The Samsung Q8F 2025 is an entry-level 4k TV released in 2025 as part of Samsung's QLED lineup, sitting above the Samsung Q7F 2025. It boasts a surprisingly comprehensive selection of features, particularly for gamers, including a high 144Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four inputs. It completely lacks advanced picture quality features like local dimming. The TV supports HDR10+, passes through most Dolby audio formats, and features built-in 20W 2.0-channel speakers. It runs Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS, which is loaded with streaming apps, and it has Samsung's TV Plus and Multi-View, supports Apple AirPlay, and offers voice control. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, but it's also available in 32, 43, 50, 55, 75, and 85-inch models.
Our Verdict
The Samsung Q8F is a mediocre TV overall. It's best suited for watching shows or movies in SDR in a moderately lit room, or for single-player games. It offers a great selection of features, especially for gaming, but has limited picture quality in all modes. It doesn't look good in a dark room due to its poor black levels, and it struggles to handle direct light, making it a poor choice for a bright room. It also struggles to handle fast motion due to its very slow response time.
Accurate colors out of the box.
Good upscaling.
Low contrast and no local dimming.
Not bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room.
Blurry motion, especially in dark scenes.
Can't reduce the intensity of direct, mirror-like reflections.
The Samsung Q8F is a disappointing TV for home theater use under reference conditions. It doesn't look good in a dark room due to its low contrast and lack of a local dimming feature, resulting in poor black levels overall. It's not bright enough to bring out bright specular highlights in HDR, colors are dull and muted, and HDR in general adds very little. It has good processing, though, with great EOTF tracking and good gradient handling. Thanks to its slower response time, stutter is kept to a minimum, but slow panning shots still don't look quite as smooth as intended. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR or DTS audio formats.
Great PQ EOTF tracking.
Removes judder from almost all sources.
Low contrast and no local dimming.
Bright specular highlights don't stand out at all, and bright scenes are dull and flat.
Can't display a wide range of colors in HDR.
Doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR or DTS audio formats.
The Samsung Q8F is a mediocre choice for a bright room. The glossy panel does very little to reduce the intensity of direct reflections, so light from open windows is distracting, and it can't get bright enough to overcome them. On the other hand, ambient light has very little impact on contrast or perceived color volume.
Ambient light has no impact on black levels.
Not bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room.
Can't reduce the intensity of direct, mirror-like reflections.
The Samsung Q8F is mediocre for watching sports. It has good upscaling and can remove artifacts from some low-quality streams, but there's some loss of fine details. Unfortunately, it has a slow pixel response time, resulting in significant blur around fast action, and exhibits poor uniformity with a noticeable dirty screen effect in the center of the screen. There are also some unintended intermediate colors around the edges of fast-moving players and objects. Finally, it's a mediocre choice for afternoon games as it doesn't look good in a bright room due to its low peak brightness and limited reflection handling.
Good upscaling.
Not bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room.
Blurry motion, especially in dark scenes.
Can't reduce the intensity of direct, mirror-like reflections.
Fast-paced scenes and sports have visible color artifacts.
The Samsung Q8F is an acceptable TV for gaming. It has a great selection of gaming features, including HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR support, and a high maximum refresh rate. It has incredibly low input lag with all supported formats. Samsung's built-in Game Bar also makes it very easy to adjust your picture quality while gaming, and it has some neat gaming features that are typically only found on gaming monitors, like a virtual aim point and a minimap zoom feature. On the other hand, this TV has a very slow response time, so fast motion is blurry and hard to make out, making it unsuitable for competitive multiplayer gaming. It also has poor picture quality, with low contrast and low peak brightness in Game Mode, so bright highlights in games don't stand out.
Incredibly low input lag.
HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, up to 4k @ 144Hz, and VRR support.
Not bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room.
Blurry motion, especially in dark scenes.
The Samsung Q8F has poor peak brightness. It gets acceptably bright in SDR, so it can handle some glare in a bright room, but it's best-suited for a moderately-lit room. It's peak brightness is too low in HDR, though, so bright specular highlights don't stand out at all and bright scenes are flat and dull.
Not bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a bright room.
Bright specular highlights don't stand out at all, and bright scenes are dull and flat.
The Samsung Q8F has poor black levels. Although it has good black uniformity, it has low contrast and no local dimming, so blacks are uniformly raised across the screen in all content. There's a global dimming feature that helps reduce black levels in extremely dark scenes, but it only works in SDR and can't be adjusted.
Low contrast and no local dimming.
The Samsung Q8F has okay colors. It offers great accuracy in both SDR and HDR out of the box, and it calibrates well in SDR if you're concerned about achieving the most accurate image. It has mediocre color volume in all color spaces, though, as it can't display a wide color gamut, and bright colors are limited by its low peak brightness.
Accurate colors out of the box.
Can't display a wide range of colors in HDR.
The Samsung Q8F has decent motion handling when watching different types of content. The TV is completely free from judder and micro-judder, with the exception of 25p content sent via a 60p signal, so you only see jittery motion if you're watching some European content from an older device. Its response time is on the slower side, so fast-paced scenes and sports look blurry. Furthermore, there are color artifacts around the edges of objects and people in fast-paced scenes and sports, which also affects the clarity of motion. However, there's not very much stutter in shots with slower camera movements due to its slower response time.
