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quality

Nuclear Throne
Gaming Gear

10 years after it launched, one of the best roguelikes of all time gets a surprise update on Steam with quality of life improvements and a new controls menu

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It was 2015—10 years ago—that we called Nuclear Throne “a crowning achievement for Vlambeer, and one of the finest action-roguelikes ever made” in our 90% review. Seven years later, in 2022, we said it was still the best roguelike around. And now, in 2025, eight years after its last update, Nuclear Throne has suddenly sprung back to life.

“Good news for (future) Nuclear Throne fans: there’s an updated beta build on Steam with many quality of life improvements like 120fps support, different aspect ratios, and a new controls menu!” Vlambeer wrote in a surprise announcement on Bluesky. “Oh, and a new melting loading screen tip. 😎

Good news for (future) Nuclear Throne fans: there’s an updated beta build on Steam with many quality of life improvements like 120fps support, different aspect ratios, and a new controls menu! Oh, and a new melting loading screen tip. 😎 store.steampowered.com/app/242680/N…

— @vlambeer.com (@vlambeer.com.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T22:31:32.280Z

Vlambeer celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2020 by closing its doors, not over any discord between co-founders Rami Ismail and Jan Nijman, but simply because it felt like the “natural” thing to do at that point in their careers. Four years later, however, it was back, although without Ismail, who sold his half of the studio to Nijman. And Nijman has apparently decided to go back to where it all began.


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The studio said in a separate post that it would “be nice” to get the new update out to console versions of Nuclear Throne, but it wants to “make sure everything is rock solid on PC first.”

To give the new Steam beta a shot, you’ll need to right-click on Nuclear Throne in your Steam library, then select “Properties,” “Betas,” and “openbeta_win64” from the dropdown. Wait for the game to update, and then “enjoy your silky smooth gaming.”



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Switch 2 launch game Fast Fusion gets update to improve image quality
Game Updates

Switch 2 launch game Fast Fusion gets update to improve image quality

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Futuristic racer Fast Fusion will receive an update later this week, adding new tracks and a new rendering mode without upscaling.

As Digital Foundry reported, the Switch 2 launch game actually renders at a low image resolution but uses the console’s DLSS equivalent to upscale the image. Put simply, the game has been criticised for poor image quality, despite being such a fast game.

Now, developer Shin’en Games is introducing a new render mode called “Pure” that removes upscaling and instead renders at a native 1440p when docked (and 1080p in handheld).

Fast Fusion on Switch 2 – DF Tech Review – Brilliant Technology, Exceptional GameWatch on YouTube

What’s more, a new Carbium Cup will be added, including three new tracks: Alpine Trust, Sunahara Plains, Zenshoh Habitat.

Players of previous game Fast RMX may recognise these tracks, though they have all-new graphics and changed layouts to make use of Fast Fusion’s Hyperjump feature.

Further additions include: a new particle effect for snow, two new jukebox entries, a lower price to unlock the third cup for easier progression, fixed an issue where the game shut down when changing render mode, while stability and performance improvements have been implemented.

The update will arrive on 26th June.

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Fast Fusion is one of the few brand-new launch games for Nintendo’s new console. It’s the follow up to Switch game Fast RMX, itself an improved version of Fast Racing Neo on Wii U.

Anyone who’s a fan of the F-Zero or WipEout series will find much to enjoy here, with the game’s high speed thrills, rollercoaster tracks, and techno soundtrack. Indeed, it’s a modern day rival to F-Zero GX – one of three GameCube games available on Switch 2 through Nintendo Switch Online.

“The Switch 2’s best launch exclusive might not be Mario Kart World, but another racing game,” wrote Eurogamer’s Tom Orry on Fast Fusion.



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A Viera with a furrowed brow looks sad or frustrated.
Gaming Gear

Final Fantasy 14 director Yoshi-P admits ‘our quality of service has declined recently’ and ‘we got used to things a bit too much and got comfortable’

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As I wrote earlier this year, Final Fantasy 14 is in a bit of a weird spot. The highs of the Endwalker’s narrative conclusion and the WoW exodus have officially tapered off, leaving players with a fairly middling introduction to its new story and frustrations around patch cadence.

There are smaller snags between the more glaring issues, too—DDoS attacks continue to plague servers, last year’s graphical overhaul and Xbox launch have caused a snafu or two, and there was even one particularly odd bug last year that caused one of the game’s easiest raids to go turbo hard mode.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXXVII – YouTube

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Director and producer Naoki Yoshida is pretty aware of the disruption it’s all been causing, as he briefly discussed at the beginning of a livestream last week. “I’ve been feeling that our quality of service has declined recently, I am very for that,” Yoshida told viewers (thanks to the Final Fantasy 14 community Discord for the translations), adding that there have been “too many bugs that we need to have an emergency maintenance or a hotfix for.”


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Yoshida claims he’s had chats across both the community and development team, before saying: “It feels like we got used to things a bit too much and got comfortable.”

Now he’s probably talking more about the multitude of tech-related hiccups here, but it’s a sentence that rings true across the entire game. It feels like there’s been a real ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality that’s been keeping the MMO ticking along in recent years. And I mean, it ain’t quite broke. But it’s certainly incredibly rusted.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

I do think he’s at least somewhat cognizant of that, though, as he follows up by saying: “We grew bigger and processes didn’t fully work the way we had intended them to, we want to improve this again. Especially with new and big content we have recently released, this was difficult. We want to keep providing fun and engaging content and we will strive to do better.”

Stagnant game design and a lack of any meaningful, repeatable midcore content for an entire half of an expansion’s life is certainly harming Final Fantasy 14, and this all does make me wonder if Square Enix has at least sort of started to recognise that the formula isn’t working as well as it used to. Especially as the gap continues to widen between itself and WoW, with Blizzard practically running circles around Square at this point.

It does spark some kind of hope in me that we’ll start to see some larger overhauls, though they likely won’t manifest until the next expansion at the very earliest. We have already seen the developer dabbling with different fights like tougher 24-player boss fights, and returning to older concepts like Diadem and Bozja in the form of Cosmic Exploration and the Occult Crescent. Sentiment on all three has been rather mixed—which is to be expected, I guess—but I do hope Square Enix takes the feedback to evolve and catch back up to its competition, rather than going for its usual method of canning the content all together.



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AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution slide deck
Product Reviews

Enthusiast hacks FSR 4 onto RX 7000 series GPU without official AMD support, returns better quality but slightly lower fps than FSR 3.1

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A Reddit user has shared on r/radeon how they were able to run FSR 4 on their Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX, despite not being officially supported by AMD. Currently, FSR 4 only runs on AMD’s 9000-series GPUs because it requires architecture that isn’t readily available on older CPUs. However, Reddit user Virtual-Cobbler-9930 said that the latest Mesa update for Linux allows the older GPU to emulate FP8 precision via FP16, which FSR 4 uses for its machine learning-powered upscaling. This means that the 7900 XTX can run it even without the necessary hardware — albeit, at the cost of some performance.

