Samsung QE65QN73F

Price

The QN73F comes in four screen sizes: the 55-inch QE55QN73, 65-inch QE65QN73, 75-inch QE75QN73 and 85-inch QE85QN73. It’s priced at £899, £1199, £1699 and £2299 respectively.

I tested the 65-inch model. 

While you won’t find the QN73F in the US or Australia, the QN70F is available, and sells for $1199 and AUD$2195.

Design

• Premium AirSlim chassis
• Two remote controls, one solar-powered
• Central pedestal stand

Normally, I’d expect a little more girth from a Mini LED TV, but the QN73F is extraordinarily thin for the category at just 25.7mm deep. Samsung calls this its AirSlim design, and it lives up to the name.

The panel itself is wrapped in a narrow black plastic frame, while the pedestal stand is an elegant central square that slots into place with nary a screw.

Two remotes are included in the box:  the familiar Samsung zapper, and a smaller, solar-powered Bluetooth controller that recharges via indoor light and clever RF harvesting eco tech.

Both remotes offer quick access to Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, Prime Video, and YouTube, with the Bluetooth wand the most comfortable to use.

Connectivity

• Four HDMI inputs
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• All HDMI inputs support High Frame Rate gaming

Samsung continues to spoil gamers. The QN73F sports four HDMI ports, all of which are 4K 120Hz capable (or 144Hz if you hook up a gaming PC), with ALLM and VRR compliance.

If you want to add a soundbar, eARC is provided on HDMI 3. There’s also a couple of USBs, digital optical audio out, Ethernet, twin satellite and terrestrial tuners, and Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 5. 

Need a CI legacy slot? There’s one for those that want it.

User Experience

• Comprehensive Tizen smart OS
• Samsung TV Plus
• Game Hub

Intuitive and stacked, Samsung’s Tizen platform remains one of the more satisfying smart TV ecosystems around. You get scads of curated content, a huge array of top tier streaming apps, including Netflix, Disney+, BBC iPlayer and Apple TV+, as well as Samsung TV Plus, the company’s free ad-supported, Wi-Fi delivered, linear channel service.

Of course, there’s more to Tizen than just telly. The platform is also fully integrated with SmartThings, allowing the set to double as a control hub for your smart home appliances. It also works with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Features

• AI -powered AV modes
• Samsung Smart Calibration
• No Dolby Vision

The NQ4 AI Gen2 Processor, with its 20 neural networks, underpins a lot of what this TV does behind the glass. It doesn’t just upscale older HD content to 4K; the chip actively analyses colour balance, motion, and contrast on a frame-by-frame basis, tailoring the picture to suit what you’re watching.

As befits a set flying under Samsung’s Vision AI banner, it comes with a suite of adaptive systems – Adaptive Sound Pro, Adaptive Volume, Adaptive Picture, and Active Voice Amplifier Pro – some of which I was even tempted to use. These niceties automatically adjust audio and image settings depending on your content and room environment. Think of them as your AV autopilot.

Dynamic HDR provision remains somewhat contentious in that there’s no support for Dolby Vision. On a set like the QN73F I’m not convinced this is quite the issue that it might be higher up the range. On the plus side, there is HDR10+, which finally seems to be finding some more traction beyond Prime Video.

Gamers will also appreciate the dedicated Game Hub, which pulls together console inputs, settings, and cloud gaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now. Even without a console, you can access select AAA titles directly, provided your internet connection can keep up.

For the calibration curious, the set also supports Samsung Smart Calibration, although only via compatible Galaxy or iPhone devices. I own neither, but didn’t feel I was missing out.

Gaming

• Game Bar
• Motion Xcelerator 144Hz
• FreeSync Premium Pro

Gaming is one of this set’s strengths. I measured input lag in Game mode at just 9.7ms (1080/60), which is excellent.

In addition there’s support for VRR and 4K/120Hz, FreeSync Premium Pro, and even Motion Xcelerator 144Hz (for PC gaming only). A dedicated Game Bar UI gives at-a-glance access to key settings, and the screen’s inherent brightness just makes everything I played (even Pac-Man, available on the Game Hub), look gorgeous.

Picture Quality

• HDR10+ support
• Ultimate UHD Dimming
• Auto HDR Remastering

It may sit lower in Samsung’s Mini LED pecking order, but the QN73F ticks most of the boxes buyers will be looking for when it comes to elevated viewing: high brightness, wide colour, appreciable HDR and blistering detail.

This cornucopia comes together with great effect.

The set supports HDR10+ and HDR performance is solid. I measured peak brightness at 921 nits (using a 10% window, in Dynamic mode). In more watchable Standard and Movie modes, this peak drops by around 100 nits; more restrained but still effective.

But this doesn’t really sell the appeal of the QN73F. Its average picture level is high, so everything benefits, particularly HD SDR content. Watching glossy TV fare, like Caribbean reality competition The Fortune Hotel (ITVX) is a joy. The screen glows with high contrast, rich colours and tropical sparkle.

Alien Earth (4K HDR, Disney+) confirms other talents, namely fine detail (the debris caused by the Maginot space ship as it crashes back to Earth is mesmerising), and nuanced cinematics (witness the moody light and textures as the crew wake before the shocking denouement).

There are caveats. Black levels don’t have the absolute precision of higher-end full-array or OLED models. In a very dark room you’ll notice greying in the letterbox bars and haloing around bright objects. Yet in typical living-room conditions, blacks subjectively harden.

The QN73F doesn’t employ full array backlight or local dimming. Instead we get Ultimate UHD Dimming, a smart software-based alternative, with advanced zone control, that boosts perceived contrast and clarity. It works well, particularly for daylight viewing.

Colour handling is vibrant without straying into oversaturation. Samsung’s Quantum Dot layer ensures reds and greens in particular maintain a clean, rich look. Lush foliage, football pitches, and animated films all boast a deep, rich sheen.

Motion handling options boil down to user customisation or Auto – most viewers will opt for the latter, and it works well with most content. Again, Samsung aims for the mainstream here, and gets the level spot on.

Upscaling

• NQ4 AI Gen2 processor
• Auto HDR Remastering

For a 4K display, the QN73F is particularly good with regular HD and SDR content. Powered by that NQ4 AI Gen2 processor, its upscaling is entirely benign, with broadcast shows and Blu-Rays presenting clean and convincing. 

There’s also a rather effective Auto HDR Remastering feature that allows standard HD or SDR programmes to benefit from a pseudo-HDR uplift. I didn’t think I’d use it. I was wrong.

Sound Quality

• 20W stereo sound
• Object Tracking Lite system

Despite its slim profile, the QN73F delivers surprisingly robust stereo sound, aided by Object Tracking Lite, which helps steer audio around the screen area. Dialogue is crisp and clear, and effects follow on-screen action with some precision.

Of course, the set’s 20W output can’t rival a soundbar or home theatre system. While there’s enough volume for comfortable viewing, you might want to consider adding a Samsung soundbar to the mix, later on.

As the screen has support for Q-Symphony, you can pair the two and combine both speaker sets in tandem, for a far more visceral audio experience..

Should you buy it?