Samsung QE55QN85B

There’s tons to love in regards to the Samsung QE55QN85B, however then once more there’s a good bit to be irritated by

Introduction

A premium know-how, however a less-than-premium worth. A spec-sheet that appears at odds with the price-tag. And an enormous, good-looking and really slim tv that appears made for players and movie-lovers alike.

There should be a catch to the Samsung QE55QN85B someplace, mustn’t there?

The Samsung QN85B is on sale now. It may be yours in 4 completely different display sizes: there’s the 55-inch QE55QN85B examined right here, which prices £1599 / $1499. You may as well have a 65-inch model (yours for £2199 / $1799), a 75-inch mannequin (priced at £3299 / $2299), and a whopping 85-inch mannequin (£4699 / $3299).

It appears fairly like Samsung is sticking it to UK customers once you examine these asking costs, doesn’t it? However even for those who determine to maneuver to america with the intention to indulge your want for a (comparatively) reasonably priced, but monumental, tv, Samsung is on no account your solely alternative. The TV market is fierce, and types each massive and small are queuing as much as half you from £1599 / $1499 for a 55-inch TV. Why must you select this one?

Design

• 27mm depth
• 17.2kg weight (with out stand)
• As wall-hangable as TVs get

Samsung isn’t daft sufficient to get carried away the place the design of its TVs is worried, and particularly not when a spread (like this one) is meant to have the broadest potential enchantment. So the QE55QN85B, fairly sensibly, is an unspoken and truly fairly subtle looker.

A whole lot of that is all the way down to the bodily discretion of the Mini LED backlighting association. Fairly other than the affect it has in image high quality, this know-how permits the QN85B to be a really tidy 27mm deep. And, in contrast to most OLED TV designs (that are extremely slim proper till they cease being extremely slim), that’s a constant depth – the rear of the TV is nearly as flat because the entrance of it. 

Take into account this chassis depth similtaneously its 17.2kg weight, and it’s apparent the Samsung QE55QN85B is a perfect candidate for wall-hanging. However for those who’d relatively stand it on a floor, its hefty pedestal foot is a) central, so that you don’t want a large floor, b) incorporates some rudimentary cable-management, and c) provides 3kg to the general weight. It additionally lifts the display up to a degree that even an enormous soundbar can sit beneath it with out inflicting issues.

Irrespective of if it’s on the wall or on a floor, although, the QN85B appears good. In profile, its ‘brilliant silver’ display surrounds are fairly elegant, and once you’re sitting in entrance of it the bezels across the display are negligible. This can be a 55-inch TV that may be very near measuring 55-inch in whole.

Options 

• HDMI 2.1 throughout the board
• Six speaker drivers
• No Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR

So sure, as should absolutely be apparent by now, it is a Mini LED TV (or ‘Neo QLED’, as Samsung relatively dogmatically prefers). You will get our chapter-and-verse on this outstanding know-how right here.

Samsung has fitted its Neo Quantum Processor 4K to handle enterprise right here. It’s obtained an AI aspect to its specification, which is generally used to assist the scream upscale sub-4K content material as effectively and convincingly as potential. However clearly it’s simply as involved with making native 4K content material look its finest and exploit any HDR side it may need – though not Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR, oh my goodness no. 

Samsung can (and can) bang on about how assist for HDR10+ Adaptive means its TVs as are as well-specified as any rival, however the truth stays that the world’s hottest streaming providers makes use of Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR and the QN85B (like all Samsung’s TVs) is unable to take advantage of it.

There are 4 HDMI inputs right here, and so they’re all 2.1 and eARC-enabled – so the Samsung can assist all the most effective points of your recreation console’s specification (4K@120Hz, ALLM, VRR and so forth) by means of any of its inputs. As well as there are a few USB sockets, an Ethernet enter, a digital optical output and aerial posts for the pair of built-in TV tuners. So far as wi-fi connectivity goes, dual-band wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.2 needs to be enough for nearly each person. 

Sound is delivered by a six-speaker array, deployed to offer a suggestion of spatial audio from acceptable soundtracks – two hearth forwards, two hearth upwards from the rear of the cupboard and the final pair are angled out to supply a suggestion of sonic width. Samsung’s additionally specified its ‘Object Monitoring Sound’ know-how right here – it makes an attempt to drive sound to observe on-screen motion in an effort to ship a convincing point-source of each sound and imaginative and prescient. 

After which there’s additionally Samsung’s Q Symphony association – for those who’ve an acceptable Samsung soundbar (and there are a lot of), the QN85B’s sound system can take part with the soundbar’s efforts, relatively than being silenced. 

There are greater than sufficient management choices right here. You possibly can take your decide from Samsung’s SmartThings management app (it’s logical and steady, and allows you to combine your TV right into a wider sensible dwelling community for those who fancy), voice management through Amazon Alexa, Bixby or Google Assistant, or one in every of two bundled remote-control handsets. 

