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At its Samsung Forum, held in Porto in Portugal this week, the company doubled down on super-large models (with 75in and up screen sizes) and declared gamers a core audience – the new QLED screens offer a claimed input lag of just 15ms.

Heading up the 2019 line is the Q90R (pictured), followed by the Q85R, Q80R and Q70R. All of these sets are full array direct LED models. A cheaper Q60R QLED model uses edge lighting, and is being positioned as a designer option. The Q85R is exclusive to the UK and Europe, and, like the Q90R, uses a One Connect box rather than on-body inputs.

In total, the brand is shipping (more than) 20 QLED models (so that must mean 21, right?), with screen sizes ranging from 43in to 82in.

Samsung announced that it is now grouping its HDR technologies under the 'Quantum' marketing umbrella, which comprises HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG, but not Dolby Vision. It also confirmed its designer Frame and Serif sets will now all use QLED panels.

AI for all
When it comes to headline new features, Samsung's 2019 QLED TVs boast Ultra Viewing Angle technology, which more evenly distributes the LED backlight for an improvement to off-angle viewing, and – following its adoption in the brand's 8K models – all new QLEDs are equipped with Samsung's proprietary AI-based Quantum Processor, which brings 4K upscaling benefits and scene-by-scene picture optimisation.

Design-wise, the new models are distinguished largely by their stands. The Q90R has a central, curved pedestal, designed to snug a soundbar. Other approaches include a T-bar stand and more conventional end-of-screen feet.

Other feature tricks are Samsung's low-power Ambient Mode (now with a wider range of available themes); iTunes Movies and TV Shows app integration; Apple Airplay 2 support; Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant; and Samsung's Bixby intelligent assistant.

All the new models were up and running in a brightly lit showroom environment, ideal to show off their high brightness and black level performance. HCC had a good roam around, and our initial impression is that the brand has assembled a cracking collection, offering potentially the best QLED performance we’ve seen to date.

Look out for an in-depth report from the Samsung Forum in HCC #297.