Samsung QN90C/QN90CD QLED TV Review

The Samsung QN90C has a premium design that looks great in any setting. The slim hexagonal stand looks great and takes up very little space. The bezels are incredibly thin, which helps the TV to blend into your surroundings.

This TV isn't currently part of our accelerated longevity test, but its predecessor, the Samsung QN90B QLED, is.

The stand is thin and doesn't take up much space. Unfortunately, it doesn't support the TV well, as it wobbles a lot.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 15.4" x 10.6". The stand lifts the TV about 2.95" above the table, so most soundbars fit in front of the TV without blocking the screen.

The back of the TV looks great, with a nice textured design to the back panel. There are grooves along the back to help with cable management. The inputs are hard to access, especially if you wall-mount the TV. You can mount it to any standard VESA mount, and it's also compatible with Samsung's Slim Fit Wall-Mount.

The Samsung QN90C has great build quality. It's made of a mixture of metal and premium plastic, and it feels nicely built overall. The stand isn't very sturdy, though, and the back panel has a lot of flex to it. There's also a gap between the back panel and the inputs that shouldn't be there; this could indicate a quality control issue, but won't likely cause any issues long term.

Thanks to its Mini LED local dimming feature, the Samsung QN90C has excellent contrast. It results in very deep blacks in a dark room, even when bright highlights are visible on the screen. The native contrast with local dimming disabled is very low, but this isn't an issue since you can only disable it from the service menu. If you'd like something with even better contrast than this, check out the Sony X95L or even consider an OLED TV like the Samsung S90C OLED.

There's some noticeable blooming around bright highlights and subtitles in dark scenes, but it still looks great. Samsung's dimming algorithms spread bright lights across more dimming zones than necessary, so it's not as harsh as other TVs.

Unfortunately, the algorithms that control the local dimming feature can't quite keep up with fast content, so zone transitions are noticeable. When bright highlights move quickly across the screen, the leading edge is darker, as the TV doesn't turn zones on quickly enough. There's also a bright trailing halo behind fast-moving objects. The higher-end model in Samsung's lineup, the Samsung QN95C QLED, has nearly double the number of dimming zones. Zone transitions are much smoother on that model, but some of the issues from this model are also noticeable on that one.

• Local dimming 'Low'
• Local dimming 'High'

Unfortunately, the Samsung QN90C looks a bit worse overall in 'Game' mode. There's more noticeable blooming around bright highlights, and zone transitions are a bit more noticeable.

The Samsung QN90C has amazing peak brightness in HDR. Bright specular highlights stand out incredibly well, even in difficult scenes with a high APL (Average Picture Level). Although it doesn't get quite as bright as the Samsung QN90B QLED, it tracks the PQ EOTF better, and most HDR content looks better and more natural on the QN90C.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max
• Color Tone: Warm2
• HDR Tone Mapping: Static
• Local Dimming: High

Setting HDR Tone Mapping to 'Static' delivers the most natural image, closest to the content creator's intent. If you prefer a brighter image, setting it to 'Active' results in brighter highlights, and most content looks brighter, closer to the Samsung QN90B QLED, but the peak brightness is the same.

Scene	Brightness	Photo
Hallway Lights	1299 cd/m²
Yellow Skyscraper	1056 cd/m²
Landscape Pool	360 cd/m²

The peak brightness with most test slides is about the same in 'Game' mode as it is in 'Movie' mode.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: Game
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max
• Local Dimming: High
• Color Tone: Warm2
• HDR10+ Gaming:: Off
• Game HDR: Basic

With the 'FILMMAKER' and 'Movie' modes in HDR, the Samsung QN90C has superb PQ EOTF tracking, ensuring that most content displays at the correct brightness level. There's a sharp cutoff near the TV's peak brightness; this results in some clipping in really bright scenes. Setting the HDR Tone Mapping setting to 'Active' noticeably increases the brightness of most scenes, but doesn't change the overall peak brightness of the TV ('Movie' Mode, 'FILMMAKER' Mode).

Unlike some previous Samsung TVs, there's no noticeable difference in PQ EOTF tracking with different test window sizes. This means that you'll enjoy an accurate image when watching HDR content, and Samsung isn't optimizing their TVs for reviewers.

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The Samsung QN90C has superb peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare even in extremely bright rooms with lots of natural light. Large, bright scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's automatic brightness limiter, but it's still bright enough to overcome glare, and this isn't noticeable with most content.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: Max
• Local Dimming: High
• Color Tone: Warm2

The Samsung QN90C has a great color gamut. It can display almost the entire range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space, so most HDR content is vivid and lifelike. It has just okay coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, though, and it has worse tone mapping in Rec. 2020, especially when displaying saturated greens.

The color volume of this TV is amazing. Colors are bright and vibrant and stand out well against bright whites. Dark, saturated colors are also displayed well, thanks to its high contrast ratio.

Before calibration, this TV has impressive accuracy in SDR. The white balance is excellent, with no noticeable issues in any shade of gray. The color accuracy is good, but saturated blues and reds are noticeably off. Finally, gamma is a bit high, averaging closer to 2.4 even when set to '2.2', which means that most content is a bit darker than it should be for a moderately lit room.

The calibration system is a bit difficult to adjust. The white balance and gamma are nearly perfect after calibration, but the color accuracy is still slightly off, and saturated reds are slightly inaccurate, but not noticeably so.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

The Samsung QN90C has good gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are slightly darker than the center, and there are some darker spots throughout the center of the screen. It still looks good when watching sports or browsing the web, though. Near-black uniformity is much better, with no significant issues in dark scenes.

