Samsung QN85A Neo QLED - Better than expected? + QN90A

wow so i've had quite the time trying to figure out what samsung's doing on their new neo-q-led tvs and this qn 85 that i've been watching for the last few days as well as the qn90a that i've had for a couple weeks now i think i've got it figured out so i'm going to review the qn85a how it differs from the q90a and is it worth it for you to get one or the other or maybe neither maybe i'll offer some alternatives to these tvs let's get it so if you haven't seen a review on the samsung qn 85a neoq led i can tell you that there's the early feedback is kind of all over the spectrum from it's awesome to it's awful and i knew that before i even opened the box but the conundrum i found myself was not as simple as putting this just below the qn 90a or just above the q80a it's a bit complicated and i think explaining this out and what alternatives to look for over the year could really help you on finding a good tv before i get into that make sure to subscribe below i'm grateful for all who have subscribed and make sure you set the bell to all because you won't know when the latest review or installation video is uploaded unless you do and make sure to smash the like button and your convenience or just do it now thanks so i was happy to have gotten the samsung q19a first i have warmed up to it a little bit since my initial review though it has some aggressive dimming and it was pretty similar to the q90t of 2020. and after seeing how bright that was and with the assumption that the slightly less expensive 8 series mini led tv would be pretty close but a better deal i had to compare them but before i could surprise the sony a98 master series oled arrived and stunned some folks including myself both of those reviews are out and i even made an oled versus q-led comparison so check those out because now with those two flagship 4k tvs in the back of my mind the bar is set quite high for the rest of the 2021 tvs and now enters the qn85a which doesn't fit into the traditional samsung hierarchy and to make this simple i'm going to refer to the qn85 as the 85 and the qn90a as the 90 and if i'm referring to any other models i'll notate that so let's get the 85 up and working and go from there and besides the name the 85 looks almost identical to the 90. the only physical difference is how the stand is designed the 85 stand is sort of like the older samsung pedestal style stands with a plastic channel to cover the wires but then there are many similarities to the samsung 90s such as the newer slim down bluetooth remote that's powered by usbc and solar versus the older models where you had to replace the batteries it doesn't have a backlight but with this amount of light from these neoq leds and how simple the remote is you're probably okay this 85 like the 90 is a mini led with nearly 10 times the dimming zones over the 2020 models the q90t and the q80t at just under 600 zones for the 55 inch and both have one hdmi 2.1 and some cool new features like the gaming hub and freesync premium pro and my personal favorite tv feature of all time picture in picture so definitely a few new and exciting features to the samsung lineup besides a mini led technology once you use that remote to pop this tv on the majority of the os looks similar to the 2020 models with a couple new features one that i just spoke about is the picture-in-picture a major throwback to the early 2000s once again we can do two things at once on a tv i'm not sure why this is ever taken down actually i do cable companies actually took the picture and picture in-house in their cable boxes so it's kind of pointless for tvs to have it but then they bailed on it and so now it's back in the tvs and it actually makes more sense to have it in the tvs because we have so many sources to choose from including our phones and they even have three and four-way splits so you can source just about anything it's actually pretty sweet and the other feature that i was speaking about is the new gaming hub and though i find it cool i'm not really a gamer but i've yet to get a comment from anyone really so is that gaming hub actually worth it definitely let me know in the comments besides those two major changes i'm pretty comfortable with the tizen os not much different than last year so i want to do a little testing right off the bat nothing too technical and in this case i think it's going to be helpful to understand what it means for the real world and the two tests that i think will help you decide which tv was right for you our screen uniformity and the dimming test to check on the blooming now the gray uniformity was actually better on the 85 than the 90. now it wasn't perfect but for some reason samsung has been slacking on their uniformity and it's no different in 2021 the 90 is pretty bad the 85 is a little better on the qn90a it was actually a little bit darker but on this 85 it's a little bit more sporadic and a little bit lighter now the blooming however is opposite the 85 has some blooming it's not great but for an expensive samsung qled i would have hoped for an improvement with the implementation of mini led though the blooming on the tcl r35 last year was also pretty bad but those tests are just kind of markers for later in the video so let's check out some real content so the first thing i turned on was mad max fury road and this movie has all kinds of funky scenes it's pretty intense and there's nothing like intensity for a tv review right well not to disappoint this tv is bright as hell and i was looking around for a contrast or lack of detail and to be honest this tv is pretty solid so far its color volume is very beautiful and i started thinking i was looking at the 90 instead of the 85 so i just played some other content this time i popped on sportscenter i was checking highlights while watching highlights and again not too much to complain about i'm starting to really believe that this 85 is comparable to the 90. gaming the same super bright great detail solid contrast and all the gaming features you would need even though it's just one port at 4k at 120 so i'm happy once again so short and sweet it's a winner right i mean for some people it's going to be just that simple but let me explain why i think it looks so great from straight on before i bring in the 90. so the qn85a is actually an ips panel instead of a va panel in fact many of the samsungs are ips panels this year the basics for ips panels are that