Hisense U8Q vs Samsung S90H (WOLED)

When it comes to HDR, Hisense U8Q shows its claws. On paper, meaning in synthetic measurement tests, the television can "score" nearly 4000 nits of peak brightness. That's a value that most models can only envy. In practice, this translates to very strong lighting effects in films – in some scenes, we managed to measure a real 1500 to 2000 nits, which is a level usually reserved for the absolute top of televisions on the market.

Of course, it's not always that perfect. With small, pinpoint elements, brightness can drop – a good example is scene number 4 from the movie Sicario 2, where instead of thousands of nits, we get around 500. But it's worth noting that the effect doesn't vanish completely – the light is still visible, and the image doesn't feel artificially dimmed. This is a typical drawback of Mini LEDs, so it's hard to consider it a significant minus.

On the huge plus side, color reproduction deserves high praise. Thanks to additional coatings that improve color saturation, the U8Q nearly covers the full DCI-P3 color space (98%), and in the case of the wider BT.2020 gamut, it achieved a score of over 80%. This is an excellent result, making HDR films look juicy, vibrant, and simply very cinematic.

The Samsung S90H in the WOLED variant is still an exceptionally bright TV for its price class, although it is slightly dimmer compared to the QD-OLED version. The difference is not as pronounced as in last year’s F series, where gaps could reach as much as 500 nits. Here the specs of both panels are very close, and differences in peak brightness are only about 100–150 nits. In small-area measurements, the S90H on the WOLED panel easily reaches levels close to 1500 nits. That headroom lets it portray HDR dynamics phenomenally—specular highlights, reflections or explosions have the right punch, just as the creators intended in the post-production studio. As with most OLED displays, when a very bright scene fills the entire screen, the protection systems that safeguard the panel kick in and brightness naturally falls to around 700 nits. It’s worth stressing that this is still an excellent result on the market, often noticeably better than many Mini LED screens in the same segment.

Color gamut coverage

The biggest difference between the two S90H variants lies in color reproduction and saturation. This stems directly from the different construction of the WOLED panel, which uses an additional white subpixel. As a result, colors at very high brightness don’t achieve quite the same intensity, and the volume of the wide color gamut is somewhat more limited than with QD-OLED. That said, in everyday use these differences will be hard for most viewers to notice. Our measured DCI-P3 coverage on the WOLED panel reaches nearly 99%, which means that in the vast majority of real film scenes both variants will deliver almost identical images. The true gap only appears in rarer, particularly demanding productions that use the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Due to the WOLED panel’s design, coverage of that standard is about 15% lower compared to the S90HAT with a QD-OLED panel, so the brightest, heavily illuminated HDR colors may appear a bit less vivid.

We have to admit that when the U8Q arrived at our editorial office, we were slightly surprised… and positively so. Usually, televisions require immediate white balance correction – it can be too warm or too cold, which immediately leads to strange color errors. Meanwhile, here the situation looks really good right out of the box. Of course, we are talking about our unit, so there’s no guarantee that every model will be tuned as well, but in our case, the first impressions were very positive. The only more pronounced issue was related to how the television manages brightness. Looking at the EOTF chart, it is evident that the U8Q tends to brighten small elements on the screen. This, in turn, caused what we mentioned earlier – slight overexposures and the impression that the entire scene can sometimes be a bit too bright. However, this is not a flaw that undermines the image, rather it is a characteristic effect of this model.

In Filmmaker mode, which we strongly recommend enabling right out of the box, the S90H offers very good factory color tuning. Colors are natural and faithful to the filmmakers' intent, without the intrusive oversaturation found in more aggressive profiles. However, as is usually the case without full calibration, there can be unit-to-unit variation. In our test the white balance lacked a bit of the blue component, causing the image to lean slightly toward warmer, yellowish tones. This was most noticeable in bright scenes, such as the snowy sequences from Star Wars. Additionally, the gamma curve ran slightly low, around 2.2, which resulted in a slight boost to shadow detail. In HDR mode the tuning was a bit better, showing only a slight undersaturation in the red region.

Of course, we wouldn't be ourselves if we didn't make adjustments to the white balance. After calibration, we managed to align the SDR signal to near perfection – older movies, YouTube content, and classic television looked almost perfect on the U8Q. This is truly an outstanding level that shows this model can do a lot if given a little help. Unfortunately, the situation is different with HDR content. The colors themselves aren't a major issue, but the biggest flaw of the U8Q remains the EOTF brightness characteristics. In practice, the TV tends to "blow out" beyond how the image should look in its original form. It's that slight "blown out" effect we saw earlier in comparisons with the best screens on the market. It's a bit of a shame that this characteristic can't be fully tamed – if we could maintain similarly good control over brightness in HDR as we do in SDR, we would have an absolutely reference-quality image.

