Verdict
Samsung’s finest LCD TV proves that despite 8K content remaining stubbornly elusive, you can’t – and shouldn’t – ignore 8K TVs
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Phenomenally bright and detailed pictures -
Excellent contrast and local dimming -
Powerful and immersive sound
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More expensive than 4K TVs -
No Dolby Vision support -
Blooming becomes obvious with off-axis viewing
Key Features
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Native 8K resolution
7680 x 4320 delivers four times as many pixels as 4K TVs -
Mini LED lighting
Smaller LEDs permit it better control over its lighting system -
Wide-ranging game features
Supports 4K/165Hz, 8K up to 60Hz, ALLM and VRR
Introduction
For most TV brands and, it has to be said, consumers, 8K TVs appear to be a busted flush.
Another failed attempt at introducing a new technology the world just doesn’t seem to want. Or can’t afford. Or which isn’t sufficiently supported by the content world. Or a mix of all of the above.
For Samsung, though, the brand that brought us the first consumer 8K TV, there’s life in the old 8K dog yet. And on the basis of the QE75QN900F, I’m actually inclined to agree with them.
Price
I guess we might as well get the painful bit out of the way first. The Samsung QE75QN900F costs £4099 in the UK, and $3799 in the US. And that’s after a recent round of pretty significant price cutting, too.
To put this in perspective, Samsung’s top-end 75-inch 4K QN90F, is currently available for £2699 and (why don’t I live in the US!) $2299.
In short, buying an 8K TV isn’t just a choice; it’s an extra cost. Which translates into extra pressure on the QN900F to offer something truly special in the performance department.
Other 8K TVs are thin on the ground. Samsung has its flagship QN990F series, the 75-inch model of which will set you back £5499 in return for exclusive Samsung 8K features as a spectacular frameless design, an advanced new panel, significantly more local dimming zones than the QN900F gets, and an exclusive new NQ8 AI Gen3 processor.
No other brands have released new 8K TVs this year, but LG’s beautiful OLED77Z19LA is still available for around £17999 – which, um, suddenly makes the Samsung QE75QN900F look cheap.
Otherwise you could opt to spend your £4,000 or so budget on a really massive 4K TV instead, such as the 100-inch Hisense 100U7Q Pro.
Design
- Takes design queues from Samsung’s The Frame TVs
- Feet can be attached in multiple ways
- Ambient Mode screensaver feature
The QE75QN900F marks a significant change of design direction for Samsung’s 8K ranges. Instead of the ultra-slim futuristic frames of the past (and current QN990F flagship, actually) the QN900F features a dark grey, steeply chamfered frame that’s clearly intended to be seen.
In fact, it’s basically a grey, metallic riff on the design of Samsung’s popular The Frame TV series, which look more like paintings than TVs when you’re not watching TV on them. Especially if you take advantage of Samsung’s Ambient Mode, where digital artworks or photographs can be played as screen savers rather than the fancy frame simply surrounding a 75-inch rectangular black hole.
The Frame TV styling works best when hung on a wall using Samsung’s flush mounting solution, especially as it’s also impressively slender (just 38.5mm deep) round the back. A pair of simple, blade style feet are included in the box, and these can be positioned either close together or out towards the TV’s corners, with the screen either sat low down on them or perched up two or three inches for a soundbar.
Connectivity
- Four HDMI ports
- Two USB ports
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.3
As you’d hope with an 8K TV, the QE75QN900F is packed with cutting edge connections. All four of its HDMI ports are built to the v2.1 specification, enabling them to receive 8K feeds at up to 60Hz frame rates – as well as 4K feeds up to 165Hz for one of the most fluid gaming experiences the TV world has to offer.
There’s also an optical digital audio output and a pair of multimedia-enabled USB-A ports, as well as the now ubiquitous Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless content sharing options.
User Experience
- Tizen OS Smart system
- Bixby and Alexa voice control built in
- Ships with ‘smart’ and standard remote controls
Samsung’s home-grown Tizen operating system has been around for many years and gone through many iterations – and for the most part this long experience pays off handsomely on the QE75QN900F.
Its app support is impressively far-reaching. All the key individual streaming apps are present and correct, be they global big hitters like Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ and Apple TV+, or local UK ones such as BBC iPlayer, the ITVX, Channel 4 and My5.
These catch up apps for UK streaming services aren’t available within a Freeview Play or YouView ‘wrapper’ app though, and nor is there any support for the Freely platform that permits the live streaming of many of the UK channels.
