At its Unpack & Discover event held in Johannesburg last night, Samsung South Africa removed the proverbial covers from its shiny new TV sets for 2025, with AI in tow, of course.
There were numerous refreshed TVs announced in Samsung’s Neo QLED Mini LED, QLED, and OLED ranges, including the flagship Neo QLED 8K QN950F, the OLED-toting S95F. It was joined by a new “affordable premium” S85F model for South Africa, and the well-rounded QN90F. Basically, if there’s an ‘F’ in the model, it’s likely one of the new ones. Samsung seems to have skipped ‘E’ for this year.
As for AI, if you’ve always wanted to talk to your TV and have it reply or control your TV with your Galaxy Watch, Samsung Vision AI makes those, and a few other neat tricks, possible.
What to expect from Samsung’s 2025 TVs
Before it got to the TVs, Samsung once again announced that it has retained the bragging rights for being the number one TV brand in the world, according to market research firm Omdia. Not that we blame it. That’s a noteworthy accolade, especially since the brand has held the spot for the past 19 years.
But we’re less concerned about the marketing hype and more concerned with how its new TVs perform. On paper, they look rather similar to last year’s sets, with the usual incremental improvements made to their internal processors. There’s the NQ8 AI Gen 3 processor inside the 8K sets and the NQ4 AI Gen 3 chip in the 4K models.
As you might’ve guessed with ‘AI’ in the names, these handle the display signal processing and the new AI powers. But it’s too early to tell if some of the new features will offer meaningful improvements to everyday folks. While features like ‘AI upscaling’, ‘Colour booster pro’, ‘Adaptive sound pro’, and ‘Active voice amplifier pro’ will likely run in the background without the need for you to do anything, others won’t be for everyone.
The ‘Universal gestures’ feature allows you to connect your Galaxy smartwatch to your Samsung TV over Wi-Fi via the SmartThings app so you can wave your wrist around to control a mouse pointer or make a fist to go back to the previous screen. Also via SmartThings, ‘Pet Care’ can alert you if your dog is barking so you can remotely switch your TV on to play your dog’s favourite content (we’re not kidding).
Then there’s Samsung’s Bixby assistant to talk to if you get lonely or want to know what the weather in Paris is like. Lastly, there’s “mood-matching” AI-generated TV wallpapers. It’s not clear whose mood they’ll match, or how they’ll determine your mood, but seeing as the company recently launched a smart ring in the country, Samsung has the chance to do something really funny.
Give us the TVs, dammit
A quick visit to Samsung SA’s TV webpage will show you just how many new TVs are on their way. The Neo QLED 8K range features two models, the QN950F available in 85in (R150,000) and the QN900F available in 65in (R60,000) and 75in (R90,000) sizes. These rather large and incredibly crisp 8K TVs offer pristine picture quality and up to a 240Hz refresh rate on the QN950F. All three TVs get improved ‘Glare-Free’ technology, we’re told.
There are three models from the Neo QLED 4K Mini LED range coming to SA – the QN90F, QN80F, and QN70F. Like their 8K brothers, they feature “Quantum Matrix Mini LEDs for stellar brightness and accurate colour across every scene.”
The flagship QN90F houses the NQ4 AI Gen 3 chip, a matte coating to dispel glare, and is available in six sizes: 43in (R18,000), 55in (R25,000), 65in (R40,000), 75in (R55,000), 85in (R90,000), and 98in (R180,000).
The QN80F offers a slight step down in picture quality with the NQ4 AI Gen 2 chip inside, but a step up in size. It’s the first 100in consumer display Samsung is bringing to SA and costs about R1 for every inch – R100,000 if you want all of ’em.
The QN70F serves as the entry point for those looking to upgrade to mini LED technology and is available in 55in (R18,000), 65in (R23,000), 75in (R30,000), and 85in (R45,000) models.
Finally, we come to the OLED range, within which are three models heading our way – S95F, S90F, and S85F. The flagship S95F houses the NQ4 AI Gen 3 processor and boasts Samsung’s brightest OLED panel to date, along with an anti-glare layer. It is only available in the 77in size, which costs R100,000.
The S90F features the same chip as the S95F and can manage up to 144 refreshes per second with ‘Motion Xcelerator’. It is available in 48in (R19,000), 55in (R27,000), 65in (R43,000), 77in (R80,000), and 83in (R130,000) models.
Lastly, like the QN70F for the Neo QLED range, the S85F acts as the entry point to Samsung’s OLED range and is making its way to SA for the first time. It’s driven by last year’s flagship NQ4 AI Gen 2 processor and is available in 55in (R23,000) and 65in (R33,000) sizes.
