FoxFire675
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2019
- Messages
- 320
- Reaction score
- 229
This my personal review of my Samsung 55" QN90B. I'll be sharing my thoughts of the TV after using it for just over 3 weeks. My use case was mix involving Movies, TV shows, Gaming and YouTube browsing.
The TV was delivered through the Samsung Signature Service, they pre-checked the TV at Hirsch before delivering it to me. As such I did not get to unbox the TV myself but the Signature Service guys did a quick job of re-unboxing it and setting it up with the base stand and putting it on my TV stand. I highly recommend taking delivery this way as they add an extra 3 years onto the standard 2 year warranty for a total of 5 years.
The build quality of the TV is Superb. The TV has narrow bezels, a thin profile from the side, easy access to ports (all on the RHS of the tv facing to the side) and a nice hefty metal base stand.
The remote is relatively small and feels good to hold. Its has built in batteries and charges via one or a combination of 3 methods. USB C, the built in solar panel on the back and RF harvesting. I can confirm the latter does work as overnight the remote gained 5% in charge just by being left on the sofa. I was disappointed that the remote was plastic as previous years QLED's had metal remotes but it still feels great to hold and is VERY easy to use.
Picture quality of the TV is Stunning. That being said, let me put this out there. This is Not a replacement for OLED but rather a very viable Alternative. By this, I mean it does things that current OLED cannot, but also cannot do some things that OLED can. It will never be as perfect as OLED in a dark room, nor will it have the almost instantaneous pixel response time BUT the colour and the brightness on this TV and the fact that it doesnt have such an aggressive ABL is something current OLED's dont have.
1. Brightness and Colours - Top class. The TV is extremely bright! Colours are vibrant thanks to the Quantum Dot layer. I use the TV in Natural picture preset for all SDR content with the brightness set to 38 out of 50. I have never had to turn the brightness up. ( I do recommend turning off Intelligent mode for the picture and then turning off brightness, reduction in this order. You will see a big change). HDR looks Brilliant on this TV. Sometimes SDR looks like HDR with how bright and vibrant the colour is.
2. Black levels - I am extremely impressed with the black levels on this TV. Roughly 80% of the time they are OLED black. The TV does have blooming in some very dark scenes but its very livable coming from someone who owns an OLED as well. If you watch stuff from the side, then it will stick out like a sore thumb though.
Here is a pic of Thor: Love and Thunder in a pitch black room with the top and bottom letter boxes being black.
Xbox Logo on start-up
3. Panel uniformity - I ran a DSE test was surprised to see that the panel in this QN90B was quite clean. Very little banding and DSE. Overall very uniform colour and brightness. I hope this is a reflection of most of the QN90B panels people get as this would indicate Samsung is improving their Quality Control.
4. Gaming - This TV has a 120hz Panel and has 4 X HDMI 2.1 ports. It also supports Freesync Premium Pro. I played call the Call of Duty MW2 Beta over these passed few days and was impressed by it. I was dropping on average 15-20 kills on TDM (once I unlocked the Lachmann sub aka MP5) and I found the input lag to be very good. If you never played on an OLED before (specifically LG C range of OLED's) you'll be very very happy with this TV. When the TV is on Game mode picture preset, can chose the genre of game you are playing like FPS, RPG, Racing etc. You can also set the local dimming to High, Medium or low.
Xbox details page. (Like all Samsungs it doesnt support Dolby Vison but I found HDR 10 on this TV to be superb)
MW2 Beta
The TV also picked up I had a Xbox Series console and labeled it accordingly on the home screen. I could also use the Samsung remote to navigate through the Xbox dashboard which was cool.
5. OS - Its alight. Very simple to use and navigate. The remote input did lag sometimes while navigating through the menu which was unfortunate. It was random though and not easily repeatable. Its got all the basic Apps from youtube to DSTV now to Apple TV.
6. Sound - Its decent. Didnt leave my wanting anything but also wasnt impressed by it.
7. Motion - Best of the Best. I feel this is the best in the business. Better than my C1 and better than every other TV I've owed. Everything looked great to me from Movies to Sport, all the content I watched was super fluid.
Summary.
Overall very happy. It performs great in the majority of aspects and mediocre in some. There is nothing its "bad" at (app variety maybe but then get an Android box). This TV is great for watching Sport, TV series and Movies and has fantastic motion handling. It as all the gaming features one could want and the HDR is Top Class with the brightness and the colour on this TV being its Super Strong Point. The performance is a pitch black room and contrast will never be as stunning as OLED but its not very far behind. The OS lagged on me sometimes but the remote felt good in the hand and charges by itself. I paid R21999 for the 55"QN90B with a "Free" soundbar and a 5 year warranty. The price can only come down which I feel will make this TV very competitive with what is currently on offer.
