Samsung QN90B QLED TV Review

The Samsung QN90B has a very modern, sleek design, with incredibly thin bezels and a slim stand. The overall design looks very similar to the Samsung QN90A QLED, and the heavy central stand looks great and takes up very little space.

The center-mounted stand is quite heavy but small, so it doesn't take up a lot of space on your table. Due to the relatively small size of the stand, the TV tends to wobble easily.

Footprint of the stand on the 65 inch model: 13.3" x 11.2". The stand lifts the TV about 2.5 inches above the surface of your table, so most soundbars fit in front of it without blocking the screen.

The back of the TV is mainly plastic, with fine horizontal etched lines that give off a brushed aluminum look. There are horizontal channels running the full width of the TV that lead to similar channels in the stand, which helps with cable management. Unlike the Samsung QN95B QLED, which uses an external input box known as the One Connect box, the inputs are inset into the back of the TV. Unfortunately, they're difficult to access if you wall-mount the TV with a fixed bracket.

The Samsung QN90B has fantastic build quality. The base is metal and quite solid, and the materials used feel premium. The back panel is mainly plastic, and it flexes easily, but this isn't unusual and doesn't cause any issues. The stand is extremely heavy, but due to its small size it doesn't support the TV very well, and it wobbles easily.

The Samsung QN90B has great contrast, with deep blacks in a dark room. The native contrast is a bit low; it's caused by Samsung's wide viewing angle layer, which reduces contrast but improves the viewing angle. With local dimming on 'High', the contrast ratio is extremely high, better even than the Hisense U8H.

Unlike most other brands, the local dimming feature can't be disabled from the picture settings menu. The native contrast is measured on Samsung TVs by disabling local dimming in PC mode through the service menu and then changing the input label to 'PC' for this measurement only.

Unfortunately, like most Samsung TVs, the local dimming feature performs worse overall in 'Game' Mode. The overall performance is pretty similar, but the TV seems to be spreading highlights out over a greater number of zones, so there's a bit more noticeable blooming. The processing is also slightly slower, so zone transitions are more noticeable. However, it's mainly due to the increased blooming. On the other hand, shadow details are a bit better, and there's less black crush overall.

The Samsung QN90B has fantastic peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in any room, even if you have a lot of windows or lights. Unfortunately, large bright scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's Automatic Brightness limiter (ABL).

These measurements are after calibration, in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with Backlight set to max, Local Dimming on 'High', and the Color Tone set to 'Warm2'. This is also about as bright as the TV can get.

The Samsung QN90B is exceptionally bright in HDR. Small specular highlights are incredibly bright, so fine details stand out in any scene. Large, bright scenes are significantly dimmer, but they're still bright enough for a good HDR experience. The brightness of the display doesn't fade at all over time, which is great. Small and medium-sized highlights are brighter than the Hisense U8H, but it also has more aggressive ABL, so full field bright scenes are brighter on the U8H.

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'.

If you want to make HDR even brighter, as seen in this EOTF, then set Contrast Enhancer to 'High' and ST.2084 to 'Max'. These settings result in considerably brighter scenes, but the overall peak brightness of the TV is the same. The 'Dynamic' Picture Mode is even brighter, reaching a momentary peak brightness of 3,126 cd/m² with a 10% window, but it can't maintain those brightness levels, and the brightness decreases to 440 cd/m² after a few seconds

Highlights in dark scenes are about almost as bright in 'Game' Mode as in 'Movie' Mode, but unfortunately, most real content isn't as bright. It also doesn't track the PQ EOTF as well, meaning most scenes are displayed significantly brighter than they should be, and there's a steeper roll-off near the TV's peak brightness.

These measurements are with the same settings as the HDR Brightness box, but with Dynamic Black Equalizer set to 'Max', HDR 10+ GAMING set to 'Basic', and Game HDR disabled. Enabling Game HDR improves the PQ EOTF tracking, but most scenes are still brighter than they should be.

