26 MARCH 2018/17:37BSTWe is part of The Trust ProjectWhat is it? While the rest of TV land turned to OLED in 2017, Samsung caught to its guns with attempted-and-examined LCD and an alternative given the world QLED. Despite the suspiciously comparable names, QLED is nothing like OLED. In truth, it’s miles an advancement on Samsung’s 2016 Quantum Dot LED technology and has become the name for the enterprise’s flagship variety closing year. In 2018, it moved on further nonetheless. That way, there’s still no peep of OLED from Samsung’s lineup, leaving plenty of room for a few smart LCD techs that promise advanced hues, deeper blacks, or even higher brightness.
Sitting on the pinnacle of the range is the Q9F, a 4K flatscreen panel that blessings from something ultimate 12 months’ sets did now not – full-array backlighting (where the LEDs sit down at the back of the display screen instead of at the edges) with nearby dimming, for a whopping 2000 nits of top brightness. Local dimming must be a compelling addition to improving last year’s overall performance, with Samsung promising loads of dimming zones to evaluate as accurately as viable.
To assist in similar matters, Samsung uses a progressed anti-reflection filter to keep glare to a minimum and ups its image processing skills to help save you from the blooming of shiny objects in dark scenes. It’s additionally introducing a further filter to save you diagonal mild leakage and improve off-axis viewing. I don’t suppose the enhancements are forestall there, even though. The new Q Engine at the coronary heart of QLED works with the Quantum Dot technology to enhance color accuracy and shadow elements.
Using granular coloration recalibration tech and 5% better shade purity than last year, it now covers one hundred of the key DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema) shade spectrum. And given that no white sub-pixels are used in QLED manufacturing, hues continue to be vibrant even at their brightest – something OLED isn’t usually quite as good at. As for HDR, Samsung has joined Panasonic in adopting the advanced HDR10+ format, with frame-via-body tone mapping to improve color and compare each step. It can even guide wellknown HDR10 and HLG but not the competing superior layout, Dolby Vision. HDR10+ assists in all of the ways via the QLED variety.
It wouldn’t be a Samsung TV without an excellent chunk of time spent on the design, and the Q9F is undoubtedly a looker. It adopts Samsung’s signature 360-degree layout without visible inputs or panels (it will use Samsung’s separate One Connect field) and something Samsung calls an ‘Invisible Connection.’
An unmarried, slender, and close-to-transparent cable will bring each record and power to the TV from the One Connect Box to keep the wire mess minimal. Finally, the Q9F is taking cues from its design-focused Frame TV cousin (which keeps into 2018), with the aid of introducing an Ambient Mode. This will essentially provide some form of display on the screen, if you want, to prevent you from having a massive black display inside the corner of your residing room.
It can show artwork, personal pictures, weather, recreation, or information feeds or blend in with your wallpaper, with Samsung promising low electricity consumption for the bill-conscious. And given that we’re thorough with new additions, you may also assume an overhauled smart TV interface with Bixby integration and a brand new vibrant SmartThings hub to control all your clever domestic devices out of your TV. Phew. With the biggie out of the manner, matters get a little less difficult to explain from here on in because, as traditional, it’s a recreation of subtracting features as we pass down the range.
Nevertheless, Samsung is one of the best producers, dabbling with curved monitors, and in case you’re still a fan, the Q8C is the only curved option inside the QLED variety – a substantial discount compared with the last yr. Aside from the manner, it appears even though the biggest difference right here is the transfer from full-array backlighting to part lighting fixtures (in the UK at the least, the USA will get a flatscreen version with full array), with top brightness losing to 1500 nits as a result. It’s ordinarily commercial enterprise as traditional, with the Q8CN preserving much of the software and design improvements as the Q9FN. We’ll replace this as soon as we pay attention any more. Last year, the Q7 became the access degree set inside the QLED family. We appreciated how it did things, with outstanding stability among features, overall performance, and rate.
This 12-month seems promising again, supplying the equal 1500-nit peak brightness, side lighting fixtures, and local dimming as the Q8CN, but with a flatscreen. Its connectivity matches its pricier siblings, as does a number of its layout and characteristic set, along with the brand new Ambient Mode and Invisible Connection cable. Last year, this range became available in a smaller 49-inch display screen version (which we examined), but it ditches that this year and provides a 75-inch option as an alternative.
Those seeking a smaller QLED set need to test the new entry-level range below. The new entry-stage QLED choice, the Q6FN, is available in five distinctive display screen sizes and takes a few good-sized hits on spec to satisfy its entry-stage rate factor. The largest is in the backlighting. Despite using facet lights, it dips down to frame dimming simplest, in the location of local dimming. In this method, the whole frame changes brightness on a frame-by-frame basis instead of in smaller zones to flip affect assessment.
This also has a knock-on impact on average brightness, which drops to a thousand nits – half of the Q9FN flagship set. We’d count on to peer a drop in some of the extra top-class image processing, too. However, we’re nevertheless expecting more info specs to get this shown. As for the design, it’s only a little more simple than the relaxation of the range. The stand is unique (it is going for legs in the out-of-doors area instead of a slim, critical one), metallic detailing is exchanged for plastic, and the invisible connection cable is dropped, too.