We Gamed on the Samsung Q900R 82-inch 8K QLED TV

Samsung Malaysia has invited us over to their new office to experience the all-new Samsung Q900R 82-inch 8K QLED TV, since shipping a costly and massive 82-inch TV for review would not be efficient for obvious reasons.

Samsung Q900R & HW-Q90R Soundbar

The day started with an informative briefing session, which is then followed by the experiential session where we were given the opportunity to play around with the TV and the newly announced Q series soundbar. A short movie screening of 2012 The Avengers got me into rethinking how home theatres can be crazily amazing provided if you have the extra moolah to blow on the TV, sound systems and acoustics setup.

I mean that new Samsung HW-Q90R is pushing out powerful and clear sounds.

At this point, some would question the need for 8K resolution given that even our most premium Astro satellite TV is only broadcasting at most at Full HD 1080p resolution. Modern online content junkies would also point out that, as of now, YouTube and NetFlix are supporting up to 4K UHD resolution only. Turns out that, the built-in upscaling feature is doing an outstanding job at pushing the extra fidelity and colour tone mapping. That ultimately leads to a significantly detailed image quality even from a 480p source.

After the short movie session, Kok Kee from Nasi Lemak Tech soon pulled out his Nintendo Switch, hook up the HDMI cable and fire up “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”. It is known that the game can only output at 900p 30fps while having the Switch docked, nonetheless, the processor upscales the game and runs without any major distortion to the quality.

Worth mentioning is that Samsung is recognising TVs are no longer just for TV shows or movies. There are actually console gamers that demand the best TV to go along with their PlayStation, XBOX or Switch consoles. Hence the TV is smart enough to identify the connected device and instantly switch to Game Mode which reduces the input lag down to 13.5ms. The Dynamic Black Equaliser feature is something your opponent might have you for. It allows you to adjust the shadow’s brightness without affecting the rest of the scene. Besides, it is also one of the few TVs in the market that supports FreeSync.

The gaming session continued with a couple of rounds of Super Smash Bros Ultimate where the huge screen real estate provides a magnificent couch gaming experience.

The benefit of having an 82-inch 8K panel becomes even more obvious with the 4-player split-screen Mario Kart 8. If you do the math, each player gets a 41-inch split-screen with 4K resolution.

At the end of the day, we enjoyed our stay at the Samsung HQ and gained valuable insight into why Samsung is heavily invested in QLED TV technology even though they are one of the best OLED panel manufacturer in the world. The answer is simple, TVs and mobile devices have a different use case. Since TV may have some display elements staying on the screen for a prolonged time, pixel burn-in is a major issue for OLED TV panels. Mobile devices won’t have this issue as the screen would be turned off every short period of time. In other words, QLED is the solution for offering the best balance between image quality and panel longevity.

Unfortunately, these cutting edge technology product always come with a hard-to-swallow price tag. The 75-inch Q900R will set you back at RM59,999 while the 82-inch Q900R pushes the bar up to RM99,999. The creme of the crop 98-inch Q900R is officially priced at RM299,999, the price of a condo studio unit. That goes without saying, only a certain group of

More information available at Samsung Malaysia.