Samsung QN990F review: plenty of polish, not enough payoff

By Andre Revilla Published September 4, 2025

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The Samsung QN990F is a masterclass in over-engineering. Its impressive brightness, excellent reflection handling and sleek build are undercut by an overly cumbersome setup, a weak value proposition in an increasingly competitive segment, and picture quality that is impressive, if ultimately forgettable. Despite its “future-proof” 8K resolution, the newest flagship from the Korean giant feels in some ways like it’s already behind the curve of the best TVs.

The QN990F is sold in 65-, 75-, 85- and 98-inch variations. The 75-inch AI Upscaling Pro Glare Free configuration we tested will run you $6,500 at full price, though expect sales to soften the blow a bit going into the holiday season.  

A QLED panel with a mini LED backlight provides more than adequate brightness for daytime use in a bright room, while the matte anti-glare coating delivers some of the best reflection handling on the market today. Despite some talk of this new anti-reflection technology impacting the quality of the overall image, those arguments just don’t hold water.

While the upscaling does a great job of keeping 4K content crisp on the model’s 8K display, the black uniformity and out-of-the-box color accuracy were disappointing considering the premium price tag. Samsung’s stubborn aversion to ponying up for Dolby Vision also leaves the QN990F with HDR handling that is beneath its flagship status.

Samsung’s overly busy Tizen OS works in a pinch but is frustrating to navigate and doesn’t pass my “would my parents find this easy to use?” sniff test. For ease of use, I would normally recommend an external streamer like a Roku Ultra, but that means using the TV’s wireless One Connect box, which was my least favorite thing about the QN990F and something I have not warmed to in the least over the last few weeks. More on that later.

The audio quality is about what you’d expect from a premium television, which is to say, it’s pretty good. It’s not blowing anyone away and, honestly, if you are already spending thousands on your television, then you might as well pick up a soundbar or a full surround system. For casual daily watching however, the built-in speakers more than deliver.

In my humble opinion, some of the decisions behind the QN990F got so caught up in image-processing razzle-dazzle and AI baubles that they lost sight of what really matters: delivering picture quality worthy of its exorbitant cost.

Quick take: I have to deal with two external boxes now? Really?

The QN990F is a gorgeous television. It’s ultra-thin frame is pleasant to look at from any angle, and its near bezel-less design is a joy when watching it.

The build quality is as sturdy as you’d expect from a premium model, and its reflective stand completes the luxury aesthetic, but now let’s talk about Wireless One Connect.

Select Samsung’s models have been made with an external box that serves as the power supply and houses the “brains” of the TV for some time now, but the QN990F takes it a step further with Wireless One Connect. So now the TV comes with not one, but two external boxes to deal with.

First, the power supply is contained in the same external square housing that used to be the One Connect Box. On previous models, this is where you would find all the various inputs for the TV. You would plug the One Connect Box into a wall outlet, and then connect it to the TV itself, slotting it sort of upright against the back of the display in a nook on the rear of the stand. It could of course also be placed inside your media furniture.

With Wireless One Connect, Samsung has moved all the inputs from the first box, to this new box that delivers the image from your external devices to the QN990F via peer-to-peer WiFi. I can reasonably only use so many words to express my frustrations with this decision, so I will try to be succinct. To start, Samsung bills this as a way to declutter your TV setup and simplify wiring, except for the fact that the box itself requires its own power supply. So now you are taking up two outlets instead of one.

Some small print on Samsung’s website regarding Wireless One Connect reads as follows: “TV and Wireless One Connect require separate power cord connections. Wireless One Connect [only] connects to TV via [included] peer-to-peer WiFi and is omni-directional up to 30 feet; connection may be affected by surrounding environment, may not connect when enclosed or when blocked by metal (e.g., from inside a metal cabinet) or by other physical objects such as walls.”

Samsung’s point is that users don’t need to have their various input devices right next to the QN990F, since the box can transmit those inputs wirelessly to the TV. But it might not work if it’s too far, or inside metal cabinetry, or if blocked by physical objects.

Using the box for input also introduces a huge amount of lag between the external device and the television. That just won’t do for many gamers who play competitive, fast-paced titles. To solve for this, the QN990F includes a single input on the back of the TV, but for some confounding reason, it’s micro-HDMI, a standard I’m willing to bet a plurality of television buyers have never even heard of, much less own cables for.

Finally, soundbar users know that many of the best soundbars require an HDMI eARC connection to allow for synced control between the soundbar and television. To accomplish this on the QN990F, you would need the Wireless One Connect Box to live right next to the TV anyway, rendering the entire thing moot.

If there is a small subset of consumers who would benefit from such a setup, then I wish Samsung would simply sell this as an optional accessory. Meanwhile, the rest of us who have been plugging our preferred external devices or A/V receivers into our television for decades and simply running those cables through our TV stands or media consoles, which are already designed with cable management in mind, have simply had another potential failure point added to the mix.

