Samsung GQ65Q8DN review: a new hit in our ranking

If we con­sid­er Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN in gen­er­al, it sets new bench­marks in the 65-inch TV mar­ket: although the image qual­i­ty of this device does not exceed the records of com­peti­tors due to the low sta­bil­i­ty of view­ing angles, but with the excep­tion of this point, all our oth­er tests give excel­lent results. Thus, accord­ing to the gen­er­al assess­ment, GQ65Q8DN is placed at the first place. But that’s not all: thanks to the good retail price at the time of the test, in terms of price-qual­i­ty ratio, it ranks sec­ond cor­re­spond­ing rat­ing.

While com­pet­ing devices from LG or Sony shine with OLED screens, Sam­sung is squeez­ing the best out of Quan­tum Dot tech­nol­o­gy: the QLED dis­play. In a direct com­par­i­son, the GQ65Q8DN may be a few points behind, but in some respects the improved LCD pan­el even out­per­forms.

The max­i­mum bright­ness of this 65-inch TV is remark­able: with 1821 cd/m2 it reached the high­est score of any device we test­ed.
4K-UHD res­o­lu­tion pic­ture 3840x2160 pix­els is extreme­ly sharp and exhibits very good checker­board con­trast in 231:1. But, com­pared to com­peti­tors’ OLED dis­plays, the Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN QLED screen, which is based on a VA-LC pan­el, has tech­no­log­i­cal­ly deter­mined dis­ad­van­tages in the field of view­ing angle sta­bil­i­ty. If you sit direct­ly in front of the TV, you are unlike­ly to notice this, but friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers who look at the screen from the side will no longer see the ide­al image. Over­all, how­ev­er, the pic­ture qual­i­ty with HDR10 is excel­lent, with col­or space repro­duced almost flaw­less­ly.

Samsung GQ65Q8DN: perfectly equipped, easy to manage

In the test dis­ci­pline “Equip­ment” Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN makes a good impres­sion and reach­es almost a record mark. Tuners for dig­i­tal cable, dig­i­tal satel­lite and DVB-T2 are pre­sent­ed in dou­ble quan­ti­ty. To con­nect periph­er­als, there are four HDMI inputs that com­ply with the HDMI 2.0 stan­dard. Out­dat­ed stan­dards, such as SCART input, this 4K TV no longer has. But the rarely request­ed 3D mode is not here either. But there is a LAN inter­face and WLAN sup­port.

Ease of TV con­trol remark­able and, accord­ing to the results of our tests, reach­es the high­est mark. Sam­sung’s Tizen OS OSD and app store work flaw­less­ly and can be con­trolled by remote, voice or smart­phone app. It has all the most pop­u­lar Smart TV apps, includ­ing a web brows­er, and sup­ports all rel­e­vant video for­mats. There are three USB ports for file trans­fer, and there will be no prob­lems with USB record­ing of cur­rent TV pro­grams. Like all TVs in this price range, the Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN is DLNA cer­ti­fied for flaw­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Sound is good too

If you plan on using a 65-inch TV as part of a home the­ater sys­tem, then you should invest in a sep­a­rate sound solu­tion as well. Nev­er­the­less, the Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN dur­ing the tests itself was able to demon­strate a con­vinc­ing sound. Two 20W speak­ers and a sub­woofer deliv­er sound qual­i­ty that isn’t quite on par with some of Sam­sung’s oth­er TVs yet, but still quite good. There is a dig­i­tal audio out­put, but there is no head­phone jack.

It should be not­ed that good sound is quite typ­i­cal for all Sam­sung Q8 TVs.

Good ener­gy effi­cien­cy none of the 65-inch TVs can boast, and the Sam­sung GQ65Q8DN is not sur­pris­ing in this area. Pow­er con­sump­tion is at 155W in nor­mal mode, which is nor­mal and worse than, for exam­ple, the Sam­sung GQ65Q8CN. In Stand­by mode, pow­er con­sump­tion is 0.3W. How­ev­er, the TV is award­ed the EU Ener­gy Label “A”. There is also an option­al pow­er sav­ing mode.

Former Leader: Sony KD-65AF8

By choos­ing the new leader of the rat­ing, you are unlike­ly to be mis­tak­en, but for those who attach the great­est impor­tance to the qual­i­ty of the TV’s image, it would be bet­ter to take the Sony KD-65AF8. This OLED device dur­ing our tests col­lect­ed all the max­i­mum pos­si­ble rat­ing points in the “Image Qual­i­ty” scor­ing dis­ci­pline. But Sony asks for a high­er price. In addi­tion, the equip­ment here is not as lux­u­ri­ous as Sam­sung, and the ener­gy effi­cien­cy is worse. But that’s the price you pay for a per­fect pic­ture.

Perfect value for money: LG OLED 65B7D

Despite all its pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics and good price, Sam­sung GQ65Q8CN did not become a leader in terms of price and qual­i­ty ratio. This title still belongs to the LG OLED 65B7D, since it is cheap­er by almost 70 thou­sand rubles. In the field of image qual­i­ty, the LG device and its com­peti­tor from Sam­sung dif­fer lit­tle. And in terms of ease of con­trol, both TVs are approx­i­mate­ly on the same lev­el. Minor flaws in the LG OLED 65B7D can be not­ed in the equip­ment and sound qual­i­ty.

Read also:

• How to con­nect your phone to a TV: 10 ways
• Sales of the first 8K Sam­sung TV began in Rus­sia

Pho­to: man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies