Samsung QN900A Neo QLED
Welcome to the new benchmark in TVs.
When viewed for the first time, it’s hard not to gush over the QN900A’s stark minimalism, which aims to make everything but the content you’re watching melt away from view.
The first thing you’ll notice (or maybe not notice) is the TV’s nearly non-existent bezel, which has been reduced to less than a millimeter (0.9.mm)
– an achievement made possible by a new and exclusive matrixing technology that’s said to shrink the space between where the pixels at the edge of the display end and where the bezel begins.
The next thing you’ll probably wonder is where the QN900A’s speakers are, as they’re not visible from front-on. In fact, the TV’s speaker grilles can be found along its left and right edges, housing an 80W 6.2.2 channel system (that’s ten speakers in total).
Continuing the trend of aesthetically pleasing design elements is the QN900A’s stand, which is slim, flat and centered, meaning you won’t need an especially wide surface to place the TV on.
Like all of Samsung’s premium televisions for the last few years, the QN900A aims to reduce cable clutter by having a separate One Connect box that houses all but one of the TV’s ports.
This is still a convenient alternative to awkwardly plugging several cables into the back of the TV itself (especially if you plan to wall-mount the unit), and the QN900A offers the added bonus of being able to attach the One Connect box directly to the back of the stand if you don’t have a good hiding spot for it.
HDMI 2.1 is supported across all four of the TV’s HDMI ports, with one also offering eARC support, and there’s also 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x ethernet port, 1x optical output and an RF antenna input.
Smart TV (Tizen OS) and remote
If you’ve owned or used a Samsung TV in the last few years, you’ll know more or less what to expect from the QN900A’s smart Tizen-based OS.
A press of the home button on your remote will see your favorite apps and sources pop up from the bottom edge of the display in a horizontal line.
Cycling through these will see additional information spring up above the initial row of apps. For instance, hovering over a streaming service like Netflix will present you with a view of your recently viewed shows and movies, allowing you continue directly from your home screen.
All the most popular apps and services are present and accounted for on Samsung’s OS, and there’s a dedicated Apps tile with further app suggestions which you can install.
Additionally, the QN900A’s remote offers a couple of
dedicated buttons that allow you to quickly launch Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
In terms of design, the Neo QLED 8K’s remote is quite similar to what Samsung’s been offering with its other TVs over the last few years, with one major difference – the new remote no longer needs batteries, with a new panel on its rear that’s able to absorb light – both natural and artificial – to keep itself charged up.
The choice to ditch batteries is not only great for the environment, it’s also made the remote itself incredibly light in the hand. That said, you will have to get used to placing the remote face down when you’ve finished using it.
Performance
As we mentioned earlier, Samsung Neo QLED televisions sport LEDs that have been reduced to 1/40th of their traditional size, allowing for a huge increase to both brightness and black levels.
As the LEDs are far smaller, they’re able to achieve far more precision and less blooming, so the act of seeing bright areas of the screen unnaturally bleed over into darker spots should be greatly reduced or not evident at all.
We kicked things off by watching the stunning documentary series Our Planet on
Netflix. Immediately, we were treated to a view of Earth from the moon, with a wide expanse of tiny, glittering stars surrounded by the deep blackness of space. That we could make out these individual specs without light bleeding around them was more than impressive for a non-OLED display.
Skipping forward a bit, we found ourselves viewing a lush, green rainforest against a backdrop of picturesque mountains. The detail here was off the charts, with an intense clarity that looked sensational given its 4K source, proving that there’s no real hurry for native 8K content to arrive.
The next thing we booted up was Robert Rodriguez’s visually spectacular epic Alita: Battle Angel in Ultra HD. Once again, we were impressed by how sharp and clean the film looked on the QN900A, offering an incredible amount of detail, rich colours and deep blacks.
It’s worth mentioning that we did notice some instances of light bleed in one scene near the beginning of the film, in which Alita is looking over her new mechanical body.
Audio
Although we were provided with Samsung’s new Q950A soundbar for the purposes of our review, we chose to limit our usage of it in an effort to get a better understanding of the Neo QLED’s built-in sound offering.
As discussed earlier, the QN900A’s speakers have been integrated into the left and right sides of the TV. You won’t find audio shouting out of the back of this television, but Samsung’s much-touted Object Tracking Sound Pro feature does a good job of bringing depth to whatever you happen to be watching, making it easy to track noises moving from left to right.
While there was some dimensionality to be found here, the telly’s built-in speakers couldn’t hope to match a real Dolby Atmos-capable soundbar or hi-fi setup when it comes to a providing a truly convincing three-dimensional soundscape.