Samsung Q70/Q70R QLED TV Review

The Samsung Q70R is a lower high-end TV, just below last year's popular Samsung Q8FN. In Samsung's 2019 lineup, it sits between the Samsung Q80R and the Samsung Q60R. We expect the Q70R's chief competitors this year to be the Sony X950G, the LG SM9000, and the Vizio P Series Quantum 2019.

The Samsung Q70R has an excellent design, very similar to last year's Q8FN. It has the typical Samsung stand that supports the TV well but does require a larger table, as it's almost as wide as the TV. The back of the TV is made of good quality plastic and has horizontal ridges that run along the entire surface. Similar to older Samsung TVs, it includes guide tracks for cable management, and the back of each leg is hollow to allow for the cable to run down. Unlike last year's Samsung Q7FN, the Q70R doesn't come with a One Connect Box. The build quality is excellent, and you shouldn't have issues with the TV.

The stand supports the TV well and allows only minimal wobble. It's nearly as wide as the TV and you'll need a large table for it.

Footprint of the 55" stand: 38.3" x 9.6".

The back of the Q70 is made of high quality plastic with a brushed finish. It has a built-in cable management system that guides cables through the legs, keeping the setup clean. The inputs are faced sideways and are well-labeled, but they can be difficult to reach if the TV is wall-mounted.

The borders are very thin and look good.

The TV is fairly thin and shouldn't stick out when wall-mounted; however, it doesn't support no-gap wall mounts, such as the one for the Q90R.

The Q70R's build quality is excellent. It's mostly made of plastic but feels sturdy and solid. There's some flex where the back joins the edges, but this is very slight and you shouldn't have any issues with the TV.

The Samsung Q70 has one of the highest native contrast ratios that we've measured among LED TVs, which allows it to display deep blacks in a dark room setting.

Our contrast ratio tests were done with local dimming disabled, which can be done by disabling PC Mode Dimming first through the TV's service menu, and then activating PC Mode. Note that we did this only for our measurements, and don't normally recommend disabling local dimming on this TV.

The Q70R has a full-array local dimming, and the performance is decent. While the transitions from one zone to another are smoothly executed, the TV has a tendency to crush some smaller details and has difficulty keeping up when there are fast-moving objects. Subtitles also tend to trigger a change in brightness, which is somewhat distracting.

Unfortunately, the local dimming can't be completely disabled through the normal settings menu. To turn it off, we first disabled PC Mode Dimming within the TV's service menu, and then activated PC Mode.

All our local dimming tests were done with Local Dimming set to 'High'.

Update 08/02/2019: We've retested the Q70 with the latest firmware, and the SDR peak brightness has increased a bit. We've updated our measurements and scores.

The SDR peak brightness is great. This TV can easily fight glare in a bright room. Unfortunately, it isn't as bright as the Sony X950G or the Samsung Q8FN, but it's brighter than the Samsung Q60R.

The Q70R's local dimming behaves differently than last year's Samsung QLEDs, as explained in the Local Dimming box. This might be what causes the 25% window to be the brightest which is unusual. Also, in our real scene testing, the entire scene was dimmed except for the bright parts that were boosted. This might be due to the different local dimming behavior.

We measured the peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Movie' Picture Mode and 'Warm 2' Color Tone, with Local Dimming set to 'High.' Different picture modes and color temperatures may be brighter.

Update 08/02/2019: We've retested the Q70R with the latest firmware, and the HDR peak brightness has increased a bit. We've updated our measurements and scores.

The HDR peak brightness is very good and similar to the Samsung Q8FN. It isn't as good as the Sony X950G, but nonetheless, the Q70R delivers HDR content with highlights that pop.

We measured the peak brightness before calibration, using the 'Movie' Picture Mode and 'Warm 2' Color Tone, with Local Dimming set to 'High.' Different picture modes and color temperatures may be brighter.

The gray uniformity is decent. The corners are slightly darker, causing a 'vignetting' effect, and there's some dirty screen effect at the center of the screen, which might disappoint some sports fans.

In darker scenes, the uniformity is much better, but not as good as the Q90R.

The Q70R's viewing angles are disappointing, as expected for a VA panel TV. The performance is just as poor as last year's Samsung Q8FN. The image loses accuracy as soon as you move off-center, as gamma shifts and black levels rise. At slightly wider angles, the colors shift and start to wash out. If you're watching from the side, the image you see is very inaccurate. This TV isn't a good choice for rooms with a wide seating arrangement.

If you want a TV with wider viewing angles, check out an IPS TV like the LG SK9500.

We took our color measurements after calibration, using the 'Movie' Picture Mode and Local Dimming set to 'Low.' In order to take our lightness measurements, we disabled PC Mode Dimming in the TV's service menu, and then activated PC Mode.

The Samsung Q70 has excellent black uniformity. There's no visible backlight bleed in the native black uniformity picture, and almost no blooming around the test cross in the black uniformity picture with local dimming. This performance is a significant improvement over last year's Q8FN.

