SAMSUNG OLED S95F (QD-OLED) vs TCL A400 PRO

The new generation of QD-OLED panels in Samsung's S95F showcases its full potential, and the brightness results are simply astounding. In test film scenes, such as “Life of Pi” or “Sicario 2”, where smaller light elements appear – stars, the moon, or spotlights – the television managed to achieve over 2000 nits of brightness. This is a result that surpasses even most top Mini-LED models.

The secret lies in the technology itself – instead of a limited number of dimming zones like in Mini-LED televisions, here we have millions of glowing pixels, allowing the television to fully demonstrate its power without technological compromises. Of course, since it is still an organic panel, in scenes that are full-screen and flooded with white – like in the final sequence from The Meg – brightness drops to around 1400 nits. Nevertheless, the result remains excellent and definitely exceeds what any OLEDs, both QD-OLED and WOLED, have offered so far. The colour reproduction is also particularly noteworthy. Thanks to QD-OLED technology, the television achieves almost 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space and around 80% in BT.2020. These values make HDR images not only dazzling in brightness but also stunning in their range of colours.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many films it does deliver a noticeably more appealing picture than in SDR. However, it’s not a level that dazzles by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that bombard the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Because of fairly aggressive zone control, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness, in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. It should be added, though, that this isn’t done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep black levels as deep as possible and to limit the halo effect around bright objects. It’s a deliberate compromise: the TV more often opts for deeper blacks rather than maximising point highlights. On the one hand this is understandable, especially given a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other you should be aware that the HDR effect won’t always be as strong as the peak brightness alone might suggest.

On the plus side, the colours are a strength. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, delivers suitably saturated colours. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and around 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

The best picture mode straight out of the box is undoubtedly Filmmaker Mode – a mode that Samsung has been using for several years and which is intended to faithfully convey the creators' vision. In SDR content, its implementation is not bad, although some imperfections can be noticed. The image is slightly dimmed, and the screen has a subtle pinkish hue resulting from an excess of red and blue in the white balance. Colour errors remained at a level of 3–4 ΔE units – and for the uninitiated: a value above 3 is the threshold where the average human eye starts to notice differences.

Much bigger problems arise in HDR content, however. Here, the white balance was not as much of an issue – a slight excess of blue did not significantly hinder things. The problem became brightness management. In practice, the TV "blows out" the image too much, causing details in the blacks to completely disappear. The final effect was far from what was expected, and the colour errors in this mode became quite significant. It’s hard to say why such a design decision was made, but it was clear that the factory HDR settings do not allow this TV to showcase its full potential.

As usual, we carried out colour measurements in the best‑tuned picture mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one intended to be closest to the creators’ intentions. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they show much larger colour errors and interfere more with the image character. So we won’t cover them in detail in this part of the review. How does the factory colour reproduction fare? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurements, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during the measurements we genuinely rubbed our eyes in surprise. Such good factory settings don’t happen often, even in televisions running Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro straight out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good you could easily think someone had already given this unit extra attention and tried to calibrate it. Our one bit of nitpicking comes down to a single issue. In SDR material the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than 2.4. It’s not a large error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it. We should note, however, that we are talking about our specific test unit. There can always be some variation in factory colour between individual units, production batches or screen sizes. We do not assume every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

After calibration, it was possible to make subtle adjustments to the white balance and significantly improve the image characteristics. In SDR content, the quality has become practically reference-level – most colour errors have dropped below a ΔE value of 1, which is the level at which the human eye can no longer perceive differences. This is a result that places the S95F among the absolute top TV models available on the market.

In HDR material, calibration also brought a significant improvement. The tendency of the TV to blow out the image was managed, as confirmed by the analysis of the EOTF curve. There is still a slight tendency to brighten the entire scene or occasional loss of detail in the blacks, but this does not significantly affect the overall perception. After calibration, the S95F shows its full potential and can be regarded as one of the best TVs on the market!

