Samsung QN85D Neo QLED 4K Smart Tizen TV

Bought from and shipped by Amazon. Amazon Prime delivery and Amazon Prime return were 5 star. Because of the likelihood of needing to return this TV, this should be kept in mind.

For the same reason, consider taking detailed pictures of how the TV is packed when unpacking it. In particular, take pictures of how the two parts of the stand are placed in the styrofoam packing. Also, pay close attention to how the stand goes together. In returning it, you will need to disassemble the two pieces, and this can be difficult to do. Of course, save the box and all the packing material.

Problems From Day One:
Bluetooth audio lag: this problem was constant, though it varied in severity.
Blurring, staccato picture:
Example: A race car quickly moving down a racetrack and filmed through the windshield: the road in front of the car was a blurry, muddy mess, only having clarity farther in the distance.
Example: People twirling flags. The flags had a distracting, strobe like jump throughout the movements.
Remote Control: The remote in size, shape and color very much resembles an Amazon Fire Stick remote. However, whereas the Fire Stick remote feels solid and well-made, the Samsung remote because it has no batteries and is solar powered, feels flimsy. Using it, it feels not at all durable and feels like it will break with normal usage.

Dead by Day Seven:
With hardly more than 12 hours of use during the first week, the TV simply and completely died.

Returned thereafter.

Purchased this TV specifically for watching sports because of how high it was rated for clarity. The picture is great when watching 4k content. Picture also great on most channels. Tends to be a little grainy at times with older TV shows but that is to be expected. Where it fails immensely is watching sports, specifically football, where any fast motion becomes completely blurry. I tried watching YouTube to solve these issues and found a ton of content on this because apparently this is a problem that they said could be cured in picture settings. I must have tried at least a dozen recommendations. I talked to Samsung product support and they couldn’t fix it either. They kept saying it was likely a cable signal problem. I have two other Samsung TV’s including an older one and their pictures are better. I also did a signal test for cable and it was very strong. Also tried hooking the TV up directly to the cable modem with a high quality Ethernet cable and the picture did not improve.

I would not recommend this TV if you want your sports to be clear. It is good for most other things.

I am NOT a fan of the picture quality. It has lots of pixel oversampling around moving images. Voices NEVER stay synced. Have to turn it off, unplug, plug in and turn on to fix it. Samsung customer tech support is USELESS. Was on the phone with them for over an hour for them to tell me “Don’t know” If I could return it, it would be boxed and gone TODAY. If you are in the market, spend the extra money and get the OLED. The NEO is terrible. I regret purchasing this TV.

This rating of 1 star doesn’t relect the quality of a working TV since mine was dead on arrival. I ordered the TV online through Samsung. In about 3 days I received multiple emails and txt from “AGS, your Samsung delivery partner.” They set up a delivery date. I went online, accepted that date and time but over the next few days kept getting the same emails and txt. I went back online and everything seemed to be in order for delivery. The delivery date came and went, no delivery. Unable to get ahold of either Samsung or AGS. AGS (a Nippon Express company) says you can chat online, but it is nothing but a ROBOT and I never could get a clear response. Finally after a couple of hours of getting re-routed by phone got someone who said someone would get back to me that morning (1 day after promised delivery). Never got a return phone call. Later that day finally was able to reschedule (online – no phone call) a delivery for 2 days later (on Friday). Later that day I got a call from a ‘different’ delivery company who said they were going to delivery the TV next day (on Thursday). OMG. Who is this new company calling me. I guess AGS farms out some of their deliveries. Ok, so the TV came, it was supposed to be “white glove” service, taken to the correct room, unpacked and debris taken away. Delivery guy was alone, said he is only to deliver to house but he agreed to take it to the room but of course I had to help, too bulky for one person. I unboxed, set up (I have done this many times over the years), TV WAS DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Took me about 2 more hours to get a hold of a SAMSUNG PERSON on the phone to return the product. I did get an RMA – boxed it up, called FEDEX as per instructions with RMA and return label, FEDEX came within 1 hour (what luck) TV delivered to my home, – TV returned the same day. I personally will never order from SAMSUNG direct again. Now waiting for refund to be credited to my CC.

I’ve had the Samsung QN85D for a few days now, and it has exceeded all my expectations. Initially, I purchased a Hisense U8N, which was impressive, but it had a problem I couldn’t live with: inconsistent black levels and distracting fluctuations in letterbox bars. My next choice was going to be the TCL QM851, but I read that it also struggles with letterbox bar consistency, though to a lesser extent. Because of this, I started exploring other options.

