SAMSUNG S95F (TANDEM OLED 83") vs LG OLED C6H (TANDEM OLED)

The Samsung S95F in the 83-inch variant with a Tandem OLED panel also enchants with its HDR effects. In test movie scenes, such as “Life of Pi” or “Sicario 2,” where smaller light points dominate – stars in the night sky, the glow of the moon, or headlights – the TV easily achieves brightness levels surpassing 2000 nits. This is a result that not long ago seemed unattainable for OLEDs and places this model in the same category as the best Mini-LED constructions.

The limitations of organic panels only emerge in full-screen scenes completely filled with white. In the case of this model, for example, in the final scene of the film The Meg, brightness drops to around 1000 nits – slightly lower than in the smaller QD-OLED variants, where the result hovered around 1400 nits. Nevertheless, we are still talking about an outstanding result, unprecedented in OLED TVs of this size. The colour reproduction is equally impressive. The new Tandem OLED panel nearly catches up to QD-OLED TVs, offering excellent coverage of a wide colour gamut. The results are slightly weaker than those of QD-OLED, but in practice, they still provide an image whose intensity and naturalness of colours are hard to compare with any other television.

And the biggest advantage of the Tandem OLED panel is most obvious with HDR. The C6H's brightness is simply very high and, in our measurements across most film scenes, hovered around 1,900 to 2,300 nits. That's the kind of level at which bright highlights, the sun or small light sources can look truly spectacular. The scene that impressed us most was the fifth scene from the film The Meg. It's particularly demanding for OLEDs because almost the entire screen is extremely bright. Even so, the C6H reached about 1,650 nits in that scene. By comparison, the standard C6 with a classic WOLED panel managed roughly 600 to 700 nits at the same point. So we're talking about more than double the brightness, and in places the difference approaches three times as much. And that's probably the best example of what Tandem OLED delivers. It's not just a higher score on a small test window. The C6H can maintain very high brightness even when much more of the screen is illuminated. That gives HDR a much wider dynamic range, and in this respect the C6H is considerably closer to flagship OLEDs than to typical mid-range models.

Colours

Tandem OLED also brings improvements in colour. DCI-P3 coverage remains virtually complete at around 99%, while in the much wider BT.2020 colour space we measured about 82–83%. That's roughly 7 percentage points more than the standard C6. In everyday viewing this won't be a difference you notice in every scene, because most films don't use such a wide palette. However, when very highly saturated colours appear, the C6H has noticeably greater capability, especially with reds. Reds benefit the most, becoming deeper and more saturated. It's still not at the level of the best QD-OLED panels or SQD TVs, but for a WOLED panel the result is really very good.

The best picture mode right out of the box is undoubtedly Filmmaker Mode. This mode has been present in Samsung televisions for several years and is intended to reproduce the image as faithfully as possible to the creators' vision. In SDR material, it performs reasonably well, though not without flaws. The image is slightly dimmed, and the white balance tends to shift towards red and blue, resulting in a slight pinkish tint on the screen. Average colour errors hover around values of ΔE 3–4, which is on the borderline of what most people can detect with the naked eye.

The limitations are much more apparent with HDR content. Here, a slight excess of blue in the white balance isn't such a big issue – the real obstacle is how the television manages brightness. In many scenes, the image looked as if it had been blown out, and details in the blacks could completely vanish. The final effect didn't do justice to what such a device is capable of, leading to significant colour inaccuracies. It's hard to understand why such a factory characteristic was chosen, as the perception of HDR in this rendition was definitely not what it should have been.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well set up, especially if you select Filmmaker mode. In SDR content the white balance is good, although as brightness increases it starts to lack red slightly. This makes the picture a bit cooler, but not enough to be very noticeable during normal viewing. More is going on in the luminance response. Gamma is a bit low and instead of holding at 2.4 it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 across a large part of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses a little depth compared with how it should look in a dark room.

In HDR the situation is a bit more interesting. The start of the grayscale looks very good, but from around 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift more strongly. As brightness increases red builds up and blue becomes noticeably lacking. In the brightest parts the difference is already significant and also affects the reproduction of some colours. The EOTF curve itself is handled quite well across most of the range. The C6 only has a tendency to slightly brighten the picture, which we've already seen in our film comparisons. The biggest deviation appears around the brightest sections where the TV starts to adapt the signal to the panel's capabilities.

So the factory Filmmaker setting in HDR is not perfect, but overall performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

After calibration, the S95F shows what it can really do. The white balance has been straightened out, and minor inaccuracies have been corrected, making the image in SDR content look nearly exemplary. Colour differences have fallen below the level that the human eye can detect – looking at the screen, one just gets the impression of complete naturalness and harmony of colours.

In HDR, the improvement is equally noticeable. The TV handles brightness much better, and there’s no longer the 'blowing out' of the entire frame. Bright scenes are more controlled, and blacks retain more detail, though sometimes a slight brightening of the overall image can still be noticed. However, this doesn’t change the fact that after calibration, the S95F delivers an image that can confidently be called one of the best on the market – regardless of whether we’re watching movies in SDR or spectacular productions in HDR.

