Haier M95E vs Samsung S85F (WOLED)

If there is one category where the Haier M95E absolutely shines, it is the HDR effect, powered by the raw power of the backlight. This television cannot be denied its reputation as a truly bright device. In both most film scenes and during our synthetic measurements, the panel easily reached, and often exceeded, the threshold of 1200-1500 nits. This directly translates to the viewing experience – the image has punch and truly allows one to feel the magic of materials recorded in this format. However, one must be aware of a certain compromise. When particularly demanding shots filled with small but intense bright points appear on the screen, the M95E, while not losing its resonance and not dimming, pays a different price for it. A very strong and noticeably distracting halo effect is generated around these bright elements. It is evident that the algorithms controlling dimming have been programmed to prioritise brightness and the visibility of the smallest details, even if this comes at the cost of perfect black levels. We are not entirely convinced that this is the healthiest approach; nonetheless, it must be admitted that the general capabilities of the M95E in this regard are indeed substantial. A huge positive is that we are dealing with a Mini LED QLED construction. The use of a quantum dot layer brings measurable benefits in the form of wide coverage of the colour palette, which in our tests reached nearly 96% of the DCI-P3 space. This guarantees that the television has full predispositions for displaying vibrant and appropriately saturated colours.

For most of the time, let's say in 90% of film scenes, viewers will hardly see any difference between the S85F versions. When small but very bright light points appear on screen – a lantern in a dark alley, a gunshot, the sun breaking through the clouds – this WOLED panel (just like the smaller S85F) performs exceptionally well. Our measurements showed a peak brightness of around 750 nits. We can confidently state: this is a great result that guarantees fantastic HDR effects. The problem arises in a very specific, uncomfortable situation for any OLED. We're talking about the moment when the entire screen has to shine at full brightness clearly. Examples include a white background screen, a skiing scene, or our test sequences (5) from the film The Meg. And here, unfortunately, the results diverge quite significantly against the WOLED panel variant. Our measurement equipment was able to measure a maximum of around 250 to 300 nits of brightness under such conditions. To be clear: the same model on a QD-OLED panel in the same test is almost twice as bright. The second issue: colours. And here we also have to be honest – QD-OLED has a structural advantage. Why? It’s simple. QD-OLED creates colours from three components (red, green, and blue) and doesn’t need an additional white subpixel. The WOLED panel we’re testing here uses that white subpixel, mainly to boost overall brightness. The effect is that QD-OLED is able to display a slightly wider colour palette, and the colours are a bit "cleaner." But let’s be clear: it’s not that the colours on this WOLED panel are bad! Quite the opposite, they are really very good. Coverage of the DCI-P3 film colour gamut at 97% and 71% for the wider BT.2020 palette is still high-end. We just have to honestly admit that those few percentage points of coverage advantage lie with QD-OLED technology and may be noticeable in very specific moments.

Each TV is evaluated primarily based on its default cinematic mode – in this case, "Movie" – which theoretically should be the "best" and most accurate straight out of the box. Unfortunately, with the Haier M95E, the word "best" is absolutely not synonymous with the word "good." Even during SDR viewing, the picture revealed evident issues: white balance skewed too far towards red, and excessive, unnatural colour saturation led to noticeable colour deviations. Worse still, the M95E also struggles with brightness management (gamma curve), excessively darkening the entire scene. Such behaviour is hard to commend, as it directly leads to the merging of details in shadows, which irretrievably disappear into a black void.

However, the real disaster arrived when switching to HDR content, still remaining in "Movie" mode. It's hard to guess who came up with such a fantastic idea – or perhaps it was simply a complete oversight by Haier's engineers during this stage – but instead of cinematic accuracy, the image started to resemble a vivid "Dynamic" mode. The white balance exposed significant issues with blue color, which in turn resulted in unnatural sharpness and artificial over-brightening of the entire scene. As if that wasn't enough, the EOTF curve's characteristics mercilessly revealed that the TV also had fundamental issues with managing the local dimming system in this setting. We haven’t calibrated many Haier TVs in our career, but we know for sure already that the M95E definitely needs it.

When it comes to factory colour reproduction, our test unit in SDR mode suffered from a slight deficit in red and yellow. This resulted in a subtle yellowish tint visible in shades of white. However, this is not the biggest issue with the S85F. Similar to the QD-OLED panel variant, the main problem with this model is the way it presents HDR content. When we look at the EOTF curve graph, it’s easy to see that the TV has quite significant issues with strong image over-brightening. This results in the final image becoming very unnatural in many scenes.

The calibration process left us with extremely mixed feelings. On one hand, we noted considerable success in the area of colour. By using the options available in the menu, we managed to tame the white balance and bring it down to an acceptable level. As a result, SDR content finally freed itself from the irritating red dominance, and the HDR image stopped resembling the vivid, retail demonstration mode. The entire colour palette and its saturation were also clearly corrected – maybe not perfectly, but to the extent that the software allowed, and the difference was visible to the naked eye.

And on this, unfortunately, our list of corrections pretty much ends, as M95E simply didn't allow for any more. As we signalled earlier, most settings related to the brightness of the image do not respond to our commands at all. This means that we were not able to control its fundamental characteristics in any way – neither the gamma curve nor the EOTF. In practice, the television still tends to darken details in SDR content, which was confirmed by the inflated gamma, merging details in the shadows. Meanwhile, the EOTF curve in HDR mode still mercilessly exposed all those previously mentioned problems with chaotic local dimming management. And although the calibration process itself achieved a lot, removing most of the colour issues, in the end, we had to capitulate.

