In a world where everywhere you turn you hear or read there’s someone going on about cost of living pressure, it’s hard to sit here with a straight face talking about a TV that has a price tag of $12,999. But, when it comes to the crunch, size matters as Samsung’s own research revealed recently – so I sat down with Samsung’s biggest, a 98 inch monster packed with their best tech the QN90D Neo QLED 4K TV.

For this review, the QN90D was paired with the HW-Q930D Q-Series soundbar which when paired with a Samsung TV operates in tandem to provide a solid whole of room sound. I watched Top Gun Maverick for my 20th time and I’ve got to say it’s always great to hear a great movie on a great sound system. Audio from every angle, including wireless rears which I probably would have sat higher to be a more direct to the ear sound, instead they were a bit blocked by the lounge cushions.

Anyway, back to the TV. First thing I notice is a tweak to Samsung’s TV operating system. It evolves every year, and this year, perhaps in an attempt to simplify things, but also have more promotional space and push more their impressive Live TV offering there are three “tabs” to the main home screen. They are “Discover”, “Live”, and “Apps”.

Discover is more the traditional interface with more reactive content, recommended to you based on your usage and installed content options. I noticed several new Samsung TV Plus live channels here so that worked immediately.

Likewise in the Live tab, overwhelming me with live content options. The TV I watched didn’t appear to have an antenna/free-to-air connection, so I can’t speak to how those live channels will integrate with the IP/Streamed channels, but I do hope we get to a place where these companies are integrating “anything” free to give the best offering to consumers.

The Apps Tab is as it says on the box, where you find your apps. Most people will be ok here from the Home Screen, but I guess if you’re an App Addict you’ll need a separate page.

Games is it’s own Sidebar screen, allowing you to access gaming content, like XBox cloud gaming. Now if you haven’t tried this, it is still remarkable to me that you can not own an Xbox, yet play Xbox via a simple App on your TV. Sure the quality of the image is clearly lesser than a local device, but streaming in real-time from an xbox in the cloud is cool. I Played Fortnite and while I didn’t get a Victory Royal in my one attempt, I did get a lag which had my player running forward with me having no control. It snapped back after about 5 seconds, no big deal, but a gamer would have hated it. That’s an Xbox cloud thing, nothing to do with Samsung.

Daily+ is a new Sidebar home screen option. Seems to be an attempt to integrate all the SmartThings content and controls in one place. I get it, it’s a great thing, but until we have an overwhelming number of actual Smart Things in our homes, this feels like overkill in terms of screen real-estate.

Frankly, while I get why every decision has been made, I do long for the days when pressing home just brought up a lower third menu on the screen. If i need the full TV interface, I’ll go find it.

However today, TV’s are billboards, there are ad deals done to show you content that’s new so you can click and view, and there’s so much content that’s provided by the TV itself that it has to be served up somewhere! A tough thing to do any other way than how it’s done.

I Will say it’s great to see Apps continue to play in the menu, I don’t think they’ve done that before on recent Samsung TV’s. This means if you’re mid show on Stan, and press home to consider your next move, the Stan show keeps going.

When it comes to the quality of the TV, it’s impressive, no doubt.

Given nearly all that I did was streamed, there was no doubt upscaling happening every step of the way. Samsung’s AI Gen2 Processor here is the brains that powers every pixel. Taking lower quality content and making it suitable for a massive screen like this in 4K. There’s literally a feature called “Supersize picture enhancer” for just this 98 inch model.

What I noticed was impressive black levels, and a very small amount of blooming around the white words on a black screen.

Interestingly, while I was walking around taking photos, I saw a staggering amount of blooming. Look at this timer on screen front on, and on an angle:

I was perplexed, so I dug a bit deeper.

Front on, the lack of blooming is impressive, even really close up.. But on an angle, there’s clearly pixel visibility

While I can’t say why, I assume it’s to do with the layering of the pixels, Mini LEDs and the Quantum Dots. Like a leakage on an angle.

Critically, this doesn’t affect viewing on pretty much all normal lounge room viewing angles. You’d need to be higher than 45 degrees off centre I reckon to even start to notice.

Not at all a criticism of the TV, I was just fascinated to see it.

Given we have a 100 inch TV in the market from Hisense, sitting around the $5k mark, and acknowledging it’s last year’s model but still Mini LED. It’s $7K RRP and current price makes a 98 incher at $12,999 seem a big, big leap, if SIZE is what matters.

I’d suggest there’s a definite, yet incremental to the average eye, advantage to the picture on the Samsung, and I’d say Samsung’s OS is vastly better, slicker, faster, and Samsung TV Plus itself is selling TVs I reckon. However, I’d stuggle to justify it.

Slash $4,000 off the price and we’re talking – this QN90D TV is currently $8,999 – now that will be limited time EOFY stuff, but surely that indicates the price it can be, and perhaps will be again. Could that be later in the year, or sooner – I don’t know. But at $9k, this is a pretty great standout offering in that big, or should we say enormous screen size market.

It should be noted though that Samsung’s impressive QN900D is a staggeringly better looking TV if the overall aesthetic of the placement matters, and you want a genuine borderless look. And if you’re shopping in this price range, you have to consider those, albeit at a smaller screen size comparatively.

Impressive stuff, I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed having shelled out the cash for it – so – check it out.