Samsung S95B: Tried QD-OLED

In 2022, after many years of pause for thought, Samsung finally released an OLED TV again. The new S95B even introduced a new breed of OLED TV alongside Sony’s Bravia XR A95K: the QD-OLEDs. In the meantime I had the opportunity to look at the S95B at home for several weeks. I have used it for PC and console gaming as well as for streaming and UHD Blu-rays. Here you can read my experience report with a first conclusion.

My background may be helpful for you: After a high-end Panasonic plasma, I used the Samsung UE55KS8090 for games and films for a while. In the meantime I have switched to an LG C9. Personally, I wouldn’t go back to an LCD as I think the pros of OLED TVs outweigh the cons. I’ve never had any problems with burn-in and the perfect black makes up for the lower luminosity in my opinion. Thanks to the self-illuminating pixels, you get a very dynamic image without blooming, which I absolutely appreciate.

But a lot depends on how you use it: I use my television 99.9% of the time in the evenings, so I can e.g. For example, the more reflective and reflective OLED panels are not that annoying. As a result, I even turned the OLED lighting down to a minimum on my C9 for SDR operation. On the other hand, if you mainly use your television during the day, things can look different for you.

But back to the Samsung S95B. So you now know what I will mainly compare the QD-OLED with – primarily my LG C9. Its WOLED panel comes from LG Display, the QD-OLED counterpart of the S95B from Samsung Display. Of course, there has also been progress in the area of ​​WOLEDs since I bought the C9: LG displays’ newer EX panels, marketed by LG Electronics under the “evo” brand, are even brighter. But where is the Samsung S95B now?

Equipment and workmanship of the Samsung S95B

The Samsung S95B uses a QD-OLED panel, supports HDR10 and dynamic HDR10+ (but no Dolby Vision) and offers four ports for HDMI 2.1. So 4K gaming with 120 Hz, VRR and ALLM is possible. If you want to use eARC, you should consider that there is no connection for other players. In my case, the Samsung HW-Q90R soundbar occupied one port. Two others claimed PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, so the Nvidia Shield TV Pro had to lose the last HDMI port. All connections are occupied faster than you think. I would like a fifth port for a UHD Blu-ray player. The HDMI ports are all on the right side of the case and are easy to reach.

Incidentally, I tried out the variant of the S95B with 55 inches and a seat spacing of around 1.50 m. This is a nice set-up, especially for gaming. The processing of the TV is generally very good, the housing is a bit thicker than the wafer-thin LG OLEDs, but it also seems more robust. Only the stand I found surprisingly plünnig for a high-end TV. It’s made from average looking plastic and reminded me of the stand attachment brackets on the Jimmy H9 Pro. The stand consists of two larger individual parts that are screwed together. Interestingly enough, the stand itself is not screwed to the TV, but only hooked in and “clipped on”. I had my doubts at first, but it’s holding up.

Once the device is standing, you experience the typical OLED look here: minimal frame and an inconspicuous stand. The latter also gives you the option of running the cables through. Then there was the remote control. To be honest, I’m very spoiled by LG’s Magic Remote, which is a real blessing thanks to Bluetooth and its cursor function. Samsung relies on a much simpler remote control without Bluetooth, which must therefore always be pointed directly at the television. The remote does not feel very high-quality and would also go well with a cheap speaker. It’s a shame, because the minimalist design with only the most necessary buttons appeals to me.

Tizen on Smart TV

From my point of view, most smart TV operating systems are currently developing rather negatively, because there is an increasing desire to sell customers services afterwards and / or bombard them with recommendations (= advertising). Neither newer versions of LG’s webOS nor Samsung’s Tizen are an exception. What I like about my C9 is that there is no full-screen menu covering everything, but I can easily call up many features and apps with a bar at the bottom edge of the screen. However, this has already changed in the current versions of the operating system.

Tizen takes a similar approach and relies on full-screen menus, which I personally find quite overloaded for the most part. The start screen, for example, is reminiscent of the Xbox dashboard on steroids. If you are a new user here, the navigation is not very intuitive. For example, I would have liked a button on the remote to go directly to the inputs and be able to switch them. Alternatively, an option presented centrally in the menu would have been nice. Instead, I can endlessly scroll down the menu to have Samsung recommend apps, VoD films or streaming services.

Okay, you can also use “Recently used” to jump to the last used input, but otherwise you first have to click on the “Menu” tab on the left edge of the screen and from there you can go to “Connected devices” to select the players in another submenu to choose – annoying. Sure, it is possible to use HDMI CEC. However, I consciously switch this off for many sources, since I do not want e.g. For example, the Xbox Series X automatically activated just because I last stayed on that input before turning off the TV.

