Expert assessment
Advantages
- Fantastic detail
- Great color and contrast
- Upscalet 4K and lower resolution content
- One Connect breakout box
- Very thin profile
cons
- Some problems with backlight
- Audio lacks thump
Our verdict
Samsung’s latest 8K TV doesn’t come cheap, but it delivers fantastic picture quality, whether it’s upscaling the 4K content you’re likely to see in the real world to the amazing native 8K content that will blow your mind of the details.
Price at review
From $4,999 | Model rated $6,299.99
Best prices today: Samsung QN900C 8K TV
![Walmart electronics](https://idg-live.getsquirrel.co/assets/images/retailers/11354_267133b099d72294fbae78825a8e7be3.png)
$5569
$5,897.99
![Best Buy](https://www.techadvisor.com/wp-content/themes/idg-base-theme/dist/static/img/best-buy-logo.png)
$5899.99
$6299.99
Why go for an expensive 8K TV like Samsung’s QN900C when great 4K TVs cost so much less? Detail, my friends, detail.
While true 8K content remains rare, it seems spectacular on this television. And the lower resolution content you encounter more often on a daily basis appears more detailed because of this Samsung’s intelligent upscaling. Yes, the QN900C is expensive, but products with the latest technology always are.
Samsung QN900C image quality
The reproduction of fine details is by far the most striking strength of the Samsung QN900C. And it’s not just with 8K content, which looks great, but also when upscaling content in 4K and lower resolutions, which you’ll see a lot more often.
There is a noticeable increase in sharpness in both patterns and the edges of upscaled objects. Four times the number of pixels helps with that, but it also takes algorithmic expertise – not to mention the more than 2000 nits of peak brightness the QN900C is capable of.
Note: If you want to watch 8K UHD in the store, don’t rely on YouTube. Much of the 8K content on that service is so compressed that the extra detail that 8K UHD can provide is lost. I suggest you download some 8K files, put them on a USB stick and let a vendor play them for you.
![](https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Samsung-QN900C-hero-a.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1200)
Aside from the superior detail, the color is great – accurate and saturated thanks to the layer of quantum dots that filter the entire backlight. Contrast is also excellent for an LED-backlit LCD TV, thanks to the very grainy mini-LEDs in the backlight. Where the QN900C runs into problems is some of its formulas for said backlighting. Artifacts didn’t show up very often with normal footage, but there was a noticeable lag when adjusting brightness with some transitions between differently lit scenes. The scene would start out darker and brighten after a second or two.
We also noticed some pulsating gray blocks on lighter backgrounds in the Spears & Munsil tests. In addition, the brightness adjustment was everywhere when switching levels with a white block at 15 percent opacity on a black background.
In addition, the cascading star field in the same test suite looked like it was being consumed from the center by a black nebula. That’s not the norm.
Note that this isn’t a one-off for the QN900C – we’ve seen them on Samsung TVs before. However, as I said, they very rarely affect real world material. Very rarely actually.
While true 8K content remains rare, it seems spectacular on this television
While the backlight experienced issues during stress testing, its granularity also minimized the highlighting and brightening of bright objects on a black or dark background. Indeed, the QN900C rendered Sony’s Las Vegas night sky contrast video, as well as every non-OLED TV I’ve tested – better than anything but its Samsung 8K predecessors.
In addition, real-world material was rendered with a stunning lack of shimmer, moiré, and judder. Kudos to Samsung on those fronts. The only TVs I’ve seen with such flawless picture processing are the high-end 4K OLEDs from Sony and LG.
Viewing angles are exceptionally wide, glare is minimal, and screen uniformity is excellent too. By most stats, the QN900C delivers a fantastic picture.
Samsung QN900C design, features and specifications
For this review, Samsung sent over the rather massive 75-inch version of the QN900C, which weighs around 31kg. You will need a sturdy mounting bracket (VESA 400 x 400) for this puppy and make sure the mount is anchored to studs. Smaller, lighter and larger, heavier configurations are also available.
You need a second person to operate this TV, even if you don’t hang it on the wall. The kickstand adds another 12kg to the 75-inch model and I neglected to grab a buddy. I’m sorry Samsung.
Most of the TV’s weight can be attributed to the glass in the expansive panel. The TV’s power supply, most of the electronics and all but one of the ports are housed in Samsung’s One Connect breakout box, allowing the QN900C to be extreme thin at 0.6 inches. The only port on the TV itself is the built-in socket for the single cable that goes to the One Connect box.
The screen itself is a 10-bit, 8K UHD (7680 x 4320 pixels) panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate (up to 144 Hz for games), with quantum dots and full-array mini-LED backlighting. Using a zone counter, we counted just south of 2,000 zones. That’s a lot.
