Televisions

While the smart system is the same richly populated but frustratingly counter-intuitive affair found on Samsung's QN95B, this flatscreen further bangs the flagship drum with its audio system. Dolby Atmos decoding plays footsie with a premium version of Samsung's Object Tracking Sound system, where speakers are built around the TV's frame to deliver precise detail placement. In the 75QN900B's case, this OTS implementation is a 6.2.4-channel speaker configuration, with more potent amplification. These audio specs help to deliver a soundstage that feels both larger and more precise than the QN95B. Action scenes in the 4K Blu-ray of Uncharted, including the opening plane sequence, enjoy a strong sense of scale, spreading the sound far beyond the TV's borders. At the same time, in-image effects such as gunshots and dialogue all sound not just locked to the screen, but locked to the correct part of the screen. And unlike many Samsung TVs, the sound just about keeps expanding to accommodate the loudest climaxes of Uncharted's action scenes, rather than giving up halfway through.

HDR Sparkle
But it's the pictures we're really interested in, and these are almost brutally brilliant. The impact of those 4,000 nits is immediately noticeable in fullscreen bright HDR shots, such as the revisited plane sequence in Uncharted's latter stages, which look more like natural daylight than I've seen on any other set.

Peak brightness highlights, such as the sun hitting the waves in the Banda Sea, or the lights in the plane's cargo hold, also benefit. It's a shame the QN900B doesn't support the Dolby Vision master the Uncharted 4K BD carries, but you can hardly say it doesn't deliver serious HDR sparkle.

And while the TV outguns Samsung's already stellar QN95B in both these brightness-related respects, it most makes its flagship status pay in the intensity with which it's able to reproduce small bright highlights within predominantly dark scenes. In Uncharted, as Sully and Nathan search the hidden galleons, the treasure they find gleams exceptionally brightly against the dark backgrounds, and the shafts of sunlight that occasionally erupt through the old timbers look dazzling. What's more, the huge number of dimming zones means there's hardly ever so much as a hint of backlight clouding or blooming. In short, you get ultra deep, inky black levels almost as good as anything you might get from an OLED TV, together with incredibly intense highlights and peak brightness levels. Colours enjoy huge volumes and intensity, especially when using the hard-to-resist Standard picture preset. The gemstones littered throughout Uncharted look all the more enticing, while the expanded colour gamut you get with almost all HDR content has never being more explosively obvious.

Crucially, though, colours aren't just rich. They also retain more than enough subtlety to keep picture areas looking real rather than cartoonish – something which ensures you get that three-dimensional feeling associated with the best 4K experiences. In fact, watching a good 4K transfer like Uncharted actually feels like an 8K experience, thanks to the sense of definition, realism and depth. While Samsung's default motion settings are a bit of a mess, creating too many unwanted digital side effects, with a little manipulation – try Custom mode with blur and judder reduction set to three or four – motion can look quite crisp and authentic.

Fast And Fluid
As for gaming, this was the most fun I've ever had from a TV. An incredibly fast response time, plus peerless levels of brightness, fluidity and detail, made Elden Ring's incredible open world look even more darkly beautiful, and Call of Duty's fast-paced environments feel even more claustrophobic.

Caveats are those default motion processing issues, backlight blooming becoming apparent if you have to watch from an angle, and the need for some tinkering with the presets – the generally most watchable Standard setting can crush detail out of dark areas, so you might want to tinker with the Contrast Enhancer feature, or switch to the less dynamic-feeling Movie or Filmmaker Mode options. Also, low-quality HD sources do look a bit soft once they've been upscaled to 8K. These picture flaws are mostly either avoidable with a little adaptation, or scarcely seen at all. So while there's stronger competition than ever from the OLED world, for sheer, unadulterated home cinema spectacle, the 75QN900B is in a class of its own.

HCC Verdict

Samsung QE75QN900B

Price: £7,799
www.samsung.com/uk

We say: If you can afford it, the QE75QN900B delivers an awe-inspiring mix of brightness that only an LCD TV can achieve – and black levels no LCD TV has any right to achieve.

Overall: 5/5

Specifications

4K: Yes. Actually 8K (7,680 x 4,320 resolution) HDR: Yes. HDR10; HLG; HDR10+ TUNER: Yes. Freeview HD; Freesat HD CONNECTIONS: 4 x HDMI inputs; 3 x USB; Ethernet; optical audio 4K/120 PLAYBACK: Yes SOUND (CLAIMED): 90W BRIGHTNESS (CLAIMED): N/A CONTRAST RATIO (CLAIMED): N/A DIMENSIONS (OFF STAND): 1,654.8(w) x 945.6(h) x 15.4(d)mm WEIGHT (OFF STAND): 31.7kg

FEATURES: Wi-fi; USB multimedia playback; Bluetooth headphone support; Mini LED lighting with 1,920 dimming zones; Shape Adaptive Light Control; QLED (Quantum Dot) technology; OTS+ Sound system; Q Symphony for joining forces with Samsung soundbars; Game Bar