Virtual-Cobbler-9930 used the OptiScaler DLL injection tool to force games to support FSR 4, which modders previously used to enable it manually in games that only supported DLSS 2 or XeSS. After that, you only need a couple of commands, and you’re golden. According to the user, a stable release of Mesa is expected to arrive by August, so these patches should be automated with the driver by then — that is, unless AMD asks them to remove the feature.

Aside from the RX 7900 XTX GPU, the user also had an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X CPU set to a 65-watt limit and 128 GB of DDR5 RAM, running the Arch Linux operating system. They then tested three games with FSR 4 — Cyberpunk 2077, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Marvel Rivals. In general, FSR 4 was able to achieve a slightly better quality than FSR 3.1 in all titles and also provided better fps numbers compared to running the games in native 4K resolution.

FSR4 on RDNA3 (7900xtx) tests from r/radeon

The user says that the difference was massive with Cyberpunk 2077, especially as FSR 4 delivered better detail compared to regular FSR 3. However, this resulted in about a 33% drop in fps — from 85.06 average at quality preset to just 56.28 (which is still quite playable). He suggested enabling frame gen or lowering the quality if you want to get higher frame rates, as FSR 4.1 has no smirring and delivers better grass and bush texture for this title. We also get the same story with Oblivion — a drop in performance (this time from 46 to 36 fps) in exchange for slightly better quality. It’s only with Marvel Rivals that FSR 4 didn’t offer better visual quality to make the fps drop palatable.

However, FSR 4 on the RX 7900 XTX only makes sense when you’re playing at 4K resolution. If you scale down to a lower resolution, such as 1080p, you won’t get higher performance because of your hardware’s limitation. It’s likely for this reason, and the minor quality difference you get versus the performance hit you’ll take, that AMD did not implement FSR 4 in older tech. But if you’re one to push your gear to its limits, then you can try using this technique to run AMD’s latest upscaling tech on unsupported GPUs.

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Fast Fusion may be the most technically impressive Switch 2 launch title - but image quality is an issue
Game Reviews

Fast Fusion may be the most technically impressive Switch 2 launch title – but image quality is an issue

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While many of Switch 2’s launch games are merely ports of existing games, the platform currently excels in one key area – racing games. For my money, there’s nothing better than a system launch packed full of arcade racing action and, in that sense, Switch 2 doesn’t disappoint. Mario Kart World is the system’s biggest title, while the original arcade version of Ridge Racer also makes its appearance – finally another system launch with a Ridge Racer game! Yet perhaps the most impressive racer on the system thus far, and also one of the most enjoyable games period, is Fast Fusion from Shin’en Multimedia.

We’ve featured Shin’en’s work on Digital Foundry many times over, most recently The Touryst, and for good reason: this Munich-based team has continued to produce amazing, tightly designed games across multiple genres, all while maintaining an exceptionally small team.

Fast Fusion is a proper sequel to the original Switch’s Fast RMX and the Wii U’s Fast Racing Neo, offering new mechanics and massively enhanced visuals while aiming for a fluid 60fps. At the same time, the game looks weirdly pixelated, so I wanted to investigate this issue and determine what’s going on.

Launching on the original Switch with Fast RMX was an awesome choice by Shin’en but, ultimately, it was an enhanced and expanded port of Fast Racing Neo for Wii U – which, to be fair, few people probably played given the console’s lack of success. With Fast Fusion, however, we finally have a proper sequel to that game. All new tracks, new mechanics and the fusion concept work in tandem to create something very special and fun. However, it was the visuals that caught our attention, with modern rendering techniques producing a stunning experience at 60fps.

Fast Fusion is the surprise essential launch game for Switch 2. Watch on YouTube

The biggest upgrades stem from fundamental changes to the lighting and materials model deployed in Shinen’s proprietary engine. It needed to be beautiful but also robust enough to handle the game’s enormous, high-speed tracks. More traditional light probe solutions were too memory-intensive – according to Shin’en, it would require upwards of 1GB of lighting data for just a single track. Furthermore, screen-space lighting alone wouldn’t be sufficient, as ambient and specular lighting were both necessary to pull off the look.

To solve this, they engineered a hybrid system – blending multiple lighting techniques with a mix of dynamic caching and a small amount of baked lighting data. Lighting data per track comes in at just 5 to 15MB total, while pre-calculation only needs 1 to 2 minutes per track. This means the game only needs around 120MB of baked lighting data in total, keeping the file size down to just 3.5GB in a proud Shin’en tradition.

There’s also an abundance of volumetric fog introduced in the game, basically simulating light scattering through the atmosphere. Volumetrics are usually rendered at much lower resolutions to maintain performance, especially on a bandwidth-constrained mobile system, but in Fast Fusion the devs were able to blend the 3D froxel volume rendered at a very low resolution with a screen-space upsampling pass to improve the fog. It’s impressively stable and even supports variable occlusion based on moving environmental details – so it is not static!

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The performance implications are huge, with all lighting calculations being deferred and executed entirely on the GPU, so there’s zero CPU cost. Better still, the system scales linearly with resolution, so the lighting cost remains fixed at just 0.5ms whether you’re playing solo or in 4-player split screen.

However, it’s this scalability with resolution that connects us back to perhaps the game’s one visual foible – image quality. Shin’en has often deployed clever image quality tricks to squeeze more out of a piece of hardware. Fast Racing Neo, for instance, uses interlaced rendering while Fast RMX uses both dynamic resolution scaling and variable rate shading.

Fast Fusion, is a little different, with pixel counts during camera cuts revealing heavy DLSS upscaling. The 1080p mode seems to render around 540p, 1440p mode is weirdly slightly lower at 504p, while the 4K60 mode renders at roughly 648p. Portable mode seems slightly lower than this as well, though it only needs to upsample to a 1080p screen. The huge upscale factors needed to target a 4K screen cause the significant image break-up evident in the game’s fast-paced visuals. That’s the main weakness here, and in terms of raw pixel output, Fast RMX on the Switch actually runs at a higher resolution with more stable image quality.

The developers do seem aware of the issues with the DLSS presentation though, and a patch expected next week will add a “pure” mode that strips out DLSS in favour of a straight 1440p docked and 1080p handheld experience.

Here’s a glance at how each mode compares visually – there’s little between them, save for the resolution differences and some extra settings tweaks on ultra quality. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

Regardless of the image quality concerns, the frame-rates on the four modes available now are excellent, with performance, balanced and quality modes all running at a near-locked 60fps, while the quality mode drops down to 30fps. Interestingly, the quality mode also disables real-time shadows in order to maximise resolution – a trade-off that’s not really worth it.

Beyond image quality, the rest of the visuals deserve plenty of praise. We already talked about lighting but the actual quality of the materials, the track detail and the ships are all wonderful. I love the subtle specular reflections on tracks with shiny or wet materials. The tracks themselves are also massively more detailed than anything in Fast RMX and the quality of the post-processing is improved as well, with sublime motion blur . Weather looks great too, with the rain and droplets forming on the screen looking suitably dramatic.

