Samsung Q60B [Q60, Q60BD] QLED TV Review

The Samsung Q60B is a simple TV, but it looks nice. It's entirely made of gray plastic with thin borders, so it'll look good in any setup.

Unfortunately, the Samsung Q60B QLED has developed multiple serious issues. The reflector sheet is warped, causing the Rorschach-like patterns on the screen, and there's noticeable light bleeding through due to multiple cracks in the light guide plate.

As part of our two-year test, which has so far subjected 100 TVs to over 10,000 hours of accelerated testing, we found that edge-lit TVs like this one have significant durability issues. These issues range from warped reflector sheets and cracked light guide plates to completely burnt-out LEDs. You can read the full results of our investigation here.

The stand has wide-set plastic feet which support the TV well, but there's still a bit of wobble from front to back. Because the stand is so wide, you'll need a big table to place it on. You can adjust the height if you need to put a soundbar in front, but some thicker soundbars still block the screen.

Footprint of the 65-inch TV: 42.5" x 10.8".

• Height in lower position: 1.45" (to the bezel) and 1.92" (to the screen)
• Height in raised position: 2.44" (to the bezel) and 2.91" (to the screen)

The back of the TV is brushed gray-tone plastic. There are tracks along the back to help route the cables to the inputs for cable management, and the feet have clips to help route the cables behind the feet. Sadly, the inputs are recessed into the TV, so they're hard to reach if you wall-mount the TV with a fixed bracket, so a mounting arm is recommended.

The Samsung Q60B has decent build quality. It's fairly stable on the stand, and even if there's a bit of wobble from front to back, it's not an issue once you place your TV on a table. It's a lightweight TV made entirely of plastic, and the back panel flexes significantly near the mounting holes and the inputs.

The TV has mediocre overall contrast. Its native contrast ratio is good, but it doesn't have local dimming to help improve it further. Therefore blacks look very good in a dark room, but dark scenes look washed out when bright highlights are present due to the lack of local dimming.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no blooming around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes. But as the TV can't brighten highlights without impacting the rest of the image, dark scenes look washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones.

Switching to Game Mode doesn't make any noticeable difference in dark scene performance.

The HDR peak brightness is unremarkable. Highlights don't stand out, and it doesn't have a local dimming feature to help make bright objects pop.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Picture Mode: Movie
• Contrast: Max
• Color Temperature: Warm 2

Enabling Game Mode has no noticeable impact on the HDR brightness of the TV.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Game Mode
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max
• Color Gamut: Auto
• Color Temperature: Warm 2

The Samsung Q60BD has remarkable PQ EOTF Tracking. Its near-blacks are fantastic, and for the majority of HDR content the TV's brightness is as its creator intended. The Q60B is not as accurate for content mastered at 4000 nits, but as most HDR content is mastered at 1000 nits this isn't an issue, and 4000 nit mastering tracking is still very good. The TV clips everything above its peak brightness however, resulting in a loss of fine detail.

The Samsung Q60B QLED has a great SDR peak brightness. It's enough to fight glare in well-lit rooms, and there's no variation in brightness between different scenes. It's brighter than most comparable models, including the Sony X75K.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Backlight: Max
• Gamma: 2.2
• Color Tone: Warm 2

The HDR color gamut is very good. It has excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which is used in most HDR content, and the TV's tone mapping is great. However, it's not future-proof because it has limited coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space, which more content will start to use, and its Rec. 2020 tone mapping with green and cyan is off.

The Samsung Q60BD has a decent color volume. In the more common DCI-P3 color space the TV can display bright colors well, and it can display darker colors albeit with certain limitations due to its incomplete color gamut. Some of its colors, such as blues and greens, are inaccurately portrayed when compared to an ideal TV. The TV's color volume struggles in the Rec. 2020 color space, which is not ideal as content moves towards it in the future.

The Samsung Q60B has incredible pre-calibration accuracy. Nearly all colors are spot-on with their target, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, bright whites are a bit off, and gamma doesn't follow the 2.2 target as most scenes are too bright, especially really bright ones.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic. It doesn't improve the color accuracy or temperature as these were already fantastic, but the white balance accuracy is now closer to reference, and gamma is significantly improved. This is an easy TV to calibrate.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

The Samsung Q60B TV has okay gray uniformity. The edges of the screen are darker than the rest, which you'll notice when using it as a PC monitor, and there's color variations throughout. There's also a bit of dirty screen effect in the center.

The black uniformity is incredible. There's only a bit of clouding towards the edges of the screen, and there's minimal blooming around the center cross. Dark scenes look great on this TV, but sadly it doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve it when bright highlights are present.

The TV has a narrow viewing angle. This means the image isn't consistent as you move off-center, and it's not a good choice for wide seating areas. If you want something with a wider viewing angle, look into the Sony X80K/X80CK or the Sony X75K.

The Samsung Q60B has decent reflection handling. You won't have issues using it in rooms with a few lamps and pot lights around, but it struggles when there's a bright window.

The TV's HDR gradient handling is alright. There's bad banding in bright greens, and noticeable banding in lighter grays, dark reds, and bright blues.

The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing; there's noticeable macro-blocking in dark areas when watching content from low-quality sources. If this matters to you, check out the Samsung CU8000.

