SAMSUNG QN80F vs TCL C7K / QM7K

QN80F is quite a bright screen – in synthetic tests, it reached nearly 1000 nits, which allows for reasonable expectations of HDR content. And indeed, in many scenes, the TV can truly shine. Sequences with a lot of light – like shots from the movie Life of Pi or wide, bright surfaces in The Meg – look impressive. Brightness stays around 700 nits, which provides a solid effect, enough to feel the true "HDR magic." Unfortunately, not every scene looks this good. In content with small, bright details on a dark background, like in Sicario 2, the TV can struggle – it can significantly dim individual elements, sometimes to the point where they disappear from the image. This is a result of the limited number of dimming zones, forcing the device into compromises: either stick to inky blacks or sacrifice some detail. QN80F usually chooses the former. As a consolation, it offers quite decent coverage of a wide color palette – DCI-P3 at 93%. It's not the highest score on the market, but it's more than enough for most content on streaming platforms.

TCL C7K is one of the brightest MiniLED TVs in its price class. Under optimal testing conditions, the screen can achieve over 1200 nits, resulting in impressive, at times dazzlingly bright scenes. And most importantly – this isn’t just a theory from measurements. In practice, even the brightest moments in movies can shine with true cinematic grandeur. Home HDR cinema fans should be really pleased.

The impression is fantastic, especially in scenes with large areas of brightness – a white sky, explosions, sun reflections, or magical sunsets can surprise with an intensity of light that rarely appears in this price range.

However, things get a bit worse when more challenging scenarios appear on the screen, previously described in terms of contrast – that is, images full of details, with small bright elements on a dark background. In such cases, the C7K often opts to preserve black at the expense of brightness. An example? Scenes from movies like Sicario 2 or Life of Pi, where small light sources (like a distant lantern) may become less visible, and details in the lights are simply dimmed or blend into the background.

For many viewers, this may be an acceptable compromise – as we achieve deep blacks and pleasant image depth. Nevertheless, it’s important to recognise that the visibility of small details in bright areas is not this model's strong suit. It’s simply a technological limitation that still exists – even with over 300 zones.

We always test TVs in the best available factory mode – for the Samsung QN80F, this is the Filmmaker mode, and indeed, it provides the settings closest to the creators' intentions. However, this doesn’t mean everything looks perfect. In SDR content, the biggest issue was an unbalanced white balance – slight deficiencies in green and a noticeable excess of red led to noticeable colour errors, and one could say the screen had a pinkish hue. This was clearly visible in the colour checker test, where colours “escaped” outside their target fields – to such an extent that a sensitive viewer's eye could catch it even without the help of a meter.

In HDR content, the white balance was much better, but another issue arose – brightness management. The EOTF curve caused an overly bright image most of the time, which affected the perception of contrast and made the screen slightly “flicker” during dynamic changes in light. We’ve already discussed this in the paragraphs about black levels and HDR. Fortunately, Samsung offers users plenty of options. The QN80F features a rich set of calibration options, including a 20-point white balance – which is why we decided to check what this TV is really capable of after a proper calibration.

A new feature in TCL televisions for 2025 is the long-awaited Filmmaker mode, which until now has been found in most competing brands. This is great news, as this mode is considered the most faithful to the original vision of the creators and is often recommended by enthusiasts of quality visuals. Unfortunately – as is often the case – the mere presence of it does not guarantee perfection. The Filmmaker mode in the TCL C7K is not without its faults. There are issues with inaccurate white balance, particularly a slight blue tint that resulted in cool, somewhat greyish skin tones. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. The main complaint was excessive brightness exposure, which is clearly visible on gamma and EOTF charts. The image was simply too bright, at times even blown out, which affected not only the texture of scenes but also the overall viewing experience. Some details were just lost, and the entire image looked as if someone had overdone the brightness slider. As always, we decided to see what could be squeezed out of it after calibration. And this is where things started to get really interesting…

After conducting a thorough calibration, it was possible to bring most image parameters to a really good level. The white balance in both SDR and HDR presents itself almost perfectly – the image is natural, neutral, and free from the previously noticeable redness. Colours have gained depth, and the overall visual experience has become more pleasant and cohesive. It was also possible to partially manage brightness, which in the factory version could cause issues. The EOTF chart shows that the television performs much better with brightness after calibration – there is no longer excessive dimming of certain elements. In films, it can still be noticed that the QN80F has a tendency to slightly brighten the smallest bright details – this is already a consequence of the device's construction and the limited number of dimming zones. In short: not everything can be overcome, but what was possible has been improved. After calibration, the QN80F makes a really good impression, looking simply more mature and professional.

After calibration, the TCL C7K showed itself in a really good light, especially when it comes to SDR content. We managed to precisely tune the white balance, colour gamut, and brightness characteristics so that the colour errors on the ColorChecker palette fell below a value of 2. For the uninitiated – this is nearly a perfect result, which means that the image is very close to what the creators intended. Unfortunately, it was a different story with 4K HDR content. While we were able to slightly calm down the white balance and correct its earlier errors, it was still evident that the TV has some "MiniLED traits", particularly in brightness management. When we checked how the C7K handled the EOTF curve on real film scenes, rather than just on synthetic test patterns, it turned out that the screen still had a tendency to slightly brighten the entire image. This affects the overall experience – the black loses some depth, and the image becomes less contrasty than it should be. Despite these minor issues with HDR content, the overall reception of materials – especially in SDR – is really very good. After calibration, the C7K can display an image that can successfully compete with much more expensive models. Good colour tuning, natural skin tones, and pleasant brightness make movie watching and everyday content viewing more than satisfactory.

