Samsung QE65Q8C QLED 4K HDR TV Review & Comments

Yeah I understand. It does seem that there has been a substantial uplift in pricing from the KS series though or am I imagining it?


The 55KS7000 on release was £1500 and so is the 55MU7000 which is this years equivalent model.

Samsung have released another tier of TV`s which are the Q range (Several variations of the 7,8,9 Q series are available in flat and curved) and that is where the prices have increased by around £800-1000).
 
It's unbelievable what you're getting money wise with the DX! Good choice, and I kid you not, it's possible to get almost OLED quality with SDR using the right settings, it's fantastic.

Will have to see what the warrenty company offers me as a replacement for my JS as the engineer was certain it could only be repaired with a new screen . Also said that screens for the JS range were very hard to come by now and expects I will be offered a replacement display. First port of call for similar specs on my JS9000 would be the KS9000 but I'm hoping I can argue the point in no 3D and point them in the direction of the 902.

Still interested in the review of the Q9F but at these levels of peak brightness edge lit displays are really going to struggle on screen uniformity.
 
Will have to see what the warrenty company offers me as a replacement for my JS as the engineer was certain it could only be repaired with a new screen . Also said that screens for the JS range were very hard to come by now and expects I will be offered a replacement display. First port of call for similar specs on my JS9000 would be the KS9000 but I'm hoping I can argue the point in no 3D and point them in the direction of the 902.

Still interested in the review of the Q9F but at these levels of peak brightness edge lit displays are really going to struggle on screen uniformity.

I had the exact same issue with my JS9000 in November! Samsung messed me around hugely, and couldn't get a new screen, so they gave me an uplift code, from which I paid an extra £200 and got the DX.

Who's the warranty company then?

But yeah make out 3D is the sole reason you bought it ;)
 
I had the exact same issue with my JS9000 in November! Samsung messed me around hugely, and couldn't get a new screen, so they gave me an uplift code, from which I paid an extra £200 and got the DX.

Who's the warranty company then?

Well I won't give the name out of the warrenty company on an open forum. Needless to say it's 3rd party and the retailer of the TV is no longer in buisseness. The engineer was 99% sure they wouldn't be able to repair due to no avaliable screens and would be offered a replacement. Just have to wait and see what they come back with.
 
Curved :rotfl:
Has anyone told Samsung curved screens are so yesteryear!!!!!
 
Well Samsung have gone and done it - haven't they??

In a race to try and exploit LCD's (only) advantage over OLED they have gone and given us a butchered, super-slim edge-lit monster capable of 1,500 Nits. Wey Hey!! The problem comes when you need to make use of that advantage the edge-lit LCD tech (surprisingly) shows it's limitations - who would have thought that then?? Seems good for SDR content though ...

Then of course they want to try and charge the end user an arm and a leg (on the pretence it is something new) for being one of the bright colourful crowd ... if ever a company has jumped the shark then it must be Samsung (and it has been on the cards).
 
Well Samsung have gone and done it - haven't they??

In a race to try and exploit LCD's (only) advantage over OLED they have gone and given us a butchered, super-slim edge-lit monster capable of 1,500 Nits. Wey Hey!! The problem comes when you need to make use of that advantage the edge-lit LCD tech (surprisingly) shows it's limitations - who would have thought that then?? Seems good for SDR content though ...

Then of course they want to try and charge the end user an arm and a leg (on the pretence it is something new) for being one of the bright colourful crowd ... if ever a company has jumped the shark then it must be Samsung (and it has been on the cards).

What I can't understand is that they are not offering a FALD display this year that can take advantage of the greater peak brightness in a more manageable way. Considering the prices of the edge lit Sammy 2017 displays though God knows what a FALD would cost :eek:.
 
What I can't understand is that they are not offering a FALD display this year that can take advantage of the greater peak brightness in a more manageable way. Considering the prices of the edge lit Sammy 2017 displays though God knows what a FALD would cost :eek:.

55" £17,000 o_O
 
The 55KS7000 on release was £1500 and so is the 55MU7000 which is this years equivalent model.

Samsung have released another tier of TV`s which are the Q range (Several variations of the 7,8,9 Q series are available in flat and curved) and that is where the prices have increased by around £800-1000).

Regardless of them introducing another tier, the top tier KS9000 model from 2016 I believe gave you change from 3 grand at launch if I remember correctly.
A 33% increase in price doesn't seem justified here as it really doesn't seem to give anything close to 33% more tv. They are good tvs, don't get me wrong, but I don't see where the extra money is going here.
 
Steve, is this a better TV then Samsung KS8000?

Might have to ask if it's better than the JS series , at least they could dim the letterbox bars to pure black with the cinema black option. On this display watching UHD it must be so distracting with the bottom letterbox bar forever being slave to the backlight control. It's black , no grey , no right side is black , ah left side is grey .....and so on.
 
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Glad I picked up a reduced KS7000 rather than wait for these new models to come down in price.

I do not get the impression it would be much of an upgrade, So this should do me for another couple of years :)

Ditto - definitely the right choice! Having just bought the 65" KS7000 I also couldn't justify the steep prices of the new range as much as I do like having the latest stuff.
 
