Not good for gaming !
Sadly your reviews don’t reflect the reality of how this TV’s behaves in real use ! There is lots of people complaining around the world about this series having issues on game mode ! Is losing constantly the connection with the consoles ! myself included having the European model QN95A ! In AVforums world larger forum about HI-FI and other questions there is hundreds of people complaining about this TV from the beginning being launched, some who have managed to get refunded but other people haven’t received any solutions from Samsung only that they are working on a software update that will resolve the issue , but after 4 updates the issue hasn’t been resolved ! We are at software version 2101 and I don’t think Samsung will release another version since for them is a “old/obsolete ” TV from 2021 and they will focus on their next year release and maybe the 2022 models !
- 21010
Hi Dylan, Why is Rtings unable to test for true 10-bit? isn’t there some type of software or hardware to confirm that? Because without that then there’s dithering going on at monitor level I think, even if you turn it off at the graphics card and windows level.
Hi there,
Unfortunately, we do not have a way at the moment to confirm whether or not it’s a true 10-bit or not. The difference between 8-bit + FRC and 10-bit should be marginally small.
- 32120
Hi, did you test the input lag over HDMI with ALLM enabled, or did you measure it without ALLM? Does enabling ALLM generally reduce input lag on consoles?
Hey there! You can find more information on how we test input lag here! We do not test with ALLM enabled. While we can’t confirm the input lag on consoles, the feature should be able to help keep a low input lag on consoles.
- 21010
Another question, 33 Brightness is 100 nits in Game Optimiser (SDR) according to your measurements, however 33 is noticeably brighter in other modes. Which value would be closest to 100 nits in the other modes, like Expert Dark or Filmmaker?
Unfortunately, we do not have the information other than the calibrated mode. Sorry we cannot be more of help.
- 32120
@Rtings Thank you for retesting this with a 5080. It’s really interesting to see that you have no issues whatsoever. Strangely, this seems to go against what many have experienced on Reddit. Can you please confirm a few things around the test conditions?
- Was text clarity and gamma retested with the monitor running at 240hz?
- Was the monitor set to 10-bit in Windows?
- Was Adaptive-Sync switched on in the monitor settings, and G-Sync compatible mode switched on in Nvidia Control panel?
- HDMI or DP used?
- If you look in GPU-Z, what is the reported link rate (current) and (max)? I appreciate you have limited time to test, let alone respond to comments, but it would be great if you could confirm the details above, as that would help myself and others troubleshoot this issue. Thanks again!
Hey there! We retested the monitor over both DP and HDMI. Yes I can confirm it was at 240Hz, 10-bit set in Windows, Adaptive-Sync On in the OSD of the monitor as well as G-Sync enabled in the NVIDIA Control Panel. We looked at the text clarity with both HDMI and DP and the only issue we found was the very small white text over a black background became a tiny bit fuzzy if the Auto Color Management feature of Windows was On. Once set to Off, no more issues. Using GPU-Z on the 5080, it gave us Link Rate (current) 615098.1 Gbps and (max) of 10.0 Gbps which is why we also validate all the monitors with DP 2.1 on an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT card (which is limited to UHBR13.5) which gave us the UHBR13.5 that the monitor supports. Since the reported data on the 5080 is below the capabilities of the monitor, we knew it was not giving us accurate data. Anyhow, we are confident in the data we got from the AMD card. Hope this helps!
- 21010
You say in this review that you were able to disable the DSC. I do not see the option to do that, can you guide me?
Hey there! The DSC Toggle is available in the System Tab of the OSD menu as you can see here. Hope this helps !
- 87670
Can y’all retest input lag using firmware MCM108?
Hey there! Thanks for letting us know of the new firmware udpate. We did a quick sanity check to see if any improvement was done to input lag since the changelog does not mention anything on that end and it did get a little bit better. We will update the review to reflect those changes!
- 32120
Hey everyone! Just a quick update! The second unit that we ordered also stopped working with the same issue as the first unit. We are currently waiting on another replacement!
- 21010
I would be interested to hear about the integrated fan. Is there any audible FAN noise with this monitor ? Is the fan running all the time or only in HDR or high brightness scenarios?
