Samsung Q800T 8k QLED TV Review

The Samsung Q800T has an outstanding design. It’s different from the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED as it doesn’t have the One Connect Box. This TV looks like the Samsung Q90T QLED with its thin bezels and a premium-looking center-mounted stand. The replacement to this TV, the Samsung QN800A 8k QLED, looks very similar but comes with a One Connect Box, which houses all the inputs.

The stand is in the center and it’s made out of metal. It supports the TV well but there’s still some wobble.

Footprint of the 65” stand: 13.4” x 10.7”

The back of the Samsung Q800T looks a lot like the Samsung Q90T QLED. It’s made out of a textured plastic and there are grooves that run along the back and stand for cable management.

The borders are thin and aren’t distracting.

The TV is fairly thin and doesn’t stick out much if wall-mounted. The plug for the power sticks out a bit, but this shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Excellent build quality, similar to most other high-end Samsung TVs. The back panel on our TV is very flimsy and it flexes quite easily. It also seems as if the panel is not connected to the TV properly and you can very easily pull it off, but we don’t know if this is a problem with our unit or a general issue. If your Q800T has the same issue, let us know in the discussions below!

Good contrast. Even though this TV has a VA panel, the native contrast is very low, mainly due to the added ‘Ultra Viewing Angle’ layer. The local dimming feature greatly improves the contrast ratio, which is an improvement over the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED.

Excellent peak brightness. It easily gets bright enough to combat glare, but it’s not consistent with varied content.

We measured the peak brightness after calibration in the ‘Movie’ Picture Mode with the Color Temperature set to ‘Warm 2’, the Backlight at ‘Max’, and Local Dimming set to ‘High’.

The brightest image we got was with these settings, as seen on the ‘Peak 10% Window’ test.

Update 07/30/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

The 65Q800T has a good full-array local dimming feature, but there are a few issues associated with it. When there’s a bright object flashing across the screen, the transition between the dimming zones is slow, so the zones are lighting up after the object has moved. This creates a ‘Golf Ball Effect’ on fast-moving circles, where the object has checkered dark zones, similar to the TCL 8 Series 2019/Q825 QLED, but not as obvious. Luckily, this issue isn’t very noticeable in real scenes. It crushes light sources a bit and there’s not a lot of blooming around bright objects. With subtitles, the text doesn’t light up much, which might be annoying for some people.

Update 07/30/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

Excellent brightness in HDR. Highlights pop the way they should, but like the brightness in SDR, it’s not consistent across varied content.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration in the ‘Movie’ Picture Mode with the Local Dimming set to ‘High’, Brightness to ‘Max’, Contrast to ‘Max’, and Picture Clarity to ‘Off’.

If you want the brightest image possible, use the default Dynamic Mode settings with Local Dimming set to ‘High’, as we were able to get 1666 nits in the 10% peak window test.

The Samsung Q800T has just okay gray uniformity. There appears to be uniformity issues where the LED zones are, as parts of the screen look botchy. It’s very noticeable on white screens, as you can see in this photo, which is heavily edited to show the effect. There’s also visible dirty screen effect in the center, which could be distracting during sports.

The Samsung Q800T has alright black uniformity. There’s visible clouding and backlight bleed with Local Dimming off, but when it’s enabled, the uniformity is much improved.

Decent viewing angles. Despite being a VA panel, which usually has poor viewing angles, the ‘Ultra Viewing Angle’ layer added on this TV means the image remains fairly accurate when viewing from the side. We measured the viewing angle twice: once with Local Dimming off to measure the brightness, black level, and gamma. We measured it again with Local Dimming on to measure the color.

Impressive reflection handling. The Samsung Q800T handles a small amount of light well but the reflections in really bright rooms might be too distracting. Due to the 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer, intense amounts of light scatter across the screen, creating a rainbow effect.

The Samsung Q800T has disappointing out-of-the-box color accuracy. The color temperature is quite warm, so the image has a red/yellow tint, and all colors are inaccurate because of it. Shades of gray are also inaccurate, and even though the gamma follows the target fairly well, bright scenes are over-brightened.

