Samsung NU7100 TV Review

The NU7100 has a fantastic style, similar to the higher-end Samsung NU8000, although it uses the same legs as the Samsung Q8FN/Q8/Q8F QLED 2018. It has a simple, modern design with a flat back so it doesn't stick out too much when wall-mounted.

The stand is modern and sturdy. It's wide enough to fit a soundbar in front.

Footprint of the 55" TV stand: 37.2" x 10.3"

The back of the TV has the same textured finish found on the NU8000. There are a few cable management tracks that span the entire width of the back of the TV. The TV comes with two clips that attach to the stand legs to also assist with cable management.

The borders of the NU7100 55" are simple, with a textured plastic finish, and have average thickness.

This TV is thin, similar to the NU8000. It won't stick out too much when wall-mounted, but it won't be flush to the wall either.

The build quality is okay. It feels solid even though it's almost entirely made from plastic.

The contrast on the TV is great and in-line with other Samsung TVs like the NU7300. This is good for producing deep dark scenes.

Update 06/15/2018: We've reset the TV and retested the native contrast ratio, and it's a bit higher. The calibration likely raised the black levels slightly, lowering the previously measured contrast ratio.

The NU7100 doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

Decent peak brightness, good enough for a dimly lit room, but this TV can't get bright enough to overcome glare. It isn't as bright as similar models from 2017, like the MU6100 or MU6500.

Disappointing HDR peak brightness. It has trouble making small highlights bright, as seen in the 'HDR Peak 2% Window' test. Besides that, it remains fairly consistent across different content, although it's not very bright. This TV struggles to make highlights pop and display vivid colors. An IPS TV with similar HDR peak brightness is the LG UK6300.

The NU7100 55" has good gray uniformity. It's visibly darker around the edges of the screen but is a lot less dark in the center. This means there's no dirty screen effect, which will please most sports fans. The screen is much more uniform in darker scenes.

This TV has a poor viewing angle, but it's better than 2017's MU6300. The black levels shift dramatically when viewing even slightly off-center.

The NU7100 has excellent black uniformity, similar to the 2017 MU6300 and is one of the best among the LED TVs we've tested. There aren't any clouding issues, and black looks very uniform. As a result, dark scenes in movies look great.

The TV has good reflection handling, but the semi-gloss finish can't overcome glare in a brightly-lit room. It has a similar finish to the MU6300 and MU6500.

The NU7100 has okay out-of-box color accuracy, although some people may notice that most colors are still inaccurate. The gamma curve doesn't follow the target well and scenes will appear brighter than they should. The color temperature is slightly warmer than the target of 6500K, so most colors will have a red/yellow tint to them.

Update 04/12/2019: This TV was incorrectly measured with Brightness +2 instead of at 0. This only has a small impact on the results (slightly dimmer dark scenes below about 30 IRE), so we don't plan to retest it.

The color accuracy post-calibration is nearly perfect. The white balance dE and color dE both significantly improved from pre-calibration, so most colors appear as they should. The gamma curve follows the target well, although some dark scenes will be brighter than normal. The color temperature is only slightly off the target, but most people won't notice any red/yellow tint.

See our recommended settings here.

This TV displays older 480p content well, without any issues or obvious artifacts.

720p input is displayed properly without any obvious scaling artifacts.

1080p content, like from a non-4k Blu-ray or game console, is displayed well and looks almost as good as native 4k content.

Native 4k content is displayed well on the TV.

This is a 4k TV that doesn't support 8k content.

The NU7100 only supports a standard color gamut and is best suited for SDR content. Like the 2017 MU6500, red and green fall quite short of their HDR targets.

The 'Movie' Picture mode is the most accurate, but it doesn't follow our PQ curve. The brightness rolls off gradually as the TV gets closer to its peak brightness. The PC and Game EOTFs are very similar to 'Movie', but also don't follow our target very closely.

Disappointing color volume, mainly due to the limited color gamut of the TV. It's unable to produce deep, dark colors, and it's limited in its ability to produce bright, saturated colors like those in a sunset or bright outdoor scene.

The TV displays our test pattern well, but in real-world tests, there are small points of banding in large areas of similar color.

There's no temporary image retention on the NU7100.

We don't expect the TV to experience burn-in, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

Decent response time. In dark scenes like our 20% test slide, the 100% transition is very slow and there's some motion trail.

It's slightly worse than the MU6300, and similar to the MU7000. While it isn't bad, competing TVs from other brands like the LG UK6300 offer better motion performance.

Most of the blur in the above photo is due to duplications caused by the backlight flicker.

Similar to the Q8FN, the flicker varies depending on settings.

This TV uses PWM to dim the backlight except when at 100%. It flickers at a high frequency (240Hz), but due to pwm at lower brightness levels, the flicker becomes more noticeable. It's an improvement over the MU6300 with its 120Hz flicker, but it's still not as good as the Sony X850F.

When Auto Motion Plus is enabled with the slider set to 0, the backlight flickers at 120Hz, as seen here. This creates a duplicated motion trail similar to when motion interpolation is enabled.

Similar to the Q8FN, the flicker varies depending on settings. There's almost no flicker in 'Movie' mode with the backlight at 100% and 'Auto Motion Plus' set to Custom.

There's an excellent black frame insertion feature to help reduce motion blur, which reduces flicker to 60Hz. To turn it on, you need to set Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' and enable LED Clear Motion. The NU7100 can keep the flicker at 120Hz when in Game Mode, which can help with the appearance of motion. This is automatically enabled when in Game Mode.

Like the Q8FN, the flicker changes according to the settings.

The NU7100 can interpolate 30 fps content up to 60 fps. Known as the 'Soap Opera Effect,' this helps smooth out motion, but not everyone enjoys it.

By setting Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' and adjusting the Judder Reduction to your liking, you can interpolate lower frame rate content. The frequency of the flicker depends on its settings.

The NU7100 is great at displaying content without stutter, even for low frame rate movies. The higher response time helps the transition between frames appear smoother.

The TV can't remove judder from 24 fps content played through a 60p/i cable box, or from native 24 fps content played from a Blu-ray. Most people aren't very sensitive to judder and won't see it.

The NU7100 doesn't support any of the variable refresh rate technologies like AMD's FreeSync. This was tested with an Xbox One S and with a Radeon RX 580.

Excellent low input lag. When Game mode is activated, the TV bypasses all processing. This is among the best input lags of any TV, better than the MU6300, and almost as good as the LG UK6300.

When the input label is set to PC, the input lag is automatically the lowest possible. There's no benefit to activating Game mode within PC mode.