Samsung U8000F (VA) vs Samsung S90H (WOLED)

While the U8000F with its VA panel can still be praised for decent blacks, there are no such accolades when it comes to brightness—particularly in HDR scenes. The television only achieves a maximum of just under 250 nits, which is simply too low to talk about any impressive light effects. Bright elements appear washed out, and scenes that should shine look rather flat. An interesting situation occurred during our testing of a scene from the movie Sicario 2— the screen noticeably darkened, as if the television was trying to hide its limitations in displaying blacks. One might get the impression that the device artificially darkens the image to improve contrast, but in practice, the effect doesn't make much difference, apart from the fact that we see less on the screen. Additionally, there’s the issue of colours—the U8000F doesn’t support a wide colour gamut, so one shouldn’t expect vibrant, saturated hues known from better models. The HDR image here resembles a slightly brightened SDR and... maybe that’s not such a bad thing. For this model, it’s not worth expecting a cinematic experience—better to treat HDR as a modest addition.

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.

Samsung U8000F has been tested by us in the best picture mode it offers out of the box – that is, Filmmaker Mode. This profile is supposed to theoretically provide a neutral, cinematic image, free of unnecessary enhancements and artificial beautifications. In the case of SDR content – mainly in HD or SD resolution – the television already presented itself surprisingly reasonably right out of the box. The only noticeable imperfection was brightness management. The gamma chart showed some deviations – slight brightening or dimming of certain tones – but in practice, this did not significantly affect the viewing experience. For a television in this segment, it performs quite well.

However, the situation in HDR mode looks significantly weaker. Although white balance was still acceptable, colour errors were very evident. In the Color Checker test, almost every sample was outside the target point, and the image itself appeared unnatural – colours were skewed, sometimes too cool, and at other times simply dull and lifeless. The main issue lies in hardware limitations – the U8000F does not support the wide colour gamut of DCI-P3, so it is physically unable to reproduce the colours that the HDR standard intends. Unfortunately, this is evident in almost every more demanding scene.

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.

Right out of the box, the U8000F offered a pretty decent picture in SDR for its price range. We managed to tweak it a bit further – we reduced a slight purple tint and improved the gamma characteristics, giving it a more natural curve. Despite these adjustments, the TV still has a tendency to overly brighten the brightest details – the gamma chart shows a clear break that cannot be fully corrected.

On the other hand, in HDR mode, it’s noticeably weaker. It's hard to talk about any significant improvement – despite attempts to fine-tune the settings, the picture still presents considerable colour errors. A Delta E exceeding 7 indicates noticeable deviations that we couldn’t effectively reduce. Unfortunately, this is a limitation of the construction itself – the U8000F simply wasn't designed for serious HDR. In daily SDR viewing, it performs quite well, but for HDR content... it’s best not to have overly high expectations.

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.

When it comes to how the Samsung U8000F handles lower-quality materials, we have to admit that Samsung has made progress compared to its predecessor from last year – the DU7192 model, which theoretically occupies the same place in the lineup. This year’s model is equipped with a feature that improves the smoothness of tonal transitions, which has been implemented much better than last year. Yes, the television still uses quite strong algorithms that can distort details or remove film grain, but still – it can be confidently said that it works effectively. However, not everything has gone perfectly. The U8000F has noticeable issues with slight image stuttering when watching very old content in very low resolution. If someone plans to play their old VHS tape, they must be prepared for the image to look slightly “choppy”.

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.

The Samsung U8000F comes with a 60 Hz panel, so right from the start, it's clear that you can't expect miracles. It's simply the standard in this class – sufficient for everyday viewing, but without any fireworks. The TV offers one motion smoothing slider – a function called "Motion Blur Reduction", which allows us to adjust the smoothness of the image in films. Higher settings provide a more "theatrical" and smoothed effect, while lower settings maintain the original character of the film with a slight 24p effect. Interestingly, there is the "LED Clear Motion" feature, or BFI mode – which inserts black frames between the frames of the image to improve motion sharpness. However, in practice, the screen flickers significantly when this is activated, and it's best to treat this as more of an experiment rather than something that genuinely improves the gaming experience.

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.

[UPDATE] We have updated our 2025 Samsung TV reviews following the release of firmware version 1131, which officially restores the essential HGiG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) support.

Samsung U8000F offers a basic set of features for gamers, which can still prove sufficient for less demanding users. Here we have an automatic gaming mode – when a game is launched on the console, the TV switches to low-latency mode by itself, significantly improving response time. We also find the VRR feature, or variable refresh rate, which operates in the range of 48 to 60 Hz. This means that both Xbox and PS5 will not produce the 'tearing' effect on the screen – as long as we stay within this range.

Unfortunately, that's about it when it comes to advantages. Add-ons like Game Bar or higher refresh rates are reserved for higher models of Samsung from the 2025 line. In theory, the TV also supports the HGiG feature, which should adjust the HDR image to the intentions of game developers. Unfortunately – despite this feature appearing in advertising brochures and store materials – its setup on the Xbox console turned out, in practice, to be... impossible.

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.