This TV's black uniformity is excellent. It looks bad with local dimming disabled, but you can only do that from the service menu, so most people will never see this. With local dimming on, dark areas of the screen are deep and uniform, but there's some distracting blooming around the test cross. If you want a QLED TV with better black uniformity than this, check out the TCL QM8/QM850G QLED.

The Samsung QN90C has a decent viewing angle. The image remains consistent at a moderate angle, but if you move too far off-center, colors fade, and the screen looks washed out. It's good enough for a moderately wide seating arrangement, as you can move around the room without the image degrading. Due to the switch from VA panels to an ADS (IPS-like) panel, the 2023 QN90-Series TVs no longer feature an ultra-wide viewing angle layer.

This TV has superb reflection handling. The glossy coating looks great and significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections. Since Samsung switched their 90-Series TVs to ADS (IPS-like) panels, there's no ultra-wide viewing angle layer, so the rainbow distortion that was noticeable on other TVs, like the Samsung QN90B QLED, is no longer an issue.

Gradients in HDR look great for the most part, but there are a few noticeable issues, especially in bright shades of white and blue.

Unfortunately, Samsung's Neural Quantum Processor 4k is mediocre at smoothing out gradients. Some fine details are lost, and there's still significant macro-blocking, especially in darker areas. If you care about low-quality content smoothing, the Sony X93L offers similar picture quality overall but much better processing.

This TV uses an ADS-type panel, which is very similar to the more commonly known IPS.

The Samsung QN90C has a great response time, resulting in fairly clear motion when gaming or watching sports. There's some blur around fast-moving objects but almost no overshoot that could result in inverse ghosting.

Unfortunately, the backlight isn't flicker-free, as Samsung uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight. The exact flicker frequency varies between picture modes and with certain settings. In 'Movie' mode, with the backlight set between '48' and the max of '50', the backlight flickers at 120Hz. However, it increases to 960Hz with a backlight setting below '48'. The flicker frequency drops to 120Hz in the 'Dynamic' mode with a backlight above 25, in 'Standard' mode above 21, and in 'Eco' mode above 25. If you're using it as a PC monitor, it flickers at 120Hz in both 'Entertain' and 'Graphic' modes and flickers at 960Hz in 'Game' mode below 48. Between 48-50, it's flicker-free in 'Game' mode, and it always flickers at 960Hz with the variable refresh rate feature enabled in 'Game' mode from a PC.

This TV 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.

This TV has a feature to increase the frame rate of low frame-rate content like movies and TV shows. It's okay overall on this TV, but it looks best in slow-paced scenes. Like most TVs, it doesn't look as good in busy scenes with a lot of action, and there are a lot of artifacts.

Due to the quick pixel response time, 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, but those features create other issues, so there's no perfect solution.

This TV can remove judder from any source; however, for most external sources, you have to set Picture Clarity to 'Auto' or 'Custom' with both sliders at 0 to remove judder without adding any motion interpolation.

The Samsung QN90C is compatible with all three variable refresh rate formats, and it works across a very wide refresh rate range, ensuring your games remain nearly tear-free even when your system can't keep up with the action. Note that the 43-inch and 50-inch models have a max refresh rate of 144Hz. If you want a 144Hz refresh rate on a larger model, all sizes of the Samsung QN95C QLED support a 144Hz refresh rate.

The Samsung QN90C has fantastic low input lag in 'Game' Mode. This results in a very responsive gaming experience with almost no noticeable delay between your actions and what you see on-screen.

This TV supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 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 43 and 50-inch models also support up to 4k @ 144Hz; this higher refresh rate isn't supported on the larger sizes, even when forced.

This TV can take full advantage of the PS5.

This TV can take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X systems.

The Samsung QN90C supports the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 on all four HDMI ports, giving you the flexibility to take full advantage of multiple high-bandwidth devices, like if you own both new-gen consoles. Unfortunately, Samsung still doesn't support Dolby Vision; however, it supports HDR10+ instead, which is very similar overall but not as widely supported.

This TV supports eARC, which lets it pass uncompressed high-quality audio from a connected source to your soundbar or home theater system without sacrificing audio quality. Sadly, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many UHD Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

The Samsung QN90 has an okay frequency response. Like most TVs, there's almost no thump or rumble in its bass, so if you enjoy explosions and action movies, even a basic external soundbar or home theater system with a dedicated subwoofer delivers better sound. The sound profile is well-balanced above its low-frequency extension at moderate listening levels, meaning that dialogue is clear and easy to understand. Unfortunately, although it gets fairly loud, there's significant compression at max volume, especially in the mid-to-high treble range.

Overall, the distortion handling of this TV is good. There's little audible distortion at moderate listening levels, and it doesn't increase noticeably even at max volume.

The Samsung QN90C runs the 2023 version of Tizen OS, which is fast and easy to use. The Smart Hub interface is smooth and has many advanced options, and it's easy 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. There are a few privacy-related options, so you can limit things like ad-tracking, but this doesn't reduce the number of ads you see, as it just makes them less personalized.

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 very slim and compact and is easy to use. It 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 controls are on the bottom bezel of the TV near the right corner. There's a single button to power the TV on/off and change channels, volume, and inputs.

• Remote
• Power cable
• Documentation