Samsung QN85C/QN85CD QLED Review (QN55QN85CAFXZA, QN65QN85CAFXZA, QN75QN85CAFXZA, QN85QN85CAFXZA) (2024)

Curved No

The Samsung QN85C has a nice design, although it's nothing original, as it looks extremely similar, if not identical, to many of Samsung's other 2022 and 2023 TVs. But overall, the TV is sleek and feels well-built.

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Uniformity Pictures N/A

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Wall Mount VESA 400x300

The back of the TV looks good, with a nice textured design. There are cable channels on the back to help with cable management. There are also cable grooves in the stand, hidden with a cover, to further channel cables towards the stand's bottom and out of the TV. Note that the TV's inputs are in a recessed inlet on its back panel. They're hard to access if you wall-mount the TV with a fixed bracket.

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Borders 0.35" (0.9 cm)

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Max Thickness 1.06" (2.7 cm)

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The build quality of the Samsung QN85C is very good. The TV wobbles from front to back and from side to side due to its small stand, but it's not concerning. However, there's a large amount of flex near the TV's VESA holes and its inputs; nothing too worrying, but it's something to note. Aside from that, the TV feels sleek and is made from premium plastic.

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Contrast

Native Contrast

The Samsung QN85C has a great contrast ratio. Its native contrast ratio is rather bad, but with local dimming set to high, the TV's contrast is superb; the TV can produce very deep blacks that don't look gray when viewed in a dark room. Note that as you can't fully turn off the local dimming on this TV at the moment, even through the service menu, we calculated the native contrast ratio using this inverse contrast pattern.

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There's some noticeable blooming around bright highlights and subtitles in dark scenes, but it looks very good overall.

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Local Dimming

Backlight

Dimming Zones Count Of Tested TV

Lighting zone transitions on the Samsung QN85C are decent, but the algorithm that controls the local dimming feature can't quite keep up with fast content, so transitions are noticeable. When bright highlights move quickly across the screen, the leading edge is darker due to the TV not turning on zones fast enough. There's also a bright halo behind bright highlights that move quickly across the screen.

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The TV's contrast and dark details in Game Mode are very good. The image is overall colder, i.e., has a blueish tint to it, than outside of Game Mode. As a result, colors really pop, and the contrast is very good, but it comes at the expense of a bit more blooming than in other modes.

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Hallway Lights (~1950 cd/m²)

Yellow Skyscraper (~700 cd/m²)

Landscape Pool (~300 cd/m²)

Peak 2% Window

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Peak 25% Window

Peak 50% Window

Peak 100% Window

Sustained 2% Window

Sustained 10% Window

Sustained 25% Window

Sustained 50% Window

Sustained 100% Window

Automatic Brightness Limiting (ABL)

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Hallway Lights (~1950 cd/m²)

Yellow Skyscraper (~700 cd/m²)

Landscape Pool (~300 cd/m²)

Peak 2% Window

Peak 10% Window

Peak 25% Window

Peak 50% Window

Peak 100% Window

Sustained 2% Window

Sustained 10% Window

Sustained 25% Window

Sustained 50% Window

Sustained 100% Window

Automatic Brightness Limiting (ABL)

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600 Nit Tracking Delta

1000 Nit Tracking Delta

4000 Nit Tracking Delta

The Samsung QN85C's PQ EOTF tracking is superb in 'Movie', 'Filmmaker', and 'Game' modes in HDR. It's overbrightened throughout, and its near-blacks are slightly raised. Aside from that, most content displays at the correct brightness level, respecting the content creator's intent. There's a sharp cutoff near the TV's peak brightness; this results in some clipping in really bright scenes, leading to a loss of fine detail.

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Real Scene Peak Brightness

Peak 2% Window

Peak 10% Window

Peak 25% Window

Peak 50% Window

Peak 100% Window

Sustained 2% Window

Sustained 10% Window

Sustained 25% Window

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Sustained 100% Window

Automatic Brightness Limiting (ABL)

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Wide Color Gamut

DCI P3 xy

DCI P3 uv

Rec 2020 xy

Rec 2020 uv

The Samsung QN85C has a great color gamut. It can display almost the entire range of colors in the widely used DCI-P3 color space, so HDR content is vivid and lifelike, although most colors are slightly undersaturated. It has an okay coverage of the Rec. 2020 format, good enough for when it becomes more prevalent. However, this isn't the TV for you if you want strong Rec. 2020 coverage for future-proofing.

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1,000 cd/m² DCI P3 Coverage ITP

10,000 cd/m² Rec 2020 Coverage ITP

White Luminance

Red Luminance

Green Luminance

Blue Luminance

Cyan Luminance

Magenta Luminance

Yellow Luminance

The Samsung QN85C has great color volume. It has bright, vibrant colors and can display bright colors very well. It can't quite display the most saturated colors, but it still does an excellent job for an ADS panel.

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White Balance dE

Color dE

Gamma

Color Temperature

Picture Mode

Color Temp Setting

Gamma Setting

The TV has very good pre-calibration accuracy. Its white balance is slightly off, especially in very bright shades of gray, where blues are underrepresented. This explains the warmer white balance, which veers towards red. Its gamma tracking is excellent, almost exactly at our target of 2.2 for a moderately lit room, although dark scenes are slightly too dark.

