Samsung QN900D hands-on review: 8K gaming and movies at its finest
The first 8K TV I’ve actually wanted
The future of 8K TVs looks sharp if Samsung’s latest flagship the QN900D any indication. Earlier this month Samsung invited us, Editor in Chief Matt Swider and I, to its labs in New Jersey to see its latest 2024 TVs in depth. The biggest and brightest TV by far was the 75-inch Samsung QN900D. Featuring an even thinner design and beefed-up processor, this TV promises to make 8K upscaled media and games better than ever for a steep $6,299 price.
Pros:
📺 Amazing upscaling for HD to 8K content
🌞 Almost blindingly bright
📐 Slimmer and sleeker design
Cons:
🔖 Tizen homescreen app center needs work
🤑 Exhorbinantly expensive
😲 Did you lose some weight? When Samsung says the QN900D is 0.5 inches thick, it really is just half an inch thick all across the whole display panel. There’s no trickery with a center hump for extra cooling or to house the ports. Now half an inch thick isn’t nearly as impressive as the wafer-thin profile of LG’s OLED TVs, but it’s still impressive how Samsung has squeezed an 8K panel into such a svelte shape, especially with the powerful speakers embedded into the back of the display.
😶🌫️ Walking on air. Samsung has also reined the style of the QN900D with an Infinity Air Stand that features a mirrored finish on the neck of the stand. From certain angles this mirrored finish makes it look like the TV is simply floating in the air while also just giving the QN900D a classy metal touch.
🧐 Sharp and stylish. Samsung’s patented One Connect Box also got a bit of a redesign with a more angular shape to blend in with the new Infinity Air Stand. For the uninitiated, Samsung’s high-end TVs have featured a One Connect box that helps reduce the bulk of its displays by moving all the ports and the power cable to a separate breakout box that feeds everything back to the TV with single, silvery cable.
🐞 Some bugs to work out. The last thing to get a redesign is Samsung’s latest Tizen software. Overall the menus have the same look and structure, but the home screen now features a row of downloaded apps. While it’s a handy feature, the early software failed to add the Paramount+ app after I downloaded it and I couldn’t find any way to pin it. Instead, I had to go through a clumsy process of opening my recent notifications to even get to the Paramount+. I’m sure Samsung will further tweak this new version of Tizen as it sorely needs an easy-to-access repository of all downloaded apps.
🧠 Bigger brains. Samsung has also seriously upgraded the brains behind its flagship 8K TV with a new NQ8 AI Gen3 processor. This chip has an NPU that's twice as fast as its 2023 predecessor while ballooning the number of neural networks to 512 (eight times more than the 64 previously available). This all helps the TV analyze the picture it is playing and optimize its performance on the fly.
📽️ Remaking the classics. The Samsung QN900D puts its enhanced AI brains to good use to power its 8K AI Upscaling Pro feature. To test it out, I played some old clips of Family Feud on YouTube and the TV did a stellar job of upscaling the content from HD to 8K without overly smoothing out details or adding artifacts. If you have old content like VHS and DVDs from the days when TVs were still bowl-shaped, you’ll definitely want to see how it looks on this ultra-high-resolution TV set.
😎 Bring a pair of shades. Looking at the Samsung QN900D at maximum brightness is almost like looking directly at the sun. It was so bright that I could have used the solar eclipse glasses I plan on using to see the solar eclipse in two weeks. This TV gets way brighter than most others because it has quadrupled the number of pixels over your average 4K TV. On top of that, the QN900D features Samsung's Quantum Matrix Technology Pro, which it claims adds 1.5x more lighting zones than its already bright QLED displays.
🤩 Gorgeous and shiny. That brightness really translates well to watching movies in stark daylight like Mad Max Fury Road, where you can almost feel how punishing the sun is because you’re squinting against the bright screen. Alternatively, this extra brightness makes Spider-Man 2 really pop off the screen thanks to the fantastic contrast this bright display offers along with even better motion interpolation.
⚾ Keep your eye on the ball. Speaking of motion, Samsung has added a new predictive motion feature called AI Motion Enhancer Pro. This feature basically can interpret and predict the motion of fast-moving objects such as tennis balls and pucks in sports and render them as sharp, smoothly moving objects. So if you’re tired of seeing the basketball move around the court as an orange blur, this is the feature for you.
🌊 An ocean of features. We were only able to test and get into a few of the Samsung QN900D features. It also offers plenty more with a 240Hz gaming mode for PCs. We’ll be getting in the Samsung QN900D in the coming months so expect to see more of my impressions on the TV and a forthcoming full review.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.