The Samsung Q80D QLED is the highest-end model in Samsung's QLED range, which sits below their higher-end Neo QLEDs and succeeds the Samsung Q80C. Like its predecessor, the Q80D has Direct Full Array backlighting, with LEDs placed directly behind the LCD panel, allowing for a much tighter control of each dimming zone. It has Samsung's new NQ4 AI Gen2 Processor, which is meant to help with the TV's 4k upscaling, and it supports up to 4k @ 120Hz, with full VRR capabilities, on all four of its HDMI 2.1 ports. As usual with Samsung, the TV supports the HDR10+ format but not Dolby Vision, and it passes through advanced audio formats from Dolby but not from DTS. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, and it's available in five different size variants, although the 50-inch model is limited to 4k @ 60Hz. It was replaced in 2025 by the Samsung QN80F, which, despite the change in naming convention, uses a very similar backlight.
Our Verdict
The Samsung Q80D is decent for mixed usage. It performs well in a bright room thanks to its excellent SDR brightness, but direct reflections are distracting. The TV is a decent option for reference conditions like a home theater, but its unremarkable black levels mean blacks aren't as deep as they could be, and there's visible haloing around highlights and subtitles. The TV supports modern gaming features that make it a pretty good pairing with modern consoles, but since it's limited to 120Hz, PC gamers will likely want to look elsewhere. Finally, the TV has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not suitable for wide seating arrangements.
Black levels and colors are barely affected in a bright room.
Very good upscaling capabilities.
Easily overcomes glare from indirect lights.
Distracting direct mirror-like reflections.
Only okay peak brightness in HDR.
Can't do much to smooth out low-quality content without causing a loss of fine details.
The Samsung Q80D is decent for a home theater. It has local dimming to help deepen blacks, but blacks aren't as deep as they are on many other similar TVs, and there's noticeable haloing around subtitles and highlights. Colors look vibrant enough for a punchy image, and they have good accuracy out of the box. The TV's HDR brightness is okay, so some highlights stand out well, but it's not good enough to make very bright highlights pop like they should. The TV does a very good job upscaling, but only has alright low-quality content smoothing, so artifacts are visible in low-bitrate content.
Removes judder from all sources.
Very good PQ EOTF tracking.
Very good upscaling capabilities.
Good color volume in HDR.
Only okay peak brightness in HDR.
Can't do much to smooth out low-quality content without causing a loss of fine details.
Doesn't support Dolby Vision or DTS.
The Samsung Q80D is very good for a bright room. Its excellent SDR brightness means the TV easily overcomes glare from indirect light sources in most bright rooms, but it does struggle more with direct mirror-like reflections. The TV's black levels and color saturation are barely affected by light, so you don't have to trade-in image quality when you have your lights on.
Black levels and colors are barely affected in a bright room.
Easily overcomes glare from indirect lights.
Distracting direct mirror-like reflections.
The Samsung Q80D is very good for sports. It easily overcomes glare from indirect light sources, so it's suitable for most bright rooms. However, it doesn't do a good job reducing the intensity of mirror-like reflections, so avoid placing the TV directly opposite a window or lamp. It does a very good job upscaling low-resolution content, but artifacts are still visible in low-quality cable streams. The TV is colourful enough for the image to look vibrant, and colors have solid accuracy out of the box, so jerseys and playing fields mostly look the way they should. Unfortunately, the TV's narrow viewing angle means it's not a good choice for wide seating arrangements.
Very good upscaling capabilities.
Easily overcomes glare from indirect lights.
Great SDR color accuracy out of the box.
Distracting direct mirror-like reflections.
Can't do much to smooth out low-quality content without causing a loss of fine details.
Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung Q80D is decent for gaming. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports, supports up to 4k @ 120Hz, and supports VRR, so it takes advantage of the features offered by modern consoles. Input lag is low enough for gaming to feel responsive, but the TV's slower pixel transitions lead to some noticeable motion blur in quicker titles. The TV offers decent colors overall, not bad black levels, and okay HDR brightness, so most games look pretty good, but the TV doesn't have the overall picture quality to really show games at their best.
Low input lag for a responsive feel.
Supports all VRR technologies.
Four HDMI 2.1 ports, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR.
Good color volume in HDR.
Noticeable blur in fast motion.
The Samsung Q80D has decent brightness overall. The TV's SDR brightness is excellent, so it easily overcomes glare from indirect light sources in a bright room. The TV's HDR brightness is only okay, so even though some highlights stand out well, it's not good enough to display very bright highlights, and entirely well-lit scenes are noticeably dimmer.
