LG QNED91T6A vs Samsung The Frame 2026 (LS03H)

As befits a MiniLED television, LG QNED91T easily exceeds the magical barrier of 1000 nits on the luminance chart. In scenes where light played a key role, the effect was truly commendable. For instance, 1000 nits in the first scene of "Life of Pi" is a really impressive value, and the achieved 600 nits in the third and fifth scenes allowed for a true sense of HDR magic. However, problems arise with very small light elements on the screen, such as the moon, street lamps, or lights. Values around 100 nits - to put it bluntly - are disappointing, as these elements are so dark they are barely visible. The television deserves praise for covering 96% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and 75% of BT.2020. LG QNED91T leaves us with very mixed feelings, mainly due to the very aggressive dimming algorithms which, while effectively eliminating halo effect, do impact the brightness of smaller elements.

The Frame 2026 is a genuinely bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 650 nits and, importantly, it maintains similar levels regardless of the type of scene being displayed. It doesn’t really matter whether we’re watching a very bright full-screen image or just a small highlight occupying part of the screen. The backlight remains powerful, allowing bright parts of the image to stand out clearly.

This gives The Frame a solid foundation for HDR. Bright highlights can look impactful, and the picture doesn’t appear flat or overly dim. Unfortunately, there is a compromise. Without local dimming, the TV cannot darken the black areas surrounding very bright objects.

This is clearly visible in scenes 2 and 4 of our test procedure. Bright elements look impressive, but at the same time, the blacks around them become noticeably raised. As a result, the image loses some of its depth, especially when watching in a dark room. This is why The Frame performs best with HDR in bright and moderately bright scenes, where its high brightness works to its advantage. In darker scenes, the situation is quite the opposite.

Colours

The Frame also performs well when it comes to colour reproduction. As a QLED TV, it can display a wide colour gamut and produce rich, saturated colours. DCI-P3 coverage reaches around 94%, while BT.2020 comes in at around 72%. These are good results, and you can see the difference in actual content.

Colours look vivid without appearing washed out, particularly in bright and colourful scenes. Animations and other content with plenty of saturated colours can look really good on The Frame. With this type of material, the TV shows one of its stronger sides.

All our tests are conducted in the best picture mode on each television. In this case, as usual, it’s the Filmmaker mode. The name of the mode suggests ideal colour reproduction; however, there were noticeable deviations from the correct image. Our unit, in terms of white balance, exhibited a significant drop in blue hues - both in SDR and 4K HDR materials - resulting in a noticeable yellowing of the image, evident in the comparison scenes from a movie with Tom Cruise. As we described earlier, QNED91T has a tendency to brighten the screen. This is confirmed by the gamma, which is quite significantly lower than the reference value of 2.4. Meanwhile, the EOTF curve, which is responsible for brightness in 4K content, showed some issues with the television’s ability to dim the image in the darkest areas, which we could observe in the paragraph describing the quality of the HDR effect. Although the Filmmaker mode is a pretty good "out of the box" mode, it still requires some adjustments.

For assessing the factory colour setup we chose the Filmmaker Mode. If you’re encountering it for the first time, it’s a mode designed to reproduce films and TV shows as faithfully as possible. The TV then turns off most additional image enhancers, and the colours and luminance response are intended to be as close as possible to what the creators intended. And it must be said that The Frame 2026 performs quite well in this respect straight out of the box. The biggest deviation is seen in the white balance. As brightness increases, blue starts to fall short and there’s a slight increase in green. As a result, the image shifts towards warmer tones. So white isn’t perfectly neutral, and in some scenes you can notice a subtly warmer cast.

The luminance response, both gamma and EOTF, looks pretty good. Through most of the range they stay fairly close to the target, although larger deviations are visible in the darkest parts of the image. In practice, some shadow details emerging from black may therefore be a bit more pronounced. However, it’s not an error that jumps out during normal viewing. Overall, Filmmaker Mode is a good starting point here. However, the factory picture is a bit too warm and not all hues land exactly where they should.

LG offers advanced calibration tools in its televisions such as 65QNED91T6A, which we took advantage of. When it comes to white balance, we managed to significantly correct it in SDR content. The picture mode in 4K HDR quality posed greater challenges, which, while still not perfect, looks significantly better than before calibration. The errors on the Color Checker palette and the colour palette are much smaller than in the factory settings. In terms of brightness characteristics, gamma for HD content is practically perfect, with a small exception at the end of the graph. However, the biggest issues the television faced were with brightness in 4K HDR content. Analyzing the EOTF characteristics in films, we noticed that the television manipulates brightness quite a bit, which we could observe in previous tests. Brightness is significantly boosted compared to the graph in the static test, and the television brightens certain scenes to the extent that some smaller details lose definition. Unfortunately, this is caused by an average backlight zone management algorithm in this model. Nevertheless, the calibration yields quite good results, especially regarding accurate colour reproduction.

After calibration we mainly managed to remove that warmer tint and better even out the white balance. We also smoothed the brightness response a bit, which made the picture more neutral and predictable. There are, however, things calibration won't fix. It's mainly the black performance, which comes from the backlight design and the lack of local dimming. In some scenes the blacks will therefore still be slightly lifted, and you just have to accept that. It's more a characteristic of this model than something you can fix with the settings. HDR is also somewhat limited. Samsung doesn't give full freedom to work across the widest colour gamut here, so not all colours can be reproduced perfectly. In normal viewing it will probably be hard to notice, but it's worth being aware of.

