OLED TVs still have the best picture quality I've ever tested, but Samsung's QN90A comes closer than ever. This QLED TV packs a punch brighter than any OLED television, while managing to maintain contrast and black level to a degree I've never seen on any non-OLED before. If you crave that brightness, or you watch in a bright room where ambient light is a big issue, you should definitely consider this TV over a comparable OLED.

New for 2021, the best Samsung QLED models like the QN90A are called Neo QLED and feature a new mini-LED based, full-array local dimming backlight array. Samsung made its LEDs 40 times smaller than conventional LED units, allowing more to be packed into the TV, and added a "quantum matrix" to help direct the LED light more accurately. The result is improved HDR highlights with minimal blooming (stray illumination that bleeds from bright into dark areas), as well as better shadow detail.

All of those improvements were visible in my side-by-side tests. I pitted the QN90A against the best OLED TV I've ever reviewed, the LG G1, and the brightest TV I've ever measured, the Vizio PQX-H1. Overall I liked the LG a bit better than the Samsung -- it's plenty-bright itself, and its perfect black levels, superior mixed-scene contrast and better off-angle viewing won by a nose -- but the QN90A looked better in some scenes, particularly bright HDR. Meanwhile its precise light control and resulting contrast soundly beat the Vizio. In sum, this is the best LCD-based TV I've ever tested and an excellent high-end alternative to OLED.

Floating stand design, solar remote

One TV looks much like another, but Samsung still succeeds in giving the QN90A a luxurious air. The most obvious design upgrade is the stand: centered, with a small footprint, it looks cleaner and sleeker than the dual legs found on most TVs. My favorite aspect is how it suspends the big panel above my credenza, seeming to float without touching. As expected the edge around the picture is super-thin, albeit not quite as minimalist as the "Infinity Screen" found on the flagship, 8K resolution Q900A.

From the side you can appreciate its swoopy, one-piece shape, as well as the fact that it cants the whole screen back by a couple of degrees. The backside has a cable management system that lets you channel power and HDMI from their ports, along the back and through the stand, making for a cleaner look.

And yes, the remote has a solar panel on the back. I didn't test Samsung's claim that leaving it under indoor lighting is sufficient to recharge, but I appreciated that it doesn't need batteries. If I owned this TV I'd probably use the USB charging port instead when it ran out of juice.

Samsung's remote is one of my favorites to use, with minimal buttons and just the right feel in-hand. Channel and volume keys click up and down, Ambient mode gets its own button as does the mic for voice and even the Netflix and Amazon app shortcut keys are nicer than on other remotes: They lack garish colors and instead just match the rest of the wand.

Ambient mode is designed to show stuff on the screen when you're not watching TV. It's a cool feature if you don't like the big black rectangle of an inert TV and can display your photos, designer art, the weather, headlines and even adjust backgrounds to match your wall.

Choice of voice assistant, optional webcam

Voice command is built-in and you can choose between Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Samsung's homebrew Bixby. Whichever one you choose will be available when you press the mic button on the clicker. With Amazon and Bixby (but not Google) you also have the option of simply saying "Alexa" or "Hi, Bixby" wake words, allowing you to issue commands hands-free and unlike last year the mic is located in the TV itself, not the remote. And like most TVs, you can also pair the QN90A with separate Alexa or Google speakers.

Samsung's health app debuted on its TVs in 2020 and this year it's expanding to offer guided personal training. Plug in an optional webcam (Samsung has a list of recommended cameras, all by Logitech) and the app will track your exercises and give you coaching complete with celebrity personal trainers like Jillian Michaels.

You can also use that webcam for video chat with the Google Duo app, which allows up to 12 others to join the chat. And if you don't have a camera plugged in you can screen mirror Duo on your phone to the TV and use its camera. It's not Google's more popular Meet software, but at least it's web chat on the big screen.

I didn't test the webcam features for this review, but I did test drive the personal trainer earlier this year -- and worked up a sweat, as seen in the video below.

Beyond voice and the webcam, Samsung's on-screen smart TV system is excellent, with quick responses and plenty of apps -- I'd take it over LG or Vizio's systems. I still like Roku and Android/Google TV (found on Sony TVs) better overall, however, because they have even more apps. Just like most TVs now (including Roku), Samsung has the Apple TV app and works with Apple's AirPlay system.

(More) features galore 

Samsung sells a few higher-end TVs, including 8K resolution models as well as super-expensive Micro-LED TVs, but the Q90A is still bursting with image quality extras. The most important is that Neo QLED, mini-LED powered backlight with full-array local dimming. Local dimming improves LCD image quality by making certain areas of the picture dimmer or brighter in reaction to what's on the screen, which significantly boosts contrast. Judging from Samsung's obscure "quantum HDR" spec the QN90A has more dimming zones and brighter images than the step-down Q85A, and fewer zones than the 8K models, but Samsung doesn't say exactly how many zones (or how bright).

