Samsung S85H vs Philips OLED811

Interestingly, the new WOLED SE panel has brought a slight improvement in brightness to the S85 series. In the same movie scenes the previous year's model stayed closer to about 700 nits, while the S85H can reach around 800 nits. Of course this isn't a change that completely transforms the HDR experience, but that extra headroom is noticeable especially with small highlights, reflections, and stronger special effects. Around 800 nits is already a very good result for an entry-level OLED and in most films it's enough for HDR to have the right impact. Bright elements can clearly stand out from perfect black, and that contrast still does most of the heavy lifting here. You should remember the typical limitation of organic technology, though. When a very bright scene covers a large part of the screen, brightness can drop by almost half. This is the result of the panel's protection mechanisms, which limit its power with large bright areas.

Colors

The S85H can produce very pleasant, saturated colors and in most HDR films it looks really good in that respect. We measured roughly 95% DCI-P3 coverage, so the palette most often used in movies is reproduced to a very large degree. Skin tones, greens, and stronger reds still have appropriate intensity, and during normal viewing it's hard to fault them. Only when you look more broadly at BT.2020 do the limitations of the new WOLED SE panel become apparent. Coverage was around 70%, a bit less than in previous-generation WOLEDs and noticeably less than in QD-OLED panels. In films this isn't a major loss, because most productions rarely use such highly saturated colors. You notice it more often in games, where developers are much more likely to employ more intense colors.

Philips OLED811 uses the new generation WOLED EX panels, also found in models like the LG C6 and Samsung S90H. After calibration we measured around 1500 nits, which is a very good result for an OLED TV. You can see it clearly in movies and series. All kinds of light flashes have the right intensity, especially when they appear on a dark background. In such scenes the OLED811 can deliver truly impressive HDR. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll see that peak brightness in every shot. When the screen is filled with a large area of white or a big explosion, brightness falls to around 600 nits. That's still a good result, but those scenes no longer have the same punch as small, bright elements on a dark background. This is a known limitation of OLEDs, and the OLED811 is no exception.

Colors

Aside from HDR brightness, colors also matter, and Philips performs very well here too. It covers almost the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which contains most of the colors used in HDR movies and series. So you get rich reds and lush greens, and while watching it's hard to find major faults in this area. It looks a bit worse with the much wider BT.2020 gamut — its most saturated shades are already beyond the reach of this panel. Added to that is the issue of the white subpixel the WOLED panel uses to help boost brightness. With very bright colors you can see some "whitening": the color is bright but loses some of its saturation. In exactly these situations QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display have the advantage. In most movies and series, however, this won't be something that immediately stands out.

To evaluate color we, of course, selected Filmmaker mode, and in SDR our S85H unit was very well calibrated out of the box. The biggest deviation appears in the white balance, where a bit of blue drops out as brightness increases. In practice this means whites and grays have a slightly warmer tint than they should. It's not a major error and during normal viewing it generally isn't very noticeable. Gamma also stays close to the reference value, so the image is neither overly bright nor unnecessarily dim. The S85H's SDR picture quality is therefore very good straight out of the box. A few more imperfections show up in HDR. Here the white balance shifts more as brightness increases, with blue becoming dominant and the red component noticeably lacking. That also leads to larger errors in some colors. These aren't yet distortions that completely change the character of the image, but compared directly with the reference the difference is easier to spot. Overall, Filmmaker mode is a very good starting point before professional calibration.

The movie mode on the Philips OLED811 is sensibly configured right out of the box. Most color errors are minor, both in SDR and HDR, so you can sit down and watch without first adjusting the settings. There are no major inaccuracies that would immediately pull attention away from the film.

It's not perfect, though. The white balance shows a slight deficiency of red compared with green, so whites and grays can have a faint greenish tint. It's not a strong cast, but measurements clearly show it. There are also small brightness deviations in SDR: some areas of the picture are slightly lifted, and the deepest blacks aren't always rendered evenly. In HDR the TV tracks the reference much more closely, although in places it slightly pulls details out of the shadows. These are generally things to refine. The factory movie mode provides a good starting point, and calibration will show how much more you can get out of it.

Calibration yields very good results on the S85H. First, the white balance can be set almost perfectly, which removes the slightly too-warm image cast that was visible earlier in SDR. Color reproduction itself also improves significantly; most errors drop to a very low level, and in everyday viewing it's hard to notice any visible inaccuracies. You can also improve a lot in HDR, although some issues remain due to the TV's inherent characteristics. The S85H doesn't always perfectly follow the brightness curve. The darkest areas are slightly boosted, and as you approach the panel's limits you can see small deviations in the brightest highlights. On top of that there's limited coverage of the wider BT.2020 gamut, which no calibration can of course overcome. Despite this, the end result is very good, and after calibration the S85H can deliver a well-tuned, natural image.

