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Samsung QN900F: Two-minute review
With native 8K content still pretty elusive (though no longer flat out unfindable), buying an 8K TV might not sound like it makes much sense. The new Samsung QN900F, though, builds spectacularly on the successes of 2024’s mind-alteringly brilliant Samsung QN900D 8K range to keep the 8K TV flag flying high.
For starters, at £4,899/$4,299 for the 75-inch version of the Samsung QN900F we’re focusing on here, it’s relatively affordable by Samsung’s premium 8K TV standards. It also uses the remarkably effective glare-free screen found in the Samsung S95D OLED, one of the best TVs of 2024; carries no less than 256 neural networks to apply AI enhancements to smart features, picture quality and audio quality; and supports a comprehensive array of gaming features, including support for frame rates up to 165Hz.
The QN900F’s latest (gen 9) Tizen smart system supports a typically huge range of streaming services, as well as offering AI-enhanced systems for finding content tailored to the viewing habits of different members of your household. Its powerful, cinematic multi-channel sound system ups the big screen’s immersive potential substantially, too.
The star of the show, though, is undoubtedly its eye-popping pictures, which combine phenomenal brightness and ultra-vibrant colour with, crucially, a new level of upscaling for converting non-8K sources to the screen’s native 8K resolution. It’s this, in particular, that builds on 2024’s QN900D efforts in making our previous cynicism about 8K TVs a thing of the past.
Samsung QN900F review: Prices and release date
- Release date: March 2025
- 65-inch: £3,599 / $3,299 / around AU$5,240
- 75-inch: £4,899 / $4,299 / around AU$6,825
- 85-inch: £6,899 / $5,499 / around AU$8,730
The QN900F is at the vanguard of an expansive swathe of TVs Samsung is bringing to market in March 2025. All three screen sizes of the QN900F should be available in the UK and US this month, with launch pricing for each model shown above.
Samsung QN900F review: Specs
|
Screen type: |
QLED with mini-LED |
|
Refresh rate: |
165Hz |
|
HDR support: |
HDR10+, HDR10, HLG |
|
Audio support: |
Dolby Atmos, Eclipsa Audio |
|
Smart TV: |
Tizen 9.0 |
|
HDMI ports: |
4 x HDMI 2.1 |
|
Built-in tuner: |
ATSC 3.0 (US) |
Samsung QN900F review: Benchmark results
Samsung QN900F review: Features
- 8K FALD VA panel with mini-LED
- HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ HDR support
- Gaming support up to 4K 165Hz with VRR
While sales of 8K TVs might not have set the world on fire so far (in fact, Samsung is currently the only brand consistently sticking with them), the QN900F’s 7680×4320 native resolution is undoubtedly its main feature. After all, while true 8K sources are still scarce, Samsung’s upscaling processors can turn any video that comes the TV’s way into 8K, so if that processing is good enough, there’s still scope for the TV’s 8K resolution to count.
Fitting an 8K pixel count into the screen massively reduces the pixel pitch of any resulting images, of course, potentially making for a denser, smoother, more realistic image, especially when you get to screen sizes of 75 inches and up.
The 75QN900F fits its 8K resolution into a VA-type panel, which usually bodes well for contrast, and it lights all those tiny pixels using a mini-LED backlight system driven by 52×28 (1,446) local dimming zones. That’s a very high zone count for what is essentially Samsung’s entry-level 8K TV for 2025, raising hopes of an extreme contrast performance with minimal backlight clouding and haloing interference.
At the other end of the contrast scale, measurements taken using the Calman Ultimate image testing and calibration software and Portrait Displays’ G1 signal generator and C6 HDR5000 colorimeter reveals peak brightness levels as high as 2,350 nits on a 10% HDR test window. That much brightness will surely test the local dimming system, but Samsung has risen to similar challenges before with aplomb.
Potentially further boosting the 75QN900F’s contrast is its glare-free screen filter – something its predecessor lacked. This does an almost uncanny job of suppressing and rejecting reflections from your room.
Colours are delivered by a Quantum Dot system capable of covering a measured 89.28% of the DCI-P3 colour spectrum used in most HDR mastering, and all aspects of the pictures are controlled by Samsung’s latest NQ8 AI Gen 2 processor.
This processor should have a particularly strong impact on upscaling sub-8K content to the TV’s native 8K resolution, but also feeds into features such as a Real Depth Enhancer Pro system for creating a more three dimensional effect, auto HDR remastering for converting SDR to HDR, and an AI Motion Enhancer system. The processor also plays a part in delivering what Samsung claims should be much wider effective viewing angles than you would normally get with LED technology.
