Unboxing Samsung’s Largest QLED TV | Meet the 98” QN90D
Not that I’m keeping count, but I’m pretty sure we have already unboxed and reviewed more diagonal inches of TV than anybody else on YouTube. Is that a weird flex? I don’t know; I don’t care. It’s been a lot of fun—a lot of work, but a lot of fun. And we’re going to continue breaking that record with our next television, this monster behind me: the Samsung 98" QN90D. Let’s get into it. Alright, here we go, guys. I can’t go any further in this video without once
again thanking Peter and Greg for coming down and helping us out, lending a little bit of muscle. These TVs are no joke—they are super, super heavy, and, yeah, there’s no way we could do this without their assistance. So toss them a thanks in the comments, would you? Also, by the way, I have seen some comments from previous videos (I think the Hisense 110 UX) from folks insisting that neither Peter nor Greg really look like they wanted to be here. I can assure you that this is the best part of their week. There is no way they’re having more fun sitting behind their desks than they are here helping us unbox these amazing TVs. So, yeah, just chalk it
up to them not knowing that the camera was on them at that time. Give them a break, y'all. With that said, if you notice that their smiles today seem a little bit—oh, I don’t know—aggressive, you’ll know why. You know, because I shared your feedback with them, and so they are going to bring their best efforts today. Alright, so, as you know, whenever we unbox these TVs, it’s kind of a, I don’t know, “discover as we go” kind of thing. We don’t know exactly how this is going to proceed,
and that’s definitely the case here. Although, I have to say, the fact that this does not open like a gigantic encyclopedia is kind of a good start. I never know what to do with these pieces of box material. Yep, that’s going to fall on me. Alright, what do we have here? Power cable, remote—no batteries, because it’s a rechargeable remote. We’ll look at that a little more closely in a minute. And then, yeah, I checked this out before we started the unboxing. I was really, I’m still kind of shocked at the
fact that this—oh my gosh, how do we even get this thing out of here? Here we go. Kind of shocked that this thing has a centralized pedestal stand. Normally, a TV of this size and weight gets feet because that’s the most stable and the easiest thing to do. But Samsung, I mean, I think they’re going for a specific kind of look here. Samsung really needs to differentiate this particular TV from the competition because, let’s be honest, it’s a lot more expensive than the competition. Actually, let’s talk about that for a minute, folks. As I load my kitchen up with a bunch of TV
box material, let’s talk about the price of this TV. This 98" Samsung QN90D had a coming out price, or a list price, of no less than $15,000. Now, that is a lot of money without any context, but let’s throw some context behind this. TCL sells the 98" QM8 851G for about $5,000 or $6,000, depending on what day of the week it is. Samsung, even after a $5,000 price drop, is selling this TV for $10,000. And I, I don’t know, I think a lot of people are wondering where you find four to five thousand dollars’ worth of premium.
Certainly, Samsung makes a premium TV, and it offers features that you can’t get from any other TV brand—like integration with other Samsung products, for example. I imagine this TV right here is going to be an excellent pairing for the Q990D soundbar. But still, four to five thousand dollars more than TCL or Hisense’s high-performance models? These are not their budget 98" models. That’s a lot, and so I can’t help but have that be kind of an underlying undercurrent during this whole review.
But that brings up a good opportunity to ask for your comments. Let me know what you think: is there any world in which Samsung can justify that kind of price premium for a TV like this? Also, keep in mind that, if I’m not mistaken, this is a size of TV that you can’t get in 8K from Samsung, so if you want to get up to the 98", it’s going to be this particular 4K set. So, yeah, let me know what you think about that. Alright, so, to get the pedestal stand on this particular TV, and you do this with smaller TVs as well, the idea is that you kind of deconstruct the lower portion of the box, undo the flaps on the side, put this rear flap down, and then we should be able to remove one piece of foam, exposing where the pedestal stand is going to attach to the back of the TV. Now, this is something I normally don’t do because, I don’t know, it just seems extra to me. I just prefer to lay the TV down flat, have easier access to the back of the panel, and then erect the TV up on our media stand. But, obviously, we’re not going to be laying
this thing down on anything—it is a well-built, super heavy TV, and I don’t trust whatever I would put this on top of. We’re going to follow the instructions on this one. Alright, so it looks like we’re working with a two-piece stand. It is robust; this thing is very heavy. So I do have good confidence that it’s going to support the TV well. What’s interesting, though,
