- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Our Verdict
- Test Results
- Differences
- Compared to others
- Discussions
The Samsung NU7300 is a decent 4k TV with deep blacks when viewed from directly in-front, but the image degrades when viewed at an angle. It lacks more advanced features found on higher-end TVs like local dimming and a wide color gamut, but still has a decent picture quality. The image degrades when viewed at an angle, so it isn't good for those who have wide seating. The TV has excellent low input lag which is great for gamers, but motion handling is only decent.
Our Verdict
This is a good TV for mixed usage. Its low input lag, good gray and black uniformity along with the fast response time and the handling of popular inputs, make this TV good for most usages. It will, however, please more those who value low input lag and quick response time.
See our Mixed Usage recommendationsThe TV is just okay for SDR movie watching. It has very good contrast, but it lacks local dimming and 24p judder removal. Motion interpolation of the Samsung UN55NU7300 is decent, but out-of-the-box colors lack accuracy. There are TVs that will provide a better movie watching experience.
See our Movies recommendationsThe Samsung NU7300 is a good TV for watching TV shows. Although reflection handling is not its strong point, the TV can get bright enough to display well SDR content in brighter environments. It will scale-up well cable and Blu-ray content
See our TV Shows recommendationsThe Samsung NU7300 is a decent TV for sports watching. Although the response time and the brightness are good and the gray uniformity will not be an issue, the handling of reflections along with the poor viewing angles make the TV not an optimal choice for sports viewing.
See our Sports recommendationsThis a great TV for gamers. It has very low input lag and a good response time that suits games with fast action. The TV can flicker the backlight to produce a crisper image without creating stutter. The TV can display several input signal resolutions and definitely the most popular ones.
See our Video Games recommendationsThe NU7300 is a decent TV for HDR Movie watching. Although its contrast will produce deep blacks and the black uniformity is good, dark scenes will look dim. This is due to the limited color gamut and limited color volume that stop the TV of producing rich colors.
See our HDR Movies recommendationsThe Samsung NU7300 is a good TV for HDR gaming as it can handle the demanding input signal, and has a good response time for fast action. In dark scenes though, the colors will look a bit dim and although the blacks will be deep some people will say that the image does not come to life.
See our HDR Gaming recommendationsThis is a good TV for a PC monitor. It has low input lag and good response time, but the viewing angles are limited, and reflection handling is just ok. It is great, however, at handling most input signals you throw at it, and although the slight curvature is a plus, most people will not notice.
See our PC Monitor recommendations- 7.5 Mixed Usage
- 6.8 Movies
- 7.5 TV Shows
- 7.3 Sports
- 8.4 Video Games
- 6.9 HDR Movies
- 7.9 HDR Gaming
- 8.3 PC Monitor
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Can produce deep and uniform dark scenes
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Feels very responsive
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Bad viewing angles
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HDR performance is mediocre
- Update 2/28/2019: Converted to Test Bench 1.3. Learn more about our versioned test bench system here.
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Test Results
The design of the Samsung NU7300 is very good. It is slightly curved and mainly made of plastic except for the borders that are metal. The stand is basic and supports the TV well, but the TV wobbles back and forth when moved. The are no gaps in the construction.
The stand of the Samsung NU7300 is plastic and quite basic. It holds the TV well, but it wobbles back and forth if moved.
The footprint of the 55" model is 38.3" x 10.3"
The back of the TV is plastic and has the distinct groves for guiding the cables. In this model, the cables cannot be hidden through the stand as in more premium models, as only a clip is provided to guide them along the legs.
The Samsung NU7300 is thick even for a curved TV. If wall mounted, it will protrude a little.
The Samsung UN55NU7300 gets quite warm at the bottom edge where the LEDs are encased. This, however, should not be an issue for most.
The build quality is decent. The plastic feel is dominant, but there are no gaps in the construction and the TV is solid.
The Samsung NU7300 has an excellent contrast ratio. It has no problem displaying deep blacks in a dark room. This is in the same ballpark as other Samsung TVs with VA panels, like the flat NU7100.
The Samsung UN55NU7300 has no local dimming option. The video is provided for reference only.
Good SDR peak brightness. In dark scenes with a small bright highlight, the TV reduces the overall brightness to produce deeper dark scenes and thus highlights don't look too bright. Brightness, however, does remain consistent in less dark scenes, and the TV is ok for most rooms. It is just slightly brighter than its flat counterpart the NU7100
The HDR peak brightness of the TV is mediocre. It is just slightly brighter than the flat NU7100 but this may be due to unit variance. Is far behind the brightness levels of the TCL R617. The TV does keep similar brightness levels regardless of the window sizes, but dark scene highlights are not boosted at all.
