The QN90F Neo QLED is Samsung’s highest‑end LCD TV for 2025… at least below the stratospherically priced 8K models. I've got the 65″ version in for testing, currently selling for $1599, which carries over the same quantum dot technology and much of the design and performance of last year's QN90D, but there have been a few notable changes: a small bump in max refresh rate to 165 Hz (up from 144 Hz), and last year's glossy screen has been replaced with the matte anti-glare coating directly from the S95F OLED. Whether the latter is an improvement is up for debate. Fullscreen and HDR brightness also gets a small but welcome boost from last year's model – I measured more than 2300 nits on a test slide and real-world HDR highlights can easily hit 1100. Samsung also touts its NQ4 AI Gen3 processor, but I don't usually comment on these because Samsung (and other manufacturers, to be fair) rarely, if ever, provide performance metrics for its chips, and besides, the specific processing chip inside these TVs seems to have a nebulous, at best, connection to how they perform in our own, real-world testing.
And our testing reveals that, much like last year's QN90D, the QN90F really struggles with blooming. A combination of Samsung's local dimming algorithm and the physical construction of the backlight produces blocky, grid-like zones that are ruinous to dark scenes. This shouldn't happen. At this price level, or even cheaper, Hisense and TCL offer more and better controlled backlight zones, and Samsung's own QD-OLED models, like the S90F, offer substantially better all-around performance at a like-for-like price. Yes, the QN90F is colorful and bright, but there's much more to a top-of-the-line TV for gaming, and Samsung's LCD offering is falling too far behind to recommend.
Samsung QN90F
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The Samsung QN90F can be found at Amazon, Best Buy, and from Samsung at $1,499 for the 65″ model.
Setup, Design, and First Impressions
Unpacking, maneuvering, and assembling the stand…