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Since the launch of Samsung QN900A last year, Samsung has entered a new field in QLED technology, and the new quantum dot mini-LED panel has made last year's QN900A a long way forward than before, whether in terms of picture color, tolerance or monochrome purity, with the control of multi-partition backlight, so that last year's QN900A was outstanding in a number of flagship smart TVs.
This year, Samsung continued to expand the width of the Neo QLED TV product line, and successively launched qN700B, QN90B, QN85B and other 4K/8K smart TVs, and after the release of the new product, I was fortunate to get this new QN700B. This is also a product with 8K resolution level that Samsung updated this year.
If last year's QN900 and QN800 series are products that are on par with the flagship market and the sub-flagship market, then the QN700B series launched by Samsung this year is the most important product line to popularize Neo QLED 8K technology. The QN700B has dropped the size of the screen to 55 inches, and the price has dropped to the level of 15999 yuan, which is a touchable product for some middle-income families.
The design is highly consistent
The QN700B launched by Samsung this year is a comprehensive upgrade to the 8K model Q700T.
On this QN700B, the screen without the sensory border equipped with Samsung's flagship products and the design of the upper and lower widths of the screen body are adopted, and the fuselage is only 18.1mm thick, which also inherits the design highlights of the previous game.
But it is not completely different, Samsung retains the side speaker scatter design on this generation of QN700B, and the metal grid maintains the beauty of the fuselage, but the holes of the grid have changed from the dot-like shape of the previous generation to a larger pill-shaped diagonal hole.
Inside the grid, the QN700B has a complete 4.2-channel sound system with 60W power, which is also an improvement over the previous generation of Q700T's 50W sound system.
Two other iconic designs have also been preserved. The first is Samsung's unique base design for this TV, this base in order to have both stability and the function of one Connect box bracket, is designed into three parts, each part is fixed by four screws, of which the middle connector will exist in the form of a negative angle, which makes the installation of Samsung's TV need to take a lot of effort, a person must not be able to complete the assembly of the QN700B.
In addition to fixing the TV screen, such a bracket design also allows Samsung's unique One Connect hub to have a space to place, this year the box can still be hidden behind the bracket, of course, you can also use the included extension cable for convenience, so that One Connect appears more freely in other places in the TV cabinet.
This generation of One Connect boxes retains four HDMI 2.1 ports (eARC is supported in HDMI 3), an Ethernet (LAN) port, a digital audio output (fiber) port, three USB 2.0 ports, and an RF input port. One Connect's built-in RF cables support the WiFi-5 standard.
In terms of the overall design alone, there is basically no obvious difference between this year's 700B and last year's 700A, except for the slight changes in the middle box grid part, you can hardly find any other obvious differences.
Source: Samsung Electronics China official website
QN700B provides 55, 65 and 75 three sizes, I got the test machine is 75 inches, but in fact, the 55-inch version of this TV, also uses 8K resolution panels, which means that you can spend 15999 yuan to buy an 8K Neo QLED TV, which has a very strong impetus for the popularity of Samsung 8K QLED.
Brand new system interface & solar remote control
When Samsung released the QN700B this year, it simultaneously updated the system's interface, the new Smart Hub UI, which is a new set of interface logic. The new system weakens the functionality and interface of the system itself, using a larger interface to showcase subscriptions and applications.
This interface is not the same as our common domestic smart TV window interface, Samsung hopes to show more of the content that users want to see on this new UI, rather than the content actively recommended by the system, so that the personalization and freedom of this UI are higher.
A terrier that has been played for many years also applies to this TV, the Samsung QN700B is a smart TV, but it does not rely on advertising to earn benefits outside of hardware, so you don't have to worry about buying home an expensive advertising collector.
QN700B is equipped with Samsung's solar remote control, which is a slender remote control, the overall button layout and function is relatively simple, which is not significantly different from the current mainstream TV remote control design in China.
