Gazzip, amazing tv. Please report back with your findings. Is your model the one with stylish central stand? I think it looks better than the one on the B7.
Unfortunately out of my price range. However, things have developed; After having had the Sony 49XE80 for just over a week I started to become aware of the short comings. With an IPS panel contrast was poor and brightness was low. Now I don't like dynamic settings and ended up with nearly the same settings as can be found online by calibrators. However, on such a cheap panel it was never going to achieve much. Colours I couldn't get spot on and contrast was even poorer. I did not like the interface and I found the 49" quickly became normal and then ... if not small, at least smallish. Amazing how one can get used to a size. Some years ago I had a 55" Kuro and it was huge in comparison with those thick bezels. Also, despite an IPS screen, things very quickly started to wash out from an angle.
Long story short, I went to Curry's this morning spending almost two hours in there playing around with various TV's. Reason I did not go to John Lewis again after yesterday was that Curry have a darkened tv section, JL's is brightly lit. God knows what they thought about me ... .
In the end, one TV stood out, imho head and shoulders above the rest and coming reasonable close to the OLED's, perhaps surpassing them in a couple of things but not quite matching them in some others.
Samsungs 49 and 55q7f QLED. - Black levels were superior to all but OLED, the colours, oh those colours ... and contrast was superior to all but again OLED's (brightness is probably better than some OLED panels and I don't have to worry about screen burn).
Live Football on HD (not 4k) was stunningly realistic with natural colours. Even heavily dimmed down compared to retail mode with Cinema as default setting and most motion/picture advanced settings turned off the picture was simply leagues above anything in there (other than OLED).
I thought the TV does perhaps 90% of what the OLED's did with regards to contrast/black levels and maybe 110% with regards to colour and brightness. Motion also seemed marginally better but maybe I've just imagined it.
In comparison to Sony's 55EX9305 (£1399) the picture of the Q7 had better contrast, better blacks, better colour, equally good motion, better side on-view with far less bleaching out. The Sony's screen just never seemed to get the depth of black the Samsung did. Its possible that there was a smidgen more detail visible in blacks but they still looked greyer. I am not sure how else to explain it. The Tizen interface is imho streets ahead of Sony's Android based IU. The samsung is thinner, seems better built, has a lovely remote and the separate connection box with the fibre connection which can be placed meters away. The one thing the Sony seemed to do slightly better was upscaling from low resolution terrestrial channels. The difference was minimal though. This is somewhat comparable to what I saw re. black levels/contrast;
https://youtu.be/zwb92Jxdhb0
I am familiar with the good reviews the top (lcd) Sony's usually get but honestly, on the basis of what I saw today and yesterday (at JL but in a bright environment) IMHO there is little comparison between those and the Samsung 2017 QLED's.
Another thing, as mentioned before, is burn in. Whilst I am not anal about it (I wasn't when I had the Kuro) its nice not to have to think about it. Samsung give a ten year warranty on screen burn on the Q's. One of my regularely watched channel is SKY News which is usually on in the background. It has bright labels top and bottom. - I am sure it wouldn't be a big issue even with an OLED but hey ... I can't afford one anyhow so a moot point.
So I went back to John Lewis, handed the Sony back and ordered the Q7 in a 55". I also get another hundred quid off a BR player or £200 off a soundbar but I have to check that out first.
Although I ended up spending far more than originally intended I feel I found the sweet spot at a still just affordable price.
I hope the TV won't disappoint or have serious faults
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