If you notice strange colour transitions or unwanted artefacts while watching lower quality materials – for example from YouTube – it's worth checking the settings and enabling the noise reduction feature. In our opinion, the best setting is at the 'medium' level – it effectively smooths out problematic colour transitions without overly blurring the entire image. However, it's important to know one thing: this option tends to remove film grain. If someone values preserving that effect (e.g., in older films), it's better to simply turn it off – regardless of the level, the grain always disappears.

Regarding resolution scaling (also known as upscaling), Samsung – as usual – performs very well in this area. The QN80F doesn't quite match the top models costing tens of thousands, but for its price class, it performs impressively. Materials of very poor quality (e.g., from SD television or older video files) are noticeably improved and look surprisingly decent. The only noticeable downside is the typical Samsung issue with overscan – which is a slight cropping of the image edges at very low resolutions, such as 576p.

TCL C7K has a feature that, according to the manufacturer, is meant to smooth out undesirable colour transitions – something like a rescue for less successful tonal shifts. It's called "Gradual Smoothing," and... well, it sounds ambitious, but in practice, it works very poorly. Regardless of whether we set it to low or high, the difference is minimal. Worse still – the feature can cut out elements from the image that should remain. Fortunately, film grain remains untouched, so at least it doesn't smooth everything indiscriminately, but even so – it's better to simply turn this option off.

When it comes to upscaling lower resolution content, it's already better. SD and HD materials look quite decent, although at times we had the impression that the image loses sharpness and becomes too soft – as if something took away its clarity. Fortunately, with very low sources (e.g., 576p), there was no overscan effect, meaning the image wasn't artificially cropped – everything fit on the screen as it should.

QN80F is truly a “fast” TV. The panel used offers a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, which in practice means that the screen keeps up with the action – whether we’re watching a movie, playing games, or browsing dynamic content online. The image doesn’t stutter, isn’t overly blurred, and everything simply looks smooth and pleasing to the eye. Of course, the manufacturer hasn’t forgotten about cinema fans – in the settings, we find an option to adjust motion smoothness, allowing us to tailor the effect to our own preferences. You can leave a more “frame-y” look (for those who enjoy the classic film vibe) or crank up the smoothness to a higher level to achieve a theatrical smoothing effect. Importantly, the choice is ours. Watching movies and playing on the QN80F is just plain fun.

TCL C7K handles motion fluidity really well. The panel it uses offers a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which suggests that this TV is more than just a standard "60 Hz" panel. Furthermore, if we connect the C7K to a computer and set the resolution to Full HD. But we will write more about this in the paragraph on gamers and PC compatibility. Returning to everyday use – both sports and movies look very good here. Thanks to the fast panel and the well-functioning motion smoother, the C7K is great for watching matches, but also for movie screenings. In the menu, we find two sliders – motion blur reduction and flicker reduction – that allow you to adjust the fluidity effect to your own preferences. At lower settings, we get a more cinematic effect, with slight judder. At higher settings – the image becomes more theatrical, fluid to the point of excess. Whatever your preference – everyone can set it their own way.

Samsung QN80F is a television that delivers on almost every front when it comes to gaming. It features a 144 Hz panel, four fully-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, support for gamers with variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), and even one of the best-designed gamebars on the market. The icing on the cake is the motion smoother which – uniquely in the world – works in games without significantly increasing input lag. Sounds like an almost perfect gaming TV? And indeed, it is almost that.

[UPDATE] We have updated our Samsung TV tests from the 2025 model year due to the release of firmware version 1131, which restored the crucial gaming feature HGiG.

As usual, Samsung doesn’t support Dolby Vision in games, but that’s no longer surprising. However, what is much more surprising is that... the HGIG feature has disappeared – meaning the system that allows the console (e.g., PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X) to accurately match HDR tone mapping to the capabilities of the television. In the latest firmware update for the 2025 models, this option simply vanished. It looks more like a bug than a deliberate move, but it must be honestly noted that at the time of writing the review, the HGIG feature is simply absent.

And it’s precisely because of this one absence that the QN80F goes from being an almost perfect gaming television to a “nearly” perfect device. What a shame – because everything else indicated that Samsung could once again set the bar very high in this generation.

TCL C7K is a television that on paper looks like the perfect equipment for gamers – and most importantly, it performs well in practice too. Here's some good news: we have two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, so we can easily connect both a console and a computer, using all their capabilities. The panel itself supports a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which provides a significant advantage in dynamic games. Additionally, it comes with a full set of gaming features: VRR (variable refresh rate), ALLM (automatic low latency mode), and support for Dolby Vision in games. There's also an HGiG mode that allows for HDR effects that align with the creators' intentions. GameBar, which is an information bar for gamers. It operates quickly, looks clear (like a Nintendo console👌), and shows what's most important: the current frame rate, VRR status, and even HDR parameters.