Some days are better than others. Yesterday was one of the better ones when a Samsung Q7F 65″ QLED TV was delivered. After reviewing the TV earlier in the year, I was seriously impressed, impressed enough to invest my money in buying it. My wife and I are around 3 months into a new home and it was always on the cards to fill the lounge room wall with an amazing TV, now we have it.
Given most people don’t have the opportunity to unbox a 65″ high-end TV, I thought it’d be interesting to document the process.
The packaging is efficient and incredibly well thought out, something you’d expect from a brand that ships millions of TVs across the globe every year. After slicing through some tape, the box was open. Folding out the cardboard flaps at the top reveals the first piece of foam. This has a number of functions. This bespoke piece of foam wraps the top of the expensive display perfectly, ensuring there’s no movement while in transit.
Strategically placed cut-outs make space for the accessories like the TV stand, the One Connect box, manual and remote.
Here’s a better view from the top where you clearly see the angles in the top foam piece are engineered specifically to fit these items, ensuring there’s no movement and no opportunity for them to fall and potentially damage the display. This is absolutely a case of everything has its place and there’s basically no space unused.
There are 4 black clips (2 per side) at the bottom of the cardboard box. This secure the top to the bottom of the 2-part box. Given the sensitive glass display, the weight of such a large panel and the general awkwardness of handling something this size, Samsung lets the box release from the TV, rather than the TV release from the box.
Simply press together the two prongs inside each plastic clip and remove it, then lift the top part of the box off the TV. This the reveals the true scale of the TV.
There’s another piece of foam at the front of the panel, with a single purpose of protecting the screen. Notice it runs the full height of the display, as to distribute any pressure over a larger area and avoid any pressure on that uber-sensitive screen.
After undressing the Q7F a little further, we start to get access to the mounting holes. The back of the screen actually looks slick with a brushed, black metal look, its almost a shame to hide that away, but this baby is destined to hang on the wall.
Personally I went for a Sanus TV mount, the Sanus VuePoint tilting mount which actually supports sizes from 47″ right up to 80″ TVs. This can support displays up to 59kg, The 65″ Q7F weighs in at just 24.3 kg, so plenty of headway there.
The front of the display is flanked by further padding on the side of the screen, as well as a few stickers, including the energy rating label.
The V-shaped stand base is still in the packaging (left), as is the vertical connector which can connect the base to the back of the TV (top). I went through this installation during the review, it’s a few screws and your done and also provides cable management in the back of the stand.
Below is the OneConnect box which is the brains of the operation. This year Samsung moved to a single fibre-optic cable to transfer the data, audio and visuals from your devices to the display, its a seriously impressive setup, although running fibre-optic cable down your wall was something you need kid gloves for.
When it comes to the accessories pack, its managed in a slick plastic pocket system that unwraps like the photo below. This contains (left to right) product manual, warranty and support, remote control, One Connect power and composite cables, TV power cable, remote batteries and a right-angle coax connector. This last item comes in really handy when you’re wall mounting, ensuring you don’t have to maintain enough space for a cable bend. Anyone who’s spent time with coax cable for your TV antenna will know this sucker doesn’t like bending at right angles.
The One Connect cable is fibre-optic, so you don’t want hard bends, so Samsung package it wrapped around a plastic yoyo. When it comes to length, its surprisingly generous and even after running it down my wall, to the One Connect box in my low-line unit, there was still plenty of length remaining.
When I built the house I planned for the TV to be wall-mounted and had the builder install a conduit to allow cables to run from behind the TV to below the TV unit. What i didn’t account for was the larger than HDMI-sized connectors on the One Connect cable, so these were directly run down the wall between the plaster and insulation.
The One Connect box itself comes in one colour, glossy black. It looks sexy as hell, but is an absolute fingerprint magnet. It comes out of the box in a thin plastic wrap and removing it, is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do.
The back of the box provides all the necessary connections – Ethernet, optical audio (out to the SONOS Playbar) 4x HDMI inputs, antenna, the OneConnect connector and power. There’s also USB ports (still 2.0 for some reason) which can be used by a had drive to add recording to the TV’s long list of capabilities.
The TV mounted looks amazing and one day, the SONOS Playbar will follow it.
What kind of animal puts a sticker on the screen of a brand new premium TV? Well, nobody, its actually on another layer of plastic to protect the display while you manhandle it into place. Once I removed this, the 2 barcode-style stickers came off and the gorgeous black glass was revealed for the first time.
After a quick setup, I fired up so 4K YouTube and quickly remembered why I fell in love with this TV.
Here’s a quick shot from the side, showing just how the tilt-mount gives plenty of access to the connectors behind, also how thin the TV is.
To finish up this unboxing, here’s some photos of the TV in action, excelling in its deliverance of crazy black levels.
Have you had problems with the One Connect box getting hot? I’ve seen one in JB HiFi but the box seemed to run hot so I don’t think I could have it in a cabinet.
Nope, I have mine in a low line unit, but the back of that does have large vents.
Thanks so much for your post! We thought we were stuck with part of a label and sticky mess on our screen! We know realise there was a layer of plastic over the screen! I wouldn’t have known. We had already rung the store where we bought it and Samsung, who told us to contact the local service agent! You have made my husband’s birthday!!!
Not a problem Lynette, glad I could help. Was definitely something that puzzled me for a few minutes.
Excellent details of unpacking and setting up your t.v. I just unpacked mine, a q7 75″, saw the sticker on the screen and my thoughts were pretty much along the same line as yours, as the manual makes no mention of a protective plastic layer on the screen. When I was removing the lifting protective bars off, that’s when I realised that there was a screen protector also. Very remiss of Samsung. I was terrified I may have removed an integral part of the screen. However there seems to be another 1 cm. wide plastic layer across the bottom of the screen. I think I’ll leave it there because it’s too hard to remove it.
It was a pleasure reading your review. Very well done. Thank you.
Someone just stole your picture to make fake contest on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/394102824331455/photos/a.394104894331248/468831436858593/?type=3
Thanks for the heads up, I’ve reached out to them, asking them to remove it.
think Tv companies should stop putting stickers on any TV or any protective film they dont protect anything but damage TV’s
I appreciate you sharing this content This page is excellent and really helpful Your TV unit installation and alluring Get high quality sets of Wall Mounted Tv Cabinets with Floating TV Units. For more information Visit us!