TCL C8K vs Samsung QN80F

The TCL C8K is a truly bright television. In synthetic conditions – that is, during brightness test patterns – it was able to achieve even 3500 nits of peak brightness in movie mode. This is an impressive result that brings the C8K close to the market leaders, at least in terms of panel brightness. More importantly – these are not just numbers on paper. In films with a lot of bright scenes, such as Life of Pi or The Meg, the brightness clearly exceeds 1000 nits, providing a real sense of HDR effect. The picture in such moments looks very dynamic, colours are vibrant thanks to excellent colour gamut coverage, and lights are spot-on and intense. Just as it should be.

However, this does not mean that everything is perfect. Similar to the contrast tests, compromises also arise here in more demanding scenes. In sequences with very fine light elements – such as stars in the night sky or reflections in dark rooms – the local dimming algorithm can… get confused. Instead of bringing those details up, the television sometimes decides to significantly dim them – to a level of around 300 nits – to maintain blacks. On one hand, this is quite a reasonable approach (better deep blacks than a grey/blue screen), but on the other hand – there may be moments when certain elements of the picture become hardly visible or even disappear into darkness.

TEST UPDATE (20/08/2025) : The brightness control algorithm in this model is quite problematic – an attempt to calibrate the picture so that it does not drastically overexpose the brightest scenes results in unnatural shifts: an improvement in one area of the picture leads to a deterioration in another. The television may achieve slightly higher brightness measurements, but in practice, this comes with a highly oversaturated image that looks very unnatural!

For the sake of order, we provide the brightness values without this adjustment:

1. 1463 nits

2. 640 nits

3. 1368 nits

4. 468 nits

5. 1025 nits

QN80F is quite a bright screen – in synthetic tests, it achieved nearly 1000 nits, which allows for justified expectations regarding HDR content. And indeed, in many scenes, the television can truly shine. Sequences with a lot of light – like shots from the film Life of Pi or wide, bright surfaces in The Meg – look impressive. Brightness remains around 700 nits, which provides a solid effect, sufficient to feel the true "HDR magic." Unfortunately, not every scene looks that good. In materials with small, bright details on a dark background, such as in Sicario 2, the television has issues – it can significantly dim certain elements, sometimes to the point where they disappear from the image. This is the result of a limited number of dimming zones, which forces the device to make compromises: either maintain inky blacks or sacrifice some detail. QN80F usually chooses the former. As a consolation, there is quite decent coverage of a wide colour gamut – DCI-P3 at 93%. This is not the highest score on the market, but it is more than adequate for most content on streaming platforms.

In the C8K, a new picture mode has appeared: Filmmaker Mode. This is something we have known for years from televisions of other brands – a mode designed to deliver the director's vision as faithfully as possible, without unnecessary image enhancements. Unfortunately, with TCL, this still seems to be at a stage 'in need of improvement'. At first glance, the screen appears too warm – the image leans towards reds, which may not appeal to everyone. The white balance was significantly skewed – the screen looked distinctly warm, and the red colour dominated almost every scene. There was a lack of blue, which resulted in an unpleasant yellowing and distortion of the image. But that’s not all. Regardless of whether we were watching regular television, YouTube, or films in HDR – the television had a clear tendency to excessively brighten the image. In the gamma and EOTF graph tests, the lines, instead of sticking to the pattern, strayed, which in practice translates to an overly bright and less contrasty image. Additionally, in the colour reproduction tests, there were noticeable deviations – on the colour wheel, certain points were even 'off the mark'. It must be said plainly: Filmmaker Mode in the C8K in its current form is not very filmic.

We test televisions always in the best available factory mode – in the case of the Samsung QN80F, this is the Filmmaker mode, and indeed, it is this mode that offers settings closest to the creators' intentions. However, this does not mean that everything looks perfect. In SDR content, the biggest problem turned out to be an unbalanced white balance – slight deficiencies in green and a noticeable excess of red led to discernible colour errors, one could even say a pinkish tint on the screen. This was well demonstrated in the colour checker test, where the colours 'escaped' beyond their target fields – to the extent that even a sensitive viewer's eye could catch this without the aid of a meter.

In HDR content, the white balance was much better, but another issue arose – brightness management. The EOTF curve resulted in an overly bright image for most of the time, which could affect the perception of contrast and caused the screen to subtly 'flicker' during dynamic light changes. We have already written more about this in the paragraphs on black levels and HDR. Fortunately, Samsung leaves the user with plenty of options. The QN80F offers a rich set of calibration options, including a 20-point white balance – therefore, we decided to check what this television is really capable of after proper calibration.

After professional calibration, the TCL C8K has made a huge step forward. In SDR content, we managed to almost perfectly set the white balance – the screen has finally stopped being too warm and has acquired a neutral character. The gamma curve, responsible for the way brightness is reproduced, also looks very good now – the image is more consistent and realistic. We also improved the white balance in HDR content – within the limits that the television itself allows. Unfortunately, the C8K still interprets brightness management somewhat "in its own way." When we look at the EOTF chart in films, it is clear that the television brightens entire scenes more than it should. Before calibration, this effect was really troublesome – now the situation looks much better, although it still falls a bit short of perfection. This, however, is a limitation of the device itself, which – despite our efforts – does not allow us to fully tame its nature.

