Samsung QN80H vs Hisense UR8S

The Samsung QN80H is undoubtedly a bright TV. In synthetic tests it exceeds the 1000-nit mark, which on paper promises a solid HDR effect. In practice the screen really shows its teeth, although it can't fully spread its wings (or its backlight, if you will 🤔) in every condition. Bright, wide scenes make the best impression. Well-lit outdoor shots and brightly lit scenes look really good on it. Brightness then stays around 700 nits, which provides a noticeable step up in quality compared with standard SDR. Problems start in dark scenes with small, pinpoint highlights. The QN80H tends to dim these strongly, in order to protect black depth at all costs. On the one hand this gives better contrast, on the other... you lose dynamics and the brilliance of fine HDR detail. So the TV has considerable potential, but the dimming algorithm can be too restrictive.

Colour gamut coverage

When it comes to colours it's good as well. The QN80H uses quantum dot technology, and in our measurements it covered 93% of the DCI-P3 colour space and about 70% of BT.2020. Today those results aren't exactly jaw-dropping, but in real-world use they're more than sufficient to deliver a vivid, natural image for most films and TV series. Colours are suitably saturated, and after proper calibration they don't look artificial or overly aggressive.

UR8S is a slightly higher-end Mini-LED, so you could expect a lot in terms of brightness. And indeed, on a synthetic test pattern peak brightness reached around 2200 nits. That’s a very good result, but as always what’s much more important is what the TV does in normal film scenes. Here the results are a bit more uneven. In bright scenes, where there’s a lot of light on screen, the UR8S can deliver really strong HDR. Brightness then reaches about 1500 nits, so the image is very intense and has plenty of punch. It’s worse with small bright elements on a dark background. The TV clearly dims them to keep good blacks and to prevent excessive bloom. As a result things like single stars or tiny reflections can be only around 200 nits. And here HDR is no longer as impressive. So you can see that the local dimming algorithm works effectively, but it also has its cost: sometimes it simply sacrifices the brightness of small details in favour of contrast.

Colours

With RGB Mini-LED TVs colours should be judged a little differently than usual. If we look solely at the panel’s native capabilities, the UR8S performs excellently. We measured around 94% coverage of BT.2020 and practically full DCI-P3. These are among the highest values currently found in LCD TVs and this is where the potential of the RGB backlight is most obvious. The problem is that this potential is not always realised in real scenes. When we ran the same measurements on test patterns with a film background applied, saturation of some colours began to fall noticeably. Individual zones are not always able to control the three RGB components so precisely when the scene becomes more complex. This is most visible with blue and magenta. On simple test patterns they can look very strong, but in more demanding scenes samples of those colours visibly shrink. So the UR8S’s capabilities are enormous, it’s just that the TV cannot fully make use of them in every scene.

The factory settings of the QN80H performed really well, especially compared with the majority of TVs we receive for testing. Of course, our measurements were taken in Filmmaker Mode, and that's the mode we recommend turning on immediately after the initial setup. For SDR material, our sample was set up surprisingly well. The white balance was very even, colours looked natural, and errors were so small they were hard to notice without measurement equipment. The only weaker point was the gamma. In the brighter parts of the image the TV brightened them a little too much, which at times made the picture lose some depth. Still, we'd like most TVs to look this good straight out of the box.

It fared a little worse in HDR. The white balance was still set correctly, so the problem was not with the colours but with the way the QN80H managed image brightness. This was immediately visible on the EOTF chart. The TV brightened large parts of scenes too much, causing the brightest elements to clip. Interestingly, very small points were often dimmed too much at the same time. As a result, some fine details simply disappeared. So the factory Filmmaker mode in HDR is not bad, but it is definitely not as well calibrated as in SDR.

For assessing the out-of-the-box colours we used Filmmaker mode, which is intended to show an image that is as close as possible to how the material was prepared. Looking at the white balance alone, the UR8S performs quite well. There is no strong tint that immediately jumps out, although as brightness increases a little too much blue and red start to appear, with a simultaneous shortfall of green. Colour errors therefore show up in measurements, but the image itself does not look bad. We have far greater reservations about how the UR8S manages picture brightness. In SDR the gamma sits around 1.9–2.0 for most of the range instead of the target 2.4. In practice this simply means the picture is too bright, especially in the midtones. Shadows are lifted too much, causing the image to lose some depth. A similar tendency is visible in HDR. The EOTF curve is above the reference value for a large part of its range, so the UR8S again brightens the image more than it should. This is not due to a lack of brightness — the TV has plenty — but to the way it manages that brightness. As a result, HDR content can look very striking, but not always precisely as it should.

We saw the biggest difference after calibration in HDR Filmmaker mode. SDR was already very good out of the box, so we didn't have much work to do there. In HDR, however, we managed to get to grips with the way the QN80H handled brightness, as it had been over-brightening most scenes. After calibration the picture is calmer, more natural and much closer to how a faithful image should look.