This TV has good sharpness processing with low-resolution or low-bitrate content. The image is sharp and clear, with no over-sharpening, and fine details are easy to make out. Oddly, there's very little noticeable difference between the processing capabilities of different Samsung TVs, as this TV looks very similar to high-end Samsung models like the Samsung QN95B QLED and the Samsung QN900B 8k QLED. Even with different settings, picture modes, and intelligent options, the sharpness processing appears to be nearly identical.

The optimal sharpness settings for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, are as follows:

• Sharpness: 5
• Picture Clarity: Off

The Samsung Q60B uses a BGR subpixel layout, which doesn't impact the image quality, but it makes text look blurry in some applications that don't support the BGR layout, which is important if you want to use it as a PC monitor. You can read more about it here.

The Samsung Q60B has a disappointing response time. Motion looks blurry, and as its response time is particularly slow with dark transitions there's noticeable black smearing with dark objects.

The Samsung Q60BD uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight at all brightness levels. It flickers at 480Hz Movie mode, which can be distracting if you're sensitive to the flicker, and it drops down to 120Hz in the 'Dynamic', 'Standard', 'Filmmaker', and 'Game' modes, or with Picture Clarity enabled. This lower flicker causes image duplication with 60 fps content and can cause headaches if you're sensitive to it.

There's an optional feature to introduce backlight strobing to reduce persistence blur, more commonly known as Black Frame Insertion (BFI). It flickers at 60Hz when enabled, but the timing is off, resulting in noticeable image duplication. This feature also reduces the panel's brightness.

There's a motion interpolation feature to bring lower-frame-rate content up to 60 fps. It doesn't look good as even slight movement causes artifacts, and there's haloing around fast-moving objects. When there's too much on-screen movement the interpolation stops altogether, so content jarringly drops back down to a lower frame rate.

Due to the slow response time the TV's performance regarding stutter is good. Its stutter performance is fantastic for 60 fps content, so slow panning shots in games or sports look great. For 24 fps content, like movies, its performance is decent; good enough for a pleasant movie watching experience but stutter is noticeable if you're sensitive to it.

The Samsung Q60B removes judder from native 24p sources like native apps and Blu-ray players. It partially removes judder from 60p sources like cable boxes, but it doesn't get rid of it completely.

The Samsung Q60B doesn't have variable refresh rate support.

The Samsung Q60B has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience. All these results are in Game Mode where applicable, except for 1440p @ 60Hz, which was done in PC Mode because 1440p doesn't scale properly in Game Mode. You can also enable the motion interpolation feature in Game Mode, and while it increases the input lag it's fine for slower titles.

The Samsung Q60B supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz. It displays proper chroma 4:4:4 with any signal, which is important for reading clear text, but you need to make sure you're in PC Mode with 1440p signals since the image doesn't properly scale in Game Mode.

As the Samsung Q60B has HDMI 2.0 bandwidth and no VRR support, it has limited compatibility with the advanced gaming features of the PS5. The Auto Low Latency Mode automatically switches the TV into Game Mode when you play a game from a compatible device, and you don't need to change any settings.

As the Samsung Q60B has HDMI 2.0 bandwidth and no VRR support, it has limited compatibility with the advanced gaming features of the Xbox Series X and S. The Auto Low Latency Mode automatically switches the TV into Game Mode when you play a game from a compatible device, and you don't need to change any settings.

The TV doesn't support ATSC 3.0, meaning you can't use it to watch over-the-air 4k channels in the US. Although some retailers advertise it as having HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, it's limited to HDMI 2.0. If you want a similar TV with HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, then look into the Sony X85K.

The Samsung Q60BD has eARC support, allowing you to passthrough lossless Dolby Atmos audio to a compatible receiver. However, as it doesn't support any DTS or DTS:X signals and many Blu-rays use this audio format, you'll need to connect your Blu-ray directly to your receiver to get the best sound experience.

The Samsung Q60B has mediocre speakers. It's well-balanced at moderate listening levels, which is great for dialogue, but it doesn't get loud and doesn't produce any bass. Like for most TVs, get a soundbar or a dedicated surround sound setup for the best sound possible.

The distortion handling is disappointing. It has more distortion at moderate levels than at its max level, but it doesn't get loud anyways, and the difference isn't that audible.

The TV comes with the same Tizen smart interface as higher-end models, but with fewer features. It doesn't have a room correction feature or Intelligent Mode settings, but it's user-friendly and navigating through the menus feels smooth and easy.

Sadly, there are ads throughout the interface, and there's no way to disable them.

The Samsung app store has an impressive selection of apps in its app store, with apps for all major streaming services. It's also compatible with Google Duo, allowing you to make video calls if you connect a compatible webcam.

The included remote is slightly redesigned compared to the 2021 remote that came with the Samsung Q60/Q60A QLED. It's flat and has an extra quick-access button to open popular streaming apps. The manufacturer advertises it as not having a battery, but there's still an internal power supply that you can recharge via the solar panel on the back, or with a USB-C cable. The built-in mic is compatible with Bixby, Alexa, and Google Assistant, and you can ask it to open apps, switch inputs, and change certain settings like the peak brightness.

There's a single button underneath the Samsung branding on the bottom right side that lets you turn the TV on/off, adjust the channel and volume, and change inputs.

• Remote control
• Power cable
• Cable management clips (not shown)
• User guides