Samsung S85F OLED vs Haier Q80FUX

For an OLED, the Samsung S85F can truly shine – literally. Under favourable conditions, it is capable of generating brightness exceeding 750 nits. This is hugely significant, as most films are created with displays reaching around 1000 nits in mind. In practice, this means that in scenes with moderately large, bright elements, the image can look simply fantastic. However, it's not always so rosy. When there is a huge amount of light on the screen – whether it's an expansive, bright background or a whole frame filled with white – the S85F has to tone it down. In such scenes, brightness can drop by even four times. This limitation is well-known to essentially every OLED in this price segment, so we do not consider it a particular shortcoming. However, something that deserves praise and sets this model apart from the competition is its colour gamut coverage. Thanks to the QD-OLED panel, our colourimeter recorded values exceeding 100% DCI-P3 coverage and as much as 86% for the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Such results are hard to find even in televisions costing several times more.

Alright, let’s move on to the topic that stirs up so much discussion, namely the capabilities of the television in HDR mode. Let’s state it clearly right away: the Haier Q80FUX is certainly not a brightness demon. The panel of this receiver can generate about 350 nits at peak, which in today’s terms is the absolute minimum to even talk about the presence of High Dynamic Range (HDR). On the positive side, this power is at least stable – regardless of which test pattern or film scene we used, the measurements consistently oscillated in the range of 300-350 nits. These are therefore results that are at best sufficient, definitely far from the dazzling display of capabilities we are accustomed to with more expensive models. Fortunately, there is one aspect in which the Q80FUX compensates for these shortcomings and does so impressively. After all, we are talking about a QLED television (more precisely PFS LED), which means that thanks to the quantum dot filter applied to the panel, it can generate really juicy, vibrant colours. These are not empty promises – a DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage of nearly 95% is an impressive result and directly translates into colours that are very pleasant to the eye and saturated.

Samsung, as befits a manufacturer with ambitions, has equipped the S85F with a mode called Filmmaker. Its task is simple: to ensure that the colours on the newly purchased television are as true to what the director intended as possible. Sounds great… but, as is often the case, a theory that sounds great does not always translate into perfect practice.

In the tested unit, it quickly became apparent that the image – due to an excess of blue and red – looked as though someone had overdone the saturation a bit. As a result, quite significant colour errors occurred, particularly in 4K content. Moreover, there was a problem with brightness – the S85F could brighten most scenes more than it should, taking away their intended mood.

Fortunately, Samsung televisions, including the S85F, offer an impressive number of settings for advanced calibrators. This means that we could test what this panel is truly capable of when placed in the right hands.

Factory settings for movie mode are rarely perfect, but in the case of the Q80FUX, we were confronted with a noticeable imbalance. In SDR content, the image was decidedly too warm, a result of excessive red in the white balance, giving the whole a slightly sepia tone. Ironically, in HDR materials, the television fell into the opposite extreme – an excess of blue caused an unnatural, cold effect in perception. However, it was not the capricious white balance that was the biggest problem with this television. The real culprit, responsible for the aforementioned issues, was hiding deeper. It turned out that the Q80FUX has completely miscalibrated gamma values and, crucial for HDR, a poorly executed EOTF curve. It was these erroneous factory settings that caused persistent clipping of the brightest parts of the image, overlaying them with that characteristic milky filter. Thus, we found the source of the problem. This state of affairs led to general, significant colour errors, which were easy to catch even for an untrained eye. Like every television we tested, we decided to calibrate this model as well, and the results of these adjustments can be found in the next paragraph.

Thanks to the vast number of settings in the menu, we managed to bring the S85F to nearly an ideal level. The white balance in SDR content? Literally perfect – deviations do not exceed the value of “1”. So we can confidently say that in materials with not very high dynamics, we have an image close to reference here.

In HDR content, slight issues have arisen, but they are not significant in practice – most errors fall below the threshold of perceptibility, which is the value of “3”. We also managed to tame the S85F when it comes to brightness management – the EOTF curve, even in movies, holds an almost perfect line. This is one of those cases where after calibration, you can comfortably forget about the settings and simply enjoy films and series at the highest level.

The results of our calibration procedures must, regrettably, be acknowledged as twofold. Generally speaking, the picture is undeniably better than before the corrections; however, the biggest winner of this process turned out to be SDR content. It is precisely there, after correcting the gamma and white balance graphs, that we achieved results that can confidently be called very good. After adjustment, the Q80FUX truly shines in standard dynamics, showing only slight errors in the most difficult skin tone reproductions. Unfortunately, the weakest link remains HDR content. Here lies the paradox: despite having calibrated the white balance to nearly perfection, the overall colour errors still remain at quite a high level. The reason is that the television continues to interpret static HDR10 metadata "in its own way," stubbornly enforcing that unfortunate image burn-out effect, which inevitably leads to significant distortions. Although we have successfully eliminated the factory excess of blue, it is precisely due to this interference of electronics that the screen still tends to stray into somewhat overly cold tones. That is just how this television is.