The AI features extend to an AI Mode option you can call in for any of the TV’s presets, which analyses the incoming content and ambient room conditions in a bid to constantly optimise the picture and sound quality. The more puritanical AV fans out there won’t like the sound of this at all, of course – but it is all strictly optional. I’ll be looking at how well it works in the next section.
Samsung QN900F review: Picture quality
- High brightness and contrast
- Vibrant colours
- Excellent backlight control
The QN900F improves so much over its 2024 equivalent model that it’s hard to believe it isn’t actually Samsung’s flagship TV for 2025. The step-up QN990F series is really going to have to go some to be better than this.
The first thing that hits you like a lightning bolt is how bright the QN900F’s pictures are. This is especially true in the rather OTT Dynamic mode, but also hits home hard in the extremely watchable Standard preset. Even the Filmmaker Mode, though, which is designed to track the UHD Alliance’s preference for accuracy to industry mastering standards and minimal processing, retains a satisfyingly punchy look, with strong HDR highlighting to go with its generally more balanced and nuanced approach.
The extreme brightness is especially effective with aggressively mastered HDR footage, but the screen also adapts itself pretty much perfectly to milder HDR fare. Nothing looks forced or strained. Even SDR footage converted to HDR by the HDR Remaster option enjoys an uptick in light and colour range without looking weird or unbalanced.
At least as important as the QN900F’s impressive brightness, though, is the fact that it’s delivered without the backlight system exhibiting either heavy backlight blooming or any general greyness in dark scenes or dark picture areas. In fact, black levels are nothing short of outstanding for LCD technology, hitting essentially OLED-level black depths during fades to black, and maintaining a surprisingly inky and consistent (as in, cloud- and halo-free) look even with shots that combine lots of very bright and dark elements.
Samsung has managed to accomplish the QN900F’s exceptional LED contrast, too, without pursuing its old habit of dimming down stand-out brightness elements to stop light blooms appearing around them. The level of backlight control achieved by the NQ8 AI Gen 2 processing is so sophisticated and granular that such overt local dimming activity just isn’t needed any more.
Suppressing backlight blooming and greyness as well as the QN900F does hasn’t come completely string-free; there’s some minor crushing of shadow details in the Standard and Movie modes. But this is seldom serious enough to be distracting, and in any case it can be improved by just nudging up the TV’s Shadow Detail setting one or two points.
The QN900F’s high brightness contributes to a gorgeously rich, satisfying colour performance, too. This is most vividly obvious in the Standard preset – so much so that I’d say most QN900F buyers will find this mode irresistible for most day-to-day viewing conditions. Especially as Samsung has clearly worked hard with its latest Standard preset to try and make it deliver much more immersive and consistent pictures than the mode typically has in the past.
If you switch to a more mild, accurate preset such as Movie or Filmmaker Mode, you won’t get to ogle the most vivid extremes of the QN900F’s colour capabilities, but the wider colour range still plays its part in unlocking both more subtlety and more expressive shading than last year’s equivalent Filmmaker Mode offered.
In other words, no matter what picture preset you like the best, the much more thoughtful colour and light management of the new panel and attendant processing engine means it will look equally fantastic in its own specific way.
While it’s telling that I’ve focused so far on picture attributes that don’t directly relate to its native 8K resolution, this doesn’t mean that resolution doesn’t still matter. It is now possible to find and play native 8K videos on Youtube, and while the quality of these can be variable to say the least (you have to watch out for videos that say they’re 8K in their titles when they actually aren’t, too), the good ones reveal to a wider audience at last what some of us lucky TV reviewer types have known for years: that true 8K looks absolutely spectacular.
That’s partly because 8K looks incredibly sharp and detailed, as you might expect. But more because something about the extra density of the image somehow breaks down the usual sense that you’re watching a picture on a TV, leaving you feeling more as if you’re literally looking at reality. And that’s especially true when an 8K clip features some decent HDR encoding.
Crucially, though, the QN900F not only looks better than 4K TVs with native 8K content. Samsung’s latest 8K upscaling efforts are the best they’ve ever been, managing to make 4K sources look sharper, more textured and more dense than they would in their native resolution, while simultaneously making the upscaled results look more natural and refined than they have been on previous Samsung 8K TVs.
This is chiefly because, I think, the upscaling system has got even cleverer about detecting the difference between noise and actual picture information in a sub-8K source as it goes about figuring out how the millions (and millions) of pixels it needs to add to the picture should look.
Even fairly grubby, compressed HD sources make the journey up to 8K on the QN900F without becoming artificial looking, or suffering with exaggerated source artefacts. SD is a stretch, unsurprisingly – though even here the results only look a bit soft rather than becoming flat out ugly or messy.
