Samsung QLED versus LG OLED

[nOOky]

I'm thinking of getting either the LG 77" B2 OLED or the Samsung QN85B QLED 75". Currently we have a 60: Panasonic plasma that's 11 years old. I have to admit that the picture is still very good, and I was kind of waiting for it to fail before I bought a new tv. Our living room can either be bright during the day, but otherwise the room is fairly dark and I watch mostly in the evenings. So far the wife has not complained about lack of brightness even on our current tv, which leads me to think the LG should be alright in that regard.

Mainly we watch Netflix or Amazon series etc. followed by sports such as football or basketball, and probably movies are in third place. I think either would work, right now there is only a $200 price difference between the two with the Samsung being cheaper. We will not hook any gaming consoles up to it.

I'm just sitting here at work with time to shop around, not sure if they will be any cheaper close to superbowl Sunday or not. The LG is $1,999.00 and the Samsung $1,799.00 and I have a credit at best Buy.

Decisions, decisions...

 

[quikah]

This is a highly technical comparison of OLED and plasma. This is comparing 2 flagship units, so you would need to take that into account.

In general OLED is better in dark rooms while QLED is better in bright rooms. You could probably buy either and wouldn't know you are missing out on anything the other offers as both would probably be a huge step up compared to your old TV. I will say that the OS of 2022 Samsung TVs is kind of a dog, can be slow at times. Don't have any experience with LG OS, but I have heard it is pretty decent.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Only thing that would sway me towards Samsung despite greyer blacks is that some of their models have 100% DCI-P3 coverage. But it's Samsung. Not sure about their quality and long term reliability.

In a store setting, however, most people are going to pick the Samsung coz it can get really bright and still maintain the vibrance and intensity of its colors. LG OLEDs can usually go up to max 900 nits or lower.

I have a C8 that''s the only one they tried to boost up to 1000 nits but then the reviewers complained that it made the colors weaker. To my eyes, colors look fine but when it gets bright, it can hurt! Samsung gets even brighter so based on my experience, I don't want Samsung blinding me in a dark room.

 

[UNCjigga]

I just saw Samsung's Q80B side-by-side with the new S90C at Sam's Club--I was amazed at how bright the OLED was compared to QLED. Both had great colors and decent processing given the same store source content. Under the harsh lighting, the OLED only seemed to be ~10% dimmer. But it actually looked better than the QLED off-axis, and definitely had better anti-reflection coating vs. the Q80 (not sure if Q85 or Q90 would be more comparable.)

Of course, all bets are off when you add daylight to the mix.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Which size Q80B? The difference sizes use different panels and will have different performance as a result. I believe the 85" uses a VA panel, and I know the 65" uses an APS panel (a type of IPS) which has worse off axis viewing than the VA and worse contrast ratio. I would also suspect that the TV had it's brightness turned down to help the OLED look brighter, as the Q80B should be able to easily hit over 5000 Nits sustained 100% window, but the S90C can only push about 2000 Nits sustained 100% window (i.e. it is well less than 1/2 the brightness of the Q80B, something that would be CLEARLY visible).

 

[igor_kavinski]

I would also suspect that the TV had it's brightness turned down to help the OLED look brighter, as the Q80B should be able to easily hit over 5000 Nits sustained 100% window, but the S90C can only push about 2000 Nits sustained 100% window (i.e. it is well less than 1/2 the brightness of the Q80B, something that would be CLEARLY visible).

1000 nits is already too high for me. Don't wanna look at anything above that. Those nits are retina searing for sure! In small highlights they would look great but 100% window? Count me out!

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yes, but where it really comes into play is if sunlight is involved. Indirect sunlight is already between 5000 and 10000 nits depending on time of day/humidity/cloud cover/longitude. Having a TV that can't counter that signal/noise ratio is a real problem for many people, and one of the reasons why you may need a TV that pushes 5000 nits, as one that only does 1000 nits will be completely washed out.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So it should be regulated by a light sensor. Shouldn't start blinding people in a normal lit or low lit room. I'm just wary coz my LG C8 probably doesn't have a sensor and bright scenes make me go ouch! But yes, I do see the advantage of higher nits to fight daylight. Fortunately, I hardly do most of my entertainment watching during the day so this feature probably won't matter to me if I ever need a new TV in future.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I own both QLED and OLED and both are fantastic. The QLED is in my living room that has plenty of windows and the OLED is in a light controlled room. The OLED is by far the more POP screen of the two. Both are great though. The blacks and the color pop of the OLED though wins every time.

 

[Oyeve]

OLED on a phone or tablet is great. I just never liked OLED for a large screen TV. IMO, the blacks are too dark. I watch TV in dim rooms and OLED gets hard to see if its a dark movie or show. I find myself fiddling the the brightness settings too much and it distracts from my viewing experience. I have a 75" full array nanocell LG TV that, IMO, has a better viewing experience.

 

[igor_kavinski]

IMO, the blacks are too dark.

It helps to have bias lighting.

 

[Fallen Kell]

OLED on a phone or tablet is great. I just never liked OLED for a large screen TV. IMO, the blacks are too dark. I watch TV in dim rooms and OLED gets hard to see if its a dark movie or show. I find myself fiddling the the brightness settings too much and it distracts from my viewing experience. I have a 75" full array nanocell LG TV that, IMO, has a better viewing experience.

That is usually more of a sign of blacks being crushed, but is also more and more an issue with recent movements in the "mastering" stage. Even LCDs have issues with this because the material is being mastered to be very dark in the first place. You don't run into it within movie theaters because the projector's can't generate a perfectly dark spot on the screen (as they are still projecting light through a digital film layer in almost all theaters, with the only exception being the few screens that have upgraded to laser projectors).

I feel video needs to be properly mastered taking into account the actual medium that will be used to display it, and if it was mastered assuming a LCD will show it, placing that same video on a OLED that will generate perfect blacks will be too dark and cause a dark shift in the overall video, resulting in needing to brighten things back up in order to see what is happening in the scene. I feel OLEDs should have a preset filter in place that you can quickly toggle that will cause the pre-processing of the video to adjust for the difference the level of "black" compared to the defacto standard reference monitors used for video/TV/movie mastering (such as the Sony BVM-HX3110), there-by converting the image to match more closely to what would have been displayed to the video mastering engineers on the displays they were using (thus taking into account the differences in black level of the OLED panel vs the BVM that was most likely used in the mastering stage). And like I said, make that toggle-able, so that if you want to see the video with the perfect blacks, you can, but can quickly/easily jump to what the video was designed to look like by the mastering engineers.

 

[IlllI]

That is usually more of a sign of blacks being crushed, but is also more and more an issue with recent movements in the "mastering" stage. Even LCDs have issues with this because the material is being mastered to be very dark in the first place.

a recent example of how horrible some things can be: