Samsung QN900D 8k QLED TV Review

The Samsung QN900D has a nice premium design. It has very thin bezels with a sleek metallic stand, making the TV look quite nice overall.

The center stand is great if you have a small table or cabinet since it takes up very little space. It supports the TV well enough, but the TV wobbles when pushed, although it settles quickly. The included One Connect box can be attached to the back of the stand, or you can place it elsewhere.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 14.7" x 10.4". The stand lifts the screen about 3.4 inches above the table, so almost any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen.

From the back, the TV looks very similar to other premium Samsung TVs, like the Samsung QN900C 8k QLED and the Samsung S95D OLED. It uses Samsung's One Connect Box, so only one cable goes into the TV, and you can place the box anywhere you want, giving you many options when it comes to cable management. This also means that there a no clips or channels for cables on the back of the TV for cable management, as most of the cables come out of the One Connect Box itself.

The Samsung QN900D has excellent build quality overall and is an improvement over the Samsung QN900C 8k QLED. It's not perfect, however, as there's noticeable wobble when pushed, but it settles quickly. Just like the QN900C, the back panel doesn't seem to be properly attached to the TV, and there's noticeable flex in the corners where the speaker grills are. Still, none of these will cause any issues in practice.

The Samsung QN900D has fantastic contrast with local dimming on 'High.' The TV's native contrast ratio is inadequate, but its effective local dimming feature provides very deep blacks in a dark room, and they stay deep when bright highlights are also on screen.

The TV has very good blooming performance, but there's some noticeable blooming around bright objects and subtitles when displayed against a black background.

The TV has decent 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.

When the TV is set to Game Mode, its local dimming performance is slightly worse overall, with more noticeable blooming and zone transitions.

The Samsung QN900D has fantastic HDR brightness. Highlights really pop out during darker scenes, and the TV is bright enough that very bright specular highlights even stand out in well-lit scenes, although not if you're watching in a brighter room. Combined with its fantastic contrast, this TV provides an impactful HDR viewing experience.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Filmmaker
• Brightness: 50
• Contrast: 50
• Contrast Enhancer: Off
• HDR Tone Mapping: Static
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Color Space: Auto
• Peak Brightness: High

If you prefer a brighter but less accurate image, here are the results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 966 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 688 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 419 cd/m²

The Samsung QN900D is visibly dimmer when set to Game Mode. It's still bright enough for highlights to stand out, however, and it provides an impactful HDR experience while gaming.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Game Mode
• Game HDR: Basic
• Brightness: 50
• Contrast: 50
• HDR Tone Mapping: Static
• Local Dimming: High
• HDR10+ GAMING: Basic
• Game HDR: Basic
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Color Space: Auto
• Gamma: ST.2081 (0)

Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 664 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 584 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 287 cd/m²

Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Off':

• Hallway Lights: 596 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 475 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 285 cd/m²

The Samsung QN900D has fantastic PQ EOTF tracking, as the TV follows the curve almost perfectly until it reaches the TV's maximum brightness. With content mastered at 600 or 1000 nits, there's a sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness, but since the TV is often bright enough to display content mastered at those levels, a roll-off isn't necessary. With content mastered at 4000 nits, there's a more gradual roll-off to preserve detail in very bright highlights.

The Samsung QN900D has excellent peak brightness in SDR and easily overcomes glare in a well-lit room, although it doesn't perform as well as 2023's Samsung QN900C 8k QLED in real content.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: 50
• Local Dimming: High
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Gamma: 2.2
• Color Space: Auto

The Samsung QN900D has a great color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, but most colors are a bit undersaturated. The TV has okay coverage of the less common Rec. 2020 color space, but highly saturated greens and cyans are inaccurate and very undersaturated; other colors are also off the mark.

The Samsung QN900D has excellent color volume. Colors are very bright and vibrant, and dark, saturated colors are displayed well due to its fantastic contrast.

The Samsung QN900D has very good pre-calibration SDR accuracy, although its white balance is only decent, with most colors underpresented in all shades of gray. Gamma is off our target of 2.2, and the entire image is darker than it should be. Thankfully the TV's color temperature is very close to the 6500K target, and color accuracy is great overall, with only whites showing noticeable mapping errors.

The TV is easy to calibrate, and Gamma, white balance, and color temperature are all nearly perfect afterwards. 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 here.

The Samsung QN900D has good gray uniformity. The corners of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but it's slight. There's also some dirty screen effect towards the middle of the screen with large areas of uniform color. On a very dark or near-black screen, its uniformity is excellent, but the edges are a bit brighter than the center.

With local dimming enabled, the TV has fantastic black uniformity, and there's no noticeable clouding. Blacks are deep and uniform across the screen, with only a bit of blooming around bright objects on a dark background.

The Samsung QN900D has an okay viewing angle. As you move off-center color shifting, color washout, and raised blacks occur. This makes it a generally poor choice for a wide seating arrangement, although it's alright overall for an LED TV.