When it comes to tonal transitions in lower quality materials, the television offers a well-known feature from LG TVs - "Smooth Gradation". We can control it at three levels: low, medium, and high. We recommend using the medium option, as it handles tonal transitions well without causing noticeable issues with removing the structure of objects or other artifacts.

On the other hand, when it comes to image scaling (upscaling), LG's Alpha processor performs quite well here. The image appears very smooth, with slight jaggedness in some elements, but this does not significantly affect quality. It looks really good, and the overall effect is very satisfying.

As with many of Samsung’s newer TVs, this one also uses the NQ4 AI processor, albeit the older, second-generation version. I must admit it handles digital image processing quite well. Lower-resolution material is sharpened effectively, and when upscaled to 4K it still looks natural. The TV can also tidy up weaker sources a bit, such as older recordings or lower-quality broadcasts. That doesn’t, of course, mean it will suddenly turn poor footage into true 4K, but at close viewing distances the difference compared with simpler models with weaker processors is easy to spot. Edges are clearer and fine details aren’t lost as much to signal compression.

Samsung also provides a few extra picture-enhancing features, but as usual it’s best to use them sparingly. At stronger settings, noise reduction can very effectively reduce posterisation, but it also noticeably interferes with the image. The picture then starts to look quite artificial, for example by heavily smoothing faces. So these features make most sense with really poor sources when all the noise is very distracting.

The television has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which should satisfy most users in terms of motion smoothness. Additionally, QNED91T is equipped with TruMotion technology, which allows for smoother image display in films. With this feature, we can adjust the "De-Judder" and "De-Blur" sliders. The "De-Judder" slider reduces stutter in films, which is particularly useful when playing content with a lower frame rate, while "De-Blur" helps to reduce motion blur in fast scenes, which is important for sports or dynamic shots.

Samsung again used a panel here with a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz. Refresh rates up to 120 Hz mainly offer greater flexibility with high-motion content. The TV can use additional motion smoothing systems that can improve smoothness in sports and other fast-paced content. However, a high refresh rate alone does not solve everything. The Frame still uses a VA panel, which has a fairly slow response time, resulting in quite pronounced motion blur. With fast-moving objects, especially against dark backgrounds, the trails are easy to notice. There's also a slight double-imaging of edges, which can be visible even after turning off additional motion enhancement systems. We already saw similar behaviour in last year's The Frame 2025, and it's a shame Samsung hasn't fixed this. The 144 Hz itself provides a good foundation, but the panel's response time still limits this TV.

The LG 65QNED91T6A television is equipped with HDMI 2.1 ports with a full bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, providing full support for all the standards needed for gaming on modern consoles. We can count on variable refresh rate (VRR) support and automatic low latency mode (ALLM). This ensures smooth gameplay without delays.

Thanks to support for all popular HDR standards in gaming, such as HGiG and Dolby Vision, we can fully utilise the potential of the PS5 and XBOX One consoles. The television also easily handles lower resolutions than 4K, so even older consoles look good on it. The Game Bar makes it easier to access gaming-related settings, allowing us to quickly and intuitively adjust picture parameters and features for gamers. Additionally, the QNED91T offers NVIDIA GeForce Now functionality, allowing us to play in the cloud without needing a console. However, it's important to keep in mind that this solution is quite costly and somewhat falls behind the Xbox Game Pass, which is available only on Samsung televisions.

QNED91T LG is a great choice for both less experienced and more advanced gamers looking for a versatile television for gaming.

When it comes to gaming features, The Frame is practically on par with Samsung’s flagship TVs. Once a console is connected, the TV automatically switches to Game Mode thanks to ALLM, so there’s no need to change the settings manually every time. There’s also VRR, which matches the screen’s refresh rate to the frame rate generated by the console or PC. When the frame rate drops, this helps prevent the characteristic screen tearing that can otherwise occur.

The Frame naturally supports 4K at 120Hz, allowing you to take advantage of higher frame rates on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. HGiG also works correctly. Once HDR has been properly calibrated on the console, the TV doesn’t try to additionally brighten the image on its own, so bright highlights in games are displayed as they should be.

Samsung also includes its Game Bar. This quick-access menu can be opened without leaving the game and lets you check things like VRR operation or the current frame rate, while also giving you quick access to the most important gaming settings. PC users get even more flexibility, as the Full HD mode mentioned earlier allows the refresh rate to be increased all the way up to 240Hz.

There is really only one feature missing, and by now it’s something we’ve come to expect from Samsung TVs: Dolby Vision Gaming. Xbox owners will notice this the most, as Xbox consoles can actually use Dolby Vision in supported games.

There is one more limitation worth mentioning that applies specifically to this model. The One Connect box has only one HDMI 2.1 port, so this is the only input you can use for a console or PC if you want to play at 4K 120Hz. Fortunately, Samsung hasn’t combined this port with eARC. This means you can connect a soundbar separately to HDMI 3 and still keep the full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 port available for your console.