Unfortunately, the Samsung QN90B QLED doesn't track the PQ EOTF properly, and most scenes appear significantly brighter than the content creator intended. There's also a very sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness, which causes bright white highlights to clip, so fine details are lost. It also behaves differently with different content, as content mastered at 4,000 cd/m² starts to roll off at lower peak brightness, as the TV's tone mapping kicks in earlier than with 1,000 and 600 cd/m² content.

There's some concern that some Samsung TVs detect when they're being calibrated or tested for a review and adjust the output to be more accurate. We measured the PQ EOTF with different window sizes and found that although it tracks the PQ EOTF accurately with more standard window sizes, it doesn't track accurately with real content.

PQ EOTF charts with different window sizes:

• 2%
• 5%
• 9%
• 10%
• 18%
• 25%

The Samsung QN90B has an excellent color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, so most HDR content looks vivid and lifelike. It has decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, and the tone mapping is good, ensuring fine details are preserved and easy to see in areas of vibrant, saturated color.

The Samsung QN90B has fantastic color volume. Most colors are displayed well at various brightness levels, and colors are just as bright as pure white. Thanks to its high contrast ratio, dark saturated colors are displayed well.

The Samsung QN90B has good accuracy out of the box. Colors have excellent accuracy overall, except for saturated cyan, which is a bit off. The white balance is okay, but brighter shades of gray are off. Gamma is very close to the 2.2 target for a dark room, but bright scenes are a bit too bright. Finally, the color temperature is slightly warm, but it's not enough to be noticeable.

After calibration, the Samsung QN90B has fantastic accuracy. There are no remaining noticeable issues with the white balance, and except for pure blues, colors are displayed accurately. Gamma is slightly better, and the color temperature is much closer to the 6500K calibration target.

You can see our recommended settings here.

The Samsung QN90B has decent gray uniformity overall. There are a few patchy spots near the center, which is a bit distracting when watching sports. The sides of the screen are also a bit darker than the center, but this isn't very noticeable with normal content. Gray uniformity in near-black scenes is much better, with no noticeable issues.

The Samsung QN90B has good black uniformity. With Local Dimming disabled from the service menu, the screen is a bit cloudy throughout, but there's no backlight bleed. With this feature on 'High', there are no significant issues in dark scenes. There's a bit of blooming around bright objects in dark scenes, but it's not very noticeable.

The Samsung QN90B has a good viewing angle. It's great if you have a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on, as the image remains accurate at an angle. The image fades a bit at a wide angle, but except for blues, there's very little color shift. Note that the 43 inch and 50 inch models lack Samsung's Ultra Viewing Angle Layer, so they have a worse viewing angle.

The Samsung QN90B has superb reflection handling. The glossy coating significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections, so glare isn't as distracting. Sadly, like other TVs with the Ultra Viewing Angle layer, there's a rainbow-like effect that scatters across the screen, but the 43 and 50-inch models don't have this layer and don't have this rainbow-like issue, as you can see here.

The Samsung QN90B uses a BGR sub-pixel layout, which negatively impacts how it displays text when using the TV as a PC monitor. You can read more about that here. The pixels look a bit blurry due to the 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer.

480p content, like DVDs, is upscaled well, with no issues at all.

720p content, including most cable TV channels, looks great.

1080p Blu-rays and other content is upscaled well and looks almost as good as native 4k content.

Native 4k content is displayed perfectly, with no dithering or other subpixel artifacts.

This is a 4k TV; it can't accept or display an 8k signal.

The Samsung QN90B has an excellent pixel response time. Most transitions are extremely quick, resulting in a very short blur trail behind fast-moving objects. There's some noticeable persistence blur, and there's overshoot in dark transitions, which causes a bit of inverse ghosting, but it's not very noticeable.

