Samsung S85F OLED  TV Review

The Samsung S85F has adequate HDR brightness. In combination with its perfect contrast, it gets bright enough for smaller highlights to stand out, but large highlights are noticeably dimmer. The results above are with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static', which is the most accurate setting.

Although it uses technology similar to that of the Samsung S95F OLED, the newer generation QD-OLED panel on the higher-end model delivers much higher peak brightness.

If you prefer a brighter image, these are the results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 551 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 486 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 271 cd/m²

If you're looking for an OLED with superior HDR brightness, check out the LG G5 OLED.

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':

• Hallway Lights: 567 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 509 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 264 cd/m²

The TV has okay SDR peak brightness overall. Small, bright areas of the screen are a lot brighter than large areas, but the TV is bright enough to fight glare in a room with some ambient lighting. Still, the Samsung S90F OLED is noticeably brighter in SDR.

The Samsung S85F OLED has remarkable contrast and a nearly infinite contrast ratio. Due to OLED's self-lit pixels, the TV displays bright highlights next to perfect inky blacks, making it very impressive in a dark room.

Since OLEDs don't use lighting zones and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no blooming when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.

The Samsung S85F is an OLED and doesn't have a backlight, so its self-lit pixels give it the same performance as a TV with perfect local dimming and no zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video on the TV so you can see how it compares to an option with local dimming.

There's no difference in dark scene behavior when the TV is set in Game Mode.

Because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the TV has incredible black uniformity with no blooming or halo effect around bright objects.

The Samsung S85F has outstanding SDR color volume, and its coverage of the DCI-P3 color space is close to perfect. It doesn't cover the entire range of colors in the wider BT.2020 color space, but its coverage is still very good overall. However, it does struggle a bit more with cyans, greens, and lighter reds within the BT.2020 color space.

The TV has excellent HDR color volume. It displays dark, saturated colors very well due to its perfect contrast. It also does well displaying most bright colors, but it does struggle a bit more with bright reds and magentas.

The Samsung S85F has excellent pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Gamma is very close to the 2.2 target, but everything is a bit brighter than it's supposed to be, with the exception of very bright scenes being slightly too dark. Its white balance is excellent, but there's a bit too much red, blue, and green in most shades of gray, making the TV's color temperature cooler than 6500K. The accuracy of colors is fantastic, with only very minor errors that are barely noticeable.

After calibration, the TV has nearly perfect SDR accuracy. Gamma is much closer to 2.2, white balance is fantastic, and its color temperature is incredibly close to 6500K. Colors are even more accurate than before, and any minor errors aren't noticeable. 

See our full calibration settings.

The Samsung S85F has good HDR pre-calibration accuracy. There's too much blue throughout all shades of gray, which is more prominent in lighter grays. This makes the TV's color temperature a lot cooler than the industry standard 6,500K. Colors have okay accuracy overall, but there's mapping errors throughout.

If this matters to you, check out the much more accurate LG B5 OLED instead.

Calibrating the TV further improves its HDR color accuracy, but it's still not perfect. Blues are barely overrepresented in most grays, but now there's not enough blue in some lighter grays. Still, the TV's color temperature is now closer to 6500K, albeit still too cool. Color accuracy is improved, but there are still noticeable mapping errors throughout. 

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 TV has remarkable PQ EOTF tracking. Near blacks are a tiny bit brighter than intended, but the TV follows the curve incredibly closely until it reaches its peak brightness. With content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits, there's a gradual roll-off that helps to maintain detail in highlights that are brighter than the TV's capabilities. The roll-off is even more gradual with content mastered at 4000 nits, helping it maintain some detail in incredibly bright highlights.

The Samsung S85F's low-quality content smoothing is decent. It does a very good job of preserving detail, but there's still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes.

The TV has an optional feature to help reduce artifacts from interlaced sources. To use it, 'Film Mode' must be set to 'Auto.'

The TV does a very good job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details are clear enough, but fine details and small hard-coded text are hard to make out.

The TV has outstanding HDR native gradient handling. There's only very minor banding in dark grays, dark reds, dark greens, and bright blues, but the banding is barely noticeable unless you specifically look for it.

This TV has very low input lag when set into Game Mode, which ensures a responsive gaming experience. Outside of Game Mode, its input lag is a lot higher, so you feel a slight delay when scrolling through menus or pausing content.

The Samsung S85F supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly with all supported resolutions when the TV's input label is set to 'PC' with Input Signal Plus enabled, which is important for text clarity.

The Samsung S85F 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.

The Samsung S85F delivers sharp motion at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It's a bit slower when shades transition from a dark state to near black, but these transitions are still very fast and don't cause any noticeable blur. Furthermore, there's no overshoot, so you don't see any inverse ghosting.

The Samsung S85F delivers sharp motion at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It's a bit slower when shades transition from a dark state to near black, but these transitions are still very fast and don't cause any noticeable blur. Furthermore, there's no overshoot, so you don't see any inverse ghosting.

