Hisense U8Q vs Samsung QN85F

When it comes to HDR, the Hisense U8Q shows its claws. On paper, that is, in synthetic measurement tests, the television can achieve nearly 4000 nits of peak brightness. This is a value that most models can only envy. In practice, this translates to very strong light effects in films – in some scenes, we managed to measure a real brightness of between 1500 and 2000 nits, which is a level typically reserved for the absolute top tier of televisions on the market.

Of course, it's not always perfect. In small, pinpoint elements, brightness can drop – a good example is scene number 4 from the film Sicario 2, where instead of thousands of nits, we get around 500. But it’s worth noting that the effect does not disappear completely – the light is still visible, and the image does not seem artificially dimmed. This is a typical issue with Mini LEDs, so it's difficult to consider this a major downside.

On the other hand, the colour reproduction is a huge plus. Thanks to additional coatings that enhance colour saturation, the U8Q nearly covers the entire DCI-P3 colour space (98%), and for the wider BT.2020 range, it achieved over 80%. This is an excellent result that makes HDR films look rich, vivid, and simply very cinematic.

Although more than twice the number of dimming zones compared to its predecessor did not translate into a spectacular jump in black levels and contrast, we definitely felt it in the HDR effect itself. The QN85F is up to 50% brighter than last year's model, making a huge impression in dynamic scenes. The peak brightness can reach almost 1700–1800 nits, which is truly impressive for Mini-LED in this class. The best part is that almost regardless of the scene being watched, the HDR effect remains strong and vibrant. In four out of five test scenes, brightness was maintained around 1000 nits, a level that in most cases allows the viewer to experience the true magic of this format. Of course, in scene number 4 from the film Sicario 2, the limitations of Mini-LED technology become apparent – the brightness of the helicopter’s small light drops to around 500 nits. This result is not stellar, but it is still much more acceptable than last year's model. Samsung therefore deserves applause, as the improvement in brightness in the QN85F is drastic compared to its predecessor. However, it is a shame about a certain trend visible in this year's televisions – the manufacturer has worsened the colour gamut coverage. Although the QN85F has a QLED panel, its score of around 90% DCI-P3 is average, and in the most demanding films, it can lead to less vibrant colours than its predecessor. Despite this shortcoming, the overall HDR effect stands at an excellent level and truly makes a big impression in this class of devices.

We must admit that when the U8Q arrived at our editorial office, we were slightly surprised… and positively so. Usually, in televisions, the white balance immediately requires adjustment – it can be too warm or too cold, which immediately leads to strange colour mistakes. Meanwhile, here the situation looks really good straight out of the box. Of course, we are talking about our unit, so there is no guarantee that every model will be equally well calibrated, but in our case, the first impressions were very positive. The only more apparent issue concerned the way the television manages brightness. Looking at the EOTF graph, it is clear that the U8Q tends to brighten small elements on the screen. This, in turn, caused what we mentioned earlier – slight overexposure and the impression that the entire scene can be a bit too bright. However, this is not a flaw that undermines the picture, rather an effect characteristic of this model.

Samsung QN85F offers several preset picture modes, but by default, when the television is turned on, it starts in "Eco" mode. And we could actually end the discussion here, because for such a model, using this setting makes no sense – the picture is washed out, unpleasant, and far from what we expect from a television of this class. We therefore carried out our tests in the best of the available modes, which is the Filmmaker mode. Its purpose is to faithfully reproduce what the directors saw during the filming of the movies, and indeed this is the setting that performs best among all factory options. However, this does not mean that it is without flaws.

Both in SDR and HDR, the QN85F quite strongly emphasised warm colours. This resulted from deficiencies in white balance, where there was a distinct lack of blue. Additionally, the picture was sometimes overexposed – as indicated by both the gamma brightness characteristic and the EOTF curve, which showed that the television tends to blow out scenes. In SDR, the colour reproduction errors (Delta E levels of 4-5) were still acceptable, but in HDR the discrepancies became quite large and clearly deviated from what the creators intended to show us. Fortunately, Samsung provides a wide range of calibration tools in its televisions, so – as always – we proceeded with professional calibration to see how much could be improved.

Of course, we wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t make adjustments to the white balance. After calibration, we managed to equalise the SDR signal to practically perfection – older films, YouTube content, and classic television looked almost ideal on the U8Q. This is truly an exceptional level that shows this model can do a lot if given a bit of help. Unfortunately, the situation is different with HDR content. The colours themselves don’t pose many problems, but the U8Q’s biggest issue remains the EOTF brightness characteristics. In practice, the television tends to “over-expose” beyond how the image should look in its original form. It’s that slight "bleeding" that we noticed earlier in comparisons with the best screens on the market. It’s a bit of a shame that this characteristic can’t be fully tamed – if we could maintain equally good control over brightness in HDR as in SDR, we would be dealing with an absolutely reference-quality image.

After calibrating the film mode, we managed to tame the colours in both modes to near perfection – most of them did not exceed an error value of 3, which is the threshold of perception by the human eye. The image became more natural, fuller, and at the same time free from bloom, which was noticeable right after taking the television out of the box. This shows the great potential of the QN85F and how well it responds to precise settings. However, this does not change the fact that certain technological barriers cannot be overcome. Despite the enormous benefits of calibration, there are still limitations of the panel itself. Although the number of dimming zones has doubled compared to its predecessor, the algorithms controlling the backlighting can manipulate brightness in their own way. Sometimes this leads to slight colour inaccuracies or gently visible halo effects around bright objects. Nevertheless, the experience after calibration is truly pleasant and demonstrates how good a screen the QN85F can be if we just take a moment for proper settings.

