The Samsung Q90T QLED TV is the perfect showcase of what Samsung's QLED technology can do, offering lots of punchy brightness making it a great daytime viewing option. At the same time, it doesn't scrimp on quality and still offers balanced colors that create a display that works well.
This is one of our best TV entrants thanks to that ability to marry top-end brightness with some very impressive black levels too. But there is plenty more besides, includes HDR10+ support and the latest HDMI 2.1 connectivity onboard.
The fact this also looks great with a slim form and very minimal bezel are just top bonuses that help justify the price of this premium TV.
So is the Samsung Q90T QLED the TV for you? Read on to find out.
Samsung Q90T QLED TV review: Picture
- Over 2,000 nits bright
- 4K and HDR10+
- Great HDR and contrast
The Samsung Q90T is one of the brightest TVs you can buy churning out a whopping 2,000 nits of peak brightness. That makes this ideal for bright living spaces and for daytime viewing. But this also manages to offer dark blacks too, ideal for cinema style movie viewing, making it a great generalist for all occasions.
Average price: From $1,499
Sizes available: 55", 65", 75", and 85"
Screen type: QLED
4K ready? Yes
8K ready? No
HDR type: HDR10+
Audio type: Dolby Digital Plus
HDMI connections: 1xHDMI 2.1, 3xHDMI 2.0b
Other connections: 2 x USB, Optical out, Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.2
This TV features Full Array Local Dimming, aka FALD, which offers a smarter way to distribute the light from the LEDs. This uses zones which can be turned on and off individually, a bit like OLED only less exact. This does work well for HDR though, offering bright and dark scenes right next to each other without light bleed into the dark part.
Mode settings are a big deal on this TV as they can mean a difference as great as 700 nits brightness between them. And, since color accuracy tends to improve with less brightness, they're well worth playing with to suit what you're viewing. All that's great for enthusiasts but for everyone else it means a lot of tweaking to get perfection as many of the pre-set modes are extremes.
Motion judder settings are another area you may want to delve into as on default Samsung does overprocess slow moving scenes, making them look sped up. All that said, the Quantum Processor 4K does a good job of 4K content and HDR for the likes of Netflix but also for gaming with a low-latency game mode that included VRR too.
Samsung Q90T QLED TV review: Sound
- Object Tracking Sound
- Up and side firing speakers
- Eight speaker drivers
Samsung has crammed in a whopping eight speaker drivers and a host of speakers firing in all sorts of directions to create an impressively immersive sound for a TV of this size.
Samsung's Object Tracking Sound does as it describes, tracking an object on the TV as it moves and firing the sound about the room accordingly. So if you have a car moving across the screen, for example, the up-firing and down-firing speakers can work to bounce audio around the room to create the illusion of the car really moving across the room. All very clever stuff and it really works, but it's still limited to TV sized speakers of course.
Alternatively you can attach a soundbar or home theater system and you'll get a more powerful and immersive result. So perhaps factor that in on top of the price of this TV's price tag.
Samsung Q90T QLED TV review: Design and build
- Super slender bezel
- Tizen OS smarts
- QLED tech
The Samsung Q90T looks ultra modern with that super slim bezel and minimal stand all finished in a dark frame. It's slim for a QLED but looks positively bloated when next to an ultra thin OLED.
On the rear you won't find Samsung's helpful OneConnect Box, to get all your cables tidy - that's been ditched from last year's model it seems. Instead you have a selection of ports with all you could need including an HDMI 2.1 port, but just the one with the other three as HDMI 2.0b. That 2.1 is important as it will future-proof you for things like 120Hz making it ideal for next-gen gaming consoles.
The operating system on this TV is Samsung's own Tizen OS. It looks decent and works intuitively plus offers lots of smart connectivity with the Samsung smart home ecosystem. Bixby search is onboard but to be honest it's not as smart as it should be. You get all the apps you could want though, from Netflix and Disney+ to Apple TV and Hulu to name just a few.
The downside here is you only get HDR10+ and not Dolby Vision, which Netflix and Disney+ use as their high-quality streaming codec of choice.
Ambient Mode is a nice touch, allowing your TV to blend into the background wall color when not being watched. We also like Mobile Multi View which lets you cast the TV image to your smartphone simultaneously.
Should you buy the Samsung Q90T QLED TV?
If you want a super bright TV that also offers impressive blacks and powerful colors, and don't mind tweaking to find the ideal setup, then this is a great option for you. With HDMI 2.1 you're future-proofed and set for next-gen gaming. The OS is good with all the apps you could want and extra features make it stand out.
But if you want the best blacks, less faff with image settings and more than one HDMI 2.1 port you may want to look into OLED instead.
Other TV reviews: Samsung Q90R review | LG C9 OLED review | Vizio M-Series Quantum review | Hisense H9G ULED TV | Sony A9G OLED review | TCL 6-Series TV