Playing around with Samsung’s AI Mode yields some interesting results. Initially I found its picture optimization features a little over the top, causing some distracting processing side effects. Most notably slightly peaky skin tones, slightly forced bright highlights, and some processed-looking motion. Tweaking one or two picture settings to help ‘train’ the AI Mode, though, can help it quickly deliver much smarter results. Ultimately, I wouldn’t say I felt particularly compelled to use the AI Mode picture setting, not least because the TV does such a fantastic job even without the extra AI help. But it’s certainly good enough to at least be worth trying out.
There are a couple of other niggles to report. Default motion settings with 24fps films in the otherwise stunningly watchable Standard mode are a bit of a blunt instrument, generating a few distracting side effects. You can address this problem yourself, though, by choosing a custom setting for the Picture Clarity set of options, and turning noise reduction off while setting the power of the motion and judder reduction elements to somewhere below five each.
The second issue is that while colour saturations and contrast hold up well when viewing the TV from down its sides, the otherwise miraculously well-controlled backlight blooming suddenly starts to become noticeable.
Most of the initial niggles with the QN900F prove ultimately fixable within its menus, though, and anything left is so puny against the picture’s overwhelming strengths that it’s barely worth mentioning, honestly.
- Picture quality score: 5/5
Samsung QN900F review: Sound quality
- 4.2.2 channel speaker array
- 70W of total audio power
- Excellent detail placement and soundstaging
Samsung has backed up the QN900F’s stellar pictures with an excellent audio system. Particularly impressive is the scale of the soundstage it produces. Sounds are cast beyond the TV’s physical boundaries to left, right and even, to a more limited degree, upwards, getting a decent multi-channel effect from Dolby Atmos soundtracks that’s taken to another level, too, by Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound system.
This system manages to place sound effects and vocals so that they actually seem to be coming from the correct part of the image – or the correct place just beyond the image’s edges, where appropriate. The OTS system manages to track the motion of multiple noisy objects in an action scene frame, too, so that soundtracks always appear busy and precise – and, as a result, more engaging and clear.
The QN900F’s speakers deliver a decent amount of dynamic range too. Trebles at one end of the spectrum sound crisp and clean but also well-rounded rather than harsh or over-exposed, while bass reaches reasonably low while projecting powerfully enough to stop action scenes from sounding thin or one-dimensional.
Some of the film world’s most extreme and sustained bass rumbles push the QN900F’s speakers right to their limit, so that low frequencies started to sound a little ‘stuck’ inside the TV. But the speakers always just stop short of succumbing to really distracting amounts of bass-induced crackling or distortion.
The sound is powerful enough overall, too, to be able to shift up a few gears as action or horror sequences build towards a climax, without falling away when the going gets really tough. Dialogue is always clear and well contextualised, meanwhile – especially as Samsung’s AI-driven dialogue enhancement system is always ready to lend a vocal-boosting hand if a particular source or ambient noise in your room is making dialogue hard to pick up.
The AI Mode, if you choose it, does a pretty effective job of expanding the scale of the soundstage. This can cost the sound a little bass heft at high volumes, but you can improve this considerably by tweaking the low frequency elements of the TV’s graphic equaliser.
If I had to find a fault, the sound overall doesn’t have quite as much forward impact as you get with the very best sounding rival TVs, but overall the QN900F’s sound is a healthy improvement over many of Samsung’s other recent TVs.
It’s worth adding that the QN900F supports Samsung’s Q-Symphony feature, where its speakers can join forces with those in a Samsung soundbar to deliver a larger, more detailed soundstage.
- Sound quality score: 4.5/5
Samsung QN900F review: Design
- Chamfered screen frame
- Glare-free screen can look like a painting
- Multi-position feet
The QN900F’s design is quite a change from previous equivalent models, switching from the usual barely-there screen bezel approach to an unusually wide, dark grey chamfered frame that looks more like something you’d find holding a painting rather than a cutting-edge TV screen. Which, actually, is exactly the impression Samsung wants the QN900F to give, as its at the heart of a campaign to expand the sort of design thinking that’s served Samsung so well with its The Serif and, especially, The Frame lifestyle TVs.
Personally, I’m torn over the QN900F’s new look. When you’re watching TV on it, the frame’s width feels a touch too much, and the dark finish lacks the glamour of the gleaming, ultra-slim frames of previous equivalent 8K models. If you’re using the TV’s Ambient Mode abilities, though, where you can play a still photo, gentle video or digitised artwork on the screen as a screensaver, the painting-style frame looks great. Especially with the new matte glare-free screen completing the painting-like impression.