Fast Fusion also features an excellent HDR implementation, better distinction between highlights and darker regions of the image than Nintendo’s own games. In portable mode, this is limited by the screen, but on a proper HDR display, it really pops. All this is to say that, despite the chunky image quality, it is genuinely a stunning game and I still believe it’s the most technically impressive game of the launch lineup, due to its mix of high-quality visuals and fast performance.

Fast Fusion on Switch 2 actually runs at a lower base resolution than Fast RMX on the OG Switch. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

Another aspect I wanted to briefly mention is the audio – Fast Fusion supports full surround sound, for starters, which is something that was relatively uncommon on the original Switch – hopefully we’ll see it more often this time. The sound work is really well done, and the music steals the show with proper high-energy electronic tracks that perfectly suit the action.

To wrap this up, though, let’s talk about the game. Now this is an interesting one because Nintendo has released F-Zero GX alongside the console via the GameCube NSO app. GX is one of the best futuristic racing games ever made, so how does Fast Fusion compete?

Well, fundamentally, while they’re both very fast, the core mechanics are rather different. Fusion focuses on a blue/orange mechanic that requires you to match your ship’s colour to the boost pads you hit, similar to Treasure’s Ikaruga. Adding the ability to jump to the mix makes the game so much more exciting, not only by allowing for more branching track designs and pickups in different locations, but introducing some risk/reward, as it’s easy to jump off the track or crash into a bridge.

All in all, though, even with its shortcomings, I think Fast Fusion is a must-have launch title for Switch 2. With so few choices in terms of actual new games, it’s a no-brainer, really.



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Insta360 Link 2C on top of display
Product Reviews

Insta360 Link 2C review: a fantastic 4K webcam with sharp video quality and fleshed-out feature set

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Insta360 Link 2C: review

The Insta360 Link 2C is a webcam that has pretty large shoes to fill. When the Chinese camera company released its predecessor a few years back, it was lauded as a top-tier, premium option, thanks to its excellent 4K video and smart use of AI. So now comes the Insta360 Link 2C, which aims to offer even more AI capabilities and superior noise cancellation among other things. So, does it deliver?

Well, before I answer that definitely, I want to start by exploring picture and video quality on the Insta360 Link 2C. Now, whether I was taking a video call on Google Meet or simply messing around with the camera app on my Windows laptop, I always looked ultra clear, with finer details – including individual hair strands, facial hairs, and markings on my face all bubbling to the surface.

That’s largely thanks to the Insta360 Link 2C offering up 4K resolution – something we always look for in our hunt for the best webcams. Of course, that premium quality isn’t going to come through on all video calling software, but if you’re a content creator or simply want top-tier performance, 4K support is going to be a must-have. For reference, this webcam also supports lower resolutions, such as 1080p, 720p and 360p, at varying frame rates.


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Yes, if you’re taking a video in 4K, for example, you’re going to get 30fps – more than enough for some, but 4K 60fps is available on models like the pricey Elgato Facecam Pro. 60fps is available on the Link 2C, though you’ll have to drop the resolution to 1080p or 720p.

When holding up objects like an earbuds charging case or a piece of paper, the webcam was also excellent at shifting focus onto them. That’s thanks to enhanced Phase Detection Auto Focus, which speedily captures details on anything you want to highlight to your colleagues, students, or family on a video call.

And there are so many more features to uncover too, many of which can be found on the free-to-download Insta360 Link Controller software. Here, you’re able to mess around with a range of picture settings like exposure and white balance, as well as try out different filters – stuff like blur, bokeh, and even a makeup tool. I felt that the Link 2C could be a bit better in low-light conditions, but this doesn’t have to be the case if you drill into the settings in this companion. Simply jump in and activate HDR while also flicking brightness up and you’ll see a big improvement.

Insta360 Link Controller also lets you toggle gestures on and off – something I was really looking forward to using. If you hold your hand up – you know, like those big red hands on crossing lights – you can frame the shot to you. There’s also a whiteboard option, which will keep whatever you’re writing on squared and in focus. Both of these work well, and I found them useful when making a video call or just having a bit of fun in the companion software.

But one option that didn’t work so seamlessly for me, was the zoom in and zoom out gesture. You have to make an ‘L’ shape with your hand, which will make the webcam’s green LED light flash. After this, you can move that L shape up or down to zoom in or out respectively. But I found this to work a little more sporadically than I’d hoped. A good amount of the time, it worked well, but I often found that I had to make the L shape multiple times before it was registered, or the zooming would end a little prematurely.

Still, the vast majority of features worked without question on a very consistent basis. Stuff like auto-framing and AI tracking followed my movements with ease – ideal for an especially fidgety person like myself. Meanwhile, the 2C adds pause-track areas, which help the webcam to recognize areas that it shouldn’t track you – perhaps if you don’t want to show under your desk, say.

(Image credit: Future)

One of the improvements that the Link 2C is intended to bring is superior noise cancelling. That’s something you’re gonna want if you’re taking calls in a busy office environment, for example. I asked a colleague to make some noises while I called my friend and the results were decent, all things considered. Clapping, for instance, was still very much audible, but stuff like typing and light chatter was dulled nicely.

There are three modes: Voice Focus, Voice Suppression, and Music Balance – but none of these are going to offer the clarity you’ll get from the best microphones for streaming. Ultimately, my voice didn’t sound ultra-crisp on the 2C, but it will plate up clear enough quality for more casual users.

Still, audio is handled pretty well by webcam standards. But something that’s truly fantastic about the Link 2C is its design. It has a real premium metallic feel and finish, diminutive magnetic clip-stand and discreet detailing around the lens. It’s also ultra practical thanks to its compact size, slider for covering the camera and USB-C connectivity. There’s no gimbal or tripod for the 2C model, but if you’re after that, you can grab the standard Link 2 model.

There’s only one way I can tie all of this together and that’s by talking about price. Now, my mind was genuinely blown by the price of the original Insta360 Link – it was almost $300 / £320 / AU$570! But the Link 2C is far more affordable, while still offering some improvements over its predecessor, including better noise cancelling and a sleeker look. This newer webcam will set you back just under $150 / £150 / AU$250, and given the overall performance and quality of the product, I’d say that’s strong overall value for money.

So, at the end of it all, would I recommend the Insta360 Link 2C? Yes, definitely! You get super sharp video, responsive auto-frame adjustment, decent audio (well, by webcam standards), and really neat companion software for fine-tuning everything to your liking. In honesty, the Link 2C has given my setup the facelift I didn’t even know it needed – I’m seeing more detail and fluidity than ever, in each video call. And that’s something I’ve really grown to appreciate.

Sure, the zoom in/out gesture could be a little more reliable and I’d still be inclined to purchase a separate mic for the best speech clarity. But from the upgrade I’ve seen to my work the Insta360 Link 2C is still a fantastic all-round package.

(Image credit: Future)

Insta360 Link 2C review: price & availability

  • $149 / £149 / AU$249
  • Launched in September 2024

The Insta360 Link 2C launched alongside the Link 2 in September 2024, two years after its predecessor. The Link 2C carries a list price of $149 / £149 / AU$249, which is drastically, and I mean drastically, cheaper than the original model cost at launch. Yep, the original Insta360 Link released with a list price of $299 / £319 / AU$569 – woah. But don’t be fooled: the 2C has made some improvements over its predecessor, with better noise cancelling, AI features and a prettier build. I know which one I’d pick!