In general, I often don’t understand what Samsung was thinking when it scattered the options. Example: Where do you think the game mode settings are? In the gaming hub? In the picture settings? No, they are placed in the Connection section. Many shots also have somewhat misleading titles. Behind “HDR for game” is about the activation of HGiG – at least Samsung explains this in the menu.

In general, however, I am not very convinced of Tizen on the S95B. Of course, with every new system you need to get used to it. However, a lot could be designed more intuitively. The surface is also very sluggish in places and permanently feels a bit laggy. I have the impression that the SoC is overwhelmed by the full-screen display with the many colorful little pictures or even video previews.

Picture and sound quality of the Samsung S95B

While I’m less impressed with the S95B’s software, the picture and sound quality are quite different. Yes, the internal speakers are actually surprisingly powerful, even if they don’t replace a soundbar or even a system with an AVR. I had to make some adjustments to the picture, but I will send you a separate post with a few tips. For example, the colors and the artificial sharpening are completely covered on the standard setting. In the case of films, however, in addition to manual adjustments, the Filmmaker Mode can also help out. The latter is a good reference and presents a very neutral and accurate image.

If I now compare it with my LG C9, then the S95B is not a quantum leap despite the Quantum Dots. If you don’t compare the two TVs side by side here, you may be disappointed at first. But if you take a closer look, there are some added values. The colors appear stronger on all brightness levels on the S95B and the higher luminosity is definitely noticeable in HDR playback, especially in games. But since the S95B lacks Dolby Vision, that’s a thing with films and series.

“But he has HDR10+,” you might object. While that’s true, there’s far less content with HDR10+ than with Dolby Vision. The TV often falls back to the static HDR10. The S95B can compensate for this disadvantage a little, since it achieves such high luminosity for an OLED TV that it is less dependent on Dolby Vision. But if I play the same content once with Dolby Vision on my C9 and once with HDR10 on the S95B, I get the impression that the S95B cannot fully exploit its technical advantages.

Incidentally, in gaming mode, the image is a bit too overdriven with HDR, which I’m not the only one to notice when comparing with other reports – unfortunately, this also doesn’t completely compensate for the HDR calibration on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. It helps to set ST.2084 to “-3” in the gamma settings. Otherwise, the picture is always a bit outshined. Incidentally, the S95B cannot pass DTS, DTS-HD Master Audio or DTS:X via ARC / eARC. So if you like to watch discs that often use those sound formats, you have to connect the player and soundbar directly.

I noticed extreme advantages over my LG C9 / E9 with the S95B in terms of reflections: the C9 / E9 is virtually unusable in direct light. It’s really more for the dark little room. The S95B, on the other hand, performs much better in daylight, which actually impressed me. But you should turn off the sensor for the ambient light. It always pushes the picture in terms of brightness and contrast, which I didn’t like at all. The response time in games is also very impressive and thanks to OLED technology there are no blurring effects, even with fast movements, as LCDs can still have.

other remarks

Perhaps you have heard of the color fringing problem with QD OLED TVs? Essentially, the structure of the pixels ensures that color fringes appear around the letters with very hard edges/contrasts, especially black texts on a white background. Can this also be seen in the S95B? The simple answer: yes. However, you can only really see this in everyday use as a television if you approach the TV to within a few centimetres. In practice, I therefore consider the effect to be absolutely unproblematic. Exception: If you want to use the device as an oversized monitor, then leave it alone. At least that would bother me then.

Bigger issue: While I never consciously noticed it on the LG C9, I sporadically noticed the Auto Brightness Limiter (ABL) clearly on the S95B. This lowers the luminosity of the panel to prevent burn-in with very bright image content. Apparently Samsung is very aggressive here, because in games like the motley “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” it was very eye-catching. In the title you often read longer texts, so picture content often rests longer, which probably didn’t suit the ABL.

The color space settings are also problematic: If you leave them on “Auto”, the S95B regularly uses the wrong color space, which I noticed directly in the PS5 menu, as all the icons looked completely wrong in color. Make sure that you set “native” there.

Conclusion

The Samsung S95B is a really great (QD) OLED TV that I can heartily recommend in terms of picture quality. But I don’t see it as a revolution, but rather as an evolution. There are also points that could be improved – such as the aggressive ABL, the partially inaccurate HDR playback in gaming mode and the overloaded and user-unfriendly software.

However, the 4K image quality is beyond doubt and I was very impressed. So I go back to the LG C9 with a bit of gnashing of teeth. At CES 2023, Samsung will already be presenting its second QD OLED generation. If you iron out some of my criticisms with the successors and also bring Dolby Vision on board, I would be completely fired up.

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