After full calibration it can safely be said that the S90H in the WOLED version looks almost perfect. In SDR mode color reproduction errors drop to ultra-low levels, and Delta E values very rarely exceed 2. That's a phenomenal result, so if you care about perfectly faithful color reproduction it's definitely worth considering calibration. The calibrated HDR mode also performs very well, in which the white balance was stabilized and earlier deviations eliminated. After professional tuning it's really hard to find anything to criticize, because the TV delivers an image with almost exemplary naturalness and dimensionality. The slightly lower rating in this category compared with the QD-OLED variant is solely due to the previously described saturation limitation in extremely bright scenes; the tuning options and color fidelity themselves are at the highest level.

The Hisense U8Q handles lower-quality materials quite well. The TV can smooth out tonal transitions thanks to the "Smooth and Gradient Picture" feature – it works best when set to Medium. At that setting, it nicely reduces unwanted bands and unevenness in the image, but importantly, it does not remove cinematic grain or fine details.

The upscaling itself is also at a good level. Images from lower resolutions look smooth and soft, at times even a bit too much – we get a plastic effect that may not appeal to everyone. Fortunately, this can be easily adjusted with the sharpness slider to fit personal preferences.

When it comes to reducing posterization, Samsung has kept the same solutions as last year’s models. The dedicated gradient-smoothing function works quite well and can effectively mask unwanted tonal transitions, which can be useful on a WOLED panel that is somewhat prone to banding. However, keep in mind it acts aggressively. This mechanism, aside from removing artifacts, can clean up fine film grain and slightly soften detail. Ultimately it’s a matter of compromise, but if you care about an absolutely faithful reproduction, it’s safer to leave this option off.

There’s also no breakthrough in scaling. The S90H uses the same NQ4 Gen3 processor as its predecessor, so the quality of upscaling was almost identical. The chip sharpens lower-resolution material very well, extracting a satisfying level of detail. Samsung still hasn’t dealt with the old overscan issue. With some older recordings or archival material the image edges can be slightly cropped. It’s a minor flaw, but it’s a shame the manufacturer still hasn’t eliminated it.

Hisense U8Q has a display that can refresh the image up to 165 Hz in 4K resolution. In practice, this will mainly be utilized by PC gamers, but as they say – it’s better to have it than not 😊. For movies and series, we have a built-in smoothness enhancer called Ultra Smooth Motion. In the settings, it can be easily adjusted to personal preferences – whether we want more of a "cinematic" frame rate or a smooth, theatrical spectacle.

In terms of motion handling, the S90H is simply excellent. This year's panel offers a refresh rate boosted to 165 Hz, though in practice the benefit will be realized mainly by gamers connecting a powerful PC. For movies, TV series, or sports broadcasts, such a high refresh rate makes no difference and the picture looks exactly the same as at the standard 120 Hz. Regardless of the source, the OLED panel's lightning-fast response time does its job, so motion is clean and the ghosting or smearing seen on LCD screens simply doesn't occur here.

In terms of features, the Hisense U8Q has practically everything one could expect from a modern gaming television. Thanks to the new processor, the manufacturer has managed to implement as many as three HDMI 2.1 ports, so there is no problem connecting multiple consoles or a computer. In addition, it includes all the key technologies – Game Bar with parameter monitoring, variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM)... in short, a complete set.

But as is often the case with Hisense, it falls a bit short of perfection. The biggest drawback remains the lack of support for the HGiG format, which allows you to adjust the television's brightness to the console and get the most out of HDR in games. It's a shame because if this feature were included, we would have a device practically made for gamers. As it stands, the U8Q remains "just" a very good choice 😉

Players should feel at home with the S90H, because in that respect Samsung left few reasons to complain. The TV has four HDMI 2.1 ports, each of which supports VRR, ALLM, and high refresh rates. There's also the Game Bar, a handy menu that lets you quickly check key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. Importantly, Samsung has also improved HGiG. In last year's models it could cause issues when used with a console, but in the S90H it now works as it should. What sets it apart from the competition is primarily Game Motion Plus. It's a special motion-smoothing mode designed for games, which works best with titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second. Motion becomes noticeably smoother, while latency remains at a reasonable level. In our measurements it was under 50 ms, so you can still play comfortably. That's important, because on many TVs turning on a similar smoothing mode causes such a large increase in input lag that controls start to feel noticeably sluggish. Samsung has managed to find a good compromise here. There's still no Dolby Vision Gaming, but in practice Game Motion Plus may prove to be a far more useful feature.