Hi! We did not hear any audible fan noise while testing. Since we could not hear any noise, it is hard to confirm in which specific situation the fan would be running.
- 43230
Hey guys I saw you did some tests on the new firmware 112.627.030.1 recently. Did you notice reduced resolution in the Android TV UI with the update? Everything is noticeably blurry to me now. I checked with “Stats for nerds” in YouTube and a handy app called “Developer Tools” by Roy Solberg in the Play Store. They both confirm the display is indeed running at 1080p now instead of 4K like it was previously. There’s no actual resolution setting anywhere that I can find so I went through an annoying factory reset and that didn’t fix it. They listed “Improves the overall performance of the TV” in the patch notes and I’m thinking this reduced resolution is it - which is terrible. Very curious to hear if anyone else is also seeing this, thanks!
Hi there! Sorry to hear that you are having issues with the new firmware! While we can confirm that the UI is running in 1080p, it does not look blurrier to us compared to how it looked before the firmware update. As we did not look into this before the firmware update, we also cannot confirm that it was running at 4k before. In the past, we did look into it and all the Android system were running at 1080p. Even if the UI is displaying at 1080p, content that is suppose to be 4k will still be displayed as 4k. Sorry we cannot be of more help!
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Hi there!
We know there as been an issue we were hoping would get fixed with the recent WebOS firmware update about the Game Mode being overall dimmer compared to the Cinema Mode. Unfortunately, as the TV has been on the Longevity test for a long period of time, we can’t update the brightness results since they have all decreased because of the test. We did verify after doing the firmware update to see if there was a difference in brightness and we can confirm that Game Mode is still somewhat dimmer than Cinema Mode in our Real Scene tests. This was also confirm in a recent retest we did on the C3, so it seems that the issue is still unresolved. Hope that helps!
- 21010
Hi, I see you have tested HDR brightness with 4:4:4 passthrough enabled and disabled. But how does the old way of achieving 444 chroma, PC mode, compare? You need to change the HDMI input to the PC icon. I’m really interested if there’s any difference to 4:4:4 passthrough in regards to HDR brightness, for example. Love all your extensive testing btw! :)
For the last few models, the 4:4:4 Passthrough feature is actually the same as PC Mode on the older models. You don’t need to change the icon for PC as the feature enables it by itself but If you prefer, you can still change the label icon and both will behave the same. It will perform the same in regards to HDR brightness as PC mode from before.
- 32120
Thank you for the answer! Do you mean to say that you do that for “After Calibration” segment? The wording there in the first part is a bit confusing to me, but it’s unlikely you’re talking about settings you choose for OOTB accuracy segment as for that accuracy takes priority over customizability (at least that’s what I believe to be the case) since sRGB emulation modes are typically very limited in the latter regard. These Samsung monitors don’t have dedicated sRGB emulation picture modes as they rely on automatic color space adjustments, akin to TVs, or there are picture modes aimer towards color accuracy which are simply named differently (to bring more “clarity”), like Filmmaker modes on LG TVs or Creator modes in Alienware OLEDs?
Yes, the final results for post-calibration are for After Calibration. We choose the preset that will give us the best performing starting point that also has the most available settings.
While Samsung don’t have a dedicated sRGB mode like LG or Dell, the Color Space setting found in the OSD does clamp the colors to the sRGB color gamut once set to Auto instead of Native, regardless of the preset you chose. It’s worth noting that even if it clamps the colors, it won’t fix the gamma or white balance issues with the picture mode chosen
- 32120
Could you kindly comment on why the “graphic” picture mode was chosen for color accuracy testing and calibration, by any chance? What other picture modes are there (this is something that would be interesting to see mentioned in your reviews maybe, by the way)? Interesting detail I’ve noticed is that this model lacks RGB offset controls which are present in a 32 inch 240 Hz model. I wonder what optimisations Samsung employs to achieve such a low input lag at 60 Hz compared to the absolute majority of other OLED monitors… Too bad it’s out of consideration for me due to a higher prices vs competitors and the matte coating.
