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Samsung QN65QN90A TV Review: Mini LED Marvel

Vasto

Member
Things are about to get interesting between OLED and Mini LED. Also we still have new Mini LED coming from LG, TCL and Hisense in 2021.



Black levels are sensational, for starters; OLED-like in their depth and, even more surprisingly, their consistency. There’s no sign of baseline black level ‘flicker’, and when this TV fades to black, its screen completely blends in with the pitch darkness of a blacked out room - something I haven’t seen before outside the premium OLED world.


Even better, using video (rather than game) picture presets, the intense black levels are hardly ever disturbed by so much as a hint of backlight leakage or blooming, even where near total blackness sits around a seriously bright HDR highlight.


There doesn’t even seem to be any blooming or clouding in the black bars above and below wide aspect ratio films on the 65QN90A. I don’t know if this is because moving to Mini LED has enabled Samsung to go back to completely switching off the lights in these bars when they’re detected, as used to happen with some Samsung TVs a few generations ago, or whether it’s just a handy side effect of the generally increased backlight accuracy. But whatever the cause, I’m very pleased to see it, as it substantially reduces the potential for backlight controls to become distracting.


Yet more good news concerns the naturalism of the black levels. In other words, there are no blue, grey or purple undercurrents to the blackness, and shadow detailing is superb, with pretty much no significant black crush. This is even the case when using the TV’s fairly extreme (in brightness, contrast and color terms) Standard picture preset.


Nothing about any dark scene on the QN90A feels hollow or empty. In fact, it’s the TV’s ability to look as three-dimensional and full of detail with dark scenes as it does with bright scenes that most reveals just how real (rather than forced) the QN90A’s Mini LED-driven contrast and black level prowess is.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Micro-LED will be better than both. But I would say Micro-LED and Mini-LED both beat out OLED for one simple reason: OLED is suceptible to screen burn-in.
Burn-in I believe it is not that widespread... I have PLASMA supposed to have burn-in but here I’m after 9 years and no burn-in.

In image quality which is better today? Mini led or OLED?
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
Micro-LED will be better than both. But I would say Micro-LED and Mini-LED both beat out OLED for one simple reason: OLED is suceptible to screen burn-in.

that’s exaggerated. unless you plan to keep the tv for a long time or leave some static image up every day you probably wouldnt run into it. I make my Windows wallpaper black and auto minimize taskbar “just in case” but I also played loads of games with static hud. Just vary the content, maybe lower the brightness level on sdr content (I play some games on 30% brightness instead of 50) and it will be fine unless you want to keep the tv really long term

edit: that said, while lg cx has decent hdr brightness (better than the current “high end” pc monitors) it’s not even as high as my 2016 samsung ks8000 which has dimmed over time
 
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MrSec84

Member
Burn-in I believe it is not that widespread... I have PLASMA supposed to have burn-in but here I’m after 9 years and no burn-in.

In image quality which is better today? Mini led or OLED?
I also have a Plasma, it's my bedroom TV now since I got a bigger TV for my living room.
My plasma is the Panasonic 50 inch VT20, think I've had it since late 2010 and it also doesn't have any noticeable burn-in that I can detect, burn-in isn't an issue if you allow any of these TVs to actually be turned off properly, in order to let them complete any compensation cycles to clear out image retention in the pixel structure.
At least that is the case with OLED, I've gamed on my VT20 playing games, COD and bunch of stuff that has a HUD and never found it to be an issue.

Modern OLEDs should be far better, with Burn-In being non-existent if you properly shut them off when they're done, the odd power cut shouldn't cause a problem.

The new 2021 brighter display LG panels also use Deuterium in their Blue OLEDs, which is more robust than the older Hydrogen based Blue OLED, the other coloured OLEDs I believe have also undergone work to make them more robust too, plus Sony and Panasonic are using dedicated heatsinks in their top of the range models that use the new panels too.

There's also a field of technical research being done on OLED called Plasmonics which aims to greatly reduce, if not wipe out the annoyance of OLED, likely denser OLED particles and new material sciences will eventually make OLED even cheaper and more robust, allowing for better brightness and colour volume moving forward, but brightness and colour are said to be much better on the new TVs featuring LG's new Panel tech.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
Burn-in I believe it is not that widespread... I have PLASMA supposed to have burn-in but here I’m after 9 years and no burn-in.