Hisense provides plenty of calibration options and, in SDR, these can yield a very good result. After calibration, the white balance is practically even across the entire range, and colour errors fall to very low values. The UR8S can be adjusted very precisely here. HDR is somewhat different. The white balance itself can also be noticeably improved, although at the highest brightness levels larger deviations begin to appear. The most interesting aspect, however, is the behaviour of the EOTF curve. Even after it has been correctly set on test patterns, the UR8S still tends to interpret brightness in its own way when watching films. Depending on the scene, parts of the image are slightly brightened while others are dimmed relative to how they should appear. This shows that the algorithms controlling the local dimming have a significant influence on the final image. Calibration therefore allows colours to be improved very effectively, but we are not able to completely 'turn off' the way the UR8S manages brightness in HDR.

Digital image processing in the Samsung QN80H is handled by the second-generation NQ4 AI processor. It's a chip we already know from the manufacturer's earlier models, and it still performs very well, especially with lower-resolution content. The image is effectively upscaled to 4K, but without excessive sharpening and without giving the impression the TV is aggressively trying to improve the source material.

The "Noise Reduction" function also proves useful. It can noticeably reduce posterisation and visible banding in lower-quality material, particularly in low-bitrate streaming. However, it's important to remember that it does not work without side effects. It can remove some film grain and slightly smooth the image. So with a high-quality source we'd leave this function switched off. If, however, someone is more bothered by banding and uneven tonal transitions than by the loss of some grain, "Noise Reduction" can be a really useful addition.

A big plus of the UR8S is the use of the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor, and digital image processing is one of this model's stronger points. The TV handles smoothing tonal transitions very well, especially with lower-quality content. The feature responsible for this effect works effectively without overprocessing the picture. Even on the medium setting it can noticeably reduce visible banding and unevenness without heavily blurring details. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is displayed cleanly, edges look natural, and the image is not overly sharpened. The UR8S simply copes very well with a weaker signal, and in this respect it is one of its most notable strengths.

Motion handling and motion clarity on the QN80H are really good, mainly thanks to the fast panel. In 4K the screen refreshes at up to 144 Hz, and when switched to Full HD and connected to a PC it can reach as much as 240 Hz. That's new for Samsung TVs and a useful addition for people who want to use the TV for PC gaming as well. We were more interested, however, in how the QN80H performs at 120 Hz, because consoles use that refresh rate. Here it performs very well. The panel does not suffer greatly from the smearing typical of VA panels, and light trails behind moving objects are mainly visible on dark backgrounds. That said, it's nothing that would interfere with normal watching of sport or gaming. The TV also has a motion smoothing system that Samsung calls "Wyrazistością obrazu". You can adjust judder reduction and blur reduction separately, so it's easy to tailor its behaviour to films, sport or your own preferences.

The UR8S is equipped with a panel with a native 180 Hz refresh rate, so right from the start it offers excellent motion handling. The panel itself performs really well here, although some limitations typical of VA panels are still visible. Motion blur is relatively minor for this type of screen, but with faster motion (especially on darker backgrounds) it can still be noticed, particularly when compared with the same image on OLED TVs.

The Samsung QN80H is a TV that stands out when it comes to gaming features. The biggest new addition for 2026 is DLG mode, which allows refresh rates of up to 240 Hz when the image is switched to Full HD. It's an option aimed mainly at PC users, but it also shows that Samsung is still heavily developing the gaming side of its TVs. However, the list of advantages doesn't end there. The QN80H has four full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, which is still not standard at this price point. So you can connect several consoles, a PC or a soundbar at the same time without having to wonder which port supports the full video capabilities. The TV also supports VRR, ALLM and HGiG, so it's hard to fault its basic feature set.

A downside is the lack of Dolby Vision, which may matter primarily to Xbox Series X owners. However, this is not a flaw that disqualifies the QN80H as a gaming TV. Samsung has a feature most manufacturers still lack: its proprietary motion smoothing, Game Motion Plus. It's a motion smoothing system that works in game mode too, allowing you to improve the smoothness of titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second without a drastic increase in input lag. In practice, Game Motion Plus can make a much bigger difference than the Dolby codec, especially in more demanding games that don't offer a 60 FPS mode. The image becomes noticeably smoother, while controls remain sufficiently responsive. So despite the lack of Dolby Vision, the QN80H remains one of the best-equipped gaming TVs in its class.

In terms of gamer features the UR8S performs really well. The TV supports practically everything you can expect from a modern console or PC display. It offers ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120 Hz. There is also Dolby Vision in Game Mode, so when using, for example, the Xbox Series X you do not have to give up that HDR format. PC gamers get even more options. The panel can run at 4K at 180 Hz, and dropping to Full HD can raise the refresh rate to as much as 330 Hz. There is also a Game Bar that lets you quickly check key information and change gaming-related settings. The only clear omission is a correct implementation of HGiG. With it enabled the TV still alters HDR brightness mapping, so we do not get the effect intended by that standard. Aside from that, the UR8S is very well prepared for both consoles and a powerful PC.