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's meant to be a more basic model and lacks some more advanced features found on higher-end QLEDs. It's comparable to most other mid-range LED TVs, like the Sony X850F or TCL R617.

The Q60R has a great design. It's very minimalistic, with thin bezels that aren't distracting. The TV is mostly made out of plastic, and it has built-in cable management on the back. The feet are wide-set and they support the TV well, with no sign of wobbling.

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

The back of the TV is very plain, with the same textured plastic as the 2018 QLEDs, like the Q6FN or Q8FN. There's 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 aren't very noticeable. They're slightly thicker than the Samsung Q6FN.

The Q60 is roughly the same thickness as the Q6FN, and is roughly uniform, which looks good when VESA mounted.

Build quality is decent. The TV has a mostly plastic construction and there aren't any obvious issues or flaws. However, 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 Q60 has an excellent native contrast ratio. It can produce deep, inky blacks, which is great for dark room viewing.

The Q60 doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

Update 08/02/2019: We've 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's significantly dimmer than the Samsung Q6FN and Samsung NU8000. There's 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 can't 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've 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 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.

Gray uniformity is decent. The sides of the screen are noticeably darker, but the center is much more uniform. There's almost no visible dirty screen effect, which is great for watching sports. In dark scenes, the uniformity is much better.

Like most VA panels, the Q60 has poor viewing angles. Images appear washed out when viewed from the side, and the brightness also decreases the more you move away from the center.

Black uniformity is decent but significantly worse than the Q6FN. There's noticeable flashlighting, mostly at the top right corner. If you want better black uniformity, check out the Samsung Q60T, which is the successor to this TV.

Reflection handling is good. You shouldn't have any issues in most cases, but if you have a lot of windows, the reflections on the screen combined with the TV's low peak brightness can make it hard to see the image clearly.

Out-of-the-box color accuracy is excellent. Aside from the color blue, most inaccuracies are difficult to spot. White balance is very good, though the gamma is too low for the most part, causing images to appear brighter than they should. With color temperature set to 'Warm 2', the color temperature is very close to our target of 6500 K.

After calibration, color accuracy is nearly perfect. The color accuracy wasn't improved much, but the white point is extremely close to perfection, and gamma follows the 2.2 target almost perfectly. There's an auto-calibration function, but it still requires a colorimeter and specialized software.

You can see our recommended settings 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's some subpixel dimming. The score has been updated.

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

The Samsung Q60R 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 the Q6FN, and is closer to the Samsung 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 until it rolls off gradually near the TV's peak brightness.

The Q60 has a decent color volume. It can produce dark, saturated colors, but not bright blues, though that's typical of most LED TVs.

The Q60 has good gradient performance, though there's some banding when displaying dark green, dark blue, and dark gray. This is less noticeable in person. If this 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 Q60 has an excellent response time. There's some overshoot in the 0-20% transition, which can cause some haloing in very dark scenes, but otherwise shouldn't be very noticeable. There's still some very minor blur, and there are visible duplications due to the backlight flicker.

The Q60 isn't flicker-free. Like the Samsung NU8000 and Samsung 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, 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 TV's fast response time, low frame rate content is held on screen for longer periods, 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.

The Q60 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 don't support FreeSync.