After checking specs, I was put off by the QN90D due to its poor native contrast ratio and lackluster color gamut coverage. However, I decided to check out the QN85D, the junior flagship model, and I’m glad I did. It offers a great native contrast ratio—something I’ve come to realize is very important—and great color gamut coverage. In many key areas, it actually outperforms the QN90D. Samsung seems to have a strange habit of making their junior flagships superior to their actual flagships. They often take a panel with average color gamut coverage and poor native contrast ratio, make it extremely bright, and label it as the top dog.

Initially, I didn’t consider the QN85D despite liking many of its specifications, mainly because it only has 160 dimming zones. However, I remembered my 2018 Q8FN, which had only 40 zones but still offered excellent black level performance and consistent letterbox bars. So, with somewhat low expectations, I decided to give the QN85D a try.

To say it surprised me is an understatement. Its black level performance is amazing—zero blooming in real content, inky blacks, and fantastic shadow detail. The letterbox bars are inky black and never visually brighten or experience blooming. I actually think having fewer zones to control has its own advantages; it seems to allow for more precise control aka a better algorithm because it is less taxing on the processor.

The new 2024 NQ4 AI Gen2 Processor on this TV is amazing. The local dimming algorithm is incredibly effective, and the HDR Remastering feature for SDR (not available on OLED), which I didn’t think I’d care about, is actually fantastic. It delivers stunning highlights in SDR without messing up the color accuracy. It hits over 1,000 nits in Filmmaker mode and 1,500 nits in standard mode, with nearly 700 nits in a full window. I’m really impressed with how well it performs.

The native contrast ratio on this panel is very good, and with local dimming engaged, it exceeds 160,000:1 which is insane, so the color production / baseline black level is top quality. Motion handling is also excellent, reminding me a lot of plasma TVs (Samsung seems to handle motion possessing differently from most other brands). Another highlight is brightness stability—there’s almost no ABL on this set, it’s the best I’ve ever seen in this regard. While its peak brightness isn’t on par with the U8N or QM851, it’s still brighter than most people would ever need, and the HDR impact is fantastic.

The build quality is solid, featuring a thick, high-quality plastic back and a nice metal screen border. I’d put this TV up against any of the big players in the LED category. It delivers impressive performance across the board, offering exceptionally refined picture quality in both bright and dark rooms.

This TV deserves the 2024 sleeper award, its so good.

DO NOT BUY

I’m very disappointed in this TV and in Samsung. First off: my badge may say “Vine customer review of free product”, but there is a cost associated with both receiving and reviewing this product and even at the discounted price I pay, I’m extremely dissatisfied with both the product itself and the brand.

The TV arrived and the first thing I noticed on unboxing it was that there was a scratch on the screen (that couldn’t have happened during shipping, based on the scratch location and condition of the shipping box). Thankfully it wasn’t deep and I was able to rub it out, but I’m worried that the scratched pixels on the TV will die soon(er). (See picture – picture is of scratch on screen and also shows the extreme reflectivity of the screen – more on that below.)

Next I got it set up on the stand and tried to plug it in and noticed that the power cord is relatively short. I have a normal size TV stand and it barely reaches across the back of the TV and down to an outlet. The shorter cord might be nice if you’re wall mounting the TV, but if you’re having it sit on the stand it’s short, almost too short.

After powering the TV on I tried, unsuccessfully, to go through the setup process. Again and again and again. My day job is a very tech-heavy position, so I’m definitely technically inclined and it was still frustrating. There are two options – try via app or via remote control. I tried multiple times via the app and the process always “hung” when trying to connect to the TV. What’s frustrating is that this was after I had to provide all my personal info and register, create an account, allow the app to access my precise location to connect to the TV, etc. I finally gave up on the app and tried the remote control setup and it still struggled to “contact the server” and it took multiple times exiting and reentering the setup to finally successfully make it through. A very poor/frustrating experience.

Once the setup was finally complete I was able to use the TV a little and quite frankly was appalled at how basic the remote control is. Yeah, it has voice control but it lacks many basic buttons for a TV – like a keypad to put in channel numbers, or a quick-input selector (or even an input selector button period – you have to go into a menu to switch to a connected device). The volume and channel buttons feel cheap and like the might break off easily.

