Samsung QN80H vs Sony BRAVIA 7 II

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.