If out-of-the-box accuracy is important to you, consider the Samsung Q900TS 8k QLED, which performs similarly but is more accurate out of the box.

Update 09/28/2020: We listed Auto-Calibration Function as 'Undetermined' because 2020 Samsung TVs aren't officially listed as compatible with CalMAN Auto Cal.

After calibration, this TV has amazing color accuracy. Gamma follows the target almost perfectly and any color inaccuracy is almost impossible to spot with the human eye.

See our recommended settings here.

The Samsung Q800T upscales 480p content, like from DVDs, well without any issues.

720p content, like from cable boxes, is upscaled well.

1080p content, such as from Blu-rays or gaming consoles, is displayed very well.

Similar to the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED, the Samsung Q800T has some minor upscaling artifacts in 4k content, but it’s not spotted easily. There’s also some dithering in shadows.

The TV dithers a bit with 8k content, which is visible in shadows, but it’s only noticeable if you’re sitting extremely close to the screen. If you prefer something that displays 8k content properly, then look into the LG NANO99 8k.

The pixel dithering can be seen in the pixels photo. The 'Ultra Viewing Angle' layer affects the way pixels are displayed, as seen in this photo. In 'Game' mode, pixels around text appear to be blurry and they flicker slightly.

The Samsung Q800T has a great, wide color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the DCI P3 color spaced used in most HDR content, but limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

The EOTF is higher than the target until it rolls off, causing scenes to be brighter than they should. The EOTF is even brighter in ‘Game’ mode, as you can see here.

If you find HDR too dim, set Contrast Enhancer to ‘High’ and ST.2084 to ‘Max’, as seen in this EOTF.

The Samsung Q800T has a good color volume, a bit improved from the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED. It’s able to produce deep, saturated colors well, but has trouble with brighter blues, which is typical of an LED TV.

Good gradient handling. There’s a bit of banding in the greens and reds, but nothing serious. Setting Noise Reduction to ‘Auto’ helps smooth out the gradients.

There are no signs of temporary image retention, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

The Samsung Q800T has a very good response time. There's significant overshoot in the 0-20% transition, but overall, motion looks smooth. If you want a TV with even better response time, check out the Samsung Q80T QLED, which is a 4k TV.

This TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight. In 'Game' and 'Movie' mode it flickers at 960Hz, and at 120Hz in 'Natural', 'Dynamic', and 'Standard' modes. It flickers at 120Hz either when Picture Clarity or Game Motion Plus are enabled. When it's displaying 120fps content in 'Game' mode, or when the black frame feature is enabled in 'Game' mode while displaying 4k @ 30Hz or 8k @ 30Hz content it also flickers at 120Hz. It goes down to 60Hz with BFI enabled in 'Game' mode when displaying 4k @ 60Hz content.

The Samsung Q800T has a black frame insertion feature to help reduce motion blur. It can either flicker at 60Hz or 120Hz, depending on your content, which is explained in the Flicker-Free box.

See our recommended settings for the BFI feature here.

This TV can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120Hz, which is known as the 'Soap Opera Effect'. To enable motion interpolation, adjust the Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction settings in the Picture Clarity settings tab.

The Samsung Q800T has no stutter with 60fps content, but there's some noticeable stutter in 24fps content.

This TV can remove judder from any source. To do so, set Picture Clarity to 'Custom' and set the Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction sliders to 0.

See our recommended settings here.

Update 07/30/2021: We retested VRR with the latest firmware. 4k @ 120Hz VRR is now working properly, but only from FreeSync sources. When we tried it with an RTX 3080 the TV wasn't even usable, the video would freeze and we would have to disconnect and reconnect the HDMI cable, and even restart the computer at times.

Update 11/09/2020: We've retested the VRR with an HDMI 2.1 source and firmware version 1115. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at this time, as it causes a black screen when VRR is enabled. The image came back after resetting the handshake to enable VRR; however, Input Signal Plus was automatically disabled, limiting the signal to 4k @ 60Hz. When enabling 'Game' mode, the screen turns black as well.