After calibration the Philips OLED811 produces an image very close to the reference. We managed to even out the white balance and remove the subtle color cast visible in the factory settings. Errors in Color Checker measurements for SDR and HDR dropped to around 1 to 2, and many samples even fall below 1. That's a level at which it's hard to spot differences from the reference image with the naked eye. We also improved the gamma, and only in the brightest whites a slight brightening remains. In HDR the EOTF curve also stays close to the reference, although the TV still tends to slightly boost the brightness of small elements like stars or subtitles. That gives the image a bit of extra glow that shouldn't be there, but otherwise there's little to complain about. It was already good out of the box, and after calibration we managed to refine most of the remaining shortcomings.

For the S85H, Samsung used the same proprietary NQ4 Gen2 AI processor as in last year’s S85F, and in terms of digital image processing it performs quite well. Upscaling is one of this model’s strengths. Lower-resolution content is well sharpened, edges look natural, and the image doesn’t feel overly artificial. Just bear in mind a common Samsung quirk: at very low resolutions you can’t completely disable overscan, so the TV may slightly crop the left edge of the image. The "noise reduction" function, which smooths weaker tonal transitions, also works very well. The processor can effectively remove posterization and other imperfections visible in lower-quality material. However, you need to be careful with the strength of this feature, because Samsung can be fairly aggressive here. When it’s enabled, along with unwanted artifacts, fine image details such as the texture of skin or clothing can start to disappear.

The OLED811 handles lower-quality content reasonably well, though it's far from perfect. The "Artifact Reduction" feature helps smooth tonal transitions and on the low setting delivers a pretty good result. It doesn't remove banding between shades as effectively as similar solutions from some competitors, but at least it doesn't introduce new artifacts. That's a sensible setting for everyday viewing. Still, there's some disappointment, because the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chip used here can, in other manufacturers' implementations, deal more effectively with heavy compression even at similarly low settings. A lot therefore depends on how each manufacturer uses its capabilities. We have a few more reservations about the 4K upscaling itself. There is plenty of detail, but the overall image looks fairly soft. Edges are heavily smoothed, which robs the picture of some sharpness and clarity. You can partly correct that with the sharpness slider in the menu, though that will just emphasize outlines rather than recover detail. On the plus side, there is no overscan, so even with an SD signal the TV does not crop the edges of the picture.

The S85H uses an OLED panel, so it performs excellently when it comes to motion blur. Pixels respond virtually instantly, so moving objects don’t leave the characteristic ghosting seen on some LCD TVs. This is especially noticeable with sports or fast-paced games, where the image stays very clean even during rapid motion. The panel runs at 120 Hz. That’s more than enough for movies, TV series, sports, or console gaming. It’s a bit of a shame Samsung didn’t include a higher refresh rate aimed at PC gamers, since more and more TVs now offer 144 or even 165 Hz at 4K. However, that doesn’t affect motion perception in films or sports. There’s also the classic motion smoothing feature with two settings, blur reduction and judder reduction. So you can choose whether films should keep their cinematic 24 frames per second or if you prefer to smooth them a bit. The S85H gives you plenty of flexibility here, and the interpolation works well and, with reasonable settings, doesn’t produce too many artifacts.

In terms of motion handling, the OLED811 performs excellently. At 120 Hz, which is useful for console gaming and watching sports, the image stays clear and moving objects don’t leave noticeable trails. The fast response of OLED pixels helps here; you can see it clearly in the UFO test, even on dark backgrounds. There are also motion-smoothing controls. For movies you can adjust the strength of smoothing to your taste, ranging from preserving a cinematic feel to much smoother motion. A separate motion blur reduction control is useful for fast-paced content like live sports broadcasts.

The Samsung S85H is very well set up for gaming, whether you connect a console or a PC. The manufacturer didn’t skimp on ports and all four HDMI inputs support full HDMI 2.1. That means you can use 4K at 120 Hz, VRR, and ALLM without worrying which input to plug your console into. With several devices that matters, because you don’t have to choose between a console, a PC, or a soundbar connected via eARC. The feature set itself is very comprehensive. The S85H supports VRR, FreeSync, and automatic switching to game mode, and Samsung offers its comprehensive Game Bar, which lets you quickly view key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. The only real omission is Dolby Vision, which will matter mainly to Xbox owners. That’s a typical trait of Samsung TVs. Game Motion Plus performs very well and is one of the features that have set Samsung TVs apart for years. It smooths motion in games running at 30 or 60 fps, but does so without as large an increase in input lag as traditional motion smoothing. In practice, with more relaxed games, racing titles, or action games this can really improve perceived motion, especially if you’re sensitive to low framerates.

OLED811 has almost everything you could expect from a gaming TV. It supports 120 Hz at Full HD, 1440p and 4K resolutions, and when connected to a PC can reach 165 Hz. It also has VRR, which helps avoid screen tearing with variable frame rates, and ALLM, which automatically switches to game mode. So you don't have to dig into the settings every time you power up your console.

HGiG also works correctly, so once you enable HDR on the console the TV doesn't apply its own brightness adjustments. There's also a Game Bar that lets you check signal parameters and quickly change settings useful while gaming. The list even includes Dolby Vision for games, but there's a significant catch, which you'll read about below.