Samsung QA65Q9FAMWXXY
STUBBORNLY HANGING ON TO THE Q, BUT WITH BRIGHT RESULTS.
ONCE AGAIN SAMSUNG is flying in the face of convention, sticking with its proprietary QLED technology to offer stiff competition to OLED, while other manufacturers slowly make the move to OLED. Like LG, Samsung has broken its 2018 range into three main lines — the top-end QLED, mid-range Premium UHD and finally its UHD range.
We sourced the stunning Samsung 65-inch QLED Q9F for our tests, and it’s easy to see why Samsung doesn’t feel threatened by OLED. For starters, QLED delivers much brighter images than OLED (up to 2,000 nits), but in the past it suffered from having edge-mounted backlights. This year sees the introduction of Full Array Local Dimming, allowing for much more precise control of the backlighting. We’ve seen similar technology to this across most of the LED based TVs released in 2018, but it seems Samsung really has mastered it, with almost perfect screen uniformity and intense blacks, if not quite as dark as OLED. However, the benefit is arguably the best HDR viewing we’ve seen on our demo disk, with the additional brightness really allowing the full colour gamut to shine. It has full certification for HDR10+ and HLG, though doesn’t have Dolby Vision certification (yet). The quantum used in the panel will not age over time, unlike OLED’s organic-based pixels, and this probably explains why Samsung has slapped a huge 10-year ‘No Burn’ warranty on this set. Later in the year, Samsung is going to roll out an update that will allow for variable framerates tied to the source, allowing gamers to tinker.
Like the LG set, this screen is incredibly thin, and now includes a unique ambient mode, which turns the set into a giant digital picture frame, yet uses a fraction of the power of the TV when it’s turned on. It’s even possible to upload an image of the wall behind the TV, so that it blends into the background when not in use, with only the thin bezel giving it away. Samsung’s invisible ‘one clear connection’ cable has returned, which connects to another box you can hide away that has all of the TVs inputs, removing cable clutter entirely despite the thin stand.
The Premium UHD range includes the NU8500 and NU8000 models, and both retain the HDR10+ certification. Unlike other LCD-based TVs in this price range, both are based on edge-lit backlighting, a surprising decision given the move to array-based lighting elsewhere. We haven’t seen these sets in action, though it’s likely they’ll suffer from more light-bleeding as a result.
At the entry level, Samsung’s UHD range is a relatively basic 4K LED TV, as it does not support any of the official HDR standards, instead using Samsung’s ‘PurColor’ tech (like Kogan, though, Samsung does say it is an HDR set in the specs). Given the huge volume of official HDR TVs on the market, this is quite surprising, though it’s priced accordingly.
When it comes to smart features, the higher range is compatible with Samsung’s Smart Things platform, allowing you to control and monitor SmartThing-enabled devices via the TV. We’re not huge fans of the Tizen OS, though it does offer all of the major streaming and catch-up services.
OLED finally has a real challenger on its hands, especially with HDR’s benefit of increased brightness.