Samsung Neo QLED QN90D / QN92D vs Sony BRAVIA 7 II

During synthetic tests, Samsung QN92D displayed its incredible capabilities in terms of brightness. The graphs clearly indicate that the television can achieve an impressive 2000 nits, giving it a solid power base to compete with the best models on the market. Such a result places it at the forefront, especially in the context of displaying HDR content, where brightness plays a crucial role. However, what happens when we transfer the tests to real film scenes? Under favourable conditions, such as the first scene from the film Life of Pi or the last scene where the image is entirely flooded with light, Samsung QN92D can achieve nearly laboratory results, impressing with its brightness. The situation looks different, however, when small, bright objects appear on a dark background, as in the fourth scene from the film Sicario. In such cases, the television does not perform as well – brightness drops several times, and the maximum values under the best conditions are around 600 NITS. Similar to the case with contrast, these limitations arise from the use of an aggressive local dimming algorithm. This algorithm aims to reduce the 'halo' effect around bright objects on a dark background, but often at the expense of overall brightness. As a result, while the television excels in brightly lit scenes, its ability to display full brightness is limited when it comes to small, vivid elements.

The Sony Bravia 7 II handles HDR very well and, above all, is simply a bright television. In the correct viewing mode, Professional, we measured around 2,000 nits of peak brightness, so the panel’s capabilities are truly significant. Of course, with Mini-LEDs a test pattern result is only part of the story, because a lot still depends on how the TV controls the backlight in real scenes. Here Sony’s algorithms perform very well. Depending on the scene, the brightness we measured in films ranged from roughly 1,100 to as much as 1,700 nits. That’s already a level at which HDR has proper punch and bright highlights can be genuinely impressive. It isn’t perfect in every situation, though. With small bright elements on a very dark background the Bravia 7 II clearly favours maintaining good blacks, which can cause their brightness to drop to around 500 nits. It still looks good, but you can see the TV does not always manage this without compromise.

Colours

The second thing that has a huge impact on HDR is, of course, colour. And this is precisely where True RGB technology was meant to bring one of the biggest changes. Looking at the panel’s capabilities alone, the Bravia 7 II performs very well. We measured about 98% DCI-P3 coverage and 88% BT.2020, so the potential to show strongly saturated colours is really large. In RGB TVs, however, the situation is a bit more complex. When we repeated the same measurements with a film background applied, palette coverage fell to around 92% DCI-P3 and 78% BT.2020. Those are still good figures, especially for an RGB Mini-LED TV, but they clearly show that the final result largely depends on how the algorithms control the three backlight colours. In most scenes the Bravia 7 II handles this well and colours retain high saturation. The biggest differences are visible in shades of blue, where samples begin to deviate more noticeably from reference values and coverage is weaker than for the other primary colours. True RGB therefore offers genuinely greater potential here, but, as with brightness, much depends on what is happening on screen.

The best mode that consistently reproduces colours on the Samsung QN92D is, as it has been for years, the Filmmaker mode. Although it generally offers decent colour quality, it is not without significant issues. Let’s start with the analysis of images in HD/SDR quality. The biggest challenge here is white balance – the graphs show considerable instability, with a pronounced red dominance, making the image too warm. This distortion causes shades to be unnaturally shifted towards warmer tones, which can negatively affect the perception of materials with natural colours. The contrast, based on the gamma graph, although not the worst, remains far from ideal, impacting the overall image quality, especially in darker scenes.

This problem persists with 4K materials, such as series or movies of higher quality. In this case, the white balance also proves faulty, with noticeable deficiencies in blue and red colour, leading to tonal shifts. Tests using the Colour Checker tool confirm these issues – all colours tend to shift towards yellow tones, further distorting the natural appearance of the image. Although the Filmmaker mode is one of the best available modes for watching cinematic content, it still requires improvements, especially concerning colour accuracy and white balance.

To evaluate the factory colours we chose the Professional mode, because it performs best among the available settings. However, it is not perfect. In SDR the white balance drifts slightly towards magenta, making some scenes look a little warmer and less neutral than they should. A bigger problem is the gamma, which sits closer to 2.5 than to 2.4. This makes the image a bit too dark in places, particularly in the midtones. In HDR the situation is better. As brightness increases a little too much red appears, but this is not an issue that is highly noticeable during viewing. Overall the Professional mode is a good starting point, although you can get a bit more out of it after calibration.

After calibration, the Filmmaker mode on the Samsung QN92D television shows significant improvement, particularly in terms of SDR content. The white balance has been greatly enhanced – the previous colour misalignment and dominance of red have been eliminated, resulting in a more natural colour reproduction. In terms of brightness, although the gamma chart did not require significant adjustments, it has been stabilised, which affects overall picture quality.

Regarding high-quality materials, the white balance has also improved in this case. However, it is important to note the contrast. The EOTF curve, which illustrates values in this area, initially seems correct. However, when we look at the details, the television struggles to maintain appropriate contrast in film materials. The EOTF curve reveals certain discrepancies, suggesting that despite advancements, there are still areas needing improvement in this aspect. The television still strives for excellence in contrast reproduction. One advantage of this television is colour saturation. Skin tones are rendered very well, and although some colours can be slightly oversaturated, the final effect looks truly appealing – the colours appear rich and vibrant.

Despite some shortcomings in contrast, after calibration, the Filmmaker mode on the Samsung QN92D offers excellent picture quality, with natural colour reproduction, making it a great choice for watching films.

