Samsung is looking to microLED technology as a potential future for displays, but as of now it’s still wildly expensive and only available for custom-installed projects. In the meantime, the company is staying fairly conventional for most of its TVs, sticking with an LCD panel backed by an LED backlight. It’s pushed what those well-established components can do very far, and that shows in the QN90A, Samsung’s flagship 4K TV. It’s a “Neo QLED” TV, which means it uses that same LCD and LED system, but it pours as much technological prowess as possible into those components to produce a picture that rivals the experimental dual-LCD system of the Hisense 75U9DG and the OLED panel of the LG C1P. At $1,799.99 for the 55-inch model we tested, it’s a flagship TV with a price to match, but it produces one of the best pictures we’ve seen, earning it our Editors’ Choice award.
Editors’ Note: This review is based on testing performed on the 55-Inch Class QN90A. Apart from the screen-size difference, the $1,499.99 50-Inch Class QN90A is identical in features, and we expect similar performance.
A Stylish, Premium Design
The QN90A looks and feels incredibly sleek, with a bezel-free design that frames the screen with a band of metal and a profile that measures just 1.1-inch thick. The clean front view of the TV is broken up only by a tiny outcropping on the lower right corner of the screen that bears a Samsung logo and hides a multi-purpose button. A flat, square metal stand holds the TV securely upright.
All connections on the QN90A except the power cable connector sit on the right side of the back panel. Four HDMI ports (one eARC), two USB ports, an optical audio output, an Ethernet port, a 3.5mm EX-Link (RS-232) port, and an antenna/cable connector all face right and are easy to access. The TV has no analog video inputs.
The included remote is just as slim and stylish as the TV itself, with some clever design elements. It’s a thin, flat black wand with a circular direction pad near the top, flanked by menu and playback buttons. Volume and channel rockers sit below the pad; below them are dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Samsung TV Plus (Samsung’s Pluto TV–like free live TV streaming service). A pinhole microphone near the top of the remote lets you use a voice assistant with the TV.
The remote features a built-in rechargeable battery. You can plug a standard USB-C charging cable into the port on the bottom, or flip the wand onto its back to reveal an eco-friendly option: a solar panel that charges the remote if you leave it on a sunny windowsill. That’s a nice touch for anyone looking to use fewer disposable batteries.
Samsung’s Smart TV System
Samsung’s own Tizen smart TV platform powers the QN90A. It doesn’t have the wide selection of apps that you’ll find on Amazon Fire TV, Android/Google TV, or Roku TV, but it’s still filled with features. Most major streaming services are available, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube (but not Twitch). The platform also supports wireless screen sharing of iOS devices and Macs over Apple AirPlay, and Windows 8.1 and 10 PCs over WiDi. A Multi-View mode shows two sources at once, and when you aren’t actively watching something, a low-brightness Ambient mode will display art while consuming less power. There’s even a web browser.
You can use Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Samsung’s Bixby for voice control, and the TV can directly control and monitor Samsung SmartThings–compatible smart home devices.
The interface is feature-rich, but feels a bit clunky compared with other smart TV systems. Samsung tries to automate as much as it possibly can and keep granular options out of reach. Just browsing connected devices requires thumbing through a few directions after pressing the Home button, browsing left to make the source and setting buttons appear. After that, simply switching to a newly connected HDMI device takes an irritatingly long time, since the TV will attempt to identify the device and configure itself to work best with it (something most other TVs don’t do, or at least don’t take 10 to 20 seconds to do it). Picture settings are downright difficult to find: You have to zig-zag through the home screen to the setting button, then up and across the quick-access bar with a handful of settings you can toggle, then up again at the very end to make the full list of options visible. Otherwise, you need to haphazardly flip through icons and a limited number of sliders.
Amazing Contrast and Solid Color
We test TVs using a Klein K-80 colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software using methodology based on Imaging Science Foundation’s calibration techniques. The Samsung QN90A is a 4K TV with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, and hybrid log gamma (HLG). It doesn’t support Dolby Vision.
