I Got Myself A New TV! – This Is The Samsung QE55Q85R Review

It’s been a while since I had a new TV. My old one had developed a fault, and I’ve needed it replacing for months. Finally I got round to it, and got myself a Samsung QE55Q85R.

You might be wondering: What’s the picture quality like? What’s the user experience like?

Well, here’s everything you need to know about it.

First off I should start with my old TV, because that’s all I had known for around 10 years. It was a Sony Z series, which was more or less the top range TV from Sony at the time. It was HD 1080p and apart from the picture being epic quality, the sound was too.

But technology moves on, we’re into smart TVs now, 4K displays, bezel-less and over all larger screens.

After a lot of searching, reading and watching YouTube reviews and vids, I decided on getting the Samsung QE55Q85R

Why Samsung, And Why The QE55Q85R?

If you don’t know about the Samsung modelling numbers, it basically goes like this. The Q is for QLED, the next number is the screen size (55″) and the 85 is the model number. The 85 is at the high end of the model range, I think that the 95 is the only one higher.

I couldn’t justify spending extra on that for not a lot (if anything) more, but I wanted a better quality than the models under it, so this was my choice.

Another TV I was looking at was an LG TV, in particular the LG C9 series. They use a different technology (OLED rather than Samsung’s QLED) which is supposed to be slightly better. However after reading and looking at reviews, most admit that you can only really notice the difference if you have 2 TVs side by side (obviously not a real world situation).

The C9 was also £400 more expensive at the time of writing, so a big jump up.

Samsung QE55Q85R Stand Out Features

I love smart TVs, and it’s probably a bit of a novelty at this early stage, but they have so much built into them, it’s so cool. They’re more media centres these days than just a standard TV.

I used to run my XBOX One as my media player alongside playing games. So if I wanted to watch Amazon Prime Video, or anything else, I would stream it through my XBOX, to my TV. Now, I have everything built into the TV, which is very convenient.

I’ve found a few apps, but it has all of the major ones that you’d want, including the new Disney+ and Apple TV+

It’s a 4K TV, and had everything you’d come to expect. HD Freeview, a satellite connection (if you have FreeSat or another satellite service), USB input, 4x HDMI, Optical Out and more. It’s all connected up via the One Connect Box, which I’ll get on to later.

It comes with two remotes, a standard remote and a smart remote. This is what many of the higher end Samsung models come with.

Screen & Sound Quality

I have to say I love the picture and sound quality, and think it’s great. The HD looks impressive, blacks are black and everything is crisp and clean. The picture looks very good, and there’s no complaints.

The sound is very good too. If you’re an audiophile you’ll probably want a more professional audio setup, but for general use, I find it very good.

Having a 55″ screen up on a wall is so nice, and the bezel on the screen is so tiny too. It looks big on my wall, with the previous TV being 40″ and having a bezel. It’s something which I am getting used to, and that’s definitely something I don’t mind!

Other than saying the picture and sound is very good quality, there’s nothing much else left to say about those!

I watched Top Gun (1080p blu ray) and I was impressed with how it looked and sounded. Sadly the pictures will not do it justice.

This TV Is 4K… But What About 8K?

You might be thinking: 4K has been around for a while, 8K is available now, why not buy an 8K screen? There’s a few reasons:

8K screens are still very expensive. You also need quite a large screen, and since I have put this on my wall, I think that 55″ is almost the absolute maximum for the wall I’ve put it on.

There’s also the quality. As with most technology, it gets better and better. The 4K screens now will be better than they were a few years ago, with HDR and other various things.

Do you own anything in 8K? Probably not. There’s not a lot of content, if any, available in 8K. 4K on the other hand is becoming more and more of a standard. There’s lots of content streaming in 4K, and with the new generation of gaming embracing 4K, I can see it being the higher end of standard for a while.

Buying 8K is not really ‘future-proofing’, because when (or if) 8K becomes standard, the 8K TVs of today will be old and using old tech.

One Connect Box And Invisible Cable

Something the higher end Samsungs have which the lower ones don’t is the One Connect Box. They’ve had these for a couple of years now. This is another win for Samsung over LG or other brands, as they don’t have this. If you think it’s just a bit of a gimmick, you’d be wrong.

So what is it?

Normally TVs have all of their inputs on the TV. While this isn’t so bad, it’s a nightmare if you have your TV mounted on a wall, as I do. It’s also quite messy to look at, with multiple cables running from your TV, going all over the place.

Samsung have what they call a One Connect Box, with an invisible cable. This is exactly how it sounds. There’s one very thin cable which is a clear translucent colour which runs from the TV and is connected to a box. The box is where all the inputs are, everything from the power to the HDMI.

This is a feature which I love. It looks much nicer, there’s less mess, and you can add and remove things for the HDMI really easily.

The cable is quite long so you can have your box a nice distance from your TV, or just right next to it, depending on your preference. Everything runs through the box, so you can have your stuff set up exactly how and where you want it.

Screen Mirroring & Streaming From PC

Something I have become accustom to is streaming media from my PC to my TV. As previously mentioned, I used to do this via my XBOX. Now, however, I can stream directly from my PC to my TV! This is so good!

From streaming media and video to sharing images from the screen, you can do it!

Something I wanted to look into was streaming games from Steam. I didn’t know if it was possible, but it is! I have tried to stream a game on Steam to my TV, and it works! Of course I had to try this with Football Manager 20, and it looks like a dream!

I would have never have thought that 25 years ago playing Championship Manager on the Amiga I could stream it to a large TV mounted on a wall. It’s like a dream! 😀

Another feature which is cool is the screen mirroring from my phone. I can mirror all apps, so instead of looking at apps on a small screen, I can see them on a large screen! It’s a pretty cool but probably novelty type of feature. There’s also mirroring YouTube, once again another pretty cool thing to do.

Samsung TV Ads & Privacy

Now on to the bad things about the TV, and there’s only one that I can see: Samsung Places Adverts On The TV!

Yes, you have read that correctly, there’s ads built into Samsung TVs! And I’m not talking about in between your favourite shows.

This is (apparently) a firmware update, which Samsung had done so ads appear in the smart bar section of the screen when you use it. This is not something you can ‘turn off’, they are there, and you just have to deal with it.

I have searched around, and people suggest that you can disconnect it from the Internet (basically turning it into a ‘dumb’ TV rather than smart) it you’ll not get them. However then you’ll lose a lot of the good parts of the TV.

You can also apparently remove it with URL filtering if you have that in your router, or use another DNS, but those steps really should not be needed when you’ve bought a new expensive TV.

I think that it’s pretty disgraceful that Samsung have done this. You spend £1000s or even any money at all on their product, and they’re not satisfied enough with getting that money, and then show you ads too. I don’t think this is acceptable.

I have to say that the ads don’t always appear, but the fact that they’ve done this really does leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The TV is very good overall, and this spoils it.

Theoretically if this is to do with firmware Samsung can remove it with another update, but I doubt that they’ll remove it.

Verdict: Samsung QE55Q85R Is A Good TV

So my overall verdict is that I am very happy with my new TV, and I love it. The Samsung QE55Q85R is a very good TV, and I can see myself enjoying it for years to come. The only downside being those ads, they really let down the experience of the whole thing.