Samsung Q7F 2025  TV Review

The Samsung Q7F has bad HDR brightness. Its brightness is consistent across all scenes, but since the TV is very dim in HDR, highlights and bright scenes don't stand out the way they should. It's quite a bit brighter than the Samsung U7900F, but HDR content still falls flat, and it's nowhere near as bright as the step-up Samsung QN70F.

Our test is done in the Filmmaker Mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static'. Below are the results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active', which doesn't do much to increase peak brightness during most scenes.

• Hallway Lights: 285 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 230 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 173 cd/m²

There's no noticeable difference in brightness when using Game Mode. The above results are with Game HDR set to 'Basic,' and HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Static.'

Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active', which doesn't do much to increase peak brightness during most scenes.

• Hallway Lights: 280 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 226 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 161 cd/m²

The Samsung Q7F has subpar SDR brightness. Its brightness is consistent in most scenes, but the TV is too dim to overcome glare in a well-lit room. It's best suited for a dark room or one with just a couple of overhead lights on. If you want something with similar gaming features but much better brightness, check out the TCL QM5K instead.

The Samsung Q7F has subpar contrast. Its native contrast is better than that of other similar entry-level TVs like the Panasonic W70B, but it lacks local dimming, so the overall experience is worse than that of Mini LED models like the Hisense QD7QF. It lacks a local dimming feature, though, so blacks appear gray and washed out most of the time. If you want the deepest blacks possible without spending a ton, check out the Philips 974 Series OLED.

The TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there are no lighting zones. This means there's no blooming around bright elements against a dark background, but the entire image looks gray and 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. This means that there are no distracting flickers or brightness changes as bright highlights move between dimming zones.

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

The black uniformity of this TV is excellent. There are some very minor cloudy patches near the edges of the screen, but they're barely noticeable, even in purely dark scenes.

The TV has passable SDR color volume. It covers the entirety of the most commonly used BT.709 SDR color space, so it doesn't have any problems displaying colors in most SDR content. However, it lacks the color volume in DCI-P3 to fully display dark colors, and it struggles even more with lighter ones. Furthermore, it has poor coverage of the widest BT.2020 color space, covering only about half of it. It's slightly better than other similar entry-level TVs like the Samsung U8000F, but you still shouldn't consider this TV if you enjoy saturated colors.

Oddly, like the Samsung QN80F, colors noticeably desaturate as lightness increases. While it's common for TVs to lose 3-5% coverage as the lightness increases, both this TV and the QN80F lost as much as 15% coverage at higher luminance levels. This is unusual for TVs that lack a white subpixel.

The TV's HDR color volume is disappointing. Without local dimming, it can't display dark saturated colors well, so darker tones lack depth. Its low peak brightness limits its ability to display bright, vibrant colors, and even whites look a bit dim.

The Samsung Q7F has excellent SDR color accuracy before calibration. Darker scenes are too dark, and some brighter scenes are a bit too bright, but the TV's white balance and gamma are still very good overall. Color temperature is very close to the industry standard 6,500K, and overall color accuracy is amazing, so this is a TV that displays a mostly accurate image out of the box.

After calibration, the TV still has excellent SDR color accuracy, but calibrating it doesn't do much. White balance, gamma, and color accuracy have all improved, but improving these aspects makes the TV's color temperature a bit too cool. Since the TV already has excellent accuracy out of the box, calibrating it isn't worth it for the vast majority of people.

See our full calibration settings.

The TV has okay HDR accuracy before calibration. Its white balance is good, but there's too much blue in some grays, and not enough red in others. This partially contributes to the TV's poor color temperature, which is noticeably too cold. Colors have decent accuracy overall, but there are mapping errors throughout.

Unfortunately, calibrating the TV doesn't do much to improve HDR color accuracy. Color temperature and accuracy have barely improved, and any small improvements are barely noticeable. It's not worth paying the price for calibration on this model.

Update 07/30/2025: Samsung has removed HGIG with firmware update 1125.9. Their intention was to move it to the "Original" Game Genre setting, but it's not working properly. This means that most games won't be displayed at the correct brightness level, and it's especially problematic for Switch 2 players, as HGIG is needed to properly calibrate that console's HDR output.

