Samsung Q60/Q60R QLED TV Review

The Samsung Q60R is a 2019 entry-level QLED TV. Although it replaces the Q6FN in Samsung's lineup, it is meant as a more basic model, and lacks some more advanced features found on the higher-end QLEDs. It is comparable to most other mid-range LED TVs, like the Sony X850F or TCL R617.

The Q60R has a great design, similar to the Q6FN, but with an all-black finish. The stand supports the TV well, but does require a larger surface as it is nearly the full width of the TV. The back of the TV has a textured plastic finish, very similar to older Samsung TVs, and includes guide tracks for cable management. Although there were no obvious issues with the build quality of the TV, the exterior casing is almost entirely made of plastic, and our unit was slightly damaged during shipping.

The stand has a large footprint, nearly the entire width of the TV. The legs are angled, but cannot be reversed.
Footprint of the 55" stand: 38.5" x 10.4".

The back of the Q60 is very plain, with the same textured plastic as the 2018 QLEDS like the Q6FN or Q8FN. There is only basic cable management, using two clips attached to the back of the legs. Cables can also be run along the guide tracks near the bottom of the TV.

The borders are thin and not very noticeable, but slightly thicker than last year's Q6FN.

The Q60R is roughly the same thickness as last year's Q6FN, and is roughly uniform, which looks good when VESA mounted.

The Q60R gets very warm along the bottom edge, likely due to the edge LEDs. This shouldn't cause any issues, though.

Update 5/10/2019: We added a picture of the cracked corner.

The Q60 has decent overall build quality. There are no obvious issues or flaws, but the external casing is almost entirely made of plastic and feels more like the Samsung NU7100 than the Q6FN.

The bottom left and right corners of the bezel on our unit were cracked in shipping. We think this is an isolated issue, and it doesn't affect our tests in any way.

The Q60R has an excellent native contrast ratio, great for watching movies in a completely dark room. Unfortunately, there is no local dimming feature to improve the contrast ratio.

Unlike the 2018 Q6FN, there is no local dimming on the Q60R. The above video is provided for reference only.

Update 08/02/2019: We have retested the Q60 with the latest firmware, and the SDR peak brightness is roughly in the same ballpark. Our measurements have been updated.

The Samsung Q60R has very good peak brightness, but it is significantly dimmer than the Q6FN and NU8000. There is almost no difference in brightness with different content, which is great, but the 2% window is dimmed significantly by the TV's CE (Frame) Dimming feature. This cannot be disabled, and may cause some very dark scenes to be dimmed more than they should be.

We measured the peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Movie' picture mode and 'Warm 2' color temperature. Different picture modes and color temperatures may be brighter.

Update 08/02/2019: We have retested the Q60 with the latest firmware, and the HDR peak brightness is roughly in the same ballpark. Our measurements have been updated.

The Q60R has mediocre peak brightness in HDR. Small, bright highlights in some scenes aren't very bright, and so don't stand out the way they should in HDR. These results are significantly worse than the Q6FN, and closer to the NU7100.

These measurements were taken in the 'Movie' picture mode, with no calibration settings and no extra image processing options. Some settings may produce a brighter image.

Decent gray uniformity, with some noticeable dirty screen effect. The sides of the screen are darker than the rest, and the image is more uniform towards the center, good for sports fans. In near-black scenes, the uniformity is much better.

The Q60R has disappointing viewing angles, typical of VA panels. The image becomes washed out even slightly off-angle, and the image appears darker the more you move away from center. Colors also lose accuracy and appear washed out when sitting even slightly off center.

Decent black uniformity, but significantly worse than the Q6FN. There is noticeable flashlighting, mainly in the corners on the right hand side. Unfortunately, there is no local dimming feature to improve black uniformity.

The Q60R has good reflection handling. The semi-gloss screen handles reflections almost identically to the Q6FN. In most rooms there shouldn't be any issues, but if you have a lot of windows, the reflections on the screen combined with the low peak brightness might make it hard to see a clear image.

Out of the box, the Q60R has excellent color accuracy. The white balance is very good. Any color inaccuracies are relatively minor, and most people won't see them. Gamma is closer to 2.0, which is strange. With color temperature set to 'Warm 2', the color temperature is very close to our target of 6500 K.

After calibration, the Q60R delivers nearly perfect accuracy. The color accuracy was not improved much, but the white point is extremely close to perfection, and gamma follows the 2.2 target almost perfectly. There is an auto-calibration function, this still requires a colorimeter and specialized software.