After conducting calibration in Filmmaker mode, we managed to eliminate most unwanted effects. In SDR content, the TV performs exceptionally well, and its colour reproduction errors do not exceed a value of 2, which is an outstanding result. The HDR content looks a bit worse, though still very good. Although we managed to eliminate a significant unnaturalness of the image caused by an overly high EOTF curve, the most discerning observers may notice that it is not perfectly aligned. It runs slightly below the reference curve, which would suggest that the S85F has minor issues in displaying all details in the image. We must immediately point out that it is highly unlikely for the average viewer to notice any deficiencies in the picture. We assess the final result after calibration as exemplary.

No worries, but what happens to those colour transitions when lower quality material with compression artifacts comes on screen? Unfortunately, we have some bad news for you. Even though in the menu we can find an option responsible for smoothing tonal transitions in older content, we definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND using it. Its activation causes an avalanche of additional, nasty artifacts, noticeably blurring the entire image, and ironically – it often doesn’t even remove those unwanted “jaggies” it was meant to tackle. This feature might as well not exist at all.

We can write many more warm words about the overall upscaling, which is the process of raising lower resolutions to the native 4K matrix. The image after upscaling looks really decent – it’s neither overly jagged nor artificially smoothed. In this particular area, the M95E really does the job.

The processing of tonal transitions (gradients) in the S85F is at a high level. The television effectively handles posterization (the "stepping" effect of colours), even with heavily compressed content, for example, from streaming services. However, using this feature requires a certain compromise. We noticed that the noise reduction algorithm is quite aggressive – even at the lowest setting, it can eliminate the natural film grain, which for many viewers is part of the film's aesthetics. The "Standard" setting seems to be a golden mean, without causing a noticeable loss of important details, so we can recommend it. However, we advise against using the "High" level, which, in addition to noise, also removes desired details such as texture or the structure of objects on the screen.

The upscaling process of lower resolution content works very well in the S85F. The image is sharp and clear. The only minor imperfection we managed to observe is occasional slight aliasing on the edges. The television still displays characteristics typical of this manufacturer, namely active "overscan" (a slight image enlargement). This should be kept in mind, especially when watching older content, as it may result in minimal clipping of the original frame.

In terms of motion fluidity and blurring, our feelings are quite mixed because the M95E is a paradox television. Let's start with absolute admiration: the heart of the device is its 144Hz panel, but what really impresses is its performance with 120Hz content, which is crucial for sports and console gaming. We must state with complete certainty that Haier has equipped it with one of the best VA panels currently available on the market when it comes to minimising blurring. It is rare to encounter an LCD panel that offers such clear, sharp, and ghosting-free motion. In this regard, the M95E is simply phenomenal.

And that is why the unpleasant surprise waiting for us on the software side is so painful. It turns out that this fantastic hardware potential is completely underutilised because the TV virtually offers no functioning options for improving fluidity. The smoothing systems that should help with lower frame rate content can indeed be found in the menu, but they essentially do not respond to our settings. The conclusion is brutally simple: if you intend to watch high fluidity materials, you must be sure that the source is broadcasting them in native 120. In every other case, you will have to come to terms with a rather harsh, stuttering image, as the M95E will not help smooth it out in any way.

S85F is a model with impressive speed. The use of a 120 Hz OLED panel ensures that dynamic scenes, both in games and during sports broadcasts, perform as expected: smoothly, sharply, and without loss of clarity. A key role here is played by the lightning-fast pixel response time, which is a natural advantage of OLED technology. Transitions between frames are instantaneous, and the image remains clear even during the fastest camera movements. Moving objects, like a ball on the field or a car in a chase scene, are clear and free from the characteristic smearing of LCD panels (so-called "trail").

When it comes to features for gamers, the Haier M95E offers some strong arguments. First and foremost, it is fully prepared for the new generation of consoles and powerful gaming PCs. It comes equipped with two full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, which effortlessly handle 4K signals at 120Hz and even allow gaming at 144Hz. This is the foundation that guarantees us full utilisation of our available hardware. Furthermore, the key technologies work flawlessly here. The TV accurately detects the console and automatically switches to low-latency mode (ALLM), so we don’t have to fiddle with the settings. The frame syncing (VRR) also works efficiently, eliminating annoying tearing when the game’s smoothness slightly drops. Considering the exceptionally low motion blur of the panel, which we've already mentioned, the M95E creates a truly comfortable and responsive gaming environment. Of course, it's not a perfect package. A dedicated "Game Bar", which is a handy menu for gamers, would be useful, but that's really just a nice extra. A more serious omission is the lack of support for the HGiG standard, which impedes the perfect HDR configuration on consoles and can lead to overexposure. Despite these shortcomings, the core "gaming package" that the M95E offers is really solid and fully functional.

The 85F has practically everything on board to become the dream screen for gaming. Onboard, we find four full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, support for VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode). Additionally, there's a super-detailed Game Bar that clearly displays all key parameters. However, the real gem is the Game Motion Plus feature. It's a motion smoother dedicated to games that makes the animation more pleasing to the eye while only slightly increasing input lag. This is a rare and well-functioning combination, for which Samsung deserves a lot of applause.

And now for the moment where we have to vent a little. The lack of Dolby Vision in Samsung TVs has become standard, so there's no point in holding out hope (unless something changes in the future). Unfortunately, it's much harder to explain the disappearance of support for HGiG after one of the software updates. HGiG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) is a key mode that allows for precise brightness reproduction in HDR games, according to the creators' intentions. Without it, HDR calibration on the console becomes less precise, which can leave us with an image that's too dark in the shadows or excessively bright in the light areas. Hopefully, Samsung will fix this in the next update – we have high hopes for that. Because if HGiG returns, the S85F will become almost the perfect TV for gamers.