is seasoned with bluetooth support and a convenient remote control to remotely act on the product, no more chatter though and let’s move on to unboxing.
Unboxing and features
The packaging in which Hisense HS214 will be presented will be very simple and anonymous. Inside the package, however, we will find many elements, in particular:
- Soundbar
- Remote controller
- Batteries (obviously dedicated to the remote control)
- Power cord
- HDMI cable
- optical cable
- Wall Mount Kit
- User Manual
In short, everything you need for any situation you may encounter. Margin note, the 3.5mm jack cable is missing as you may have noticed. So keep this in mind in case you want to opt for this type of link.
No more chatter and let’s get straight to the technicalities and then proceed to the practical issue: let’s start by saying that the total power will be 80W. Overall we will have 3 speakers, 2 of which are Full Range and a Woofer.
Dolby Digital is present (not to be confused with Dolby Digital plus). The dimensions are as follows: 65 cm wide, 6 cm high and approximately 10 cm deep. Compared to other products it is rather contained as you can well read.
That’s not all though, you will be interested to know that with the Hisense HS214 we are facing a Bluetooth 4.2, one HDMI input, one USB, one optical and one coaxial, in addition to the obvious jack input I told you about a little while ago. There is no shortage of classic little buttons to adjust the various settings directly from the product.
Technicalities aside, I suggest you take a look at the video to better understand the size and aesthetics of the product.
A small but essential remote control!
Before talking about the soundbar I want to dedicate a few words to the remote control included in this Hisense HS214 kit. It is undoubtedly one essential tool for the correct use of the product.
Let’s start with the important things, thanks to the remote control you can adjust your soundbar to 3 different profiles: movie, music and news. The sound will change a lot according to the profile you choose.
I advise you to forget about the music profile, because I want to premise it immediately: this soundbar is not made for audiophile music listening. That said, the best balanced profile seemed to me the one dedicated to movies. However, nothing prevents you from experimenting for yourself.
Still on the subject of the remote control, it will still be possible to raise and lower the volume and more importantly adjust the bass. Do not miss the mute button and the ability to enable and disable the surround (the difference will show up immediately). It will also be possible to change the audio source, for example switching from bluetooth to wired source.
And here, however, I must begin to beat the product. If it is true that the remote control performs an essential function, there is no real visual feedback of the actions you perform on the soundbar.
Let me explain: understanding whether the surround is on or off will be impossible as the LED will only flash without associating the flashing with the option you have chosen. Same goes for the volume options and so on.
In short, there is no visual confirmation of what is being done. Any kind of interface to understand what is active and what is not would have been welcome on our Hisense HS214.
Ok but, the audio quality?
The Hisense HS214 is a soundbar after all, so it is questionable whether it does its main task well and that is to ensure optimal audio quality.
Let’s remove the tooth so we immediately get rid of the pain too: The Hisense HS214 offers everything a soundbar in this price range can offer. If you have an old TV at home and want a significant audio boost and don’t want to spend too much, the product is made for you.
But when expensive, latest-model TVs come into play, then you risk degrading the quality rather than improving it., Even if you turn on the surround effect. it will guarantee you a not insignificant depth that will make you feel a little more at the cinema.
Of course, expecting miracles is certainly not the right way to approach this product, but it is certainly not a poorly thought out or poor soundbar. My advice is to place it strategically, in order to maximize the effect you can get from it. Furthermore, optimal bass adjustment can make a lot of difference to the user experience offered.
Finally I want to say a few words on the gaming sector. If you play the game, the Hisense HS214 set in movie mode can give you great satisfaction compared to the audio of a common monitor. If you want to do a simple upgrade I assure you that you will be very satisfied.
Also thanks to the ability to adjust the bass and above all to control the volume remotely through the convenient remote control that you will hardly find in a monitor!
Bluetooth, is it worth it?
Since Hisense HS214 also offers us the possibility of using a very good bluetooth 4.2, why not say a few words about it? The pair is immediate to say the least, you just need to set the source of the soundbar to bluetooth (conveniently indicated by the color of the led), then with the phone all you have to do is go to the bluetooth settings and proceed with the search.
Once connected, audio streaming is immediate and latency is almost zero. Again, in my opinion the music reproduction is not the strong point of this product but it is certainly not to be disdained, provided you do not proceed in surround mode where you will witness a sort of distortion of the musical instruments.
In short, it is still a good alternative both to listen to some YouTube videos or movies through the soundbar, and to enjoy some music while walking around the house.
#Hisense #HS214 #review