Easily overcomes glare from indirect lights.
Only okay peak brightness in HDR.
The Samsung Q80D has unremarkable black levels. It has local dimming, so blacks remain deep when highlights are also on screen, but blacks aren't as deep or as uniform as they are on many other comparable LED models. Furthermore, there's noticeable haloing around subtitles and highlights, which affects the depth of blacks.
The Samsung Q80D has decent colors overall. The TV is vibrant enough in SDR for most content, but struggles more with the odd SDR content mastered in wider color spaces. Fortunately, the TV's colors are very accurate in SDR out of the box. The TV has good HDR color volume, so most HDR content is vibrant. Out-of-the-box color accuracy is just decent in HDR, so any color enthusiasts will likely want to get the TV calibrated in HDR.
Great SDR color accuracy out of the box.
Good color volume in HDR.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The Samsung Q80D has good processing. It does a very good job following the EOTF, so most scenes in HDR are displayed at the proper brightness level. The TV's gradient handling is excellent, with only very minor banding in some colors that's barely noticeable in real content. It does a very good job upscaling low-resolution content, but it's only alright low-quality content smoothing means heavily compressed streams have visible artifacts.
Very good PQ EOTF tracking.
Very good upscaling capabilities.
Very little banding in HDR.
Can't do much to smooth out low-quality content without causing a loss of fine details.
The Samsung Q80D has good responsiveness in its dedicated gaming mode. The TV has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and supports 4k @ 120Hz gaming. Furthermore, it supports VRR, so screen tearing is kept to a bare minimum. The TV's input lag is low, so gaming feels responsive. However, it has slow pixel transitions, so there's visible motion blur in fast-paced games.
Low input lag for a responsive feel.
Four HDMI 2.1 ports, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR.
Noticeable blur in fast motion.
We're in the process of fixing the way we evaluate a TV's overall motion handling. This section is currently broken, and the score isn't indicative of how well a TV handles motion overall.
Performance Usages
Changelog
- Updated Sep 24, 2025: Converted to Test Bench 2.0.1. We did this to fix an issue with our scoring in the Supported Resolutions section, since TVs with a refresh rate higher than 144Hz were being penalized for not supporting 144Hz.
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Updated Sep 24, 2025:
We wrote text for the new tests and rewrote text throughout the review after updating pre-existing tests and scores for Test Bench 2.0.
- Updated Sep 24, 2025: We converted the review to Test Bench 2.0. With this new methodology, we've added new tests to expand the scope of our testing, adjusted our scoring to better align with current market conditions, and added performance usages that group related tests together to give more insight into specific aspects of a TV's performance. You can find a full list of changes in the TV 2.0 changelog.
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Updated Jul 16, 2025:
We bought and tested the 2025 revision to this TV, the Samsung QN80F, and added a note in the intro.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 65-inch Samsung Q80D, and the results are valid for the 55, 75, and 85-inch models. The 50-inch model is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and lacks features like VRR, Quantum HDR+, and Motion Xcelerator 120Hz. Otherwise, as usual, the last four letters of the model code (in this case, FXZA) vary between regions and even retailers, and not all regions carry all the variants. As Samsung's European lineup differs, these results are only valid for the North American Q80D.
Costco and Sam's Club sell a variant of the TV with a slightly different model code. It comes with an extended warranty and some other store-specific perks, but it performs the same.
| Size | US Model | Refresh Rate | VRR | HDMI 2.1 | Costco/Sam's Club Variant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50" | QN50Q80DAFXZA | 60Hz | Yes | No | - |
| 55" | QN55Q80DAFXZA | 120Hz | Yes | Yes | - |
| 65" | QN65Q80DAFXZA | 120Hz | Yes | Yes | QN65Q80DDFXZA |
| 75" | QN75Q80DAFXZA | 120Hz | Yes | Yes | QN75Q80DDFXZA |
| 85" | QN85Q80DAFXZA | 120Hz | Yes | Yes | QN85Q80DDFXZA |
Our unit was manufactured in March 2024.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Samsung Q80D is a decent mid-range TV that's especially good in bright rooms when watching SDR content, as its SDR peak brightness is excellent. Its HDR brightness and black levels, while not exceptional, are good enough to provide a satisfactory viewing experience in controlled lighting environments. It also comes with a full suite of gaming features, although its response time is not good enough to please gamers looking for the clearest motion. Overall, this TV is a good purchase, but it's unfortunately overshadowed by models such as the TCL QM7K and the Hisense U75QG, both of which are sold for about the same price, or even cheaper, while offering better image quality in all content, as well as better overall gaming performance.
