The Samsung QN90F is the company’s latest flagship 4K mini-LED TV, replacing last year's excellent QN90D. It keeps its predecessor’s ample feature set while adding a glare-reducing screen treatment and offering a faster variable refresh rate for gaming. It’s also much brighter than the QN90D while showing perfect blacks and minimal light bloom. Like all of Samsung’s high-end TVs, the QN90F is very pricey, with the 65-inch model I tested retailing for $2,499.99. It also lacks Dolby Vision, and while its smart TV platform is filled with features, it's also rather clunky and overbearing. On a pure picture level, the QN90F is a winner, but the Hisense U8QG outshines it both literally and as a value proposition with a brighter panel, a lower price, and a more streamlined interface, so it continues to be our Editors' Choice for LED TVs.

Design: No Bezel or Glare

The QN90F looks sleek, with an effectively bezel-free design that lets the screen extend from edge to edge. A small bump on the lower-right corner holds the TV’s infrared sensor. The 65-inch model sits on a fairly small gray metal stand, and it can also be mounted on a wall. Most ports sit in a recessed area on the right side of the back of the TV, facing right. That includes four HDMI ports, two USB ports, an optical audio output, a headphone jack, an Ethernet port, and an antenna/cable connector.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The screen features Samsung’s Glare-Free technology, a panel treatment that helps reduce light reflections. This doesn't mean it should be used outdoors or with the sun blazing directly through a facing window, but it seemed to reduce distracting glare from bright overhead lights in testing.

Like all of Samsung’s high-end TVs, the QN90F comes with the company’s SolarCell Remote. It’s a very simple rectangular black wand with two benefits over most other remotes: A rechargeable battery and a solar cell. You can keep the remote charged by plugging it into a USB charger through the USB-C port on the bottom or by flipping it over and keeping it out under a light source. It’s much more convenient and environmentally friendly than periodically needing to replace disposable batteries.

The remote has a large circular navigation pad near the top with power, AI, microphone, and settings buttons above it, along with a pinhole microphone. Menu and playback buttons sit below the pad, with volume and channel rockers further down and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, and YouTube below them.

Audio: 4.2.2 Channels With Dolby Atmos

QN90F model sizes 55 inches and larger feature a 60W 4.2.2-channel speaker system, a notable upgrade over the generally weaker stereo speakers many other TVs use. You get height channels and Dolby Atmos spatial audio support. The Hisense U8QG and some other high-end TVs have similarly sophisticated sound systems. 

The QN90F's speaker system can also work in tandem with compatible Samsung soundbars with the company’s Q-Symphony feature, which takes advantage of both TV and soundbar drivers instead of only using one or the other.

Tizen for TVs: Filled With Features, But Overbearing

Samsung’s Tizen OS smart TV platform remains a powerful but sometimes clunky interface. It covers all major streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Twitch, and YouTube. It supports both Apple AirPlay and Miracast/WiDi for streaming from your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC. It also features Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant for controlling the TV and smart home devices, searching for content, and performing a variety of other useful tasks. If you want to use the QN90F for smart home control, it can serve as a hub for both Samsung SmartThings and Matter-compatible devices, in addition to the lengthy list of Alexa-compatible gadgets. 

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Tizen OS still feels overbearing, with many menu settings buried a layer or two deeper than other smart TV platforms. That includes the setting for switching inputs, which is made further frustrating by the remote’s lack of an input button. It’s gotten a bit better this year, though, with quick picture settings now accessible just by pressing the gear icon button on the remote instead of pressing it, navigating up, and selecting the settings menu.

Picture Quality: High Contrast and Almost No Light Bloom

The Samsung QN90F is a 4K mini-LED TV with a 120Hz native refresh rate. It can display high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, and hybrid log gamma (HLG), though Samsung continues to eschew Dolby Vision support. It has an ATSC 1.0 tuner for over-the-air broadcasts, but no ATSC 3.0 tuner for 1080p and 4K OTA broadcasts.

I test TVs using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software. In HDR Movie mode with an HDR10 signal, the QN90F showed a peak brightness of 770 nits with a full-screen white field and 2,519 nits with an 18% white field. That’s extremely high, rivaled only by Hisense and TCL’s high-end TVs, and far brighter than any OLED TV we’ve tested. For comparison, the Hisense U8QG puts out 3,200 nits with an 18% white field.

Thanks to its mini-LED backlight system, the QN90F shows effectively perfect black levels and infinite contrast like an OLED panel, though there’s a trade-off: Since there are magnitudes more pixels than adjustable backlight zones, light bloom can appear along high-contrast edges. This effect varies between different mini-LED TVs, and I noticed very little of it when testing the QN90F. Still, even dimmer OLED panels will always have the advantage over any mini-LED TV, since they can brighten, dim, or turn off each individual pixel.

(Credit: PCMag)

The above charts show the QN90F’s color levels in Movie mode with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. Whites run slightly cool but not significantly so, and colors are otherwise very accurate. The TV's HDR color range doesn't quite cover the DCI-P3 color space, but it comes very close with very little drift.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The party scenes in The Great Gatsby look quite good. Black suits appear properly dark while showing fine details like cuts and textures, and white shirts and balloons look very bright. Skin tones also look natural and saturated, and blues and oranges pop out nicely against the extremes in contrast.

Demonstration footage on the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD benchmark disc looks great on the QN90F. Snowy nature scenes look very bright while retaining plenty of detail in the highlights, making falling snow and wisps of clouds visible against white skies and ground. Wider landscape shots are colorful and lifelike. The details of dark trees are clearly visible in morning shots of forests against brightening skies. Moreover, shots of brightly lit, colorful objects in front of completely black backgrounds show minimal light bloom.

Gaming Performance: Responsive, With 165Hz VRR

The QN90F has a 120Hz native refresh rate, but it can support a variable refresh rate (VRR) of up to 165Hz, which should appeal to gamers. It also features AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and can display 21:9 and 32:9 ultrawide pictures from PCs, with letterboxing.

One frame of lag (16.6ms at 60Hz, 8.3ms at 120Hz) is our threshold to consider a TV good for gaming. Using a Leo Bodnar 4K Video Signal Lag Tester, I measured 9.8ms of latency on the QN90F in Game mode with a 4K60 signal, so it easily makes the grade. With a 1080p120 signal, that lag drops to 8.4ms. Since the test process can vary by a few tenths of a millisecond, I'm willing to consider that a passing score for 120Hz, too.