A chance to talk to FlatpanelsHD's reviewers.
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By Torben Rasmussen
#13936
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By Alan1818
#13939
You stated that it doesn't quite perform as well as the best OLED TVs. Could you elaborate on that? Does this comment pertain mainly to the Q9FN's inferior black level performance?
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By Torben Rasmussen
#13940
Black level, viewing angles, light control, motion handling. It’s LCD and the Q9 doesn’t change the game in any way. Same merits and drawbacks as usual.
By Paulipro
#13945
Q9FN better than XBR-X900F ? Really ? Come on, Flatpanels, this site used to be serious. There is no less possibility to compare the quality of this Samsung with the quality present on Sony X900F. Just look at the two reviews.

Sorry to say that, but I wonder how much Samsung paid for this "Highly Recommended".

It's a shame
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By Torben Rasmussen
#13946
I wrote both reviews. I had both TVs for several weeks. I think both reviews are pretty accurate.

Nice touch suggesting we have been bribed by the way. Very constructive way to start a discussion...

Q9 has the edge especially in HDR as it has more zones. The picture quality score reflects this. In terms of UI Sony simply doesn’t match the Q9 at all. WASTLY superior remote, nice connections box with better connections (4x hdmi with 4K hdr support), slim wall mount, much smoother smart tv.

Sony XF90 has better motion, yes, and handles gradients a tad better. Q9 has the upper hand on most other parts.
By Paulipro
#13947
Torben Rasmussen wrote:I wrote both reviews. I had both TVs for several weeks. I think both reviews are pretty accurate.

Nice touch suggesting we have been bribed by the way. Very constructive way to start a discussion...

Q9 has the edge especially in HDR as it has more zones. The picture quality score reflects this. In terms of UI Sony simply doesn’t match the Q9 at all. WASTLY superior remote, nice connections box with better connections (4x hdmi with 4K hdr support), slim wall mount, much smoother smart tv.

Sony XF90 has better motion, yes, and handles gradients a tad better. Q9 has the upper hand on most other parts.
Dear Torben,

I really apologize for the comment, it was not my intention to offend you or Flatpanel's professionals.

I follow flatpanels for many years and have always enjoyed the reviews. But after reading so many reviews that seem to change the weighting of the questions when dealing with Samsung equipment, I get the feeling that other brands need to be 1000% perfect to match, this is unfair, in my opinion.

The same goes for Apple, even when their equipment is noticeably inferior, many reviewers place a nonexistent advantage that ultimately disqualifies superior equipment from other brands.

Of course, some of those characteristics are more important to some people than to others, but despite this subjectivity, I believe that things like cadence (without judder and sttutering) and well processed motion smoothness are more important than the control remote friendliness, for example.

Another factor that caught my attention was that although the Q9FN has more zones, it seems to be more glooming than the X900F, as well as the regularity of the screen in 13 sec. of exposure, honestly that's horrible for a high-end TV.

Regarding the OS used in several brands also I think it's more subjective or user usual question. Some prefer Web OS, Tizen or Android, whatever, the important thing is that the system has a glimpse of future use and, especially, the manufacturer continues updating older models, at least for some time, something that neither LG nor Samsung have done. It's a shame and disrespectful to consumers.

So these are just some of the questions that I raise, because in my opinion, it is not justifiable for Q9FN to have such a high rating compared, not only to the X900F, but to other models that you have rated and they had no major problems as judder, sttutering, flicker or flashing lights for poor processing and/or local dimming issues.

As I said, It's just my opinion, but still so, I raise these questions for discussion.

Thanks and Peace! ;-)
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By Torben Rasmussen
#13948
With respect to the subjectiveness of evaluating e.g. the OS a review is a subjective thing. If you want objectiveness then I suggest you look at Rtings instead (which I don't really categorize as reviews).

We do separate picture quality from features and user experience. But you might be confusing our two awards? The "recommended" award isn't based purely on picture quality, but is concerned with the complete package. Otherwise B&O would never had gotten such an award previously. Q9 has a lot to offer, but it is not a winner if you only consider picture quality.

If I glance at other reviews and compare e.g. the ZD9 and Q9FN, others seem to agree with our evaluation. The curious issue with fluctuating light hasn't been reported by others, but we are trying to get a comment from Samsung - and would perhaps reach out to other reviewers to see if they can reproduce the issue. Unfortunately we know that the specific specimen we have for testing has been reviewed by others, so either they don't care, aren't as thorough, or simply don't see the issue.

Same thing goes for the horizontal dimming of the 2017 Q9, which we mentioned issues with last year - no-one else reported the same issues as far as I know. So we are nitpicking sometimes and we know that a lot of people (reviewers as well) don't notice the issues we bring up. This makes it a little unfair to label things as absolute dealbreakers.
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By Torben Rasmussen
#13950
Daniel from Rtings has tried to reproduce the light issue on their set, but had to enable the ambient sensor to get similar results. We leave the eco settings off, but cannot rule out that the demo set might have behaved differently than the retail model (or US model). The set is no longer on our bench, but let me at least convey Daniels suggestion to verify that the ambient sensor is disabled when using the TV.
By Emanuel366
#14104
Great review team!
I just purchased a 2018 Q9 and I definitley have the pulsating / fluctuating light issue....It drives me insane!

Not sure what is causing it- it does seem like the TV is constantly trying to adjust the brightness or contrast of parts of the screen to compensate for something - and I see it most often when subtitles are enabled. Unfortunately I haven’t seen many people comment on it, so I’m not sure if my unit is a defective unit or not but it’s certainly not a subtle effect... I find it really distracting.

Were you able to get any feedback from Samsung on what the issue was and whether there was a way to address it?
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By Torben Rasmussen
#14105
Samsung indicated that the issue would be resolved in an update. Is the TV up to date? I have just looked at the Q8 and it doesn’t have the same issue, so something is different in terms of addressing the dynamic light. Of course this unit has less zones, but I would imagine that it should be prone to the same issue if the software was the same.
By Emanuel366
#14106
Thanks for the reply - i am running the latest firmware (ver 1131.9) - you would notice it a lot more when subtitles are enabled. When the subtitles appear and disappear on top of a dark movie scene, the background of the movie will brighten and dim as it seems to try to adjust the brightness to provide proper colour or black balance - Might be worth giving a test w
User avatar
By Torben Rasmussen
#14107
We have already tried the same tests we used to reveal the issue on the Q9 and the Q8 seems to do better. No fluctuations.

All Samsungs have a delay in the backlight though, so you will see the backlight change slowly instead of adapting to the scene instantaneously. This is not the case on the Sony models for instance. We should have the Q8 review online sometime tomorrow.