The Samsung Q7F has good PQ EOTF tracking. Blacks and shadows are brighter than intended, but the TV follows the curve closely outside of that. There's a slight roll off with content mastered at 600/1000 nits, and a more gradual roll off with content mastered at 4000 nits, which helps to maintain some detail in highlights that are brighter than the TV's capabilities.

The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing. It does an outstanding job at preserving detail, but there's almost no smoothing actually done to the image, so there's still significant macro-blocking in dark scenes.

The Samsung Q7F QLED does an adequate job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. The image looks a bit soft overall, and finer details are very hard to make out.

The TV has decent gradient handling in HDR. There's some visible banding in most color gradients, but it's not overly distracting in most real content.

This TV has low input lag at 60Hz when set to Game Mode. Unlike the step-up Samsung Q8F 2025, it doesn't support 120Hz and above at any resolution, so you don't get the benefits of the lower input lag you get when gaming at higher refresh rates.

The Samsung Q7F supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 60Hz. It displays chroma 4:4:4 properly with any signal as long as the input label is set to PC, which is important for reading clear text from a PC.

This TV doesn't support VRR to reduce screen tearing.

The Samsung Q7F QLED has poor pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. Transitions are slow, almost completely across the board, so fast motion in games is noticeably blurry.

The Samsung Q7F 2025 doesn't support a 120Hz refresh rate.

The Samsung Q7F has poor pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. Transitions are slow almost completely across the board, so fast motion in games is noticeably blurry.

The Samsung Q7F 2025 is a 60Hz TV, so it only supports 4k @ 60Hz on the P55. It has Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games. 1440p @ 60Hz doesn't work with the PS5 and this TV.

The Samsung Q7F 2025 is a 60Hz TV, so it only supports 4k @ 60Hz on the Xbox Series X|S. It has Auto Low Latency Mode, so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games. You can force 1440p @ 60Hz, but doing so locks you out of ALLM and HDR. However, there's no point in choosing 1440p as a resolution on this TV.

Unfortunately, despite this TV's relatively slow response time, there's still noticeable stutter with 24p content like most shows and movies. It's especially noticeable in slow-panning shots.

The motion interpolation feature on this TV is ineffective at reducing stutter. Stutter is reduced a bit when bringing 24fps content up to 30fps, but the feature has terrible consistency, leading to an uneven frame cadence. This causes even more noticeable stutter, especially in slower camera movements.

This TV plays 24p content back perfectly from most external sources, but it can't remove judder from a 60Hz source like an older streaming device or cable box. When watching 25p European content, however, it can't remove judder consistently. There's a bug that prevents it from working properly unless you toggle the Picture Clarity setting on, adjust the interpolation slider, and then toggle it off again. You have to repeat this process every time you start watching something new that has a 25 fps frame rate.

The Samsung Q7F 2025 has some noticeable micro judder present when watching scenes with complex motion. It's only present when watching a 25p signal, or when watching a 24p signal sent over 60p, like from an older streaming box or a cable TV box.

The TV has a poor response time. You don't see any added blur in most movies and shows, but fast-moving sports like racing are noticeably blurry.

This TV has poor color transitions. The edges of fast-moving objects remain consistent with the center, with no extra blur on the sides. However, color transitions aren't clean because different colors don't change at the same rate. This creates unintended intermediate colors, which greatly affect color consistency and purity in fast-paced scenes. For example, there's a noticeable red tint around lighter skin tones, and darker skin tones have a slightly blue look.

The TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using. When using 'Filmmaker Mode,' the TV flickers at 120Hz with all brightness levels. It flickers at 480Hz in all other picture modes with the brightness set above '19' and flickers at 120Hz with the brightness set to '19' and below.

The TV supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature is designed to improve the appearance of motion by strobing its backlight and reducing the amount of persistence blur. The BFI feature on the TV flickers at 60Hz, and there's noticeable image duplication present.

