Samsung S85F OLED vs LG OLED C6 (WOLED)

For an OLED, the Samsung S85F can truly shine – literally. Under favourable conditions, it is capable of generating brightness exceeding 750 nits. This is hugely significant, as most films are created with displays reaching around 1000 nits in mind. In practice, this means that in scenes with moderately large, bright elements, the image can look simply fantastic. However, it's not always so rosy. When there is a huge amount of light on the screen – whether it's an expansive, bright background or a whole frame filled with white – the S85F has to tone it down. In such scenes, brightness can drop by even four times. This limitation is well-known to essentially every OLED in this price segment, so we do not consider it a particular shortcoming. However, something that deserves praise and sets this model apart from the competition is its colour gamut coverage. Thanks to the QD-OLED panel, our colourimeter recorded values exceeding 100% DCI-P3 coverage and as much as 86% for the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Such results are hard to find even in televisions costing several times more.

The HDR performance of the LG C6 is really very good. LG Display's new WOLED panel has primarily brought a considerable increase in brightness. In our unit we measured around 1,500 nits and, importantly, the TV can deliver similar values in many typical film scenes. That gives the HDR the necessary impact. Bright highlights, lamps and sunlight can be really intense, and most HDR films simply look very impressive. Of course it's still an OLED, so brightness falls in scenes with a lot of white. This is well illustrated by the fifth scene in the film The Meg, where the C6 reached around 600 to 700 nits. That's still a very good result, but it also shows that the new panel hasn't shed all the limitations typical of OLEDs.

Colours

When it comes to colours, there is also little to complain about. The C6 covers about 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and roughly 75% of BT.2020. In practice the colours are very saturated and, importantly, stable across different scenes. This is worth emphasising, because not every TV behaves the same in this respect. In some RGB Mini LED models colour saturation can depend more strongly on image brightness. A wider colour palette is nowadays offered mainly by QD-OLED TVs and new SQD models with a new generation of quantum dots. However, the C6 still performs very strongly here and is able to produce suitably saturated colours in most film scenes.

Samsung, as befits a manufacturer with ambitions, has equipped the S85F with a mode called Filmmaker. Its task is simple: to ensure that the colours on the newly purchased television are as true to what the director intended as possible. Sounds great… but, as is often the case, a theory that sounds great does not always translate into perfect practice.

In the tested unit, it quickly became apparent that the image – due to an excess of blue and red – looked as though someone had overdone the saturation a bit. As a result, quite significant colour errors occurred, particularly in 4K content. Moreover, there was a problem with brightness – the S85F could brighten most scenes more than it should, taking away their intended mood.

Fortunately, Samsung televisions, including the S85F, offer an impressive number of settings for advanced calibrators. This means that we could test what this panel is truly capable of when placed in the right hands.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well set up, especially if you choose Filmmaker mode. In SDR material the white balance is decent, although as brightness increases it starts to lack a bit of red. The picture becomes a little cooler as a result, but it’s not such a big difference that it stands out during normal viewing. More happens in the brightness response itself. Gamma is a bit low and instead of holding at 2.4 it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 over much of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses some 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 about 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift more and more. As brightness rises there’s more red and a noticeable lack of blue. In the brightest highlights the difference is already significant and also affects reproduction of some colors. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly well over most of the range. The C6 only has a tendency to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw during our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest highlights, where the TV begins to adapt the signal to the panel’s capabilities. So the out-of-the-box Filmmaker mode in HDR isn’t perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

Thanks to the vast number of settings in the menu, we managed to bring the S85F to nearly an ideal level. The white balance in SDR content? Literally perfect – deviations do not exceed the value of “1”. So we can confidently say that in materials with not very high dynamics, we have an image close to reference here.

In HDR content, slight issues have arisen, but they are not significant in practice – most errors fall below the threshold of perceptibility, which is the value of “3”. We also managed to tame the S85F when it comes to brightness management – the EOTF curve, even in movies, holds an almost perfect line. This is one of those cases where after calibration, you can comfortably forget about the settings and simply enjoy films and series at the highest level.

LG TVs have been very receptive to calibration for years and the C6 is no exception. After adjustment the white balance was set almost perfectly, and most colour errors dropped to values below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate colour reproduction, both in SDR and HDR. An interesting quirk only appeared with the luminance response in HDR. On a standard EOTF chart everything looks almost ideal and at first glance it would be hard to criticise. Only when we measured the TV's behaviour with filters based on actual film scenes did it become clear that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

This is not a huge difference and many people may even view it positively, because HDR consequently looks a little more striking. From the perspective of fidelity to the source material this is not ideal, however, as some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is rather unusual for LG. In previous generations the brand's TVs typically stuck very closely to the reference picture characteristic after calibration. With the C6 we are still very close to the standard, but this subtle brightness boost is indeed noticeable in films and TV series.