If you're still shopping, see our recommendations for the best TVs for sports, the best TVs for bright rooms, and the best TVs to use as a PC monitor. To learn more about the tests we do that inform our scores and recommendations, check out our article on how we test TVs.
The Samsung Q80D is a lot better than the Samsung Q8F 2025. The Q80D delivers much better picture quality, with higher peak brightness, a (limited) local dimming feature, and slightly better colors. The Q80D also has better motion handling, with a much faster pixel response time so there's less blur behind fast-moving objects.
The Samsung Q80D is better than the Samsung Q70D, as it offers a noticeable upgrade in every way. The Q80D has a local dimming feature, giving it way better contrast than the Q70D. The Q80D is also brighter in HDR and SDR, and has better color volume, so all content is more impactful on that model.
The Samsung Q80D is much better than the Samsung Q60D. The Q80D is far brighter and has a much better contrast due to its local dimming feature. It also has better color volume, better image processing, and is more accurate out of the box. Gamers will appreciate the Q80D's 120Hz support with VRR, while the Q60D is limited to 60Hz without VRR. The only advantage of the Q60D over the Q80D is its slightly wider viewing angle.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is slightly better than the Samsung Q80D. The Sony is a bit brighter overall and offers better color volume. The Samsung, however, delivers higher native contrast and superior black uniformity—although the Sony shows noticeably less blooming around bright elements against a dark background. As is typical for Sony, it also provides more advanced image processing. Gamers might lean toward the Samsung thanks to its lower input lag. The two TVs are closely matched, but the Sony holds a slight edge.
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 are done with 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
The Samsung Q80D has okay HDR brightness. It's bright enough to bring out most small bright details in scenes with moderate brightness, but the brightest highlight details are lost. It does a decent job with very bright outdoor shots, but it's not as bright as it should be for a truly impactful HDR experience with those scenes.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: FILMMAKER
- Brightness: 50
- Contrast: 50
- Color: 25
- HDR Tone Mapping: Static
- Color Tone: Warm 2
- Local Dimming: High
- Color Space: Auto
- Gamma: ST.2084 (0)
Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active':
- Hallway Lights: 521 cd/m²
- Yellow Skyscraper: 452 cd/m²
- Landscape Pool: 160 cd/m²
The Samsung Q80D is slightly brighter in Game Mode, but it's less accurate.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Game
- Brightness: 50
- Contrast: 50
- Color: 25
- HDR Tone Mapping: Static
- Color Tone: Warm 2
- Color Space: Auto
- Gamma: ST.2084 (0)
- Game HDR: Basic
- HDR10+ Gaming: Basic
- Local Dimming: High
Results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':
- Hallway Lights: 472 cd/m²
- Yellow Skyscraper: 453 cd/m²
- Landscape Pool: 231 cd/m²
The Samsung Q80D has excellent peak brightness in SDR and easily overcomes glare from indirect light sources in a well-lit room.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Movie
- Brightness: 50
- Contrast: 45
- Color Tone: Warm 2
- Gamma: 2.2
- Color: 25
- Local Dimming: High
The Samsung Q80D has mediocre contrast with local dimming on 'High.' The TV's native contrast ratio is good, but its effective local dimming feature provides deep blacks in a dark room.
The TV has alright lighting zone precision. Unfortunately, there's visible haloing around bright highlights or text when they're against a black background, making blacks look less deep.
The TV has just alright lighting zone transitions. Unfortunately, the leading edge of bright highlights when they quickly move across the screen is visibly dimmer, and there's very noticeable haloing, especially with smaller highlights.
When the TV is set to Game Mode, its local dimming performance is slightly worse overall, with more noticeable haloing.
The TV has unremarkable black uniformity overall, and there's noticeable haloing around bright highlights with local dimming enabled. Without local dimming, the screen is noticeably cloudy and blueish.
The Samsung Q80D has okay color volume in SDR. Like most TVs these days, it has full coverage of the BT.709 color space used with the majority of SDR content. It has decent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, but poor coverage of the much wider BT.2020 color space, so it's not a good choice if you like to force content into a wider color space.