You can see our recommended setting here.

480p content, like DVDs, is handled well, with no obvious upscaling artifacts.

720p content from older game consoles or cable TV is displayed well, with no obvious issues.

1080p content, like Blu-ray movies or non-4k consoles, is displayed almost as well as native 4k content.

Update 10/17/2019: During retesting, it was discovered that there is some subpixel dimming. The score has been updated.

Native 4k content is displayed almost perfectly, with no obvious issues. There is some subpixel dimming out of game mode.

The Samsung Q60R has a very good color gamut, and can display a wide color gamut, which is great for HDR content. As an entry-level QLED, it can't produce a color gamut as wide as that of the Q6FN, and is actually closer to the NU8000, but this isn't unexpected. We confirmed these results multiple times.

The 'Movie' EOTF follows the input stimulus very closely until it starts to roll off near the TV's peak brightness. If you find HDR too dark, you can try increasing the gamma to maximum and the brightness to '5.' If this is still too dark, you can try setting contrast enhancer to 'Max.' With all of these enabled, the image is noticeably brighter, as shown in this EOTF plot.

In 'Game' mode, the EOTF follows the target curve very closely again, until it rolls off gradually near the TV's peak brightness.

Decent color volume on the Q60R, slightly worse than the NU8000. Like most LED TVs, it can't produce very bright blues, but otherwise can produce bright and dark colors across most of its gamut.

Good overall gradient handling on the Q60R, but some fine banding is noticeable in all dark shades. In person, this isn't as noticeable. If you do see banding and it bothers you, setting Digital Clean View to 'Auto' eliminates most of it, but can cause a loss of some fine details in some scenes.

There are no signs of temporary image retention, which is typical of VA panels.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

The Q60R has an excellent response time, much better than the Q6FN. There is some overshoot in the 0-20% transition, which can cause some haloing in really dark scenes, but otherwise shouldn't be very noticeable. There is still some very minor blur noticeable, but there are noticeable duplications due to the backlight flicker.

The Q60R is not flicker-free. Like the NU8000 and Q6FN, the backlight flickers at 240Hz in most modes, but the flicker frequency changes depending on the mode. In 'Movie' and 'Game' mode, or when Auto Motion Plus is set to either 'Custom' or 'Auto,' the flicker automatically changes to 120Hz, similar to the Q6FN.

The Q60R has an optional black frame insertion feature that can reduce the flicker frequency as low as 60Hz, even in game mode, in order to reduce persistence blur. Enabling Auto Motion Plus automatically changes the flicker to 120Hz, and setting LED Clear Motion to 'On' reduces the flicker frequency to 60Hz, or 120Hz when displaying 120Hz content.

When motion interpolation is enabled with the flicker at 120Hz, the pulse timing isn't very good, causing some strange motion artifacts in some areas of the screen, as seen in our 60 fps Motion Interpolation picture.

The Samsung Q60R can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120Hz. To add the Soap Opera Effect, set Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' and adjust the Blur Reduction slider for 60Hz content, and the Judder Reduction slider to interpolate low frame rate content, like movies, up to 60Hz.

Note that, like many Samsung TVs, simply setting Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' changes the backlight flicker from 240Hz to 120Hz.

The 43" and 49" models have 60Hz panels, and can only interpolate up to 60Hz.

Due to the fast response time of the Q60R, low frame rate content is held on screen for longer periods of time, which can cause the image to appear to stutter. This may bother some people, especially in slow panning shots or landscape shots. If this bothers you, enabling motion interpolation can help.

Like last year's QLEDs, the Q60R can remove judder from all sources. To do so, set Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' and leave both sliders at '0,' unless you want to add motion interpolation. Once you enable this setting, the backlight flicker frequency automatically changes to 120Hz, as explained in the Flicker-Free box.

Update 12/17/2019: A flaw was discovered in the way we were testing for G-SYNC compatibility with TVs. We've corrected the flaw, and have retested the 2019 Samsung and LG TVs, and found that the Samsung Q60R doesn't work properly with NVIDIA's current Adaptive Sync drivers.

Like the 2018 QLEDS, the Q60R supports FreeSync variable refresh rate(VRR) technology. When gaming at 1080p or 1440p, the VRR range is excellent and is effectively always tear-free. At 4k, the range is narrower, as the TV only supports up to 4k @ 60Hz.

Note that the 43" and 49" models do not support FreeSync.