A Review of Samsung’s Premium 4K HDR QLED, The Q80R (QN55Q80R) (QN65Q80R) (QN75Q80R) (QN82Q80R)

Stephan Jukic – November 8, 2019

Overview

Samsung’s Q80R (also known as the Q80) QLED 4K HDR TV is the closest thing to a successor for the brand’s 2018 Q8F QLED edition. Just like its predecessor, this model is one superb television in almost every sense of performance metrics and offers numerous features that make it into one truly ideal 4K HDR LCD TV. Additionally, it comes with some new innovations on ultra HD TV technology that take the Q80 beyond the capabilities of the 2019 Q8F and make it much more similar to Samsung’s two best 2019 UHD HDR TVs, the Q90R and the 8K Q900 model, or in a certain way, Sony’s new 2019 Master Series 4K editions. The Q80R also has its weaknesses, which we’ll cover in some detail in the sections below.

Also Read:

Our Comprehensive review of Samsung’s most affordable 2019 QLED TV, the Q60R

Our detailed hands-on review of Samsung’s incredible new 8K HDR TV, the Q900

Also Read:

Our In-depth review of Samsung’s ultra-bright flagship 2018 Q8FN 4K HDR TV

Positives

• Powerful motion handling and gaming performance
• Very bright delivery of both HDR and SDR content
• Fantastic contrast
• Excellent content upscaling for all resolutions

Negatives

• Color delivery not as great as in Q90R
• Local dimming could be better
• No Dolby Vision support
• Native Audio could also be better

Bottom Line

There’s no debating it as far as we’re concerned: the Samsung Q80R is a generally superb 4K UHD HDR TV by any normal measure of quality. The main thing about the Q80R is that it offers an ultra-premium LCD experience without devastating your bank account or credit card, and for those of you who feel unsure about spending money on something like the Q90R, the Q80R is a really strong alternative. With its price, this model has become possibly our favorite 2019 4K HDR non-OLED TV so far.

Check out Samsung’s premium but more affordable QLED HDR TV, the 2019 Q80R for sale at Amazon

4.7 – 4 Reviews

What We Liked about the Q80R

There is a ton to like about the Samsung Q80R 4K HDR QLED TV. It’s literally crammed with numerous strong features. Even if it underperforms certain other 2019 4K HDR TVs in a couple of key performance metrics, it more than compensates for much of this in certain other crucial ways. The biggest selling points of the Samsung Q80 are its combination of high quality and a price that’s not too insane.

Excellent HDR and SDR performance

First and foremost, the Q80R delivers truly great HDR picture quality, in terms of both brightness and color rendering. Its particular strong point is the brightness of this particular edition, which is good not only in full blown HDR mode but also when used to play back ordinary SDR video sources, which constitute the vast majority of all TV, disc and streaming content. To top things off, the Q80R’s color and contrast delivery is rich, strong and vibrant, nicely complementing the bright highlights.

Motion handling and Gaming Excellence

Samsung’s 4K TVs have a strong history of delivering very good motion handling and accompanying this with very responsive (high quality) gaming connectivity. The 2018 and 2019 televisions have taken both of these performance categories to new heights of sharpness and the Q80R reflects this marvelously. This TV is absolutely killer at how well it delivers smooth, sharp motion for all kinds of content from all kinds of sources, and its gaming connectivity for use with consoles under all sorts of color and contrast settings is nothing short of superb. The Q80R is also a strong performer as a PC monitor and its inclusion of AMD FreeSync technology gives it excellent frame rate handling even with high-end 4K UHD games.

Local dimming, Contrast & black rendering

Unlike most of last year’s Samsung QLED TV’s (such as the Q8FN) the Q80R, offers up superbly good local dimming. Among Samsung 4K HDR TVs this is usually a feature that only works well in the company’s absolute flagship models. Combined with the Q80R’s fantastically good contrast ratio, black levels and black uniformity (all of which this TV’s local dimming helps out immensely) what you get is an overall excellent performance on all of these essential specs. This also means that the Q80R’s HDR is given a further boost on top of its excellent color and brightness performance.

Color delivery

One further powerful complement to the Q80R’s overall picture quality is this TV’s superbly strong color performance. On this area of display quality, this particular Samsung QLED TV performs nearly as well as its pricier cousin the Q90R and by the standards of most 4K HDR LCD TVs available today, it’s an extremely competitive model. Color vibrancy, saturation and color accuracy are all really good and especially so after some easy to do calibration in the Q80’s picture settings. To top things off, color delivery is really robust for both regular content and HDR movies or games (though the TV’s HDR color delivery is exceptionally powerful). Coupled with strong contrast and high brightness, this 2019 QLED edition’s color gives one of the best HDR experiences available at the Q80R’s price point.

