Samsung Q70/Q70T QLED TV Review

The Samsung Q70T is a mid-range TV from the 2020 QLED lineup. It sits between the Samsung Q60/Q60T QLED and the Samsung Q80/Q80T QLED. Its main competitors are the LG NANO90 and the Sony X900H.

Note: Samsung has shifted their lineup this year, so although this TV replaces the Samsung Q70/Q70R QLED by name in Samsung's lineup, it's more closely related to the Samsung Q60/Q60R QLED performance-wise.

The Samsung Q70T 2020 has an excellent design that's very similar to the Samsung Q70/Q70R QLED, as well as its smaller sibling, the Samsung Q60/Q60T QLED. It's minimalist, with very thin bezels and wide-set feet, and it comes with clips for cable management.

The stand is simple and supports the TV well, but there's still a bit of wobble when nudged. The feet are wide-set and point outwards, so it requires a fairly large table to put it on if you don't plan on wall-mounting it. They no longer need to be screwed in, as you only need to slide them into place, making the setup process much easier. Unfortunately, they're not reversible.

Footprint of the 55" stand: 40.3" x 9.5".

The back of the TV is fully plastic and has a horizontal dotted pattern etched into it. All the inputs are side-facing, making them easy to access even when the TV is wall-mounted. There are clips to attach the cables to the back of the stand for cable management.

The borders are thin and aren't distracting.

The TV is thin and shouldn't stick out much when wall-mounted.

Build quality is decent. Despite its all-plastic construction, there are no obvious gaps, and you shouldn't have issues with it. However, the TV still wobbles a bit.

The Samsung Q70T has an outstanding contrast ratio, capable of producing deep blacks. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a local dimming feature to further improve it. Note that the contrast ratio can vary between individual units.

The Samsung Q70T doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

Impressive SDR peak brightness. The TV can get bright enough to fight glare in most rooms and is fairly consistent when displaying different content. The 2% window is significantly darker due to the TV's CE (frame) dimming, which can't be disabled and may make dark scenes appear darker than they should.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Movie' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to maximum, Gamma set to '2.2', Contrast at its default value, and Contrast Enhancer set to 'Medium'.

If you don't mind losing image accuracy, you can get a brighter image by setting the Picture Mode to 'Vivid', with Brightness and Contrast set to max, and Contrast Enhancer set to 'Medium'. These settings allowed us to achieve 515 cd/m² in the 10% window.

Mediocre HDR peak brightness. Again, except for the darker 2% window caused by the TV's CE dimming, the brightness doesn't vary much when displaying different content. It can deliver an okay HDR experience in a dark room, but it doesn't look significantly different from SDR content in brighter environments.

We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'Movie HDR' Picture Mode, with Brightness and Contrast set to maximum.

If you want a brighter image in HDR and don't mind losing a bit of accuracy, set the Picture Mode to 'Movie HDR', with Brightness and Contrast set to max, and Contrast Enhancer set to 'Medium'. These settings allowed us to achieve 524 cd/m² in the 10% window.

If you want a TV that can get brighter to deliver a better HDR experience, take a look at the Vizio P Series Quantum 2020.

Gray uniformity is good; however, this can vary between individual units. It's slightly darker around the sides of the screen, but thankfully, there's very little dirty screen effect, and uniformity is much better in darker scenes.

Like most VA panels, the Samsung Q70T has poor viewing angles. Images look washed out from the side, making it less ideal for large rooms and wide seating arrangements.

Black uniformity is excellent. There's a bit of backlight bleed around the top corners of the screen, as well as some minor clouding and blooming around the test cross; however, the rest of the screen is very uniform. Note that black uniformity can vary between units.

Reflection handling is very decent. It's similar to the Samsung Q70/Q70R QLED, except that it's slightly better at reducing the intensity of reflected light. Visibility should be fine in most rooms, but it may be an issue in rooms with a lot of windows.

Out of the box, the Samsung Q70T has great color accuracy; however, it can vary between units. There are minor inaccuracies with several colors and with shades of gray, although they may be difficult to notice. Gamma doesn't follow the 2.2 target at all, resulting in most scenes appearing brighter than they should. The color temperature is on the warm side, giving the image a slight reddish tint.

Update 09/30/2020: We've changed the status of the Auto-Calibration function from 'Untested' to 'Undetermined', as the Q70T isn't yet listed as being compatible with CalMAN.

After calibration, color accuracy is excellent. White balance and gamma are near perfect, and the color temperature is very close to our target of 6500K. However, there are still some inaccuracies with a few colors. This is because when we tried to change any color settings, it made it significantly worse and introduced clipping. That said, most of these inaccuracies are very difficult to notice without the aid of a colorimeter.

You can see our recommended settings here.

480p content such as DVDs is upscaled without any obvious artifacts.