they have great viewing angles over the va panels but not as good of contrast ratings.com has a great bit of info on this but i'm not going to go over all the details so these two tvs i'm showing now are different in almost every other way besides having many leds so i just want to show more of this movie again on both tvs and have you look at it from straight on both tvs are in the same movie hdr mode exact same settings across the board and to me there's very little difference in these two tvs in fact the 85 looks slightly brighter and punchier than the 90 here it's interesting and on the other hand with the 90 having the va panel and supposedly better contrast on paper i'm not really noticing much of a difference straight on now if i move off angle a bit we have a different story it becomes a bit more complicated for a few reasons the ips panel should have a better viewing angle but that's not the case the picture washes out pretty quickly on the 85 when compared to the 90. the blooming on the 85 is also significantly worse which i think is to be expected with the lack of contrast on top of the contrast and the blooming differences the 85 doesn't seem to have the same intense anti-reflective coating you can see that they took that away because it doesn't have that massive glare across the screen like the 90 does and previous top q-led models so i'm really thinking that the 85 ips panel is actually brighter from straight on at least with these two tvs because of the anti-reflective coating on the 90 is quite intense improving the viewing angles improving the contrast but it seems to darken the screen whereas the 85 is just shining straight through and from that same straight on view the contrast of the 85 seems just fine when watching movies and when gaming i've yet to really see a significant benefit from the increased contrast of the 90 when sitting in front of both of these tvs but when you move off angle even just a little bit the 90 keeps the stronger picture quality and there's a definite washout in the 85 and the blooming becomes noticeable so what do you do which tv to buy it's not going to be just as simple as saying get the 85 if you game or the 90 if you watch movies i mean it's sort of like the sony x900h and the x950h comparison in 2020 but this time both tvs have hdmi 2.1 and the less expensive tv is actually brighter kind of crazy so the way the look of these two tvs is something like this there's a bunch of different kind of content and ways we watch our tvs we have bright and dark rooms we have watching it straight on or with a lot of friends at different angles we have a lot of different sorts of content you'll be watching and playing so if you're going to be watching tv in a super bright room or a super dark room and or you're going to be watching it from a variety angles the samsung qn90a is going to handle that reflection better in a bright room or it's going to offer a better viewing experience from different angles especially with a big tv if you've ever noticed on a large tv things like blooming and viewing angles actually get exposed you'll notice the flaws in the corners of the screen more easily and you're bound to get some sort of light bouncing off of an 85 inch tv you'll notice the same kind of benefits with the 90 in a really dark room too blooming and black uniformity which are better on the 90 are more important when trying to get that oled type look without worrying about the burn in so the qn 90a which is super bright with the many bells and whistles will likely have an overall advantage for most people but the qn85 on the other hand is literally the exact same tv for all practical purposes when viewing from straight on in fact it looks a little better it seems a little brighter it has a little bit more punch to the highlights and for those who will game full screen or watch full screen hdr sdr it's unlike you'll notice significant blooming unless you're moving off axis or in a really dark room so i can see why the early reviews are at different ends of the spectrum for this qn85a i mean you really have some significant changes in the samsung tv over previous models and you have some real world differences in how people watch and play content and to make it even harder we still have to see where the prices end up to be quite honest both of these tvs are priced pretty high i would have expected a little more significant improvement on these two tvs for them to start out at two thousand and sixteen hundred dollars for 55 inch we are looking at more or less the same tvs from last year with mini leds and maybe a bit more punch over the comparable 2020 models and for the qn85a compared to the q80t the blooming looks a little better from straight on but a little worse from off angle and it's not the same va panel so it's not the same contrast and the supposed benefit of a better viewing angle on the ips is not here due to the lack of the wide-angle reflective coating and that blooming i'd be careful getting the qn-85a in a large size or if you have a really wide seating area because the quality falls off pretty fast from the sides but overall the qn85a is actually better than i expected it's a pretty decent tv if the price is right here in 2021 and you want a super bright and vibrant 4k tv with picture-in-picture gaming hub hdmi 2.1 and no worries of burn in for years to come the qn-85a has a lot to offer even though i really have to stress that it's pretty damn expensive and there are a lot of tvs yet to see in 2021 i'm thinking the x90j high sense mini led tcl new hdmi 2.1 mini led tvs most of those will be less expensive than the samsung qn85a so what do you think are you going to get one of these mini led samsungs if not which tv that i mentioned is most interesting i'm sure a lot of people are going to say the sony x90j which will be one of the first tvs i review as soon as it's out so make sure you check for it let me know in the comments smash the like button on their way out make sure to subscribe ring the bell be notified when i upload one of my new review or installation videos check it out so you can be the installer you

Channel: B The Installer

Views: 254,056

Keywords: Samsung QN90a, samsung QN85A, qn85a, qn90a, qn85a vs qn90a, QN75QN85AAFXZA, qn65qn85aafxza, qn55qn85a, qn65qn85a, qn75qn85a, qn55qn90a, qn65qn90a, qn75qn90a, qn95a, qn85a vs q80t, qn85a vs q90t, IPS vs VA, IPA panel, APS panel

Id: vfFZeC-Tq8s

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021