Key features

Display technology	LED LCD
LED backlight	Full array with local dimming
Resolution	4K
HDR compatible	HDR10, HDR10+
Smart TV	Tizen
Remote	Standard voice

Like all of Samsung QLED TVs, as well as most higher-end TVs from Vizio and TCL, the QN90A's LCD panel is augmented by a layer of quantum dots -- microscopic nanocrystals that glow a specific wavelength (i.e. color) when given energy. The effect is better brightness and color compared to non-QD-equipped TVs. The QN90A uses a true 120Hz panel, which improves the TVs' motion performance.

The set supports high dynamic range content in the HDR10 and the HDR10 Plus formats. It lacks the Dolby Vision HDR support found on most competitors' HDR TVs. I've seen no evidence that one HDR format is inherently "better" than the other, so I definitely don't consider the lack of Dolby Vision a deal-breaker on this TV -- it performs like a champ without that format.

Gaming features are one of the QN90A's strong points. All four of its HDMI inputs are compatible with variable refresh rate, including AMD's FreeSync and standard VRR formats, as well as ALLM (aka Auto Game Mode), which lets it automatically switch to game mode to reduce input lag when it detects you're playing a game. Only Input 3 handles eARC.

Input 4, which is conveniently marked with a little game controller icon, also accepts 4K/120Hz with and without HDR. None of the other inputs handle 4K/120, which should only be a problem if you have multiple devices that output it -- like a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X (you know who you are...), or one of those consoles and a high-end graphics card. It's worth noting that every input on LG's recent OLED TVs supports 4K/120.

Read more: Best TV for PS5 and Xbox Series X, Series S in 2021

• 4x HDMI inputs
• 2x USB ports
• Ethernet (LAN) port
• Optical digital audio output
• RF (antenna) input
• Remote (RS-232) port (EX-LINK)

The list is mostly solid, unless you happen to own a legacy device that requires analog video (component or composite) or audio. Like many new high-end TVs the QN90A lacks analog inputs entirely, audio or video. On the flipside, it is one of the few TVs with a built-in ATSC 3.0 tuner for Next-Gen TV signals.

Picture quality comparisons

The Samsung QN90A has the best picture of any non-OLED TV I've tested and the best bright-room picture full stop. It's exceedingly bright, yet able to deliver deep, inky black levels with minimal blooming even with the most challenging HDR material. It can't beat the contrast and theatricality of competing high-end OLED models like the LG G1 overall, however, and also falls a bit short in uniformity and off-angle performance. If I had to choose one TV to watch every day it would still be an OLED, but it's very close.

Dim lighting: Watching the basic, SDR 1080p version of The Desolation of Smaug Blu-ray in a dark room, the Samsung QN90A came as close to the LG OLED as I've ever seen from an LCD-based TV. Its black levels were essentially perfect -- or close enough that I couldn't visually distinguish them from the OLED -- in most scenes, even in the letterbox bars and shadows. When Gandalf meets Thorin during the prologue at the Prancing Pony, for example, it was really difficult to tell the two apart, while the black levels on the Vizio, in comparison, were lighter and created a flatter, less three-dimensional look. In rare cases, for example the titles against a black screen, the Samsung's black levels did look lighter (worse) than the LG's.

Details in shadows were excellent on all three TVs, although again the Vizio looked a bit less realistic because of its slightly lighter overall black levels. Watching SDR I didn't see any evidence of blooming or stray illumination on either the Samsung or the Vizio with normal video. The exceptions were graphical elements, for example the play/pause icons my Blu-ray player put in the upper left created a faint halo against the letterbox bar on the Samsung.

Bright lighting: The QN90A is exceedingly bright, especially compared to OLED models. The Vizio PX measured a bit brighter overall and also maintained peak brightness in its brightest setting better.

Light output in nits

TV	Brightest (SDR)	Accurate color (SDR)	Brightest (HDR)	Accurate color (HDR)
Vizio P65QX-H1	2,017	1,287	2,780	2,064
Samsung QN65QN90A	1,622	1,283	2,596	1,597
TCL 65R635	1,114	792	1,292	1,102
Sony XBR-65X900H	841	673	989	795
Samsung QN65Q80T	664	503	1,243	672
LG OLED65G1	377	334	769	763

As usual the Samsung's brightest setting, Dynamic, was woefully inaccurate. For the Accurate measurements in SDR I used the Natural picture mode in combination with the Warm color temperature setting (the default temperature for Natural is quite blue). If you want an even more-accurate bright-room image you can choose Movie or Filmmaker mode and turn the Brightness control up to 50 (the max), which measured 620 nits. In any case I prefer Vizio's approach of a dedicated, accurate bright-room picture mode.

The QN90A maintained steady HDR light output over time in Movie and Filmmaker modes, but in Dynamic mode with both HDR and SDR it fluctuated signi