Samsung QN85Q900TSFXZA 8K Smart TV

Let’s just gloss over the fantastic picture quality, brightness, size, colour, resolution, etc. It’s a great panel, you’re getting some of the best picture quality in its class, the only gripe is it feels a little wobbly on its single stand in the center.

The real hassle is the TV software. The operating system and built-in apps are slow and clunky, and worst of all there are ADS EVERYWHERE. Even if you opt-out of all privacy choices, you will be shown ads on the TV interface from Samsung. The only way to truly get rid of them is to disconnect the TV from the internet (wifi/ethernet) completely. Which works for me, I don’t want to use the awful built-in software or the slow unresponsive apps. But buyers who want an all-in-one smart TV, be aware: you’re paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of being shown ads. Ads should subsidize the cheapest products, not the top end. This TV will stay disconnected from the network for the rest of its life and I’ll never use any built-in apps; how’s that for return on your investment (and your clients’ ads), Samsung Ads group?

I upgraded from a Sony Bravia 65 inch 4K to the 75 inch Samsung 8K. I consider the picture the Sony displays to be very good and I never had any complaints. I was thinking about going up a notch in size and I figured I’d try an 8K tv. I’ve owned Samsung tv’s in the past and I thought that they were all very good as well, so my expectation were fairly high. I must say that I am not disappointed in the least by the Samsung’s picture and that I consider it to be a very significant improvement over the Sony. I think the $2,000 expenditure is money well spent.

However, I did notice a couple of minor issues that required some adjustment to the settings to make the picture perfect. One thing is the blurry halo observed around some objects. This was most noticeable when I watched the “Mountains” episode of “Planet Earth II”. This is a stunning nature documentary series in 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray hosted by David Attenborough. Early in the episode there are eagles flying in a clear blue sky. The blurry halo around the eagles was not acceptable in my opinion. I’ve seen this sort of effect before with my past tv’s so I thought of what might cure it. Some commenters have erroneously attributed the blurring to the upscaling to 8K that the Samsung performs, but it is actually caused my the same old “motion processing” that has been around for many years. I’ve never liked motion processing features because I thought that it made motion seem unnatural and introduced processing artifacts like the blurring around moving objects mentioned here.

To turn off this motion processing feature, go to Settings — General — Intelligent Mode Settings — and set to Off. Then go to Settings — Picture — Expert — Picture Clarity Settings — and set to Off.

The second problem I mentioned was the dimming of the picture. I have a dark room and the “Ambient Light Detection” feature was overcompensating for the dim conditions of the room. To fix this go to Settings — General — Eco Solutions — Ambient Light Detection — and either turn it off or set the minimum brightness on the line below to at least 25. Also, turn off “Power Saving Mode” under Eco Solutions.

I hope this helps those encountering these issues and I wish manufacturers would not initially set these motion and ambient light detection features to on. Please let the hardware shine and don’t ruin it with so much software nonsense.

Color was not great when initially turned on; however, I am very color conscious, probably more than most. I was able to manipulate the color/picture contols to my satisfaction and the result is fantastic. One problem is the sound output will randomly switch between the optical output (sound bar) and the tv speaker when turned on sometimes. I use an optical splitter for the sound bar and/or my headphones. The sound from the headphones is better than any speaker and makes those British accents easier to understand. You can hear things that you will never hear thru any external speaker.

The picture is incredible the sound even better! It was much heavier than I thought out of the box! It was worth it. Thank you for an amazing purchase!