QN900A Samsung Neo 55INCH QLED 8K Smart TV (2021)

Samsung’s QN900A Neo QLED 8K TV is imposing and stunning. It boasts a fantastic design, a sharp and clear display, rich colours, inky blacks, and it even uses AI technology to upscale content into 8K. It’s a magnificent engineering achievement.

But asking whether this is a good TV or not is a waste of time. It clearly is. A better question is: whether there is any point in buying an 8K TV right now? 

As is always the case with new technology, some initial pioneers (usually Samsung) adopt specific tech before it becomes mainstream. It was the same for the first 4K TVs, and it’s the same with 8K TVs now.

There’s an obvious problem with this strategy – there isn’t anything to watch in native 8K resolution. The most popular streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, don’t offer 8K.

The QN900A looks excellent. On the surface, it doesn’t look different from any other TV. However, its subtle differences are effective.

The bezel on the QN900A is almost non-existent (0.9mm). This “infinity screen” creates an immersive experience where the image looks like it’s floating. It’s impressive, and it looks great.

There aren’t any ports on the side of the TV. Samsung has opted to use a “One Connect Box.” This box houses all the ports and is connected to the TV by a single cable. It works well. 

If you have the TV free-standing, the box can be nicely hidden on the back of the stand. It also prevents having to awkwardly plug things into the side of the TV, if you have it wall mounted. 

The box has four HDMI 2.1 ports (one offering eARC support), three USB ports, one ethernet port, one optical output, and an RF antenna input.

The “One Connect Box” means Samsung has been able to use the sides of the TV for the QN900A’s internal 80W 6.2.2 channel audio system. 

The sound from the ten internal speakers comes out the sides of the TV, not the back. Perfect for wall mounting the unit.

With the QN900A, everything is in 8K, sort of. Let me explain:

Samsung’s Neo QLED 8K TV is powered by the Neo Quantum Processor 8K. This processor houses AI intelligence inside 16 neural networks. This AI analyses content and upscales it to 8K. Basically, the TV uses machine learning to upscale what you’re watching based on similar content. 

When content is upscaled to 8K, pixels are stretched. For example, a 1080p video has 1920 pixels horizontally and 1080 pixels vertically. To upscale to 8K, these pixels need to be stretched to 7680 pixels horizontally and 4320 vertically. Usually, upscaling uses bi-cubic algorithms to decide what pixels go where. Samsung uses artificial intelligence. 

Upscaling 1080p content to 8K, is a huge jump and usually would result in blocky, jagged edges and blurry images. However, not with Samsung’s Neo Quantum Processor 8K. 

1080p content on the QN900A doesn’t suddenly look like a 4K film, but it does look better. Clarity is improved, and it has a smoother overall look. However, I didn’t see much improvement when 4K movies were upscaled to 8K. There was more detail present, however, the differences are only noticeable if you’re actively looking for it.

The QN900A has AMD Freesync Premium Pro built-in, which reduces screen tearing when gaming or watching movies. Games are smooth with a 120hz refresh rate, and the results were great when playing Astro’s Playroom on my PS5.

Samsung has implemented their “Object Tracking Sound Pro” software into the QN900A. This is designed to track on-screen action to create a realistic 3D sound. I didn’t notice this making much difference. However, I was surprised at how effective the internal speakers were.