Samsung QN85F vs Hisense U7S Pro

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.

Let's start with the fact that the U7S Pro is an impressively bright television. In calibrated mode our measurement equipment indicated a staggering 2,200 nits of peak brightness. This is an outstanding result, especially given that this model is positioned more as a mid-range set. However, as we know, peak brightness on test patterns is one thing and real film scenes another. Unfortunately, in actual video material the backlight output drops noticeably. Admittedly, in the most demanding moments the TV can still exceed 1,000 nits, which is still a great result and fits the mastering standards of most HDR films, but aggressively tuned local dimming algorithms turn out to be the real challenge. Because of them, small bright details, such as stars or the moon in a night sky, are noticeably dimmed. The TV tries to maintain deep blacks at all costs, which is understandable, but unfortunately this comes at the expense of the dynamic impact and the brightness of the HDR effect. The colour reproduction is worth praising. The new U7S Pro is a QLED design that provides very wide colour gamut coverage. Unlike last year’s model (U7Q Pro), this year’s variant is a 'true' QLED rather than a solution based on a PFS filter. As a result, colour saturation has increased noticeably and coverage of the most demanding BT.2020 colour space has exceeded 81%.

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.

We tested the U7S Pro, as we always do, in the best factory-calibrated picture mode, namely Filmmaker Mode. The colours on display can be judged in two ways. The most disappointing was the preset intended for viewing SDR content, that is conventional television, YouTube and other less demanding material. The image there was noticeably yellowish, which turned out to be a direct consequence of an incorrectly set white balance. As our graphs show, this was due to a large deficiency of the blue component, which drastically affected the overall colour temperature. You can see this clearly on the ColorChecker charts and on the colour gamut plots themselves, where most samples shifted towards yellow. Fortunately the factory HDR mode performed much better; there the colour errors hovered around a Delta E of 3, which is already a very solid result.

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.

We know, however, that the company Hisense is capable of much more – as previous generations have demonstrated – which is why we couldn't simply overlook the factory shortcomings of the U7S Pro model in everyday content. As is often the case, the television underwent professional calibration. The conclusions? This process brought about a colossal change. After manually adjusting the white balance and supplementing the deficiencies in the blue component, the annoying yellow tint disappeared as if by magic. White became naturally pure, and skin tones gained the appropriate, healthy hue. Importantly, calibration not only tamed the capricious SDR mode but also allowed us to extract the maximum potential from the panel, reducing average colour reproduction errors to levels nearly imperceptible to the human eye. The only thing we must criticise after the whole process is the very nature of the Mini-LED backlight and its specific interaction with the HDR signal. The aggressively tuned local dimming algorithms significantly interfere with the EOTF brightness curve. As a result, the backlight does not always work perfectly with the creator's intention – depending on the scene being viewed, the curve can noticeably deviate either above or below the reference, which at times disrupts the ideal dynamics of HDR imagery.

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.

The digital processing of lower-quality signals is of a very high standard here, all thanks to the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor used in the U7S Pro. Upscaling itself also performs very well, meaning the TV's ability to lift lower-resolution sources to 4K is strong. We didn't notice any unnatural, sharp contours on the screen, and our test image featuring a model simply looked attractive.

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.

Hisense U7S Pro uses a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz at 4K, and in game mode it can even reach 330 Hz at Full HD. However, it's worth remembering that these top figures matter little in everyday use, because most content is limited to a maximum of 120 Hz (for example when playing on a console). Even so, the TV handles motion quite well and performs very respectably for an LCD design.

It's hard to fault the smoothness itself. In the menu you'll find a motion smoothing feature called "Motion Enhancement", which hides two sliders: blur reduction and judder reduction. These allow manual configuration of the smoother, which works well for both films and sport, effectively improving the raw TV signal.

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.

If you plan to connect a console or PC to the U7S Pro, you'll be more than satisfied. This TV is excellent for gamers. Hisense didn't spare any expense and fitted it with four HDMI 2.1 ports with full 48 Gbps bandwidth, so you don't need to juggle cables, as each port supports the full feature set. It offers automatic low-latency mode (ALLM) and VRR, which operates across a wide range from 48 Hz up to a whopping 330 Hz. Of course, that 330 Hz is for now a bit of a gimmick for owners of powerful PCs, since consoles will still be limited to 120 Hz, but it's good to have that headroom for the future. The Game Bar is also very useful while gaming. It's a handy on-screen menu for players where, without leaving the main TV settings, you can quickly change picture mode, enable a crosshair in the centre of the screen, or even switch to an ultra-wide display aspect, which PC simulator fans will appreciate. The only drawback to be aware of is an incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard in games. The TV ignores the console's HDR10 instructions and keeps forcefully altering the image in an attempt to "improve" it, which makes proper HDR setup in the console menu (where you set brightness using the symbols/checkerboard pattern) somewhat more awkward.