The Samsung QN990F is the company’s new flagship 8K TV, and as you would normally expect from the best TVs, it brings a range of upgrades over its predecessor, the Samsung QN900D.
The biggest news about the Samsung QN990F is its Wireless One Connect Box, a reimagined version of the One Connect Box used by previous Samsung TVs.
Like the One Connect, this new version lets you link sources directly to an external box that can be hidden away, and that routes video and audio to the display, but in this case over a wireless connection that supports 8K 120Hz transmission from up to a 10-meter distance.
What’s most impressive about the QN990F with its Wireless One Connect Box is that the picture looks spectacularly detailed, even without using a hard-wired connection. Also, the wireless connection is robust, with no picture or sound dropouts occurring at all during the two-plus hours I was able to test it out at a special event.
I’ll get into the details of those tests, along with my subjective impressions of the QN990F, a bit further down, but let’s first discuss the other key features of Samsung’s flagship 8K TV.
Glare-free 8K
Aside from the wireless connection, the QN990F’s other headline feature is glare-free technology, a matte finish to eliminate screen reflections that was first introduced on last year’s Samsung S95D OLED TV and can also be found on the new Samsung S95F OLED, QN90F, and The Frame Pro mini-LED TVs.
Samsung’s QN990F series is available in 65-, 75-, 85-, and 98-inch screen sizes, with prices ranging from $5,499 to $39,999. Overall, prices for Samsung’s flagship 8K TVs have crept upward from 2024, though the new Wireless One Connect Box should partially account for the price rise.
The QN990F uses a new NQ8 AI Gen3 processor and has a range of AI picture-enhancing features including AI Upscaling Pro to fill out the TV’s 33 million-plus pixels when displaying 4K or lower-res content, Auto HDR Remastering Pro, and a new AI Gamma setting that taps the TV’s built-in light sensor to dynamically adjust the gamma curve so shadow details don’t get crushed when viewing in brighter rooms.
For gaming, the QN990F supports both 8K at 120Hz and 4K at 240Hz. Similar to other Samsung TVs, it has Samsung’s Gaming Hub for cloud-based gaming, with Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now, Luna, and other popular apps available.
Hands-on with the QN990F
I was able to spend enough time with the Samsung QN990F to get a full set of measurements and also do a fair amount of subjective testing.
Starting with brightness, the QN990F hit 1,680 nits HDR peak (10% window) and 394 nits fullscreen brightness in Movie mode. In Standard mode, it measured 1,100 nits peak and 440 nits for fullscreen. The picture was noticeably dimmer in Filmmaker Mode, so I used Movie for all of my subjective viewing.
The QN990F’s color space coverage measured 93.9% for UHDA-P3 and 72.8% for BT.2020. Those results are about the same as what I measured on last year’s flagship 8K Samsung QN900D, though that model’s peak and fullscreen brightness numbers were higher than what I measured on the QN990F.
Input lag measured in Game mode with a Bodnar HDMI Input Lag Tester at 4K 60Hz was 36.5ms, which is a significantly higher level than normal for a Samsung TV and is presumably due to latency caused by the wireless connection from the new One Connect Box.
When I asked Samsung about this result, I was told that my regular testing method doesn’t apply for 8K TVs, though colleague James Davidson got exactly the same result when testing the Wireless One Connect Box with a 4K Samsung The Frame Pro TV. (Also, I measured input lag on last year’s equally-8K QN900D at 10.9ms.)
Why bother with an 8K TV test if you don’t get to watch actual 8K video? Samsung supplied a USB drive with 8K clips for my test, and the 8K images were stunningly detailed and lifelike.
In a clip of a rock climber scaling a mountain, I could see the fine drops of perspiration on her skin even when sitting 10-12 feet away from the TV’s 85-inch screen.
8K clips streamed from YouTube also looked great on the QN990F, though I watched in 4K since I was unable to play them at 8K resolution – the screen would simply black out when I selected the 4320p option in the playback menu.
This could have been a Wi-Fi bandwidth issue, but that’s something I wasn’t able to confirm during my test.
Otherwise, the Samsung QN990F’s picture was fantastic: colors looked rich and detailed, the contrast was strong, and I only saw the faintest traces of backlight blooming (the QN990F’s mini-LED backlight provides twice as many local dimming zones as its predecessor, according to Samsung).
Off-axis uniformity was also excellent, with the picture retaining contrast levels and color saturation when viewed from off-center seats.
There was a degree of both motion blur and judder even in Filmmaker Mode when I viewed motion-handling torture test clips like the beginning of chapter three in the James Bond film No Time to Die, but this could be fixed by setting the controls for both at a low level in the Motion menu.
My only picture quality concern with the QN990F is the same one I had with the Samsung S95F OLED TV, which I also had brief hands-on time with during my visit.
When viewing in Filmmaker Mode with the room’s overhead lights turned on, the TV’s matte screen coating completely eliminated screen glare, but the black level in images was elevated and shadow detail was lost, giving the picture a flat quality.
The solution to this problem was to use a different picture mode. Selecting Movie bumped up the level of visible shadow detail, and the TV’s AI Picture mode did an even better all-around job, though it also introduced the color shifting that I mentioned earlier.
The issue here is that Filmmaker Mode is something viewers depend on to see accurate, director-approved pictures, and from what I could tell during my hands-on test, it’s not a good match with the QN990F’s glare-free screen.
Samsung’s new flagship 8K TV features a 6.2.4-channel, 90W built-in speaker array and it sounded great during my test, with crystal-clear dialogue and good bass in action scenes from movies.
Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound (OTS) Pro processing ensured that sounds matched the action on-screen, and there was a good sense of height coming from the TV’s upfiring speakers when I played clips with Dolby Atmos soundtracks.
The 8K TV to end all 8K TVs?
With its Wireless One Connect Box, Glare-Free technology, and other new features, the Samsung QN990F represents a definite upgrade over its flagship 8K predecessor. It’s not as bright as the QN900D but otherwise offers exceptional pictures and sound.
There were a few quirks that came up during my test, but the QN990F still looks to be the best 8K TV I’ve tested yet from Samsung and a shoo-in to replace the QN900D as the top choice in our best 8K TVs guide.
But the price rise and the input lag from the wireless box may give some people pause – as might the matte screen, if you haven’t tried this version of it before.
We’ll be able to confirm whether it totally overcomes these concerns after we get our hands on a QN990F for more extensive testing, so stay tuned.
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al.griffin@futurenet.com (Al Griffin)
