Samsung Q950TS 8K QLED (75Q950TS) TV Review

THE BEST DEALS OF THE DAY

The Samsung Q950TS is no longer the latest 8K flagship from the world’s biggest TV brand – that moniker applies to the new QN900A we saw launched in 950. But the Q8TS is still a flagship XNUMXK TV with incredible specs that might be worth reading about in any upcoming Black Friday sales.

There’s one thing the Q950TS is overspecified for, no matter how much you spend on it. With an 8K resolution, this display will devote the majority of its processing power to upgrading any SD, HD, and 4K source you throw at it, given the glaring lack of native 8K content.

Yes, 8K cameras exist, and yes, Netflix has reportedly used one to develop content. And yes, if this summer’s Tokyo Olympics don’t give in to coronavirus paranoia, Japanese broadcaster NHK plans to broadcast the entire thing in 8K. But truth be told, 8K content in any meaningful quantity still seems a long way off.

So if it wants to hold its own, the Q950TS should do wonders with the low-resolution content it'll spend its time displaying. Thankfully, it totally is, and the overall quality of its images, sound and features make it a surprising entry into the 8K market.

This is, of course, a 900 model, so those looking for the latest new Samsung TVs should consider the Samsung QN800A or QN950A instead. Otherwise, read on for our full review of the QXNUMXTS.

• Samsung Q950TS 8K QLED TV at Amazon for € 949.97

Price and launch date

The Samsung Q950TS is Samsung's flagship XNUMX QLED TV. US buyers have a single XNUMX-inch model, priced at €XNUMX at launch.

For UK buyers, it's quite pricey at £7.99 for the 75-inch model (reviewed here), although you can drop that to £5.99 for the 65-inch model, or bump it up to £11.99 for the 85-inch model.

However, these are just introductory prices and you should already be able to find them for almost half the cost in all of these sizes.

(Image credit: Samsung)

Design

Samsung Q950TS specifications

Screen size: 10-10 inches | Tuner: RF, satellite | Panel technology: QLED | Panel resolution: 1 x 1 | Smart TV: Samsung / Tizen | HDR: Yes (HLG, HDR36, HDRXNUMX +) | Inputs: XNUMX x HDMI (including XNUMX x HDMI XNUMX), XNUMX x USB, ethernet | Dimensions: XNUMX x XNUMX x XNUMX cm (H x W x D) | Weight: XNUMXkg

Honestly, expectations are low when it comes to designing a TV. As long as the screen is big and the bezel isn't, that's pretty much the job done.

And in the case of the Q950TS, Samsung hit the nail on the head.

A seventy-five-inch screen is big in any language, and Samsung has managed to wrap it up in what is truly the shortest bezel ever seen on a production TV. At two mm thick, it’s almost non-existent, and if you sit a reasonable distance away from this TV, it really does disappear from view. As far as party tricks go, this is a good one.

Almost as astonishing is the chassis’ 950mm depth. Obviously, QLED technology requires a backlight layer, so it’ll never match the thinness of its main rival OLED – but since Samsung has stripped out all input, output and power requirements, the QXNUMXTS does. There are no OLED-style bumps or protrusions anywhere on the back of its frame.

All of the inputs – that’s 4 HDMI sockets (one of which is listed in 1), 3 USB inputs, satellite and RF TV aerials, an Ethernet socket – are contained in the sizable One Connect box. It also has a digital optical output and is even mains compatible – all that’s needed is a simple, modest connection to the TV. So if you intend to wall-mount your expensive new TV, it will practically be installed flush-mounted.

If you don't have enough spare wall, the Samsung will happily sit on its pedestal in the middle position. From there, it tilts a little more than 3 degrees, to point its screen at your eyes instead of at your belt. Because you're not going to put a TV that big on an elevated surface, are you? After all, you don't want watching TV to be like sitting too close to the screen in a movie theater...

Design TL;DR: External connections, a slim chassis, and an exaggeratedly thin bezel make this one of the most reserved seventy-five-inch TVs on the market.

This is what Tizen looks like on last year's QLED TVs. (Image credit: Samsung)

Smart TV (Tizen)

Since its 2019 TV lineup came with the best user interface/smart TV around, Samsung has, very wisely, decided not to mess with its winning formula. The background tone of the Tizen-derived interface has been altered from white to a soft blue to reduce eye strain, but in all other respects it’s just as logical, responsive, responsive, and easy to customize as ever. And it’s still fully loaded with apps.