The QN900F’s interface always feels busy and rich in content options, and there’s an impressively intelligent attempt to make recommendations based on your viewing history across a huge range of apps.
You can even set up different profiles for various members of your household, so they get menus and recommendations tailored just to them.
There’s a dedicated Gaming Hub section too, and while the strip of menu selection options running down the left hand side takes a bit of figuring out, you soon get the hang of it if you make the effort.
The TV’s picture and sound set up menus can be accessed from the main Tizen home screen, or more directly via a ‘cog’ setting button on the remote controls. They’re a little long-winded and complicated, but this is a premium TV after all. And many AV fans would rather have too many options than too few.
My only real gripe with the QN900F’s out of the box experience is that the set’s key noise reduction and motion processing tools are tucked obscurely under a Picture Clarity menu header, and come on way too strong by default with most picture presets, causing unwanted and distracting picture artefacts.
Samsung provides a handy shortcut through all the complex menus in the shape of voice control/recognition using either its own Bixby or Amazon’s Alexa systems. These both support a fairly natural, conversational style, and extends voice control into pretty deep, dark corners of the picture and sound set up features.
If you happen to own a Samsung Galaxy Watch (Gen 4 onwards), finally, you can actually control the TV by moving your hands around and making ‘intuitive gestures’. No, not those ones..
Features
- Native 8K resolution
- LED TV with 1446 zones of local dimming
- Neo Quantum 8 AI Gen 2 processor
Samsung has spent many long hours over many successive years making the point that just equipping a TV with a native 8K resolution doesn’t automatically make it a great TV. Colour, contrast, processing and so on are just as important to unlocking a ‘next gen’ picture as pixels.
It made this point initially to combat the brief arrival of relatively affordable 8K rivals, but with that competition long departed Samsung’s statement serves now as a temptation beyond mere resolution to find the extra cash required to step up from Samsung’s best 4K LCD TV efforts.
So how does the QE75QN900F go about supporting this ‘more than just a higher resolution’ point? For starters, its VA-type panel uses Mini LED lighting, where LEDs a fiftieth the size of Samsung’s regular LEDs to illuminate the screen with more local light control. These are supported by a local dimming system that operates across a huge 1446 separately controlled zones.
The light from these Mini LEDs and dimming zones is pushed through a Quantum Dot colour system capable of sustaining rich saturations at high brightness levels, as well as finer toning.
These various lighting and colour elements of the 75QN900F – along with much else besides, including its intelligent content tracking and recommendations system – are controlled by Samsung’s second-gen NQ8 AI processor.
This is designed specifically for 8K TVs, and sports the necessary AI-driven power to add in real time the tens of millions of pixels required to convert non-8K sources into 8K.
This processor is not as potent as the third-generation version found in Samsung’s flagship QN990F. But it still provides such picture quality enhancing features as an AI Motion Enhancer, a Colour booster that continually enhances colours based on analysis of the incoming content, and a Depth Enhancer feature that attempts to detect and slightly enhance the main foci of incoming pictures so that it more closely resembles the way your eyes perceive the real world.
The QE75QN900F’s panel adopts the same remarkable anti-glare coating as Samsung’s Frame screens, meaning that your connection with what you’re watching is almost completely unbroken by reflections of light objects or even light sources in your room. This works so well it has to be seen be believed.
The panel also supports much wider viewing angles before colour and contrast start to reduce than you get with most LCD TVs.
As usual with Samsung TVs, the QN900F supports HDR10, HLG and HDR10+. Samsung continues not to support the Dolby Vision format.
The 75QN900F’s cutting edge picture features are joined by a seriously premium audio set up. No less than eight dedicated speakers ranged around the TV’s frame deliver 70W of total audio power across a 4.2.2 channel configuration – the middle ‘2’ of which refers to the presence of a pair of specific bass speakers, while the last ‘2’ refers to two specific channels devoted to firing sound upwards for Dolby Atmos overhead effects.
As with pretty much all Samsung TVs these days, the 75QN900F supports the brand’s Q-Symphony feature, where the TV’s speakers can join forces with those in a Samsung soundbar. Plus the set boasts Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound technology, where audio processing works in conjunction with the speakers to make specific sound effects appear to be coming from the correct position on or off the screen.
Gaming
- 4K/165Hz support
- VRR support
- Game Bar menu
I had an almost obscene amount of fun gaming on the Samsung QE75QN900F. Starting with the fact that in its fastest Game mode setting it takes just 10ms to render incoming 60Hz gaming feeds – and this pretty much halves at 120Hz. This is a particularly outstanding result when you take into account that the TV will have to upscale 4K or lower resolution graphics to its 8K screen in real time.
