Samsung's new Neo QLED TVs promise better picture, gaming extras in 2021

Hey guys, I'm here with Samsung's Best TV for 2021. This is a NEO QLED 8K television, all the bells and whistles, including a brand new Neo backlight system. We'll get into that right now. [MUSIC]. I'll start with what makes this TV special Neo QLED means, it's got a brand new backlight system that relies on many LEDs. Those are smaller LEDs behind the screen that illuminate the picture. The advantage according to Samsung is they're able to focus the light and eliminate a lot of the blooming that happens with some LED TVs. So you have a black background, a logo or something like that. That's much more precise with the Neo LED backlight compared to previous generations. Neo led also allows the TV to get brighter so you have that double impact of better, black levels, looming reduction, Extra brightness that can really make the image pop. Now I haven't tested this TD myself I'm looking at it here it looks really nice and bright. This is an 85 inch model, the 8k version. This is the flagship, the best one they make. There's also this technology is going to be trickled down to lesser versions that cost a little bit less money. They won't be cheap. But they're going to be a little bit more affordable. There's going to be all the 8k versions that have Neo LED and then the 4k TVs are also going to have Neo led up to the Q 85 series. So again, this is Neo q led 8k and improvement on their current q led televisions that really improves the picture quality. The idea of course, is to compete against LG OLED technology. This TV is going to be brighter than OLED might not have quite as good black levels. But again, they've been improving this technology every year so it might be competitive and it's gonna be a lot cheaper at the 85 inch size for sure. So that's one advantage in QA LEDs favor. So speaking of HDR and extra brightness where you're really gonna get a lot of improvement there is with gaming. Samsung has made some great gaming TVs in the past but they've improved their 2021 models with a new feature called game bar. So the idea is you can hold down long press on the play pause button. It brings up a status display of all the cool new features you get with your PlayStation 5 or your Xbox series X so you got frames per second hundred twenty HDR is off in this case. Generally want it on. And then you have VRR, which is variable refresh rate. So all those cool new features right there, you can tell whether they're in effect. There's also the ability to switch the aspect ratio and add these extra black bars have been below the screen which widens the picture. Samsung says that they're doing some kind of processing to let it look nice and natural here, even if the game itself isn't. Actually programmed to be this extra wide aspect ratio. You can also move this up and down the screen, which is pretty cool. So beyond gaming, Samsung's also augmented some smart tv features on their 2021 sets. The coolest, I think, is that it's augmented. Augmentation to Samsung Health. Now, they introduced this app last year to help track health and things like that it works with their mobile devices. This year they've added a personal trainer feature. So you can see this TV has a camera. The camera is not built into the TV. It's an optional camera. They say you can use Logitech they have a list of suggested cameras that you can plug into the TV totally optional, but if you decide to do that, then you can take advantage of this new feature. Fitness trainer named Jillian Michaels is apparently the first one here and I did a little bit exercise with her. She's extremely difficult. I was sweating. I was doing jumping jacks, it was not the easiest workout but again, pushed me to my limit. That's pretty cool because you can have this trainer kind of built into your TV and use the camera to track your exercises. And it actually told me when I was doing jumping jacks, right, so. Not very often there. So after the exercise function Samsung's also added a new ability to use Google duo. It's a video chat app again, you're going to need the camera for that to take advantage of it. You can fill the screen with a bunch of different people that you're chatting Instead of all huddling around a tiny computer screen, so that's pretty cool. Samsung has also expanded its DeX capability this year, which allows you to plug in a keyboard or a mouse, you can even work with Windows 365 and do some optional office work on your television screen too. So again, expanding the flexibility of the screen, making it more versatile. And one new feature Samsung added to its 2021 TVs is a brand new remote. So the first thing they say is that it's got rechargeable batteries inside. So it's got a USB port on the remote itself, but the coolest part, you flip it over and there's a solar cell here. So Samsung says that you can actually recharge the built in rechargeable batteries on this remote using indoor lighting. So they say if you charge it up to full it'll last a full year without needing to be recharged, you can always top it off by just turning it upside down and leaving it on your coffee table inside, pretty cool and they say it does significantly reduce battery usage because you're not having to use those little triple A batteries on these remotes in. Anymore. So that's a look at Samsung's extensive lineup of Neo q LED TVs for 2021. Again, the big enhancement is that Neo q LED backlight for improved picture quality, better brightness and better blooming control. There's also some new Smart TV features for gamers. And for exercise nuts. I'm David katzmaier for CNET