The Samsung NU7300 has good gray uniformity. On the 50% gray image, although there are uniformity issues, this is mostly darkening of the edges which doesn't create much dirty screen effect. These uniformity issues are not likely to cause dark spots on the screen, and this should make sports fans happy as no clouding will be visible in panning shots.
Similar and even better results are obtained at the 5% gray and this great.
The viewing angle is poor. Blacks fade as soon as you move from the center, colors start shifting at slightly larger angles. Finally, brightness is the last image quality that deteriorates as viewing angle increases.
This TV is not suitable for a wide viewing environment.
The black uniformity is amazing. Our panel has very little clouding on the lower right corner, this should not be a concern as most people will not notice it.
Reflection handling is ok. The semi-gloss finish manages to diffuse most of the ambient reflections but doesn't do a great job if the source is facing the screen
The out-of-the-box color accuracy is decent. We obtained the best results with the Movie Picture mode.
The white dE and the color dE are a bit off, but these differences are too small to bother most people. Gamma is higher than our target and thus some dark details is lost. The colors are a little warm and this explains the faint red and yellow image tint.
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) and so we don't plan to retest it.
The post calibration color accuracy is remarkable. We were able to significantly lower the white balance dE, the Gamma was right on the 2.2 target and color temperature was almost perfect.
As with most 2018 Samsung TVs, we were unable to completely fix the color dE, although it was brought down to levels where very few people might notice.
You can see our recommended settings here.
The Samsung NU7300 displays 480p content well, without any issues or obvious artifacts.
The color gamut is okay. The TV is only capable of covering about 3/4 of the DCI P3 space and only just a little more than half of the Rec. 2020 space.
The EOTF in Movie mode undershoots the target PQ curve significantly, so HDR content looks a little dimmer than normal. This is made less severe by setting Contrast Enhancer to Low, as shown in this plot.
The Game Mode EOTF photo shows that the same undershooting happens in this mode too. In the PC Mode EOTF, there is still some undershooting of the PQ curve, but it starts at higher input signal luminosity.
The Samsung NU7300 has a disappointing color volume as it fails to cover the color space in various luminosity levels. Colors look dim in darker scenes and the TV fails to display the creator intended content accurately. This is also due to the limited color gamut.
The gradient on the Samsung UN55NU7300 is good. Although there is small banding pretty much everywhere, no major banding can be observed in any color except in dark green
Setting Digital Clean View to 'auto' smooths the gradient but can't fix it and causes a lost of fine details.
There is no temporary image retention on the NU7300, which is typical for TVs with VA panels.
The VA panel in our long-term test appears to be immune so we do expect not this TV to experience permanent image retention.
The response time of the Samsung NU7300 is good. The pixels transition fast and should please sports viewers and gamers. At the same time, there is some blur in the image which is mainly caused by the backlight flickering. The response time is a bit faster than that of the flat NU7100, but this may come down to unit variance and these small response time differences are also visible in the moving logo photo.
Just like the NU7100, the NU7300 uses PWM at 240Hz to dim the backlight except when at 100%.
However, when the motion interpolation is enabled through the Auto Motion Plus option the flicker frequency of the backlight changes to 120Hz as shown in this plot.
This causes worse duplications in the motion as shown in this photo
The BFI is great.
In Game mode, 60Hz flicker is not possible, but the backlight flicker stays at 120Hz in Game mode as shown in this plot.
Motion Interpolations is decent. Some occasional artifacts can be seen, and the TV stops interpolating when there's too much motion.
Note: that when Auto Motion Plus is enabled the backlight flicker changes to 120Hz, as shown in this plot.
The Samsung NU7300 has a very good stutter results as there is practically no stutter on the 60fps signal, but there might be a slight stutter on 24p content. This, however, will not be noticeable by most people.
Just like the NU7100, the NU7300 cannot remove judder from 24fps content. This holds true no matter if the content is 60p/i or from native 24fps content played from a Blu-ray.
This isn't a big issue since most people are not very sensitive to judder and probably won't notice it.
This TV does not support VRR
Excellent low input lag, better than last year's MU6300. When the input is set to PC, the input lag is automatically the lowest possible.
There is no improvement in input lag if you activate Game mode within PC mode. The NU7300 does not a have a Game Motion Plus like the higher end Samsungs.
The Samsung NU7300 is decent at resolution support. The following settings have to be implemented:
- The resolution 4k@60Hz @ 4:4:4 or @ 4:2:2 is only supported when HDMI UHD Color is enabled
- 4:4:4 Chroma is only properly displayed when the input icon is set to PC (aka PC mode)
- In PC mode, Sharpness is set to '10' by default and this means no added sharpness. However, you can 'soften' the image if you decide to reduce it.
The TV includes inputs for a composite or component connection. As the connection is shared it is not possible to connect a component and composite connection at the same time.
The TV can passthrough Dolby Digital signal, but no DTS.
Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC) is needed for ARC, which passes on HDMI 3 only.