Despite the outstanding factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to professional calibration. With such a strong starting point, we were especially curious whether we could squeeze even more from this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our sample to absurdly low colour errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such outcomes are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and colour reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply excelled. The only thing we can pick on after closer analysis concerns the brightness response. The TV can vary the luminance level depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the picture is a little darker than it should be according to the reference. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and the local dimming algorithms work in this model. That said, it doesn't ruin the overall impression, because in terms of colour precision the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level that was genuinely hard to expect.

Samsung S95F offers a noise reduction feature that smooths tonal transitions. It works very effectively, but in practice, it can be too aggressive. Materials of lower quality – e.g. older recordings or videos from YouTube – become soft and plastic when it is enabled, resembling an image digitally smoothed in graphic software. Unfortunately, the natural film grain, which often adds authenticity to the image, disappears in the process. Fortunately, the television does not lose too much fine detail, e.g. in skin textures or environmental elements. Therefore, this feature is best used judiciously – depending on preferences, one can achieve a smooth but less natural image or one that is truer to the original. In our opinion, the most universal choice is the “Standard” setting.

Image scaling performs significantly better. The television handles lower resolution materials well – even 576p content looks quite decent, though slight blockiness can be observed. Overall, the effect is very good, although it slightly trails behind what Sony Bravia 8 (II) or LG G5 can achieve. It’s also worth mentioning a small imperfection of the S95F – in older materials, overscan may occur, causing a slight trimming of the left edge of the image.

Digital image processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That does not mean the TV performs badly, but it’s hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is acceptable: edges are fairly well smoothed, the picture does not look overly sharp or “pixelated”, and lower-quality material can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall image has a slightly soft character and you don’t see the kind of precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can offer.

Handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression is much worse. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a “Gradual Smoothing” feature that in theory should reduce visible colour banding and artefacts in lower-quality material. In practice, however, its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can further smooth image detail, giving it an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason we think it’s best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro copes decently with basic image scaling, but if you often watch heavily compressed material with visible posterisation, this model will not be one of the best choices.

The Samsung S95F excels in motion fluidity, presenting phenomenal performance. The panel operates at a native resolution of 4K with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz, and when combined with QD-OLED organic technology, it delivers incredible results. Sports and games look sensational – the picture is fast, dynamic, and very natural. Additionally, the built-in motion smoother and blur reduction system allow you to customise the character of the image to your own preferences. You can opt for a more 'framey' effect with visible film texture or a smooth, cinematic spectacle. Every viewer will find a setting that suits them.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate most consoles, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-motion sources, are limited to today. In that range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The 'Motion Clarity' function improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences, separately for low-frame-rate and high-frame-rate content. This allows you to achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother image. If you don't want to fiddle with manual configuration, you can use built-in presets such as Low, Medium, High, Cinema or Nature.

The same advantages of low motion blur and excellent motion fluidity characteristic of OLED panels are just the beginning, as the Samsung S95F has been designed with gamers in mind. The manufacturer has equipped it with four HDMI 2.1 ports – though limited to a bandwidth of 40 Gb/s, in practice, this has no impact on compatibility with consoles or PCs. We get a full package of gaming features: variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic game mode (ALLM), as well as a very well-implemented HGiG standard, ensuring that HDR titles look as the creators intended. This is complemented by Game Bar – a clear settings hub, where with one motion, we can preview and change all key image parameters. The proprietary motion smoother Game Motion Plus also deserves praise, as it can smooth out animation, which is especially useful in productions running at 60 frames, where stability is not always exemplary. While there is no support for Dolby Vision in games, it’s hard to consider this a serious drawback – Samsung compensates with other solutions. This is one of the best, if not the best, gaming TVs available on the market today.

In terms of gaming features the TCL A400 Pro performs brilliantly. The TV has practically everything you’d expect from a gaming TV today: support for 4K at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. That means it works well with both next‑gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a dedicated panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic information about the signal, refresh rate or active features, and customise the appearance and behaviour of some settings to your preferences. It’s a solution that may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming. The only thing to criticise is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such ports out of four, and one of them also serves as eARC. In practice this means that if you want to connect two next‑gen consoles and a soundbar you may run into some limitations. In that scenario you’ll need to either swap devices or use extra equipment, such as an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Even so, it’s hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is genuinely powerful.