Samsung QN80F  TV Review

The Samsung QN80F has okay peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough to bring out most small bright details in scenes with moderate brightness, but the brightest highlight details are lost. It gets decently bright with very bright outdoor shots, but it's not as bright as it should be for a truly impactful HDR experience with those scenes. The larger Samsung 100QN80F is quite a bit brighter in most content.

Our results are done in the 'FILMMAKER' Picture Mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static.' If you prefer a brighter image over an accurate one, these are the results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 567 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 440 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 190 cd/m²

Switching to Game Mode is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to brightness. The Samsung QN80F processes brightness differently in this mode, as some real scenes are a bit brighter, but most test slides and some real scenes are darker.

Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 415 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 298 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 151 cd/m²

The peak brightness in SDR is excellent. It can overcome glare from indirect light sources in a well-lit room, and the brightness is fairly consistent across different content, so even very bright content like sports looks good.

The Samsung QN80F has decent contrast overall. It has a high native contrast ratio, which should result in deep blacks even when the local dimming feature can't keep up, but there's still some noticeable glow. You can't disable local dimming on this TV, so its native contrast was measured with an inverted contrast pattern.

The zone precision is decent overall. It's a significant step up from the lower-end Samsung QN70F, and there's very little haloing around bright areas like subtitles or on the sides of black bars when watching letterboxed content. Still, it's a bit limited by the number of dimming zones, as it can't dim around oddly shaped bright areas in dark spots, so there's some glow in dark areas.

The zone transitions are just okay. There's noticeable flicker and image duplication as bright objects move across the screen.

Dark details look a bit worse overall in Game Mode. The algorithms that control the local dimming feature are toned down a bit to avoid adding input lag, so zone transitions are more noticeable.

The Samsung QN80F has just alright black uniformity. The entire screen is a bit cloudy even with Local Dimming set to 'High.'

Local dimming can't be turned off on this TV, so we tested its native black uniformity with Local Dimming set to 'Low' and Shadow Detail to '1,' with a uniformity image with an RGB value of {5,5,5} as black.

The Samsung QN80F has mediocre color volume in SDR. Like most TVs these days, it has full coverage of the BT.709 color space used with the majority of SDR content. It has just okay coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and poor coverage of the much wider BT.2020 color space, so it's not a good choice if you like to force content into a wider color space.

Oddly enough, colors are noticeably desaturated in brighter scenes. This is very unusual for an LED TV with no white subpixel, but it's similar to the Samsung Q7F 2025, so this doesn't seem to be an issue with this specific unit.

The HDR color volume on this TV is good overall. Like with SDR, colors desaturate a bit at high luminance levels, so pure white is slightly brighter than each individual color. Dark, saturated colors are displayed well, giving some depth to dark tones, but it's not as good as the Samsung QN90F.

The Samsung QN80F has good SDR accuracy before calibration, but there are a few noticeable issues, especially with the white balance. Blues are slightly underrepresented in bright shades of gray, which contributes to the slightly warm color temperature. Gamma is very good, and there are no noticeable color errors.

This TV is a breeze to calibrate, and the results after calibration are superb, with no noticeable issues at all. Color dE is still a bit high after calibration, but not noticeably so.

See our full calibration settings.

The Samsung QN80F has decent accuracy in HDR before calibration. Unlike SDR, colors are the biggest issue, as there are significant color errors across the board. The white balance is also noticeably off, and again, blues are underrepresented in bright shades, giving the TV a noticeably warm color temperature.

Calibrating this TV in HDR helps quite a bit with the white balance, as the color temperature is nearly perfect after calibration. Colors improve slightly after calibration, but they're still noticeably off across the board.

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 QN80F has excellent PQ EOTF tracking, ensuring most HDR content is displayed at the brightness level intended by the content creator. Almost all content is slightly dimmer than intended, but shadow details are displayed well. There's a smoother roll-off with content mastered at 4,000 nits, which helps preserve some brightness gradients in the brightest scenes, but anything above about 1,000 nits is blended together.

The TV has alright low-quality content smoothing. It smooths out macro-blocking and pixelization much better than the Samsung Q7F 2025, but more fine details are lost compared to the Samsung QN90F.

The Samsung QN80F has good sharpness processing when upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Fine details are a bit hard to make out, but the image is sharp and clear overall.

This TV has excellent gradient handling in HDR. There's almost no noticeable banding in any color.

This TV has excellent low input lag across all supported resolutions and modes. Input lag outside of Game Mode is much higher, though, so you feel a slight delay when navigating menus from external players.

This TV supports most common formats, up to a maximum of 4k @ 144Hz. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly across all supported formats, which is important for clear text from a PC.