The TV's direct reflection handling is subpar. While it does reduce the intensity of direct reflections to a small degree, they're still very obvious, leading to an unpleasant viewing experience when you have bright lights or windows shining directly on the TV.

The TV does a fantastic job retaining its black levels in a bright room. Blacks are barely raised as more light is added to your room, so you get very similar black levels regardless of your lighting. That said, it has poor black levels to begin with, so you never see deep blacks on this model.

The amount of total reflected light is subpar. While the TV's handling of ambient lighting is passable, it does so with some obvious light banding. If you want a TV with similar overall specs but better reflection handling, check out the Hisense QD6QF instead.

The TV has okay color saturation when used in a well-lit room. Overall, there's barely any difference in the vibrancy of colors, whether you're in a dark room or a bright one, although darker colors look slightly more washed out. Still, it has somewhat limited color volume to begin with, so colors lack vibrancy regardless of your lighting conditions.

The TV's viewing angle is just okay. It looks fine from a slight angle, but there's significant gamma shifting, black level raise, brightness loss, and colors look increasingly washed out as you move further away to the sides. Since its image quality is noticeably degraded when viewed from the sides of the screen, it's not a good choice for wide seating arrangements.

The TV has disappointing gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are a lot darker than the middle area, there are some uneven areas of brightness across the entire screen, and there is a visible dirty screen effect towards the middle. It's a bit better on a near-black screen, but there are still uneven areas of brightness.

The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone will notice this.

The TV is direct-lit and has decent color separation, which helps somewhat with color purity and the ability to display a satisfactory range of colors, though they don't look vibrant.

The TV is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth on all three ports.

This TV supports most Dolby Digital audio formats. However, like other 2025 Samsung models, it doesn't passthrough Dolby Digital Plus 7.1. Unfortunately, it also doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

7.1 channel LPCM only works with sources that allow you to manually override the EDID, like a PC. If you can't override the EDID, it's limited to 5.1.

Like all Samsung TVs, the Samsung Q7F 2025 doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the similar HDR10+.

The Samsung 65Q7F looks pretty good for a cheaper model. Its bezels are thin enough that they don't stand out when watching the TV, but they aren't as thin as those on more premium models.

The TV features a pair of plastic feet that can be adjusted to different positions as needed. The narrow position (pictured above) brings the feet close together, which is great for smaller tables. You can also keep the feet close together and raise the height. If you're more worried about stability, you can widen the feet and set them to either a high or low position. In the higher position, the feet lift the TV about 3.58 inches above the table, so almost any soundbar fits underneath. In the low position, the feet lift the TV about 2.6 inches.

The footprint of the 65-inch stand is 40.16" x 10.6" in the wide position and 11.85" X 10.6" in the narrow position.

The back of the TV is made from plastic. All of the inputs are on the right side of the TV when facing the front, but they're in a recessed cutout that makes them quite hard to access if you have it wall-mounted. The back has grooves and a clip that can be attached to one of the feet to help with cable management.

The Samsung 65Q7F has alright build quality overall. It wobbles a bit in the high and narrow position when you're cleaning the screen, but it settles quickly and doesn't cause any issues. There's quite a bit of flex on the back panel that becomes more pronounced near the VESA mounting points, but it doesn't prevent you from wall-mounting it.

The Samsung Q7F Series comes with the 2025 version of Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS, but has a reduced feature set compared to more expensive models, so you don't get features like TV to Mobile or Ambient Mode+. The interface is a bit slow at times, but it's still easy to find content to watch.

Like most TVs, there are ads on the home screen. You can't disable them completely, although you can turn off targeted ads.

The remote has a rechargeable battery that can be charged via USB-C or solar power, and the voice control gives you access to Bixby and Alexa.

• Remote control
• Power cable
• Clip for cable management
• User guides

The Samsung Q7FD has an okay frequency response. Like most TVs, there's almost no bass, so it's best to pair it with a good soundbar. The sound profile is well-balanced at moderate volume levels, so dialogue is clear. Unfortunately, the sound profile becomes unbalanced at the TV's maximum volume, making dialogue hard to understand during louder scenes. Since the TV doesn't get very loud, it's best suited for a quiet environment.