Samsung QN85F vs LG OLED G6 (G64LW, G66LS)

Although the more than double number of dimming zones compared to its predecessor has not translated into a spectacular jump in black levels and contrast, we definitely felt it in the HDR effect itself. The QN85F is up to 50% brighter than last year's model, making a huge impression in dynamic scenes. The peak brightness can reach nearly 1700–1800 nits, which is truly impressive in this Mini-LED class. The best part is that almost regardless of the scene being viewed, the HDR effect remains strong and vibrant. In four out of five test scenes, the brightness was around 1000 nits, a level that in most cases allows viewers to feel the true magic of this format. Of course, in scene number 4 from the movie Sicario 2, the limitations of Mini-LED technology become apparent – the brightness of the helicopter's spotlight drops to around 500 nits. It's not an outstanding result, but it's still much more acceptable than in last year's model. Samsung deserves applause, as the improvement in brightness in the QN85F is substantial compared to its predecessor. However, it's a pity about a certain trend seen in this year’s televisions – the manufacturer has worsened the color gamut coverage. Although the QN85F has a QLED panel, its result of around 90% DCI-P3 is average, and in the most demanding films, it can lead to less vibrant colors than in the predecessor. Despite this shortcoming, the overall HDR effect is at an excellent level and really makes a big impression in this class of devices.

The LG G6 is currently one of the brightest OLEDs on the market. Its peak brightness reaches nearly 2500 nits, and best of all – this has a direct impact on real film scenes. The television flawlessly pulls out details in the bright parts of the image. And this is regardless of whether we are talking about very small points like stars in the sky or slightly larger elements on the screen. Naturally, with full-screen, uniformly white scenes, the brightness of the G6 decreases due to the panel's protection system (ABL). However, in real, varied film shots, this value still hovers around 2000 nits, which can be considered an outstanding result. The coverage of the color palette also deserves praise. The new 2nd generation Tandem OLED panel brought only a cosmetic change, but still an improvement. The DCI-P3 color gamut coverage reaches nearly 99.5%, while the ultra-wide BT.2020 is around 84%. These are very good results, although one must remember one thing: at extremely high brightness levels, the volume of colors will be lower than in QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display due to the use of a white sub-pixel (WOLED). However, in everyday content and most films, detecting this difference will be very difficult.

The Samsung QN85F offers several preset picture modes, but out of the box, the television starts in "Eco" mode. We could actually end the discussion here, because for such a model, using this setting makes no sense – the picture is washed out, unpleasant, and far from what we expect from a television of this class. Therefore, we conducted our tests in the best available mode, which is the Filmmaker mode. Its purpose is to faithfully reproduce what the directors saw while filming, and indeed, this setting performs best among all the factory options. However, this does not mean it is free of flaws.

Both in SDR and HDR, the QN85F strongly highlighted warm colors. This stemmed from a lack of white balance, with a noticeable absence of blue. Additionally, the picture sometimes appeared overexposed – both the gamma brightness characteristic and the EOTF curve indicated that the television has a tendency to blow out scenes. In SDR, the color reproduction errors (Delta E at levels of 4–5) were still acceptable, but in HDR, the inaccuracies became really significant and clearly deviated from what the creators intended to show us. Fortunately, Samsung provides a wide range of calibration tools in its televisions, so – as always – we proceeded with professional calibration to see how much could be improved.

We tested the LG G6 in the best factory mode for color fidelity, which is FILMMAKER MODE. For our test unit, this mode was fairly well-tuned right out of the box. In SDR content, the only thing we could nitpick was the white balance, which leaned towards warmer tones. As a result, the image could sometimes appear slightly yellowed; however, overall, it wasn't a bothersome issue. The G6 performed a bit worse with HDR content. There, we noticed too much blue component in the white balance. This caused the image to take on cooler shades, resulting in quite noticeable errors. As can be seen in our ColorChecker chart, colors were indeed shifting towards these cooler registers. Nevertheless, for factory settings, the television displayed a completely decent level. However, we know that OLED screens – especially those from LG – respond wonderfully to professional calibration, which is why we immediately proceeded with it.

After calibrating the movie mode, we managed to tame the colors in both modes to nearly perfection – most of them did not exceed an error value of 3, which is the limit of visibility to the human eye. The image became more natural, fuller, and at the same time devoid of the blooming that was noticeable right after taking the TV out of the box. This shows how much potential lies in the QN85F and how well it responds to precise settings. However, this does not change the fact that certain technological barriers cannot be overcome. Despite the significant benefits of calibration, limitations of the panel itself still remain. Although the number of dimming zones has doubled compared to its predecessor, the algorithms controlling the backlighting can manipulate brightness in their own way. Sometimes this leads to slight color distortions or subtly visible halo effects around bright objects. Nonetheless, the reception after calibration is really pleasant and shows how good a screen the QN85F can be if we just take a moment for the right settings.

After conducting a professional calibration, we gained complete control over the panel, and we were able to adjust all parameters to nearly zero. We managed to perfectly tune the white balance, which made the factory-cool and warm tints disappear from the screen. The effects are clearly evident in the ColorChecker test – the average color reproduction errors dropped below the critical value of 1-2. And what does that mean? PERFECT colors, with no distortion whatsoever! However, from a reviewer's obligation, we must comment on how the LG G6 autonomously manipulates brightness, for which the EOTF curve is responsible. When we look at the standard synthetic graph, it may seem that the line is quite straight. The situation changes, however, when we turn on the measurement filter, which shows how the television interprets brightness in real, moving film scenes (EOTF in MOVIES). At that point, it becomes clear that some of the smallest fragments on the screen are slightly over-brightened by the algorithm. Of course, for the average viewer, such a deviation will be practically unnoticeable, but in the test of such an expensive screen, it is worth noting – especially since we are talking about a model that has huge aspirations to be the best television of the year.