LG TVs have long responded very well to calibration, and the C6 is no exception. After adjustment, the white balance was set almost perfectly, and most colour errors fell to values below 3, often around 2. In practice this means very accurate colour reproduction in both SDR and HDR. An interesting detail only showed up with the HDR luminance response. On a classic EOTF chart everything looks almost perfect and at first glance it would be hard to fault. Only when we measured the TV’s behaviour using filters based on real film scenes did it emerge that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It isn’t a huge difference and many people may even see it as a positive, since HDR looks a bit more punchy. From the point of view of fidelity to the source material it’s not ideal, though — some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is quite atypical for LG. In previous generations, this brand’s TVs usually stuck very closely to the reference picture characteristics after calibration. With the C6 we’re still very close to the standard, but that subtle boost in brightness can indeed be noticed in movies and TV shows.

The Samsung S95F model features noise reduction, aimed at improving the fluidity of tonal transitions. Its effectiveness is difficult to call ineffective – on the contrary, it can excessively interfere with the image. Older films or materials of lower quality, such as those from YouTube, take on a soft, smoothed character reminiscent of a painting effect thanks to this feature. The problem is that along with the noise, the natural film grain, which gives the image a cinematic quality, also disappears. Fortunately, the feature does not blur significant details, so its use is more a matter of preference. If someone prefers a slightly polished and smooth image, it’s worth turning it on, but in our opinion, the most sensible setting is “Standard”.

Upscaling leaves a better impression. The S95F efficiently enhances the quality of lower resolution content – even 576p videos look quite good, although minor artifacts in the form of blockiness can be noticed. Overall, the effect is very solid, although when compared to the competition – such as the Sony Bravia 8 (II) or LG G5 – it is noticeable that those models can extract a bit more from the image. However, one inconvenience to remember is that in the case of older films and photos, there is a problem with overscan, which causes a slight trimming of the left edge of the image.

Here the LG C6 has taken a really big step forward. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very similar. That's a big plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The 'Smooth Gradation' function works especially well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide unsightly tonal banding and artefacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best left on the 'Low' setting. That way the improvement is clear, and the TV doesn't yet start to blur fine details. Higher levels smooth the picture more, but can begin to remove some of the natural texture of objects on screen. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is properly sharpened, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine details. In this respect the C6 is already really close to LG's top TVs and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

In the case of the 83-inch S95F with a Tandem OLED panel, the fluidity of motion also makes a huge impression. The panel in native 4K resolution offers a refresh rate of 165 Hz, and this combined with organic technology makes games and sport look fantastic. Additionally, the manufacturer has added a motion smoother and a motion blur reduction system, allowing each viewer to customise the picture to their own preferences – whether a more 'choppy', cinematic effect or a smooth, almost theatrical spectacle.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel can also run at a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz. PC gamers will get the most out of that, of course, because with consoles, films or sport we're still looking at a maximum of 120 Hz. The panel itself performs excellently in motion. OLED pixels respond almost instantly, so even with fast-moving objects you don't see the usual trailing. The picture stays clean both when watching sport and in fast-paced games.

If you prioritise smoothness over motion clarity, TruMotion is available. LG lets you adjust two parameters separately. De-Judder mainly works with films and series shot at 24 fps and reduces their characteristic judder. De-Blur is intended for 50/60 fps content, so it's mainly useful when watching sport or TV.

Low motion blur and phenomenal motion fluidity, hallmarks of the OLED panel, are just the warm-up. The Samsung S95F has been designed with gamers in mind – and this is evident at every turn. Four HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 40 Gb/s may sound like a compromise on paper, but in practice, neither consoles nor PCs will feel the slightest limitation here. Onboard is a full set of gaming features: variable refresh rate VRR, automatic game mode ALLM, and an excellently implemented HGiG standard, which allows you to enjoy HDR exactly as the creators intended. All this is complemented by Game Bar – an intuitive command centre where you can check and adjust the most important settings in seconds.

Particularly noteworthy is Game Motion Plus, Samsung's proprietary motion smoother. It can add additional fluidity to animations, which can be a lifesaver in games running at 60 frames, where stability doesn't always hold up. Yes, there's no support for Dolby Vision in games, but it's hard to consider this a serious flaw – the manufacturer compensates for this gap with other solutions. The S95F is one of the absolute favourites for the title of the best gaming television on today's market.

The C6H offers virtually a full gaming feature set. On consoles you can easily use 4K at 120 Hz, while PC users can push the refresh rate up to 165 Hz. The TV also supports VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a correct implementation of HGiG. Dolby Vision is available in game mode too, which remains a big plus for Xbox owners. All the key info can be seen in the Game Bar, which provides quick access to VRR settings and the current signal parameters. The tandem OLED doesn’t change the actual feature set for gamers, but with such high panel brightness HDR games can look even more impressive. Functionally, the C6H is simply a very complete TV for consoles and PC.