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is fantastic. Most transitions from one RGB level to another are nearly instantaneous, but there's still some noticeable persistence blur due to the nature of a 60Hz refresh rate.

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, due to the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots.

The motion interpolation feature on this TV is mediocre for reducing stutter in slow panning shots. Although the frame timing is consistent, it doesn't reduce the amount of visible stutter much and you'll still see it in most scenes.

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 judder from 25p sources that are being sent via a 60p signal, like an older cable box. Frame times are incredibly inconsistent with those signals, which makes motion look jerky and distracting.

There's only noticeable micro judder with 25p sources sent via a 60p signal, like from an older cable box.

The TV has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion with almost no blur behind fast-moving objects when watching content.

This TV is free from any transition artifacts when watching movies, shows, and sports. There isn't any ghosting or unwanted intermediate colors during transitions, so colors remain consistent and pure, even during fast-paced scenes and sports.

This TV doesn't have a traditional backlight and doesn't use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim each pixel, but it's not completely flicker-free. There's a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the TV's refresh rate. This differs from the PWM flicker on TVs with LED backlights and occurs on every OLED we've tested. It's not noticeable, and most people won't be bothered by this, but it can still bother people who are extra sensitive to flicker.

The TV has an optional black frame insertion (BFI) feature that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous response time. It can only insert black frames at a 60Hz refresh rate.

The TV does a great job of reducing the intensity of direct reflections, so you aren't overly distracted if you have a lamp or window opposite your screen.

The TV has disappointing black levels in a bright room. Blacks look increasingly gray as your room becomes brighter, so the image looks washed out, and you lose the impactful picture quality this QD-OLED has in a dark room.

The TV does an exceptional job with total reflected light. Its glossy screen finish significantly reduces the intensity of indirect reflections. However, due to the lack of a polarizer, the TV has a pink tint to it when exposed to light.

The TV has very good color saturation in a bright room. The saturation of low-luminance colors does noticeably drop in a room with ambient lighting, but mid-luminance and high-luminance colors retain their saturation very well. Fortunately, you still get vibrant colors in a bright room, since its color volume is so impressive to begin with.

The TV's incredibly wide viewing angle remains consistent from almost any angle, making it an excellent choice for watching in a group setting.

The TV has satisfactory gray uniformity. The corners of the screen are darker than the middle area, and there's some minor dirty screen effect in the middle.

The Samsung S85F (QD-OLED) uses a unique subpixel structure. Instead of having all three subpixels in a row, each pixel forms a triangle, with the larger green subpixel at the top. This leads to color fringing; on a bright window on a Windows PC, you might notice a green fringe at the top since that's where the green subpixel is. Similarly, you can notice a purple fringe at the bottom of bright windows, as that's where the red and blue subpixels are. Furthermore, with this subpixel arrangement, text has just okay clarity on a PC, as Windows ClearType settings aren't designed for this subpixel structure and can't correct for it.

The TV uses quantum dots to achieve high color peaks with excellent separation between blues, greens, and reds. This gives the TV great color purity and allows it to display an incredibly wide range of colors.

The Samsung OLED S85F supports the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 on all four HDMI ports. This allows you to take full advantage of multiple high-bandwidth devices. Unfortunately, it only has an ATSC 1.0 tuner, so 4k over-the-air isn't possible.

This Samsung OLED S85F supports Dolby Digital audio formats. However, it doesn't passthrough Dolby Digital Plus 7.1, which is odd, since Samsung models have supported this audio format in the past. Unfortunately, it 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 S85F doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the similar HDR10+.

The Samsung QN65S85FAFXZA has a basic design that looks good overall. 

The TV uses two plastic feet that can be adjusted to a narrow position (pictured above) or a wide position. The feet lift the TV about 3.46 inches, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the bottom of the screen.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the narrow position: 12.28" x 10.43".

Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the wide position: 37.52" x 10.43".

The back of the TV is made entirely of plastic. It feels a bit loose against the panel, and the entire back of the TV flexes when pressed on. The ports are located in three recessed cutouts, which makes them hard to access if you have the TV mounted flush to the wall. If you don't wall mount the TV, it comes with two clips that can be attached to the feet for cable management.

The TV has good build quality overall. There are no concerning issues with quality control, but the back panel is a bit loose and feels like it wasn't fastened properly.

The Samsung S85F OLED runs the 2025 version of the Tizen OS, which is quick and easy to use. Unfortunately, the interface becomes very slow and unresponsive at times, and the TV requires a hard reboot to fix the problem.

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 with a solar panel on the back of the remote. You can also recharge it via USB-C if it dies unexpectedly.

• Power cable
• Remote control
• Cable management clips
• User guide
• Plastic covers

The TV has mediocre sound. The sound profile is well-balanced enough that dialogue is easy to understand at most volume levels. However, the sound becomes very unbalanced at the TV's maximum volume, which is disappointing since the TV doesn't get very loud. Furthermore, there's a lack of bass, which makes the TV sound hollow when listening to music or watching action movies.