In image quality which is better today? Mini led or OLED?

mini led is just led lcd with a lot of zones. It’s not micro led. But it has higher hdr brightness because the self emissive tech in current oled is not that bright and can’t do a sustained brightness (auto brightness limiter engaged)
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Burn-in I believe it is not that widespread... I have PLASMA supposed to have burn-in but here I’m after 9 years and no burn-in.

In image quality which is better today? Mini led or OLED?
that’s exaggerated. unless you plan to keep the tv for a long time or leave some static image up every day you probably wouldnt run into it. I make my Windows wallpaper black and auto minimize taskbar “just in case” but I also played loads of games with static hud. Just vary the content, maybe lower the brightness level on sdr content (I play some games on 30% brightness instead of 50) and it will be fine unless you want to keep the tv really long term

edit: that said, while lg cx has decent hdr brightness (better than the current “high end” pc monitors) it’s not even as high as my 2016 samsung ks8000 which has dimmed over time

I never claimed that burn-in is rampant or widespread. I just said that OLED is suceptible to burn-in. LED is not suceptible to burn-in. No risk of burn-in ruining your expensive TV is better than low-risk of burn-in ruining your expensive TV.

OLED and Mini-LED have tradeoffs, so which is "better" comes down to personal preference. Mini-LED is able to get brighter than OLED, but it also has a slight bleeding effect that OLED does not suffer from since OLED illuminates each pixel.

Micro-LED, however, combines the benefits of both Mini-LED and OLED. It has the pixel benefit of OLED and the brightness benefit of Mini-LED.
 
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OnionSnake

Banned
Love my CX, but I want some new desktop monitors and OLED don't come in that small of size. Will MicroLED come in 27-32 inches?
 
The 75" version of this would be mine except I want the One Connect box, which for some inexplicable reason only seems to be on the 95 model not the 90, and I think that's Europe only? WTF Samsung?

Although they win, as I'm now considering the 8k model with the One Connect box. Over a barrel.

Sorry to say this but my LG OLED has developed burn in and has to go. It's a B7 so one of the older ones, I hear the newer ones are less susceptible, but once burned (in), twice shy. I was all in on the C1 or G1 until very recently when this happened.
 
The 75" version of this would be mine except I want the One Connect box, which for some inexplicable reason only seems to be on the 95 model not the 90, and I think that's Europe only? WTF Samsung?

Although they win, as I'm now considering the 8k model with the One Connect box. Over a barrel.

Sorry to say this but my LG OLED has developed burn in and has to go. It's a B7 so one of the older ones, I hear the newer ones are less susceptible, but once burned (in), twice shy. I was all in on the C1 or G1 until very recently when this happened.
Anyone who tells you OLED doesn't have burn-in is lying or delusional. I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way. If it makes you feel any better, I burned in a Panasonic VT60 plasma back in the day so I know what it's like to trash an expensive TV.
 
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Anyone who tells you OLED doesn't have burn-in is lying or delusional. I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way. If it makes you feel any better, I burned in a Panasonic VT60 plasma back in the day so I know what it's like to trash an expensive TV.
How did you accomplish burn-in on your TVs?
 
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Dark areas/sequences in Game mode aren’t quite as mesmerisingly gorgeous as bright ones. As usual with Samsung TVs, the local dimming engine doesn’t seem able to run quite as intensively in Game mode as it does out of it, meaning that mid-dark scenes or locations that contain a complex mix of light and dark content can look a little grey.
From the review.

So local dimming performance is dialled back in game mode like past models. They really should at least offer a toggle for local dimming engine running properly if you want to take the input lag hit.

Also Forbes made no mention if the image quality issues present in past Samsung TV's VRR under game mode, inverse ghosting, awful gamma shift and flickering are still present, hopefully these are fixed on 2021 models but I would suggest waiting until others have gotten their hands on these TV's and done detailed testing as just playing one or two games isn't enough to bring out these flaws.