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White Balance dE

Color dE

Gamma

Color Temperature

White Balance Calibration

Color Calibration

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50% Std. Dev.

50% DSE

5% Std. Dev.

5% DSE

The TV has good gray uniformity. There's some vignetting, where the sides of the image are slightly darker than its center, and vertical banding is noticeable in content with large sections of bright colors, like when watching sports like hockey. Its uniformity with very dark colors is excellent, however.

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Std. Dev.

Native Std. Dev.

The TV's black uniformity is amazing. Note that you can't turn local dimming completely off on this TV due to a more limited service menu, so we took the native black uniformity picture with local dimming set to 'Low'. With that setting, the TV's black uniformity is inadequate; there's a lot of blooming around the bright cross, going beyond it to give the whole screen a blue-ish tint. With local dimming set to 'High', the TV's black uniformity is exceptional.

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Color Washout

Color Shift

Brightness Loss

Black Level Raise

Gamma Shift

The Samsung QN85C has a very good viewing angle. The colors wash out and lose some brightness at moderate angles, but overall it's good enough for a wide seating arrangement.

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Screen Finish

Total Reflections

Indirect Reflections

Calculated Direct Reflections

The TV has decent reflection handling. Its semi-gloss coating diffuses reflections across the screen, making them bigger but less bright.

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100% Black to 50% Gray

50% Gray to 100% White

100% Black to 50% Red

50% Red to 100% Red

100% Black to 50% Green

50% Green to 100% Green

100% Black to 50% Blue

50% Blue to 100% Blue

The Samsung QN85CD has impressive HDR gradient handling. However, there's very noticeable banding in saturated greens, as well as in brighter blues.

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Smoothing

Detail Preservation

The TV's low-quality content smoothing is acceptable. It does a decent job of preserving details, but it does a mediocre job smoothing out any macro-blocking in dark scenes.

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The TV has good sharpness processing when upscaling content. It's good enough that low-resolution content looks sharp, although you'll lose some fine details in the process.

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Subpixel Layout

Type LED

Sub-Type

The Samsung QN85C uses an ADS-type panel, similar to the more commonly known IPS. It uses an RGB subpixel layout, so it won't have any issues rendering text when used as a PC monitor.

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80% Response Time

100% Response Time

The TV has a good response time. Most transitions are very fast. However, it struggles in very dark scene transitions and has a lot of overshoot in those, causing inverse ghosting behind dark areas. Look at the Samsung The Frame 2024 QLED if you want a Samsung TV with a faster response time.

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Flicker-Free

PWM Dimming Frequency

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Optional BFI

Min Flicker For 60 fps

60Hz For 60 fps

120Hz For 120 fps

Min Flicker for 60 fps in Game Mode

The TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature helps reduce blur caused by the TV's fast response time, otherwise known as persistence blur. It works at both 60Hz and 120Hz, which is great, but unfortunately, its timing is off, and it causes a duplicate image when enabled.

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Motion Interpolation (30 fps)

Motion Interpolation (60 fps)

The Samsung QN85CD has a feature to increase the frame rate of low frame-rate content up to 120Hz. As is typical of this feature, it works very well with slow panning shots and other slow-paced scenes but shows a lot of artifacts once the action ramps up.

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Frame Hold Time @ 24 fps

Frame Hold Time @ 60 fps

Due to the TV's good response time, low frame rate content, like movies, stutter a bit. It's mainly noticeable in slow panning shots, and motion interpolation or backlight strobing features can mitigate this to some degree, but they come with their own problems.

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Judder-Free 24p

Judder-Free 24p via 60p

Judder-Free 24p via 60i

Judder-Free 24p via Native Apps

The Samsung QN85CD automatically removes judder from any source, with no additional settings needed. It's great for watching movies, as motion appears smooth.

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Native Refresh Rate

Variable Refresh Rate

HDMI Forum VRR

FreeSync

G-SYNC Compatible

4k VRR Maximum

4k VRR Minimum

1080p VRR Maximum

1080p VRR Minimum

1440p VRR Maximum

1440p VRR Minimum

VRR + Local Dimming Yes

The Samsung QN85CD is compatible with all three variable refresh rate (VRR) formats, and it works across a very wide refresh rate range, which ensures that your games remain nearly tear-free when gaming.

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1080p @ 60Hz

1080p @ 60Hz Outside Game Mode

1080p @ 120Hz

1080p @ 144Hz

1440p @ 60Hz

1440p @ 120Hz

1440p @ 144Hz

4k @ 60Hz

4k @ 60Hz + 10-Bit HDR

4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4

4k @ 60Hz Outside Game Mode

4k @ 60Hz With Interpolation

4k @ 120Hz

4k @ 144Hz

8k @ 60Hz

The TV has extremely low input lag in Game Mode. It results in a very responsive gaming experience, with very little delay between your inputs and the on-screen action. Unfortunately, the input lag outside Game Mode is too high for gaming or PC use.

