Samsung S85D vs Samsung Q7F

Brightness is an important factor in televisions, and the S85D offers a level similar to older OLED models. While it’s not outstanding in this area, it comes at a very competitive price. With peak brightness at 600 nits, HDR content looks sharp, delivering a hint of cinematic quality at home. Like many budget OLEDs, though, very bright, full-screen scenes—such as the final shot in The Meg—may cause the brightness to drop by nearly half, which is noticeable compared to pricier models. However, with 99% DCI-P3 colour coverage, the S85D delivers vibrant, accurate colours.

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.

The Filmmaker mode on the Samsung S85D offers the best factory settings, but it is not free from flaws, particularly noticeable in colour reproduction. The white balance chart for HD and HDR content shows clear issues – both red and blue are significantly weakened, leading to a dominance of green. The result is an unnatural yellowish glow that can affect the perception of realistic scenes. The Colour Checker test also highlights issues, with colour samples deviating from expected values – for HD materials, colours tend to be too saturated, with a noticeable shift towards green, as seen in the white balance chart. In contrast, for 4K HDR content, colours appear too dull and lack depth, diminishing the attractiveness and naturalness of the image. This effect is particularly noticeable in delicate scenes where colour precision plays a key role, which can be disappointing for discerning viewers who expect faithful reproduction of details and colour intensity.

When it comes to brightness, the gamma chart for HD content produces positives, but there is a noticeable spike at the end, exceeding a value of 2.4. Although this is not a major problem in most scenes, in more demanding sequences it can affect the clarity of bright details. For 4K content, the problematic aspect is the EOTF curve, responsible for delivering brightness. The initial part of the chart shows a small spike. This phenomenon can result in excessive boosting of brightness in the brightest areas of the image, leading to loss of detail in very bright scenes.

Although the Samsung S85D’s factory settings are reasonable, especially in Filmmaker mode, it is worth considering a manual adjustment of settings to improve some imperfections, particularly in colour 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.

After calibration, Filmmaker mode on the Samsung S85D truly stands out. White balance adjustments across all content types yield significantly more natural colour reproduction. In the Colour Checker test, colour reproduction errors are minimal and well within acceptable limits, reflecting precise and true-to-life hues. Factory settings fell short in this regard, but now colours appear realistic, as though accurately rendered according to the creators’ intent. This marks a substantial improvement over previous generations, where colours often appeared distorted or overly saturated.

Brightness also benefits from calibration, becoming sharper and more refined. The Gamma, already fairly consistent, is now even more stable, delivering a deeper and more natural image. Adjustments to the EOTF curve enhance detail visibility in darker areas and improve contrast balance. With these refinements, the television provides a nearly reference-quality image, greatly enriching the experience of movies and HDR content.

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.

Samsung S85D performs excellently in image scaling and smoothing tonal transitions. Like other Samsung models, the TV offers three noise reduction modes: off, standard, and high. While it improves gradation well, it unfortunately also removes film grain, which many viewers desire to give the image a cinematic character. Grain often adds authenticity and a certain rawness to films, which is lost after smoothing. Removing grain can make the image look too sterile and smoothed out, which takes away some of the charm of the original film material. As for image scaling, the Samsung S85D handles lower resolution content perfectly – the model in the photo and the branches in the background are shown correctly, without significant jagged edge issues. The only noticeable drawback is the presence of overscan, which can sometimes cut off parts of the image, which may not be to everyone's taste.

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.

As expected from an OLED television, the Samsung S85D offers excellent motion fluidity. Equipped with a 120 Hz panel and a fast response time, the television delivers very smooth playback of dynamic scenes without visible blurring. For movie enthusiasts, there is a feature called "Image Clarity Settings," which allows you to adjust motion fluidity to individual preferences on a 10-point scale. Motion blur reduction increases the sharpness of fast-moving objects, while judder reduction smooths out motion, eliminating the "stuttering" effect. This allows every user to set the appropriate level of clarity that best suits their taste, from a more cinematic effect to clearer, smoother movements.

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 Samsung S85D is an excellent choice for gamers due to its many modern features that facilitate and enhance gameplay. The TV has four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, allowing you to connect the latest consoles without worrying about image quality or frame rate limitations. This means support for 4K resolution at 120 Hz, which is ideal for modern titles. Additionally, the Samsung S85D has an ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) function that automatically switches to low latency mode when it detects a gaming device. This way, you don't have to manually switch settings—the TV takes care of ensuring a quick response time, which is crucial in games where every second counts.

The VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) feature and G-Sync support are further elements that make gameplay smoother. VRR adjusts the refresh rate to match the frame rate generated by the console or PC, eliminating screen tearing and stuttering. This is particularly useful in dynamic games where the frame rate can fluctuate. Auto Motion Plus Game is a feature that Samsung has introduced with gamers in mind, and it's worth appreciating. Thanks to it, the image in games becomes smoother—30 frames per second looks like 45, and 60 Hz gains fluidity, approximating a 90 Hz effect. Meanwhile, there is no significant increase in input lag, which remains below 25 ms, distinguishing this feature from others available on the market. Gamers can enjoy smoother visuals without worrying about a decline in responsiveness.

Samsung has also taken care of something extra—the TV has a built-in Xbox Game Pass app, which means you can play in the cloud without the need for a console. This is a great solution for those who want to enjoy gaming without investing in additional hardware. All you need is internet access, and you have a vast library of games at your fingertips. This makes the Samsung S85D a great choice for both casual gamers and more advanced ones.

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.