The 2026 World Cup is imminent, with the first game kicking off on June 11 (next week!) and while it can be difficult to choose what your next TV upgrade should be, we here at TechRadar lean towards mini-LED as the TV tech you should be choosing.
Not only can you get mammoth-sized 100-inch+ screens for reasonable prices, but their big fullscreen brightness helps to display sports in brighter rooms (perfect for daytime World Cup games) without suffering from mirror-like reflections as badly as OLED. Don’t get me wrong, the best OLED TVs can still be fantastic for sports viewing: it’s just mini-LED covers a lot of the bases better.
While we often talk about Hisense and TCL’s mini-LED TVs, thanks to their price vs performance balance, I can’t overlook Samsung, one of the most premium purveyors of mini-LED TV tech on the market. In fact, the Samsung QN90F, last year’s flagship 4K Neo QLED (mini-LED), is still our pick as the best TV for sports because of its superb motion handling, matte screen for reflections and solid brightness.
But what about some new, more affordable mini-LED options from the brand? Fortunately, the Samsung QN80H and Samsung M80H have arrived at our testing rooms. Interestingly, the QN80H is a Neo QLED, which uses mini-LED in its panel, and the M80H is labelled as just ‘mini-LED’. So, how do the two compare, and are they a good choice for the World Cup?
The right TVs for the World Cup?
I decided to start my testing with some soccer, to see how these affordable Samsungs could handle the fast-paced action. BBC iPlayer is running a ‘classic World Cup’ channel at the moment with tons of match highlights from previous World Cups so I used that as my test.
I set both TVs to Standard mode, as I find it to be the best mode for sports viewing, and set motion settings to Blur reduction 0 and judder reduction to 3, as I’ve found these to be effective with Samsung’s TVs in the past.
Throughout the various highlights I watched, which included Italy vs France in the infamous 2006 final, both TVs demonstrated solid motion handling, though the M80H was prone to some judder no matter what settings. As players frantically cleared the ball down the field and the camera followed, both TVs only showed minimal judder with no obvious artifacts. Judder reduction could be turned up to 5 before any artifacts, such as the ghosting of the ball, appeared.
As for actual picture quality, the QN80H was the most impactful. It was much brighter with bolder colors which meant the player’s uniforms really popped on screen. The green of the field was also more eye-catching on the QN80H, again due to its higher perceived brightness. The M80H’s picture did have a natural look to it though, with the green of the field looking more true-to-life. The same was true with the player’s skin tones. Still, the QN80H had the more visually engaging picture.
New for Samsung in 2026 is the AI Football Mode, and while I don’t typically use AI picture enhancements, I gave it a shot. Not only did brighten the picture for both TVs, it also sharpened textures and made colors that bit more vibrant. It was bordering on artificial at times, but it was impressive nonetheless. The most impressive part was what it did for the commentary. The AI Football Mode brought the speech of the commentator to the forefront of the TV, making it crystal clear and it did so without affecting the quality, as I’ve found can happen with some AI Voice modes on various TVs I’ve tested.
Throughout my testing though, one thing became very obvious: the M80H was prone to reflections, even during bright scenes. In fact, for a mini-LED, it looked very dim, especially next to the QN80H.
Bright scenes and bright room viewing
Measuring both TVs brightness, focusing on SDR and HDR fullscreen brightness as these will be relevant for the World Cup, the QN80H clocked in at 634 nits HDR and 325 nits SDR fullscreen brightness (in Standard Mode). The M80H on the other hand clocked in at 179 nits SDR and 269 nits HDR fullscreen brightness, also in Standard Mode.
Elsewhere, the M80H clocked 252 nits HDR peak brightness in Movie mode and 259 nits peak HDR brightness in Filmmaker Mode, which across the board are disappointing results. The QN80H on the other hand clocked in 1,152 nits and 1,149 nits peak HDR brightness in Movie and Filmmaker Mode respectively: more in-line with what I expect.
These brightness measurements go some way to explain why the M80H struggled with reflections in our brightly lit testing rooms. Testing out some brighter scenes with these TVs, the brightness gap really showed. Scenes of snow from the Spears & Munsil HDR footage looked more vibrant and impactful on the QN80H, with whites looking much brighter compared to the M80H.
In another scene, as a lightly-colored tree is hit by the sun, the M80H showed signs of clipping (where detail is lost in brighter scenes). Any cracks or marks in the tree’s bark were impossible to see, whereas the QN80H did a much better job maintaining these details. This was using the 1,000 nits HDR10 footage from Spears & Munsil, my go-to footage for all TVs. While the M80H delivered some bright highlights well, such as a sunset, the QN80H was obviously better.
Movie viewing
I next tested both TVs using reference 4K Blu-rays I use for testing TVs. My first port of call was to effectively ‘torture test’ them with The Batman, a dark movie with low brightness that I’ve found can be a real banana skin for some TVs, particularly cheaper mini-LED and QLED.
One thing I found was that each TV benefitted from different picture modes to the other. The M80H needed to be in Movie mode (Filmmaker mode was too dim) and the QN80H needed to be in its Filmmaker Mode (its movie mode was too bright for some dark scenes). With these settings in place, both TVs demonstrated solid contrast, but the QN80H’s brighter highlights meant high contrast scenes looked more dynamic.
I did find that the M80H had a more natural contrast though, with its lower brightness suiting the dim nature of The Batman. It did however show signs of black crush, where details in Batman’s suit were lost when he was in shadow.
The M80H did struggle in dark conditions as it doesn’t have a local dimming setting, whereas the QN80H does. This meant that during dark scenes, such as Batman in the subway, a clouding effect was present, with the backlight showing in dark areas, indicating poor screen uniformity. The QN80H’s black levels were much more accurate.
I next moved onto colorful scenes and the QN80H demonstrated more vibrant colors. In The Sound of Music, where Maria and the children are at a market stall, the fruits and vegetables on display were bolder and brighter on the QN80H. They did look accurate on the M80H and had a nice color depth to them, but lacked that visual punch I’d expect from this scene. It’s the same story with The Wild Robot too: more dynamic colors on the QN80H, but a nice authenticity on the M80H. Ultimately though, the animation deserved the much bolder QN80H.
Strangely, for colorful scenes, the picture modes were switched on the two TVs. The M80H suddenly looked much brighter in Filmmaker Mode, whereas the QN80H suited the more vibrant Movie mode. The other modes didn’t look bad, but the vibrant colors all needed more vibrancy.
An opportune time
In terms of which TV I’d recommend, it’s the QN80H. The M80H does produce some natural images, but it’s just not as good for movies as the QN80H and it doesn’t have the QN80H’s motion handling or brightness. But, there’s a third option to consider: the QN90F I mentioned in the intro.
As the QN90F is a year old, its prices have dropped significantly. In fact, it’s cheaper than the QN80H. A 55-inch QN80H costs $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,795, while a 55-inch QN90F sits at $1,299 / £999 in the US and UK (sadly it’s out of stock in Australia). And with Prime Day starting partway through the World Cup (it runs from June 23-26), there’s no better time to pick one up.
The M80H is a tempting option at $699 / £799 / AU$1,199, but this is a situation where it’s worth investing the extra. If you have the option, the QN90F is the obvious choice, but if you don’t, the QN80H is easily the better option.
You could also consider TCL and Hisense’s TVs I mentioned above, as 2025 models like the TCL QM7K/C7K are still around for cheap prices. If you want a Samsung mini-LED though, go with the choices I listed above.
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james.davidson@futurenet.com (James Davidson)
