SAMSUNG OLED S95F (QD-OLED) vs Haier K85F

The new generation of QD-OLED panels in the Samsung S95F shows its full potential, and the brightness results are absolutely stunning. In test film scenes, such as "Life of Pi" or "Sicario 2," where smaller light elements appear – stars, the moon, or headlights – the TV was able 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 TVs, we have millions of glowing pixels here, allowing the TV to fully showcase its power without technological compromises. Of course, since it is still an organic panel, in full-screen scenes flooded with white – like in the final sequence of the film The Meg – the 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 color reproduction also deserves special attention. Thanks to QD-OLED technology, the TV achieves almost 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color palette and about 80% in BT.2020. These values make the HDR image not only dazzling with brightness but also captivating with a richness of colors.

Now let's move on to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, which is the quality of HDR effect. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we must unfortunately make it clear: if you are looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should steer clear of this model. The main issue is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what this means – such a value is okay for watching standard SDR materials, but it is absolutely insufficient to show any real benefits of HDR. The image simply lacks the "power" to generate bright, striking bursts. All our measurements and tests on specialist patterns only confirmed this. As if that weren't enough, the television also struggles with color reproduction. In this budget model, we won't find any technologies that expand the color palette, such as quantum dot layers (known in marketing as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which is crucial for HDR materials, is only about 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of vibrant, saturated colors that the director wanted to show us.

The best picture mode right out of the box is undoubtedly Filmmaker Mode – a mode that Samsung has been using for several years, designed to faithfully represent the creators' intentions. In SDR content, its implementation is not bad, although some imperfections can be noticed. The picture is slightly dimmed, and the screen has a slight pinkish tint resulting from the predominance of red and blue in the white balance. Color 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 begins to notice differences.

However, much larger problems arise in HDR content. Here, the white balance was not such a significant issue – a slight excess of blue did not cause major problems. The issue became managing brightness. In practice, the TV "overexposed" the image too much, causing details in the blacks to completely disappear. The final effect was far from what was expected, and the color errors in this mode became really large. It's hard to say why such a design decision was made, but it was clear that the factory HDR settings did not allow this TV to showcase its full potential.

Well, how does the television perform with colors straight from the factory, without any intervention from our side? The Haier K85F offers a full range of picture modes, such as Dynamic or Eco, but for anyone who wants to watch movies according to the creators' intentions, only one really matters: Film mode. This is the mode we focused our tests on, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture in the factory settings is far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires many adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a clear lack of red color. In practice, this means that the whole picture has a cool, bluish tint. The situation is even worse when it comes to brightness management, specifically gamma curves (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a real rollercoaster, which has a disastrous effect on the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in the shadows to get lost, and in the case of HDR – excessive brightness, which further exacerbates the issue of highlights. This combination, meaning too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and excessive blue color saturation, causes enormous errors in color reproduction. Our measurements on a specialized ColorChecker chart showed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. In simpler terms: errors above the threshold of 3 are easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colors on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

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

In HDR materials, calibration also brought significant improvement. The tendency of the television to overexpose the image was successfully controlled, as confirmed by the analysis of the EOTF curve. A slight tendency to brighten the entire scene or occasional loss of details in the blacks can still be observed; however, it does not significantly impact the overall perception. After calibration, the S95F showcases its full potential and can be described as one of the best televisions on the market!

Well, is there anything we can do about this image? Can professional calibration save the situation? The answer is: both yes and no. It must be clearly stated that there are certain things we cannot overcome. The limitations of the construction itself, namely a poor panel and its narrow color coverage, mean that you can forget about achieving meaningful HDR – we won’t sugarcoat it for you. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is precisely for watching such content, after calibration, that this television begins to make sense. We managed to tame the white balance in our own way. Although the TV only offers basic 2-point adjustment (instead of precise 20-point), it’s not perfect, but we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the image. Above all, however, we recorded a significant improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the TV can finally display images without artificially dimming or brightening them. The conclusion is simple: even in the case of such a cheap television, professional adjustment of the settings can achieve a lot and draw out its maximum potential.

The 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 – such as older recordings or videos from YouTube – become soft and plastic when this feature is turned on, resembling an image digitally smoothed in a graphics program. Unfortunately, this also causes the natural film grain, which often adds authenticity to the image, to disappear. Fortunately, the TV does not lose too many fine details, such as in skin textures or elements of the surroundings. Therefore, this feature is best used with caution – depending on preferences, one can achieve a smooth image, but less natural, or one that is more faithful to the original. In our opinion, the most universal choice is the “Standard” setting.

The image scaling performs significantly better. The TV handles lower resolution materials well – even 576p content looks quite decent, although a slight blockiness can be noticed. Overall, the effect is very good, although it is somewhat inferior to 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 cropping of the left edge of the image.

Let's move on to digital processing and image scaling, that is, how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, for example, from standard television. Right from the start, we encounter an extremely annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – the overscan feature is enabled by default. This means that the television artificially enlarges the image, cropping its edges, and this occurs on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig into the screen settings every time and manually switch the format to "stretch to 16:9." It's a detail, but incredibly frustrating. The scaling of content to 4K resolution can be described in one word: acceptable. And that's basically it. The image processor does not strip the image of details, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any fireworks. It's fine, but nothing more. The biggest and most noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is the absence of a banding smoothing function. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not implement such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality materials in all their glory.

The Samsung S95F demonstrates phenomenal motion fluidity. The panel itself operates at a native 4K resolution with a refresh rate of up to 165 Hz, and combined with QD-OLED organic technology, it delivers incredible results. Sports and games look amazing – the image is fast, dynamic, and very natural. Additionally, the built-in motion smoother and motion blur reduction system allow you to adjust the character of the image to your preferences. You can opt for a more "frame" effect with visible film structure or a smooth, theatrical performance. Every viewer will find a setting that suits them.

The panel in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which already sets certain expectations for smoothness of the image right from the start. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found not one, but two separate sliders for motion control in the settings menu: one labeled "Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder." Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as usually manufacturers offer at most one common option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm quickly dwindled as fast as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for blur reduction is simply a dummy. Moving it does not produce any visible effect on the screen; thus, only one of the two options actually works.

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

Let's move on to the features for gamers, although we must point out right away that this is more of a proposal for "casual" players. The manufacturer boasts in the specifications about the presence of HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it is largely a marketing gimmick. What good is a modern port when the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which takes away HDMI 2.1's most important advantage. That's a shame. (That’s why we mark it as HDMI 2.0 ports in our tests). Another oddity is the television's response to attempts to calibrate HDR from the console. Changes in brightness settings cause very unnatural behavior of the image, which might suggest an incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, however, you shouldn't worry too much about this, because as we have mentioned multiple times, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to make it not so bitter, the Haier K85F also has two significant and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or Auto Low Latency Mode, which switches the television to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise is support for VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate. Although it works in a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its very presence is commendable. Thanks to this, the image in games can stutter less, which truly improves the gaming experience.