LG QNED91T6A vs Samsung The Frame Pro

As befits a MiniLED television, LG QNED91T easily surpasses the magical barrier of 1000 nits on the luminance chart. In scenes where light played a key role, the effect was truly decent. For instance, 1000 nits in the first scene of "Life of Pi" is an impressive value, and the 600 nits achieved in the third and fifth scenes allowed one to feel the true magic of HDR. However, problems arise with very small light elements on the screen, such as the moon, street lamps, or lights. A value around 100 nits - to put it bluntly - is disappointing, as these elements are dark enough to be barely visible. The television deserves praise for covering 96% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and 75% of BT.2020. LG QNED91T leaves us with very mixed feelings, mainly due to the very aggressive dimming algorithms, which, while effectively eliminating the halo effect, negatively impact the brightness of smaller elements.

Samsung The Frame Pro is one of the relatively bright televisions. In synthetic tests, we managed to achieve values around 900 nits, which is quite a respectable result for a lifestyle model. In full-screen scenes, such as the board from the film The Meg or the initial sequence in Life of Pi, brightness maintained a level of 700–800 nits. These values allow you to fully enjoy the HDR effects and convey their cinematic magic. However, the situation becomes complicated when smaller, point light sources appear on the screen. The edge lighting used here, equipped with the ability to locally dim entire strips, does not manage these well. Sometimes, small elements are overly dimmed, which weakens the effect, or conversely – they are significantly brightened, but at the cost of losing the depth of black in that part of the image. This can be compared to light beams reminiscent of a laser beam spreading in dense fog – the effect is noticeable and bright, yet at the same time, it is quite unnatural and distracting. Fortunately, the colour aspect performs better. Thanks to the use of a quantum dot filter (QLED), colours are saturated, and the reproduction of the DCI-P3 palette exceeds 92%. Generally, films or series watched in HDR on The Frame Pro showcase a rich colour palette, even if contrast and the functioning of the dimming algorithms can sometimes distract us.

All our tests are conducted in the best picture mode on each television. In this case, as usual, it is the Filmmaker mode. The name of the mode suggests ideal colour reproduction; however, there were noticeable deviations from the correct image here. Our unit, in terms of white balance, displayed quite a strong dip in blue hues - both in SDR and 4K HDR content - which resulted in a distinct yellowing of the image, visible in comparison scenes from the film with Tom Cruise. As we mentioned earlier, QNED91T has certain tendencies to brighten the screen. This is confirmed by gamma, which is quite significantly below the reference value of 2.4. Meanwhile, the EOTF curve, responsible for brightness in 4K content, showed some issues with the television's dimming in the darkest areas, which we could observe in the paragraph describing the quality of the HDR effect. Although the Filmmaker mode is quite a good "out-of-the-box" mode, it too requires some adjustments.

We achieved the best results, of course, in Filmmaker mode, which immediately showed that Samsung had put effort into the factory settings. In SDR content – the type most commonly viewed – The Frame Pro performed really well. The white balance and gamma were almost perfectly matched, giving the image a natural and cohesive appearance. Admittedly, there were some noticeable errors, particularly in skin tones and reds, which could be overly saturated, giving everything a slightly "warmed-up" character, but this didn’t significantly detract from the viewing experience in everyday use. For HDR content, the situation was similar regarding the white balance. This was at a good level; however, the biggest issue turned out to be brightness management. The EOTF curve was set in such a way that in many scenes, the image appeared blown out, with the brightest areas losing detail and turning into uniform patches of light. This severely undermined realism and caused the colours to appear overly sharpened. Fortunately, Samsung provides the option for manual adjustment of the curve in their televisions, so we opted for calibration, and its results can be seen below.

LG offers advanced calibration tools in its televisions such as 65QNED91T6A, which we utilised. When it comes to white balance, we were able to significantly correct it in SDR content. The picture mode in 4K HDR quality posed greater challenges, which, although still not perfect, looks significantly better than before calibration. Errors on the Color Checker palette and colour gamut are much smaller than in the factory settings. Regarding brightness characteristics, gamma for HD content is practically ideal, with a slight exception at the end of the graph. However, the television had the most trouble with brightness in 4K HDR content. Analyzing the EOTF characteristics in films, we observed that the television manipulates brightness quite heavily, which we could see in previous tests. Brightness is significantly boosted compared to the graph in the static test, and the television lights up certain scenes to the point that some smaller elements lose detail. This is unfortunately caused by the average backlight zone management algorithm in this model. Nevertheless, calibration yields quite good results, especially when it comes to the precise reproduction of colours.

After calibration, the SDR mode looks absolutely perfect. We managed to eliminate the overly strong red saturation, which previously gave the image a somewhat excessively warm character. Colours have become more balanced, which resulted in a natural and pleasant reception of everyday content – from television to films and series from streaming or materials on YouTube. In HDR mode, the most work was required on the EOTF curve, which factory settings caused excessive brightening of the entire image. Calibration allowed us to largely "tame" this problem – the image stopped being overexposed, and details in bright areas became more visible. Of course, the limitations are set by the design of the television itself, as edge lighting reveals its constraints, and the smallest elements of light can still be overblown or blend into the background. However, this is a matter of technology, not just calibration. After the correction, The Frame Pro is significantly more enjoyable to watch, and it is certainly worth considering if you want to maximise the television's capabilities.