It’s worth noting, by the way, that the Link 2C comes in two color variants: Arctic White; or the version I tested, Graphite Black. The version you pick should have little to no bearing on the price you pay.

Insta360 Link 2C review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Supported resolutions

4K at 30fps, 1080p / 720p at 60fps, 360p at 30fps

Sensor

1/2-inch

Lens

Not specified

Focal length

26mm

Aperture

f/1.8

Focal length

26mm

Field of view

79.5 degrees

(Image credit: Future)

Should you buy the Insta360 Link 2C?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyInsta360 Link 2C webcam report card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Design

Practical, diminutive and premium-feeling build, sleeker than original.

5/5

Performance

Great video quality, plenty of settings to play with, some gesture issues.

4/5

Value

Huge price-cut over original, not too pricey against competition.

4.5/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Insta360 Link 2C: also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0

Insta360 Link 2C

HP 960 4K Streaming Webcam

Obsbot Meet SE

Price

$149 / £149 / AU$249

$219.99 / £180 / AU$295

$69 / £65 / AU$119

Supported resolutions

4K at 30fps, 1080p / 720p at 60fps, 360p at 30fps

4K at 30fps, 1080 / 720p at 60fps

1080p at 100fps, 720p at 150fps

Sensor

1/2-inch

Not specified

1/2.8-inch

Lens

Not specified

18mm

Not specified

Focus range

0.1m to ∞

0.1m to ∞

0.1m to ∞

Aperture

f/1.8

f/2.0

f/1.8

Focal length

26mm

Not specified

26mm

Field of view

79.5 degrees

78 / 90 / 100 degrees

78 degrees

How I tested the Insta360 Link 2C

(Image credit: Future)

  • Tested in a one-week period
  • Made video calls and experimented with photo and video independently
  • Exhausted range of features and settings in companion software

I had the Insta360 Link 2C connected to my work setup across a one-week period, testing out its various features and functions. Well, actually, I’ve kept it in my setup beyond initial testing – I’ve enjoyed using it that much!

In order to assess the Link 2C’s quality I tried making a number of video calls, taking photos, and playing around with picture settings in the Insta360 Link Controller software. I compared it to my laptop’s inbuilt camera, tried out gesture controls and also tested quality in both natural and low-light conditions.

Speaking more generally, I’ve tested a huge quantity of products here at TechRadar as a resident Reviews Writer. That covers everything from the latest TVs through to electric shavers – I’ve got experience right across the board.



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Samsung S90F showing colorful abstract image
Product Reviews

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: more affordable QD-OLED TV image quality comes of age

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Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Samsung S90F 65-inch: Two-minute review

The Samsung 65S90F TV I tested features the brand’s quantum dot approach to OLED technology. It doesn’t push the brightness of this relatively new take on the best OLED TV tech as hard as the flagship Samsung S95F OLED TV does, but that doesn’t stop it from delivering a big improvement over last year’s Samsung S90D – a level of improvement that makes it arguably the most all-round attractive TV in Samsung’s 2025 TV range once you’ve taken value into account.

Movie fans will be in awe at the Samsung 65S90F’s phenomenal contrast and light control, which finds stunningly deep black levels (provided you’re not shining some sort of spotlight at the screen…) balanced with highlights that hit levels of intensity we once thought OLED would never achieve.

Samsung’s approach to OLED technology also helps the 65S90F deliver incredibly vivid colors, while its latest NQ4 AI Gen3 Processor ensures that there’s much more subtlety and nuance in the way these fantastically rich tones are used to create more natural, three-dimensional pictures than its already illustrious predecessor managed.


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Gamers are in for a treat with the 65S90F too, as it delivers such console and PC-friendly features as support for 4K at up to 144Hz, variable refresh rates across all four of its HDMI 2.1 ports, and one of the fastest response times I’ve ever seen from a TV.

Its Tizen smart system is packed with content and increasingly easy to use, too, and notwithstanding the occasional bass fumble, the 65S90F even manages to sound good despite its ultra-slim design.

Add to all this the fact that the 65-inch S90F costs hundreds less than its flagship S95F sibling, and it starts to become seriously hard to resist. But let me point out that this review and the performance figures only apply to the 65-inch version – at other sizes, instead of a QD-OLED panel, you may get a W-OLED panel, with different performance.

  • Samsung OLED S90F 4K Vision AI Smart TV at Amazon for $1,197.99

Samsung S90F series: Prices and release date

The mid-range Samsung S90F brings the picture benefits of QD-OLED to a lower price point (Image credit: Future)

  • Release date: April 2025
  • 42-inch: $1,299 / £N/A / AU$1,799
  • 48-inch: $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,499
  • 55-inch: $1,799 / £1,899 / AU$3,299
  • 65-inch: $2,499 / £2,699 / AU$4,299
  • 77-inch: $3,499 / £3,799 / AU$5,999
  • 83-inch: $5,399 / £5,999/ AU$7,999

The 65-inch S90F was released worldwide during April 2025. It sits in the second tier of Samsung’s 2025 OLED TV range, below the significantly brighter and more expensive S95F flagship series.

Its $2,499 / £2,699 / AU$4,299 pricing places it right at the heart of today’s upper mid-range TV marketplace, and pitches it squarely against such key rivals as the LG C5 and Samsung’s premium mini-LED TV for 2025, the Samsung QN90F.

The sizes above are the official prices for the other options in the S90F model range, but again, we’re only focusing on the 65-inch here.

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Screen type:

QD-OLED

Refresh rate:

144Hz

HDR support:

HDR10+, HDR10, HLG

Audio support:

Dolby Atmos, Eclipsa Audio

Smart TV:

Tizen 9.0

HDMI ports:

4 x HDMI 2.1

Built-in tuner:

ATSC 1.0 (US)

Samsung 65S90F review: Benchmark results

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Features

The S90F has four HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K 144Hz support for gaming (Image credit: Future)

  • 4K quantum dot OLED TV
  • HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ HDR support
  • Gaming support up to 4K 144Hz with VRR

For many AV fans, the 65S90F’s key appeal will be getting Samsung’s QD-OLED technology for substantially less money than the brand’s S95F flagship OLED costs.

The attraction of QD-OLED technology is that it delivers red, green and blue colors without the additional white element used by traditional OLED screens, yet still manages to at least match those ‘WRGB’ OLEDs when it comes to high dynamic range-friendly brightness for video and gaming content.

The tech has already delivered some truly spectacular picture quality results since Samsung first launched the technology back in 2022, including multiple TV of the Year award-winners.

Samsung claims to have improved the performance of the 65S90F over its S90D predecessor with increased brightness and more granular control of its QD-OLED panel, as well as an upgraded NQ4 AI Gen 3 processor.

This is stated to run NPU and GPUs that are twice as fast as the ones used in Samsung’s step-down S85F OLEDs, as well as a 17% faster CPU, while introducing new AI-driven picture and sound elements on the back of a 6.4 times increase in the number of neural networks the TV carries.