Hey there. During the post-calibration process, we always choose the most accurate mode that we can customize the most settings. In this case, the Graphic presets gave us the most accurate results and was as customizable as the Custom Preset. All the presets mode are describe in the manual which is available on Samsung’s website. Hope this answers your questions!
- 21010
I have an issue to report with the Panel Protect function. I have tried all available firmware versions and 2 different physical units and the issue is always present. In the monitor OSD, if the Power Button setting is set to “standby”, then the Panel Protect function will not trigger automatically any more. I believe one cycle will function as normal after the setting is changed, but afterwards, Panel Protect will not trigger automatically at idle after 4 hours of use as intended. Instead, you must manually run Panel Protect, or it will force itself to run after 16 hours of cumulative use, interrupting whatever you’re doing. I believe I experienced this issue with Protect Notice on Auto as well as 16 Hours, but it’s possible that it only happens when set to 16 Hours. But this setting is just meant to change if you see a notification for panel protect after 4 hours of use, it shouldn’t affect whether the function runs automatically at idle or not; that should always happen regardless. This presents a potential major problem for durability as only running panel protect every 16 hours is not the intended use of this monitor. MSI support has not confirmed to me that they have been able to replicate this issue or that they are working on it. If you could test this and report your findings I would very much appreciate it.
Thank you for the info. Unfortunately, we did not come across this issue during testing. MSI just released a new firmware update that could potentially fix the issue. But since we did not have the problem, we cannot confirm that it does fix it for sure.
- 32120
This part of the review is incorrect I have just tested this with a PS5 and a PC and had both inputs displaying at the same time. There are issues like being capped at 1080p 120 Hz on each input and disabling game mode as well as being stuck in shrunk down 16:9 aspect ratios, but you absolutely do not have to use an internal app as one of the inputs
Thanks for pointing this out to us! We will update the review as soon as possible!
- 21010
Hey Rtings, thanks for your test! There’s interesting differences between the 80d and 60d, the color seems better on the 60d but the text clarity seems better on the 80d. How s that possible considering it’s the same panel ? Also may I ask if you noticed any differences when switching the colorspace between native, standard and auto throught the image menu ?
Hey there! Thank you for your questions! The text clarity on the OLED G8 is better because it’s a 4K monitor compared to a 1440p. The text is much clearer because of the pixel density (139ppi for the G8 vs 110ppi for the G6). You will also noticed differences in color when switching the colorspace since the monitor will clamp the color to sRGB when using Auto instead of Native. It’s always best to use the settings that will look the best to you! Hope this helps!
- 21010
Does this act like a regular monitor with regards to powering off when used with a PC?
Hey there! The monitor will react differrently depending if you power off the monitor or the PC. If you power off from the monitor, it’ll go back to being flat and go black screen. If you turn the PC off it’ll stay curved and go into ‘picture art’ mode unless you disable it in the settings!
- 32120
I probably missed it here somewhere, but what sort of build did you use to test these flickering issues? To allude to the comment below the pc build would need to be quite unstable to make these issues prominent. Good thing is vrr flicker shouldn’t be as big of an issue if our PC’s are built correctly also eliminating frame drops and other problems.
We don’t have a specific build since multiple different PCs will be used during the testing. But we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7900 CPU with a NVIDIA RTX 4070 graphics card to design the test. We wanted a strong enough PC to sustain the testing. But we actually use a custom created DX9 program to fluctuate the framerate. You can read about the design of the test near the top of the article. Hope this helps clarity any confusion!
- 2102-1
Hey RTings team. Can you please check Text Clarity in HDR? There is some weird sharpening bug that only happens in HDR that destroys text clarity of some text. SDR is fine. Nvidia control panel for example, you can see it with naked eye. Multiple people report this issue on reddit, maybe you will find a solution or something.
Yes it is happening but it might not be as distracting for some people. Some are more sensitive to text clarity than others. The monitor being 4k already has very good text clarity so issue might be more apparent. It is an issue with Windows HDR and how it renders a SDR signal to an HDR one. It is not an issue with this monitor specifically but something you can encounter with other monitors as well. You can change the ClearType setting to try make it better if it’s an issue for you.