When it comes to tonal transitions in lower quality materials, the television offers a well-known feature from LG televisions - "Smooth Gradation". We can control it in three levels: low, medium, and high. We recommend using the medium option, as it does a good job of removing tonal transitions without causing noticeable problems with the removal of object structure or other artefacts.

As for image scaling (upscaling), LG's Alpha processor performs quite well in this regard. The image appears very plastic, with slight aliasing on some elements, which does not significantly affect the quality. It looks really okay, and the overall effect is very satisfactory.

Although the fluidity of tonal transitions in 4K HDR materials on The Frame Pro is not a problem at all, naturally, with a weaker signal - television, HD materials, or older Full HD films - imperfections may arise. Therefore, it is crucial how the television copes with these limitations thanks to its image processor. The noise reduction function works really effectively here. At the medium setting, it eliminates unwanted bands or artefacts, smoothing the image in a noticeable yet not excessive way. However, it's worth noting that Samsung tends to be aggressive in its approach - even at the lowest level of this function, it can "consume" film grain. So it's advisable to use it judiciously and adjust the settings to the material being viewed.

The upscaling itself is at a high level. The Frame Pro can effectively enhance older materials to a native 4K resolution while maintaining good sharpness and readability. Films and series in lower quality simply look better here. However, it should be mentioned that there is a minor drawback - typical for many Samsung televisions. With very old sources of poor quality, you may notice clipping of the image edges on the left side of the screen. It's not a problem that will ruin the viewing experience, but it's worth knowing that it might occur.

The television has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which should satisfy most users in terms of motion smoothness. Additionally, QNED91T is equipped with the TruMotion feature, which allows for smoother image display in films. Within this feature, we can adjust the "De-Judder" and "De-Blur" sliders. The "De-Judder" slider is responsible for reducing judder in films, which is particularly useful when playing content with a lower frame rate, while "De-Blur" helps to reduce blur in fast scenes, which is important for sports or dynamic shots.

The smoothness of motion in The Frame Pro is not only due to the matrix, which operates with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, but also the image processor and the smoothing system. It is thanks to this that we can adjust the way films or sports broadcasts are displayed to our own preferences. There are sliders for reducing blurring and reducing judder – the first function improves the sharpness of fast movements, while the second helps to soften the effect of a "jumping" image during camera pans. So, everyone can choose between a cinematic motion character and a smoother, more "television" style.

The LG 65QNED91T6A television is equipped with HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, providing full support for all the standards needed for gaming on modern consoles. We can count on variable refresh rate (VRR) support and automatic low latency mode (ALLM). This ensures smooth gameplay without delays.

Thanks to support for all popular HDR standards in games, such as HGiG and Dolby Vision, we can fully utilise the potential of the PS5 and XBOX One consoles. The television also handles lower resolutions than 4K without any issues, so even older consoles look good on it. The Game Bar makes it easy to access gaming-related settings, allowing us to quickly and intuitively adjust picture parameters and features for gamers. Additionally, the QNED91T offers the NVIDIA GeForce Now feature, which allows us to play in the cloud without needing a console. However, it should be noted that this solution is quite costly and somewhat falls short of the Xbox Game Pass, which is available only on Samsung televisions.

QNED91T LG is an excellent choice for both less experienced and more advanced gamers looking for a versatile television for gaming.

Samsung The Frame Pro does not pretend to be just a “living room” television; here, gamers will also find something for themselves. The manufacturer has ensured a full range of gaming features: we have support for variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM), refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and compatibility with both G-Sync and FreeSync Premium Pro. Additionally, there is the well-known Game Bar panel, which is a quick menu where key parameters can be checked on the fly—from refresh rates to enabled image processing modes. Are there any downsides? Indeed, The Frame Pro does not support Dolby Vision in game mode, but this is hard to consider a serious issue—most gamers use HDR10 anyway... which means HGIG mode. Exactly. The biggest surprise turned out to be the latest software update. Samsung… completely removed this option from The Frame PRO. In practice, this means that the television independently interprets HDR tone mapping in games, and the user has no way to enable settings developed for consoles. This is a step backwards that may disappoint more knowledgeable gamers hoping for full compliance with HGiG guidelines. We can only hope that this issue will be resolved quickly.

An interesting feature of The Frame Pro is also the unusual arrangement of HDMI 2.1 ports. There are as many as five available—four are located in the One Connect box, and the fifth, in micro HDMI version, is directly on the television. This is quite an unusual solution, but rather practical. Samsung clearly suggests that this is the port to which you should connect your console or computer. Why? Because it minimises potential delays associated with communication through the wireless One Connect, and in the case of gaming, every millisecond matters. We have written separately about input lag, but it can already be revealed here that by connecting equipment directly to the television, we achieve the absolute maximum in response speed.