There are no issues with the upscaling of 720p content.

1080p content is handled well, with no obvious upscaling artifacts.

The Samsung Q70T has no issues displaying native 4k content.

The Samsung Q70T can't display an 8k signal.

The Samsung Q70T uses a BGR sub-pixel structure. It doesn't affect image quality, but it can affect text clarity when using the TV as a PC monitor. You can read more about it here.

The Samsung Q70T has a good HDR color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the widely used DCI P3 color space, but its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 is mediocre. The 'Movie' EOTF follows the target curve fairly well until the roll-off, although 'Game' mode appears darker in general, as you can see here.

If you find HDR too dim, you can make it brighter by setting Brightness and Contrast to maximum, set ST.2084 to maximum, and set Contrast Enhancer to medium.

You can also check out our recommended settings here.

Decent color volume, but not as good as the Samsung Q70/Q70R QLED. It can produce dark colors well due to its high contrast ratio, but like most LED TVs, it doesn't display very bright blues well.

Impressive gradient performance. There's some very minor banding in darker shades, although it shouldn't be noticeable in most content. If banding bothers you, enabling Noise Reduction can help a bit but at the cost of some fine details in some scenes.

Like most VA panels, the Samsung Q70T shows no signs of temporary image retention; however, this can vary between individual units.

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

The Samsung Q70T has an okay response time. There's a bit of blur trail behind fast-moving objects, and the 0-20% transition is a bit slow, resulting in slightly more motion blur in darker scenes.

If you want a TV with better response time, check out the Samsung Q80/Q80T QLED.

The Samsung Q70T uses Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight. It always flickers at 600Hz, except when its Black Frame Insertion feature is enabled, reducing the flicker to 120Hz. Additionally, it flickers at 240Hz when in PC mode (without 'Game' mode) and when in 'Game' mode with Game Motion Plus enabled. Lastly, when using 'Game' mode on a PC, the backlight flickers at 600Hz.

Update 08/11/2020: A previous version of the review stated the BFI had a minimum flicker of 120Hz for 60fps content in 'Game' mode. It flickers at 60Hz in 'Game' mode with Game Motion Plus and LED Clear Motion enabled. The review has been updated.

Update 07/27/2020: We retested the flicker frequency with Game mode on or off.

The Samsung Q70T has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature that can help reduce motion blur. Unfortunately, the timing is quite off, causing visible image duplication.

With 120fps content, the backlight always flickers at 120Hz, and you can't change the LED Clear Motion settings. It flickers at 240Hz outside of 'PC' mode with 'Game' mode off. With 'Game' mode on, it flickers at 120Hz, and goes down to 60Hz with LED Clear Motion and Game Motion Plus enabled. Enabling LED Clear Motion outside of 'Game' mode also reduces the flicker to 60Hz.

Update 06/04/2020: We've retested the Blur Reduction bug with the new firmware update (1113), and we can confirm that the TV is able to interpolate 30fps and 60fps content up to 120fps.

This TV can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120Hz. To enable it, you have to set Picture Clarity to 'On', set Judder Reduction to '10' for 30fps, and Blur Reduction to '10' for 60fps content.

With motion interpolation enabled, there's noticeable duplication in fast scenes, and when displaying more intense scenes, it introduces a good amount of artifacts.

The Samsung Q70T can display lower frame rate content without much stutter due to its slower response time. It can still happen at times and if it bothers you, enabling Picture Clarity can help.

The Samsung Q70T 2020 can remove judder from all sources. To use it, set Picture Clarity to 'Custom', but leave the Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction sliders to '0'.

Update 11/18/2020: We've retested the VRR with an HDMI 2.1 source and firmware version 1403. It can now display 120fps at 4k with VRR enabled, and it also works with NVIDIA's G-SYNC.

Update 08/19/2020: We changed HDMI Forum VRR to 'Unknown' because we currently don't have an accurate way to test for HDMI Forum VRR compatibility. Once we do, we'll test for it and update the review.

The Samsung Q70T supports FreeSync to reduce screen tearing when gaming. There are no settings for it; it turns on automatically when it detects a computer or an Xbox One that has VRR enabled at the launch of a game.

Update 11/18/2020: We've retested the input lag with an HDMI 2.1 source and firmware version 1403. We've added the 4k @ 120Hz input lag, which is measured in 'Game' mode with chroma 4:4:4 and 8-bit color coding. We've also updated the input lag for the other resolutions.

The Samsung Q70T has low input as long as 'Game' mode is enabled. It's slightly higher when VRR or Game Motion Plus are enabled, as well as when playing at 4k @ 60Hz + HDR. However, it shouldn't be noticeable for most casual gamers. To get the lowest input lag when using the TV as a PC monitor, set the icon for the input in use to 'PC'.