- 32120
Hi there, I have 2 questions about this monitor. First I want to get it calibrated. I called a professional asking him if he can do this on a PC monitor, he told me that he needs to have access to white balance and the 3 secondary colors (Cyan Magenta Yellow) settings but those are unavailable as far as I know. Have you guys been doing the calibration without these settings or are they somehow hidden? And do we lose the calibration after a firmware update? Cheers.
Hey there! You can read our article about calibration here: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/learn/how-to-calibrate-your-monitor-settings. As for the calibration settings after a firmware update, in this case it’s hard to say since we always do the firmware update before we start testing a new product. In general, we recommend checking your settings after updating since some monitors changes them back to defaults.
- 54340
Hi, thank you for the excellent review. I recently purchased this monitor and have been disappointed with the text clarity when connected to my MacBook Pro M1 Max (2021). The text clarity is noticeably poorer than my Dell U2723QE. I see you rated the text clarity for this monitor as 9/10, the same at the Dell U2723QE, and noted it was as clear with Mac as with Windows. I’ve been wondering if it is a text rendering issue with my MacBook Pro M1 Max, and have read elsewhere online that the M3 Max models provide better support for this monitor. Can you please share what type of Apple Mac you tested this monitor with? The “learn about Mac OS compatibility” page mentions the use of an M1 MacBook for testing, however the Apple display settings screenshot from the review shows support for 120Hz. My understanding is the M1 does not support 120Hz on external monitors, so I’m wondering if a newer Mac was used for testing and if that is why text clarity was comparable to windows. Thank you.
Thanks for pointing the missing information in the learn article! We will be updating the article to reflect the updated testing methodology. In cases where the monitors have HDMI 2.1 ports, we try with both a Macbook Pro M1 (for HDMI 2.0 limitation of the macbook) and a Macbook Pro M2 (for full compatibility with the HDMI 2.1 port). In this particular case, both Macbooks were used for testing (on the same macOS version, Sonoma 14.4.1) and we did not notice any differences between using macOS and Windows.
- 21010
How to switch the Color Space to other mode? it locked at sRBG mode even the Win11 HDR is on.
Sorry for the delay! We only changed the Color Space Settings from Auto (sRGB clamp) to Native in the Expert Settings of the Picture Tab. If this doesn’t work, unfortunately since this was not an issue for us, we cannot be more of help!
- 21010
I see you tested the hdr brightness with the peak brightness set to low. You mention that with peak brightness set to high, the eotf tracking is off and suggested (but didn’t outright say) that the actual peak brightness is the same as the low setting. There is debate on the web as to whether or not despite poor eotf tracking with peak brightness set to high, highlights peak at over 900 or even 1000 nits in small windows with peak brightness set to high. What were your findings? Anyway, great review as always!
Hi there! Thanks for mentioning this to us. We will take a look and update the review as soon as possible!
- 21010
We managed to kind of reproduce your issues when changing the Input Compatibility Version from 2.1(PC) to 2.1(AV) where the max refresh rate we got was 85Hz for the native resolution. But even then we could get 10-bit over HDMI 2.1. It would also automatically change the resolution from 3440x1440 to 3840x2160. But using the 2.1(PC) compatibility, we had no issues getting max refresh rate at native resolution with all color depth available. This could be done on 2 different PCs ( RTX 4070, driver 552.22 and RTX 4080, driver 552.12). You can also try to create a custom resolution with CVT-R2 timings which will reduce the data it uses and could make it work properly.
- 54340
Hi, The “peak brightness” HDR mode has been reported to be inaccurate (overbrightens the content). Could you please check if it’s possible to reduce the monitor brightness (to 80/100, 70/100) and see if the EOTF curve comes down to accurate? And how much actual peak brightness this sacrifices? The results would be very apreciated, thanks. Because with that coating and the WOLED, this monitor is well suited for use in bright environments,when HDR content is often too dimm to enjoy. In a sense, that peak brightness mode would actually be an option to watch that content without having to close all your curtains on a sunny day. And with reducing the brightness of the monitor, come back to an accurate mode, I’m hoping its peak remains higher than the 400 nits mode.