is that it appears this TV is going to be held up with the assistance of these tiny four screws. I’m not a physics major; it just blows my mind that that’s even possible, you know what I mean? Alright, so we’ll start by getting this decorative plastic cover off so that we can access our four screw points here. Interestingly enough, this rear, I guess we’ll call it, doesn’t actually need to be screwed into the base. It’s got this interesting sort of lever-style clasp that holds
it into position. So, yeah, kind of, I don’t know if you can see this right now, but there are keyholes on the bottom of this, so it’ll lower down, kind of slide into a keyhole lock, and then we’ll flip the lever, and that should hold these two pieces together. Alright, so we’re on the nubbins, but there we go—like I’ve done this before. And then, well, plastic flew off there, so hopefully that’s not the end of the world. But let’s give it a stress test. Yeah, I think that will work. Now, let’s see what we’re working with here on the back of the TV. Something tells me that maybe
this piece of foam is going to get in the way. I don’t know; let’s give it a shot. You know, aside from the figuring-it-out-as-we-go part, does anybody else feel like this is maybe a little bit easier than the 110 and 115 we did? Nope, just me? Okay, thanks for the commentary, fellas. I know people don’t look at the back of a TV very often, but, I mean, as I’m assembling this right now, it really does have a more premium vibe to it. Samsung’s been pretty good about putting attractive backing on their TVs, which I’ve always clowned because, like, when are you looking at the back of your TV? But that whole “pride of ownership” thing that happens in the first 10 or 15 minutes of you interacting with a TV—I guess there’s that. Also, while we’re here, before I slap this cover on, let’s note that there is some cable management here. You’re not going to be able to fit super-thick cables here,
but it looks like there’s room for three or four HDMI cables’ worth of cable management, which will route things right out through this little notch at the bottom, which is great. Cable management is important; sometimes I feel like I gloss over that. Not today, pal. Guys, I think all we need you for now is to lift this up onto the BDI, and then you can go home or to the office or wherever you want to go. Commentary police again; that’s classic. I’ve done that so many times, man—all of a sudden it’s like you’re under arrest.
Real quick, while we’re back here, you know what I am surprised by? That there are no bass transducers back here. That’s something that we see on most of Samsung’s premium TVs. I’m not sure why they’re not here—probably some other kind of speaker solution. There are a couple of vents toward the top, so I will be putting my ear right up to those and seeing what they do. Especially with all this surface area, normally I would expect to see some bass transducers back here, so TBD on the sound quality.
Alright, now let’s get this thing up on the BDI. Alright, there’s one, and then let’s go get the other corner. Got that, Peter? Outstanding. Alright, let’s do some reveal action. Greg and Peter, would you mind grabbing the cardboard, and then I’ll get the foam sheath. Yeah, good, just tear it up. Oh man, that’s a big one. We've got a special little barcode happening right here. Before we get it up there, I'm wondering if we get to have an awesome film peel, and I think not. Actually, that reminds me of a story that I
don't think I've told, ever. This happened a while ago, but I was unboxing a Samsung TV, and I was sure that it had protective film on it. So, I kept looking for the place to kind of, like, get that initial, you know, pick at it so that you could get that film peel off. Turns out, there was no film on that TV, so I was literally picking the panel apart. I destroyed the TV for my review, and that was embarrassing. That was not a fun call to have with Samsung. Samsung,
I'm still sorry about that. So, yeah, I learned from that mistake. There will be no film peel. Now, for real this time—actually, for real—we're going to get this up on the BDI and see what it looks like. Is there a barcode on the actual screen? Then it's just a sticker. Hold on, I lied. I lied! Oh, man, there is film here, which is good. You know, it makes me look like an idiot, but also, that's going to be a lot of fun. Alright, fellas, would you go ahead
and get that guy up there, and then we'll reconstitute the box? Yes, perfect, guys. Alright, so we're going to peel the film off this thing and get it going. But just to make sure that this remote has some power to the batteries, I'm going to ask Greg here—can you just hold this in front of the studio light and let it solar charge? I'm just kidding; it's probably got power in it anyway. I gotta say, the energy guide sticker says $31, and, I mean, that's amazing to me. Even
in eco mode, for it to only be $31... Like I said, the previous television, the Hisense, I believe, was up in the $177 territory, presumably in its eco mode as well. So, kind of amazing that you can have a TV this big and as bright as I assume it's going to be and still have that kind of annual electricity cost. Alright, peel time. [Applause] If "professional TV peeler" isn’t something you can put on your LinkedIn profile, then it needs to be. I think we have a little bit more around the edges.