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The QN90A is easily one of the brightest TVs we’ve tested, and it also has incredible black levels, thanks to its use of a MiniLED backlight array (not the same as Samsung’s MicroLED video wall, where LED clusters are used for individual pixels, but still using hundreds of tiny LEDs to adjust the brightness of the picture). Out of the box, with an SDR signal in Movie mode, the TV shows a peak brightness of 395.964cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field and not much change with an 18% white field, and a black level of 0.012. This mode sets Local Dimming to Standard, and with standard dynamic range (SDR) content, that makes a big big difference. Setting Local Dimming to High, peak brightness stays nearly the same at 407.806cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field, but the 18% field brightness jumps to 869.032cd/m^2 with a black level of 0.007cd/m^2. That’s excellent, especially for SDR.
HDR is where the QN90A really shows its extremes, though. With an HDR10 signal, the TV’s peak brightness is 886.217cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field, and a blindingly bright 1,910.961cd/m^2 with an 18% field. In this mode, black levels are still fantastic at 0.005cd/m^2. That’s an effective contrast ratio of 367,593:1, one of the highest we’ve seen in any TV.
Color performance is similarly strong, but not perfect out of the box. The above charts show the TV’s color levels in Movie mode, with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards, and with an HDR10 signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. In both cases, color is fairly accurate with a bit of drift away from ideal levels, and whites lean just slightly green. The respective color gamuts are also almost completely covered, with only red running just a little undersaturated.
BBC’s Planet Earth II looks fantastic on the QN90A. The picture is bright and vivid, with varied and natural shades of green on plants and blue on water and the sky. Fine details like fur and bark look crisp, and can be clearly discerned in both direct light and shade.
Deadpool also looks very good on the QN90A, with the reds of Deadpool’s costume appearing well saturated and accurate even under the cool overcast lighting of the opening scenes. In the burning lab fight, the flames look bright and rich, while shadow details can be seen in the same frame.
The party scenes in The Great Gatsby show off the QN90A’s excellent contrast. The bright whites of balloons, shirts, and servants’ jackets nicely pop, while the cuts and textures of black suites also come through clearly and don’t look muddy at all. Skin tones look natural and well saturated.
For gaming, the Samsung QN90A is filled with features. It’s a 120Hz TV with Auto Low Latency mode (ALLM), a variable refresh rate (VRR), and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. Its input lag is also extremely low; measuring with an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix, we saw a latency of just 2.6ms. That easily puts the TV among the best for gaming. Make sure Game mode is enabled, though; input lag with Game mod turned off hit 81ms.
Conventional Tech, Exceptional Performance
Samsung’s flagship 4K Neo QLED is stunning, with an incredibly bright and colorful picture, a stylish design, and low input lag for gamers. Based purely on performance, the QN90A is a winner despite slightly inaccurate colors out of the box. The conventional QLED technology of the QN90A rivals the unique dual-cell system on the Hisense 75U9DG, putting out much more light while producing incredible black levels for even better contrast.
Hisense gets an edge on usability, though. Its Android TV platform and easily accessible sources and settings are easier to use than Samsung’s Tizen platform, with more apps and services, and Google Cast in lieu of Apple AirPlay. Amazon Alexa and Samsung Bixby aren’t options on the 75U9DG, but far-field microphones let you use Google Assistant without picking up the remote. It also supports Dolby Vision.
On the other hand, Hisense’s top-of-the-line TV is only available in 75 inches, while Samsung offers six different sizes of the QN90A, from 43 to 85 inches. If 75 inches is your sweet spot, the Hisense 75U9DG is one of your best bets and definitely worth considering, especially if you prefer Android TV and/or Google Cast. If you want the best color possible and don’t mind it not being as bright as an LED TV, LG’s OLED C1 is another favorite. But for a fantastic picture in a range of sizes without compromising on brightness, the Samsung QN90A earns our Editors’ Choice award.