Smart functionality

The Tizen Smart TV platform isn’t the best we’ve reviewed so far among 4K TV and streaming device OS systems but it’s very good, very easy to use and quite versatile overall. Furthermore, it’s gotten better in recent years leading up to the 2019 edition, which is the best we’ve seen so far. All the essentials are here, along with many key streaming media apps and the user interface is highly responsive. Most importantly, even users who have nearly no experience with smart TV systems can learn to use it smoothly in no time at all, minutes even.

Check out Samsung’s premium but more affordable QLED HDR TV, the 2019 Q80R for sale at Amazon

4.7 – 4 Reviews

 Also Read:

Our In-depth review of TCL’s new 6-Series 4K HDR TV, The Most Affordable Aaesome Premium TV of 2019

What We Didn’t Like

Just as no electronic device is absolutely perfect, even really great 4K HDR TVs can’t pull perfection off either. The Samsung Q80R is no exception. While awesome in so many ways for its price, this TV has a couple of flaws, though we found surprisingly few and none that are deal breakers for buying it.

Weak Audio

The single most notable flaw of the Samsung Q80R is its native audio system. This is a small thing to worry about if you’re using the TV for casual viewing because it won’t really even be noticeable then, but if you want a rich, deep surround-sound experience, the Q80R can’t quite handle that by itself. Bass tends to be a bit weak and there’s some distortion at high volumes. All of these issues can easily be fixed by buying a decent external speaker system or sound bar though.

HDR Support Issues

The second major flaw of the Q80R QLED TV isn’t specific just to this model, it applies to all of Samsung’s 4K TVs. Simply put, this TV doesn’t come with Dolby Vision support. Its HDR quality is fantastic overall and colors look especially amazing, but all of these are also reasons why it’s a shame that Samsung doesn’t support the Dolby Vision HDR standard in its TVs, which delivers much richer quality on HDR content which supports it than the more common HDR10 high dynamic range that the Q80R comes with.

Also Read:

Our in-depth review of Sony’s X950G 4K UHD HDR LCD TV

Our in-depth review of Samsung’s Q7F QLED 4K HDR TV

Value for Price & Bottom Line

The Samsung Q80R isn’t cheap by any means, but it costs quite a bit less than the Samsung Q90R and select rival premium 4K HDR TVs and because it performs almost as well as Samsung’s Q90 flagship TV and better than almost any other 2019 4K LCD TV we’ve reviewed so far, it’s a great choice for what it costs. This TV delivers lots of value in other words and is one of our favorites for this year.

Check out Samsung’s premium but more affordable QLED HDR TV, the 2019 Q80R for sale at Amazon

4.7 – 4 Reviews

ALSO READ:

Sony’s Stunningly good but reasonably priced A8G OLED 4K HDR TV

Our in-depth review of LG’s C9 4K UHD HDR OLED TV

Our in-depth review of LG’s stunningly good & surprisingly affordable B9 4K OLED HDR TV

Our in-depth review of LG’s Fantastic premium E9 OLED 4K HDR TV

Key Samsung Q80R Specs

• Screen sizes: 55 inch QN55Q80R, 65 inch QN65Q80R, 75 inch QN75Q80R, 82 inch QN82Q80R (TV being reviewed is 65 inches)
• Smart TV: Tizen 2019 Edition
• HEVC (H.265) Included: Yes
• VP9 Included. Yes
• HD to UHD to 4K upscaling: Yes
• HDCP 2.2 Compliance: Yes
• HDR Support: Yes, HDR10, HDR10+, Hybrid Log Gamma
• Refresh Rate: 120Hz native refresh rate
• Screen Lighting: LCD Display with full-array backlighting & local dimming
• Resolution: 3840 × 2160 pixels 4K UHD
• Wireless Connectivity: Yes, includes both built-in WiFi and Ethernet port
• Remotes: Samsung smart OneRemote with voice control
• Connectivity: 4 HDMI ports (all of them 2.0a and with HDCP 2.2, 3 USB ports, 1 Ethernet port, 1 Digital Audio Out
• Contrast Ratio: 5,730:1 (native, real contrast with local dimming)
• Absolute Maximum Peak Brightness: 1112 nits (cd/m2)
• 3D Technology: N/A
• Processor: Quantum Processor 4K

Display Performance Metrics

This is the section in which we get to the essential measurements of what makes the 4K TVs we review good or bad. The following sections explain exactly how well the Samsung Q80R performs on the measurements that are most important for making sure that this TV delivers a strong picture quality, strong motion handling and robust connectivity to you as a user for whatever you want to use the television for.

