Samsung QN900B 8k QLED TV Review

The Samsung QN900B has a very premium design, with a sleek stand that supports the TV well and extremely thin bezels that help it deliver a more immersive viewing experience.

The stand is centered and takes up very little space, which is great if you have a small table. The stand supports the TV well, with very little wobble. The included One Connect box can attach to the back of the TV or the back of the stand, or you can place it elsewhere.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 14.2" x11.8" (or 13.4" with One Connect box). The stand lifts the screen about 3.35" above your table, so most soundbars fit in front of it without blocking the screen.

The back of the TV is made of a large flat plastic panel with a textured herringbone pattern. If you want to keep the One Connect box with the TV instead of placing it on a shelf, you can either mount it to the back of the stand or to the back of the TV. Since all of your inputs go to the One Connect box instead of the TV itself, there's nothing to help with cable management. There are also eight speakers on the back of TV designed to improve the frequency response of the TV.

The Samsung QN900B has great build quality overall, but there are a few issues. The back panel has a lot of flex to it, much worse than most other TVs, and it almost feels like it's not even properly attached in spots. The back panel also sticks out a bit in the top corners of the TV. Neither of these issues are likely going to cause any serious problems, and they're not noticeable when you're watching TV, but they indicate some potential issues with Samsung's quality control.

The Samsung QN900B has a low native contrast ratio due to Samsung's 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer, which improves the viewing angle but reduces the native panel contrast. This won't be an issue for most people since local dimming is always enabled on this TV. With Local Dimming on 'High,' this TV has superb contrast, so blacks remain deep and uniform even when displaying bright highlights. If you're looking for even better dark room performance, this TV's successor, the Samsung QN900D 8k QLED, has better contrast than this model.

Like most Samsung TVs, the local dimming feature behaves a bit differently in 'Game' mode. There's a bit less blooming, but it's mainly because blacks are raised across the entire screen, so the blooming effect isn't as noticeable. Zone transitions are also slightly slower than in 'Movie' mode, but it's not really noticeable with real content. On the other hand, shadow details are a bit better, and there's less black crush overall.

The Samsung QN900B has fantastic peak brightness in HDR. Like in SDR, large bright scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's automatic brightness limiter (ABL), but small highlights get extremely bright.

These measurements are in the 'Movie' HDR Picture Mode with Brightness and Contrast at max, Local Dimming set to 'High', and Color Tone set to 'Warm2'.

The Samsung QN900B is slightly dimmer in 'Game' mode. It was measured with the same settings as the HDR Brightness measurements but in the 'Game' Picture Mode with HDR10+ Gaming set to 'Basic'.

Unfortunately, the Samsung QN900B doesn't track the PQ EOTF properly, so most scenes are brighter than they should be. It also tracks differently depending on the mastering level of the content; content mastered at 4,000 cd/m² is slightly closer to target brightness than content mastered at lower brightness levels. 'FILMMAKER' mode tracks the EOTF slightly better, but it's still slightly too bright in most scenes.

The Samsung QN900B has amazing peak brightness in SDR. Scenes with small areas of bright lights get extremely bright, and overall, it can easily overcome glare even in a well-lit room. Unfortunately, it has a fairly aggressive automatic brightness limiter (ABL), so scenes with large bright areas, like a hockey rink, are considerably dimmer.

These measurements are after calibration, using the 'Movie' Picture Mode with Brightness at max, Color Tone set to 'Warm2', and Local Dimming on 'High'.

The Samsung QN900B has a great HDR color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most Ultra HD Blu-ray movies. Unfortunately, it has limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, and the tone mapping is a bit off with highly saturated colors, causing a loss of fine details. You won't notice this with most content, but the Rec. 2020 color space is gaining in popularity, especially in animated films and some nature documentaries.

The Samsung QN900B has excellent color volume. Colors are very bright and vibrant, and they stand out well compared to bright whites.

The Samsung QN900B has amazing accuracy in SDR before calibration. The white balance is excellent, with no noticeable issues, and the overall color temperature is close to the target. Color accuracy is fantastic, with just a few issues with saturated blues and reds, but it's not noticeable. Gamma is extremely close to the target of 2.2.