Update 08/19/2020: We changed HDMI Forum VRR to 'Unknown' because we currently don't have an accurate way to test for HDMI Forum VRR compatibility. Once we do, we'll test for it and update the review.

The Samsung Q800T has a great refresh rate. It supports FreeSync to reduce screen tearing, and unlike the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED. FreeSync VRR is automatically enabled when in 'Game' mode.

Update 04/29/2021: We updated the '4k @ 60Hz With Interpolation' input lag because the original results were incorrect. The review has been updated.

Update 11/09/2020: We've retested the input lag at 8k with an HDMI 2.1 source. The input lag at 8k is an average, as the results vary a lot from one run to another. We can't measure the input lag for 8k with VRR since it doesn't work at this time. As for 4k @ 120Hz, we can't measure it because the image keeps flickering and is unusable.

The Samsung Q800T has an incredibly low input lag. It stays low with VRR enabled and it's also low with 4k content, which is great if you own a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. To achieve the lowest input lag, set the Picture Mode to 'Game'. There's also an Auto Low Latency Mode that automatically switches to 'Game' mode when a compatible device is connected, so you don't have to manually switch it.

Update 11/09/2020: We've retested the TV with an HDMI 2.1 source and firmware version 1115. It can now display an 8k @ 60Hz signal with chroma 4:4:4. 4k @ 120Hz doesn't work because the image keeps flickering, especially when in PC mode.

Since the Samsung Q800T is an 8k TV, it supports all common resolutions. It's able to display proper chroma 4:4:4, which is important for reading text, at all resolutions except 1440p @ 120Hz. To achieve full HDMI bandwidth, enable Input Signal Plus.

Update 05/19/2021: After a PS5 software update, Samsung TVs can now display 4k @ 120Hz in HDR.

This TV displays any signal up to 4k @ 120Hz from either the PS5 or Xbox Series X; we don't test for 8k. It has an Auto Low Latency Mode that automatically switches the TV into Game Mode when a game from a compatible device is launched. However, it feels buggy and turns itself on and off when you're in the menus.

Update 11/09/2020: We've retested the TV with an HDMI 2.1 source. We can confirm that HDMI 4 has the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1.

HDMI 2.1 is only supported on HDMI 4, which is a bit disappointing if you want multiple future-proof inputs. Check out the LG CX OLED if you want a TV with four HDMI 2.1 ports.

The Samsung Q800T supports eARC, so you can send high-quality object-based audio like Dolby Atmos via TrueHD over an HDMI connection. To use it, eARC has to be set to 'Auto' and the Digital Output Audio must be set to 'Passthrough'. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any DTS formats.

This TV has a disappointing frequency response, and it's actually worse than the Samsung Q900/Q900R 8k QLED. Its bass only has a bit of punch to it, but overall, it has a fairly well-rounded sound profile, resulting in clear dialogue. It gets loud enough for most environments.

There's a room correction feature that's done automatically when the Intelligent Mode setting is enabled.

This TV has decent distortion performance. There's audible total harmonic distortion at moderate listening levels and it gets quite noticeable at its max level.

Like other Samsung QLED TVs, the Samsung Q800T runs on Tizen operating system. It's easy to use and the navigation is smooth.

There are ads on the home screen and app store. Sadly, there's no way to opt-out of them.

Samsung's app store has a wide selection of apps available to download and the apps are fairly smooth to use.

The Samsung Q800T has the same remote as other Samsung QLED TVs. It has shortcuts to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Samsung TV Plus. It has a built-in microphone to use voice control with Bixby, Samsung's digital assistant. You can ask it to perform some basic commands, such as changing inputs, asking for the weather, and opening apps.

This TV has a D-pad as its controls and it's in the center of the TV underneath the Samsung branding. You can change channels, volume, inputs, or navigate the menu and settings.

• Remote (with batteries)
• Power cable
• User guide

This TV gets very hot.