Samsung OLED S95H (S99H) (QD-OLED) vs Hisense UR8S

When it comes to brightness alone, the S99H is an astronomically bright TV. Its peak brightness in film scenes can exceed 2800 nits. Whatever the scene, you can count on powerful HDR effects that are almost blinding, exactly what you expect from a top-tier screen. It is the nature of OLED panels that they cannot sustain the same extreme brightness in very bright, full‑screen frames as they can with small highlights, but the results are still excellent. In a bright scene from the film The Meg, the sun still exceeded 2200 nits. That means the S99H managed to sustain higher brightness than most Mini LED displays on the market. In terms of brightness, the S99H is currently the best OLED TV we have tested.

Colour gamut coverage

The S99H also handles colour extremely well, which is a direct result of the QD-OLED panel used here. Whether the test scenarios were synthetic test patterns or measurements taken with film material playing in the background, the results remained at a very high level. The S99H easily covers almost 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut, and for the more demanding BT.2020 colour space it reaches nearly 90%. That is absolute top-tier performance. These results match what we have seen in the new SQD-Mini-LED screens, and in real film scenes even outperform RGB Mini LED displays.

UR8S is a slightly higher-end Mini-LED, so you could expect a lot in terms of brightness. And indeed, on a synthetic test pattern peak brightness reached around 2200 nits. That’s a very good result, but as always what’s much more important is what the TV does in normal film scenes. Here the results are a bit more uneven. In bright scenes, where there’s a lot of light on screen, the UR8S can deliver really strong HDR. Brightness then reaches about 1500 nits, so the image is very intense and has plenty of punch. It’s worse with small bright elements on a dark background. The TV clearly dims them to keep good blacks and to prevent excessive bloom. As a result things like single stars or tiny reflections can be only around 200 nits. And here HDR is no longer as impressive. So you can see that the local dimming algorithm works effectively, but it also has its cost: sometimes it simply sacrifices the brightness of small details in favour of contrast.

Colours

With RGB Mini-LED TVs colours should be judged a little differently than usual. If we look solely at the panel’s native capabilities, the UR8S performs excellently. We measured around 94% coverage of BT.2020 and practically full DCI-P3. These are among the highest values currently found in LCD TVs and this is where the potential of the RGB backlight is most obvious. The problem is that this potential is not always realised in real scenes. When we ran the same measurements on test patterns with a film background applied, saturation of some colours began to fall noticeably. Individual zones are not always able to control the three RGB components so precisely when the scene becomes more complex. This is most visible with blue and magenta. On simple test patterns they can look very strong, but in more demanding scenes samples of those colours visibly shrink. So the UR8S’s capabilities are enormous, it’s just that the TV cannot fully make use of them in every scene.

Samsung offers a whole host of picture modes and features, but as usual we recommend choosing Filmmaker Mode, especially if you want the most faithful rendering of the filmmakers' intent. Out of the box the TV is tuned very well, although it has minor shortcomings. These are mainly a slight drift in the white balance in SDR content and a slightly low gamma. As a result, in darker viewing conditions the picture can be a little too bright compared with the reference gamma of 2.4, which is the standard for watching films with the lights off. These are, of course, minor points, because overall colour reproduction remains at a very good level and the errors in the ColorChecker measurements are not large. However, we know that with a screen of the S99H's class you can, and arguably should, expect even more, which is why we carried out a professional calibration.

For assessing the out-of-the-box colours we used Filmmaker mode, which is intended to show an image that is as close as possible to how the material was prepared. Looking at the white balance alone, the UR8S performs quite well. There is no strong tint that immediately jumps out, although as brightness increases a little too much blue and red start to appear, with a simultaneous shortfall of green. Colour errors therefore show up in measurements, but the image itself does not look bad. We have far greater reservations about how the UR8S manages picture brightness. In SDR the gamma sits around 1.9–2.0 for most of the range instead of the target 2.4. In practice this simply means the picture is too bright, especially in the midtones. Shadows are lifted too much, causing the image to lose some depth. A similar tendency is visible in HDR. The EOTF curve is above the reference value for a large part of its range, so the UR8S again brightens the image more than it should. This is not due to a lack of brightness — the TV has plenty — but to the way it manages that brightness. As a result, HDR content can look very striking, but not always precisely as it should.

After professional calibration, FILMMAKER mode looks practically perfect. Because Samsung offers a rich set of advanced calibration features, we were able to fine-tune the colours to an almost perfect level. Above all, we managed to even out the white balance and the gamma curve, which resulted in noticeably improved contrast and proper image modelling. In this tuned picture profile there really isn't a single thing to criticise or call a flaw. After calibration, the S99H can deliver an essentially reference-quality image.