In other words, in the following sections, we cut right through all the fluff and deliver what’s crucial for knowing just how strong a performer this television is.

Measurements taken for one unit (the one we’re reviewing) might vary slightly from how they are on other TVs but the variation will be small enough that you can consider the following sections reliably accurate. There might also be small variation among 4K LCD TVs with different display sizes but these too are usually small. Now let’s get down to business.

Black Level, uniformity, Local Dimming and Contrast:

Black level, black uniformity, local dimming and contrast are all crucial aspects of how well a 4K TV delivers both HDR and overall picture quality. They define how crisply content renders and if these measurements are good, they also make both picture brightness and color quality stand out more vibrantly and accurately.

The Samsung Q80R delivers excellent Black levels, with hardly any light bleed in dark areas of the screen and an even better result when its local dimming technology is activated (local dimming selectively deactivates LEDs in the TV’s backlight panel). As a result, this TV’s native contrast ratio is also great at 3690:1 with local dimming off and a superb 5730:1 if local dimming is activated.

The local dimming of the TV is itself also excellent, which is a bit of a surprise considering that last year’s predecessor to the Q80R, the Q8F, didn’t offer excellent local dimming. With local dimming enabled, the Q80R can really max out contrast if needed and also happens to offer up superbly strong black uniformity for dark sections of content on the screen, or if a totally dark display needs to be shown.

Brightness:

Capacity for brightness is the second vital feature of 4K TV performance that really defines how well your television display content. This is especially important in high dynamic range TVs since key parts of HDR are strong contrast and bright highlights in content. Brightness is crucial for movie, gaming and TV content in general though and generally speaking, the more brightly a 4K TV is capable to render content, the better.

Fortunately, the Samsung Q80R is exceptionally capable of high brightness for both HDR video sources and regular SDR content of all types. This TV doesn’t get quite as luminous as Samsung’s flagship the Q90R, but it’s still insanely bright across the board compared to most 4K UHD TVs on sale today. It’s really unlikely that you’ll be disappointed by any aspect of its brightness performance.

Here are the crucial luminosity specs of the Q80R QLED TV for different areas of screen being illuminated in a simulation of how it would do with active content. We’ve also given its general average display brightness.

Samsung Q80R SDR Brightness

• Overall SDR peak brightness for real content: 690 nits
• Peak 2% display area display SDR brightness: 960 nits
• Peak 10% display area SDR brightness: 1006 nits
• Peak 100% display area SDR brightness: 571 nits
• Sustained 10% SDR brightness: 962 nits
• Sustained 100% SDR brightness: 561 nits

Samsung Q80 QLED TV HDR Brightness

• Overall HDR peak brightness for normal content: 881 nits
• Peak 2% display area display HDR brightness: 1112 nits
• Peak 10% display area HDR brightness: 1112 nits
• Peak 100% display area HDR brightness: 632 nits
• Sustained 10% HDR brightness: 1074 nits
• Sustained 100% HDR brightness: 620 nits

Color Delivery:
Another thing at which the Samsung Q80R truly excels is its color delivery. In this most of today’s 4K TVs are very good and Samsung’s editions in particular have a long history of performing well at how they render their color for all sorts of content. In the case of the brand’s QLED’s TVs, color reproduction has almost always been excellent for years now.

The Q80R however still manages to surprise despite this pedigree. It’s delivery of rich, vibrant color saturation and accuracy for regular content is superb and this TV creates HDR colors for the right kind of content beautifully. Wide Color Gamut for HDR movies, games and etc is fantastic and so too is the Q80R’s 10-bit color rendering. The Q80R also delivers superb color saturation even during high brightness scenes. After calibration, it’s key metrics for color accuracy are fantastic, as shown below:

• Pre-calibration White Balance delta-E: 3.41
• Pre-calibration Color delta-E: 2.18
• Pre-calibration Gamma: 2.23
• Post-calibration White Balance delta-E: 0.41
• Post-calibration Color delta-E: 1
• Post-calibration Gamma: 2.1
• Wide Color Gamut: 93.8%

Motion Handling & Upscaling:

The Samsung Q80R’s motion handling is nothing short of superb. For starters, this TV’s motion blur control is extremely strong, due to a pixel response time of just 4 milliseconds. This isn’t anywhere near as good as what an OLED TV delivers but by LCD TV standards, it’s at the top of the heap. Furthermore, the Q80R offers up excellent motion interpolation, for both content that plays at high frame rates and for lower frame-rate content from TV, disc or other media sources. Tied into this is its judder control for 24p movies from any source. The judder is kept to a minimum no matter what medium you play content from.