Unfortunately, just like the Samsung Q90R, the TV's local dimming can't be completely disabled using the normal settings menu. In order to measure the native black uniformity, we had to disable PC Mode Dimming in the TV's service menu, and then activate PC Mode.

The Q70R has very good reflection handling. It has a semi-gloss screen finish that can diminish reflections. Unfortunately, when compared to the Q8FN, this performance isn't as good. In most rooms, there shouldn't be any issues, but if you have a room with lots of windows, the reflections on the screen might become bothersome.

The Q70's out-of-box color accuracy is very good. There are some inaccuracies in the reds and blues, but most people won't be able to notice it. White balance is fairly accurate and the color temperature is close to the 6500k target. The gamma does follow the curve for the most part, but some scenes may appear slightly darker.

10/31/2019: Unfortunately, it would appear that the Q70R isn't compatible with the Auto-Calibration Function.

After calibration, the accuracy is excellent. The White Balance dE is greatly diminished, and the color dE is so low that even enthusiasts will need a colorimeter to spot the remaining inaccuracies. The gamma continues to track the curve well, but some average brightness scenes continue to look slightly darker. Finally, the color temperature is a bit warmer than the target of 6500K, but it's hard to notice.

You can see our recommended settings here.

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

720p, like content from a cable box, is upscaled well on the Samsung Q70R. There's no obvious over-softening or upscaling artifacts.

1080p, like content from a Blu-ray player or a non-4k game console, looks good.

Native 4k content is displayed perfectly with no issues.

The Samsung Q70R can display a wide color gamut, which is great for HDR content but it isn't as good as last year's Q8FN. It's still slightly better than that of the Q60R.

The 'Movie' EOTF follows the input stimulus very closely until it starts to roll off near the TV's peak brightness. In 'Game' mode, HDR scenes are a little darker as we can see here.

If you find HDR too dim, check out our recommendations here. With these settings, the Q70R is noticebly brighter in HDR, as shown in this EOTF.

In the review of the Q9FN we observed that for lower brightness HDR infoframes (such as 1000 nits) the TV produces scenes which are brighter than intended. You can read more about it here. This is the 1000 nits infoframe for this TV where you can see that the image is slightly brighter.

Decent color volume on the Q70R, but worse than the Q8FN. Like most LED TVs, the Q70R can't produce very bright blues, but otherwise, it can produce bright and dark colors across most of its gamut.

Good overall gradient handling. Some fine banding is noticeable in all dark shades, but in person, it's hard to notice. If banding is bothering you, set Digital Clean View to 'Auto,' and it'll eliminate most of it but can cause a loss of some fine details in some scenes. If you set Digital Clean View to 'Low,' it won't do much.

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

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

The Samsung Q70 has an excellent response time, just slightly slower than the Q90R, and very similar to the Q8FN. There's only a very small blur trail behind fast-moving objects. The 0-20% transition has some overshoot, which can cause some haloing in really dark scenes, but otherwise shouldn't be very noticeable.

The Q70R uses PWM dimming to dim the backlight. Although flicker is always present, it's unlikely that you'll notice it since the flicker frequency is very high at 960Hz.

When the TV is in 'Movie' mode and Auto Motion Plus is disabled, the TV has a flicker frequency of 960Hz. However, the flicker frequency changes to 120Hz as soon as you set Auto Motion Plus to 'Custom' or 'Auto,' even if you remain in 'Movie' mode. Also, in 'Standard' and in 'Game' modes the flicker is always at 120Hz, similar to the Q90R and the Q900R.

The TV has an excellent black frame insertion feature that can help make the image crisper by reducing the flicker frequency as low as 60Hz. Enabling Auto Motion Plus automatically changes the flicker to 120Hz, and setting LED Clear Motion to 'On' further reduces the flicker frequency to 60Hz.

When you're in 'Game' mode, the flicker frequency is always 120Hz. If you want to make the image even crisper then enable LED Clear Motion in Game Motion Plus, and this will change the flicker frequency to 60Hz.

The Samsung Q70R can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120Hz. To enable motion interpolation, you have to enable Auto Motion Plus and adjust the available sliders.

See here for more information regarding the settings that control the Q70R's motion interpolation feature.

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

The Q70R has a little stutter due to the very fast response time. This can be noticeable with 24p movies. If it bothers you, motion interpolation or BFI can help reduce the perceived stutter.

The Samsung Q70R can display 24p content without judder, regardless of the source.

See our recommended settings on how to remove judder here.

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 Q70R doesn't work properly with NVIDIA's current Adaptive Sync drivers.

The TV has a native refresh rate of 120Hz. Just like all premium Samsung TVs since 2018, it supports the FreeSync variable refresh rate technology and can offer you a tear-free gaming experience provided you have a compatible AMD card or an Xbox One. The VRR range is the same at 1080p and 1440p, and it's excellent. At 4k however, the range is narrower, as the TV only supports up to 4k @ 60Hz.

We tested the TV on 'Game' mode, and we used FreeSync set to 'Ultimate' to obtain the widest possible range.

Note: The 49" model doesn't support FreeSync and has a 60Hz panel.