The TV was delivered through the Samsung Signature Service, they pre-checked the TV at Hirsch before delivering it to me. As such I did not get to unbox the TV myself but the Signature Service guys did a quick job of re-unboxing it and setting it up with the base stand and putting it on my TV stand. I highly recommend taking delivery this way as they add an extra 3 years onto the standard 2 year warranty for a total of 5 years.
The build quality of the TV is Superb. The TV has narrow bezels, a thin profile from the side, easy access to ports (all on the RHS of the tv facing to the side) and a nice hefty metal base stand.
The remote is relatively small and feels good to hold. Its has built in batteries and charges via one or a combination of 3 methods. USB C, the built in solar panel on the back and RF harvesting. I can confirm the latter does work as overnight the remote gained 5% in charge just by being left on the sofa. I was disappointed that the remote was plastic as previous years QLED's had metal remotes but it still feels great to hold and is VERY easy to use.
Picture quality of the TV is Stunning. That being said, let me put this out there. This is Not a replacement for OLED but rather a very viable Alternative. By this, I mean it does things that current OLED cannot, but also cannot do some things that OLED can. It will never be as perfect as OLED in a dark room, nor will it have the almost instantaneous pixel response time BUT the colour and the brightness on this TV and the fact that it doesnt have such an aggressive ABL is something current OLED's dont have.
1. Brightness and Colours - Top class. The TV is extremely bright! Colours are vibrant thanks to the Quantum Dot layer. I use the TV in Natural picture preset for all SDR content with the brightness set to 38 out of 50. I have never had to turn the brightness up. ( I do recommend turning off Intelligent mode for the picture and then turning off brightness, reduction in this order. You will see a big change). HDR looks Brilliant on this TV. Sometimes SDR looks like HDR with how bright and vibrant the colour is.
2. Black levels - I am extremely impressed with the black levels on this TV. Roughly 80% of the time they are OLED black. The TV does have blooming in some very dark scenes but its very livable coming from someone who owns an OLED as well. If you watch stuff from the side, then it will stick out like a sore thumb though.
Here is a pic of Thor: Love and Thunder in a pitch black room with the top and bottom letter boxes being black.
Xbox Logo on start-up
3. Panel uniformity - I ran a DSE test was surprised to see that the panel in this QN90B was quite clean. Very little banding and DSE. Overall very uniform colour and brightness. I hope this is a reflection of most of the QN90B panels people get as this would indicate Samsung is improving their Quality Control.
4. Gaming - This TV has a 120hz Panel and has 4 X HDMI 2.1 ports. It also supports Freesync Premium Pro. I played call the Call of Duty MW2 Beta over these passed few days and was impressed by it. I was dropping on average 15-20 kills on TDM (once I unlocked the Lachmann sub aka MP5) and I found the input lag to be very good. If you never played on an OLED before (specifically LG C range of OLED's) you'll be very very happy with this TV. When the TV is on Game mode picture preset, can chose the genre of game you are playing like FPS, RPG, Racing etc. You can also set the local dimming to High, Medium or low.
Xbox details page. (Like all Samsungs it doesnt support Dolby Vison but I found HDR 10 on this TV to be superb)
MW2 Beta
The TV also picked up I had a Xbox Series console and labeled it accordingly on the home screen. I could also use the Samsung remote to navigate through the Xbox dashboard which was cool.
5. OS - Its alight. Very simple to use and navigate. The remote input did lag sometimes while navigating through the menu which was unfortunate. It was random though and not easily repeatable. Its got all the basic Apps from youtube to DSTV now to Apple TV.
6. Sound - Its decent. Didnt leave my wanting anything but also wasnt impressed by it.
7. Motion - Best of the Best. I feel this is the best in the business. Better than my C1 and better than every other TV I've owed. Everything looked great to me from Movies to Sport, all the content I watched was super fluid.
Summary.
Overall very happy. It performs great in the majority of aspects and mediocre in some. There is nothing its "bad" at (app variety maybe but then get an Android box). This TV is great for watching Sport, TV series and Movies and has fantastic motion handling. It as all the gaming features one could want and the HDR is Top Class with the brightness and the colour on this TV being its Super Strong Point. The performance is a pitch black room and contrast will never be as stunning as OLED but its not very far behind. The OS lagged on me sometimes but the remote felt good in the hand and charges by itself. I paid R21999 for the 55"QN90B with a "Free" soundbar and a 5 year warranty. The price can only come down which I feel will make this TV very competitive with what is currently on offer.
My Samsung 55" QN90B is just over a month old now and I have it paired with Samsung HW-Q600B soundbar. I mostly use it for TV shows and movies via my nVidia Shield media player. Thus far I am extremely happy with the combo.
. Really happy so far as well.
