We spent an afternoon gaming on Samsung’s 8K TV, and it was brilliant

We were recently invited to Samsung Malaysia’s office to have a session with one of the best displays you can for your money—a lot of money, in fact. Samsung’s Q900 8K Smart QLED TV is priced at RM299,999 for its biggest size, and they’re made to order due to that insane price. It’s available in 3 sizes, with the 75″ model going for RM59,999, the 82″ model selling for RM99,999, and the huge 98″ Q900 retailing for RM299,999.

Suffice to say, the price tag is pretty stunning, and that wasn’t the only thing that we were a tad sceptical about prior to the gaming session. How in the world was Samsung going to demo an 8K TV, when there isn’t much 8K content to begin with? And more pertinently, how were we going to game on an 8K display when current-generation consoles only pushed resolutions of up to 4K? Watch the video below to find out:

AI-based upscaling

So, one of the things that hampers next-gen technology like 8K displays is the availability of suitable content that can really push your device to its limits. For example, the highest resolution content you can get on Netflix or YouTube is 4K, while consoles like the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X only push 4K resolution for supported games.

But Samsung explains that it’s the AI-powered Quantum Processor that simplifies this. Whether it’s simply HD content or 4K content, the TV upscales content up to 8K, which to be honest, looked really impressive at first glance. There wasn’t much of the artificial look that upscaled content can sometimes have, and there was a lot to appreciate about gaming on a huge screen with a resolution of 7,680 x 4,320—over 33 million pixels.

But besides the frankly staggering resolution, Samsung’s monster of a TV also has a few features that really stood out to us. Take the Ultra Black Elite, for instance. In addition to ensuring deeper blacks and better viewing angles, it drastically reduced the reflectiveness of the display. Side by side with a standard 4K TV, the Q900 was barely affected by the sunlight streaming into the room, which made for superb viewing angles.

The TV also comes with HDR 10+ support, or Quantum HDR 32X, as Samsung calls it, while the 120Hz display comes with a 10 year burn-in warranty—that said, QLED displays aren’t supposed to be susceptible to burn-in issues, unlike OLED displays.

As great as the display was, the experience was totally different once Samsung hooked up their soundbar, the Samsung Harmon Kardon Q90R, to the TV. Playing a Dolby Atmos-supported title on the Xbox One X, it truly completed the experience.

While the Q90R isn’t cheap and retails for RM6,499, the Samsung Q900 TVs start from RM59,999 for the 75″ model, RM99,999 for the 82″ model, and a staggering RM299,999 for the 98″ model. Click here to find out more.