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Motion handling is more a matter of taste. Image interpolation is powerful, but comes with consequences. When Picture Clarity is switched Off, pictures look cinematic but there is a price to be paid in judder. I eventually decided Auto was the best option. If you find the soap opera effect is bothersome, it’s probably worth experimenting with the blur and judder sliders in Custom mode. Sound Quality
Streaming apps in the TV's smart interface occupy a horizontal row that can be fully customized. (Image credit: Future) Samsung QN90C TV review: smart TV & menus To make sense of exactly what these numbers and letters mean, let’s look at each component of this year’s QN95C (QE55QN95CATXXU). The QE65QN90BATXXUhas a Neo Quantum 4K processor that makes navigating through the menus and smart features of this lovely set easy and fast. Multitasking between apps, menus and settings is a breeze for the QE65QN90BATXXU as well as optimising the picture quality for omtimum viewing at all times. Starting out viewing test patterns via a 4K signal generator and the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark disc, a full-screen 100% white pattern and a lower-level gray one both showed a slight amount of color tinting and non-uniform brightness, though I can’t say I noted the same issue when watching regular programs. Better news: the QN90B was able to retain brightness and color vibrancy at viewing positions up to 45 degrees off from center, proving the effectiveness of the Ultra Viewing Angle feature. I was also impressed by how good pictures looked with overhead lights on – that anti-glare screen in action – though I did most of my evaluation with room lights switched off.
Samsung’s step-down QLED 4K TV delivers flagship features at a more approachable price
The final LED TVs in the lineup form the Crystal UHD range. There’s no quantum dot filter applied here, and these budget options only use basic LEDs to illuminate their panels. As a result, they’re not able to deliver the same level of picture performance as QLED or Neo QLED models but do cost a fair bit less than their stablemates. The QN90B’s maximum picture brightness measured on a 10% white window in Dynamic mode was in the 2,000 nits range – way more than enough to deliver the goods with most HDR content. Other measurements showed input lag with a 4K test signal generator to be an excellent 9.8ms (milliseconds) and 12ms with a 1080p source, both in Game mode. While the QE50QN90B joins other Samsung 2022 smart TVs in excelling on content quantity, though, it also labours under the same unhelpful new interface design. This can be sluggish when the TV is first switched on, can be confusing to navigate, and has a tendency to highlight content most people won’t actually be interested in.
Rounding out the QE50QN90B’s impressive feature count is its Tizen-based smart interface. This remains as good as ever when it comes to content, with pretty much every streaming app you can think of present and correct, bolstered by Samsung’s increasingly impressive (due to it being more carefully curated) TV Plus system of fully streamed TV ‘channels’. Viewing another reference scene on 4K Blu-ray, this one from Dune (2021), as Paul and his mother walk through a dark, misty space following an interrogation, the QN90C’s picture looked clean and crisp despite the grainy nature of the images. The set’s performance here was a big improvement over last year’s QN90B, which showed a high level of noise in this same scene when I did a hands-on test of it. Samsung's Gaming Hub provides a central portal for cloud-based gaming and game settings. (Image credit: Future) Samsung QN90C TV review: gamingDoing the heavy picture lifting is the brand’s Neural Quantum Processor 4K, which utilises AI techniques and twenty neural networks to automatically optimise images on a scene-by-scene basis. XU: The final two letters are more straightforward and relate to the country code for the TV. XU is used for the UK and EU – you’ll want to think twice about buying a Samsung TV that didn’t end in those two letters. Alongside the premium Neo QLED models, you have Samsung’s two QD-OLEDs, which combine the inherent benefits of OLED panel technology and quantum dot filters.
What’s more, despite the sophistication of its processing engine and lighting system, the QE50QN90B manages to get the time it takes to render images in its Game mode down to a hugely impressive 9.6ms (with 1080p/60Hz signals). Samsung’s Game Bar does, though, provide the option to sacrifice a bit of screen response speed in return for better, processing-assisted picture quality, along with other game-related adjustments such as the ability to raise the brightness of dark areas without impacting the rest of the picture so that you can more easily see enemies lurking in the dark. For the Samsung QN90C, I used the Calman ISF workflow, along with the TV’s advanced picture menu settings, to calibrate the image for best accuracy with SDR and HDR sources. Once done, I watched a range of reference scenes on 4K Blu-ray discs that I’ve gathered after years of TV and projector testing to assess the TV’s performance, as well as new Dolby Vision-encoded material streamed from sources like Netflix and HBO Max.
Wall brackets
The QN90C features Samsung’s NeoSlim design with an aluminum, center-mounted "hexagonal" plate stand. It’s a good look: the TV has a slender profile when viewed from the side, and the stand gives it a somewhat aerodynamic form while lending firm support.
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