The immersion associated with not having to put up with any major lag is backed up by the phenomenal three-dimensionality, pixel density and clarity created by the QN900F’s 8K-resolution screen; the absence from the screen of any reflections; and the outstanding contrast and colour created by the screen’s premium local dimming and Quantum Colour systems.
Samsung’s set handles VRR, whether AMD FreeSync or native HDMI with complete aplomb. Unless you’re a competitive ‘twitch’ gamer who needs a small dedicated gaming monitor, I’m struggling to think of another screen I’ve seen that’s delivered such an immersive gaming experience.
Samsung’s 8K beast scores very well for gaming features as well as performance, too. All four of its HDMI inputs support the full 48Gbps bandwidth associated with a complete HDMI 2.1 feature count, meaning they can actually take in 8K at 60Hz games as well as 4K/120Hz titles without compromise. And Samsung’s Motion Xcelerator technology makes it possible to deliver 4K up to 165Hz if you own of a suitably potent PC. Finding native 8K games will be even more of a challenge, of course…
Support for HDMI’s Auto Low Latency Mode switching feature means that the QN900F can switch into its Game mode automatically when a game source is detected. While in Game mode you can call up a Game Bar menu screen providing information on the incoming graphics feed and a good selection of gaming aids.
These include a Virtual Aim Point, the ability to play wide (21:9) and ultra wide (32:9) titles in their correct aspect ratio, a minimap zoom tool, and the option to sacrifice a few milliseconds of response time in return for gentle motion processing if you’re playing a game that doesn’t depend on ultra-fast response times.
One last handy gaming feature is the dedicated Game Hub accessible from the Tizen home screen. This pulls together all things game related, including streaming apps and your connected game devices.
Picture Quality
- The 8K resolution does make a difference
- Vibrant but also ultra-subtle colour
- Excellent contrast and backlight control
The QE75QN900F does everything I’d hoped it might and then some, making its 8K resolution count while brooking no compromise in any other picture department. In fact, the 8K resolution makes the impact it does precisely because so many of the other aspects of picture quality work so well.
While the 75QN900F’s gorgeous overall image impression is ultimately what matters, though, the only way to fully describe why it’s so good is to break it down into its constituent parts. Starting with that ultra high resolution.
With native 8K content the 75-inch screen turns out to be plenty big enough to make the benefits of a four times 4K resolution crystal clear, delivering images from various 8K demo reels (including a particularly excellent collection of natural world clips from the video experts at Spears & Munsil) and the growing collection of true 8K videos on YouTube that basically completely break down the idea that you’re looking at a screen.
The detail, immediacy, and complete absence of any sort of pixellation or jaggedness around diagonals or curves results in a true ‘open window’ experience that not even the finest 4K TVs can quite compete with. Pixel density matters, folks – without having to stick your nose right up against the screen, either.
It helps that the starting point of the 8K pixel count is supported by a colour rendering system able to deliver even the tiniest colour tone shift with absolute precision, ensuring that the benefit of so many pixels doesn’t become lost in a flat, cartoonish wash of plasticky, shallow colourisation.
This pixel-level colour control together with the ultra-fine pixel pitch contributes to an incredibly dense, three-dimensional feel to the picture that further amplifies its ‘real life’ qualities. Colours are vibrant as well as precise.
Measurements taken using Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate software, G1 test signal generator and a Klein K10-A colorimeter record coverage of a whopping 94.5% of the DCI-P3 colour spectrum typically used for HDR mastering, as well as essentially 75% of the much wider BT2020 spectrum.
You won’t find screens pushing much past that without stepping up to one of the new RGB Mini LED screens just starting to burst onto the ultra high-end AV scene.
Samsung has long been one of the best brands around when it comes to controlling the external backlights LCD TVs use – and the QN900F continues this trend with knobs on.
Its more-than-healthy 1446 separate local dimming zones are expertly controlled by the TV’s powerful AI processing, managing to deliver excellent black levels that could persuade you that you’re watching an OLED TV at times, while simultaneously delivering potent brightness without generating the sort of blooming light leaks around stand-out bright objects so often seen with LCD TVs that use local dimming systems.
It’s a treat, too, to see the QN900F delivering its high contrast by LCD TV standards without the distracting backlight brightness jumps during dark to light and light to dark cuts that Samsung LCD TVs of previous years could fall prey to.
