Philips OLED769 vs SAMSUNG QN80F

The Philips OLED769 performs admirably in film scenes featuring small bright elements. With peak brightness reaching around 800 nits, the TV handles light sources like street lamps or stars with remarkable vividness and detail. However, its limitations become evident during scenes with full-screen brightness, such as sun glare, where brightness drops to approximately 250 nits. This is a common challenge for more affordable OLED models, which often struggle to sustain high brightness across the entire display.

QN80F is quite a bright screen – in synthetic tests, it achieved nearly 1000 nits, which allows for reasonable expectations with HDR content. And indeed, in many scenes, the television truly shines. Sequences with a lot of light – such as shots from the movie Life of Pi or wide, bright surfaces in The Meg – look spectacular. Brightness maintains 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, like in Sicario 2, the television has problems – it can dim certain elements significantly, 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 stick to inky blacks or sacrifice some details. QN80F usually chooses the former. As a consolation, it has quite decent coverage of a wide color gamut – DCI-P3 at 93%. This is not the highest score on the market, but it is more than enough for most content on streaming platforms.

The "Film" mode on the Philips OLED769 proved to be the most faithful factory setting for preserving the source material, and it was the basis for our tests. However, like other factory presets, it has a few flaws. Let’s break down the key issues observed in SDR and HDR content.

In both formats, the white balance exhibited a noticeable dominance of green and red tones. This led to a yellowish tint across the image, resulting in yellowed whites and slightly unnatural skin tones. This was particularly evident in the "ColourChecker" palette, where colour samples leaned toward warmer shades.

In terms of contrast and brightness, two critical graphs tell the story: the Gamma curve for HD content and the EOTF curve for 4K HDR content. For SDR, the gamma value dips below the ideal 2.4 level, causing lighter parts of the image to appear overly bright. This overexposure reduces detail and depth in bright areas. In contrast, the EOTF curve for HDR content performed admirably, accurately maintaining details in both bright and dark regions. This ensures realistic, dynamic scene reproduction that enhances the overall viewing experience.

We always test televisions in the best available factory mode – for the Samsung QN80F, this is the Filmmaker mode, and indeed, it offers the settings closest to the creators' intentions. However, this doesn't mean that everything looks perfect. In SDR content, the biggest issue turned out to be an unbalanced white balance – slight deficiencies in green and a noticeable excess of red led to noticeable color errors, and one could almost say there was a pinkish tint to the screen. This was clearly visible in the color checker test, where colors would "escape" their target fields – to the extent that a sensitive viewer's eye could catch it even without the help of a meter.

In HDR content, the white balance was much better, but another problem emerged – brightness management. The EOTF curve caused an overly bright image most of the time, which could affect the perception of contrast and made the screen slightly "flicker" during dynamic light changes. We have already discussed this in the paragraphs about black 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 – that's why we decided to check what this television is really capable of after proper calibration.

After professional calibration, the Philips OLED769 truly excels in colour accuracy. Any yellow tint previously seen in HD and 4K content is now eliminated. The Colour Checker test shows minimal deltaE errors, occasionally exceeding a value of 2, which indicates a nearly perfect representation of the director's intent.

When it comes to contrast, the results are equally impressive. For 4K materials, there was little room for improvement initially, but the gamma curve has been significantly refined. This leads to a more accurate rendering of dark and bright areas, resulting in a dynamic and realistic viewing experience.

Thanks to the calibration, the full potential of the television has been unlocked. The Philips OLED769 now delivers vibrant, natural, and high-quality images, making it an excellent choice for movie lovers and multimedia users.

After conducting a thorough calibration, it was possible to bring most image parameters to a really good level. The white balance in both SDR and HDR appears nearly perfect – the image is natural, neutral, and free of the previously noticeable reddening. The colors have gained depth, and the overall visual reception has become more pleasant and cohesive. It was also possible to partially master 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's no longer excessive dimming of certain elements. In films, it can still be observed that the QN80F has a tendency to slightly brighten the smallest, bright details – this is already a result of the device's construction and the limited number of dimming zones. In short: not everything can be overcome, but what could be improved has been addressed. After calibration, the QN80F makes a really good impression; it simply looks more mature and professional.