The tonal transition smoothing function in the S85F works really effectively – it can completely eliminate the problem of visible banding in very poor quality materials, such as those from YouTube. Unfortunately, even the lowest level of this option comes with compromises. Noise reduction is aggressive enough that it can smooth out the film grain that many of us consider a key element of the cinematic experience. At the "Standard" level, we did not notice that this function removed anything significant from the image, so we can recommend this setting. On the other hand, the "High" level is a different story – it can smooth out not only noise but also subtle, desirable details such as the texture of objects.

As for image scaling, the S85F performs very well. The material looks sharp, and the only minor imperfection is slightly visible aliasing of contours. And there’s still the persistent issue with Samsung televisions – overscan. This can cause the frame to be slightly cropped in certain scenes, which is worth keeping in mind when watching very old content.

If there is one area where Haier clearly shows it still has a long way to go compared to the market leaders, it is digital image processing. The upscaling, well... is just alright. And that’s really about all that can be said about it. It does what is expected of it: it ensures that lower resolution signals do not scare us with harsh pixelation on the screen and do not look like a forcibly enlarged postage stamp. However, it is far from the finesse and “intelligent” sharpening that more experienced players in this market have developed over the years. The biggest shortcoming of the Q80FUX software is the almost complete lack of any additional "cleaning" and smoothing functions for the image. The receiver does not offer any noise reduction or gradient improvement mechanisms. This means that with older or heavily compressed materials, we simply have to come to terms with the fact that any imperfections in tonal transitions or blending of colours, which we mentioned earlier, will continually accompany us during the viewing.

The S85F is a mind-blowingly fast television – and this is not just an empty phrase for effect. Thanks to the 120 Hz OLED panel, dynamic scenes, whether in games or while watching a live match, look exactly as they should – smoothly, sharply, and without the feeling that something is “slipping away” from the frame. The lightning-fast pixel response time, typical of OLEDs, plays its part here. Transitions between frames are virtually instantaneous, and the picture remains clear even during the fastest camera movements. A ball flying across half the pitch? A car racing in a chase scene? Here, everything is clear and free from the characteristic “trail” of LCDs.

This is exactly what we expect from a good OLED – no compromises when it comes to motion fluidity. The S85F gives the impression that regardless of the pace of the action, we can focus on what is happening on the screen, rather than the imperfections of the image.

The issue of motion fluidity and blurring is largely predetermined by the use of a 60-hertz panel, which naturally makes it difficult to recommend this receiver to enthusiasts of very dynamic content. Fortunately, in the Q80FUX, we find a few options (although, as we shall see shortly, in reality only one) that are supposed to improve the experience with older film productions. There is a "De-Judder" slider available, which actually controls the smoothness of the image and allows us to adjust it to our preferences: from raw, cinematic frame rates to a more theatrical, smoothed presentation. However, a true surprise awaits us just beside it in the menu. There is also a second slider, supposedly dedicated to removing blur – a feature we typically encounter in 120Hz panels to combat motion blur in sports. However, as we expected, recalling memories from the tests of the K85F model, this slider here is merely a façade. Its adjustment does absolutely nothing to the image and it simply appears to be an oversight by the product engineers who left a non-functional option in the software for this type of panel.

The S85F has practically everything on board to become the dream screen for gaming. Four full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, support for VRR, ALLM, a super-detailed Game Bar that clearly shows all parameters – and on top of that, a gem in the form of Game Motion Plus. This motion smoother makes animation in games more enjoyable, while input lag only increases slightly. This is a rare combination, and it’s a big plus for Samsung.

Now comes the moment when we need to complain a little. The lack of Dolby Vision in Samsung televisions has become standard, so there’s no point in hoping (unless something changes in a few years) – but the disappearance of HGiG after the software update is something hard to explain. HGiG (which stands for HDR Gaming Interest Group) is a mode that allows for precise reproduction of brightness in HDR games, in accordance with the creators' intentions. Without it, HDR calibration on a console becomes less precise, so we can end up with an image that is too dark in the shadows or excessively overexposed.

Perhaps Samsung will fix this in the next update – and we have high hopes for that. Because if HGiG returns, the S85F will become nearly the perfect television for gamers.

Stepping into the realm of gaming, the Haier Q80FUX proves to be quite a decent companion for the "casual gamer". Onboard, we find highly desired features such as VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). However, the biggest surprise is something else altogether. Although we are not dealing with a 4K@120Hz panel here, the television is capable of accepting and displaying a 120Hz signal at a lower resolution (Full HD). This is a very useful feature that allows for a conscious switch of the console to a lower resolution mode in exchange for significantly higher smoothness, which is a compromise entirely acceptable in the gaming world.

We won’t particularly complain about the lack of extras like the "Game Bar", as it's merely a nice addition. The most concerning issues arise when we delve into the world of HDR in gaming. Due to the television constantly adapting the signal "in its own way", setting the brightness on the console according to the HGIG standard is nearly impossible to achieve as per instructions. Worse still, in the Dolby Vision mode for gaming, the input lag increases to around 50 ms, which is a value high enough to render this mode practically unusable. However, in general, we would not recommend gaming on this television in HDR mode, so these are not such grave shortcomings. What is most pleasing is the presence of 120Hz in Full HD, which makes the Q80FUX a rather nice television for the occasional gamer.