After conducting a thorough calibration, it was possible to bring most of the image parameters to a really good level. The white balance in both SDR and HDR is nearly perfect – the picture is natural, neutral and devoid of the previously noticeable redness. The colours have gained depth, and the overall visual reception has become more pleasant and cohesive. It was also possible to partially master the brightness management, which in the factory version could be problematic. The EOTF chart shows that the television performs significantly better with brightness after calibration – there is no longer excessive dimming of certain elements. In films, it can still be noticed that the QN80F has a tendency to slightly brighten the smallest, light details – however, this is the effect of the device's design and the limited number of dimming zones. In short: not everything can be overcome, but what could be has been improved. After calibration, the QN80F makes a really good impression; it simply looks more mature and professional.

How does the TCL C8K perform with lower quality content? One could say: reasonably well, though without much enthusiasm. The television offers a tonal transition enhancement feature, which aims to smooth out unwanted gradients. In practice, there is a slight improvement, but it is not at a level that will eliminate all imperfections. The feature subtly softens harsh transitions, but does not perform miracles. Film grain is not completely suppressed, and gentle banding on grey backgrounds can still be noticeable. But perhaps that is for the best? – at least the image does not lose its texture or depth, as can happen with televisions that overdo digital processing. When it comes to upscaling, or enhancing the quality of images from lower resolutions, the C8K performs quite well. The picture is sharp, and details – although sometimes slightly softened – remain readable. However, it is not at the level of the best image processors from the competition. On the plus side, it is worth noting the lack of overscan issues, which is the artificial trimming of the image that can still surprise in some models from other brands.

If, while watching lower quality materials – for example from YouTube – we notice strange colour transitions or unwanted artefacts, it's worth checking the settings and turning on the noise reduction feature. In our opinion, the best setting is at “medium” – it effectively smooths out problematic colour transitions while not blurring the entire image too much. However, one must know this: this option tends to remove film grain. If someone cares about preserving this effect (e.g. in older films), it’s better to simply turn it off – regardless of the level, the grain always disappears.

When it comes to resolution scaling (or so-called upscaling), Samsung – as usual – performs very well in this area. The QN80F may not compete with top models costing tens of thousands, but for its price class, it really does impress. Materials of very low quality (e.g. from SD television or older video files) are noticeably improved and look surprisingly decent. The only noticeable drawback is the typical Samsung issue with overscan – that is, slight cropping of the image edges in very low resolutions, e.g. 576p.

If you are planning a weekend with the Champions League or a marathon of F1 races – the TCL C8K won't let you down. The television is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, which means it should handle fast motion well by definition. And indeed – it performs very well. The fluidity of motion is at a very good level here, and the "Motion Clarity" feature with two sliders (motion blur reduction and flicker reduction) makes it easy to adjust the effect to your own preferences. Want to smooth it out a bit – you can. Prefer a cinematic look – no problem.

QN80F is truly a "fast" television. The applied panel offers a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, which in practice means that the screen keeps up with the action – whether we're watching a film, playing games, or browsing dynamic content online. The image doesn’t stutter, isn’t excessively smeared, and overall looks simply smooth and pleasing to the eye. Of course, the manufacturer hasn’t forgotten about cinema fans – in the settings, we’ll find an option to adjust motion smoothness, allowing us to tailor the effect to our personal preferences. We can maintain a more "framey" appearance (for those who enjoy the classic cinematic vibe) or ramp up the smoothness to a higher level for a theatrical smoothing effect. Importantly, the choice is ours. Watching films and playing on the QN80F is simply a delight.

TCL C8K offers practically everything we could expect from a screen for gamers. It features variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), Dolby Vision in games, and a correctly functioning implementation of HGiG, which helps preserve the creators' intentions in HDR titles. The television also supports 120 Hz at lower resolutions without any issues and can even display an astonishing 288 Hz in Full HD – a value that is sure to please fans of dynamic shooters and racing games on PC.

We also find the GameBar – a graphic interface reminiscent of an elongated Nintendo Switch console. It is thanks to this that we gain quick access to information about the current game mode, frame rate, HDR format, and other details that really make life easier for the gamer. Of course, we couldn't resist and launched a couple of races in Forza Horizon on the C8K – and we must admit, it looked and performed really well.

However, there is a slight drawback – in such a fast and evidently gaming device, it is somewhat disappointing that the manufacturer opted for the implementation of only two HDMI 2.1 ports. For some users who utilise several next-generation consoles and, for example, a soundbar with eARC, this might be a certain limitation that is hard to overlook.

The Samsung QN80F is a television that delivers on almost every front when it comes to gaming. We have a 144 Hz panel, four full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, support for gamers in the form of variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), and even one of the best-designed game bars on the market. The cherry on top is the motion smoother, which – uniquely in the world – works in games without significantly increasing input lag. Sounds like an almost perfect television for gamers? And indeed, it is almost that.

As usual, Samsung does not support Dolby Vision in games, but that no longer surprises anyone. However, it is considerably more surprising that... the HGIG function has disappeared – that is, the system that allows the console (e.g., PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X) to precisely match HDR tone mapping to the television’s capabilities. In the latest firmware update for the 2025 models, this option has simply vanished. This looks more like a mistake than a deliberate move, but it must be noted fairly that as of the date of writing this review, the HGIG function is simply not available.

And it is precisely because of this one missing feature that the QN80F transforms from an almost perfect gaming television into a “nearly” perfect device. It’s a shame – because everything else suggested that Samsung could once again set the bar very high in this generation.