The QN900F ships with a pair of rather spindly looking feet. These feet can, though, be attached in multiple ways: either set quite wide apart or close together, depending on how wide the furniture you’re putting the TV on is, and at two different height levels to potentially provide more space under the screen for a soundbar to sit.
You can also wall mount the QN900F, of course, and the reasonably slender, tiered rear panel lends itself well to this. I can’t help but wonder, though, whether the performance of the bank of eight mid-range speakers built into the TV’s rear might be compromised if the drivers are pressed up against your wall.
One last design point to mention is Samsung’s Art Store. Originally designed for Samsung’s lifestyle TVs, this service allows people who subscribe to it to choose from a library of thousands of digital and digitised artworks to use as screen savers in the TV’s Ambient Mode.
Samsung QN900F review: Smart TV and menus
- Tizen 9.0 smart system
- Extensive voice control support
- Dedicated Gaming Hub menu
The QN900F uses Samsung’s own Tizen platform to deliver its smart interface and services, which is mostly very good news. What was once a rather over-complicated interface with some questionable content prioritisation decisions has gradually morphed into a sophisticated and helpful interface, bolstered by the introduction of handy new shortcut options, one of the most intuitive and in-depth voice recognition systems in the TV world (including a far-field mic), and some really impressive AI-driven talents when it comes to both recommending content based on the viewing habits of different members of your household, and advanced content searching.
New AI-driven features added to Tizen for its latest generation include an AI To Search feature that identifies which actors are in what you’re watching and does in-depth searches across all its available sources to find other films or TV shows those actors are in; a Live Translate feature that translates foreign language dramas with real-time subtitles; and a new Generative Wallpaper feature that can conjure up screensaver images to suit your described mood.
The Tizen menu system now features an attractive and usefully organised home menu that becomes more useful over time as the QN900F learns your viewing habits. The home screen also provides a link to a dedicated Gaming Hub page, which I’ll go into more in the next section, while the app support includes pretty much every streaming service anyone could ever want. The only significant absentees in the UK are Freeview Play and Freely – but you can access the individual catch up services for all of the main UK’s key terrestrial broadcasters. The QN900F also features an ATSC 3.0 tuner for receiving Next-Gen digital TV broadcasts in the US.
- Smart TV & menus score: 4.5/5
Samsung QN900F review: Gaming
- Gaming Hub menu
- Game Bar menu with multiple gaming aids
- 4K 165Hz gaming support
The QN900F is a beast of a gaming display that ticks all the feature boxes you could want from the best gaming TVs. All four of its HDMI ports can support high frame rate 4K gaming feeds. Those high frame rates can stretch to 165Hz this year (up from 144Hz in 2024) for anyone with a PC powerful enough to take advantage of that, and variable refresh rates are supported right up to this eye-catching new frame rate peak. The VRR support is available in the AMD FreeSync Premium format as well as the basic HDMI format, too.
Gaming HDR is supported in the HDR10+ and HGiG approaches as well as basic HDR10, and low lag gaming modes are available for all those HDR options. This lag reduces to a fantastically low (especially considering the QN900F has to upscale graphics to the screen’s 8K resolution) 10ms with 60Hz sources with the TV’s Game mode in play. There are also options, though, to increase this lag slightly in return for mild motion smoothing processing with low frame rate titles that aren’t particularly dependent on fast reaction times.
There are also sophisticated options for magnifying and even repositioning a game’s mini map, brightening dark picture areas without affecting bright areas to make enemies lurking in the shadows easier to see, and calling up an onscreen target reticle to give you an aiming edge over your rivals.
Finding game sources is a doddle, too, as the Tizen interface provides a clearly labelled dedicating Gaming Hub, which brings together all your HDMI inputs that have gaming sources attached alongside every gaming streaming service Samsung TVs now have access to.
The QN900F’s OTS audio system proves very useful for gaming thanks to the accuracy with which it places sound effects around the TV’s frame, and finally, best of all, graphics look fantastic on the QN900F’s screen.
The TV’s brightness and colour punch are beautifully to the fore, backed up by more inky black levels and a breathtaking level of sharpness and detail that constantly reminds you this is an 8K TV. The high and variable frame rate support delivers all these pixels of gaming beauty with outstanding fluidity and responsiveness, too.
There’s a touch more backlight blooming in Game mode than you get with video content, perhaps. But I only really noticed this in menus, where there can be bright text appearing against a dark backdrop; it seldom bothered me during game play.
I know pro-grade gamers will always want to play fast-response games, at least, on a small monitor. But the vast majority of more casual gamers will struggle to go back to a small screen if they get to experience the gaming joys of the QN900F.
