When it comes to TVs, I'll admit it; I'm a bit biased.

If I'm not currently reviewing one, the TV I watch every night is a very nice 65-inch, 8K QLED made by Samsung.

I've had it a few years now and in that time a lot of new telly tech has come along. OLED panels are now bright enough to use during the day, LEDs have become mini and QLED has evolved into Neo QLED...

I'm only 75% sure I know what any of that really means so these days, I tend to judge each TV on its own merits.

Some are brighter. Some less reflective. Some have a much more user-friendly operating system than others.

Yet I keep coming back to my trusty Samsung. Nothing I've seen has been so dazzling I've thought, "I must upgrade immediately!" (Although 75-inches would be nice)

This year, like every year, New Zealand's market leader, Samsung, has upped its game again. So is this the TV that turns my head?...

One thing Samsung has really nailed is slimness. 

The 55-inch QN90F I was sent to review is no exception. Not only is this TV just 26.9mm deep, it's described as "4 Bezel-less" which means the 4K Neo QLED display goes right to each edge, top and bottom included. This makes it a wonderful TV for wall mounting and also for use with rear-mounted RGB lighting systems.

The QN90F comes in six different sizes, from 43-inches right up to 85. At 55, my review unit was fairly easy to handle and I had no real issue setting it up out of the box, other than a slightly fiddly situation when it came to screwing the two-piece stand on. 

The plastic moulding on the stand seemed specifically designed to lose the small screws in. My expert hack? A wee blob of Blu-Tack on the tip of the screwdriver. Or just use a magnetic screwdriver, I guess.

If you haven't set up a Samsung TV before, the most efficient way to do it is using Samsung's SmartThings app on your phone. This makes things like entering email addresses and Wi-Fi passwords a lot easier than it would be using the remote.

Speaking of which, is Samsung still the only TV manufacturer to go with a solar-powered remote? What's the deal here? There are literally millions of batteries being used in remote controls that obviously don't have to be. It's almost as if some of those other brands also make batteries... Oh.

Believe it or not, other than your phone or the remote, there's a third way to control the QN90F. If you have a Samsung Galaxy Watch, you can use gestures to navigate the home screen, select apps and even play and pause. The future is now, people.

If you're after a telly with all the bells and whistles, this might fit the bill. Feel like a spot of karaoke? There's a pre-installed app for that, with a long trial subscription. What's more, thanks again to the SmartThings app, you can use your phone as a microphone.

And of course, via Xbox Cloud Gaming, if you have a Game Pass Ultimate subscription, the TV essentially works like a console without the console - you just need to connect a bluetooth controller. But that's nothing new, Samsung has been offering this feature for years now.

The operating system formerly known as just plain old Tizen is now called One UI Tizen - presumably to fit in a bit more with the OS on Samsung's phones, watches, tablets and who knows what else? I used to like it more when it was mostly just a scrolling selection of icons at the bottom of the screen. But now there's much more to offer. So much. Too much?

The home screen features your favourite apps and rows of suggested content from those apps. This is actually quite useful, although the "infinite scroll" nature of the layout is initially a bit overwhelming. At least there aren't any ads pushed on you for services you're not currently subscribed to. Better still, the order in which this stuff is displayed is yours to customise, so your favourite apps and shows should come up first.

But there's even more to see. There's another menu to the left which includes your choice of artwork for your screensaver and a whole section called Daily+ - essentially an alternative home screen featuring "services and apps beyond traditional TV entertainment." This means that karaoke app I mentioned earlier as well as links to a variety of video-led home fitness apps.

This is not to be confused with your "Daily Board" - a feature that has also recently been introduced to Samsung tablets and phones. This is a customisable set of widgets that shows on screen when the TV is "off" - things like weather forecasts, shortcuts to music streaming or perhaps a sticky note reminder for the rest of the household. Your Daily Board doesn't display all the time, only when someone enters the room or you can set it to be voice activated.

Oh yeah, that's right, there's a fourth way to control the QN90F, via Bixby or Alexa voice assistant.

If you're using the TV as a smart home hub (because, obviously you can) it's pretty cool to be able to ask it to show you who's standing at your front door.

So that's a lot, right? Although, by now you may be wondering, is there any TV on this TV?

Not only can you install all the usual apps, don't forget Samsung TV Plus; dozens and dozens of subscription-free live channels featuring everything from kids to music to documentaries to music to... well, you get the picture.

Now, about that picture.

Samsung's big selling point for this year's TVs is "Vision AI" - the 4K processor is AI-powered. The QN90F upscales lower resolution content to 4K using AI. Bixby is Samsung's own AI assistant. You can even create your own "mood-matching' wallpapers using AI and a combination of key words and phrases.

So I figured I'd just set picture to AI Mode and settle down to the finest viewing experience I'd ever... uh... experienced.

Sadly, no matter what I watched, all the people seemed green and shiny and the colours were washed out and drab. Disappointing.

A show like Murderbot on Apple TV+ is supposed to be larger-than-life, surreal, out-of-this world (literally). On AI Mode it just looked kind of muddy and dusty.

Luckily the QN90F has another AI trick up its sleeve - smart calibration. Some sound systems run an automated tuning system like this - you use your phone as a remote mic and the speakers balance themselves according to the unique characteristics of the room. Samsung can now do this via - you guessed it - the SmartThings app. You position your phone's camera about a metre away from the screen (preferably on a tripod) and the TV then spends several minutes showing your phone a series of test images so your phone can tell the TV what they look like in your particular setting.

The picture quality improved dramatically after this and I began to understand how this TV has been PANTONE validated for colour accuracy. Whatever's going on, everything now looks perfect; sport, movies, games, whatever.

This is all enhanced by Samsung's Glare Free anti-reflection technology, which seems to be rolling out to most of its premium displays this year.

I've been especially impressed by the Neo Quantum HDR+ technology that automatically adapts brightness and colour to suit the content. This is a wonderful screen for gaming - no hidden enemy is safe. At a refresh rate of up to 165Hz, action is smooth and once again, AI automatically adjusts to your content, with a Game Bar you can access to tweak expert settings like input lag and aspect ratio.

Sadly, sound performance doesn't really match up. Although Samsung pioneered features like Object Tracking Sound+ - where the sound matches the location of people and objects on the screen - and Q-Symphony - where you can combine the TV's built-in speakers with an external Samsung sound system, the general quality of audio from the QN90F leaves a lot to be desired. This may be due to the smaller size of the TV. Supposedly there are upfiring speakers to achieve Dolby Atmos effects but I couldn't detect much of anything and there was certainly no real bass response to speak of. Needless to say, I plugged my usual surround sound system in fairly early on during my testing.

And that kind of sums up my overall impression of the QN90F - for once I feel like Samsung hasn't quite delivered on some of its promises.

Instead, there's a lot of stuff I didn't ask for and probably don't need.

Am I using my watch to control my TV on a daily basis? Of course not.

Do I want my TV screen to turn on and show me a weather forecast when I tiptoe past on my way to work in an otherwise dark house at 3:00AM. No thanks.

Will I sing karaoke using my phone as a mic? Well, okay, maybe - but you see what I'm getting at here.

Samsung has always blown me away with its TV tech but this year, for the first time, the shine has worn off. Make no mistake, the QN90F is a remarkable device and it's capable of many incredible things. In fact, it may even have more features than almost any other TV on the market.

Trouble is... I just want a great picture when I take it out of the box and turn it on. Is that too much to ask?