As appears to be the best way of issues as of late, one of many remotes is small, covers simply the necessities, feels fairly good to carry, and is solar-powered (this final, admittedly, isn’t precisely ‘the best way of issues’ simply but), whereas the opposite is mainly none of these issues – it feels low cost in your hand, has approach too many buttons which can be principally approach too small, and is battery-powered.

Both of the distant controls offers you command of the set-up menus, and Samsung has struck a pleasant stability between ‘in-depth’ and ‘time-consuming’ right here. Getting completely watchable footage doesn’t take lengthy, but it surely’s potential to fiddle with trivia of efficiency to your coronary heart’s content material for those who’re that approach inclined. The ‘sensible calibration’ characteristic, which purports to permit a level of semi-professional calibration utilizing only a smartphone, is much less profitable although and it locks within the settings endlessly (or till you carry out a manufacturing facility reset).

Samsung’s Tizen-based sensible TV interface has been (rightly) recommended as being one of many easiest round – however Samsung has determined to alter it anyway, and now it’s removed from preferrred. It takes up the entire display right here, for a begin, a superb portion of which is given over to advertisements and the remaining to suggestions that don’t appear to narrate to something you may need watched. 

There’s no facility to amend or customise the format in any approach. And it’s very sluggish when responding to instructions from the distant management too. From hero to zero in a single transfer. Nonetheless, Samsung TV Plus is a pleasant characteristic; it’s free, and showcases a whole lot of content material that’s in any other case laborious to come back by

Image High quality

• Exceptional peak brightness
• Properly judged color palette
• Struggles to precise black-tone element

‘Brightness’ is (amongst different issues) what Min LED guarantees, and there’s no two methods about it: the QN85B is noticeably brighter than even the brightest OLED or QD-OLED alternate options.

And it’s not simply brilliant for the sake of it. White tones are detailed, nuanced, characteristic a number of gradation and variation, and mainly make good on all of the know-how guarantees on this regard. So at the least on this respect, it’s job executed.

The alternative finish of the spectrum isn’t fairly so nicely served right here. The Mini LED association means there are tons of of dimming zones right here, and the transition between them is achieved very easily certainly. When a zone is unilluminated it stays good and darkish, too, so the Samsung’s black ranges are spectacular. 

However there’s a woeful lack of element or variation within the black tones the QN85B generates, and consequently a relatively depthless uniformity to darkish scenes which can be, when dealt with by various applied sciences, stuffed with subtlety and gradation. So whereas contrasts listed here are undeniably broad, they’re not all that satisfying.

The backlighting struggles relating to the actually difficult stuff, too – white textual content on a black background, say, or an evening sky stuffed with stars. The previous has some blooming across the textual content, whereas the latter will crush the much less brilliant components out of existence altogether. 

The color palette in between these two extremes may be very nicely realised, although. Color quantity, depth and saturation is very well judged, which suggests the Samsung is a vibrant, vibrant watch similtaneously being balanced and naturalistic. It’s a skinny line, however the QN85B walks it confidently.

Edge definition is good-going-on-great, image noise is suppressed very well (even with noise-reduction turned off, which supplies a extra pure and fewer processed look), and movement is managed nicely (once more, for those who get into the set-up menus, this time you wish to flip LED Clear Movement to on and simply cope with the hit to brightness ranges that outcomes). Stick on a Netflix stream of The Grey Man and all of those points of efficiency are made plain – however with out the good thing about Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR, after all.

It’s an identical story for gaming. Vivid, wide-ranging colors, popping white tones and (by extension) glorious lighting results, nice edge-definition and disappointingly unknowable black tones.

The Samsung’s a really completed upscaler of Full HD content material, too. The drop-offs intimately ranges, or the much less rigorous nature of edge-definition, or the coarsening of skin-tones and textures, are all gentle – and as a consequence the QN85B is a really fulfilling method to watch all these legacy Blu-rays or watch some iPlayer reruns. The quantity of labor the processor has to get by means of with the intention to fill the display’s pixel-count is disguised very nicely. 

Sound High quality

• Six drivers 
• Object Monitoring Sound
• Q Symphony-compatible

It’s uncommon {that a} TV’s sound high quality matches as much as its image high quality – and whereas it’s hardly going to cease you dashing out to purchase a soundbar, the QN85B doesn’t shame itself. It initiatives the midrange nicely, so dialogue is all the time intelligible, and freights it with an honest quantity of element. It’s incapable of producing significant bass presence, after all – however, once more, it’s not alone in that.

The Object Monitoring Sound know-how is kind of profitable – definitely sound is kind of cellular relative to the motion on the display. It’s definitely extra noticeable than the ‘spatial’ aspect of the sound the QN85B tries to ship – the Dolby Atmos soundtrack to The Grey Man sounds curtailed within the excessive. 

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