SAMSUNG 85 Inch Q70C TV

Personally, I would be disappointed with this around the $900 price point. Our bedroom TV which is a bit bigger and cost $1100, is so much better. Same brand too!

First off the ergonomics, the stand is just terrible and the TV is facing slightly upwards, I would definitely recommend getting a wall mount if this is going to be frequently used.

Next is sound quality, just plain terrible. I have had stock computer monitor speakers that have sounded better. That and the bedroom tv which is marginally more expensive beats this by leages.

Lastly, picture quality. As a computer nerd with a OLED monitor, this is trash. It looks on par with our old 1080p TV, but in a super dark room it looks pretty decent.

While overall I wouldn’t buy this TV, I would definitely recommend saving and buying something a bit more expensive if you’re already shopping around this price point. But overall I think this tv is still decent enough and would likely be perfect for a console gamer or for a bedroom.

When the opportunity to get this TV presented itself, I jumped at the chance. My wife and I have an old inexpensive 50” Viseo LED TV that we installed in our master bedroom. The Viseo still worked but had fairly poor picture quality, poor speakers and some connectivity issues. This was a major upgrade in so many ways.

Our use case was wall mounted. I never tried it with the legs. It has a the standard VESA mount points on the back for a TV its size. The bezel on this TV is really narrow so though it’s a 55” TV, it didn’t feel quite so much larger than the 50” TV it replaced on the wall.

The Picture:
QLED is a major step up from the old LCD and LED technology. If you’re used to an older TV from a few years ago, this will be a major upgrade. This TV uses Quantum dot tech and local area dimming and Samsung’s Dual LED technology. I think it does a nice job. There’s a lot less bloom compared to the older LED TVs and it seems to be that it has much better contrast range with far better color accuracy. This was a quite an upgrade for us. Sure, it’s not going to be as good as an OLED tv, but it’s a solid upgrade compared to TVs from 4 or 5 years ago, especially the budget ones.

Like many TVs at this price range, Samsung has a processor built into the TV dedicated to upscaling lower resolution signals to 4K. With over the air TV, youtube and DVD and bluray signals, it does a fine job of presenting a clear image with minimal artifacts.

Sound:
No, this TV is not going to win any awards for sound, nor would most TVs. But honestly, it’s not terrible for built in sound. It can get reasonably loud without distortion and has a little bit of depth with some bass. Obviously, if sound is important to you, you’ll want to get some kind of external sound system for it. For our use, we rarely set the TV in our bedroom very loud and it sounds reasonably good across the room 12 feet from our bed.

The Remote:
Ok, I don’t know why someone at Samsung thought a 13 button “android TV” style Solar powered remote was a good idea. The dang thing has no settings button, so if you want to change a setting, you either have to use voice control on the remote or go out of whatever app you are in to access the menu on the home screen. I don’t want to be hollering at my TV at 11 PM when my wife is asleep next to me in bed. Would it be too much to ask to have a settings button?

The first thing we did after getting this TV is get a standard replacement remote for it. Thankfully, this TV is still compatible with Samsung’s old style IR remotes. If you like the voice control gimmick, maybe the solar remote will work for you, but we’re skipping it. The Samsung solar remote went into a drawer and hasn’t been out since.

Interface:
We have another Samsung TV from 2019, so we went into owning this one being slightly familiar with the interface and Samsung’s app offerings. The menu works fairly well. Apps load with reasonable quickness and returnign to the home screen is pretty darn quick.

I don’t like that the full range of settings options are not available to be accessed while you are in an App with a separate settings window showing up there. My wife likes to use a timer to turn the TV off in case she falls asleep with it on. There is no easy way to do that when it’s in an app. You have to go out of the app, access the settings menu on the home screen and change the setting then go back into the app. There are a number of other features that can only be accessed like this. Why did Samsung choose to have two separate settings interfaces instead of integrating them? Who knows? In the end, the dual settings menu system on this TV is cludgy and not very intuitive.

I also found that the Viseo was superior in that it had more picture settings. One of my wife’s favorites on the old TV was “dark mode,” a darkened picture mode designed for dark rooms. To darken the Samsung you have to muck around with brightness and contrast settings. Not very convenient. There are a lot of picture setting on this TV, great for fine tuning, but it would be nice to be able to save more than one custom TV set up instead of relying on the two built in ones.

Like older models, this comes with Samsung’s free TV channel line-up. I honestly really like this feature. We use the music video channels all the time. I really think this is a place where Samsung has a leg up against some of their competitors such as Sony. The free media is nice to have.

I will note that once again Samsung has cheaped out on storage space for the built in apps. Given that this TV is comparable with gaming features, you’d think they could put a bit more storage space into it. You can supplement the storage with a flash drive plugged into a USB port, but it’s an inconvenience. For most users, however, this probably will never become a problem.

Other things:
There are 4 HDMI port, one of which supports eArc, a Toslink port, Ethernet, 2 powered USB-A ports, a Ex-link port and the Coax antenna jack. We use over the air TV with a basic antenna. I’ve found that the Samsung’s built in tuner is more forgiving and receptive than other TV brands we’ve used. It’s nice that it has 4 HDMI ports, though for this grade TV, it’s become expected.

Bottom Line:
We’re quite satisfied with this TV. It looks great and sounds reasonably good in its stock configuration. While there are some quality of life interface issues with it and a remote that is a non-starter for us, we really really like having in our bedroom.