Still in spite of that it sounds good, if your in Europe it will be more expensive but you will get 4 HDMI 2.1 ports via external connect box, the USA model only gets 1 HDMI 2.1 port built into the TV.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
People keep harping on about this LCD HDR brightness advantage and I just don't get it, is this simply spec sheet nonsense that doesn't translate to real world watching?. I have a 55LGCX and to be perfectly honest the fucking thing gets bright enough for me, any 4K movie i've watched on it, especially in the evenings when i do most of my movie watching those HDR highlights of say a headlight or explosion against the inky black look incredibly bright and realistic.. i mean how much brighter can it really get ffs before it overwhelms the picture or becomes uncomfortable to watch.. i think from memory the CX tops out around 5 or 600 nits and here we are talking about 1500 - 2000 nits.. from where I'm sitting that just sounds like its gonna fry my fucking eyeballs
 

Ulysses 31

Member
The 75" version of this would be mine except I want the One Connect box, which for some inexplicable reason only seems to be on the 95 model not the 90, and I think that's Europe only? WTF Samsung?
If it's like the 2019/2020 models, the 95 is the same as the 90 version but with a Connect box and the 95 is available in bigger sizes too. I'm sure Samsung sells both in US like they do in EU.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
People keep harping on about this LCD HDR brightness advantage and I just don't get it, is this simply spec sheet nonsense that doesn't translate to real world watching?. I have a 55LGCX and to be perfectly honest the fucking thing gets bright enough for me, any 4K movie i've watched on it, especially in the evenings when i do most of my movie watching those HDR highlights of say a headlight or explosion against the inky black look incredibly bright and realistic.. i mean how much brighter can it really get ffs before it overwhelms the picture or becomes uncomfortable to watch.. i think from memory the CX tops out around 5 or 600 nits and here we are talking about 1500 - 2000 nits.. from where I'm sitting that just sounds like its gonna fry my fucking eyeballs
The higher brightness allows for higher color volume too, it's not just all about peak brightness.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
The higher brightness allows for higher color volume too, it's not just all about peak brightness.
yeah i get all that but surely were at the point of diminishing returns and that the only way to discern any sort of difference is through equipment.. i watched a 4K of Blade the other week and thats a fuck old movie but it looked absolutely incredible on my set and I'm sure it'll look absolutely incredible on the latest Samsung or Sony etc. For me the next evolution in Television tech is where i can buy a bunch of interconnecting squares that seamlessly slot together to give me a huge picture and instead of buying a new telly i simply buy more squares and make the thing bigger..
 

Ulysses 31

Member
yeah i get all that but surely were at the point of diminishing returns and that the only way to discern any sort of difference is through equipment.. i watched a 4K of Blade the other week and thats a fuck old movie but it looked absolutely incredible on my set and I'm sure it'll look absolutely incredible on the latest Samsung or Sony etc. For me the next evolution in Television tech is where i can buy a bunch of interconnecting squares that seamlessly slot together to give me a huge picture and instead of buying a new telly i simply buy more squares and make the thing bigger..
I think movies/games look fine too on current tech. I suspect the stuff mastered at true 4K or even 10K nits will benefit from the newer TV tech.
 
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MadPanda

Banned
People keep harping on about this LCD HDR brightness advantage and I just don't get it, is this simply spec sheet nonsense that doesn't translate to real world watching?. I have a 55LGCX and to be perfectly honest the fucking thing gets bright enough for me, any 4K movie i've watched on it, especially in the evenings when i do most of my movie watching those HDR highlights of say a headlight or explosion against the inky black look incredibly bright and realistic.. i mean how much brighter can it really get ffs before it overwhelms the picture or becomes uncomfortable to watch.. i think from memory the CX tops out around 5 or 600 nits and here we are talking about 1500 - 2000 nits.. from where I'm sitting that just sounds like its gonna fry my fucking eyeballs

According to Vincent Teoh from hdtv test higher brightness isn't about brightness per se but about preserving some details in bright scenes. You can watch his video named "Your oled is not bright enough" or something like that for detailed analysis.
BTW I also have an LG CX and it's bright enough for me.
 

Soodanim

Member
I'm glad technology is moving along, I look forward to the trickle down. But there's always been something I don't quite like about how Samsung approach TVs that puts me off, and I can't pinpoint why. Not that I'd turn down one of these.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
According to Vincent Teoh from hdtv test higher brightness isn't about brightness per se but about preserving some details in bright scenes. You can watch his video named "Your oled is not bright enough" or something like that for detailed analysis.
BTW I also have an LG CX and it's bright enough for me.
I love aul innuendo man Teoh but he's looking at these telly's through an extremely experienced calibrated eyeball lol but to the rest of us plebs were not even going to notice these details sat on a couch 12-14ft away, all i see is inky blacks, great colour and super bright highlights on my Oled. I think TV's really are getting to a point where the differences can only be picked up by the likes of Vincent
 

Kuranghi

Member
Black levels are sensational, for starters; OLED-like in their depth and, even more surprisingly, their consistency. There’s no sign of baseline black level ‘flicker’, and when this TV fades to black, its screen completely blends in with the pitch darkness of a blacked out room - something I haven’t seen before outside the premium OLED world.