When it comes to lower-quality materials, the distortion reduction in the Philips OLED769 does well in smoothing tonal transitions, especially at the minimum setting. It's worth noting that film grain is not blurred, which is a positive surprise, as such negative phenomena often occur with other manufacturers. Overall, this is quite a decent solution. However, it should be pointed out that this setting does not work in HDR mode, where gradation issues are much more pronounced. In HDR mode, the TV struggles with smoothing tonal transitions and may exhibit more noticeable distortions and noise, reducing image quality in dynamic scenes.

As for digital processing, the Philips OLED769 performs well. The model in the photo is not overly jagged, and the branches in the background lack characteristic jagged edges. The TV achieves this effect thanks to the absence of artificial sharpness, which may be an advantage for some users. However, others may find this less attractive as they prefer a more pronounced, sharper image instead of a subtle effect. This effect can be mitigated using a higher setting for the "Sharpness" parameter.

If, while watching lower-quality materials – for example from YouTube – we notice strange color transitions or unwanted artifacts, it’s worth checking the settings and enabling the noise reduction function. In our opinion, the best setting is at the "medium" level – it effectively smooths out problematic color transitions while not excessively blurring the entire image. 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 just turn it off – regardless of the level, the grain always disappears.

When it comes to scaling resolution (i.e., the so-called upscaling), Samsung – as always – performs very well in this area. The QN80F may not compare to the top models worth several thousand, but for its price class, it really performs impressively. Very low-quality materials (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, slightly cropping the edges of the image at very low resolutions, e.g., 576p.

The Philips OLED769 features a multi-stage motion smoother called "Motion Style," which will satisfy users who value the ability to customize motion fluidity in movies. Thanks to this function, the image can be set to be more frame-like or fluid, resembling a theatrical effect. This is a great solution for those who want to match the displayed content to their visual preferences. Gamers will also be pleased, as the TV, like most OLEDs, is equipped with a 120Hz panel. This provides extraordinary fluidity and image dynamics. Unfortunately, the Philips OLED769 lacks BFI (Black Frame Insertion) functionality, which could further improve motion fluidity and sharpness. Despite this limitation, it offers excellent visual experiences for cinema and gaming enthusiasts, one of its main strengths.

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 movie, playing games, or browsing dynamic content on the internet. The image doesn't tear, it doesn't excessively blur, and everything simply looks smooth and pleasant to the eye. Of course, the manufacturer hasn't forgotten about movie fans – in the settings, we find an option for motion smoothness adjustment, allowing us to tailor the effect to our personal preferences. You can leave a more "cinematic" look (for those who enjoy a classic film vibe) or crank up the smoothness to a higher level for a theatrical smoothing effect. Importantly, the choice is ours. Watching movies and playing on the QN80F is simply a joy.

The Philips OLED769 was created with gamers in mind, offering full compatibility with consoles and the highest-quality gameplay. The television received the maximum rating in this category, providing everything one could desire. With HDMI 2.1 ports fully supporting ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), the television ensures smooth and hassle-free gaming. ALLM automatically switches the TV to low latency mode, and VRR eliminates stuttering and screen tearing, resulting in fluidity and stability in gameplay. The Dolby Vision feature for gamers is another advantage, though it only works at 60 Hz. Most casual gamers are unlikely to feel the lack of a higher frequency, but more demanding users may have some reservations. This allows for enjoying a dynamic range of tones and realistic images, enhancing the gaming experience. PC gamers will also not be disappointed, as the Philips OLED769 offers full compatibility with Nvidia graphics cards, thanks to support for G-Sync. This technology synchronizes the TV's refresh rate with the graphics card, eliminating tearing and stuttering, translating to excellent image smoothness.

The Philips OLED769 is a television that perfectly meets the needs of gamers, offering a wide range of advanced features and technologies that significantly improve game quality and user comfort.

The Samsung QN80F is a TV that delivers on almost every front when it comes to gaming. We have a 144 Hz panel, four fully-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, support for gamers in the form of variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency 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 almost the perfect TV 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, what is much more surprising is that... the HGIG feature 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 TV's capabilities. In the latest firmware update for the 2025 models, this option has simply vanished. It looks more like a bug than a deliberate move, but it must be honestly pointed out that as of the day of writing this review, the HGIG feature is simply not available.

And it is precisely because of this one deficiency that the QN80F goes from being almost the perfect gaming TV to a "nearly" perfect device. It's a shame – because everything else indicated that Samsung could set the bar very high once again in this generation.