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Samsung has doubled down on 8k this year introducing3 new 8k TV models. The Q800T is the least expensive of the 3and is the only one to come in under our price limit of $5000 in the US, so today we're going to look at how this new model performs and see if 8k is worth buying right now. Hey there, I’m Ryan, a lead tester fromRTINGS.com where "WE HELP PEOPLE FIND THE BEST PRODUCTS FOR THEIR NEEDS". Make sure you subscribe to our channel for the latest videos or check out our website for the full review! Before we dive into the picture quality, we'll check out the design of the TV. Then we’ll check out the motion handling and input lag, sound and smart features, and finish up with an overview. As always, you can check out the timestamps in the description or the YouTube chapters to skip to what you care about. We bought the 65 inch model of the Q800T, but we expect our results to be valid for the larger 75 and 82-inch sizes as well. The design of the Q800T follows a similar design language to some previous Samsungs, including this year’s Q90T with the central mac style stand. It’s different than last year’s 8K set than had wide-set feet, but you should still have enough room in front to put a soundbar. The stand is very heavy and supports the TVwell, and won’t take up much room on an entertainment cabinet, though it would probably look even better wall mounted because of its side profile. We can see that it is nice and thin with a sort of boxy style, coming in at about one and a half inches thick, meaning it’ll sit close to the wall. The back has this nice etched pattern in the plastic. The build quality is great, but the back panel of our unit feels flimsy and flexes a lot.
It feels like it can be easily removed and doesn't feel set in place properly. We don’t know if this is a wide set issue, but it was very different than our Q90T which felt great. If your TV has a similar issue, let us know in the comments below. It has nice clean thin bezels with metal edges and looks premium. Unfortunately, this year Samsung removed theOne Connect from a lot of models and that is the case for this set. The Q800T has the standard set of HDMI ports and other connections along the backside of the unit. There are 2 USB ports, an optical audio port,4 HDMIs, an ethernet port, and a tuner. If you have legacy devices that need composite or component, this TV will not work for you. Even though the One Connect is missing, the back of the TV has channels to run cables through and out the back of the central stand, so you should have no issue organising your cables neatly. Alright, let’s check out the picture quality. We'll be comparing to currently available TVs but competing models may change as new TVs are released throughout the year. For an updated comparison with new models, we buy and test them, see the review page on our website which is linked below. First, let’s get an important item out of the way. This is an 8k TV, meaning it has 4x more pixels than a typical 4k TV. This increased pixel density means the TVs a sharper image from closer distances away. 8k photos look exceptionally detailed and play well through the USB port. The HDMI 4 port on this TV supports higher bandwidth signals. When connected to our RTX 2070 Super graphics card an 8k 30Hz resolution appears in the EDID. We were able to send this signal from our PC over HDMI 2.0, but with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling. The TV should accept higher signals, such as 8k at 60Hz, but this seems to require an HDMI 2.1 source, which none are available on the market currently. We will revisit this once we buy an HDMI 2.1graphics card. This 8k support does allow you to play some8k content like YouTube, but with the 30 fps framerate limitation on PC. Luckily, the built-in TV YouTube app now supportsAV1 codecs with the possibility of 8k 60hz content.
There is currently a lack of content and 8ksources, so any image sent to the TV is upscaled from the native resolution up to the 8k resolution of this panel. This means most of the content you’ll watch will always be upscaled. Some people do prefer this as it looks a bit softer, while others might not like always watching outside of the native resolution of the TV. The upscaling is good on this TV, so this shouldn't be a real issue. At 8K resolution, we did notice some subpixel dithering, which is visible in the shadows but only at very close distances from that. Alright, now that we’ve covered the resolution, let's check out the rest of the performance. The contrast ratio of a display is the relative brightness of the brightest whites in a scene compared to the darkest blacks. We measure this on a checkerboard pattern, both with and without local dimming. The native contrast ratio is pretty low fora VA panel and falls in line with other VAs that use a similar Ultra-Wide Viewing angle layer. We’ll talk more about this in a minute, but back to the contrast ratio luckily it gets a lot better with the aid of local dimming. At about 9000:1 it’s great and will deliver a punchy picture. Let’s talk a little more about the local dimming. The implementation of the Q800T is good. In real life content, it looks great, boasting highlights without much blooming and delivering dark inky shadows. Subtitles are well handled this year and should not blind you or have distracting blooming. Apparently, this is due to Samsung using AIto detect subtitles and handle it differently than regular content, and if this indeed the case it’s doing a great job. When looking at our local dimming test pattern, there some problems that arise and stand out. The fast-moving circle makes the individual zones visible as you can see each one turn on or off as it moves, creating a checkboard-like pattern, which we like to refer to as the golf ball effect. It’s very distracting but we never noticed it in real content. A little less of an issue was the slow transitioning zones, that leave a trail of the zones actively dimming behind fast-moving objects. Since these issues only came upon our test pattern and not in real life content, the local dimming should be good for most people. So now onto the viewing angle that I promisedI’d come back to. Samsung has implemented a new version of its ultra Wide Viewing angle technology in the Q800T. We don’t know exactly how this works, but we suspect that this additional layer acts as a lens to diffuse the light from the screen horizontally. Normally VA panel TVs have very narrow viewing angles because of the inherent properties of the panel, but with this added layer on top, it can disperse light at larger angles. This translates to better viewing angles thanVAs can typically produce. The Q800T has decent overall viewing angles, with colours only washing out at angles over 45 degrees off centre. Onto the reflection handling. Good reflection handling is important for bright rooms that may have sunlight or lots of interior lighting, as ambient light can wash out the picture or make it hard to see all together. The Q800T has great reflection handling, although it is not as good as some other Samsungs we’ve tested. Nonetheless, it should be good enough to cut the light from most bright rooms. An interesting thing to note is due to the ultra-wide viewing angle layer and anti-reflective coating, reflections have dispersed across the screen and have a sort of rainbow effect to them as you can see here in our test photo. Another important aspect of combating ambient light in bright rooms is good screen brightness. The Q800T gets nice and bright in most scenes, so it should counteract glare.