Not super impressed so far because my ZD9 from 2016 does all this.

I'd like to know the actual black level, the black level being "OLED-like" means nothing to me, I want to know the black level on an ANSI checkerboard pattern + in a real scene that shows true black but along with a varying brightness of elements. You don't often get

I'll wait for another review as I find this guy really biased towards Samsung products. He writes his reviews in this clever way where he points out the flaws but written in a way that makes them sound very minor, such as:

"and shadow detailing is superb, with pretty much no significant black crush"

From my experience this means, there is black crush generally but its very minor and sometimes its really significant/strong. Thats a big problem imo, then you have to choose between keeping a reference image with crushed shadows or ruining another part of the image to "fix" the shadow crushing caused by their inaccurate curve.

I don't want to go on a rant hating this guy with many quotes because he's just doing his job but try reading between the lines of his previous reviews and you will see what I mean. You will only hear about the real problems Samsung sets have when you read technical reviews/aggregate information from the internet, you won't see them in a review like this so I don't find it that useful.

Sony clips highlight detail on their sets so they have that caveat too, but I'd almost always want to see more detail in the shadows than more detail in a bright highlight, I'm sure there are exceptions, but few. In games they often clip the highlights (old habits for showing brightness on old dull SDR TVs maybe) for some reason anyway so there so I'm only really talking about Film/TV.

edit - wait one last one lol: "There can also occasionally be a little straight-edged backlight blooming around stand-out bright objects in Game mode - though oddly this is more likely to occur where bright objects appear on a greyish background than a truly black one"

If it was a truly black BG and the zones can turn off why would there be more blooming than on a grey BG? As long as the zones aren't much bigger than the bright object (and they are very very small in this TV, like a couple of inches across) there should be little blooming in that case. A grey BG is the most challenging thing to show bright content over, there is bound to be blooming in that case unless you dim the highlight to stop it.
 
Trying to figure out which 4ktv to buy to go with my new PS5 has been the biggest pain in the ass. No idea whether to get the Samsung Q80T, Sony X500H, Hisense H9G, or wait for the 2021 models
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
How bright are the 2021 OLEDs? I heard Sony had broken a record or something?
I have a C9 and while its plenty bright, a little brighter would be great. Given that its 700 odd nits, if new OLEDs are close to 1000 or above, that would be just perfect. I plan to upgrade in 2023 or so though.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
How bright are the 2021 OLEDs? I heard Sony had broken a record or something?
I have a C9 and while its plenty bright, a little brighter would be great. Given that its 700 odd nits, if new OLEDs are close to 1000 or above, that would be just perfect. I plan to upgrade in 2023 or so though.
All OLED with the new LG panels probably goes over 1000 nits.
 

Kuranghi

Member
I love aul innuendo man Teoh but he's looking at these telly's through an extremely experienced calibrated eyeball lol but to the rest of us plebs were not even going to notice these details sat on a couch 12-14ft away, all i see is inky blacks, great colour and super bright highlights on my Oled. I think TV's really are getting to a point where the differences can only be picked up by the likes of Vincent

How does this look on your OLED?




The black BG scenes look ace and the yellow paint adjacent to the black BG will really pop on OLED but I found the full colour scenes to be lacking compared to even something like an XF90, let alone 1500+ nit LCDs like this Samsung or the usual older sets from Samsung and Sony. I think theres a long to way to go until we even have a TV that can handle both these types of shots well, let alone one that can accurately tonemap (or rather not tonemap at all) a 4000-nit signal. Then there are 1000-nit signals after that. Then there is getting about 85% colour volume for BT2020.

Theres loads to look forward to and even are crap-ass eyes will notice it!
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Trying to figure out which 4ktv to buy to go with my new PS5 has been the biggest pain in the ass. No idea whether to get the Samsung Q80T, Sony X500H, Hisense H9G, or wait for the 2021 models

Had the same problem as you before xmas, looking at all the reviews, watching all the youtube vids and reading the various forums etc and every single fucking one of them had a problem somewhere or another so decided fuck this i'm gonna buy an LGCX Oled, future proofed enough to cover the PS5 and i couldn't be happier, everything about it has blown me away, the OS is snappy as fuck, the picture is sublime.. heck even the audio is decent enough, no buyers regret here and would recommend in a heart beat to friends and family.
 