Hisense U8Q handles lower quality materials quite well. The television can smooth out tonal transitions thanks to the "Smooth and Gradient Picture" feature – it works best when set to Medium. At this setting, it nicely dims unwanted bands and unevenness in the picture, but importantly, it does not remove the film grain or fine details.

The upscaling itself is also at a good level. Images from lower resolutions appear smooth and soft, sometimes even overly so – we get a plastic effect that may not appeal to everyone. Fortunately, this can be easily corrected with the sharpness slider, allowing the picture to be adjusted to personal preferences.

Although the native tonal transitions on the QN85F with 4K material perform excellently, we do not always deal with content in the highest resolution. At that point, it becomes crucial how the television handles upscaling and digital image processing. This process is managed by Samsung's proprietary processor – AI NQ4 Gen2. In practice, it operates very efficiently. If visible colour banding or other undesirable phenomena occur on the screen, for instance, in materials from YouTube, they can easily be smoothed out using the "noise reduction" feature. Set to a medium level, it improves tonal transitions without excessively blurring desired details. However, it is important to remember that – as with most Samsung televisions – this function heavily interferes with the film grain. Therefore, during cinematic screenings, it is wise to use it cautiously to avoid losing the natural character of the image.

The upscaling itself looks very good. Test materials in lower resolutions were displayed sharply and clearly, with a great deal of detail. The only downside remains the issue of overscan, which is the trimming of the edges of the screen. In most situations, this is not noticeable, but with very old materials below HD quality, there may be cases where a fragment of the image from the left side gets slightly cut off.

Hisense U8Q features a panel that can refresh the image up to 165 Hz in 4K resolution. In practice, this will primarily be utilised by PC gamers, but as the saying goes – it’s better to have it than not 😊. For films and series, we have a built-in smoothness enhancer called Ultra Motion Smoothness. In the settings, it can be easily adjusted to suit personal preferences – whether we want a more “cinematic” frame rate or a smooth, theatrical spectacle.

Motion smoothing and fluidity in the QN85F is a topic worth discussing in more detail, as the television is equipped not with a standard 120 Hz panel, but with a 144 Hz one. The extra hertz will mainly be appreciated by PC gamers, but the mere presence of such an option can be seen as a nice addition and a sign of the times – it’s hard to complain about the trend towards faster panels, as in practice, each of us would prefer the image to be as smooth as possible. However, the most important thing is how the television handles typical 120 Hz refresh rates – in the case of consoles, sports, or films recorded at 24 or 30 frames per second. Here, the QN85F performs really well. In films, one can easily adjust the character of the image thanks to the "image clarity" function, where we find two adjustable sliders. Key for screenings is the one responsible for reducing judder. Lower values give the image a more cinematic character with preserved "frame rate," while higher values lead to strong smoothing reminiscent of television theatre.

In terms of features, the Hisense U8Q has practically everything one could expect from a modern gaming television. Thanks to the new processor, the manufacturer managed to implement as many as three HDMI 2.1 ports, so there is no problem connecting several consoles or a computer. On top of that, it includes all the key technologies – Game Bar with parameter preview, variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM)… in a word, a complete set.

But as is often the case with Hisense, it fell a bit short of perfection. The biggest drawback remains the lack of support for the HGiG format, which allows the brightness of the television to be adjusted to the console and maximises HDR in games. It’s a shame, because if this element were included, we would have a device practically made for gamers. As it stands, the U8Q remains “only” a very good choice 😉

The Samsung QN85F makes a really great impression in terms of gaming features. It has four HDMI 2.1 ports, so we can easily connect multiple devices simultaneously. There is also variable refresh rate (VRR) which prevents screen tearing, as well as an automatic game mode (ALLM) that allows the television to switch to the appropriate settings when we start the console. Additionally, it supports refresh rates of up to 144 Hz – something that PC gamers will particularly appreciate, but the mere fact that such an option is available shows that Samsung is fully committed to supporting gamers. The Game Bar panel also deserves praise. It provides a quick overview of the most important parameters – from frame rate to refresh mode, even including shortcuts to picture settings. Instead of navigating through the entire menu, everything is at hand, which proves to be very convenient in practice. However, the most interesting addition is the Motion Plus gaming feature. It's effectively a motion smoother adapted for the gaming world. When enabled, the image becomes smoother, sometimes looking as if we've gained several extra frames, and importantly – the response time doesn’t increase enough to hinder gameplay. This solution truly sets Samsung's 120Hz televisions apart from competitors.

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

The only major downside remains the lack of proper HGiG support. This is a standard responsible for correct tone mapping in HDR games, meaning that brightness and contrast are displayed as intended by the creators. Without HGiG, we have to adjust brightness manually, which doesn’t always yield perfect results. The feature was available in previous models, but it vanished from the QN85F after one of the updates. We hope that Samsung will quickly resolve this issue, and we will keep checking to see if it has been fixed.