[Music] Here and I think... one more... oh, fail. Alright, I think that is it. I'm sure I'm going to find some more plastic at some point to peel off, but I'm good with how far we've gotten. It's not like we're leaving the plastic on the lampshade here—don’t do that, by the way, please. Alright, a power cable, and we're going to be powered on. I gotta say... yeah, Z, see if you can catch the anti-glare that it's doing for
the studio light. Mhm, yeah, it's definitely diffusing some of that light. But, I mean, it's a big TV. It's going to have some reflection to it. Let's see if it comes on by itself or if we have to use the remote. We'll give it a second... nope, power button—there we go. Something tells me I'm going to want to have my phone around for this. Two simple options:
"How would you like to get started? Choose one to use the accessibility function." Yes, I'm quite certain we’ll do that later. Yeah, I know that our studio lights are very intense today, but I'm getting a little bit of reflection here. I said "agree to all." Also, since we’re doing shout-outs today,
shout-out to Zeke and Chris, who have to try and shoot around the studio lights on these massive TVs. I don’t think anybody really understands, unless you've tried to shoot a TV yourself, just how difficult it can be to shoot such a massive TV while trying to have decent lighting in the room. It’s really, really difficult. Wait, is it telling me that I need a Samsung account just to do these apps? I think it is. I don’t remember my Samsung account. This might be the first time I've ever had a QR code that actually expires. That’s... I don’t know why that’s interesting, but it is interesting to me. Bixby or Alexa? What do you think, guys? That’s a trick question.
Oh, there it is! Did you guys see that? Samsung's ditching Tizen. Yeah, they’re ditching Tizen for... I can’t remember what it is. Probably my fault. Yeah, that’s fine. I'll take responsibility for that. I do like these kinds of messages. It's gone now, but it said that the brightness optimization was on, which I think is really important. A lot of folks don’t understand that often these TVs come
with the ambient light sensor on by default. That’s a really helpful feature for many, but if you want to level out the experience to get a predictable brightness regardless of the ambient light situation, that's something you want to turn off. The TV is in its eco picture mode, which is something I highly recommend everyone get out of if you want the top brightness from the TV. Man, it’s been a while since I
did a Samsung TV, but I keep forgetting that it automatically starts playing FAST (free ad-supported television) content, which I’m not a fan of. We can put a stop to that easily by pressing the home button, which we have done here. So by default, in movie mode, brightness is set to 23, which indicates to me that we have a lot of range to work with. This is really bothering me, this whole FAST TV playing in the background. I specifically said "don’t." I’m sure if I tune
into an HDMI port, it’ll stop, but like, just show me the home screen, please. You all know how I feel about the soap opera effect, so I'm turning off all the motion smoothing stuff for now. Then we’ll play around with various settings to see if we can get a nice balance between smoothing out some stutter and not getting the full-on soap opera effect. Local dimming is on "Standard" by default,
but I'm going with "High" just because I feel like it. We’ll play with that when we get to actually evaluating the measurements on this TV. Everything else looks pretty good. Oh yeah, friendly reminder to anyone who purchases a Samsung TV: for both Samsung Galaxy phones and iPhone, there’s a smart calibration process that you can go through. My understanding is that it works pretty well. One of these days, I'll compare my calibration to the automated calibration, which uses the camera in your smartphone to measure the results. I love that they make this available to folks. Nobody else is doing this, and that right there is worth a lot for me.
Wow. We're going to need to cut the lights off, but one of the first things I do with any mini-LED or LED TV in general is step well off-angle to see what I can detect in terms of the backlight action, blooming, or halo. There might be a little, but it looks remarkably well-controlled. Another thing I’ve got to say right off the bat: the off-angle
performance on this TV is outstanding. There's a little bit of shift, but the massive amount of washout we saw on the TCL and Hisense, and also recently the Bravia 7, isn't happening here. This just reinforces my opinion that when it comes to off-angle viewing, Samsung's got it unlocked—nobody is doing it better right now. So, the conversation around where that extra $4,000–$5,000 goes when you buy the QN90D versus, say, the TCL QM8 or Hisense U8K remains open. We’ll need to really dig into this
TV and discover every premium feature it offers to justify that additional cost. That said, I can tell you, after three minutes of viewing a YouTube video—a nice YouTube video, but a YouTube video nonetheless—that the picture quality is at a higher level than the TCL or Hisense options. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is; it just looks cleaner and more refined. Once we measure it, we'll start discovering other things, like where the peak brightness power goes and how the backlight manages blooming and halo, and how quickly it handles lighting transitions. We’re going to dig deep into the nitty-gritty to find out if this TV offers the exceptional experience you should expect at such a price premium, but we’re off to a pretty good start here. Let me know in the comments what kind of nitty-gritty, super TV-nerdy stuff you'd
like to see covered on this TV, assuming this size performs similarly to the 65-inch size. Alright, so even if you’re not getting the gigantic version, any size of the QN90D—from 43 inches all the way up to this 98-inch monster—should perform similarly. One thing is for certain, though, my friends: I'm going to be having fun the next few days. I’ll see you in the comments. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and we’ll see you in the next one. Until then, here are two other videos I think you might like. That’s a gift—amen.
2024-11-07 07:51