The 65S90F’s sound also benefits from Samsung’s OTS technology, which, despite the TV only having a 2.1-channel speaker configuration, uses clever audio processing to try and make sounds appear to be coming from the correct part of the screen. Or even the precise area beyond the screen’s edges if that’s what an audio mix dictates.

If you partner the 65S90F with a Samsung soundbar, you get the additional advantage of Samsung’s Q-Symphony feature, where the speakers in the TV join forces with those in the soundbar (rather than being replaced by them) to deliver a larger center channel sound with more accurate detail placement.

The 65S90F’s connections are outstanding for a mid-range TV, dominated as they are by a set of four HDMI ports that are all built to cope with the latest gaming features of 4K 120Hz feeds (actually 4K 144Hz is supported via Samsung’s Motion Xcelerator technology), variable refresh rates (including both AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync, with the latter coming in a software update), and auto game mode switching.

All of that is backed up by both a dedicated gaming hub within the TV’s Tizen operating system and a specific game monitoring and adjustment menu, but more on this later.

As ever with Samsung TVs, the 65S90F’s HDR support includes the ‘core’ HDR10 and HLG formats, as well as the premium HDR10+ system that adds extra scene-by-scene image data to help compatible displays deliver more accurate and punchy results.

This HDR10+ support extends to the Adaptive version that can adjust its output to compensate for ambient light conditions, and HDR10+ gaming.

Samsung continues, though, not to support the Dolby Vision HDR format on its TVs.

One other thing the 65S90F does not have is one of the potent anti-glare screen filters sported by Samsung’s S95F flagship OLED TVs and some of its 2025 premium LCD TVs.

That doesn’t mean the 65S90F’s screen is so reflective that it often or severely gets between you and the TV’s outstanding picture quality in a regular living room set up, though. And while I personally have a lot of time for Samsung’s anti-glare TV filters, some people actually prefer a slightly glossy screen, and for those people, the 65S90F is therefore a potentially great QD-OLED alternative to the S95F.

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Picture quality

The S90F’s above-average brightness makes it good for bright room viewing, though it lacks the anti-reflective screen coating found in the flagship S95F (Image credit: Future)

  • Exceptional contrast
  • Rich, pure RGB colors
  • No viewing angle limitations

Despite not being the flagship 65-inch model from Samsung’s 2025 OLED range, the 65S90F still delivers a gorgeously potent demonstration of what the latest QD-OLED panels are capable of.

Its light control and contrast are particularly phenomenal. The ability of each pixel in any OLED screen to deliver its own brightness and color entirely independently of its neighbors always gives OLED TVs an instant and important area of advantage with home theater fans, of course – but for the vast majority of the time the 65S90F manages to combine the sort of phenomenally inky, deep black tones expected of OLED TVs with brighter HDR image highlights than its S90D predecessor managed.

And that’s while also revealing substantially more consistently visible shadow detail in the darkest image corners – it’s better in both bright and dark scenes.

Its brightness sees the 65S90F managing to reach as high as 1,500 nits on a 10% white HDR test window – a huge increase of almost 50% over the brightness in the same test circumstances achieved by 2024’s 65S90D.

This can be delivered on the 65S90F, too, without causing any of the backlight haloing and clouding problems rival LCD TV technology would typically present when dealing with the sort of contrast the 65S90F loves to show.

Just occasionally, the 65S90F can still sometimes crush the subtle detail out of the picture in some of its presets – but if this becomes problematic to you, then nudging the TV’s Shadow Detail adjustment up to level three or four pretty much fixes the issue without causing any unwanted side effects.

I was also struck by how clean the 65S90F’s dark picture areas and scenes look. There’s really zero sign of the sort of graininess or grey blocking noise that less able OLED screens can show in dark areas, revealing a fantastically granular level of control over the QD-OLED panel even in challenging near-black image areas.

Having so much extra brightness in its arsenal hugely increases the intensity the 65S90F can pump into HDR playback, resulting in HDR images that look more natural and realistic as well as more dynamic.

It feeds also into a significantly richer color performance than the S90D served up, getting much more value out of the QD-OLED pixel design. This is particularly and spectacularly obvious in the hard-to-resist Standard picture preset, but crucially, the more accurate Movie and Filmmaker Mode presets also look richer and warmer than they did on the 65S90D without losing that sense of ‘as the director intended’ authenticity home cinema fans are so often looking for.

On that accuracy point, the 65S90F’s measured color and white balance results with SDR content in Filmmaker Mode average out at marginally above the Delta E average error level of three – anything below this is where the human eye is considered incapable of perceiving a visible difference between what the TV is showing and the established video standards.

But since the results average only misses that Delta E error margin goal of three by a puny 0.48, I’m pretty confident that only the most trained eye will have any chance of spotting anything off-key about the Filmmaker Mode’s glorious efforts.

In fact, thanks to the refinements the 65S90F can apply to its more vibrant colors, the Filmmaker Mode looks as gorgeous in its own calmer, more nuanced way as the much more vibrant Standard mode does, with both presets bringing out the extremes of the QD-OLED panel’s capabilities. Extremes that now include a level of subtlety to go with the potency that just wasn’t there before.

The S90F’s brightness reserves give highlights and colors in images added punch (Image credit: Future)

The 65S90F’s extremes of light and color precision also play their part in creating a beautifully crisp and clean picture with both native 4K sources and, thanks to the efforts of Samsung’s latest AI picture engine, upscaled HD images.

The only thing that damages the 65S90F’s sense of clarity and detail is the out-of-the-box motion settings Samsung applies to some of its picture presets, which can cause quite aggressive glitches in the picture during camera pans or around/over fast-moving objects.

Happily, though, it’s possible to tweak these issues away pretty straightforwardly by choosing a Custom setting for the Picture Clarity settings, and then turning off noise reduction and reducing the judder and blur reduction processing components to around level three or four.

Unlike most LCD and even some rival OLED screens, the 65S90F’s pictures don’t lose contrast or suffer from shifting color tones when viewed from even a really wide angle, making it a great option for big families or awkward room layouts.

I could find only two real issues with the 65S90F’s pictures. First, despite being much brighter than its predecessor, its brightness falls a fair way short of the sort of numbers we’re seeing now from the high-end OLEDs out there from the likes of LG, Samsung, and Philips. And second, if the 65S90F is being watched in very high levels of ambient light, its typically stunning black levels can start to look a bit gray.

The brighter OLEDs out there are typically much more expensive than the 65S90F, though, unless you pick up a 2024 model if you can find one. And the circumstances that cause grayness to creep into black areas are rarer and the degree of grayness milder than it was with the 65S90D, so much so that most home setups will seldom notice it.

  • Picture quality score: 5/5

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Sound quality

The S90F’s stand uses a pair of feet that slot screw-free into the TV’s bodywork (Image credit: Future)

  • 2.1-channel, 40W speaker array
  • OTS Lite system accurately positions sound effects
  • Dolby Atmos and AI sound modes

The 65S90F’s sound isn’t quite as talented as its pictures, but it still is much better and louder than you might expect from such an ultra-thin TV.

