Philips OLED909 vs Samsung Q7F

The Philips OLED909 impresses with the quality of its HDR effect, achieving up to 1500 nits of peak brightness in tested scenes. This is an excellent result, placing this television among the best OLED models on the market. The MLA matrix, also used in models like the Panasonic Z95A and LG G4, plays a key role here, allowing for exceptionally bright and detailed reproduction of dynamic scenes. However, it's worth noting that in the most demanding scene from the movie The Meg, the brightness drops to around 700 nits. This is a typical phenomenon in OLED technology, where intensely bright full-screen images cause a limitation of luminance. Nevertheless, the HDR effect still looks very good, and the television performs better than most competitors under similar conditions. The wide color gamut coverage also deserves praise. The OLED909 offers 95% coverage of DCI-P3, ensuring the television can display vivid and realistic colors.

Unfortunately, the Samsung Q7F is not one of the bright televisions, and this directly affects the quality of HDR movies. The peak brightness of the panel is only about 250 nits, which is definitely too low to speak of true cinematic experiences. In practice, the image in HDR content does not differ significantly from classic SDR, making it hard to talk about any "wow effect" that usually accompanies us while watching such films. During testing movie scenes, the image simply looked dim, and brightness almost invariably hovered around the mentioned 250 nits. The worst performance was observed in shots with small, intensely glowing elements – the applied global dimming technique reacted very aggressively, dimming the entire screen to maintain the black effect. On the plus side, it is worth noting the presence of a QLED coating that expands the color palette. As a budget QLED model, the Q7F performs quite decently here: its DCI-P3 color coverage is about 93%, and BT.2020 reaches 70%. This means that colors, despite the low brightness, can look quite vivid and attractive.

Like other televisions, the Philips OLED909 has been tested for color reproduction in factory modes. The best mode turned out to be Filmmaker Mode, but despite its name, it is not free of flaws.

The biggest problem is the white balance. Both in HD and 4K HDR content, there is a noticeable dominance of green and red shades, which causes a distinct yellowing of the screen. This effect is particularly visible in test materials, for example in the scene with Tom Cruise in the foreground, where the difference compared to the calibrated image is very clear.

Regarding brightness characteristics, the gamma in HD materials was boosted too much - it was below the reference value of 2.4, which gave the image a "milky" filter and affected the overall clarity. In the case of 4K HDR content, we noticed the opposite phenomenon – there is a clear drop at the beginning of the EOTF curve, indicating problems with reproducing the smallest details in dark scenes. Although the Filmmaker mode offers acceptable quality, noticeable errors in white balance and brightness characteristics show that the television requires additional calibration to fully reveal its potential in color reproduction.

The factory color reproduction in the Samsung Q7F definitely isn't one of its strong points. In Filmmaker mode, which theoretically should be closest to neutral, the white balance issue is immediately noticeable. There's too much red on the screen, while blue is noticeably lacking. The effects of this are very easy to see – white, instead of being neutral, takes on warm, almost slightly orange tones. Over time, this makes the entire image look somewhat unnatural, and bright areas of the scene can seem unrealistic. The problems become even more apparent in HDR content. The graphs show that the TV has significant errors in the Color Checker palette, which translates to visible inaccuracies in the real image. In practice, this means that colors are not presented as they should be. The Q7F also heavily manipulates brightness; darker elements are overly boosted, causing them to lose their cinematic feel, while bright parts can appear dimmed. As a result, the image seems flattened, and instead of helping to bring out details, contrast only highlights its own limitations. This is particularly frustrating in HDR materials, as every detail matters there. In scenes where a subtle play of light and shadow should be felt, the Q7F either overdoes the brightening or, conversely, suppresses elements that were meant to draw the eye. This causes the image to lose its depth, and instead of cinematic realism, we get more of a simplification effect.

Philips OLED909 offers tools for image calibration, which significantly improves its quality. After calibrating the Filmmaker Mode, the television presents a much more natural color reproduction. The white balance after calibration looks very good. Although we noticed slight deviations in the blue hue in HD content, the errors fall within acceptable limits, and the image looks much better than in factory settings. The brightness characteristics, including gamma and EOTF, have also been distinctly improved. The television no longer has issues with excessive brightening or darkening of the image. Both dark and light details are now rendered correctly, making the image look very good in every scene. After calibration, the Filmmaker mode in the Philips OLED909 offers excellent image quality that will meet the expectations of even the more demanding users. The calibration fully utilizes the potential of this model.

After professional calibration, we managed to bring the Q7F in order – at least in terms of SDR content. The picture in this mode looks really good: the white balance has been set correctly, the colors appear natural, and errors in the color palette have dropped to values that are practically invisible to the eye. The gamma behaves excellently, and the only minor drawback is a slight brightening of smaller elements, which results from the lack of local dimming. For everyday TV watching or standard quality films, the Q7F performs surprisingly well.