Great review.

Loving the extra detail on local dimming etc that you guys have added to your reviews this year, great stuff.

Wandered past a Q8 in a Samsung shop today, was interested to see what the viewing angles were like. Content wasn't useful but the haloing seemed almost as bad as my DX902 off-axis.

Not at all surprised by the conclusions drawn by this review.

It was pretty obvious from their marketing this year that they have abandoned any realistic chance of wooing many "enthusiasts" away from OLED at their intended prices. Fair enough as the "read a what-hifi review and buy what looks nice in John Lewis" brigade spend a lot more cumulative cash!

They've based all their marketing on a load of quantifiables such as colour volume, %DCI-P3 coverage and peak brightness that clearly actually have very little relative importance when compared to something like local dimming performance. What good is having a massive colour volume if the ability to saturate these colours is regularly significantly compromised due to a fundamentally flawed local dimming system?

I know this marketing sham happens every year but it seems even more obvious at the moment; perhaps because two of their main competitors have moved to OLED for their flagship products. What's depressing is that this guff filters down to the reviews themselves. AVforums generating some useless colour volume data is one thing, but reading another popular review site extoll the virtues of Q-LED because "skin tones look sooooooo much more natural on this 2017 uncalibrated set than they did on the lousy 2016 uncalibrated set" is downright depressing.
 
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When the gamut/volume was being measured, what was being used for the surround, please?

Thanks.
 
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Regardless of them introducing another tier, the top tier KS9000 model from 2016 I believe gave you change from 3 grand at launch if I remember correctly.
A 33% increase in price doesn't seem justified here as it really doesn't seem to give anything close to 33% more tv. They are good tvs, don't get me wrong, but I don't see where the extra money is going here.


Im not debating if the new range is worth the extra cost or not, however you can still get the new MU9000 and still have change of 3k without going up to the Q range.
 
Hmmm... nice set but as others have said that price point feels too high. For that sort of money there's a lot of competition around from not only OLED screens but high end LED sets with (frankly) better backlight systems. Also seems like the improvements over the previous year aren't massive, which is what you'd maybe expect as the tech matures but makes that price even harder to swallow. Got to say if I was looking for a Samsung TV right now think my money would go to the outgoing KS range. Might be different in a few months of course once the usual price drops start to kick in.
 
Might have to ask if it's better than the JS series , at least they could dim the letterbox bars to pure black with the cinema black option. On this display watching UHD it must be so distracting with the bottom letterbox bar forever being slave to the backlight control. It's black , no grey , no right side is black , ah left side is grey .....and so on.
i agree...the cinema black and lack of 3D has stopped me looking at any recent samsungs as an upgrade...the JS series tv's still have a stonking picture so i guess it can stay for another year....c6 OLED at £1600 is veeeery tempting though
 
Indeed. Thanks.
It's an interesting question because as with most things about colour volume there are different approaches. The main approach is to use a 10% window with a 0% black surround but the ICDM recommends a 4-40 window (a 4% window with a 40% grey surround). I've tried both and can't say it made any real difference to the numbers but I decided to use the ICDM approach because they are the ones driving a degree of standardisation in terms of colour volume measurement. If that wasn't enough you also need to take measurements every 2 seconds and for an LCD TV insert a 0% screen for 4 seconds every 2 seconds, which makes doing 140 or 393 measurements really time consuming. For OLED you need to insert a 10% screen every 10 seconds for 3 seconds, which isn't so bad.
 
It's unbelievable what you're getting money wise with the DX! Good choice, and I kid you not, it's possible to get almost OLED quality with SDR using the right settings, it's fantastic.

If SD/HD is your want and let face it most of it will be. Why not get one of LG 2016 models for less?.

The question on OLED was why pay more for it, but things seam much more on par now.
 
Gosh - not a lot of love for Samsung this year!

I agree with the pricing comments - the 2016 Quantum DOT TV's v the 2017 TV's have created a large difference in price for what appears to be not much of an actual 'upgrade'

Priced correctly, I'm sure the comments would be more favourable as going from my own 2016 midrange panel experience (60KS7000) the actual picture quality is excellent overall.

Seems that if you want a Samsung this year, your best hunting out a 2016 set and make a large saving in the process. Its hard to justify these new TV's when you can pick up a KS series for so much cheaper, and get a very similar picture quality.
 
If SD/HD is your want and let face it most of it will be. Why not get one of LG 2016 models for less?.

The question on OLED was why pay more for it, but things seam much more on par now.

Reason being, the DX can get very close but also produce some stunning HDR, whereas an OLED just can't really compete, 150 nits OLED vs 800 nits DX full screen brightness.

There's no other TV on the market right now that offers the value for money that the DX does.
 
If SD/HD is your want and let face it most of it will be. Why not get one of LG 2016 models for less?.

The question on OLED was why pay more for it, but things seam much more on par now.

I know these things can be difficult to view but here's an off screen shot, when viewed on an AMOLED phone screen it gives a very accurate representation of what the DX can do with SDR,
20170424_001148.jpg
 

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