Our Verdict
The Samsung Q80R is an excellent TV for mixed usage. It performs just as well in a dark room, for movies and HDR content, and in a bright room for sports or TV shows. It has a fast response time, a low input lag, and supports some advanced gaming features that will please gamers, no matter if you're gaming on a console or a PC.
- Very low input lag and great gaming features.
- Excellent motion handling.
- Very bright in both SDR and HDR.
- Some gray uniformity issues at the edges.
The Q80R is an excellent TV for watching movies. It produces deep, uniform blacks that enhance the picture quality in a dark room. It can remove 24p judder from any source, and has an optional motion interpolation feature for soap opera effect fans, which also comes in handy if you wish to remove stutter in movies.
The Q80 is a fantastic TV for watching TV shows. If you watch shows during the day, it can get really bright and it does a fantastic job at handling reflections, so it's suitable for any bright room. Although most VA panel TVs don't have good viewing angles, the 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer gives it a decent viewing angle, so your whole family will be able to sit around the TV and enjoy your favorite show without losing too much image accuracy.
The Q80R is excellent for watching sports. It's a very bright TV with remarkable reflection handling, so you can place it in a bright room with many lights or windows and still enjoy a great picture. It has a very fast response time, so fast action looks crisp and the image remains accurate for wider viewing angles. This is great for watching the big game with a group of friends. Finally, the TV has decent great uniformity that won't spoil your sports-watching experience.
Outstanding TV for playing video games. The input lag is remarkably low and the TV responds almost immediately to your actions. The fast response time delivers crisp motion and the TV is packed with gaming goodies. It supports FreeSync for nearly tear-free gaming, low input lag with motion interpolation, and a convenient Auto Low Latency Mode.
The Q80R delivers an excellent HDR movie watching experience. The high contrast ratio, excellent black uniformity, and good local dimming support produce deep blacks in a dark room where HDR is meant to be seen. The wide color gamut and high HDR peak brightness deliver HDR content with rich and vivid colors and highlights that stand out.
The Samsung Q80R is a remarkable TV for playing HDR games. It has a very low input lag in HDR and responds immediately to your actions. HDR games are displayed remarkably well, full of vivid colors and bright highlights, thanks to the wide color gamut and excellent HDR peak brightness.
The Q80R is an excellent TV for use as a PC monitor. It has a very low input lag and it reacts instantly to your actions. The response time is very fast and thus only a small blur trail follows fast-moving content. It can display proper chroma 4:4:4 and has decent viewing angles that deliver a uniform image at the edges when you sit up close. As a VA panel, this TV appears to be immune to temporary image retention or permanent burn-in.
Changelog
- Updated May 21, 2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.5.
- Updated Feb 21, 2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.4.
- Updated Aug 02, 2019: We retested the Q80R with the latest firmware. The SDR Peak Brightness, HDR Peak Brightness, and Input Lag measurements and scores have been updated, and it is no longer skipping frames in PC mode with a 120Hz signal.
- Updated May 16, 2019: Review published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 55" (QN55Q80RA) version, AA01/QRQ80. For the most part, we expect our review to be valid for the 65" version (QN65Q80RA) and the 75" version (QN75Q80RA).
There's also an EU-only variant of the TV, the Q85R. The Q85R is advertised as having more local dimming zones and comes along with a One Connect box, but otherwise seems identical to the Q80R. We have not tested this unit so we can not be sure. Note that the UK version of the Q80R appears to have fewer dimming zones than the unit we tested, but we don't know how it performs.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their Samsung Q80R doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review.
| Size | Model | Model Short | US | Canada | UK | Europe |
| 55" | QN55Q80RA | QN55Q80 | QN55Q80RAFXZA | QN55Q80RAFXZC | QE55Q80RATXXU | QE55Q80RATXXC |
| 65" | QN65Q80RA | QN65Q80 | QN65Q80RAFXZA | QN65Q80RAFXZC | QE65Q80RATXXU | QE65Q80RATXXC |
| 75" | QN75Q80RA | QN75Q80 | QN75Q80RAFXZA | QN75Q80RAFXZC | N/A | N/A |
| 82" | QN82Q80RA | QN82Q80 | QN82Q80RAFXZA | QN82Q80RAFXZC | N/A | N/A |
The 55" Q80R we tested was manufactured in Feb. 2019.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Samsung Q80R is an excellent TV that delivers an excellent performance in any usage. See our recommendations for the best TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best HDR gaming TVs.
The Samsung Q80R is much better than the Samsung Q60R. The Q80 has a full array local dimming feature and excellent black uniformity, which is great for dark room performance. The Q80 can also get a lot brighter, has significantly better viewing angles, and much better reflection handling.
The Samsung Q80T and the Samsung Q80R are very similar TVs in many respects. The Q80R can get much brighter in HDR, its local dimming performs better, and it has a higher contrast ratio. On the other hand, the Q80T has better color accuracy, a faster response time, and a lower input lag, which is good news for gamers. Both TVs have a 120Hz refresh rate and support VRR to reduce screen tearing when gaming.
The Samsung Q90/Q90T QLED and the Samsung Q80R are nearly identical in terms of feature set and overall performance, as the Q90T is a replacement of the Q80R. Other than the added eARC support, the Q90T has a higher HDR peak brightness and a significantly faster response time, resulting in less motion blur. Input lag is also lower on the Q90T, but the Q80R has better black uniformity and out-of-the-box color accuracy.
The Samsung Q90/Q90R QLED and the Samsung Q80R have very similar performance. The Samsung Q90R has a slightly faster response time, which some enthusiasts might notice when watching sports. Also, the Q90R has more effective local dimming thanks to the greater number of local dimming zones than the Q80R. Although our Q90R test unit was a larger variant, we expect this to be true for the same size variants of the Q80R. All of the other differences are mainly in the design. The Q90R has a One Connect box, supports a no-gap wall mount, and its stand has a smaller footprint.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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