The Wi-Fi connection does its job, and save for the occasional moments of lagging video that I’ll never quite be able to prove were caused by the box (though it always happened when testing the wireless box and never when using the TV’s native apps), the image was clear and stable, with no clear signs of degraded picture quality.

Design score: 5/10

Quick take: Samsung’s Tizen OS is cluttered and unintuitive

I never want to complain too much about any televisions native OS. Whether Tizen, Android, or Fire OS, none of them are perfect, and I’m not sure they are supposed to be.

Television manufacturers should focus on making the best looking displays possible, and resources typically go there first, and the software second.

In the case of Samsung and Tizen, this shows up in a busy labyrinth of pages and menus that are far from intuitive, but it’s not a deal breaker.

If you are comfortable navigating UI’s across different brands and devices, you’ll do just fine. While the less tech-inclined would be better off sticking with their favorite external streaming device. Of course, that commits them to using Wireless One Connect.

Interface score: 7/10

Quick take: The SDR picture quality is hit and miss

Peak brightness in SDR measured at around 2,200 nits in a 10 percent window, so the QN990F can more than handle its own in a sunlit room.

When you combine the brightness with the TV’s anti-glare display, you get what is truly some of the best reflection handling I’ve ever seen. The AI upscaling does an excellent job of converting 4K content to fit the screen while maintaining a sharp image.

The color accuracy, however, was disappointing. Out of the box, the colors already feel off, and Movie mode doesn’t really help all that much.

The panel covers sRGB fully and roughly 89 percent of DCI-P3, and while that’s nothing to complain about, there are already models on the market with better gamut coverage at a lower price.

Without any calibration, SDR color accuracy measured at an average delta E of 3.46. General wisdom is that a delta E below 1.0 is invisible to the naked eye, while above 3 registers as an obvious color error.

Among all the accoutrements offered on the QN990F, Samsung has included a tool to calibrate the display using your phone. I tried the simple 2-point calibration multiple times but never managed to register satisfactory improvement in color accuracy on my instruments.

So unless you are willing to have Samsung or another pro perform a true calibration, you’ll be sitting with slightly skewed colors in SDR.

The contrast is pretty good, as this is one of the primary things Mini-LED brings to the table, and why that panel technology is taking marketshare from OLED. Despite the impressive contrast, there is some obvious blooming around super bright objects on a very dark background. You almost never notice this in daily use, as most scenes aren’t dark enough for this to stand out.

But you’ll notice it in less important moments, like around the Netflix logo upon launch, or around some menu buttons in certain apps. Keeping local dimming set to high limits this effect while watching the TV, and you’d have to really look for it to see it.

SDR picture score: 7/10

Quick take: HDR offers decent color, great contrast, but no Dolby Vision

The HDR picture also struggles with color out of the box. The image is far too warm, even to the naked eye, so pumping some Blue gain might help, but be warned that every panel will be a little different.

The contrast is excellent though, and colors are rich and deep, if a bit off kilter.

The peak brightness in HDR was actually dimmer than SDR, with a peak of roughly 2,000 nits in a 10% window, which was a bit disappointing.

I would love to see Dolby Vision with its more precise dynamic metadata and refined tone-mapping which usually make movies look brighter, punchier, and more natural than HDR10+. I hope that some day Samsung coughs up the cash.

HDR picture score: 7/10

Quick take: Premium sound means you can probably get by without a soundbar

The QN990F sports a 6.2.4CH setup that provides 90 watts of crisp built-in audio. The speakers get loud enough to fill the room, and Dolby Atmos support means great spatial sound for immersive cinematic viewing.

Built-in speakers are rarely the selling point of any television, but the QN990F impresses just enough in this department. This makes a soundbar more of an elective upgrade than a necessary purchase. For the casual daily watcher, the built-in audio more than does the job.

For those who struggle to understand dialogue while watching TV, the QN990F features AI-powered voice enhancement that works pretty well.

Though personally I found the speakers to do a good enough job of delivering clear audio that I never needed to utilize this feature beyond testing it.

Audio score: 8/10

If you are an 8K gamer who is willing to either accept the input lag of Wireless One Connect or connect your 8K-ready console via Micro HDMI, and you can afford the steep price tag in exchange for the 8K display, then you may enjoy the QN990F.

Additionally, if your preferred entertainment setup would benefit greatly from placing your input devices a bit removed from the TV itself, and you feel it’s not something that a $20 HDMI cable could solve, then you may want the QN990F specifically for Wireless One Connect.

However, if you are not a member of either niche consumer segment, then know that you can find better image quality at far lower prices, though you’d be settling for the 99.99% of content released in 4K resolution or lower.

The Samsung QN990F served as my daily television for weeks. In that time I watched movies, TV shows, F1 races, and streamed a lot of YouTube. I tested the TV with both cinematic content, as well as sports and cable television.

I used both the native Tizen OS and at times my Roku Ultra. Testing was performed using a Calibrite Display Pro HL and DisplayCal software on Windows 11, as well as my own observations from looking at many, many different TVs.