Samsung QN900F 8K  TV Review

The Samsung QN900F has very good peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough to bring out most bright specular highlights well, but the brightest content doesn't stand out as well as it could. The processing is also a bit hit-and-miss, and some scenes are much darker than they should be, like the Cityscape real scene test.

Our results above are with the TV set to its most accurate settings after calibration, with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Static' to preserve creative intent as much as possible. Below are the results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active,' which significantly increases the TV's luminance but makes the image less accurate.

• Hallway Lights: 1122 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 658 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 513 cd/m²

This TV gets brighter in HDR when you switch to Game Mode. The image processing also behaves differently, and some scenes track much higher than in the accurate mode.

Results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 1243 cd/m²
• Cityscape: 927 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 407 cd/m²

The Samsung QN900F gets incredibly bright in SDR. You can easily crank the max brightness to overcome glare in a bright room, and even in bright sports scenes, the brightness remains high.

The Samsung QN900F has good contrast. Local dimming is extremely effective at increasing contrast, resulting in deep blacks in most scenes. The native contrast is very low, though, so you'll see more light bleed in more difficult scenes.

The local dimming precision is very good overall. There's some noticeable haloing around bright parts of the scene or subtitles, due to the relatively large size of each dimming zone.

The backlight transitions are decent overall. It's a bit better than the step-up Samsung QN990F 8K, as the algorithms seem to have been tweaked a bit to push the brightness up a bit more as objects move between zones. This means the edge of fast-moving objects doesn't fade between zones, but there's still a noticeable trail behind fast-moving objects.

The overall dark scene experience is pretty similar in Game Mode, with no noticeable difference in contrast, zone transitions, or dimming precision.

The TV has okay black uniformity. There's some noticeable blooming around bright objects on a dark background, but there's no noticeable backlight bleed or cloudiness in darker areas of the screen. 

Local dimming can't be turned off on this TV, so the native black uniformity results were done with Local Dimming set to 'Low' and Shadow Detail to '1', with a uniformity image with an RGB value of {5,5,5} as black. In this mode, there's considerably more haloing and backlight glow, but you'll rarely encounter this with real content, if ever.

The Samsung QN900F has decent color volume. It easily displays the full range of colors in the BT.709 color space used by most SDR content. It can't display the full range of either the DCI-P3 or BT.2020 color spaces, though. It struggles a bit with greens and reds at any lightness.

The color volume in HDR is great. It displays darker saturated colors well thanks to its high contrast ratio. Bright colors are saturated and vibrant, and they're not washed out at high luminance levels.

The Samsung QN900F has excellent accuracy out of the box. The RGB balance is a bit patchy across the board, but there are no noticeable issues. The color temperature is a bit on the warm side, giving everything a slightly reddish tint, but it's not too noticeable. Gamma tracks well, but bright shades are a bit too bright.

Like most Samsung TVs, this one is very easy to calibrate, and the overall accuracy after calibration is superb. Gamma is nearly perfect, the white balance, color temperature, and color dE are also nearly perfect. The RGB balance is still a bit patchy, but there's nothing noticeable.

You can see our full calibration settings.

The color accuracy in HDR is good out of the box. The white balance is good, with some noticeable issues in midtones, but good brights and shadow details. The color temperature is very close to the ideal target. Color dE is just okay, with noticeable mapping errors across the board.

The color accuracy after calibration is great. The white balance and color dE both improved significantly, but there are still noticeable issues in both. Unfortunately, the color temperature increased a bit, giving it a slightly cooler look after calibration.

The PQ EOTF tracking on the Samsung QN900F 8k TV is great. Shadow details are muted just a bit, but near-blacks are displayed well and midtones look fantastic. There's barely any difference in brightness mapping with different content, and everything cuts off sharply at the TV's peak brightness. 

This TV does an okay job smoothing out low-quality content like most streaming sources. It removes some artifacts, but also removes some fine details in the process.

This TV has excellent sharpness processing when upscaling lower-resolution content. This is especially important because almost everything you watch on it will be upscaled.

The gradient handling on this TV is just okay. There's noticeable banding in every color, but it's especially bad in bright shades of blue.

The Samsung QN900F has very low input lag, ensuring a very responsive gaming experience. It upscales 1080p and 4k inputs with no additional lag, so gaming on consoles that don't support 8k feels responsive.

This TV supports most common formats and resolutions, up to a maximum of 165Hz with 1080p and 4k signals, or 60Hz with 8k signals. Unlike the step-up model, the Samsung QN990F 8K, it doesn't support 8k @ 120Hz. Chroma 444 is displayed properly with all supported resolutions, ensuring text is displayed properly when connected to a PC.

This TV works with all three variable refresh rate formats, and it works across an extremely wide range of refresh rates. It also works with sources that support Low-Framerate-Compensation (LFC), ensuring your games remain nearly tear-free even when your PC or console can't keep up with the action.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 165Hz with 4k or 1080p signals is good. Pixel transitions behave as expected, with longer transitions the more the pixel has to change. This means that scenes that remain at roughly the same brightness level look better than scenes that switch from dark to bright, for instance. There's very little overshoot or inverse ghosting.

