Philips PUS8359 (VA) vs Samsung S90H (WOLED)

Philips PUS8359 didn't impress us with its performance in HDR materials. This model is capable of generating a maximum brightness of 320 nits, and often even less. Such results, combined with the lack of support for HDR Dolby Vision, mean that the image will be significantly darker compared to the source material. Therefore, it would be more beneficial for this television to play SDR content. This is also suggested by the quite low coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut at 83%, resulting in significant colour deficiencies. The fact remains that the television supports an HDR format based on dynamic metadata; however, HDR10+ is such a niche format that it doesn't offer any major advantages.

The Samsung S90H in the WOLED variant is still an exceptionally bright TV for its price bracket, although it is slightly dimmer compared with the QD-OLED version. That difference is not as pronounced as in last year’s F series, where gaps sometimes reached 500 nits. Here the parameters of both panels are very similar, with differences in peak brightness of only about 100–150 nits. In small-window measurements the S90H with the WOLED panel easily reaches close to 1,500 nits. That headroom lets it phenomenally convey the dynamics of HDR effects — blooms, light reflections and explosions have the right punch, exactly as intended by the studio creators. As with most OLED displays, when a very bright scene fills the entire screen, panel protection systems kick in and brightness naturally falls to around 700 nits. It’s worth stressing that this is still an excellent result on the market, often noticeably better than many Mini LED screens in the same segment.

Colour gamut coverage

The biggest difference between the two S90H variants lies in colour reproduction and saturation. This stems directly from the different construction of the WOLED panel, which uses an additional white subpixel. As a result, very high-brightness colours don’t achieve quite the same saturation, and the wide-colour volume is slightly more limited than with QD-OLED. That said, in everyday use these differences will be hard for most viewers to notice. Our measured DCI-P3 coverage on the WOLED panel reaches almost 99%, meaning that for the vast majority of real film scenes both variants will present an almost identical image. The real gap only appears in rarer, especially demanding productions that use the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Because of the WOLED panel’s construction, coverage of that standard is roughly 15% lower compared with the S90HAT with a QD-OLED panel, so the brightest, heavily lit HDR colours may appear a touch less vivid.

The best factory mode in terms of fidelity to the source material was "Film". This is what we used during our tests. Just like every other factory mode in televisions, it had its drawbacks. So we'll check what exactly was wrong with both SDR and HDR materials. In both cases, the white balance exhibited an excessive dominance of the green and red colour combination. This created a yellow tint spreading across the entire image, causing issues such as yellowed whites and problems with skin tones. This state of affairs was perfectly illustrated on the "ColourChecker" palette, where each of the tested samples was pushed towards its warmer counterparts. The foundation of the image is primarily contrast and black. These are represented by gamma charts and the EOTF curve. Looking at the first one, we can see a true rollercoaster, as both elevated and lowered gamma can be observed. The heavily elevated gamma caused visibility issues in black levels, whereas the lowered gamma resulted in a dramatic reduction in contrast. In this context, the EOTF curve performed significantly better, as it only slightly brightened the image.

In Filmmaker mode, which we strongly recommend switching on straight out of the box, the S90H offers very good factory colour tuning. Colours are natural and faithful to the creators' intent, without the annoying oversaturation seen in more aggressive profiles. However, as is often the case without full calibration, there is unit-to-unit variation. In our test the white balance was a little deficient in the blue component, so the image leaned slightly towards warmer, yellowish tones. This was most noticeable in bright scenes, such as the snowy sequences from Star Wars. Additionally, the gamma curve was slightly low at around 2.2, which caused a small lift in shadow detail. In HDR mode the tuning was a bit better, showing only a slight undersaturation in the red region.

Philips provides a wide range of image calibration tools in both its higher-end and budget models. We utilised these tools and got to work, which wasn’t as easy as many of you might think. While we managed to model the white balance, significantly improve the gamma, and refine the EOTF curve in both cases, the deltaE errors remained exceptionally high. There are several reasons for this situation, which are directly related to the low coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and the maximum brightness of the unit in HDR material.