Colors are noticeably desaturated in brighter scenes, which is very unusual for an LED TV with no white subpixel. However, the same could be said for the Samsung Q7F 2025 and the Samsung QN80F, so this isn't an issue with this specific unit.
| Volume ΔE³ | DCI-P3 Coverage |
BT.2020 Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| L10 | 94.22% | 68.61% |
| L20 | 90.24% | 64.72% |
| L30 | 92.06% | 65.88% |
| L40 | 87.51% | 63.78% |
| L50 | 84.85% | 62.13% |
| L60 | 82.99% | 59.93% |
| L70 | 81.08% | 52.40% |
| L80 | 78.40% | 48.44% |
| L90 | 75.73% | 47.46% |
| L100 | 69.11% | 51.73% |
| Total | 82.43% | 56.41% |
The TV has good color volume. Most colors are bright and vibrant, and dark, saturated colors look pretty good thanks to its effective local dimming.
The TV has great pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Blues and greens are slightly overrepresented in most shades of gray, and reds are underrepresented in mid-tones and pure whites. Overall, this leads to the TV's color temperature being slightly cooler than our 6500K target. Gamma is off of our 2.2 target, with most scenes being a bit too bright, while bright scenes are significantly overbrightened.
Overall, color accuracy is fantastic, although some colors, especially greens, are a bit too saturated, and whites have noticeable color mapping issues.
The TV is easy to calibrate, and gamma, white balance, and color temperature are all nearly perfect afterward. Color accuracy is much better now, but all colors are still a little bit off the mark, albeit barely.
You can see our full calibration settings.
The TV has decent HDR color accuracy before calibration. The white balance is great overall, but there's not enough red in most shades of gray, which contributes to the TV's overly warm color temperature. Color accuracy is alright overall, but most colors are off target and undersaturated.
After calibration, the TV has excellent HDR color accuracy. The white balance is now outstanding, and the color temperature is very close to 6500K. Overall color accuracy isn't perfect, but it's still very good, with mostly minor errors that most people won't notice.
The Samsung Q80D has very good PQ EOTF tracking, as the TV follows the curve very closely until it reaches its maximum brightness. Still, it's not perfect, as, outside of some darker highlights, the TV is slightly overbrightened across the entire length of the curve. The TV behaves erratically once it hits its peak brightness with all mastered content, but it still rolls off to preserve detail in very bright highlights.
The TV has just alright low-quality content smoothing. It removes some artifacts in low-bitrate content, but there's still noticeable macro-blocking in darker scenes and a loss of details.
The Samsung Q80D does a very good job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details are quite clear, but finer details are hard to make out.
Sharpness processing was calibrated with no over-sharpening for low-resolution content with the following settings:
- Sharpness: 5
- Picture Clarity Settings: Off
The TV has impressive HDR gradient handling, as there's minimal banding in all color bands except dark reds and blues, which have no noticeable banding.
This TV has low input lag when set to Game Mode, which helps to ensure a very responsive gaming experience with very little delay between your actions with your controller or mouse and the action on-screen.
The Samsung Q80D supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. It displays chroma 4:4:4 properly with any signal, except 1440p @ 120Hz, as long as the input label is set to PC. 1440p @ 120Hz @ 4:4:4 isn't supported.
The Samsung Q80D is compatible with all three variable refresh rate (VRR) formats, and it works across a very wide refresh rate range, which ensures that your games remain nearly tear-free when gaming. It also supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.
The TV's CAD is just okay at the max refresh rate of 120Hz. Most pixel transitions are on the slower side, which leads to visible motion blur. There's barely any overshoot, which is good, but transitions to and from dark shades are especially slow. This causes more distracting blur in shadow details.
The TV's CAD is just okay at the max refresh rate of 120Hz. Most pixel transitions are on the slower side, which leads to visible motion blur. There's barely any overshoot, which is good, but transitions to and from dark shades are especially slow. This causes more distracting blur in shadow details.
The TV's CAD at 60Hz is just okay. Every pixel transition is pretty slow, so there's motion blur, but transitions to and from dark shades are very slow, which leads to black smearing. There's also persistence blur, so gaming at 60Hz is noticeably blurry.
The TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about manually switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
The TV is fully compatible with almost everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about manually switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. Unfortunately, Dolby Vision isn't supported on the TV, so gaming in Dolby Vision isn't possible.
There's some noticeable stutter when watching movies or TV shows that's most apparent in slow panning shots, but it's not too bad.
The TV automatically removes judder from all sources when watching movies or shows that are in 24p, even if they're in a 60Hz signal, like from a cable box.
The Samsung Q80D has a great response time when watching content. Fast motion in certain sports is a bit blurry, but there's no excessive motion blur in movies and shows.
The TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using.
It flickers at a very fast 960Hz in the 'Movie' picture mode at all brightness levels. In all other picture modes, it flickers at a slower 120Hz at all brightness levels. With 'LED Clear Motion' enabled, the TV flickers at 60Hz.
The TV supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature is designed to improve the appearance of motion by strobing its backlight and reducing the amount of persistence blur. The BFI feature on the TV only flickers at 60Hz, and there's still some minor image duplication present.
This TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to improve the clarity of motion, but it doesn't work very well. Even slower-moving scenes have some noticeable artifacts and haloing present. In faster-moving scenes, it can't keep up, and there are distracting artifacts and haloing, and sometimes, the TV stops interpolating altogether.
The TV's direct reflection handling is mediocre. It does very little to reduce the intensity of direct mirror-like reflections, so any source of light opposite the screen is clearly visible.
Black levels barely raise on this TV in a room with ambient lighting, so you still get deep blacks regardless of your lighting conditions.
The amount of total reflected light off the screen is just okay. The TV's handling of ambient lighting is alright, but there are noticeable diffraction artifacts.
Color saturation on this TV doesn't change much when used in a bright room.
The Samsung Q80D has an unremarkable viewing angle, so it's not suitable for a wide seating arrangement. There's significant gamma shifting, black level rise, and brightness loss as you move off-center, and colors look increasingly washed out as you move further away to the sides.
The Samsung Q80D has mediocre gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are quite a bit darker than the middle, and there's some dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen. Its uniformity on very dark or near-black screens is excellent, but the left side is a bit brighter than the rest, and there's some barely noticeable clouding throughout.
The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. This doesn't cause any issues for video or gaming content, but it can be a problem for PC monitor use, as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this.
The TV uses quantum dot color converters to produce red and green light, with decent separation between colors.
All four HDMI ports support the full 48Gbps 2.1 bandwidth, which is great for connecting multiple modern consoles or high-end PCs to this TV. The TV doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the less supported HDR10+ format. Its tuner also only supports ATSC 1.0, so you can't use it to watch over-the-air 4k content. Note that the 50-inch model of the Samsung Q80D is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth on all four ports.
The TV has eARC support, which allows it to pass uncompressed high-quality audio from a connected source to your home theater system or soundbar. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any DTS formats commonly used on Blu-rays.
The Samsung 65Q80D looks nearly identical to the Samsung Q80C but with a thicker silver bottom bezel. It has a clean hexagonal stand and a clean-looking design.
The center-mounted stand is small, so the TV doesn't require a large desk or media center. There's some side-to-side wobbling and a fair amount of front-to-back wobbling, but it settles relatively quickly. The stand lifts the screen 3.1 inches above the surface of your table, so almost every soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen.
Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 15.35" x 11.26".
The Samsung QN65Q80D's back panel is made of textured plastic with vertical etched lines. The casing has grooves to help with cable management, which then get funneled into the stand. The stand has a removable cover that helps with hiding cables. The inputs are recessed and hard to access if the TV is wall-mounted.
The Samsung Q80D's build quality is very good. There's flex around the VESA holes and inputs on the back, and the TV is pretty shaky on its stand, although it quickly settles after being pushed. On our unit, there's a noticeable gap at the back of the TV where the plastic panel meets the border. It shouldn't cause any issues, and otherwise, the TV has no problems with quality control.
The Samsung Q80D runs the 2024 version of the Tizen OS, and it's fast and easy to use.
Like most TVs on the market, it has ads throughout its interface, and although you can disable targeted ads, there's no option to disable them completely.
The remote is slim and compact, has quick access buttons for the most popular streaming apps, and is easy to use. The remote has a built-in rechargeable battery with a solar panel on the back of the remote. You can also recharge it via USB-C if it dies unexpectedly. The TV is compatible with the Bixby and Alexa voice assistants, and its remote has an integrated microphone for voice commands.
A single button is located at the bottom right of the TV. You can use it to power the TV on/off, change channels, adjust the volume, and switch inputs. You can control the TV hands-free with your voice using the TV's built-in microphone, but you can also turn the microphone off using a small switch located next to the power button.
The Samsung Q80D Series has an alright frequency response. It does produce more bass than what we usually hear from TV speakers, but it comes at the cost of audible output frequency deviations when the TV is at max volume, so it doesn't sound quite right when you crank it up. There are also noticeable compression artifacts. At moderate listening levels, the TV's sound profile is clear, making dialogue easy to understand.