After calibration the Bravia 7 II can look decidedly better. Above all, we managed to set the white balance very well, both in SDR and HDR. Gamma can also be improved, which after correction runs very close to the reference value. And in fact, for most users these changes will have the greatest impact on the picture. There is, however, a limitation when it comes to the colours themselves. In the Bravia 7 II Sony does not provide access to a classic CMS that would allow us to correct individual hues separately. A lot is therefore left in the hands of the algorithms controlling the True RGB backlight. If the TV misrepresents a particular colour, we are not always able to do anything about it. In our measurements this is most visible in certain reds and blues, where errors can still be quite large. This does not, however, undermine the point of calibration itself. Correctly setting the white point and gamma strongly affects the whole picture, so even without the ability to precisely correct every colour the difference compared with the factory settings is noticeable.

Let’s check how the Samsung QN92D television performs with tonal transitions in very poor quality materials. The noise reduction feature demonstrates good effectiveness, improving the smoothness of tonal transitions even in challenging conditions. However, it should be noted that, as with other Samsung televisions, the effectiveness of this feature may lead to the removal of desirable elements, such as film grain, which can sometimes affect the authenticity of the image.

Regarding digital processing, the Samsung QN92D television also performs excellently. During testing, the image was presented very well, with the model shown in a natural and correct manner. Details such as branches in the background were reproduced with great precision, highlighting the television's ability to enhance the quality of low-resolution materials.

Scaling and digital processing are among the strongest points of the Bravia 7 II and one of the bigger reasons to choose Sony over the competition. The manufacturer has been handling digital image processing well for years, and it shows here too. First and foremost, the 'Smooth Gradation' function works very well and can smooth out weak tonal transitions in lower-quality material. The safest setting is Low, but we would comfortably recommend Medium as well. The effect is stronger then, yet the TV still treats details very gently. Some fine details may be slightly smoothed, but Sony does this much more subtly than many other brands. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution material is well upscaled to 4K, the image looks clean and retains a lot of detail. Of course the TV will not magically turn native HD material into true 4K, but what can be extracted from such a source is handled really well by the Bravia 7 II.

The Samsung QN92D television is equipped with a 144 Hz panel; however, when watching content using the smoothness feature, the maximum refresh rate is 120 Hz. This means that both gamers and those who watch a lot of sports will be satisfied with the picture quality. It is also worth mentioning the available image enhancement options, such as the "blur and judder reduction" feature, which allows users to adjust the smoothness to individual preferences on a 10-point scale. Blur reduction is responsible for increasing the sharpness of quickly moving objects, while judder reduction smooths motion, eliminating the "stutter" effect. Thanks to these advanced settings, optimal visual experiences can be achieved, making the Samsung QN92D ideal for both dynamic scenes and intense gaming sessions.

In terms of motion blur, the television performs really well, and it is hard to find anything to criticise. The only comment we might have is a slight overshoot effect noticeable on dark backgrounds during our test with "Ufoludkiem". Nevertheless, with the advanced smoothness settings, the Samsung QN92D is perfect for both dynamic scenes and intense gaming sessions.

The Bravia 7 II uses a 120 Hz panel, so in terms of motion handling it delivers everything you would expect from a TV of this class. With sport or games at 120 fps, the picture is suitably smooth, and for films Sony provides an extensive motion interpolation system. You can therefore adjust the interpolation level separately and decide whether you want to preserve a more cinematic character to the motion or obtain noticeably smoother movement. The issue of motion blur itself is a little worse. The VA panel used is not among the fastest, and you can notice a slight trail behind moving objects, particularly on darker backgrounds. It is not at a level that greatly bothers during normal viewing, but last year’s Bravia 7 fared better in this respect and had a noticeably faster panel.

The Samsung QN92/QN90 television is an excellent choice for avid gamers, worthy of the highest recommendations. This model offers virtually all the features available on the market in terms of gaming, making gameplay even more exciting. One of its key features is the 120 Hz panel, which provides exceptional motion smoothness, vital during dynamic action games. The television also has low input lag, ensuring lightning-fast responses to player commands. Additionally, technologies such as VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) adjust the refresh rate and automatically switch the television to game mode, enhancing the gaming experience even further. An additional advantage is the Xbox app, which allows playing favourite titles directly on the television, eliminating the need for a console. This is a typical feature of Samsung televisions, which makes them unique in the gaming world.

Auto Motion Plus Game is a feature that truly deserves praise for Samsung. It is a motion smoother that performs excellently in games, allowing for the perception of a higher frame rate – a 30 frames per second image looks like 45, and 60 Hz becomes close to 90 Hz. Importantly, this feature does not introduce significant lag (input lag does not exceed 25 ms), so it does not negatively affect gaming comfort, unlike many other motion smoothers available on the market. As a result, players can enjoy a significantly smoother image without compromising on responsiveness.

Bravia 7 II has basically everything you’d expect today from a good console TV. It supports 4K at 120 Hz, VRR from 48 to 120 Hz and ALLM, so when you start a game the TV automatically switches to a low-latency mode. It also has properly working HGiG, which means that after configuring HDR on the console the TV won’t try to brighten the image further on its own. You just need to remember to turn off tone mapping in the TV’s menu. Dolby Vision in game mode is also a plus, especially useful for Xbox owners. Sony adds its own Game Menu. From it you can quickly check key signal information, verify VRR operation or change gaming-related settings without digging through the whole TV menu. The only thing missing from the feature list is support for 1440p at 120 Hz.

Our biggest reservation is not really about the functions themselves, but about the connectors. The Bravia 7 II has four HDMI ports, but only two of them support full HDMI 2.1 at 48 Gbps. One of those is also an eARC port. So if you connect a soundbar or AV receiver to the TV via HDMI, in practice you’re left with only one full HDMI 2.1 for a console or PC. With a single console that’s no problem, but with a PS5, an Xbox and an audio setup it starts to get tight. And this is hard to excuse for Sony. In cheaper TVs two HDMI 2.1 ports can still be acceptable, but in a model of this class, especially in 2026, we would expect a full set of four such ports.