Hisense provides plenty of calibration options and, in SDR, these can yield a very good result. After calibration, the white balance is practically even across the entire range, and colour errors fall to very low values. The UR8S can be adjusted very precisely here. HDR is somewhat different. The white balance itself can also be noticeably improved, although at the highest brightness levels larger deviations begin to appear. The most interesting aspect, however, is the behaviour of the EOTF curve. Even after it has been correctly set on test patterns, the UR8S still tends to interpret brightness in its own way when watching films. Depending on the scene, parts of the image are slightly brightened while others are dimmed relative to how they should appear. This shows that the algorithms controlling the local dimming have a significant influence on the final image. Calibration therefore allows colours to be improved very effectively, but we are not able to completely 'turn off' the way the UR8S manages brightness in HDR.

The proprietary Samsung NQ4 Gen3 processor is responsible for upscaling and digital image processing. It handles upscaling lower-resolution material to 4K very well. The picture is clear without looking artificial or overly sharp. The only rather specific drawback appears with very old material recorded at 480p or below. In such cases the TV can slightly crop the edges of the picture.

The processor also copes quite well with artefacts visible in lower bit-rate material, for example heavily compressed YouTube videos. The noise reduction function effectively smooths the image and reduces posterisation, but it operates quite aggressively. It can remove not only unwanted artefacts but also some fine detail, and even natural film grain. Wanting to preserve the source material as faithfully as possible, we decided not to use it. However, if someone prefers a clean, as-smooth-as-possible picture over retaining every detail, it may prove useful.

A big plus of the UR8S is the use of the MediaTek Pentonic 800 processor, and digital image processing is one of this model's stronger points. The TV handles smoothing tonal transitions very well, especially with lower-quality content. The feature responsible for this effect works effectively without overprocessing the picture. Even on the medium setting it can noticeably reduce visible banding and unevenness without heavily blurring details. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is displayed cleanly, edges look natural, and the image is not overly sharpened. The UR8S simply copes very well with a weaker signal, and in this respect it is one of its most notable strengths.

Another major advantage of organic OLED panels is their excellent motion handling. Thanks to the pixels' virtually instantaneous response time, the Samsung S99H exhibits virtually no motion blur. Fast-moving objects do not produce visible halos or trailing outlines, so the television performs very well for both watching sport and gaming. One characteristic of OLED screens compared with LCDs, however, is the way they render low-frame-rate material. With very slow camera movement the image can appear noticeably more 'choppy'. This can, however, be fairly effectively mitigated using a frame-interpolation system. Samsung lets you adjust judder reduction and blur reduction separately, so it's easy to find a compromise between smoother motion and preserving the cinematic character of the content.

The UR8S is equipped with a panel with a native 180 Hz refresh rate, so right from the start it offers excellent motion handling. The panel itself performs really well here, although some limitations typical of VA panels are still visible. Motion blur is relatively minor for this type of screen, but with faster motion (especially on darker backgrounds) it can still be noticed, particularly when compared with the same image on OLED TVs.

The Samsung S99H is also a great TV for gamers. It offers almost every possible and useful feature... well, except for the obvious lack of Dolby Vision for the Xbox console. It's equipped with four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports that offer the full 48 Gbps. This lets you use VRR frame-rate synchronization and the automatic game mode (ALLM) without any problems. This year Samsung also has no issues properly supporting HGiG, so HDR setup on a console is quick and straightforward. Samsung's TVs are also known for interesting extras. In the Game Bar menu you'll find options to add an on-screen crosshair, enlarge the minimap or change the displayed image's aspect ratio (PC).

Particularly noteworthy is Samsung's Game Motion Plus feature. It's Samsung's proprietary motion-smoothing system that uses interpolation to increase smoothness in games. Input lag then rises to around 40 to 50 ms (depending on the strength of the setting), which is an excellent result compared with the competition. The system makes gameplay noticeably smoother. So if someone has their eye on a demanding game (e.g. GTA 6 😉) that runs on a console at only 30 frames per second, the S99H can display it much more smoothly than competing models.

In terms of gamer features the UR8S performs really well. The TV supports practically everything you can expect from a modern console or PC display. It offers ALLM, VRR and 4K at 120 Hz. There is also Dolby Vision in Game Mode, so when using, for example, the Xbox Series X you do not have to give up that HDR format. PC gamers get even more options. The panel can run at 4K at 180 Hz, and dropping to Full HD can raise the refresh rate to as much as 330 Hz. There is also a Game Bar that lets you quickly check key information and change gaming-related settings. The only clear omission is a correct implementation of HGiG. With it enabled the TV still alters HDR brightness mapping, so we do not get the effect intended by that standard. Aside from that, the UR8S is very well prepared for both consoles and a powerful PC.