Samsung QN900F review: Value
- More expensive than 4K equivalent
- Upscaling of 4K and lower-res content adds value
- Substantially cheaper than flagship QN990F series
The QN900F series isn’t cheap compared with even Samsung’s most premium 4K TVs. So you certainly can’t say that 8K doesn’t still attract a substantial premium, especially now that Samsung has ditched its previous, more affordable QN800 and QN700 8K ranges.
There is at least a small amount of native 8K content available on YouTube now with which to unlock the full 8K capabilities of 8K TVs, though, and Samsung’s upscaling is now so good that even 4K footage consistently benefits from being translated into 8K.
It’s also worth saying that the QN900F is substantially more affordable than Samsung’s flagship 8K TV for 2025, the QN990F series. Those models – which ship with external wireless connectivity, support ground-breakingly high frame rates and carry even more powerful sound systems – go for £4,999 / $5,499 for the 65-inch, £6,499 / $6,499 for the 75-inch, and £9,499 / $8,499 for the 85-inch.
Should I buy the Samsung QN900F?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
Aside from not supporting Dolby Vision HDR, it’s hard to see what else you could reasonably expect the QN900F to offer. Its smart, picture and sound features are premium all the way. |
5/5 |
|
Picture quality |
The extreme brightness, contrast, colour, and sharpness of the QN900F’s pictures add up to a mesmerising experience – especially as they’re now so well controlled by Samsung’s latest processor. |
5/5 |
|
Sound quality |
The large, detailed sound staging delivered by Samsung’s OTS speaker and processing system joins with plenty of power and a solid bass performance to deliver sound that’s as detailed as the TV’s pictures. |
4.5/5 |
|
Design |
The new relatively chunky styling for the QN900Fs isn’t as sleek or futuristic as the slender look of their predecessors, but it definitely helps sell the ‘art frame’ look Samsung wants to convey. |
4/5 |
|
Smart TV and menus |
Tizen 9 is a sophisticated and clever smart system with advanced AI learning/searching capabilities and a comprehensive app selection. |
4.5/5 |
|
Gaming |
The sharpness, dynamism, vibrancy and fantastic responsiveness and smoothness of the QN900F make gaming so much fun it should be illegal. |
5/5 |
|
Value |
While the QN900F range’s pricing still means you have to pay a premium for 8K resolution, the TV is good enough to make that premium feel worth it. And they’re substantially cheaper than their step-up QN990F siblings |
4/5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Samsung QN900F review: Also consider…
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Samsung 75QN900F |
TCL 98Q9BK |
LG 77OLEDG4 |
Samsung 75QN900D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Price |
£4,899 / $1,999 |
£2,399 |
£3,699 / $3,499 |
£4,299 / $6,299 |
|
Screen type |
QLED with mini-LED |
QLED with mini-LED |
OLED |
QLED with mini-LED |
|
Refresh rate |
165Hz |
144Hz |
144Hz |
144Hz |
|
HDR support |
HDR10+/HDR10/HLG |
HDR10+HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision IQ |
HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision IQ |
HDR10+/HDR10+ adaptive/HDR10/HLG |
|
Smart TV |
Tizen 9.0 |
Google TV |
webOS 24 |
Tizen 8.0 |
|
HDMI ports |
4x HDMI 2.1 |
4x HDMI 2.1 |
4x HDMI 2.1 |
4x HDMI 2.1 |
How I tested the Samsung QN900F
- Tested over 16 days
- Tested with 4K Blu-rays, multiple streaming platforms and resolutions, Freeview HD broadcasts, and HD Blu-rays
- Reviewed in both dark and light dedicated test room conditions, on its feet in both corner and flat wall positions
Not least because we needed to test it out with our collection of native 8K test material and the small collection of 8K YouTube videos that are now available on top of all our usual 4K test sources.
Those 4K sources, which included 4K Blu-rays and streams, needed to be scrutinised with the TV’s 8K upscaling in mind, too. As did the collection of varying quality HD and SD sources we cruelly also decided to push the QN900F hard with!
The TV was tested in a variety of locations, including 10 days in a regular living room environment in both corner and mid-wall placement positions, and in a wide range of ambient light conditions, from total black out to all the curtains open on a bright sunny day. The majority of the really critical testing was done in a darkened room with 4K and HD Blu-rays, to ensure source and environmental consistency with our other tests.
Finally, as ever we put the QN900F through a barrage of objective tests using Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate analysis software, G1 signal generator, and newly released C6 HDR5000 light meter.
You can read an in-depth overview of how we test TVs at TechRadar for more information.
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