We don’t have the monitor for the moment but once we start testing on it we will take a look into this!
- 32120
Have you not had any issues with HDMI? I have multiple bugs, like not being able to set color depth in Nvidia control panel and games forcing resolution to 3840x2160 resulting in error message being displayed that monitor is not working in supported resolution
Hi! Sorry to hear you are having issues with HDMI! We did not have any of those issues during testing but to be completely sure, we did a quick check this morning to confirm. We are still unable to reproduce any issues using HDMI on the unit we purchased. Coult it be that your graphics drivers are not up to date?
- 32120
Hello, I would like to ask you to review the rating of this monitor with the latest firmware update that Dell presented, the quality of the screen took an absurd leap in terms of performance, removing several ghosts. I also noticed that the monitor’s rating before the 8.2 era dropped to 7.2 today. I didn’t understand that.
The change in rating score is due to the fact we updated the monitor on our newest test methodology. During the retesting, we did do the firmware update and redid all the performance testing which you can see in the review! Hope that helps clear the confusion!
- 21010
The darker the screen, the worse the VRR flicker in OLED panels. It is true. I checked the VRR flicker result of the OLED model you evaluated and I hve wonder below point. Why did you evaluate the two OLED models (PG27AQDM and PG34WCDM) at 31RGB in the dark gray? The other OLED models were evaluated at 15RGB. If you test at 15RGB instead of 31RGB, I think the dark gray score of the two OLED models would be worse. If the score of 15RGB is better than the score of 31RGB, it suspects that the evaluation environment would have been wrong for a while when evaluating 15RGB. Please check about it.
All the monitors are tested in the same environment, with the same tools. As explained in the text, we test 10 different RGB values from RGB 15 all the way up to RGB 255 on each of the monitors. The results shown in the reviews are the 3 worse in the Dark, Middle and Light range of the RGB values. Some OLEDs are worse in RGB 15 and some are worse in RGB 31. The difference can be very minimal (and not very visible in some cases).
- 43230
Thank you for letting us know about the firmware update! Unfortunately, we have limited resource at the moment so we won’t be able to check this right now. But we will take a look as soon as possible!
- 21010
Thanks for the reply. I was reading the HDR Brightness section in the review, and that was where retesting the monitor was mentioned. It stated that Dolby Vision was not working over HDMI with a bluray player, but I believe this is fixed (unless the review unit is defective) as I have been able to use a bluray player for Dolby Vision content on both HDMI 1 and 2.
Hi Dathedral!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. You are right. We will retry it on a Blu-Ray player to confirm that it does work and we will update the review as soon as possible!
- 21010
hi there, can you enable “peak brightness” to high on SDR mode? if so, may i know its figures?
Hey there!
Yes you can enable the Peak Brightness setting to High in SDR also. We recommend using the Low setting since the High will give the same Peak Brightness overall but will overbrighten most of the details in the image compared to Low. But you should use the settings that looks the best for your usage!
- 32120
Hey guys. First of all Thank you for your great work. My Question: A lot of customers in the EU had issues with the AW3423DWF, due to coil whining. It somehow was an issue with the power supply, because in the EU we use 220-240 V and the conversion inside the panel lead somehow to audible coil whining. Have you encountered any issues with this Monitor AW3225QF regarding coil whining. Is it possible for you to try different Voltages for testing, so that it gives users in the EU a better understanding about those issues?
Hey there! We did not have any issues with coil whine on the unit we purchased. As for trying different voltages, because we are unsure if the internal power supply is capable of working with them, we don’t want to risk destroying our unit. It’s also possible that the issue you’re experiencing could be the result of differences between the US model and EU model of this monitor. Sorry we cannot be of more help.
- 21010
There are many reports of problems regarding AR coating durability. Bubbles are formed on the coating, causing problems on the screen, which is presumed to be caused by heat generation. I would appreciate it if you could take a picture of HEATMAP with your thermal imaging camera.