KellyNole

Member
Still only one HDMI 2.1 port it seems. Glad I went ahead with the CX last year. I was choosing between the CX and the x900H. CX won out due to picture quality and having four HDMI 2.1 ports. I was thinking of waiting, but the new systems made me want to jump on a new TV. Yes I could get an HDMI 2.1 switch, if there was one. If the TV manufacturers aren't putting that many HDM 2.1 ports in, I don't see a lot of HDMI 2.1 switches coming anytime soon.
 

Kuranghi

Member
How bright are the 2021 OLEDs? I heard Sony had broken a record or something?
I have a C9 and while its plenty bright, a little brighter would be great. Given that its 700 odd nits, if new OLEDs are close to 1000 or above, that would be just perfect. I plan to upgrade in 2023 or so though.

It doesn't mean it will be significantly brighter than your OLED, because they still have limitations on how bright the whole screen can be, it mostly means it will more accurately tonemap HDR imagery to its panel. So there will be more detail in the highlights and the very brightness point of them will be brighter (The sun).

So it won't be like "I always had to set my C9's OLED Light to 100 for HDR but with my new G1 I just keep it at 70", as far as I understand it anyway. If you want an actually brighter set that can show >25% of the screen being really bright you need an LCD.

By 2023 we will hopefully have these types of problems solved though so you are golden.
 
I don't trust Forbes reviews of TVs. They say BS most of the times. I'll wait for HDTVTest or RTings. Anyway this seems very interesting like I said before. Many awesome TVs coming out this year.

Edit: if the 2700 nits peak and 2000 nits sustained is really true then this is incredible wow.
 
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Had the same problem as you before xmas, looking at all the reviews, watching all the youtube vids and reading the various forums etc and every single fucking one of them had a problem somewhere or another so decided fuck this i'm gonna buy an LGCX Oled, future proofed enough to cover the PS5 and i couldn't be happier, everything about it has blown me away, the OS is snappy as fuck, the picture is sublime.. heck even the audio is decent enough, no buyers regret here and would recommend in a heart beat to friends and family.
Yeah maybe I'll just do that. . .$2000 + tax for a TV seems absurd, but the one thing that everyone agrees on is that that one rocks
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
How does this look on your OLED?




The black BG scenes look ace and the yellow paint adjacent to the black BG will really pop on OLED but I found the full colour scenes to be lacking compared to even something like an XF90, let alone 1500+ nit LCDs like this Samsung or the usual older sets from Samsung and Sony. I think theres a long to way to go until we even have a TV that can handle both these types of shots well, let alone one that can accurately tonemap (or rather not tonemap at all) a 4000-nit signal. Then there are 1000-nit signals after that. Then there is getting about 85% colour volume for BT2020.

Theres loads to look forward to and even are crap-ass eyes will notice it!


ok i went into our back room and stuck it on but barin in mind our drawing room is south facing with big windies it gets a lot of light and it looked decent enough, the scenes with the black girl looked great, especially the shot with the bright blue eye paint... i'm sure it'll look a lot better later tonite when the room is darker, again colour wise it looked grand
 

Kuranghi

Member
Trying to figure out which 4ktv to buy to go with my new PS5 has been the biggest pain in the ass. No idea whether to get the Samsung Q80T, Sony X500H, Hisense H9G, or wait for the 2021 models

If you want something right now and at the best price then I'd buy the LG C9/CX (right now for C9 if you can still get it, or wait til April/May for CX to be cheapest but don't slack or they will be gone, keep an eye on it) but if money isn't a factor and you want much better motion for Film/TV watching wait for the 2021 Sony OLEDs since they will have HDMI 2.1 like the LG has now.

If you don't trust OLED or want more pop for brighter on average scenes (but worse in almost every way for dark scenes, like space shots) then get an LCD, I'd wait for more reviews of these Samsung mini-LEDs so you can have all the important questions answered, such as: Does game mode look significantly worse the other picture modes? Don't buy any Samsungs LCDs from 2020, ie the Q80T, the 2020 Sony XH95 smashes them for picture quality. We'll need to wait and see on the Sony 2020 LCDs but I'm guessing they will be subpar dimming wise compared to the Samsungs unless they went crazy with the dimming zone count this year to match these Samsungs mini-LEDs. Unlikely given the prices, I could even see the Sony 2021 sets being a downgrade in processing quality since XH90 was a step back from even the 2017 X1 chip in many regards.

