QN90A Owners Club

[mr_zen256]

Just received my Samsung QN90A 55" yesterday after upgrading from a Sony X900F. Calling it a major upgrade would be an understatement! After dialling in the settings, this TV looks absolutely stunning in 4K 120hz with G-Sync enabled. The brightness is fantastic! Tried out some HDR gaming and movies and I'm blown away that an LCD could have such excellent black levels with no black crush and loss of detail. The colour range is excellent! So far my only gripe is the slight blooming that can occur around white text on black backgrounds. This can be substantially minimized by using a combination of low local dimming, game mode and PC mode.

Also I love the game bar that comes with the Game Mode.. Best TV I've ever owned by a LONG shot.

Game Bar

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

Can you set the color space when in PC Mode and/or Game Mode? I remember that older Samsung TVs disabled the color space setting in those modes, and you were stuck with Native which was wide gamut. This made it problematic to use those TVs as monitors. I don't know if recent models still have his limitation or not.

 

[mr_zen256]

Can you set the color space when in PC Mode and/or Game Mode? I remember that older Samsung TVs disabled the color space setting in those modes, and you were stuck with Native which was wide gamut. This made it problematic to use those TVs as monitors. I don't know if recent models still have his limitation or not.

Yes, Color Space is greyed out and set to Native. What's the problem with wide gamut?

 

[Bigmonitorguy]

Yes, Color Space is greyed out and set to Native. What's the problem with wide gamut?

Thanks for checking. The problem is that this is the wrong color space for most things that you display on a monitor, such as browsing and non-HDR videos and games. For that, you need the color space to be sRGB/Rec. 709. Otherwise, the colors you get are wrong (oversaturated, etc.) LG TVs support using this color space. I think Sony too, although I haven't tried those. For some reason, Samsung doesn't support this in PC Mode and Game Mode. I was hoping that they changed that...

 

[mr_zen256]

Thanks for checking. The problem is that this is the wrong color space for most things that you display on a monitor, such as browsing and non-HDR videos and games. For that, you need the color space to be sRGB/Rec. 709. Otherwise, the colors you get are wrong (oversaturated, etc.) LG TVs support using this color space. I think Sony too, although I haven't tried those. For some reason, Samsung doesn't support this in PC Mode and Game Mode. I was hoping that they changed that...

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this. To my eye everything looks fantastic but I can see how this might be an issue for those people using it for design work (such as myself actually) in photoshop etc where color accuracy is super important. I won't be using this for much design work though so I can let that slide.

 

[Senn]

For PC work use (I have the 50" and do structural CAD on it but it doesn't require colour accuracy) the colours actually benefit from going into the service menu and turning off local dimming entirely when in PC mode. Makes the desktop more uniform and (to my entirely subjective eyes) more accurate to what I expect.

I had to tweak the contrast and colour sliders of the TV to prevent crushing and clipping. It's almost certainly not perfect but combined with the defeated local dimming my settings are (as "PC" and set to "Graphic" picture mode):

Brightness - 30
Contrast - 43
Sharpness - 10 (this defeats sharpness in this mode, don't use 0)
Colour - 22
Tint - 0
Contrast Enhancer - Off
ColourTone - Standard
Gamma - 2.2
Shadow Detail - 0

Of course this will also be detrimental for anyone playing PC games and relying on the LD for good HDR so it's not an ideal solution by any means.

This mostly works for me though as almost all my gaming is currently on the PS5 and Switch. Once it switches to other inputs the LD comes back.

 

[mr_zen256]

For PC work use (I have the 50" and do structural CAD on it but it doesn't require colour accuracy) the colours actually benefit from going into the service menu and turning off local dimming entirely when in PC mode. Makes the desktop more uniform and (to my entirely subjective eyes) more accurate to what I expect.

I had to tweak the contrast and colour sliders of the TV to prevent crushing and clipping. It's almost certainly not perfect but combined with the defeated local dimming my settings are (as "PC" and set to "Graphic" picture mode):

Brightness - 30
Contrast - 43
Sharpness - 10 (this defeats sharpness in this mode, don't use 0)
Colour - 22
Tint - 0
Contrast Enhancer - Off
ColourTone - Standard
Gamma - 2.2
Shadow Detail - 0

Of course this will also be detrimental for anyone playing PC games and relying on the LD for good HDR so it's not an ideal solution by any means.

This mostly works for me though as almost all my gaming is currently on the PS5 and Switch. Once it switches to other inputs the LD comes back.

These are really good tips! Interesting note about the sharpness, I was wondering why text was quite blurry and setting it to 10 fixed that. Thanks for that.

Although it's not ideal for a work environment, I'm probably going to live with the local dimming as I'll be using the screen predominantly for entertainment. If I wanted to access the service menu I think I'd need to purchase one of the traditional remotes correct? I hear in some regions you get both types of remote, but here only got the newer remote with the USB and solar recharge panel.

 

[Senn]

These are really good tips! Interesting note about the sharpness, I was wondering why text was quite blurry and setting it to 10 fixed that. Thanks for that.

Although it's not ideal for a work environment, I'm probably going to live with the local dimming as I'll be using the screen predominantly for entertainment. If I wanted to access the service menu I think I'd need to purchase one of the traditional remotes correct? I hear in some regions you get both types of remote, but here only got the newer remote with the USB and solar recharge panel.

Oddly enough the sharpness setting changes its scale based on what you're using. I have to set it to 0 for the PS5 to get rid of it as by default it is over sharpened and pretty awful looking. With PC mode, 0 is quite obviously blurring the image. These inconsistencies between modes are baffling but it just goes with my experiences of using a TV as a monitor.

And yeah, if you're primarily using the display for entertainment, definitely keep the LD on. It's what makes this screen what it is for the most part. Turning it off kills any HDR and it's only useful to me for traditional non-gaming desktop stuff (read: work).

I have the UK QN94A model so it came with the traditional remote alongside the solar one.