Measurements of the QE75QN900F’s brightness see it hitting peaks of just under 2500 nits on a 25% white HDR test window, as well as holding on to almost 1000 nits with a white HDR window that fills the whole screen. This latter figure is particularly impressive, dwarfing the 400 nits or so that OLED TVs can hit with the same full-screen bright HDR content.
This enables the QN900F to deliver a startlingly consistent HDR experience that pretty much never leaves you distractingly aware of the mechanics of the display that’s delivering all that bright, high-contrast, richly saturated HDR goodness you’re gawping at.
Unlike some, even many LCD TVs, the QE75QN900F’s light control is such that it still manages to deliver a richly rewarding picture in its accuracy-based Filmmaker Mode picture preset. Colours still look vibrant, black levels still look impeccable, and detailing is still exquisite despite a slight softening of the 8K effect to retain the feel of the native 4K or even HD content.
Personally I found the Standard preset hard to be without once I’d experienced its bold but balanced extra vibrancy, sharpness and dynamism. But it’s outstanding to find such an ‘extreme’ display as the QN900F still able to rein itself in to the most commonly used mastering standards without the results feeling flat or compromised.
The lack of any reflections on the 75QN900F’s screen is so complete that it actually takes a bit of getting used to. I expect that most people, though, will quickly grow to love it for the way it means you can still enjoy a pure viewing experience unaffected by pools of light on the screen without having to be in a completely blacked room. Much as they will also like being able to watch the 75QN900F from down its sides (when required) without the picture suffering colour or contrast loss.
I have only four small (especially as they’re mostly correctable in settings) issues with the QE75QN900F’s pictures. First, the default Picture Clarity options with most of the TV’s presets are set too high, causing distracting processing glitches. I’d recommend either turning both noise reduction and motion processing off entirely with good quality 24p sources, or else turning NR off and then choosing a Custom motion processing setting with the Blur and Judder reduction systems set to around level three or four each.
Next, the new AI picture mode Samsung has introduced isn’t a complete success. The way it works in tandem with manual picture adjustments is complex to say the least, yet when left fully to its own devices it tends to come on a bit strong in the colour and motion control departments.
Third, occasionally the mostly fantastic backlight controls will cause a few faint shadow details to go missing in the darkest corners – but you can largely resolve this issue via gentle adjustment of a handy Shadow Detail enhancement tool.
Last on the naughty list is a tendency for backlight clouding around stand-out bright objects to become quite a bit more noticeable if you’re watching the screen from a wide angle. While this one can’t be resolved using the TV’s available settings, though, you can avoid it by, well, not watching the TV from a wide angle…
Upscaling
- Sharp, detailed upscales
- Strong colour performance
Upscaling is obviously an even bigger deal for an 8K TV than it is for a 4K one. Just as well, then, that the QE75QN900F absolutely nails it.
For starters it proves arguably the best in the business at first identifying noise (as opposed to ‘useful’ picture information) in a sub-8K image, and then removing it before upscaling is applied. It’s clear from the phenomenal amount of detail and texture in the upscaled pictures, though, that in removing noise the processing hasn’t accidentally scrubbed the source image of texture and fine detail.
In fact, as well as making HD and 4K sources look much sharper and more detailed, the upscaling system even manages to respect film grain, retaining its subtle presence without exaggerating it or giving it a processed, laggy look.
Colours retain their original balance and core saturations, too, with no tone sliding off message as can happen with some upscaling engines, and provided you’ve taken the basic Picture Clarity measures described in the previous section, the upscaling processing delivers impressively clean results when there’s lots of motion to handle.
There is a limit to how far down the legacy picture scale the QN900F’s upscaling can go; standard definition footage can look a little soft and washed of detail. But I’d argue that this results in more watchable pictures overall than an approach which maybe tried to over-sharpen parts of the picture that really aren’t up to being sharpened.
Sound Quality
- Spacious sound
- Decent bass
Once a relatively weak point of Samsung TVs, sound has been greatly improved pretty much across the board with the brand’s latest TV range. This trend very much continues with the QE75QN900F.
Two things immediately jump out at you. First, the speaker system produces a really large soundstage that feels at least as epic in scale as the 75-inch pictures, complete with good spread of sound away from the left, right and even upper edges.
Second, the intelligence with which the Object Tracking Sound system populates this large sound stage with sound effects is outstanding. Partly in the way that specific positional effects (including multiple objects at a time when required) are placed with almost uncanny accuracy, and partly in the way that ambient effects and scoring is accurately placed slightly beyond the main ‘onscreen’ action.
Dialogue is a particularly welcome beneficiary of the OTS system. It’s amazing how more immersive and effective a soundtrack is if people seem to be talking from the correct place on the screen rather than their voices coming out from somewhere down the sides of, below or behind the screen.
Detailing is impressive without anything sounding too bright or exaggerated, and an expansive-sounding mid-range ties neatly into a treble register that doesn’t become harsh or thin. There’s a limit to how deep and aggressive the QE75QN900F’s bass response can go; the movie world’s biggest rumbles are present and functional rather than cinematic and truly meaty.
But that’s preferable in my book to the sort of distorted, buzzy and crackly low frequency sounds you get with TVs that fancy themselves capable of bass talents they don’t actually possess.
My biggest issue with the QE75QN900F’s sound is that it doesn’t push out into the room towards you as much as the best TV sound systems do, preventing it from being quite as immersive as the TV’s big, beautiful, pixel-rich pictures are.
Should you buy it?
Its 8K resolution is not a waste of time
While there is a little more 8K content around now – chiefly on YouTube – than there has been previously, the QE75QN900F is also capable of making 4K and even HD content look better than it can on 4K TVs.
It’s more expensive than the best 4K TVs
While Samsung has drastically reduced the premium required for an 8K TV in recent years, the 75QN900F is still £1,400 more expensive than Samsung’s flagship 75-inch 4K TV.
Final Thoughts
I know 8K TVs are a tough sell in a world where 8K content is scarce and for many people spare cash is scarcer still. All I can tell you, though, is that while yes, native 8K content shows Samsung’s QE75QN900F at its absolute best, it still delivers sharper, brighter, cleaner and more three-dimensional pictures even with sub-4K content than any 4K can.
So if your main objection to (good) 8K TVs is simply that you think they’re pointless without 8K content, the Samsung QN900F is here to make you think again.
How We Test
The Samsung QE75QN900F was tested over a period of nearly a month – a particularly extended period of time even by our standards, reflecting both its premium price and the fact that there’s so much I needed to fully checked out.
In the course of that month it was regularly used in both blacked out test room and regular day and night living conditions. It was put through its paces in each setting with everything from familiar 4K and HD Blu-rays as well as 4K and HD video streams and regular digital broadcasts. I even dug out a few DVDs to push its 8K upscaling to its limit.
I explored and experimented with all of the TV’s provided picture settings, to make sure we got pictures looking good as the TV could make them look for every preset.
Extensive gaming tests with both a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were carried out too, using a mix of different game types, and finally the 75QN900F was tested across three key presets for both SDR and HDR using Portrait Display’s Calman Ultimate software and G1 processor, along with a Klein K10-A colorimeter.
- Tested over four weeks
- Tested with real-world content in lab and living room setups
- Benchmarked with Portrait Displays Calman Ultimate Software, G1 signal generator and Klein K10-A colorimeter
- Gaming input lag was measured with a Leo Bodnar signal generator
FAQs
The 75QN900F is one of a very select group of TVs able to play 8K/60Hz games if you have a PC capable of delivering them. It can also handle 4K resolution at frame rates up to 165Hz, as well as supporting variable refresh rates right up to that 165Hz limit. There’s auto low latency mode switching too, and support for HDR10+ and HGiG gaming ‘standards’.
Test Data
| Samsung QE75QN900F | |
|---|---|
| Input lag (ms) | 10.1 ms |
| Peak brightness (nits) 5% | 2360 nits |
| Peak brightness (nits) 2% | 2000 nits |
| Peak brightness (nits) 100% | 940 nits |
| Set up TV (timed) | 480 Seconds |
Full Specs
| Samsung QE75QN900F Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £4099 |
| USA RRP | $3799 |
| CA RRP | CA$3999 |
| AUD RRP | AU$6299 |
| Manufacturer | Samsung |
| Screen Size | 74.5 inches |
| Size (Dimensions) | 1680 x 319.8 x 992.7 MM |
| Size (Dimensions without stand) | 958.1 x 1680 x 38.5 MM |
| Weight | 35 KG |
| Operating System | Tizen |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| Model Number | QE75QN900F |
| Resolution | 7680 x 4320 |
| HDR | Yes |
| Types of HDR | HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ Adaptive |
| Refresh Rate TVs | 48 – 165 Hz |
| Ports | Four HDMI 2.1, 2 x USB, Ethernet, RF input, optical digital audio output |
| HDMI (2.1) | eARC, ALLM, HRF, VRR |
| Audio (Power output) | 70 W |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, Apple Airplay 2 |
| Colours | Black |
| Display Technology | Mini LED |