For starters, it gets good traction from its Object Tracking Sound (OTS) system. As its name suggests, this enhancement ensures that soundtrack elements are coming not just from the screen generally, but from the correct part of the screen. The system also manages to stage ambient sounds and music so that they appear, correctly, to be hanging out somewhere beyond the on-screen action.

The 65S90F’s OTS Lite system isn’t quite as uncannily precise with its sound effect positioning as Samsung’s higher-end TVs are – not least because it only carries a 2.1-channel speaker system versus the 4.2.2-channel speaker setups typically provided by those more premium models. But it’s still effective enough to make soundtracks feel detailed, busy and immersive.

The staging includes a good sense of forward impact with hard sounds like gunfire, punches and explosions too, despite the TV lacking any forward-facing speakers, while shrill treble effects avoid sounding distractingly harsh or thin.

The 65S90F isn’t the loudest TV we’ve heard – at least at the sort of volume levels you’ll need to stick to if you don’t want the speakers to start feeling a bit strained. Its speakers have enough headroom, though, to be capable of shifting up at least a few gears as action or horror scenes escalate towards a crescendo – even if they don’t quite have that ‘fifth gear’ required to carry the movie world’s loudest moments all the way home.

The 65S90F even manages to find a bit of bass from somewhere, despite its skinny form. This can succumb to buzzing interference, however, and sound a bit strained with the most extreme bass drops, but such moments don’t crop up all that often.

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Design

The S90F’s pedestal stand (Image credit: Future)

  • ‘LaserSlim’ design at its extremities
  • Screw-free stand design
  • Ultra-thin bezel

At first glance, the 65S90F looks like one of the most futuristic TVs you’ll see. This is because at its outer edges, the screen is incredibly thin – barely deeper than a couple of credit cards stacked on top of each other. The width of the frame around the screen is also unusually narrow, adding to the feeling that you’re watching pictures being conjured up out of thin air.

The 65S90F is not actually as skinny as it initially appears, though. There’s a much deeper mid-section on its rear hosting the TV’s speakers, connections and electronics. This results in a slightly awkward two-tier appearance if you’re looking at the back of the TV, with the screen seeming like it’s just been stuck onto the chunky section rather than the two areas coming together to forge a truly unified design.

Who in their right mind, though, wants to look at the back of a TV rather than its front? And from the front – and, actually, even from quite wide viewing angles – the 65S90F is a futuristic cutie.

While the 65S90F can be hung on a wall if you wish, most users will probably opt to place it on its included stand. This features a unique design that finds a pair of feet slotting screw-free into the TV’s bodywork, and a metallic plate then slotting onto the feet to create what looks like a centrally mounted pedestal support. The resulting central pedestal enables the TV to sit on pretty much as narrow a piece of furniture as you want.

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Smart TV and menus

The S90F’s Tizen 9.0 smart interface (Image credit: Future)

  • Tizen 9.0 smart TV system
  • Multiple voice control systems
  • AI-bolstered content recommendation

The Tizen OS carried by all Samsung TVs is now in its ninth generation, and after a few stumbles along the way, all that experience has paid off handsomely.

For starters, Tizen is now extremely rich with content, including – so far as I can tell – all of the main streaming apps used around the world, as well as many more obscure ones besides.

The only obvious absentee in the UK is the Freeview Play app that brings together all of the streaming services of the UK’s main terrestrial broadcasters. But crucially, each of those catch-up apps is still available on an individual basis.

The Tizen interface can feel a little overwhelming when you’re first presented with it, and it can also run a touch sluggishly for a moment or two after the 65S90F is switched on. Once it’s settled down, though, and you’ve spent just a few moments exploring what it can do, it’s now a friendly and – in the way it learns your viewing habits and recommends content accordingly – highly intelligent TV OS.

Tizen 9.0 has also now resolved most of the navigational quirks that used to affect it when it first switched to a full-screen interface, and it’s customizable enough to easily be adapted to your personal preferences. Also, it can adapt to the personal preferences and viewing habits of different members of your household thanks to its support for multiple user profiles.

Accessing the 65S90F’s setup menus from within the Tizen OS is a bit long-winded, but pressing the settings menu on either of the two remote controls the TV ships with offers a shortcut to all the most-used adjustments.

A notable addition to Samsung’s 2025 menu system is a new AI shortcut option that both makes Samsung’s AI-based picture and sound enhancements easier to access, and makes users more aware that such AI features exist.

Purists likely won’t care for the AI enhancements, of course, and things can get a bit complicated when it turns out that some of the other picture settings you can choose can have an impact on how aspects of the AI enhancements work. But I’d recommend that most people at least experiment with them, even if only with broadcast or sub-4K content too if you prefer how it sharpens things up.

One of the remote controls I just mentioned is a fairly chunky, button-crowded ‘standard’ one, while the other is a much sleeker, less button-heavy smart handset that I suspect will become the one most people use.

  • Smart TV & menus score: 4.5/5

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Gaming

Samsung includes its Solar Cell rechargeable remote control with the S90F (Image credit: Future)

  • 4K 144Hz support on all four HDMI ports
  • Variable refresh rates support, including FreeSync and G-Sync
  • Game hub and Game Bar screens

The 65S90F is an outstanding gaming display. For starters, all of its HDMI ports can take in full bandwidth gaming feeds, meaning you could simultaneously attach four 4K 120Hz-capable consoles and PCs if you wanted to.

All four HDMIs also support variable refresh rates, including in the AMD Freesync Premium Pro format and Nvidia G-Sync (though this is being added via an update), as well as auto low latency mode switching so that the TV automatically switches into its fastest response mode when the TV detects a game is incoming.

When in its Game mode, the 65S90F only takes 9.2ms to render incoming 60Hz feeds – a truly outstanding result for a TV that pretty much halves, too, if the game you’re playing supports 120Hz.

The 65S90F also lets you call up a dedicated Game Bar menu screen rather than the usual TV menus when it knows a game is being played, and from this Game Bar you can both get key information about the incoming gaming feed and access a few gaming aids, including a mini map zoom, the option to raise the brightness of dark picture areas without impacting bright areas, and a crosshair superimposed over the center of the screen.

The Tizen OS homescreen, meanwhile, includes a dedicated Game Hub page, where all of your gaming sources, from connected consoles to game streaming services, are gathered together.

The 65S90F’s gaming performance, finally, is fantastic. Its rich color and contrast are perfectly placed to deliver gaming graphics with exceptional exuberance and dynamism, especially with titles that make particularly aggressive use of high dynamic range. The speedy input lag time ensures that gaming always feels ultra fluid and responsive, too.

The only negative thing to say about the 65S90F’s gaming performance is that unless you’re taking advantage of its HDR Gaming Interest Group (HGiG) support, where the console takes control of the HDR that’s fed out to the TV, the default game settings can cause some distracting brightness fluctuations as you run around any map that has a mix of light and dark areas.

If this is troubling you with whatever game you’re playing, though, you just need to turn off the TV’s dynamic tone mapping setting.