The Samsung QN900B is easy to calibrate, and it delivers fantastic accuracy after calibration. Saturated blues and reds are still slightly off after calibration, but we didn't really touch the color calibration. All other remaining issues aren't noticeable.

You can see the full settings used for our calibration here.

The Samsung QN900B has just decent gray uniformity. There's a large dark band across the entire width of the screen, which is distracting when watching sports. The sides of the screen are also a bit darker than the center. Unfortunately, the LED backlight grid is noticeable with certain content, especially if the TV is displaying a white screen or any uniform color.

With Local Dimming disabled from the service menu, the screen is very cloudy, which is distracting in dark scenes. Fortunately, with this feature enabled, the Samsung QN900B has fantastic black uniformity, with almost no noticeable clouding.

The Samsung QN900B has an okay viewing angle. The image remains consistent even if you're watching at a slight angle. It's not good enough for a really wide seating arrangement, as colors shift noticeably even at a moderate angle and the image appears washed out.

The Samsung QN900B has excellent reflection handling. The glossy coating significantly reduces the intensity of direct, mirror-like reflections, so glare isn't as noticeable in a bright room. Unfortunately, the 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer causes bright lights to create a rainbow smear across the screen, which can be distracting even if the lights aren't directly opposite the TV, including overhead lights.

The Samsung QN900B has decent gradient handling, but it's a bit worse than most high-end Samsung TVs, like the Samsung QN95B QLED. There's some noticeable banding in all shades of gray and in brighter shades of blue and very noticeable banding in bright shades of green. The other color gradients look great. There's a Noise Reduction feature to reduce banding; it works well with real content but causes a loss of fine details.

This TV has good sharpness processing with low-resolution or low-bitrate content. The image is sharp and clear, with no over-sharpening, and fine details are easy to make out. Oddly, there's very little noticeable difference between the processing capabilities of different Samsung TVs, as this TV looks very similar to low-end Samsung models like the Samsung Q60B QLED. Even with different settings, picture modes, and intelligent options, the sharpness processing appears to be nearly identical.

The optimal sharpness settings for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, are as follows:

• Sharpness: 8
• Clarity: Off

Like most TVs on the market, the Samsung QN900B uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional Red-Green-Blue layout. For video content, it doesn't cause any issues, but if you're planning on using this TV as a PC monitor, this reduces text clarity a bit, although there are easy workarounds for it. You can read more about text clarity here. Unfortunately, the anti-reflective coating adds a significant haze to the screen, which makes it hard to make out the pixels clearly.

For the most part, the Samsung QN900B has a superb response time. Motion looks clear, with very little blur behind fast-moving objects. Transitions from black pixels to dark shades are considerably slower, so there's more ghosting in shadow details.

The Samsung QN900B uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, introducing flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to flicker. Like most Samsung TVs, the flicker frequency varies between picture modes and with certain settings:

• In 'Dynamic', 'Standard', and 'FILMMAKER' modes, the backlight always flickers at 120Hz. This low flicker frequency can cause headaches if you're sensitive to flicker, and it also causes image duplications with 60Hz content.
• In 'Movie' and 'Game' mode, the backlight flickers at '960Hz' if the 'Brightness' setting is between 0 and 30. The flicker frequency drops to 120Hz with 'Brightness' set to 31 or higher.
• With the input label set to 'PC', it flickers at 120Hz with a 'Brightness' setting of 46 or lower in both 'Entertain' and 'Graphic' modes, but it's flicker-free between 47 and 50.

The above list isn't exhaustive; we didn't test every combination of settings, meaning the backlight may behave differently with other combinations of settings.

The Samsung QN900B has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion or BFI. This feature works at both 60Hz and 120Hz. The timing of the backlight pulse is a bit off, causing a duplicated image that's offset a bit from the main image, but it's not as bad or as noticeable as it is on the Samsung QN95B QLED. Note that our scoring only reflects the range of flicker frequency and not how well the BFI performs.

The Samsung QN900B has an optional motion interpolation feature to increase the frame rate of low frame rate content, reducing the amount of stutter. It works well with slower scenes, but like most TVs, with the settings at max, there are lots of motion artifacts in busier scenes.

Unfortunately, due to the Samsung QN900B's quick response time, there's noticeable stutter when watching movies or TV shows. This is especially noticeable in slow panning shots.