In terms of picture quality don't get the Hisense.

TL;DR - Buy a 2019/2020 LG OLED now if you won't watch much movies or TV on it, if you do/will then wait for Sony 2021 OLEDs. If you often play during the day with lights shining on the TV maybe get an LCD, which means wait for the reviews of the Sony and Samsung 2021 LCD sets in May/June. I'd be happy to give you buying advice then.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Yeah maybe I'll just do that. . .$2000 + tax for a TV seems absurd, but the one thing that everyone agrees on is that that one rocks

m8 it even passed the wife test who constantly comments on how good it looks, stick on the the LOTR remasters or John Wick3 and you're eyeballs will pop out.. honestly the only thing i could fault on the TV was i had to buy an amazon 4K stick so i could load up Kodi and it doesn't integrate with my Ring system
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
If you want something right now and at the best price then I'd buy the LG C9/CX (right now for C9 if you can still get it, or wait til April/May for CX to be cheapest but don't slack or they will be gone, keep an eye on it) but if money isn't a factor and you want much better motion for Film/TV watching wait for the 2021 Sony OLEDs since they will have HDMI 2.1 like the LG has now.

If you don't trust OLED or want more pop for brighter on average scenes (but worse in almost every way for dark scenes, like space shots) then get an LCD, I'd wait for more reviews of these Samsung mini-LEDs so you can have all the important questions answered, such as: Does game mode look significantly worse the other picture modes? Don't buy any Samsungs LCDs from 2020, ie the Q80T, the 2020 Sony XH95 smashes them for picture quality. We'll need to wait and see on the Sony 2020 LCDs but I'm guessing they will be subpar dimming wise compared to the Samsungs unless they went crazy with the dimming zone count this year to match these Samsungs mini-LEDs. Unlikely given the prices, I could even see the Sony 2021 sets being a downgrade in processing quality since XH90 was a step back from even the 2017 X1 chip in many regards.

In terms of picture quality don't get the Hisense.

TL;DR - Buy a 2019/2020 LG OLED now if you won't watch much movies or TV on it, if you do/will then wait for Sony 2021 OLEDs. If you often play during the day with lights shining on the TV maybe get an LCD, which means wait for the reviews of the Sony and Samsung 2021 LCD sets in May/June. I'd be happy to give you buying advice then.

That's an absurd statement, the LGCX is phenomenal for movies and tv shows especially considering all the new stuff is usually shot quite dark and moody so it looks fantastic on Oled
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
If you want something right now and at the best price then I'd buy the LG C9/CX (right now for C9 if you can still get it, or wait til April/May for CX to be cheapest but don't slack or they will be gone, keep an eye on it) but if money isn't a factor and you want much better motion for Film/TV watching wait for the 2021 Sony OLEDs since they will have HDMI 2.1 like the LG has now.

If you don't trust OLED or want more pop for brighter on average scenes (but worse in almost every way for dark scenes, like space shots) then get an LCD, I'd wait for more reviews of these Samsung mini-LEDs so you can have all the important questions answered, such as: Does game mode look significantly worse the other picture modes? Don't buy any Samsungs LCDs from 2020, ie the Q80T, the 2020 Sony XH95 smashes them for picture quality. We'll need to wait and see on the Sony 2020 LCDs but I'm guessing they will be subpar dimming wise compared to the Samsungs unless they went crazy with the dimming zone count this year to match these Samsungs mini-LEDs. Unlikely given the prices, I could even see the Sony 2021 sets being a downgrade in processing quality since XH90 was a step back from even the 2017 X1 chip in many regards.

In terms of picture quality don't get the Hisense.

TL;DR - Buy a 2019/2020 LG OLED now if you won't watch much movies or TV on it, if you do/will then wait for Sony 2021 OLEDs. If you often play during the day with lights shining on the TV maybe get an LCD, which means wait for the reviews of the Sony and Samsung 2021 LCD sets in May/June. I'd be happy to give you buying advice then.

