Samsung S85D vs LG QNED80A6A (VA)

Brightness is a key parameter in televisions, and the S85D Samsung model offers levels comparable to other OLEDs from a few years ago. Although it does not impress in this regard, its enormous advantage is the very competitive price. A peak brightness of 600 nits ensures good image quality in HDR conditions, giving users a taste of cinematic experiences in the comfort of their home. However, as with many budget OLED models, the biggest issue is very bright, full-screen scenes – in such moments, like the final scene from the film “The Meg,” the television can lose even half of its brightness, which is noticeable compared to more expensive OLED models. Despite this, the television offers impressive coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette at 99%, allowing for vibrant and accurate colours to be displayed.

Let's now talk about how this television shines. If you are expecting dazzling light effects, we need to temper your enthusiasm. The LG QNED80A is a moderately bright television. Our measurements in most movie scenes indicated values around 350-400 nits. This is not enough to speak of a full, cinematic HDR experience and the sense of that famous "high dynamism" offered by flagship products. However, brightness is not everything. Although the QNED80A is not a "light monster," it makes up for it in another crucial category: colours. This is where PFS technology comes into play, which LG marketers disguise under the name QNED/NanoCell. Thanks to this approach, the television offers a much wider colour palette than classic LCD designs. In our tests, coverage of the cinematic DCI-P3 palette reached a solid 93-94%. What does this mean for you? That even with lower brightness, when watching movies in HDR, colours will be vivid, deep, and appropriately saturated. The image is not washed out but rather juicy, which is a significant advantage in this price range.

The Filmmaker mode on the Samsung S85D does offer quite good factory settings, but it is not free from errors, particularly evident in colour reproduction. The white balance chart for HD and HDR content shows clear issues – both red and blue colours are significantly weakened, leading to a dominance of green. The result is an unnatural yellowish hue that can affect the perception of realistic scenes. The Color Checker test clearly shows that the colour samples deviate from expected values – for HD material, the colours can be overly saturated, with a noticeable shift towards green, which is also evident in the white balance chart. Conversely, for 4K HDR content, the colours appear too dull, lacking depth, making the image less appealing and natural. This effect is particularly noticeable in delicate scenes where colour precision plays a key role, which can be disappointing for discerning viewers who expect faithful reproduction of details and colour intensity.

As for brightness, the gamma chart for HD content looks quite good; however, there is a noticeable jump at the end, exceeding a value of 2.4. While this is not a major issue in most scenes, in more demanding sequences it may affect the clarity of bright details. For 4K content, the EOTF curve, responsible for delivering brightness, turns out to be problematic. The initial part of the chart shows a small jump. This phenomenon can result in excessive boosting of brightness in the brightest areas of the image, leading to loss of detail in very bright scenes.

Although Samsung S85D offers quite decent factory settings, especially in Filmmaker mode, it is worth considering manual adjustment of settings to improve some imperfections, particularly in colour reproduction.

It might seem that since the QNED80A is one model, regardless of the version, it should offer the same picture. However, practice shows something completely different. Analyzing the variant with a VA panel in the best factory setting – that is, in Filmmaker Mode – we noticed a specific characteristic. This television, “out of the box,” serves us a picture with a clear dominance of red and a deficiency of blue. Overall, it is very warm, even hot. Many users may describe this as a picture that is “too cinematic,” leaning towards sepia. Additionally, there is the issue of the gamma curve – the television has a tendency to slightly artificially brighten scenes (gamma is too low), causing the picture to lose some depth. The good news is that these are not panel errors, but merely software issues. As always in our tests, we conducted professional calibration, which completely eliminated these shortcomings, restoring the natural white balance and correct saturation.

After calibration, the Filmmaker mode on the Samsung S85D truly impressed. The white balance, regardless of the type of content, has significantly improved, resulting in more natural colours. The Color Checker test shows that colour reproduction errors are now minimal and rarely exceed acceptable values, which indicates accurate colour rendering. The factory colour reproduction left much to be desired, but the situation has now significantly improved – the colours are natural, precise, and look as if they were rendered exactly according to the creators' intentions. This is a huge step forward compared to previous generations, where colours were often distorted or too intense.

The brightness characteristics also benefited from the calibration – it is now more vivid and precise. The gamma, although fairly good previously, has become even more stable, providing a deeper, more natural image. The EOTF curve has been aligned, allowing details in dark areas to be more visible and the contrast more balanced. With all these improvements, the television delivers an image close to reference quality, greatly enhancing the enjoyment of watching films and HDR content.

Was it worth spending time on calibration? Definitely yes. We managed to tame the initial, too warm white balance and, most importantly, correct the gamma curve. The television stopped artificially brightening scenes, which gave the image depth. The greatest improvement is noticeable in SDR content, that is, while watching regular television, YouTube, or playing games without HDR. Here the QNED80A shows its class – colour reproduction errors (DeltaE) have dropped below a value of 2. In technical terms, this means that the errors are virtually unnoticeable to the human eye. The image in everyday use has simply become very attractive, natural, and correct. The difficulties begin with HDR content. Although we managed to improve the white balance, the EOTF curve graph (responsible for brightness at various levels) shows that the television still "interprets" the image in its own way. This stems from the nature of the edge-lit backlight with local dimming and the fact that LG gives the calibrator very little control over this parameter. In short: the television struggles to hide its hardware shortcomings, sometimes ignoring our commands. Nevertheless, the final image is significantly more accurate and pleasant to behold than with factory settings, even if it falls a bit short of studio perfection.