The Samsung QN900B automatically removes judder from all sources; no additional settings are needed.

The Samsung QN900B supports all three variable refresh rate formats, so it works with any source that supports a variable refresh rate. It works across an extremely wide refresh rate range, with a higher maximum refresh rate than the vast majority of TVs on the market. Low-frame rate compensation (LFC) automatically engages at low refresh rates, multiplying frames to ensure a nearly tear-free gaming experience even at very low frame rates. The variable refresh rate feature also turns on automatically when it's connected to a compatible source, so you don't have to worry about it.

Unfortunately, there's noticeable flicker when VRR is enabled, especially in darker scenes. In bright scenes, this flicker isn't noticeable, and the TV is essentially flicker-free.

The Samsung QN900B has incredibly low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming experience. Unlike most TVs, you can still enable the motion interpolation feature in 'Game' mode, and it adds just a bit of latency. With the feature at its max settings, the input lag goes up to 26.6ms, which is still low enough for casual gaming.

The Samsung QN900B natively supports all common formats without the need for custom resolutions if you're using a PC. Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly from all formats, which is essential for clear text from a PC. 4k @ 120Hz and even 4k @ 144Hz signals are displayed properly, with no resolution-halving issue that's plagued TVs from other brands.

When looking at light text on a dark background, the TV's anti-reflective coating causes a duplicate image when viewed off-angle. It's not noticeable if you're sitting directly in front of the TV, and there's no dithering with shadow details.

The Samsung QN900B is fully compatible with all supported features of the PS5, including variable refresh rate support and 1440p support.

The Samsung QN900B is nearly fully compatible with all supported features of the Xbox Series S and X, including variable refresh rate support and 1440p support. It doesn't support Dolby Vision for gaming or watching movies, though, which is a bit disappointing.

All four HDMI inputs support the maximum bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which is great if you have more than one device that supports 4k @ 120Hz, as you can connect them all without compromising anything. It's also advertised to support Wi-Fi 6E, which is 6GHz, but this only works with Wi-Fi 6E compatible devices for faster speeds.

Unlike most TVs, the inputs for the Samsung QN900B are on the separate One Connect box. There's a single cable that goes from the One Connect box to a special connector on the back of the TV, supplying power and data for the inputs.

The Samsung QN900B supports eARC, allowing it to pass uncompressed high-quality audio from a connected source through to your soundbar or home theater system. Sadly, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many UHD Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

The Samsung QN900B has a decent frequency response. Like almost all TVs, the low-frequency extension (LFE) is very high, meaning the TV doesn't produce much thump or rumble. The frequency response above the LFE is well-balanced at moderate listening levels, so dialogue is clear and easy to understand. This TV has an optional room correction feature, which was enabled for these measurements.

The Samsung QN900B has good distortion handling. There's very little harmonic distortion in the treble range at moderate volume levels, but it's higher at max volume.

The Samsung QN900B runs the updated 2022 version of Tizen OS, which is fast and easy to use. The interface now fills the entire screen instead of the bar that appeared on the previous version. It makes it easier to find your favorite content.

Unfortunately, like most TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the interface, and there's no option to disable them completely.

The included apps cover most of the common streaming services, and there's a great selection of additional apps available in Samsung's app store.

The remote is slim and easy to use but has a limited selection of buttons, so you have to change most things through menus on the TV. There are four quick-access buttons for the most popular streaming services; unfortunately, there's no way to remap these to your favorites. You can recharge the remote via a solar panel on the back or with a USB-C cable (sold separately).

The Samsung QN900B is compatible with multiple voice assistants, including Bixby, Google Assistant, and Alexa, but you have to use the remote as it doesn't have a hands-free mode. Voice controls work well and allow you to launch apps, change inputs, or adjust certain settings.

The controls are beneath the Samsung branding on the bottom right side of the TV. A single button lets you power the TV on/off and change channels, volume, and inputs. The button is very difficult to press, though.

• One Connect box (not shown)
• Short One Connect cable (8.6")
• Long One Connect cable (~7.5')
• Power cable
• Remote
• Feet for One Connect box
• Mounting screws for the One Connect box
• Cable plug covers
• Manuals