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Value

The S90F’s design weds an ultra-thin display panel with a comparatively bulky section for the inputs and electronics (Image credit: Future)

  • Cheaper QD-OLED option than flagship Samsung S95F
  • Enhanced picture quality over S90D predecessor
  • Lacks S95F’s anti-reflection filter

While the 65S90F is not by any stretch of the imagination cheap, it does sit slightly at the right end of the same price ball park as its key rivals.

Also, more importantly, it’s around £700 / $800 cheaper than its 65-inch S95F sibling, while delivering a more potent sense of QD-OLED technology’s strengths than its S90D predecessor.

The S95F series does look set to deliver a major brightness upgrade over the S90F, to be fair, as well as carrying a really strong anti-reflection filter that the S90F does not have.

But that price difference adds up to a lot of 4K Blu-rays and/or other home theater gear.

Should I buy the Samsung S90F 65-inch?

Dual bass drivers on the TV’s rear convey the “.1” subwoofer channel in Atmos soundtracks (Image credit: Future)Swipe to scroll horizontallySamsung S90F 65-inch

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

Aside from not supporting the Dolby Vision HDR format, the 65S90F overall delivers a mammoth set of smart, gaming, audio and video features for its money.

5/5

Picture quality

The 65S90F’s pictures radically improve on those of its already excellent predecessor, delivering a mid-range OLED masterclass.

5/5

Sound quality

While more robust bass handling would have been nice, the 65S90F is loud enough, detailed enough and clever enough with the accuracy of its staging.

4/5

Design

While its two-tier design feels a little awkward during setup, the narrow, well-built bezel, and stunning thinness at its outer edges make it an opulent, elegant addition to your living room.

4.5/5

Smart TV and menus

It takes a little getting used to, but once you do, the rewards offered by the intelligence and scope of its content recommendation and voice recognition systems are immense.

4.5/5

Gaming

As well as looking gorgeous thanks to the screen’s rich colors and sensational contrast, games on the 65S90F feel fantastically responsive and crisp.

4.5/5

Value

The 65S90F delivers a massive chunk of QD-OLED goodness for way less than Samsung’s flagship S95F range.

4/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Samsung S90F 65-inch review: Also consider…

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0

Samsung 65S90F

LG OLED65C5

Panasonic 65Z85A

Philips 65OLED909

Price

£2,699 / $2,499

£2,699 / $2,699

£1,999 / $1,799

£2,499 / $N/A

Screen type

QD-OLED

OLED

OLED

OLED (w/ MLA)

Refresh rate

144Hz

144Hz

144Hz

144Hz

HDR support

HDR10+/HDR10/HLG

HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision

HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision

HDR10, HLG HDR10+, Dolby Vision

Smart TV

Tizen 9.0

webOS 25

Fire TV

Google TV

HDMI ports

4x HDMI 2.1

4x HDMI 2.1

4 (2x HDMI 2.1)

4 (2x HDMI 2.1)

How I tested the Samsung 65S90F

  • Tested over 13 days
  • Tested with 4K Blu-rays, multiple streaming platforms and resolutions, Freeview HD broadcasts, and HD Blu-rays
  • Reviewed in both dark and light dedicated test room conditions, on its stand in both corner and flat wall positions

The nature of the 65S95F’s QD-OLED technology required me to spend as much time testing it in daylight conditions as I did testing it in darkened rooms, to make sure I wasn’t disturbed by the potential for bright light to impact the screen’s contrast. So it became my full-time living room TV for much of the nearly two weeks I spent with it.

That said, I also tested it under the same specific dark test room conditions TechRadar tests all of our TVs in, with a wide range of disc, game and streaming test content. Disc content included the 4K and HD Blu-rays of It: Chapter One, Blade Runner 2049 and Pan, while for gaming tests, I deployed both a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X running such titles as Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6, Forza Horizon 5 and South Of Midnight.

Finally, as ever I put the 65S90F through a barrage of objective tests using Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate analysis software, G1 signal generator, and newly released C6 HDR5000 light meter.

You can read an in-depth overview of how we test TVs at TechRadar for more information.

Samsung OLED S90F 4K Vision AI Smart TV: Price Comparison



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Razer's QA Companion
Product Reviews

Razer releases AI plugin for game engines to assist with logging bugs and Quality Assurance testing in games

by admin



Quality Assurance in games is one of the most underrated parts of game development. These departments usually employ people to go over games with a fine toothed comb making sure everything works correctly. But, due to the ever more complex nature of gaming, this can often be incredibly tedious work, even if you genuinely love the game. This could be an area of game development where AI might actually be helpful, without infringing on creativity. Well Razer certainly thinks so, releasing it’s new AI powered gamdev tool with QA Companion.

The tool sounds super handy, acting as an automatic bug finder and logger. Especially given bug hunting has been one of the smarter uses for AI so far. Razer’s new tool claims to free playtesters up to play the games, rather than having to stop and log every detail themselves. It also boasts the ability to fit into already existing workflows devs likely have, as it’s available as a plugin for Unreal, Unity, and custom engines using C++. It even has custom settings for different genres and styles of games, and all of this can of course be customised to fit whatever the devs are actually working on.

Razer’s QA companion isn’t completely unique, as other companies are also coming up with similar sounding AI testing companions for logging bugs. One example is TestBot from Mighty Build and Test, though this one focusses more on having a bot play your game. Both could be really handy tools to augment the QA process, but it’s important to remember that’s all these are, tools.


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For good quality assurance, you need quality testers. The human element is still incredibly important because there’s information that can be vital that may not be included in these logs. There are also natural human inclinations that are more likely to be acted on and thus more valuable in testing.

I don’t believe any of these tools should be about removing people from testing games, because all you’re going to end up with is games that can be played by robots. While there are plenty of bots to worry about in gaming, I don’t think they’re supposed to be the target audience.

To understand being a QA tester in games, here’s a little thought exercise. Imagine you’re playing your favourite game and you walk through a door. Ok, now go back and do it again but this time do it on an odd second instead of an even one. Ok, again but this time you have a different item equipped. Again, but approach it from a different angle. Good, now keep doing this for eight hours a day. If you’re starting to picture Dr Strange confronting Dormammu then you’re starting to get the idea.

It’s something I didn’t fully appreciate before I spoke to Megan Summers, an Aussie gamedev with a background in QA, several years ago over on Byteside.

“So you know, you’ve got your ground foyer in, you’ve decided where you’re going to put the electricity wires, you’ve decided where the plumbing is going to go in. That’s all the design and technical people.” Explained Summers, adding “And then QA opens every door 10 times to make sure that the door hinges work, but they’re also checking that the paintings are straight and they’ve also got to go and sit on every toilet and flush it 50 times to make sure.”

This is what it can take to help make sure your game doesn’t have any weird bugs that might drastically affect the player. And also why it’s not uncommon for so many bugs to go unfound. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and not all developers have the budget to pour it into GameDev. Having a tool that takes some of the logging work away means you can put more time into finding new ways to open that door, as opposed to writing out the bug details.

Razer’s AI QA Companion is currently in beta and will become available on the AWS Marketplace soon. For now you can get a look at it and even sign up to join in on the beta here.