Hey there! We took a couple of pictures as you can see them here from the front and from the back. We did not have any issues with the unit we purchased. The unit was running non stop for more than 6 days before taking the pictures.
- 21010
Did you guys test Gamer 2 as well? The Gamer 1 in HDR makes colors look washed out to me but Gamer 2 makes them look more vibrant albeit a bit oversaturated.
We test all the modes before choosing the best one. Gamer 1 was the overall best as Gamer 2 was way oversaturated and did not look as good. But you should use the mode that looks the best for your usage!
- 21010
Hey y’all, I’m confused at the measured brightness measurement in SDR. The results were after calibration using the sRGB preset with brightness set at 100% and peak brightness set to low. In the color accuracy measurements using the sRGB preset you show the monitor only measuring 125 nits at 90% brightness. Does this mean at 100% brightness we can expect an additional 130 nits of brightness? That doesn’t sound right. Thanks!
Hey there!
For the calibration process, we turn off the Peak Brightness setting which is why there’s a brightness difference in both test. The SDR Brightness test, we want to show what’s the brightest the monitor can get while for Calibration, Brightness is not as important. Hope this clears the confusion for you!
- 43230
@Rtings Does this monitor have increased input lag when doing HDR or when FALD is enabled like many MiniLED monitors have? Thanks.
We have check the input lag on monitors with FALD and did not notice any change to input lag because of Local Dimming. We do not expect any change on this monitor on HDR or with Local Dimming enabled.
- 32120
Hi Rtings! According to a Dell distributor in Korea, if you receive a sound signal through HDMI, you can output the sound through USB-C. Can you check it?
Hey there!
As long as you have the USB-B cable (which sends the sound signal) connected to your PC, you can use all the inputs (HDMI or DisplayPort) to get sound through USB-C. We tried using a headphones with a USB-C dongle and it worked correctly.
- 21010
Hi Guys, How did you get the monitor to output 144hz at 10bit color depth. When i change it to 144hz in Nvidia control panel only 8bit is available? What i did notice though is if i set it to 120hz and put it on 10bit then go to windows display settings and change it to 144hz in there it says its still on 10bit in windows display setting and in Nvidia control panel it goes blank but the option for 8bit is there. So am i now in 10bit? Sorry if this is abit confusing. Thanks
Hi!
We had no issues getting the 10bit over either DisplayPort or HDMI at 144Hz with our 3060 graphic card. Your graphics card needs to support Display Stream Compression (DSC), which any NVIDIA 16 Series or AMD RX 5000 Series and newer graphics card supports. Hope that helps!
- 43230
Recently an interesting post showed up of a youtuber by the name techless. He checked out the AW2725DF and found something interesting between 04:00-07:00 and I now wonder if this applies to the AW3225QF as well. It is basically about SDR brightness and how in the test suite the brightness is around 248 cd/m^2 and in almost every other “real usage” case/scenario it is at around 210 cd/m^2 and now I wonder about your thoughts on this. If you found this happening too, that means the LG 27GR95QE is essentially brigther than these Alienware monitors, referencing to his graph on 07:00 (quick view for what this post is about). The link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr6x35C3xtU&t=83s
Thank you for bringing this up to us! You can see that while yes it stays pretty consistent across different size test pattern, the real scene number is a little bit lower which reflect what is said in the video. The LG 27GR95QE-B is also a little bit lower in the real scene and does not stay consistently the same brightness across all our test patterns. If you look at the numbers for the LG, it is dimmer compared to the Alienware (at least the 32" since we did not test the 27" at the moment).
- 21010
Hey Dust-by-Monday! We just checked using the Lagom Pixel Inversion test and we can confirm no pixel inversion at 4K@ 120Hz and 60Hz. You might notice some flickering in darker scenes though which is something that can happen when using VRR.
- 21010
It seems like now it supports vrr on ps5. Can you confirm it? https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ly/000187148/dell-gaming-monitors-support-for-gaming-consoles
Hi, thanks for letting us know. We’ll add it to our retest backlog though it might a while before we get to it. Until then, it did work with the other Dell Monitors on the list when we originally tested them so we can expect it to work.