The Samsung QN90B uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, and the flicker frequency varies between picture modes and with certain settings. In 'Movie' mode, with the backlight set between '46' and the max of '50', the backlight flickers at 120Hz. However, it increases to 960Hz with a backlight setting below '46'. The flicker frequency drops to 120Hz in the 'Dynamic', 'Natural', 'Standard', and 'Filmmaker' Picture Modes, or if you enable the Game Mode or Picture Clarity settings. This low flicker frequency can cause headaches if you're sensitive to flicker, and it also causes image duplications with 60Hz content.

The Samsung QN90B has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion or BFI. This feature reduces blur caused by the TV's fast response time, otherwise known as persistence blur. It works at both 60Hz and 120Hz, but the timing is a bit off, causing a duplicated image. Note that our scoring only reflects the range of flicker frequency and not how well the BFI performs.

The Samsung QN90B has a feature to increase the frame rate of low frame rate content up to 120Hz. It's okay overall on this TV, but it looks best in slow-paced scenes. In busy scenes with a lot of action, it doesn't look very good, and there are a lot of artifacts. Unlike some TVs, which stop interpolating when they can't keep up, this one keeps going, so there are more and more artifacts in busy scenes.

Due to the quick pixel response time of the Samsung QN90B QLED, low frame rate content, like movies, appears to stutter. It's mainly noticeable in slow panning shots. If this bothers you, the optional motion interpolation or backlight strobing features can help with this, but those features create other issues, so there's no perfect solution.

The Samsung QN90B automatically removes judder from all sources; no additional settings are needed. It's great for watching movies, as motion appears smooth.

The Samsung QN90B is compatible with all three variable refresh rate formats, and it works across a very wide refresh rate range. Low-frame rate compensation (LFC) automatically engages at low refresh rates, multiplying frames to ensure a tear-free gaming experience even at very low frame rates. Note that the 43 inch and 50 inch models have a max refresh rate of 144Hz.

The Samsung QN90B has fantastic low input lag in 'Game' Mode. This results in a very responsive gaming experience, ensuring your actions are in-sync with what you see on screen. If you're a fan of motion interpolation, Samsung's 'Game Motion Plus' feature allows you to interpolate low frame rate games, improving motion clarity without adding much input lag. With the 'Game Motion Plus' settings at max, there's 24.4ms of input lag, which is higher than with the setting disabled, but it's still good for casual gamers.

The Samsung QN90B supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. Except for 1440p @ 120Hz, all supported formats display chroma 4:4:4 signals properly, which is essential for clear text from a PC. 4k @ 120Hz signals are displayed properly, with no resolution-halving or other issues.

The Samsung QN90B is fully compatible with the PS5 and Xbox Series X; there are no issues. It also works with Sony's variable refresh rate feature on the PS5.

Unlike the 2021 Samsung TVs, the Samsung QN90B supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four HDMI ports. It's great, as it gives you the flexibility to connect multiple high-bandwidth devices, like if you have both the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Unfortunately, Samsung still doesn't support Dolby Vision. However, it supports HDR10+ instead, which is very similar overall but not as widely supported.

The Samsung QN90B 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 any DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many UHD Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks. If you want a TV that supports DTS, then check out the Sony X90K.

The Samsung QN90B has a decent frequency response. The low-frequency extension, or LFE, is high, so it can't produce much thump or rumble, but this is normal for TVs. The frequency response above the LFE is well-balanced at moderate listening levels. However, there's a noticeable dip in the treble range at max volume, making dialogue harder to understand. The Samsung QN90B has an optional room correction feature, which was enabled for these measurements.

The Samsung QN90B has decent distortion performance. There's very little harmonic distortion in the treble range at a moderate listening level, but it increases a bit at max volume.

The 2022 version of Tizen OS 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. They're not always present, though, and there weren't any when we were taking photos of the interface.

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. It's also compatible with Google Duo, which supports video calls with up to 32 people by connecting a webcam to the TV.

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 QN90B 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.

• Power cable
• Remote control
• User guide