SAMSUNG OLED S95F (QD-OLED) vs Haier Q80FUX

The new generation of QD-OLED panels in Samsung's S95F showcases its full potential, and the brightness results are simply astounding. In test film scenes, such as “Life of Pi” or “Sicario 2”, where smaller light elements appear – stars, the moon, or spotlights – the television managed to achieve over 2000 nits of brightness. This is a result that surpasses even most top Mini-LED models.

The secret lies in the technology itself – instead of a limited number of dimming zones like in Mini-LED televisions, here we have millions of glowing pixels, allowing the television to fully demonstrate its power without technological compromises. Of course, since it is still an organic panel, in scenes that are full-screen and flooded with white – like in the final sequence from The Meg – brightness drops to around 1400 nits. Nevertheless, the result remains excellent and definitely exceeds what any OLEDs, both QD-OLED and WOLED, have offered so far. The colour reproduction is also particularly noteworthy. Thanks to QD-OLED technology, the television achieves almost 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space and around 80% in BT.2020. These values make HDR images not only dazzling in brightness but also stunning in their range of colours.

Alright, let's move on to the topic that really sparks discussions, which is the capabilities of the TV in HDR mode. Let's be clear from the start: the Haier Q80FUX is certainly not a brightness demon. The panel of this set can generate about 350 nits at peak, which in today's reality is an absolute minimum to even talk about the presence of HDR expanded dynamic range. On the plus side, this brightness is at least stable – regardless of the test pattern or film scene we used, measurements consistently hovered around 300-350 nits. These are at best adequate results, definitely far from the dazzling display of capabilities that we know from more expensive models. Fortunately, there is one aspect where the Q80FUX makes up for these shortcomings and does so considerably. We are talking about a QLED TV (or more precisely PFS LED), which means that thanks to the quantum dot filter used on the panel, it can generate truly juicy, vibrant colours. These are not empty promises – covering nearly 95% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is an impressive result and directly translates into very pleasant, saturated colours for the eye.

The best picture mode straight out of the box is undoubtedly Filmmaker Mode – a mode that Samsung has been using for several years and which is intended to faithfully convey the creators' vision. In SDR content, its implementation is not bad, although some imperfections can be noticed. The image is slightly dimmed, and the screen has a subtle pinkish hue resulting from an excess of red and blue in the white balance. Colour errors remained at a level of 3–4 ΔE units – and for the uninitiated: a value above 3 is the threshold where the average human eye starts to notice differences.

Much bigger problems arise in HDR content, however. Here, the white balance was not as much of an issue – a slight excess of blue did not significantly hinder things. The problem became brightness management. In practice, the TV "blows out" the image too much, causing details in the blacks to completely disappear. The final effect was far from what was expected, and the colour errors in this mode became quite significant. It’s hard to say why such a design decision was made, but it was clear that the factory HDR settings do not allow this TV to showcase its full potential.

Factory settings for movie mode are seldom perfect, but in the case of the Q80FUX, we encountered a noticeable imbalance. In SDR content, the image was definitely too warm, due to an excessive amount of red in the white balance, giving the overall picture a slight sepia tone. Conversely, in HDR materials, the television fell into the other extreme – an excess of blue caused an unnatural, cool effect in perception. However, it wasn't the fickle white balance that was the biggest issue with this TV. The real culprit, responsible for the previously described problems, was hiding deeper. It turned out that the Q80FUX has completely miscalibrated gamma values and, crucial for HDR, a poorly executed EOTF curve. It was these erroneous factory settings that caused the notorious clipping of the brightest parts of the image, imposing that characteristic milky filter over them. Thus, we found the source of the problem. This situation led to general, significant colour inaccuracies that were easy to catch even for an untrained eye. Like every television we tested, we decided to calibrate this model as well, and you can find the results of these adjustments in the next paragraph.

After calibration, it was possible to make subtle adjustments to the white balance and significantly improve the image characteristics. In SDR content, the quality has become practically reference-level – most colour errors have dropped below a ΔE value of 1, which is the level at which the human eye can no longer perceive differences. This is a result that places the S95F among the absolute top TV models available on the market.

In HDR material, calibration also brought a significant improvement. The tendency of the TV to blow out the image was managed, as confirmed by the analysis of the EOTF curve. There is still a slight tendency to brighten the entire scene or occasional loss of detail in the blacks, but this does not significantly affect the overall perception. After calibration, the S95F shows its full potential and can be regarded as one of the best TVs on the market!

The results of our calibration procedures must, unfortunately, be regarded as twofold. Generally speaking, the picture is undeniably better than before the adjustments; however, the biggest winner of this process has been SDR content. It is precisely here, after correcting the gamma curves and white balance, that we achieved results that can safely be called very good. Once set up, the Q80FUX truly shines in standard dynamic range, displaying only slight errors in the most challenging skin tones. Unfortunately, the weakest link remains HDR content. And here's the paradox: even though we managed to calibrate the white balance to near perfection, the overall colour errors still remain at quite a high level. The reason is that the television still interprets the static HDR10 metadata "in its own way," stubbornly enforcing that unfortunate image clipping effect, which inevitably leads to significant distortions. Although we successfully eliminated the factory excess of blue, due to this electronic interference, the screen can still veer into somewhat too cool tones. That’s just how this television is.