It isn’t quite as bright as last years Q900Rin most scenes but can get brighter in some. For SDR content, it is a great performer. In HDR, high peak brightness is important for different reasons, namely to make highlights pop. The Q800T has a great high peak brightness real scenes at almost 1200 nits, helping deliver content to you as the director intended, with the highlight detail intact. HDR also has the ability to display colours from wider colour spaces than SDR, so a TV that can take advantage of this will make for an even better HDR experience. The Q800T has a good colour gamut and colour volume, which means you’ll get wide coverage of the P3 and Rec 2020 colour spaces for an image that really pops. Its colour gamut is not as wide as last year’sQ900R, but still does a good job at filling out its colour volume, which is the wide colours can produce at different brightness levels. Before we move on to the motion handling of the set, we’ll finish up the picture quality with the uniformity performance. We test the grey uniformity of each TV by taking a photo of a 50% grey slide and a dark 5% grey slide. This is meant to show if a display can produce the exact the same colour across the entire screen. Darker areas or blotches are known as the dirty screen effect and can be distracting when watching content with uniform colours such as sports or video games. Unfortunately, this is one area where theQ800T underperforms. There is noticeable DSE in the mid-grey slide, as well as a weird pattern we haven’t really seen before. It’s definitely visible in this photo and in real life, but the camera has a hard time showing it off compared to how our eyes see it, so we took another photo that was heavily edited to show off what pattern to look for. It’s disappointing as it was the first thing I noticed when the TV was being tested, but it is only visible in uniform colours. We don’t know exactly why this is happening, but we hypothesize it could be related to the extremely high pixel density and arrangement of the full-array backlight.
This is one aspect of TVs that can vary due to tolerances in the manufacturing process, but we expect our unit to be representative. Let us know in the comments below if you buy this TV and how yours compares! Okay let’s check out the motion, and we'll start with the response time. To learn more about motion on TVs, check out our video series which is linked up here. Basically, the response time is an average of the time it takes a display to transition from one colour to the next. High response time results in blurry images when watching sports or playing video games. The Q800T has a good response time. The motion looks smooth and doesn’t have a trail behind it, known as ghosting. There is significant overshoot in the dark transitions, but it shouldn’t affect most content too heavily. Last years Q900R had an even better response time, so if you are sensitive to motion, the Q900R is the better bet. The photo of our moving logo also looks smooth and clear, and the backlight flicker at 960 hertz isn’t really noticeable, so while the TV isn’t flicker-free it also shouldn’t be a problem for most people. For those who really care about the clearest motion, black frame insertion is a feature which flickers the backlight, reducing persistence blur. Like the other Samsung’s from this year, BFI is enabled in the picture clarity menu as LED clear motion. For 60 fps content, it flickers at 60HZ and looks good as you can see from the moving rating logo photo, and also flickers at 120Hz for 120 fps content. Now, often one of the most important aspects for gamers is a low input lag. A low input lag means that there is very little, if not an imperceptible amount of time between user input and the action appearing in-game. The Q800T has a great low input lag around10 milliseconds in-game mode at most resolutions including HDR. At 120 fps, that is almost halved at around5 and a half milliseconds. This is definitely suitable for even the most demanding players. Samsung TVs also support Variable refresh rate technologies to deliver a tear-free gaming experience. This year, on top of Freesync and HDMI forum, the Q800T works with NVIDIA graphics cards. This means you’ll be able to experience tear-free gaming no matter which graphics card you use or which gaming console withVRR features you use. The Samsung Q800T supports almost all resolutions natively, including 8k30. It is also supposed to support 4k120 and 8k60, but these resolutions seem to require an HDMI 2.1 source, which currently isn’t available. When they do become available, we will retest the Q800T to verify it supports these resolutions. You can check out and follow the full review on our website for an update on this as it becomes available. So now on to the smart features. Like other Samsungs, this uses the Tizen smart interface which is smooth and user friendly. There is a great selection of apps to choose from and now has the Apple TV app built-in. You’ll find ads on the home menu, but you'll have access to all the apps you’ll need to cut the cord or expand your media selection. And lastly, for the sound. The internal speakers of this set are unfortunately disappointing.
The bass leaves much to be desired and it compresses quite a bit at louder volumes. Luckily it has a flat response in the voice frequencies so dialogue should be clear. You’ll most likely want to upgrade your sound setup to match the great picture, so a dedicated sound system or a soundbar will elevate your experience immensely. Check out our reviews for soundbars to find one that meets your specifications. So overall, the Samsung Q800T is a good performer. If you are looking to move into the maximum resolution territory of 8k, the Q800T is a great option. Last years Q900R and the Q800T trade blows in a lot of categories, and which one will be better for you will depend on what is important to you. For you sports fans or gamers out there, the grey uniformity issue on the Q800T may be bothersome, so the Q900R would be the better option. If you watch a lot of movies or TV shows with subtitles, the Q800T would be the better option. Alright, that’s it! What do you think of the Samsung Q800T? Do you find the 8k worth the price? Let us know in the comments below, and, tell us which TVs you’d like us to review in the future! You can also use the suggestion tool on our website to vote for the product you want to see reviewed. You can check out all of the measurements on our website.
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