After full calibration, you can safely say the S90H in the WOLED version looks almost perfect. In SDR mode colour errors fall to ultra-low levels and Delta E values very rarely exceed 2. That's a phenomenal result, so if perfectly faithful colour reproduction matters to you, it's definitely worth getting it calibrated. The calibrated HDR mode also performs very well, where the white balance was stabilised and previous deviations eliminated. After professional tuning it's really hard to fault anything, because the TV delivers an image with almost exemplary naturalness and three-dimensionality. The slightly lower score in this category compared with the QD-OLED variant is solely due to the saturation limitation in extremely bright scenes, while the tuning potential and colour fidelity are at the highest level.

In this paragraph, we will look at two functionalities. We will once again take a look at the feature responsible for tonal transitions, but we will also check how the television handles image scaling. The option responsible for smooth gradation is called "Distortion Reduction." As we have established, it quite effectively smooths out inconsistencies. However, we must point out two things: we cannot enable it for HDR material, and it blurs details in films.

The tested television does not boast the best image scaling. The overall blurriness of the image is quite noticeable, but what’s worse, it blurs details. This is particularly evident on the branches and hair of the model. There is also a characteristic white halo around the character.

When it comes to banding reduction itself, Samsung has kept the same solutions known from last year’s models. The dedicated gradient-smoothing function works quite well and can effectively mask unwanted tonal transitions, which can be useful on a WOLED panel that’s somewhat more prone to banding. However, it’s important to remember it acts aggressively. This mechanism, aside from the artefacts themselves, can remove fine film grain and subtly soften detail. Ultimately it’s a trade-off, but if you want perfectly faithful image reproduction, it’s safer to leave this option off.

There’s also no breakthrough in scaling. The S90H uses the same NQ4 Gen3 processor as its predecessor, so upscaling quality was almost identical. The chip sharpens lower-resolution material very well, pulling a satisfying level of detail out of it. However, Samsung still hasn’t solved the old overscan problem. For some older recordings or archival footage the edges of the image can be slightly cropped. It’s a minor drawback, but it’s a shame the manufacturer still hasn’t fixed it.

Philips PUS8359 will not be the best television for sports. The reason for this is the lack of implementation of even the basic motion smoothing feature, which was to be expected given the price of the device. We also note that we are dealing with a VA panel, whose sharpness does not stand at the highest level by itself. This type of panel is mainly associated with high contrast, which comes with a rather slow response time, as we can clearly read from the matrix analysis results. As you can see, from the pictures captured in fast motion, the image is blurred typically for this type of panel. While it may not be the ideal option, it can conditionally be used for watching sports; however, one must keep in mind the less-than-sharp motion. It is worth mentioning that movies will be characterised by judder since the television does not possess any, not even the simplest, motion smoother.

When it comes to motion handling the S90H is simply excellent. This year's panel offers its refresh rate boosted to 165 Hz, although in practice the benefit will mainly be for gamers connecting a powerful PC. For movies, TV series or sports broadcasts such a high refresh rate makes no difference and the picture looks exactly the same as at the standard 120 Hz. Regardless of the source, the OLED panel's lightning-fast response time does the job. Motion is clean, and the ghosting or smearing seen on LCDs simply doesn't occur here.

It won’t be a surprise if we say that Philips PUS8359/12 only has the most basic support for consoles. Once we connect the console, we can expect features like VRR and ALLM. This is quite pleasing for the former, as life has shown that even in more expensive units, there can be issues with this. A nice touch is the implementation of a special GameBar that allows changing settings on the "fly", so we won't have to exit the gameplay and become unnecessarily distracted. This feature also allows for adapting the gameplay to the needs of individuals with disabilities, which will certainly be extremely beneficial.

Gamers should feel right at home with the S90H, because Samsung has left few reasons to complain in this area. The TV has four HDMI 2.1 ports, each supporting VRR, ALLM and high refresh rates. There's also the Game Bar, a handy menu that lets you quickly check key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. Importantly, Samsung has also improved HGiG. In last year's models it could cause issues when used with a console, but on the S90H it now works as it should. What really stands out against the competition is Game Motion Plus. It's a specialised motion-smoothing mode for games that works best with titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second. Motion becomes noticeably smoother and latency remains at a reasonable level. In our measurements it was under 50 ms, so gaming is still comfortable. That's important, because on many TVs enabling a similar smoothing feature causes such a big increase in input lag that controls become noticeably sluggish. Samsung has managed to find a good compromise here. There's still no Dolby Vision Gaming, but in practice Game Motion Plus may prove to be the more useful feature.