This is a comparison I’ve really been looking forward to making between two of my favorite
TVs of 2019 so far.
Hi, I’m Carl with Abt, and in this video we’re going to be taking a look at the Samsung
Q90R QLED and the LG E9P OLED, side by side. These are both stunning TVs that each
offer some great features, but each has their downsides as well.
Starting off we’ll take a quick look at the designs. The Q90R looks like a high end
LED TV. It’s fairly slim, has a minimal bezel, and unlike most of the other LEDs this
year, a center mounted pedestal foot, which I prefer to the wide set ones. The other design
feature to mention is the One Connect box which houses all the inputs. I’m not a huge
fan of having that extra part, but it can make it easier to plug sources in. The problem,
though, can be finding good places to hide the box and the corresponding invisible cable.
The E9 uses LGs picture on glass design which makes it super thin and the pedestal, although
a little difficult to install, gets hidden behind. From the front it just looks like
one big pane of glass and the inputs are all located on the back. I personally prefer the
design of the LG for both looks and functionality. The inputs are another spot where you’ll
notice some differences. The amounts and types are almost the same between the two, but the
LG also gets a composite input, where the Samsung does not. The bigger differences have
to do with the HDMIs. On the LG you get a true eARC that can pass Atmos and handle lip
sync correction. Samsung’s got an audio return channel, and you can get Atmos sound,
but only if the file’s output as Dolby Digital plus. So it’s not considered a true eARC,
but you do have freesync compatibility. The E9, on the other hand, doesn’t have Freesync,
per se, but it does support VRR at 1080p or 4k from 40hz to 120hz. There’s also a difference
in how dynamic metadata’s supported. LG uses Dolby Vision HDR where Samsung supports
HDR10 Plus. Both are good, but for what it’s worth, more major film studios currently support
Dolby Vision. My choice here would still be LG. It’s got true eARC capabilities and
although it’s not freesync by name, you still get VRR so the gaming experience will
still be good. In regards to operating systems, LG’s WebOS
has always been my favorite. It’s easy to use and I’ve really never had any lag issues.
Samsung’s Smart Hub though, has always been my second choice. I like the layout of WebOS
a little better and it’s been less laggy in my experience. As far as voice navigation
goes, right out of the box Samsung uses Bixby, but you can add a google home or amazon alexa
device. LG uses their ThinQ AI with google assistant. I feel like the LG understood the
meaning of what I was asking better, but Bixby’s been greatly improved. With that said, I’d
still put WebOS first. Lastly is the picture and I know there’s
gonna be some disagreement here. We’re not only talking about two extremely popular brands,
but we’re also talking about two totally different technologies. Up to this point,
I’ve always been an LCD guy. I just found the blacks to be too crushed on the OLEDs
and the burn in possibilities turned me off too. Well, this year’s a little different.
From the second I got an HDR image onto the screen of the E9 I was completely blown away
by the color quality. It’s remarkable. Without even making any adjustments I legitimately
felt like this was the best picture I’d ever seen. I know that might sound overly
dramatic, but it really is amazing. That’s not to say the Q90s picture is bad by any
means. The Q90s gonna give you brightness that an OLED can’t reproduce, plus it’s
much better at handling glare. Now, each one still has its limitations. The E9, again,
can’t get as bright as the Q90 and the Q90 doesn’t have the super deep black levels
of the E9. Plus OLED, like I mentioned before, still has that small risk of burn in. And
while QLED doesn’t have any risk of burn in, the viewing angles aren’t as good.
They did both handle motion well though. Things looked good as they moved on the screen with
the right amount of blur to make everything seem natural. So for the overall picture experience
I’m going with the E9 again. The Q90R isn’t far behind, but the colors on the LG, to me,
seemed more lifelike. So to wrap things up, if I were choosing one
of these TVs for myself, this year I’d go with the E9. The Samsung’s a great choice
too, as you can hopefully tell from looking at them both side by side, but for me, those
colors on the E9 were just too good. Which one would you go with? Also, are there any
other 2019 comparisons you want to see? Make sure to let us know. As always, we appreciate
you checking out our video and don’t forget to subscribe so you get updated whenever we
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