On a final note for motion handling, the Q80R offers up an assortment of additional frame rate improvement technologies like flicker-free capability and black frame insertion to keep motion interpolation and motion blur control working really sharply. In other words, motion smoothness in this TV is kept extremely good across the board.

As for the Samsung Q80R’s content upscaling, well, it’s also excellent. Badly mastered content won’t work well on even the best 4K TV but if you use this television to play back movies or TV shows from any DVD, Blu-ray or streaming source that doesn’t offer 4K resolution, the result will look wonderfully sharp in comparison to how it would look on a TV with lower resolution.

Input Performance for Gaming and PC:

Moving onto the Q80’s input performance for gaming via both PC monitors and major consoles, we get another run of superb performance. Samsung’s 4K HDR TVs have a well established history of delivering excellent input responsiveness for gaming via console. We’ve noted this in both the brand’s premium editions AND it’s budget 4K TVs, making almost all of them ideal choices for gamers. The 2019 QLEDs and the Q80R, take this quality to a new level, truly, and they do it while also offering superbly strong color, HDR, contrast and resolution versatility with low input lag.

Here are some of the key specific specs for the Samsung QLED Q80’s gaming performance in different console setups:

• 4k @ 60Hz: 15.9 ms
• 1080p @ 60Hz: 15.2 ms
• 1080p @ 120Hz: 7.3 ms
• 1080p @ 60Hz outside Game Mode: 72 ms
• 4k @ 60Hz + HDR: 14.3 ms
• 1440p @ 60Hz: 14.3 ms
• 4k @ 60Hz Outside Game Mode : 56.2 ms
• 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4: 14.3 ms
• 4K @ 120Hz: N/A
• 1440p @ 120Hz: 8.9 ms
• 1080p with FreeSync: 6.7 ms
• 4K with interpolation activated: 25.7 ms

The Samsung QLED Q80 offers broad and excellent support for different resolutions, frame rates and color settings when connected to a PC rig as well. The following specs show this clearly:

• 1080p @ 120Hz: Yes
• 1080p @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4: Yes
• 4k @ 60Hz + 4:4:4: Yes
• 1440p @ 60Hz: Yes
• 4k @ 120Hz : No
• 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4: Yes
• 1440p @ 120Hz: Yes

Also Read:

Our In-depth guide to todays absolute best streaming media devices and platforms

 Our In-depth review of Samsung’s ultra-bright flagship 2019 Q90R 4K HDR TV

Also Read:

Our Comprehensive review of Samsung’s most affordable 2019 QLED TV, the Q60R

Our detailed review of Samsung’s best 2019 mid-range TV, the RU8000

Connectivity

The connectivity specs of the Samsung Q80R are fully modern, with several HDMI 2.0 ports, multiple USB ports and excellent audio pass-through connectivity. One major shame about this 4K TV is that it doesn’t support HDMI 2.1, as do certain rival premium 4K TVs from LG and others, but since few sources of content support 4K at more than 60Hz, the lack of HDMI 2.1 isn’t really important quite yet anyhow.

The following are the Samsung QLED QNQ80R’s ports and their specifications:

• HDMI : 4 (HDCP 2.2 & full HDMI 2.0a capacity)
• HDMI 2.1 : None
• USB : 3 (USB 2.0 x 3)
• Digital Optical Audio Out : 1
• Analog Audio Out 3.5 mm : 1
• Tuner (Cable/Ant) : 1
• Ethernet : 1
• HDR10 support: Yes
• HDR10+ support: Yes
• Dolby Vision HDR support: No
• Hybrid Log Gamma HDR support: Yes
• Dolby Vision HDR: Yes

The Samsung QLED Q80R TV models also offer audio connectivity in the following types.

• 1 Passthrough ARC Dolby Digital
• 1 Passthrough Optical Dolby Digital
• 1 Passthrough eARC support

Pricing

Samsung has released the QNQ80R 4K ultra HD HDR LCD Smart TV models in four different sizes. Thus, you have the choice of a55 inch, 65 inch or 75 inch model, and a huge 82 inch version that would be just awesome for gamers and home theater fans who want a deeply immersive experience. All four models are basically identical in their specs and performance and between them only very minor screen performance variations such as those we described in our visual specs intro section above might be the case.

The Q80R editions all sell for the following prices, found in the link below at the time of this writing. Bear in mind that these are subject to sometimes frequent downward change and it’s a good idea to click the following Amazon links for real-time pricing and all available discounts on this model.

Check out Samsung’s premium but more affordable QLED HDR TV, the 2019 Q80R for sale at Amazon

4.7 – 4 Reviews

Story by 4k.com

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