While Samsung announced a new series of Neo QLED TVs at CES 2024, it also temporarily reduced the prices of its 2023 models in many markets. These limited-time discounts allowed me to upgrade my smart TV from an entry-level 50-inch / 125cm Crystal 4K model to a Neo QLED 4K one. I've been using my new 50-inch QN90C Neo QLED for a few days now, and it never fails to blow me away every time I see it.
Even though I tempered my expectations for Samsung's Neo QLED, I must admit that my jaw still didn't drop to the floor the first time I fired up my new 4K Neo QLED TV.
Granted, it looked better than the old Crystal 4K 50-inch model, but not enough to give me that powerful feeling that I've upgraded to a new technology level. Boy, was I wrong!?
I can't take my eyes off the screen
First impressions be damned, particularly when the first few minutes of using a. new TV consist of setting it up and updating the firmware.
But I was blown away once I got it all set up and tweaked the image — for the most part, by disabling Contrast Enhancer and letting HDR do its work. I often drift off looking at the beautiful screen and lose the plot of the TV show I'm watching. It's a bit distracting, in the best of ways, but I'm sure I'll adapt eventually.
Compared to the Crystal TV, the colors and contrast are spectacular, and brightness levels can go extremely high without losing any details. Furthermore, the Quantum Dot Matrix backlight offers the deepest blacks with only a minimal halo effect in the most extreme cases. Fantastic!
On top of it all, quality-of-life features such as the modernized UI — even though it still needs a bit of work to be on par with One UI on mobile — faster general UI performance, and the more intuitive SolarRemote elevate the Neo QLED to a much higher level than the Crystal. Goodbye mushy remote buttons!
I was even more impressed when I fired up my gaming console and experienced the TV's game mode and full HDR capabilities. But it wasn't just the superior colors, contrast, and brightness.
It almost seems like my console is running at a higher resolution on the 4K Neo QLED than the 4K Crystal TV. Everything looks crisper (and no, I'm not using sharpening), and to my surprise, games also feel more responsive, as if the Crystal TV added more input lag even in game mode.
All in all, I don't regret buying the QN90C and replacing the 4K Samsung Crystal TV one bit, especially at a discount of nearly 40%. Granted, without a discount, the QN90C would've been almost five times more expensive than the Crystal model, and perhaps I never would've upgraded otherwise.
To be fair, the Crystal TV is still a decent budget option, and it served me well. Besides, I understand how some customers might not want to pay almost 5x more for a Neo QLED. It's difficult to quantify whether the image quality and all other improvements offer a 5x better user experience. But I'm sure I was never blown away by the Crystal TV. It simply was functional, and even when it was new, it didn't inspire, and I was never astonished by it.
If you can afford a Neo QLED TV or find a good discount, it's undeniably vastly superior to budget offerings — especially if you go for a brighter variant in the range, such as the QN90 / QN900, which can deliver better HDR.