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TCL QM7K review: stunning image quality for an affordable price
Product Reviews

TCL QM7K review: stunning image quality for an affordable price

by admin



“The TCL QM7K offers a stunning image for its price point, bringing premium-level picture quality to your living room without costing a small fortune.”

Pros

  • Fantastic color accuracy
  • Impressive contrast
  • Excellent brightness
  • Decently wide viewing angle

Cons

  • Reflective screen
  • Unimpressive sound

“Why you can trust Digital Trends – We have a 20-year history of testing, reviewing, and rating products, services and apps to help you make a sound buying decision. Find out more about how we test and score products.“

We finally got our hands on the TCL QM7K Mini-LED QLED, winner of our Top Tech of CES 2025 award. Earlier this year we reviewed the QM6K and were impressed with its value and performance, so we’re excited to put the QM7K through its paces.

TCL continues to impress in the midrange and I’m happy to say, the QM7K did not disappoint. Mini-LED screen technology is making for gorgeous displays with incredible contrast more affordable for the average consumer, and TCL is really showing what the technology can do with this new entry.

There’s a good chance that this isn’t the last model we’ll hear about from TCL this year as the company has switched to a staggered release approach for its 2025 models, but for now let’s soak in the QM7K and all it has to offer.

TCL QM7K specs

Sizes
55, 65, 75, 85, 98, and 115 inches

Pricing
$1,299.99, $1,499.99, $1,999.99, $2,499.99, $4,999.99, and $19,999.99

Display type
QD-Mini LED

Operating system
Google TV

Screen resolution
4K Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160)

HDR support
Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision Gaming, Dolby Vision IQ, HDR 10+, HDR10, HLG

Native refresh rate
144Hz

Gaming features
Auto Game Mode (ALLM), AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, Game Accelerator 288, VRR (up to 144Hz)

Audio support
Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital +, DTS: Virtual X (Passthrough Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital +, Dolby Digital, PCM)

Connectivity
4 HDMI (1x eARC), USB 3.0, USB 2.0, Ethernet (LAN), S/PDIF, ATSC 1.0 Tuner

Affordable price means a less premium build

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

The QM7K targets that affordable middle ground between a true budget TV and the premium flagship models of today. It aims to be within reach of most consumers, particularly in the smaller 55- or 65-inch models.

So I can’t say I was too shocked when I started unboxing and assembling the QM7K that I found its construction to be a little flimsy.

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

The stand that holds the TV is designed as one central piece, as opposed to the individual legs of the QM6K, which makes attaching it to the QM7K a straightforward process. It’s brushed to look like metal, but metal it is not.

The plastic T-shaped stand weighs about 5 pounds and does its job in holding the 85-inch model we tested for this review.

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

The TV itself weighs only 75 pounds, aided by a frame made almost entirely of plastic. Savings have to come from somewhere to hit these price points, right? The good news is that this makes assembly a lot easier than on far heavier (albeit sturdier) high-end models.

The QM7K sways a bit anytime you move it or the furniture it sits on, but it’s held securely enough that it’s not going anywhere.

Decent audio, nothing mind-blowing

The audio on the TCL QM7K is billed as having better audio than the QM6K, thanks to a Bang & Olufsen audio upgrade, which TCL says will offer “more accurate sound quality for an enhanced home theater audio experience.” All in all, the 2.2-speaker system performs about as expected for a mostly affordable model. Which is to say, it didn’t sound terrible, but it didn’t sound great.

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

The bass response left a lot to be desired, but it’s not like I was expecting a 6-inch subwoofer built into the TV. The dialogue could at times sound muddled, blending in a bit too much with a soundtrack or background noise.

This really only happened in intense scenes where loud music, dialogue, and sound effects all combined in a cacophony of sound. The QM7K natively supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital+ audio, but the built-in speakers aren’t doing it justice.

Seeing as this model supports Dolby Atmos passthrough, you’d be better off with a Dolby Atmos soundbar, or another dedicated audio system to get the most out of the Dolby audio available on most streaming platforms.

Color accurate right out of the box

The QM7K features a number of display profiles that users can select from, but for our purposes we’re going to focus on Filmmaker Mode, which was first added on the QM6K. This mode is designed for color accuracy, and it was spot-on right out of the box.

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

We tested the QM7K first in SDR while in Filmmaker Mode, and it delivered an impressive color delta E of 0.8. While this fell to near zero post-calibration, that’s honestly not even necessary, as the human eye struggles to distinguish a delta E of less than 1.0, making Filmmaker Mode more than sufficient.

More than bright enough

If you’re looking to sear your eyeballs out of your sockets during nighttime viewing, then the QM7K is the right TV for you. TCL advertises a peak brightness of 3,000 nits in HDR for the QM7K, though this varies by size and will vary slightly by panel.

Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

In my own testing, I was able to get one 2,400-nit burst in HDR testing in a 10% window with brightness, peak luminance, and dynamic backlighting all turned up to the max. More stable readings in HDR came in around 2,000 nits in peak brightness. Peak brightness measurements in SDR came in at a still very respectable 1,600 nits.

If you’re wanting to get the best color accuracy and contrast out of your QM7K with minimal clipping and as much uniformity as possible, then you’ll likely be watching Filmmaker Mode in its default configuration, which still offers 800 nits with the brightness turned to 100 while keeping those other backlight and luminance settings turned off.

My gripe with reflections

While the brightness of the QM7K more than delivers, nothing could get away from the fact that the screen itself was pretty reflective. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen worse, but if your living room is like mine and has windows opposite the TV, you’ll find yourself getting up to close them every time you turn on the TV during the daytime.

Windows reflected in the TCL QM7K Andre Revilla / Digital Trends

I’m not even picking on reflections when sunlight is pouring in the windows midday, as this issue persists into the evening when the sun is already starting to set. With brightness settings maxed, the QM7K can handle as bright a room as you can throw at it, but any sort of light source directly in front of the screen from your viewing position will be thrown back at you and remains quite visible even in bright scenes.

A superb image overall

All in all, the TCL QM7K offers a stunning image for its price point. Without getting too far into the weeds, I’ll say that a lot of cool tech—like the condensed micro lens in the backlight system, helping focus and direct the light from each mini LED, and the decreased optical distance, which is the space between the backlight and the LCD—helps create an image with excellent contrast.

These technologies also help reduce haloing in HDR, as they lead to less light scatter. The QM7K really goes to show that Mini LED QLED panels are taking the fight to OLED, bringing premium-level picture quality to your living room without costing you a small fortune.

Value remains the focus

TCL has continued to impress with panel technology and image quality while maintaining approachable pricing. The 85-inch model we tested launched just over two months ago and is already being sold by all major retailers and TCL at about a 30% markdown from its original MSRP of $2,500.

Right now, that means you can pick up an 85-inch QM7K for $1,800, and the 55-inch is currently marked down to under $900. Look for these prices to continue dropping as the year goes on, especially as we get into the holiday season.

The TCL QM7K is an impressive entry that blurs the line between flagship and mid-range in performance while staying solidly in the realm of mid-range pricing. I’ll be eagerly awaiting any TCL launches hopefully still to come this year.





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