The tonal transition smoothing function in the S85F works really effectively – it can completely eliminate the problem of visible banding in very poor quality materials, such as those from YouTube. Unfortunately, even the lowest level of this option comes with compromises. Noise reduction is aggressive enough that it can smooth out the film grain that many of us consider a key element of the cinematic experience. At the "Standard" level, we did not notice that this function removed anything significant from the image, so we can recommend this setting. On the other hand, the "High" level is a different story – it can smooth out not only noise but also subtle, desirable details such as the texture of objects.

As for image scaling, the S85F performs very well. The material looks sharp, and the only minor imperfection is slightly visible aliasing of contours. And there’s still the persistent issue with Samsung televisions – overscan. This can cause the frame to be slightly cropped in certain scenes, which is worth keeping in mind when watching very old content.

Here the LG C6 has taken a real 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 considerable plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" function in particular works very well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly banding and artefacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it set to "Low". That way the improvement is clear and the TV does not yet start blurring fine details. Higher settings smooth the image more aggressively but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on the screen. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is sharpened correctly, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine details. In this respect the C6 is already very close to LG's best TVs and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

The S85F is a mind-blowingly fast television – and this is not just an empty phrase for effect. Thanks to the 120 Hz OLED panel, dynamic scenes, whether in games or while watching a live match, look exactly as they should – smoothly, sharply, and without the feeling that something is “slipping away” from the frame. The lightning-fast pixel response time, typical of OLEDs, plays its part here. Transitions between frames are virtually instantaneous, and the picture remains clear even during the fastest camera movements. A ball flying across half the pitch? A car racing in a chase scene? Here, everything is clear and free from the characteristic “trail” of LCDs.

This is exactly what we expect from a good OLED – no compromises when it comes to motion fluidity. The S85F gives the impression that regardless of the pace of the action, we can focus on what is happening on the screen, rather than the imperfections of the image.

LG C6 received a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, which is great news above all for gamers using a powerful PC. In films, sport or on consoles we will of course make use of up to 120 Hz, but even then it is hard to fault the motion clarity. As befits an OLED, the panel's response time is almost instantaneous. Moving objects therefore do not leave the characteristic smearing or trails that we can still see on LCD televisions. This is especially noticeable in sport and fast-paced games, where the picture remains very clean even during dynamic movement.

For films and television LG has also prepared the TruMotion motion smoothing system. In the user settings you will find two separate sliders. De-Judder primarily addresses low frame-rate content, that is mainly films and TV series at 24 fps. You can use it to slightly reduce the characteristic judder or set a higher value if you want a very smooth image. De-Blur is useful for higher frame-rate material, chiefly sports broadcasts and 50/60 fps television.

[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.

The S85F has practically everything on board to become the dream screen for gaming. Four full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, support for VRR, ALLM, a super-detailed Game Bar that clearly shows all parameters – and on top of that, a gem in the form of Game Motion Plus. This motion smoother makes animation in games more enjoyable, while input lag only increases slightly. This is a rare combination, and it’s a big plus for Samsung. Now comes the moment when we need to complain a little. The lack of Dolby Vision in Samsung televisions has become standard, so there’s no point in hoping (unless something changes in a few years) – but the disappearance of HGiG after the software update is something hard to explain. HGiG (which stands for HDR Gaming Interest Group) is a mode that allows for precise reproduction of brightness in HDR games, in accordance with the creators' intentions. Without it, HDR calibration on a console becomes less precise, so we can end up with an image that is too dark in the shadows or excessively overexposed. Perhaps Samsung will fix this in the next update – and we have high hopes for that. Because if HGiG returns, the S85F will become nearly the perfect television for gamers.

LG has long focused heavily on gamers, and the C6 really lacks nothing important. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz from consoles, and when connected to a PC it can run at up to 165 Hz. There is also VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a properly working HGiG. A big plus is support for Dolby Vision in games, so the Xbox Series X can use that format without giving up Game Mode. It's rounded off by a Game Bar, from which you can quickly check key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. In terms of features, the C6 is therefore one of those TVs that is really hard to fault. Whether you're gaming on a PlayStation, an Xbox or a PC, practically everything you could expect from a modern gaming TV is available here.