The remote control of the US version of QN900B has added a dedicated streaming button Source: techradar
But in fact, this remote control will appear in different styles in each country and region, such as on products in the United States, under the remote control volume key, there will be Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus and other streaming exclusive buttons.
Samsung added the function of light energy to this remote control, which is collected through daily light to power the remote control. Of course, if you want to be more efficient, there is a separate USB port at the bottom of the remote control to power it.
The new processor brings new display effects
If the QN700B has changed from the previous generation, the processor may be the biggest part of the improvement. Last year, Samsung's biggest improvement on the Neo QLED TV was the introduction of mini LED beads as the backlight of the panel, the volume of this mini LED beads is 1/40 of the ordinary LED beads, so in the Neo QLED TV, you can see higher picture contrast, better light control effect and a purer black display effect.
This year, Samsung in the QN700B, the original processor replacement, while adding a new backlight adaptive technology, so that the original 12bit backlight upgrade to 14bit, which means that QN700B has a better picture restoration ability, while retaining more picture details, but also take into account better color performance.
I tested two different display scenarios, static and dynamic. In terms of static display effects, you can see that the QN700B has a fairly high contrast ratio, which is very close to the previous generation of QN900A I experienced, which has almost become the signature color style of Neo QLED.
I think this color feel is quite good, with the narrow border design of the Samsung QN700B itself, it can indeed be like a large size photo frame, as part of the family design, provided that you have to hang it on the wall, if you put it on the TV cabinet like me, this base is a bit of a drama.
In the dynamic test, I used a test video with strong chiaroscuro contrast, the large area of black in the picture with a strong contrast of color, bringing a fairly strong visual impact, when displaying the black scene, the screen screen will feel more pure.
At the same time, in the part that displays colors such as red and blue, the color performance of this screen is rich and accurate, especially in different light scenes, the color performance is as good as ever, and it will not cause color imbalance in extremely bright or dark environments. On the one hand, this reflects that the brightness of this screen is high enough, on the other hand, after upgrading the 14bit adaptive light technology this year, the overall display effect has indeed improved.
In more general scenarios, the QN700B also has a very good look and feel, especially when displaying white highlight scenes, the brightness and color control of the entire screen for the picture is the best I have experienced in the TV recently, without losing detail, the picture can maintain as good brightness and color accuracy as possible, which is quite rare.
Because the QN700B is an 8K resolution TV, it is already the highest specification in terms of resolution, so to a certain extent, it is necessary to test how dynamic compensation performs on this TV.
Especially at present, 4K+120Hz sub-era game consoles have gradually become mainstream, and stricter requirements have been put forward for higher display refresh rates. The TV offers 4 HDMI 2.1 interfaces, three of which support eARC, which means they can support consoles like the PS5 indiscriminately.
QN700B supports 4K@60Hz VRR game refresh rate and 120Hz content dynamic compensation, with FreeSync Premium Pro technology can achieve HDR1000 high dynamic range visual effects, and low input latency less than or equal to 10 milliseconds, which is quite good in the actual game, the coherence of the picture is very good, in the time I used it, there was no picture tearing look and feel.
Who would buy the QN700B?
This year, Samsung lowered the 8K to the price segment of 15999 yuan, with the excellent Neo QLED experience, making this QN700B a good choice for many users to enter 8K.
Obviously, in the future, 8K will become the mainstream choice for TV development, which means that the entry threshold of 8K TV is bound to be lower and lower. Under such a premise, if you think that it is acceptable to buy a TV for more than ten thousand dollars, then I would recommend that you choose an 8K TV instead of 4K, which means that for the next decade, this TV may not be left behind because of screen resolution.
Returning to the TV itself, Neo QLED still brings an excellent viewing experience on this year's QN700B, and the blessing of the new processor, with Samsung's anti-reflection technology that has been re-improved for the TV, makes this TV show its strengths as much as possible in the absolute part of the use scenario. For a TV that combines the latest technologies such as 8K, Mini LED, and high-end design, the Samsung QN700B is a great choice.