The settings menus governing picture quality are comprehensive but not daunting, and it's neither difficult nor tedious to fine-tune the picture to suit your needs and preferences. And to that end, Samsung's cool remote, which is both heavy and not overly buttoned-down, helps a lot. The same goes for the built-in Alexa functionality, and Google Assistant support is coming "soon."

HD / SDR performance

Truthfully, if the Q950TS can look good at this relatively poor resolution standard, then it’s a no-brainer at home. After all, the sheer dearth of native 8K content means that Samsung is going to spend most of its life upscaling underperforming elements to accommodate its mighty 950 x XNUMX resolution and Blu-ray disc. XNUMX x XNUMX by Douglas Gordon and Phillipe Perreno Zidane: A Portrait of the Twenty-First Century delivers just over two million pixels of information. This leaves the QXNUMXTS with over thirty million pixels left to fill with information.

However, thanks in large part to Samsung's massive efforts in machine learning and AI, the 75Q950TS can cross-reference image composition with its vast database of information. It can then take a much more educated shot at enlarging the image to fit its massive resolution than was ever possible before.

There's a lot of image noise in the source material, so there's not much Samsung can do about it. And from the 950TS, there's not what you'd call absolute certainty when it comes to sharpening the edges of objects or tracking the very frequent movements of a footballer, but the Samsung nevertheless delivers a surprisingly composed and punchy image.

It does an exceptional job of capturing detail and depicting textures – it makes the Real Madrid shirt look as bright and vibrant as we all remember it. Contrasts are strong and detail levels remain high even in the brightest or darkest scenes. Samsung’s ability to maintain rich blacks and clean whites, even when they’re on screen simultaneously, is impressive at a fairly basic level.

Generally speaking, what's most striking is the clarity and confidence in the sheer amount of upscaling done here. There's no jaggies, no overlap, and very little graininess that can be introduced when HD elements are upscaled on some 4K displays, so this Samsung 8K looks so composed.

(Image credit: Samsung)

4K / HDR performance

Given the Q950TS’s staggering performance with high-definition content, it’s no surprise that the Q950TS does an exemplary job of upscaling a 4 x 4 resolution from a XNUMXK Blu-ray of Mad Max: Fury Road. The picture is truly superior to any number of well-regarded native XNUMXK displays.

There's not an aspect of the picture that this Samsung doesn't seem to be good at. It summons exceptional light levels, paints from an impressively wide colour palette, reveals almost indecent levels of detail. Despite the film's overly fine-tuned nature and its very frequent motion, on-screen movement is controlled with an iron fist. Even the brightest whites resist fading and the deepest blacks preserve detail.

HDR-assisted disc images come out absolutely popping on the Q950TS – the supercharged red and orange hues, in particular, are able to treat cataracts. But this is no dull instrument – ​​Samsung’s comprehensive backlighting (a total of 480 zones) can be controlled down to a single individual zone. So even as the brightest, most vibrant colours pop off the screen, the darkest areas of the scene remain convincingly dark. And it’s only in the most challenging of circumstances that the backlight makes its presence felt.

However, Samsung can't remove the larger, more uniform areas of colour (which in this film tend to represent either "the sky" or "the desert") from a small amount of image noise - this is the only obvious indication of how well the Q950TS's upscaling engine is working.

In terms of control, dynamics and outright verisimilitude, the Q950TS is going to take some beatings. Which is just as well, since it seems doomed to spend the vast majority of its time working to push 4K images up to their native resolution.

(Image credit: Samsung)

8K performance

Sure, the Samsung looks amazing when displaying native 8K content. But unless you're in a very privileged position, the 8K content you're going to be able to see is exactly the same as the 8K content I see: close-ups of amazing animals...

Yes, it all looks fabulous. Colourful, contrasting, sumptuously detailed everything… but until there’s significant 8K material available on disc or via a streaming service, it really shouldn’t make a difference to your decision-making when it comes to that. This means whipping out your credit card (or not) for the Q950TS.

Ring

You need to have some unique thought processes going on if you plan on spending a small fortune on a new TV without really planning for a suitable sound system to go with it. But Samsung, however, has gone on to ...