The Samsung QN80F supports all three types of variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing. It works well across a wide refresh rate range and supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.

Unfortunately, the CAD on this TV is just okay at the max refresh rate of 144Hz. There's barely any overshoot, which is good, but transitions to and from dark shades are especially slow. This causes more distracting blur in shadow details. Mid-tones look much better, so most real content looks a lot better than shadow details, but it's still not great.

The TV's CAD when gaming at 120Hz is just alright, and it's noticeably worse than at 144Hz. There's more noticeable overshoot, and shadow details look even worse, especially when transitioning from bright to dark.

The TV's CAD when gaming at 60Hz is mediocre, as almost all transitions are very slow. There's less overshoot than there is at 120Hz, though, and transitions within bright scenes look better.

The TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about manually switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

The TV is fully compatible with almost everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to manually switch to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. Unfortunately, Dolby Vision isn't supported on the TV, so gaming in Dolby Vision isn't possible.

Unfortunately, despite this TV's slow response time, there's still noticeable stutter in slow panning shots.

Adjusting the motion interpolation feature to output close to 30fps does an okay job of reducing stutter. It's still somewhat noticeable, but the motion interpolation feature is very consistent, resulting in even frame pacing and reduced stutter.

The TV automatically removes judder from all sources when watching movies or shows that are in 24p, even if they're in a 60Hz signal, like from a cable box. It can't remove 25p judder sent by a 60p source, though.

There's noticeable micro judder with 25p content sent via a 60p source, like a cable box or older streaming box that can't match the source frame rate.

The Samsung QN80F has a good cinematic response time. There's very slight overshoot in some darker transitions, which causes a very slight halo effect in shadow details, but it's not that noticeable.

Unfortunately, there are noticeable color artifacts around fast-changing colors on this TV. Light skin tones have a noticeable red tint, blues look a bit yellow, and reds and greens blend together a bit. Edges are sharp and clear, though.

The TV uses a combination of pulse-width modulation (PWM) and direct dimming to adjust the backlight intensity. The TV flickers at 120Hz in most picture modes, except in the 'Movie' Picture Mode, where it flickers at 960Hz at all brightness levels.

This TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). Unfortunately, it's only supported at 60Hz on this TV.

The TV's direct reflection handling is poor. It does very little to reduce the intensity of direct mirror-like reflections, so any source of light opposite the screen is clearly visible.

Bright light has very little impact on the TV's black levels.

The amount of total reflected light off the screen is just okay. The TV's handling of ambient lighting is alright, but there are noticeable diffraction artifacts.

Color saturation on this TV doesn't change much when used in a bright room.

The Samsung QN80F has a mediocre viewing angle, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating area. Blacks are noticeably raised at an angle, so the screen looks washed out. Colors also shift noticeably, especially blues, which drop off quickly, giving the TV more of a red tint at an angle.

This TV has mediocre gray uniformity. The screen is patchy throughout, even in brighter shades of gray, and the sides of the screen are noticeably darker than the center. It's a bit better in darker shades, but the uniformity issues are still noticeable.

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 uses quantum dots for both green and red, and there's a nice separation of colors.

All four HDMI inputs support the maximum HDMI 2.1 bandwidth of 48Gbps, so you don't need to worry about connecting high-bandwidth devices to specific ports.

This TV supports many audio formats, including all Dolby Digital options. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks. LPCM 7.1 isn't officially supported in the EDID, so it only works with sources that can override the EDID, like a PC. On other sources, it's limited to 5.1.

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

The Samsung QN80F is a premium-looking TV, but it's a bit bulkier than higher-end models like the Samsung QN90F. The bezels are a bit thicker as well, so it doesn't blend in to your room as seamlessly.

The center-mounted stand is solid and small, supporting the TV well. The stand lifts the display 3 inches above the table, so almost any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the screen's viewable area.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 12.2" x 11"

The back of the TV has a nice textured finish. The inputs are housed in a recessed cutout, so they're a bit tricky to access when the TV is mounted close to the wall. They all face to the side, though, so HDMI connectors won't stick out the back. There are some grooves along the back of the TV and the stand to help with cable management.

The Samsung QN80F has good overall build quality. It's a bit cheaper than higher-end Samsung models, and it uses more plastic.

Like most TVs on the market, it has ads throughout its interface, and although you can disable targeted ads, there's no option to disable them completely.

The remote has a built-in rechargeable battery and a solar panel on its back. You can also recharge it via USB-C if it dies unexpectedly.

• Power cable
• Remote control
• User guides

The TV has a decent frequency response when listening at low to moderate volume levels. It gets very loud, but dialogue is a bit muted at max volume and overpowered by other sounds.