Removes judder from almost all sources.
No micro-judder from most sources.
Blurry motion, especially in dark scenes.
Fast-paced scenes and sports have visible color artifacts.
The Samsung Q8F is a decently responsive TV when gaming. It has a high maximum refresh rate, great format support, VRR, and incredibly low input lag, especially at higher refresh rates, all of which contribute to a responsive feel. On the other hand, it has poor motion handling at all refresh rates, so fast action in games is blurry most of the time, and dark scenes are especially bad.
Incredibly low input lag.
HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, up to 4k @ 144Hz, and VRR support.
Blurry motion, especially in dark scenes.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The Samsung Q8F has good processing capabilities. It has good upscaling and good gradient handling in HDR, with just a bit of banding in shades of green. It also features excellent EOTF tracking, but this is limited by its low peak brightness and raised blacks. On the other hand, it has just okay low-quality content smoothing. It can smooth out macroblocking and pixelization to some extent, but doing so results in a noticeable loss of fine details.
Great PQ EOTF tracking.
Good gradient handling.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Mar 12, 2026:
We added text to our new Cinematic Motion Handling performance usage and our new Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation test sections after converting the review to TV 2.2.
- Updated Mar 10, 2026: This review has been updated to TV 2.2. We've added new sections for Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation, and updated the way we test Stutter. Additionally, we removed the 'Broken' disclaimer from our Motion Handling usage.
- Updated Feb 05, 2026: We added text to the new Micro-Judder section and refreshed the text in the updated Judder and Response Time Stutter sections after converting the review to TV 2.1.
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Updated Dec 05, 2025:
Mentioned the newly reviewed Roku Pro Series 2025 in the HDR Brightness section.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We've purchased and tested the 65-inch Samsung Q8F 2025, and these results are also applicable to the 55, 75, and 85-inch sizes. The 32, 43, and 50-inch models differ slightly, as they don't support the enhanced gaming features found on the other sizes. They have only three HDMI inputs and are limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. Note that with Samsung TVs, the four letters after the short model code (FXZA in this case) vary between different retailers and regions, but there's no difference in performance.
Various warehouse stores, such as Costco and Sam's Club, sell a variant of this TV known as the Samsung Q8FD. It performs the same but comes with an extended warranty.
| Size | US Model | Costco & Sam's Club Model (US) | Max Refresh Rate | HDMI Ports |
| 32" | QN32Q8FAAFXZA | - | 60Hz | 3 |
| 43" | QN43Q8FAAFXZA | - | 60Hz | 3 |
| 50" | QN50Q8FAAFXZA | - | 60Hz | 3 |
| 55" | QN55Q8FAAFXZA | QN55Q8FDAFXZA | 144Hz | 4 |
| 65" | QN65Q8FAAFXZA | QN65Q8FDAFXZA | 144Hz | 4 |
| 75" | QN75Q8FAAFXZA | QN75Q8FDAFXZA | 144Hz | 4 |
| 85" | QN85Q8FAAFXZA | - | 144Hz | 4 |
Our unit was made in Mexico in April 2025.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Samsung Q8F 2025 is a bit of a strange TV. It's incredibly feature-packed, with HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, a high refresh rate, and VRR support. On the other hand, it has very few picture-enhancing features, with no local dimming, a limited color gamut, and low peak brightness. This puts it in a similar market position to TVs like the TCL Q77K and Hisense QD7N, but it's also considerably more expensive than those two. It targets gamers who care more about gaming features than overall picture quality, but it fails at that mission as its slow response time makes it unsuitable for competitive gaming. While it's nice to see advanced gaming features making their way down to more affordable models, there are better options available from other brands that deliver decent picture quality and gaming features simultaneously, such as the TCL QM6K or the Hisense U65QF.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best TVs under $1,000, the best TVs for gaming, or the best 4k TVs.
The Samsung Q8F 2025 is a noticeable step up from the Samsung Q7F 2025. The Q8F is much more feature-packed, with VRR support, a high refresh rate, and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four inputs. Outside of these extra features, though, there's not much difference, and they deliver similar overall picture quality.
The Samsung QN70F is much better than the Samsung Q8F 2025. The QN70F is a lot brighter, so it can handle more glare when used in a bright room, and HDR content is more vivid and lifelike. Other than brightness, these two TVs are very similar overall, with a similar range of gaming and smart features.
The TCL QM6K is much better than the Samsung Q8F 2025. The TCL delivers much better picture quality, with higher peak brightness and better contrast thanks to its Mini LED local dimming feature. They have similar gaming features, but the TCL supports a boosted 288Hz refresh rate with lower resolution signals, great for PC gamers.
The TCL QM7K is a significantly better TV than the Samsung Q8F 2025. The TCL TV delivers much better picture quality. Its Mini LED local dimming feature delivers deeper, more uniform blacks in a dark room, and better dynamic range with HDR content. Bright specular highlight details stand out better, and colors are more vibrant. Both TVs offer a great selection of gaming features, but the TCL TV's superior picture quality helps deliver a more impressive gaming experience.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
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