Dreame Q100 vs Samsung The Frame 2026 (LS03H)

Unfortunately the Dreame Q100 is too simple, and above all too dim, a television to talk about a true HDR effect. The peak brightness we measured reaches at most about 300 nits, which is clearly too little for bright elements of the image to actually 'pop' with light. In fact, this is a level we more often associate with SDR material than with HDR. It therefore lacks the brightness headroom offered by more expensive televisions that makes highlights, reflections and the sun look noticeably more striking.

HDR colours

Fortunately the Q100 makes up for this a little elsewhere. The manufacturer markets it as a QLED television, although in practice a PFS filter is responsible for widening the colour palette. The DCI-P3 colour space we measured is covered at roughly 92%, and BT.2020 at about 67%. These are not top-tier figures, but still clearly better than simple LCD televisions without an additional gamut-expanding layer. As a result, HDR material can at least offer more saturated and varied colours, even if the brightness itself does not yet allow us to speak of a fully fledged HDR effect.

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.

We chose the "Film" mode for testing and, in our opinion, it is by far the best of the available presets. There are none of the heavily boosted, unnatural colours you can see, for example, in the Vivid/Dynamic mode. The picture looks quite reasonable straight away, although it falls a little short of perfect. In SDR material the most noticeable issue was a slight warming of the image. The white balance had too much red, which made whites lean towards a warmer hue, and a similar tint was visible in shades of grey. In HDR the situation was a little different. Here blue had a slight advantage, making the picture a touch cooler. These are not major faults, though. For such an inexpensive TV, the factory settings on our unit were fairly decent, and the "Film" mode already delivers a relatively natural image without much fiddling with the settings.

For assessing the factory colour output we chose the Filmmaker Mode. If you’re encountering it for the first time, it’s a mode designed to reproduce a film or series as faithfully as possible. The TV then switches off most of the extra picture enhancement features, and the colours and luminance characteristics are intended to be as close as possible to what the creators of the material intended. And it must be admitted that The Frame 2026 performs really well in this respect straight out of the box. The biggest deviation is visible in the white balance. As brightness increases the blue starts to drop out and green increases slightly. As a result the picture shifts toward warmer tones. White is therefore not perfectly neutral, and in some scenes you can notice a slightly warmer cast.

The luminance response for both the gamma and EOTF curves looks good. Across most of the range they stay fairly close to the target, although in the darkest parts of the picture there is a larger deviation. In practice some details emerging from black may therefore be rendered a little more strongly. However, this is not an error that stands out during normal viewing. Overall Filmmaker Mode is a good starting point here. However the picture is a little too warm by default and not all hues land exactly where they should.

Contrary to appearances, the Dreame Q100 is quite well prepared for image calibration. The menu contains quite a few advanced picture settings that allow its characteristics to be adjusted fairly precisely. In our case the most work was required on the white balance, both in SDR and HDR. After correction SDR content looked very good. We managed to achieve a practically neutral white balance and natural colours, with the main remaining limitation being the black level itself, stemming from the panel construction and the lack of local dimming.

In HDR we also managed to improve white balance and colour reproduction, but here the limitations of the TV's electronics become apparent more quickly. Even after very precise adjustment of the EOTF curve, the Q100 does not always follow it correctly during actual scenes. In some content it can also brighten the image further, causing some parts to look brighter than they should, and in bright areas some details can be lost as a result.

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

The weakest point of the Dreame Q100 is its digital image processing capabilities. The processor used copes only moderately well with enhancing weaker sources, and the menu lacks any function that effectively smooths unsightly tonal transitions or reduces visible posterisation. Upscaling itself is also unimpressive. With low-resolution material the image is fairly soft and lacks faithful detail reproduction. Additionally, the Q100 tends to overscan, slightly cropping the edges of the image with very poor sources, such as 480p material. In everyday viewing of HD or 4K content this won't be a major problem, but with older recordings the processor's limitations become clearly visible.