It was much more difficult to tame HDR content. Despite adjusting the white balance, the television continues to manipulate brightness significantly, causing scenes to sometimes look unnatural – what was meant to be subtly darker can end up being overly brightened, and bright parts of the image sometimes appear dull. The final effect is better than in the factory settings, but it is evident that the design limitations of the Q7F do not allow for fully utilizing the potential of HDR materials.

Philips OLED909 offers a distortion reduction feature aimed at smoothing tonal transitions. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this feature leaves much to be desired. Setting it to "Medium" yields some results, but it comes with the risk of blurring essential details in the image. For this reason, we do not recommend using this option unless you are focused on mitigating visible artifacts at the expense of detail.

When it comes to image scaling, the television presents a very pliable image, which may appeal to viewers who prefer a softer image. Those expecting sharper clarity will also find a solution, as image scaling can be adjusted according to individual preferences in the settings.

Upscaling and digital image processing in the Q7F is a bit of a sine wave. On one hand, we have really nice upscaling – weaker sources look better than one might expect. The image becomes clearer, sharper, and even older movies or terrestrial TV hold up well. Samsung has been strong in this area for years, and the Q7F confirms that. On the other hand… things start to get tricky. The TV has a problem with overscan – part of the image is simply cut off, and it looks rather unrefined. Additionally, we were let down by a feature called "noise reduction," which should improve the smoothness of tonal transitions in weaker materials. In other Samsungs, it works relatively well, but here it practically makes no difference – the banding in gradients remains. It's a bit disappointing because we could have expected more from a model that is aimed at users looking for a display for SDR content.

The Philips OLED909 with a 144 Hz panel offers excellent image fluidity, which should satisfy both movie lovers and gamers. Additionally, the television is equipped with a smoothing feature called "Motion Style," which allows precise adjustment of image fluidity to personal preferences. In the settings, we find two sliders: "Fluidity," which regulates the fluidity of motion in movies, and "Motion Blur Reduction," which helps eliminate minor artifacts and distortions in dynamic scenes. This feature works well, making even fast movements on the screen clear and readable.

Motion blur and motion fluidity in the Q7F is probably the most budget-conscious element of this TV. The 60 Hz panel is noticeable, with blur being quite evident, especially in dynamic scenes, and it's rather difficult to consider this model as equipment designed for watching sports or playing fast-paced games. In tests with the little green man, there was a long tail, and the ball in a football match would leave trails behind it.

On the plus side, the presence of motion smoothing is commendable. It really makes a difference in movies - especially since most materials are recorded at 24 frames. Here we can decide for ourselves whether we prefer a more "cinematic" image, with the slight jerkiness characteristic of cinema, or a smoother, more "television-like" one. This actually works quite well and helps improve the viewing comfort for series or movies.

The Philips OLED909 is a television that meets practically all the requirements of gamers. Equipped with ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), and support for Dolby Vision, it guarantees excellent gaming experiences. Additionally, the television offers very low input lag, ensuring that the response to player movements is instantaneous, which will be especially appreciated by fans of dynamic games.

The television easily supports any resolution at 120 Hz, and even higher refresh rates. The HGiG feature, responsible for the correct display of HDR content in games, works as it should, making the image in game mode balanced and tailored to the guidelines of console manufacturers.

The OLED909 also includes a Game Bar feature that allows for quick previewing and changing of game-related settings. Although the interface of this solution may seem less visually appealing than that of competitors, it serves its purpose well by offering all the most important options in one place.

Features for gamers in the Samsung Q7F is a topic that evokes quite a bit of mixed emotions. On one hand – no sensible person expected miracles here, after all, it's a 60 Hz television, and it was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't be a device to extract the maximum from a console or PC. On the other hand, since the manufacturer promised specific solutions in promotional materials, it's natural that we wanted to see them in practice. At the start, it's quite decent. The automatic game mode (ALLM) works, so there's no need to manually fiddle with the settings; the console switches the TV to low latency mode by itself. Additionally, we have the Game Bar, which looks impressive and allows you to check a few basic parameters without leaving the game. And this is where the good news ends.

The biggest problem with the Q7F is VRR, or rather its absence. Indeed, a relevant icon appears in the menu, and you can even see it in the Game Bar, but throughout the entire test, the function remained dead and could not be activated in any way. The issue with HGiG is even more painful; this option was actually available at the beginning, but after a software update, it disappeared completely, which is simply unprofessional. Therefore, the Q7F is only suitable for absolute basics. Sure, you can turn on the console, play more mellow titles, and enjoy low input lag, but if someone is counting on more advanced features that the manufacturer promised, they will be disappointed. This is not a television intended for gaming, and it's better to be aware of this before purchasing.