Samsung S95F offers a noise reduction feature that smooths tonal transitions. It works very effectively, but in practice, it can be too aggressive. Materials of lower quality – e.g. older recordings or videos from YouTube – become soft and plastic when it is enabled, resembling an image digitally smoothed in graphic software. Unfortunately, the natural film grain, which often adds authenticity to the image, disappears in the process. Fortunately, the television does not lose too much fine detail, e.g. in skin textures or environmental elements. Therefore, this feature is best used judiciously – depending on preferences, one can achieve a smooth but less natural image or one that is truer to the original. In our opinion, the most universal choice is the “Standard” setting.

Image scaling performs significantly better. The television handles lower resolution materials well – even 576p content looks quite decent, though slight blockiness can be observed. Overall, the effect is very good, although it slightly trails behind what Sony Bravia 8 (II) or LG G5 can achieve. It’s also worth mentioning a small imperfection of the S95F – in older materials, overscan may occur, causing a slight trimming of the left edge of the image.

If there's one area where Haier clearly shows it still has a lot to catch up on compared to the market leaders, it's digital image processing. The upscaling, well... it's just okay. And that's really all that can be said about it. It does what it's supposed to do: ensures that lower resolution signals don't scare you with harsh pixelation on the screen and don't look like a forcibly enlarged postage stamp. However, it's far from the finesse and "intelligent" sharpening that more experienced players in this market have developed over the years. The biggest issue with the Q80FUX software is the almost complete lack of additional "cleaning" and smoothing features for the image. The receiver offers no noise reduction mechanisms or gradient enhancement. This means that with older or highly compressed materials, we simply have to accept that all the imperfections in tonal transitions or colour blending, which we mentioned earlier, will constantly accompany us during viewing.

The Samsung S95F excels in motion fluidity, presenting phenomenal performance. The panel operates at a native resolution of 4K with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz, and when combined with QD-OLED organic technology, it delivers incredible results. Sports and games look sensational – the picture is fast, dynamic, and very natural. Additionally, the built-in motion smoother and blur reduction system allow you to customise the character of the image to your own preferences. You can opt for a more 'framey' effect with visible film texture or a smooth, cinematic spectacle. Every viewer will find a setting that suits them.

The issue of motion fluidity and blurring is largely predetermined by the use of a 60Hz panel, which naturally makes it difficult to recommend this receiver to enthusiasts of very dynamic content. Fortunately, in the Q80FUX, we find a few options (although, as will soon become clear, really just one) intended to enhance the experience with older film productions. There is a "De-Judder" slider available, which indeed affects motion fluidity and allows us to adjust it to our preferences: from raw, cinematic frame rates to a more theatrical, smoothed presentation. However, a true surprise awaits us right next to it in the menu. There is also a second slider, supposedly dedicated to removing blur – this is a feature we typically encounter in 120Hz panels, aimed at combating blurring in sports. As we expected, recalling memories from testing the K85F model, here too this slider is merely a façade. Its adjustment contributes absolutely nothing to the picture and simply seems to be an oversight by the product engineers who left a non-functional option in the software for this type of panel.

The same advantages of low motion blur and excellent motion fluidity characteristic of OLED panels are just the beginning, as the Samsung S95F has been designed with gamers in mind. The manufacturer has equipped it with four HDMI 2.1 ports – though limited to a bandwidth of 40 Gb/s, in practice, this has no impact on compatibility with consoles or PCs. We get a full package of gaming features: variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), as well as a very well-implemented HGiG standard, ensuring that HDR titles look as the creators intended. This is complemented by Game Bar – a clear settings hub, where with one motion, we can preview and change all key image parameters. The proprietary motion smoother Game Motion Plus also deserves praise, as it can smooth out animation, which is especially useful in productions running at 60 frames, where stability is not always exemplary. While there is no support for Dolby Vision in games, it’s hard to consider this a serious drawback – Samsung compensates with other solutions. This is one of the best, if not the best, gaming TVs available on the market today.

Entering the realm of gaming, the Haier Q80FUX proves to be quite a good companion for the "casual gamer." It is equipped with some highly sought-after features today such as VRR (variable refresh rate) and ALLM (automatic low latency mode). However, the biggest surprise is something else. Even though we don't have a 4K@120Hz panel here, the television can accept and display a 120Hz signal at a lower resolution (Full HD). This is a very useful feature, allowing you to consciously switch the console to a lower resolution mode in exchange for significantly higher fluidity, which is a perfectly acceptable compromise in the gaming world.

We won't particularly complain about the lack of additions like the "Game Bar," as it's just a nice extra. However, the most concerning issues arise when we enter the world of HDR in gaming. Due to the fact that the television continuously adapts the signal "in its own way," setting the brightness on the console according to the HGIG standard is almost impossible to accomplish according to the instructions. Worse still, in Dolby Vision mode for gaming, the input lag increases to around 50 ms, which is a high enough value that essentially makes this mode unusable. Generally speaking, we still wouldn't recommend gaming on this television in HDR mode, so these aren't that serious shortcomings. What’s most pleasing is the presence of 120Hz in Full HD, making the Q80FUX quite a cool television for the occasional gamer.