TCL C8K vs SAMSUNG QN80F

TCL C8K is a really bright television. In synthetic conditions – that is, during tests with brightness charts – it was able to achieve even 3500 nits peak brightness in movie mode. That's an impressive result and brings the C8K close to the market leaders, at least when it comes to panel brightness. More importantly – these aren't just numbers on paper. In films with a lot of bright scenes, such as Life of Pi or The Meg, the brightness clearly exceeds 1000 nits, providing a true sense of HDR effect. The picture in those moments looks very dynamic, colors are saturated thanks to excellent coverage of the color palette, and the lights are – spot on and intense. Exactly how it should be.

However, this doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. Just like in contrast tests, here too, in more demanding scenes, compromises appear. In sequences with very fine light elements – such as stars in the night sky or reflections in dark rooms – the local dimming algorithm can… get confused. Instead of bringing those details up, the television sometimes decides to dim them significantly – down to around 300 nits – to maintain deep blacks. On one hand, this is quite a sensible approach (better deep black than a grey/navy blue screen), but on the other – there may be moments when certain elements of the picture become difficult to see or even disappear into darkness.

TEST UPDATE (20/08/2025): The brightness control algorithm in this model is quite problematic – attempting to calibrate the picture so that it doesn’t drastically overexpose the brightest scenes results in unnatural shifts: improvement in one part of the image results in deterioration in another. The television may achieve slightly higher readings in brightness measurements, but in practice, this comes with a heavily overexposed image that looks very unnatural!

For the record, we provide brightness values without this adjustment:

1. 1463 nits

2. 640 nits

3. 1368 nits

4. 468 nits

5. 1025 nits

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.

In the C8K, a new picture mode has appeared: Filmmaker Mode. This is something we've known for years from televisions of other brands – a mode designed to deliver the director's vision as faithfully as possible, without unnecessary image enhancements. Unfortunately, at TCL, it seems to still be in the "to be refined" stage. Right from the first glance, the screen appears too warm – the image veers into reds, which may not appeal to everyone. The white balance was markedly skewed – the screen looked distinctly warm, and the red colour dominated almost every scene. There was a lack of blue, which led to an unpleasant yellowing and distortion of the image. But that’s not all. Regardless of whether we were watching regular TV, YouTube, or HDR films – the television had a clear tendency to excessively brighten the image. In tests of gamma curves and EOTF, the lines strayed instead of adhering to the standard, resulting in an overly bright and less contrasting image. Additionally, in colour reproduction tests, significant deviations were noticeable – on the colour wheel, some points were actually "drifting away." It must be said plainly: Filmmaker Mode in the C8K, in its current form, is not very cinematic.

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.

After professional calibration, the TCL C8K has made a huge leap forward. In SDR content, the white balance has been almost perfectly set – the screen has finally stopped being too warm and has taken on a neutral character. The gamma curve, which is responsible for how brightness is represented, now looks very good – the image is more coherent and realistic. In HDR content, we also improved the white balance – within the limits of what the television itself allows. Unfortunately, the C8K still interprets brightness management a bit "in its own way." When we look at the EOTF chart in films, it’s clear that the television brightens entire scenes more than it should. Before calibration, this effect was quite bothersome – now the situation is much better, although it still falls a bit short of perfection. This, however, is a limitation of the device itself, which – despite our efforts – does not allow us to fully tame its nature.

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.

How does the TCL C8K handle lower quality materials? One could say: fairly well, though without much enthusiasm. The television offers a tonal transition enhancement feature designed to smooth out unwanted gradients. In practice, there's a slight improvement visible, but it's not at a level that eliminates all imperfections. The feature subtly softens harsh transitions, but it doesn't work miracles. Film grain isn't completely suppressed, and subtle banding on grey backgrounds can still be noticeable. But maybe that's for the best? – at least the image doesn't lose its texture or depth, as is often the case with televisions that overdo digital processing. When it comes to upscaling, which is enhancing picture quality from lower resolutions, the C8K performs quite well. The image is sharp, and details – though sometimes a bit softened – remain discernible. However, it's not on par with the best picture processors from the competition. On the plus side, there's no issues with overscan, which is the artificial cropping of the image that can still surprise in some models from other brands.

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.

If you're planning a weekend with the Champions League or a marathon of F1 racing – the TCL C8K won't let you down. The television is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, so it should inherently handle fast motion well. And indeed – it performs very well. The fluidity of motion is at a very good level here, and the "Motion Clarity" feature with two sliders (blur reduction and flicker reduction) allows you to easily adjust the effect to your own preferences. Want to slightly smooth things out – no worries. Prefer a cinematic look – no problem.

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 C8K offers practically everything we could expect from a screen for gamers. It has variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), Dolby Vision in games, and a well-functioning implementation of HGiG, which helps preserve the creators' intent in HDR titles. The TV also supports 120 Hz in lower resolutions without any problems, and it can even display a staggering 288 Hz in Full HD – a figure that will surely appeal to fans of dynamic shooters and sports games on PC.

On board, we also find the GameBar – a graphical interface that somewhat resembles an elongated Nintendo Switch console. Thanks to this, we gain quick access to information about the current game mode, frame count, HDR format, and other little details that really make life easier for the gamer. We obviously couldn’t resist and ran a couple of races in Forza Horizon on the C8K – and we must admit, it looked and worked really well.

However, there is a slight drawback – in such a fast and clearly gaming-oriented device, it's a bit unfortunate that the manufacturer opted for the implementation of only two HDMI 2.1 ports. For some users, who use several next-gen consoles and, for example, a soundbar with eARC, this could be a limitation that’s hard to overcome.

Samsung QN80F is a TV that delivers on almost every front when it comes to gaming. We have a 144 Hz panel, four fully-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, support for gamers in the form of variable refresh rate (VRR), auto low latency mode (ALLM), and even one of the best-designed game bars on the market. The cherry on top is the motion smoother, which – as the only one in the world – works in games without significantly increasing input lag. Sounds like an almost perfect TV for gamers? And indeed, it’s almost that.

As usual, Samsung does not support Dolby Vision in gaming, but that’s no surprise anymore. However, what is much more surprising is that... the HGIG feature has disappeared – which is a system that allows a console (e.g. PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X) to precisely match HDR tone mapping to the capabilities of the TV. 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 as of the writing of this review, the HGIG feature is simply absent.

And it’s this one missing feature that turns the QN80F from an almost perfect gaming TV into a “nearly” perfect device. It’s a pity – because everything else indicated that Samsung could once again set the bar very high in this generation.