![](https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Samsung-QN900C-one-connect.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1200)
The One Connect breakout box’s ports consist of four HDMI 2.1, coaxial for the TV’s ATSC 3.0 tuners or a cable/satellite TV connection, wired Ethernet, three USB ports, S/PDIF optical audio output and an EX-Link (RS-232C) port for system integration. There is a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) adapter on board and a Bluetooth 5.2 radio.
The QN900C supports HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG high dynamic range content, but Samsung is still omitting dynamic metadata Dolby Vision support. HDR10+ is the equivalent, so it’s no big deal – most HDR content streams contain both protocols. Dolby Atmos and Samsung’s own OTS Pro audio (Object Tracking Sound) are also supported, along with older Dolby audio standards.
People who own a Samsung soundbar that supports the company’s Q-Symphony technology will appreciate that this TV supports the same. Q-Symphony combines the TV’s own speakers with those in the soundbar to deliver a better audio experience than any product alone can deliver.
Audio is crisp and clear and the QN900C supports Bluetooth headsets (with delay compensation). Given the presence of eight fans on the back of the unit and 90 watts RMS of amplifier power, I expected more thump. There’s a bit of bass, but it’s really all less impressive frequencies above 150 Hz. A 100 Hz slider is available on the graphic EQ, but increasing it had no effect.
You won’t necessarily want to improve the QN900C’s audio out of the box, but I can see most users eventually wanting to upgrade to something with more low-end.
I’d like to see Samsung tweak the backlight intelligence to eliminate the lag
Buyers also get Samsung’s usual software perks, including Ambient Mode that displays an image of the wall surrounding the TV that virtually makes it disappear; Art Mode, which lets you display artwork on the TV when you’re not using it, and Samsung’s Gaming Hub, which lets you stream video games to the TV.
You can control the TV with voice commands (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung’s own Bixby are supported), and the TV can work as a full-featured smart home hub using the SmartThings platform. FreeSync Premium Pro, auto-low latency mode and variable refresh rate are all available for gaming, as well as a dedicated ultra-wide gaming mode.
An easily navigable channel guide with favourites, schedule and record/time-shift (using USB storage) is provided. And, as with almost all TV providers these days, there’s a wide variety of free curated content available with Samsung TV Plus.
Samsung QN900C user interface and remote control
If you’ve read any of my previous reviews of Samsung’s TVs, you’ve probably gathered that I’m not a huge fan of the Smart Hub interface. It presents content well enough, but the design is fragmented, as well as inefficient and somewhat intrusive compared to the competition.
Samsung made some improvements to SmartHub in 2023. After double-clicking to get to the settings, you can now change some directly from the icons on the bottom row, although some of them lead to other dialog boxes. Unfortunately, the descriptions of some settings are truncated in the pop-up balloons.
![](https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Samsung-QN900C-remote.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1200)
Samsung’s rechargeable voice remote, on the other hand, remains one of my favorites for the feel in my hand and basic ergonomics. The former number/color button is now a number/color/settings button on the latest TM2360E model. That means you can Finally enter the TV’s settings without having to scroll through two other menus.
The lack of dedicated transport controls is still a bit of a shame, and it would be great if Samsung replaced one of the ad hotkeys with one dedicated settings button, but this is progress.
Using voice commands allows you to skip most of the button presses, but that’s not my preferred method of TV control. When I watch TV in passive mode, I prefer to listen rather than talk.
Price, availability and verdict
The QN900C starts from $4,999 / £4,799 and comes in 65, 75 and 85-inch models. In the US you can get it from Samsung, Best Buy and walmart. UK readers can get it from Samsung, Amazon And Curries.
To see how rivals compare, check out Tech Advisor’s charts of the best TVs and the best Samsung TVs.
In terms of image quality, the QN900C delivers, and then some. The detail is spectacular with 8K content and the upscaling adds to both the 4K UHD and 1080p experiences. There’s tons of peak brightness, the color is gorgeous, the contrast as good as it gets for LED TVs, and the image processing is top notch. All praise aside, I’d like to see Samsung tweak the backlight intelligence to eliminate the lag and other issues I encountered.
As for the remote control and interface, many satisfied Samsung users wonder what I’m talking about. Some would agree with me, but the picayune interface issues shouldn’t distract you from what constitutes a top-five TV. I just think Samsung could do better.
This article is localized to Tech Advisor and was originally written by Jon Jacobi at TechHive.
Specifications
- Model tested 75in
- Screen sizes: 65-, 75-, 85in
- Neo QLED display technology
- Resolution: 7,680 x 4,320
- HDMI: x4
- HDR Support: HDR10+, HDR10, HLG,
- Tizen smart platform
- 6.2.4 sound system with Dolby Atmos
- Dimensions (with stand): 1654.8 x 1016.9 x 286.4 mm
- Weight: 43kg