Dropping down to 120Hz increases the CAD a bit, and motion is just okay. Most transitions are much slower, increasing the amount of blur you'll see between frames.

The CAD at 60Hz is sub-par, with most transitions taking much longer to complete than at 120Hz. Motion is blurry overall and very hard to make out, especially in darker parts of the scene.

The TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It supports 8k @ 60Hz as well, which is good for those with a PS5 Pro. Finally, the TV 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.

Due to the TV's relatively quick response time, there's some stutter when watching movies or TV shows, but it shouldn't bother you unless you're sensitive to it.

The TV automatically removes judder from all sources.

This TV has a great cinematic response time. There's very little overshoot, even in shadow details, but some transitions are oddly slow. This results in a very mixed bag in motion, with some parts of the scene looking much smoother than others, but it looks great overall.

The TV uses a combination of pulse-width modulation (PWM) and pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. It flickers at 120Hz in most modes, with a secondary 960Hz flicker in the Movie and Game modes.

This TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). Unfortunately, it's only supported at 60Hz on this TV.

There's an optional motion interpolation feature to clear up the appearance of motion. It can interpolate low frame rate content up to 120Hz, significantly improving the fluidity of motion, but this introduces significant artifacts. There's a noticeable halo effect around people in most scenes, but it over-softens the background.

The matte anti-reflective coating on the Samsung QN900F does an incredible job reducing the appearance of direct mirror-like reflections. They're barely noticeable, which is great if you have any lights or windows directly opposite the TV.

Unfortunately, the matte coating also results in increased black levels if you're in a bright room. Blacks look increasingly gray as the ambient light level increases.

Overall, this TV handles reflections well. Most direct reflections are barely visible and there are no diffraction artifacts like rainbow smearing. Bright lights are spread across the screen, though, which can be a bit distracting.

This TV has decent color saturation in a bright room. Low and mid-luminance colors look decent, but there's a great impact on bright colors, which lose saturation in a bright room.

The Samsung QN900F has an okay viewing angle. Colors start to wash out at about 30 degrees, which is okay for most rooms. There's a very noticeable red shift after that point, though.

The gray uniformity on this TV isn't very good. There are bright bands throughout the screen, and noticeable dirty screen effect in the center. The sides of the screen are also noticeably blue.

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 has great separation between colors, which helps with its color purity and its ability to display a wide range of colors.

The matte coating causes the pixels to look hazy. However, it's not noticeable with real content.

The Samsung QN900F supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four of its ports. It also supports ATSC 3.0 in North America, supporting over the air broadcasts up to 4k in supported markets.

Oddly, the HDMI ports on this TV report a maximum bandwidth of 40Gbps when checked with a Murideo Seven-G. This is unexpected, as usually only Samsung TVs that use the One Connect box are limited to 40Gbps. All other recent Samsung TVs that have their inputs on the TV support up to 48Gbps. We don't know why this TV is different, hopefully it's just a software bug that can be fixed.

This TV supports many audio formats, including all Dolby Digital options. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks. LPCM 7.1 isn't officially supported in the EDID, so it only works with sources that can override the EDID, like a PC. On other sources, it's limited to 5.1. Like the Samsung S95F OLED and most of Samsung's 4k lineup this year, Dolby Digital+ passthrough is limited to 5.1 channels instead of the full 7.1 support. 

Like all Samsung TVs, this TV doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the similar HDR10+.

The Samsung QN900F is a premium-looking TV. It has thicker bezels than Samsung's higher-end modes, like the Samsung QN990F, but it gives the TV a more uniform appearance similar to the Samsung The Frame Pro 2025. Samsung has also opted for two feet instead of a pedestal stand, which gives it a slightly less premium look but offers greater flexibility.

This TV uses two feet instead of the center-mounted pedestal stand found on most high-end Samsung TVs in 2025. The height of the feet can be adjusted to two different positions, and there are wide and narrow mounting points.

In the low position, the feet lift the screen 2.2" above the table, while the high position lifts it 3.1". Both positions are high enough that most soundbars fit in front of the TV without blocking the screen.

The footprint of the 65-inch stand in the narrow, high position shown here is 13.6" x 10.0".

The wide positions increases the width to 46.5".

The back of the TV looks more like Samsung's mid-range models, like the Samsung QN80F. There's a cutout near the side of the TV for the inputs, which is hard to reach if the TV is mounted close to the wall. There's a clip for the feet and tracks along the back to help with cable management.

The Samsung QN900F has great build quality. The bezels are made of metal and feel premium, but the rest of it is mostly made of plastic, including the feet. It's well made overall, with no noticeable issues or concerns.

The Samsung QN900F ships with the 2025 version of the Tizen OS, which is quick and easy to use.

Like most TVs on the market, it has ads throughout its interface, and although you can disable targeted ads, this doesn't change the number of ads you'll see it just makes them less personalized.

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.

• Power cable
• Remote control
• Cable management clip
• Plastic covers
• User guides

The Samsung QN900F has an okay frequency response. There's an odd dip in the middle treble that impacts the clarity of dialogue a bit, but it's not too bad. It doesn't get very loud, though, and like most TVs there's no deep bass.