I switched over to a new (as of the end of 2023) Apple TV to use that remote and forego the clunky app experience built into the TV. It was working well until I tried to adjust the volume using the Apple TV remote. I pressed the “volume up” button and the volume went up. And up. And up. All the way to the max, like my remote was stuck pressing “up” or something. So, I quickly pressed “volume down” and it went down. And down. And down. All the way to the minimum. Trying it again I discovered that the TV doesn’t communicate properly with the remote, so there’s no way to get a volume other than 0 or 100 using the Apple TV remote. Very frustrating for a product costing the better part of $2000 after taxes.

After taking a break from the frustrating experience for a bit, I came back a few hours later with renewed energy. I turned the TV on with the included remote and watched as the volume went all the way to 100 without my interaction. Well, that was weird. I turned it down to a reasonable level and browsed the apps on the TV. Turned the TV off to do something real quick and came back and turned it on and the volume went up to 100 again. I turned it back down and missed the sweet spot so tried turning it back up and nothing happened. The “volume up” button on the remote no longer was working/responding. I turned the TV off and on again – volume up to 100 without interaction, volume down works but not volume up. Incredibly frustrating for a “new”, expensive TV.

Needless to say, if I had paid full price this would be an instant return and I would only do an exchange for another “working” TV of the same brand/model if I was forced to. Where this is a review of a semi-free product for community benefit, I’ll go the support route and update as appropriate.

General observations relevant to someone who makes the crazy decision to purchase this TV:

The screen is very reflective – like a dull mirror. While it has reasonable brightness, if you have any lights on behind you that glare on the TV you’ll be left feeling like there’s a blind/dead spot on the TV where the light is which is very annoying.

The base does not swivel. Not necessarily something I can fault it for, but something that is nice to have. I have another much less expensive TV of similar size that came with a freestanding swivel base which is very nice for trying to connect cables, adjusting based on where you’re sitting in the room, etc.

The cable management on the back of the TV doesn’t allow for very thick cables – there’s one spot that’ll fit a standard size coax cable, so my HDMI cable that’s about the same diameter is just kind of free floating and looking bad behind the TV since there’s nowhere to route and “hide” it.

I mentioned this above, but it’s worth mentioning again – the remote is quite basic. Not having a keypad on a TV remote is, bad. Not having input buttons on a TV remote, again bad. Having buttons that protrude for volume/channel (and are thus more prone to breaking), again bad. That being said, I do appreciate that there’s a small solar panel on the remote to charge the internal battery.

The sound quality is good – better than I’m used to (though I’m used to the sound quality on a no-name 15 year old TV).

Overall, I would strongly recommend against purchasing this TV. I’ll be in touch with support to see if the TV I got is just a very bad dud, but it’s going to take a great support experience to make up for all the frustrations I had with this TV so far. DO NOT BUY.

We have this is a room with lots of windows. Previously, we had struggled with both picture brightness in this room and with harsh reflections of the screen. This tv has completely eliminated both of those issues.

The tv itself is great. It is very easy to set up – immediately integrates all of your smart tv preferences and accounts. My only complaint is that the stand does not provide enough support and the tv leans back as it sets on the stand.

I primarily use this product for movies, youtube videos, and sports.

Worst TV ive ever owned. I have multiple Samsung TVs and this is by far the most annoying and frustrating TV ive ever used. Samsung decided to change the UI and its absolute garbage. Not intuitive and had no reason to change. The remote ONLY works on the new TV, as opposed to the old remotes, which work on all samsung TV models. It’s also smaller, less functional, and incredibly sensitive. The biggest problem I have is that the TV will get stuck in a black screen when im using YouTube. I basically cannot fast-forward or rewind without this potentially happening. I researched the problem and discovered that it’s a common problem with no solution. The only solution is to by an external device, like a Roku, and use that Youtube app or to unplug the TV so that the cache clears. So incredibly disappointed in Samsung. This will definitely be my final Samsung purchase for TVs, cell phones, washer/dryer. Not even thinking about going with Samsung for out new fridge, range, and microwave anymore. I’ll be switching to Sony and Kenmore or some other reputable brand. I do not recommend this TV. It was basically pushed on us by the Best Buy store because it came with another TV for free as a limited time deal. It’s clear now they were just trying to offload old junk on us. Probably not gonna be buying TVs from BBY anymore.