SAMSUNG QN80F vs Dreame Q100

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.

Unfortunately, the Dreame Q100 is too basic and, above all, too dim to be said to deliver a true HDR effect. Our measured brightness reaches a maximum of about 300 nits, which is definitely too low for bright parts of the image to truly pop. In fact, that’s a level we more often associate with SDR material than with HDR. It therefore lacks the brightness headroom offered by more expensive TVs that makes highlights, reflections, or the sun look noticeably more impressive.

HDR Colors

Fortunately the Q100 makes up for it a bit elsewhere. The manufacturer calls it a QLED TV, though in practice color gamut expansion is handled by a PFS filter. Our measurements showed roughly 92% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and about 67% of BT.2020. These aren’t top-tier numbers, but they are still clearly better than basic LCD TVs without an additional gamut-expanding layer. As a result, HDR content can at least offer more saturated and varied colors, even if the peak brightness itself still doesn’t allow us to speak of a fully fledged HDR effect.

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.

For testing we chose the "Film" mode and in our opinion it is by far the best of the available presets. There are no heavily boosted, unnatural colors you can see in the Vivid/Dynamic mode. The picture already looks quite reasonable out of the box, though it falls a bit short of perfect. In SDR material the most noticeable issue was a slight warming of the image. The white balance had too much red, so whites leaned toward a warmer tone, and a similar tint was visible in shades of gray. In HDR the situation was a bit different. Here blue had a slight edge, making the image a touch cooler. These are not major faults, though. For such an inexpensive TV, the factory settings on our unit were pretty decent and the "Film" mode delivers a relatively natural image without much fiddling with the settings.

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.

Contrary to appearances, the Dreame Q100 is quite well equipped for image calibration. The menu contains plenty of advanced picture settings that let you adjust its characteristics fairly precisely. In our case most work was needed on the white balance in both SDR and HDR. After calibration, SDR content looked very good. We managed to achieve an almost neutral white balance and natural colors, and the main remaining limitation was the black level itself, caused by the panel design and the lack of local dimming.

In HDR we were also able to improve white balance and color reproduction, but here the TV's electronic limitations become apparent sooner. Even after very precise EOTF curve adjustments, the Q100 doesn't always follow it correctly during real scenes. In some content it can also brighten the image, making certain parts look lighter than they should, and in bright areas some detail can be lost in the process.

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 weakest point of the Dreame Q100 is its digital image processing capabilities. The processor used does a rather mediocre job of improving weaker sources, and the menu doesn't include any function that effectively smooths unattractive tonal transitions or reduces visible posterization. Upscaling itself also fails to impress. With low-resolution content the image is fairly soft and lacks strong detail reproduction. Additionally, the Q100 tends to overscan, meaning it slightly crops the edges of the image with very poor sources, such as 480p content. In everyday viewing of HD or 4K content this won't be a major issue, but with older recordings the processor's limitations are already clearly visible.

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 VA panel used in the Dreame Q100 has a native 60 Hz refresh rate, so from the outset this isn’t a TV aimed at the most demanding sports fans or gamers. The manufacturer does note the possibility of running at 120 Hz, and that option is indeed available, but it mainly applies to a mode intended for gamers. In everyday use the Q100 should therefore be treated as a standard 60 Hz TV. During fast-paced sports broadcasts or quick gameplay this means less smoothness than models with 120 Hz panels or higher. On the plus side, the panel’s response time is decent. The VA panel doesn’t produce excessive smearing, so motion remains fairly clear and doesn’t leave heavy, blurred trails behind objects. For movies you can also use a simple motion‑smoothing system; the manufacturer has prepared several presets that help reduce the characteristic judder in material shot at 24 frames per second.

The Samsung QN80F is a television that delivers on almost every front when it comes to gaming. It features a 144 Hz panel, four full-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 an almost perfect TV for gamers? And indeed, it is almost that way.

[UPDATE] We have updated our reviews of Samsung TVs from 2025 due to the release of software version 1131, which restored the crucial gaming feature HGiG.

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 a console (e.g., PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X) to precisely match HDR tone mapping to the capabilities of the TV. In the latest firmware update for the 2025 models, this option simply vanished. It seems more like a bug than a deliberate move, but it must be honestly noted that as of the day of writing the review, the HGIG feature is simply not present.

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

Dreame Q100 is not a strictly gaming device, but it delivers a pretty reasonable package for console use. You get VRR to eliminate screen tearing and ALLM, which automatically switches the TV to a low-latency mode when it detects a console signal. An interesting compromise is support for a 120 Hz mode. The panel won’t reach that refresh rate at 4K, but if you drop to 1080p you can play at 120 frames per second. If a given title prioritizes smoothness over high resolution (and the game itself offers such a mode), it’s worth using. There’s also a handy Game Bar on board that lets you quickly change screen settings, switch the refresh mode, or add a virtual crosshair. The HGiG implementation is admittedly weak, but credit is due for support of Dolby Vision Gaming on the Xbox Series X and S. This isn’t a panel for tech purists, but for casual console gaming, especially with the option to trade 4K for smoother Full HD, it performs flawlessly.