The TV has excellent reflection handling. Its glossy coating significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections, so glare isn't too noticeable in a bright room. Unfortunately, there's rainbow smear across the screen, which is noticeable even with lights that aren't directly opposite the TV, like overhead lights.

The Samsung QN900D has decent HDR native gradient handling. Most colors have minimal banding, but dark greens have very noticeable banding in them, and brighter blues have some visible banding.

The TV has mediocre low-quality content smoothing. It smoothes out a bit of macro blocking from low-bitrate content, but with only passable preservation of details.

The Samsung QN900D does an excellent job at upscaling low-resolution content like from DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details are clear, but finer details are still hard to make out.

Sharpness processing was calibrated with no over-sharpening for low-resolution content, with the following setting:

• Sharpness: 8

The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone notices this.

The TV uses quantum dot color converters to produce red and green light, as confirmed by the TV's spectral power distribution (SPD).

The Samsung QN900D has an excellent response time for minimal blur behind fast-moving objects. Unfortunately, the response time is slower when coming out of dark states, so there's some noticeable black smearing in dark transitions.

Here are the results when testing the TV with our monitor methodology for those of you considering using this TV as a monitor:

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 are being used.

• In 'Dynamic', 'Standard', 'Eco', and 'Filmmaker' modes, the backlight constantly flickers at a low flicker frequency of 120Hz, which can cause headaches if you're sensitive to flicker.
• In 'Movie' and 'Game' mode, the backlight flickers at 960Hz with blips of 120Hz.
• With the input label set to 'PC', it flickers at 120Hz in both 'Entertain' and 'Graphic' modes, but it flickers at 960Hz with blips of 120Hz when in 'Game' mode.
• Finally, enabling any of the 'Picture Clarity' settings changes the flicker to 120Hz.

The TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature works well, even if the timing is a tad off, causing a slightly duplicated image. It's hard to notice with the naked eye, however.

This TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to improve the clarity of motion. It does a good job at smoothing out slower scenes, with only some minor artifacts present, although it does lead to a softer background image. In faster-moving scenes, it can't keep up, leading to distracting artifacts.

Due to the TV's quick response time, there's some noticeable stutter when watching movies or TV shows, and it's most apparent in slow panning shots.

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 QN900D supports all three types of variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing. It works well across a wide refresh rate range and supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low. It caps out at 240Hz at 4k and 1080p, but VRR isn't properly supported above 120Hz in 1440p. For those of you with powerful PC rigs wanting to game at 8k, the TV has a VRR range of 48-60Hz at that resolution.

This TV has incredibly low input lag when set into Game Mode, which ensures a very responsive gaming experience with very little delay between your actions with your controller or mouse and the action on-screen. The TV doesn't support 144Hz, but it does support 240Hz at 4k through Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology, as well as 1080p @ 240Hz. The input lag at 240Hz is 5.1ms.

The Samsung QN900D supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 240Hz or 8k @ 60Hz, both achieved with the help of Display Stream Compression (DSC). Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly with all supported resolutions when the TV's input label is set to 'PC,' which is important for text clarity. Unfortunately, the TV can't display 1440p @ 240Hz natively with both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and instead displays a scaled 4k image. 1440p @ 120Hz works without issue. 144Hz doesn't work at any resolution, but the TV supports 240Hz at 4k, with DSC and 1080p.

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.

The Samsung QN900D has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four of its ports, which is great for connecting several devices that support 4k @ 120Hz or 240Hz. Due to the TV's One Connect box, the HDMI ports are limited to 40Gbps instead of the normal 48Gbps found on other HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports, but this won't cause any issues with any current source.

The TV itself only has two inputs: a USB-C port for service only and an input for the One Connect cable. All the audio/video and USB connections are housed on the external One Connect Box instead.

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 QN900D has an alright frequency response. It barely produces any bass, but the sound profile is well-balanced overall, and dialogue is clear. It still sounds pretty good at maximum volume, which is nice as the TV does get decently loud.

The TV's distortion performance is satisfactory. There's more distortion at max volume than at moderate volume levels, but it performs well overall.

The Samsung QN900D runs the 2024 version of the Tizen OS, and it's fast and easy to use. Unfortunately, there's a problem when switching the input label from 'PC' to anything else, which we've also seen on other Samsung models. The label will change but the TV is still stuck in 'PC', so you're limited to the features that are available in 'PC' mode. You can hit the home button or turn the TV on/off to fix this.

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 Samsung QN900D has a great selection of apps, so it's easy to find your favorite content. You can also cast content from your phone onto the TV or play videos from a USB stick.

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. You can use your voice to launch apps, switch inputs, ask for the weather and time, and adjust certain settings like the TV's brightness.

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.

• One Connect box (not shown)
• Short One Connect cable (8.6")
• Long One Connect cable (98")
• Power cable
• Remote
• Feet for One Connect box
• Mounting screws for the One Connect box
• Accessory clips
• Manuals