Samsung S85D performs excellently in scaling images and smoothing tonal transitions. Like in other Samsung models, the television offers three noise reduction modes: off, standard, and high. Although it effectively improves gradations, it unfortunately also removes film grain, which many viewers desire to give the image a cinematic character. This grain often adds authenticity and a certain rawness to films, which is lost after smoothing. Removing the grain can make the image look too sterile and smooth, which detracts from the charm of the original film material. When it comes to scaling images, the Samsung S85D handles lower resolution content beautifully – the model in the picture and the branches in the background were displayed correctly, with no major issues with edge aliasing. The only noticeable drawback is the presence of overscan, which can sometimes cut off parts of the image, which may not please everyone.

In this category, the QNED80A proves to be a true "dark horse." It is an excellent, affordable television for those who frequently watch lower-quality content – for example, traditional cable TV. The processor used here handles upscaling, that is, enhancing low resolution to native 4K, exceptionally well. The image after processing is natural, smooth, and, most importantly, not overly jagged or artificially sharpened. In the menu, we also find a dedicated option for smoothing tonal transitions in low-quality content. This feature works really effectively, eliminating annoying "banding" of colours under heavy video compression. However, we must remain vigilant. Remember that we are not dealing with a top-tier processor known from flagship OLED models. In more challenging scenes, the system may struggle and introduce minor artefacts or distortions. Nonetheless, it is definitely worth giving this feature a chance, as in most cases the quality improvement is visibly apparent.

As befits an OLED television, Samsung S85D offers excellent motion fluidity. Equipped with a 120 Hz panel and fast response time, the television provides very smooth playback of dynamic scenes without visible ghosting. For movie enthusiasts, there is a feature called "Image Clarity Settings," which allows adjusting the fluidity of the image to individual preferences on a 10-point scale. Motion blur reduction enhances the sharpness of rapidly moving objects, while motion smoothing smooths out movement, eliminating the "judder" effect. This way, every user can set the appropriate level of clarity that best suits their taste, from a more cinematic effect to sharper, smoother movements.

We move on to a matter that may be decisive for many. Unfortunately, here we must point out the biggest "Achilles' heel" of the QNED80A model. This television is equipped with a panel featuring a native refresh rate of 60Hz. There is no denying it – at this price, we expected more as we know that Chinese manufacturers can offer 120Hz screens for a similar price. Due to this parameter, dynamic scenes in sports or fast-paced games are not the strongest aspect of this display. Fortunately, LG has equipped the television with a proven motion smoothing system called TruMotion. It works quite effectively with film material (24 frames). We suggest playing around with the De-Judder slider – from our experience, setting it in the range of 2-4 provides the best compromise: the motion becomes smoother, yet still looks natural, without the artificial "television theatre" effect.

Samsung S85D OLED is an excellent choice for gamers, thanks to its many modern features that facilitate and enhance gameplay. The television has four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, allowing you to connect the latest consoles without worrying about image quality or frame rate limitations. This means support for 4K resolution at 120 Hz, which is ideal for modern titles. Additionally, the Samsung S85D has an ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) feature that automatically activates low latency mode when it detects a gaming device. This means you don’t have to manually switch settings – the television takes care of ensuring a fast response time, which is crucial in games where every second counts.

The VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) feature and G-Sync support are additional elements that make gameplay smoother. VRR adjusts the refresh rate to the number of frames generated by the console or computer, eliminating screen tearing and stuttering. This is particularly useful in dynamic games where the frame rate can fluctuate. Auto Motion Plus Game is a feature that Samsung has introduced with gamers in mind, and it is worth appreciating. With it, the image in games becomes smoother – 30 frames per second look like 45, and 60 Hz gains in fluidity, creating an effect close to 90 Hz. At the same time, there is no significant increase in input lag, which remains below 25 ms, making this feature stand out among others available on the market. Gamers can enjoy a smoother image without worrying about a decline in responsiveness.

Samsung has also ensured something extra – the television has a built-in Xbox Game Pass app, which means you can play in the cloud without needing to own a console. This is a great solution for those who want to enjoy gaming without investing in additional hardware. All you need is internet access, and you have a huge library of games at your fingertips. This makes Samsung S85D a fantastic choice for both casual gamers and those who are more advanced.

Now that we have established that the QNED80A is a television with a 60Hz panel, we must say it plainly: we will not be playing here at 120 frames per second at any resolution. Does this disqualify the equipment in the eyes of gamers? Not necessarily, especially those "casual" ones. LG has decided to sweeten this technical limitation by packing quite a few useful functions inside. We have support for VRR (variable refresh rate) in the range of 48-60Hz and automatic game mode ALLM, which instantly reduces input lag upon detection of a console. All of this is managed from a very convenient, purple Game Optimizer menu, which has already become LG's hallmark. A big plus goes to the manufacturer for consistency regarding HDR. Although the television does not support Dolby Vision in games on Xbox consoles, LG adds a well-implemented HGiG standard. Thanks to this, even on a moderately bright screen, playing in HDR is clear, and the details in shadows and highlights are accurately reproduced, rather than "cut off".