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Resolution 4k

480p @ 59.94Hz (Widescreen)

720p @ 59.94Hz

1080p @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4

1080p @ 120Hz

1080p @ 144Hz

1440p @ 60Hz

1440p @ 120Hz

1440p @ 144Hz

4k @ 60Hz

4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4

4k @ 120Hz

4k @ 120Hz @ 4:4:4

4k @ 144Hz

8k @ 30Hz or 24Hz

8k @ 60Hz

The TV supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. All supported formats display chroma 4:4:4 signals properly, essential for clear text from a PC. There are no resolution-halving issues on this TV at any resolution, which is great.

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Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)

4k @ 120Hz

1440p @ 120Hz

1080p @ 120Hz

HDR

VRR

The Samsung QN85CD can take full advantage of the PS5, with up to 4k @ 120Hz support on all HDMI ports and support for variable refresh rate (VRR).

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Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)

4k @ 120Hz

1440p @ 120Hz

1080p @ 120Hz

HDR

VRR

The TV can take full advantage of the Xbox Series X or S, with up to 4k @ 120Hz support on all its HDMI ports and variable refresh rate (VRR) support.

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HDR10

HDR10+

Dolby Vision

HLG

HDMI 2.0 Full Bandwidth

HDMI 2.1 Class Bandwidth

CEC Yes

HDCP 2.2 Yes (HDMI 1,2,3,4)

ATSC Tuner

USB 3.0

Variable Analog Audio Out No

Wi-Fi Support Yes (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz)

The Samsung QN85C supports full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four HDMI ports, making it very flexible for users owning multiple HDMI 2.1 devices. Unfortunately, Samsung still doesn't support Dolby Vision, instead supporting the less widely used HDR10+ format.

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HDMI 4

USB 2

Digital Optical Audio Out 1

Analog Audio Out 3.5mm 0

Analog Audio Out RCA 0

Component In 0

Composite In 0

Tuner (Cable/Ant) 1

Ethernet 1

DisplayPort 0

IR In 0

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ARC/eARC Port

eARC: Dolby Atmos Over Dolby Digital Plus

eARC: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1

eARC: LPCM 7.1 Over Dolby MAT

eARC: Dolby TrueHD 7.1

eARC: DTS:X Over DTS-HD MA

eARC: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1

eARC: LPCM Channels (Bitstream)

ARC: Dolby Digital 5.1

ARC: DTS 5.1

Optical: Dolby Digital 5.1

Optical: DTS 5.1

This TV supports eARC, which lets it pass uncompressed high-quality audio from a connected source to your receiver without sacrificing audio quality. Sadly, it doesn't support DTS audio formats, which is disappointing as many UHD Blu-rays and DVDs use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

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Low-Frequency Extension

Std. Dev. @ 70

Std. Dev. @ 80

Std. Dev. @ Max

Max

Dynamic Range Compression

The TV's frequency response is okay. Like most TVs, there's barely any bass. However, the TV sounds sharp and clear at moderate volume, but when you raise the volume near or at max, the TV's sound reproduction shows noticeable compression, with dialogue not sounding as clear. Unfortunately, this TV doesn't get loud, so you might have to raise the volume near its max if you are in a loud environment.

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Weighted THD @ 80

Weighted THD @ Max

IMD @ 80

IMD @ Max

The TV's distortion handling is okay. While its performance is good at moderate volume levels, distortion is more noticeable at higher volumes.

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Smart OS Tizen

Version 2023

Ease of Use

Smoothness

Time Taken to Select YouTube

Time Taken to Change Backlight

Advanced Options

The Samsung QN85CD runs the 2023 version of Tizen OS, which is fast and easy to use. There's no lag whatsoever when using the Smart Hub interface, and finding your favorite content is easy.

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Ads

Opt-out

Suggested Content in Home

Opt-out of Suggested Content

Unfortunately, like most TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the interface, and there's no option to disable them completely. You can turn off targeted ads, but it doesn't reduce the number of ads you see; it just makes them less personalized to you.

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App Selection

App Smoothness

Cast Capable

USB Drive Playback

USB Drive HDR Playback

HDR in Netflix

HDR in YouTube

The included apps cover most, if not all, of the common streaming services, and there's a great selection of additional apps available in Samsung's app store.

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Size

Voice Control

CEC Menu Control

Other Smart Features

Remote App Samsung SmartThings

The TV comes with a slim remote that is easy to use. It's minimalistic, with few intuitively laid-out buttons. It has a built-in rechargeable battery which you can either charge through USB-C, with a port on the bottom of the remote, or through the solar panel on the back of the remote. The TV is compatible with Bixby and Amazon's Alexa, and both the remote and TV have integrated microphones. The voice commands work well; you can tell the TV to change inputs, ask it to open apps, or even change the brightness. Unfortunately, you can't search for content within apps using voice.

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The button is under the Samsung branding on the bottom right of the TV. With it, you can turn the TV on and off, change the channel and the volume, and switch input sources. There's also a small toggle to turn the internal microphone on or off if you're worried about privacy.

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Power Consumption 60 W

Power Consumption (Max) 170 W

Firmware 1205

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