Shane
Thin, sleek and all screen, Samsung’s new 65 inch QLED TV’s are a stunning vivid visual feast.
This year’s (2023) roll out of Samsung’s latest TVs evolve from last year’s models to offer a viewing and entertainment experience that your media deserves.
From the very large box, there’s some DIY required before you can zone out to your streaming or gaming marathons.
Adding the stand on will require the need of a screwdriver and some good old fashioned elbow grease.
This has improved a wee bit from last years model though.
There’s two main parts, the first screws into the back of the TV, then the weighted stand base (which counteracts and balances out the weight of the large screen) clips, connects on and again requires screwing in.
Of course if you’re looking at wall mounting, you don’t need to go through this.
At the back of the TV there’s a visible array of speakers and only two ports; The ‘One Connector’ box slot and a single USB-A port.
Samsung’s ‘One Connector’ box seems to have a bigger footprint than prior models, but you can opt to hide it inside a entertainment unit. This said, it will likely need to be accessible at all times if you like to swap out accessories often.
The ‘One Connector’ box has all of the ports that you will need; terrestrial TV slot, ethernet, x4 HMIs including ARC, x3 USB-A – one dedicated to an external hard drive and of course the ‘One Connector’ cable.
AC power goes directly in to the ‘One Connector’ box which then supplies power to the TV.
One thing to keep in mind is that the ‘One Connector’ box can get heat up. It didn’t get hot during my time with the Samsung QLED QN900C TV, but I’d advise to keep it in a well ventilated space.
The Samsung QLED QN900C OS setup is relatively easy and there’s two options.
If you have a Samsung smartphone it’s easier and more streamlined, if not, use the rechargeable bluetooth TV remote to go through the steps, join your home WiFi, add a profile, visual and audio preferences, login or create a Samsung account (if you choose to) and boom you’re good to go. The whole set up takes less than 5 minutes.
Of course the Samsung QLED QN900C is a smart TV and you’ll be able to integrate this in to your smarthome and any smart assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
Last year Samsung offered an Xbox app on their QLED models, where you can add an app to the home screen and once logged in to your active Gamepass Xbox account, play games directly from the TV via a bluetooth paired Xbox controller.
All of the main streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Disney+, Prime and YouTube are already pre-installed, with Samsung seemingly favouring Prime.
An additional app is also pre-installed called ‘Samsung TV Plus’.
This intuitive service collates a few free-to-stream networks and offers up suggestions based on your viewing history, which will adapt as you use the TV more.
Audio on the Samsung QLED QN900C TV is more than I expected from any tele. The QLED QN900C sounds near to having a home cinema audio set up and almost replaces the need of a soundbar, to the likes of Samsung’s Q990C.
There’s a few audio modes tailored to what you might be using the TV for, i.e. gaming or watching movies, but you can leave this to smart adapt.
Same can be said for the visuals. The QN900C is 8K, something that Samsung introduced in to their S Series smartphones a few years back and their smart TVs.
However, there’s still a shortage of native 8K media out there, and streaming at best is HD.
Gaming however is 4K and either PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X console play is absolutely stunning in native 4K.
Where possible the QN900C will try and upscale as well.
There’s a lot of to love about the Samsung QLED TVs. Picture perfect. No screen bezel. Antiglare. And a visual experience second to none.
But they do come at a price which makes the purchase of the QN900C a serious investment.
If you’ve got the cash and looking for the ultimate in both an audio and visual experience (especially for 4K gaming) the 65 inch Samsung QN900C is where you need to be at.