I think they would be fine with any of them. Just check how good the hdmi 2.1 support is (vrr, 120hz). Samsung game mode still has that problem with hdr raised blacks I think so maybe look into that but people way overestimate how much the panel will make a difference in games. To be honest most people would probably be happy with random $500 tv if they weren't following hype. Like one of my old 2015 4k edge lit Samsung non HDR tv have like 80% of the image quality that my LG CX has in 4k
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
That's an absurd statement, the LGCX is phenomenal for movies and tv shows especially considering all the new stuff is usually shot quite dark and moody so it looks fantastic on Oled
I think they might just be going with what HDTVTest (Vincent Teoh) says about Sony and Panasonic OLED look better in tv/movies. He didn't say LG is bad, just not as good for that content
 
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If you want something right now and at the best price then I'd buy the LG C9/CX (right now for C9 if you can still get it, or wait til April/May for CX to be cheapest but don't slack or they will be gone, keep an eye on it) but if money isn't a factor and you want much better motion for Film/TV watching wait for the 2021 Sony OLEDs since they will have HDMI 2.1 like the LG has now.

If you don't trust OLED or want more pop for brighter on average scenes (but worse in almost every way for dark scenes, like space shots) then get an LCD, I'd wait for more reviews of these Samsung mini-LEDs so you can have all the important questions answered, such as: Does game mode look significantly worse the other picture modes? Don't buy any Samsungs LCDs from 2020, ie the Q80T, the 2020 Sony XH95 smashes them for picture quality. We'll need to wait and see on the Sony 2020 LCDs but I'm guessing they will be subpar dimming wise compared to the Samsungs unless they went crazy with the dimming zone count this year to match these Samsungs mini-LEDs. Unlikely given the prices, I could even see the Sony 2021 sets being a downgrade in processing quality since XH90 was a step back from even the 2017 X1 chip in many regards.

In terms of picture quality don't get the Hisense.

TL;DR - Buy a 2019/2020 LG OLED now if you won't watch much movies or TV on it, if you do/will then wait for Sony 2021 OLEDs. If you often play during the day with lights shining on the TV maybe get an LCD, which means wait for the reviews of the Sony and Samsung 2021 LCD sets in May/June. I'd be happy to give you buying advice then.
Thanks for the comprehensive advice. I really only care about gaming performance - I watch movies and TV pretty rarely. My apartment gets a fair amount of natural light, particularly in the mornings (east-facing windows), and it has been a source of annoyance for me in the past. I guess I'll wait for the new generation of sets - do you think any of the LCDs will launch at ~$1500 for a 65-inch?
 

Kuranghi

Member
That's an absurd statement, the LGCX is phenomenal for movies and tv shows especially considering all the new stuff is usually shot quite dark and moody so it looks fantastic on Oled

I didnt say it wasn't good for movies and TV in general by virtue of being an OLED, the picture quality is phenomenal and the differences in upscaling and presentation between LG and Sony OLEDs are not visible to the averager consumer, I'm just talking about the motion. The way motion is handled on OLEDs means if you watch lots of 24/25hz content there will be a noticeable stutter which makes most people want to put on motion interpolation to smooth out the motion without adding artifacts, and Sony does that much better than LG, any reviewer will tell you that, its been like that for 5+ years.

If you watch movies and TV with motion interpolation off then its not a problem but I found hardly anyone of my customers wanting to do that, from average joes to real enthusiasts, most want to turn it on. So I always mention it for that reason.

Do you not use motion interpolation on your CX? If yes, then try this video on it and tell me if you see any tearing during the normal speed parts:




TBH if you have the smoothing set really high then don't watch the video, its a torture test too see how good your motion interpolation is. I mean it sincerely it will just be annoying going forward if you are loving the TV, I'm not trying to rip on your TV just talking about my experience with these sets looking at them for 100s of hours.

edit - I'm not 100% how it works on LGs but the apps on the TV might be in a different picture mode than what you are used to so make sure to check that and set the motion to what you normally use on HDMI inputs.
 
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Amaranty

Member
"As usual with Samsung TVs, the local dimming engine doesn’t seem able to run quite as intensively in Game mode"

If it's anything like last year's Samsung Q90T, then this TV is really poor value for gaming. To put into perspective, Sony' mid range X900H has better local dimming in game mode compared to Samsung' flagship Q90T.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Well, we made it a whopping two posts before we brought up OLED burn-in this time.

Don't buy a car guys, you might crash it.

Super silly analogy unless you were willing to buy a car that is way more likely to crash vs a safe one.

As an owner of oled burn in, I can safely say you are confused.
 
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