As with many of Samsung’s newer TVs, this one also uses the NQ4 AI processor, only the older, second-generation version. And you have to admit it handles digital image processing quite well. Lower-resolution material is sharpened effectively, and after upscaling to 4K it still looks natural. The TV can also somewhat "tidy up" weaker sources, like older recordings or lower-quality broadcasts. That doesn't, of course, mean it will suddenly turn poor footage into 4K, but at closer viewing distances the difference compared with simpler models with weaker processors is easy to spot. Edges are clearer, and fine details don't get lost as much to signal compression.

Samsung also offers a few additional image-enhancing features, but as usual it's best to use them sparingly. At stronger settings, noise reduction can very effectively reduce posterization, but it also noticeably interferes with the image. The picture then simply starts to look very artificial, for example by heavily smoothing characters' faces. So it makes the most sense with really poor sources when various types of noise are seriously distracting.

The VA panel used in the Dreame Q100 has a native 60 Hz refresh rate, so from the outset this is not a TV designed for the most demanding sports fans or gamers. The manufacturer does mention the ability to run at 120 Hz, and that option is indeed available, but it mainly applies to a mode intended for gamers. In everyday use the Q100 should therefore be treated as a conventional 60 Hz TV. For fast-paced sports broadcasts or rapid gameplay this means less smooth motion than in models with 120 Hz panels or higher. On the plus side, the panel’s response time is worth noting. The VA panel does not exhibit excessive smearing, so motion remains quite clear and does not leave strong, blurred trails behind moving objects. For films you can also use a simple motion-smoothing system. The manufacturer has prepared several ready-made presets that help reduce the characteristic judder in material shot at 24 frames per second.

Samsung again used a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz. Refresh rates up to 120 Hz primarily offer greater possibilities with material that contains a lot of motion. The TV can use additional motion-smoothing systems that can improve fluidity in sports and other fast-moving 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, and consequently fairly pronounced motion blur. With rapidly moving objects, especially on a dark background, trails are easy to notice. There is also a slight doubling of edges, which can be visible even when additional motion-enhancement systems are switched off. We saw similar behaviour in last year's The Frame 2025, and it's a shame Samsung hasn't addressed this issue. The 144 Hz itself provides a good foundation, but the panel's response time still limits this TV.

The Dreame Q100 is not a strictly gaming device, but for console use it offers a reasonable package. It provides VRR to eliminate screen tearing and ALLM, which automatically switches the TV to a low-latency mode when it detects a console signal. An interesting compromise is support for a 120 Hz mode. The panel won’t achieve that refresh rate in 4K, but dropping to 1080p lets you play at 120 frames per second. If a given title prioritises smoothness over high resolution (and the game offers such a mode), it’s worth using this option. There’s also a handy Game Bar on board, allowing you to quickly change display settings, switch the refresh mode or add a virtual crosshair. Admittedly the HGiG implementation is weak here, but it earns points for supporting Dolby Vision Gaming on Xbox Series X and S. This is not a panel for technological purists, but for casual console gaming it performs flawlessly, especially when you opt to trade 4K for a smoother Full HD.

In terms of gaming features, The Frame is practically on a par with Samsung’s top televisions. When a console is connected the TV automatically switches to Game Mode thanks to ALLM, so we do not have to change settings manually each time. There is also VRR, which matches the screen refresh rate to the number of frames produced by the console or PC. This helps avoid the characteristic screen tearing when frame rates drop. The Frame of course supports 4K at 120 Hz, so you can take advantage of the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X in games that offer higher frame rates. HGiG also works correctly. With HDR properly configured on the console, the TV does not try to brighten the picture further on its own, so bright effects in games are displayed as they should be. Samsung also includes a Game Bar. It is a handy menu you can bring up without leaving the game. There you can check VRR operation and the current frame rate, and quickly change the most important gaming-related settings. With a PC the possibilities are even greater, because the aforementioned Full HD mode lets you increase the refresh rate up to 240 Hz. There is essentially one feature missing that Samsung has already got us used to, namely Dolby Vision Gaming. Xbox owners will notice this most, as that console can use Dolby Vision in games. There is one more thing worth mentioning specific to this model. Its One Connect module has only one HDMI 2.1 port, so you must plug the console or PC into that port if you want to use 4K at 120 Hz. Fortunately Samsung did not combine this port with eARC. The soundbar can therefore be connected separately (3) and you still have a full HDMI 2.1 available for the console.