Although the native tonal transitions on the QN85F perform excellently with 4K materials, we don't always deal with content in the highest resolution. That's when it becomes crucial how the television handles upscaling and digital image processing. This process is managed by Samsung's proprietary processor – AI NQ4 Gen2. In practice, it works very efficiently. If visible color banding or other undesirable phenomena appear on the screen, for example in materials from YouTube, they can be easily smoothed out using the "noise reduction" function. Set to medium, it improves tonal transitions while not excessively blurring desired details. However, it's important to remember that – as with most Samsung televisions – this feature significantly affects the film grain. Therefore, during movie screenings, it's advisable to use it cautiously to maintain the natural character of the image.

The upscaling itself looks very good. Test materials in lower resolutions were displayed sharply and clearly, with a lot of detail. The only drawback remains the issue of overscan, which is cutting off the edges of the screen. In most situations, this is not noticeable, but with very old materials below HD quality, there may be instances where part of the image on the left side is slightly cropped.

No matter what one may say about the G6's problems with near-black signal, it must be fairly acknowledged that it handles highly compressed material and lower resolution content brilliantly. All unwanted, ugly tonal transitions are effectively reduced here by the “Smooth Gradation” feature. On the “Low” setting, the algorithm operates flawlessly – effectively masking the artifacts resulting from strong compression, without destroying the sharpness and details in the frame. Higher levels of this feature indeed smooth the image even more, but they start to blur the real texture elements of objects, which is why we recommend keeping this slider at a low level. As for the upscaling to 4K, the processor does an excellent job – edge sharpness and detail reconstruction are at the highest level, and in this respect, the G6 does not lag behind the world's best.

Motion blur and fluidity of motion in the QN85F is a topic worth discussing in more detail, as the television is equipped not with a standard 120 Hz panel, but with a 144 Hz panel. The additional hertz will primarily be appreciated by PC gamers, but the mere presence of such an option can be seen as a nice addition and a sign of the times – it’s hard to complain about the trend towards faster panels, since in practice, each of us would like the image to be as fluid as possible. However, the most important thing is how the television handles typical 120 Hz refresh rates – in the case of consoles, sports, or films recorded at 24 or 30 frames per second. And here, the QN85F performs really well. In movies, you can easily adjust the character of the image thanks to the “picture clarity” function, where we find two adjustable sliders. Key for viewing sessions is the one responsible for reducing motion blur. Lower values give the image a more cinematic character with preserved “frame rate,” while higher values lead to a strong smoothing that resembles television theater.

The LG G6 is an OLED television, so in the category of motion fluidity, it traditionally deserves the highest ratings. The television supports a very high refresh rate of up to 165 Hz in 4K resolution, but most importantly – you will not see any signs of blurring on the screen. The response time of the panel is incredibly fast, ensuring that dynamic images remain perfectly sharp.

The Samsung QN85F makes a great impression in terms of features for gamers. It has four HDMI 2.1 ports, so we can easily connect several devices at once. There is also variable refresh rate (VRR) to prevent screen tearing, as well as automatic game mode (ALLM), which allows the TV to switch to the appropriate settings automatically when we start the console. Additionally, it supports refresh rates of up to 144 Hz – something that PC gamers will particularly appreciate, but the mere fact that such an option is available shows that Samsung is fully supporting gamers. The Game Bar panel deserves praise as well. It's a quick glance at key parameters – from frame rate to refresh mode to shortcuts for picture settings. Instead of sifting through the entire menu, everything is at our fingertips, which turns out to be really convenient in practice. However, the most interesting addition is the Game Motion Plus feature. It's nothing more than motion smoothing, transferred into the gaming world. When enabled, the picture becomes smoother, sometimes it even looks as though we're getting several more frames, and importantly, the response delay does not increase enough to interfere with gameplay. This solution truly sets Samsung's 120Hz TVs apart from the competition.

[UPDATE] We have updated our tests of Samsung TVs for the 2025 model year due to the release of software version 1131, which restored the crucial feature for gamers, HGiG.

The only serious downside remains the lack of proper HGiG support. This is a standard responsible for correct tone mapping in HDR games, ensuring that brightness and contrast are displayed as intended by the creators. Without HGiG, we have to adjust the brightness manually, which doesn’t always yield ideal results. The feature was available in previous models, but it disappeared from the QN85F after one of the updates. We hope that Samsung will quickly fix this issue, and we will keep checking to see if it has been resolved.

LG G6 is a true monster for gamers and one of the best-equipped TVs in this regard on the market. The manufacturer did not seek compromises and equipped this model with as many as four full HDMI 2.1 ports with a maximum bandwidth of 48 Gbps. This means that no matter which port you plug your PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or powerful PC into, you will extract the absolute maximum from them.

The TV supports a full suite of gaming technologies: from VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), through AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, to Nvidia G-Sync Compatible. Let's add to this the remarkably low, almost imperceptible input lag and a brilliantly functioning gamer panel (Game Optimizer), which allows you to continuously monitor the signal parameters. Gaming on this screen, with the perfect black of OLED and powerful refresh rates, is pure pleasure.