Samsung S90H / S92H (QD-OLED) vs Samsung OLED S95H (S99H) (QD-OLED)

The Samsung S90H is a truly bright TV for the midrange among OLEDs. In synthetic measurements its peak brightness reached about 1650 nits. That's an outstanding result in this class, roughly 50% higher than what we’ve seen from previous models at this price point. Crucially, these tests translate directly to real video material. In 4 out of 5 film shots we tested the S90H’s brightness hovered around 1300–1500 nits. That headroom lets the TV reproduce most HDR movies with the same dynamics and expression the creators intended in post-production. Of course, on full-screen, very bright scenes the result is naturally lower and drops to around 900 nits. That’s a direct result of the protection systems that prevent the OLED panel from being overloaded. Even in that scenario there’s no reason to complain. Those 900 nits across the entire screen is still a very high level, ensuring excellent dynamics in HDR content.

A major advantage of QD-OLED TVs has always been color, and the S90H is no exception. The DCI-P3 gamut we measured reached a full 100% (exactly 99.9%), while coverage of the much wider BT.2020 gamut hit roughly 89%. That’s a great result, allowing you to enjoy extremely saturated, vivid colors in HDR content. It’s worth noting these figures are better than WOLED panels, which is especially noticeable in very demanding film scenes.

When it comes to brightness alone, the S99H is an astronomically bright TV. Its peak brightness in movie scenes can exceed 2800 nits! Regardless of the scene, you can count on powerful HDR effects that practically blind you, and that's exactly what we expect from a top-tier screen. It's inherent to OLED panels that in very bright, full-screen shots they won't sustain as high a brightness as they do 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 was able to maintain higher brightness than most Mini LED screens on the market. In terms of brightness, the S99H is currently the best OLED TV we've tested.

Color gamut coverage

The S99H also handles color exceptionally well, which is a direct result of the QD-OLED panel used here. Regardless of the test scenario, whether synthetic test patterns or measurements with film material in the background, the results stayed at a very high level. The S99H easily covers almost 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut, and for the most demanding color space it reaches nearly 90% of BT.2020. That's top-tier performance on the market. These results match what we saw in the new SQD-Mini-LED screens, and in real movie scenes they even outperform RGB Mini LED displays.

The next stage of the test was to check how the S90H handles color reproduction without any calibration. As always, we took measurements in Filmmaker Mode, the best out-of-the-box picture setting. And here Samsung truly deserves praise. The factory tuning is at a very high level, and a few years ago that wasn't one of its strong points. The white balance was set correctly, as was the brightness response. The average color error (Delta E) hovered around 3, which is below the level at which most people can notice inaccuracies. Only in the brightest shades of gray did values slightly approach 4, but it's still hard to consider that a real viewing issue. For settings straight out of the box, the result is simply excellent.

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 creators' intent. Out of the box the TV is tuned very well, though it has minor shortcomings. This mainly concerns a slight drift in white balance in SDR content and a slightly low gamma. As a result, in a darker room the image can be a bit too bright relative to the reference gamma of 2.4, which is the standard for watching films with the lights off. These are of course small issues, since overall color reproduction remains very good and the errors in ColorChecker measurements are small. However, we know that from a screen of the S99H's class you can and should expect even more, so we had it professionally calibrated.

Okay, but you know we wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t check how much more we could squeeze out of the S90H with professional calibration. And there was no big surprise here: since the out-of-the-box settings were already very good, there wasn’t a huge reserve. Even so, we managed to refine the picture almost to perfection. After calibration the average color reproduction errors fell below the threshold of perception, reaching Delta E values under 2 for both SDR and HDR material. We also improved the brightness response, so the image more faithfully reflects the creators’ intent and maintains proper tonality across the full brightness range. Not necessarily, because the factory settings already deliver a very high level. If you want the most accurate image and want to squeeze absolutely everything out of this panel, the S90H offers that potential. After professional calibration it’s simply an almost reference display.

Will the difference be spectacular for everyone? Not necessarily. It depends a lot on the individual unit. Our sample was very well tuned straight out of the box, but that doesn’t mean every S90H will perform at the same level. Even identical models can vary in their factory calibration. That’s exactly why professional calibration makes sense: it lets you bring a specific unit to the highest possible accuracy instead of hoping for a bit of luck when buying.

After professional calibration, FILMMAKER mode looks virtually perfect. Because Samsung offers a rich set of advanced calibration features, we were able to tune the colors to an almost perfect level. Most importantly, we were able to even out the white balance and the gamma curve, which resulted in noticeably better contrast and a more natural image dimensionality. With a profile prepared like this, there's really nothing to nitpick or call a flaw. After calibration, the S99H is capable of delivering an essentially reference-quality image.

In this regard Samsung has practically changed nothing compared with last year’s model, which is actually pretty good news. The function responsible for smoothing tonal transitions still very effectively reduces posterization. You should remember, however, that it works quite aggressively, because besides removing artifacts it can also eliminate film grain and slightly soften fine image details. As always, it’s a matter of compromise and personal preference. If you want the most faithful reproduction of the source, we recommend leaving this function turned off.

There’s also no revolution when it comes to upscaling. The S90H uses the same proprietary NQ4 Gen3 image processor as its predecessor, so scaling quality has remained virtually unchanged. The TV handles lower-resolution content well, effectively improving sharpness. The overscan issue still hasn’t been solved, though. With some older material, especially archival footage, parts of the image at the edges may be cropped. It’s a minor flaw, but it’s a shame Samsung left this problem unchanged for another year running.

The proprietary Samsung NQ4 Gen3 processor handles upscaling and digital image processing. It does a very good job scaling lower-resolution material to 4K. The picture is sharp but doesn't look artificial or overly sharpened. The only fairly specific drawback appears with very old footage shot at 480p or lower. In those cases the TV can slightly crop the edges of the image.

The processor also copes quite well with artifacts visible in low-bitrate material, for example heavily compressed YouTube videos. The noise reduction feature effectively smooths the image and reduces posterization, but it works rather aggressively. It can remove not only unwanted artifacts but also some fine details and even natural film grain. We, wanting to preserve maximum fidelity to the source material, chose not to use it. However, if someone values a clean, as-smooth-as-possible image over keeping every detail, it can be useful.

In terms of motion smoothness, the S90H delivers a very high level. New here is a panel with a 165 Hz refresh rate. In practice, when watching movies or sports broadcasts it's hard to notice any difference, because that kind of content doesn't use refresh rates higher than 120 Hz. The extra 165 Hz will be appreciated mainly by PC gamers who can generate that many frames per second. Samsung equipped the TV with advanced motion settings. You get two sliders (judder reduction and blur reduction) that make it easy to tailor the picture's character to your preferences. You can easily get very smooth motion for sports, but you can just as easily preserve a more cinematic feel with the typical 24 fps. It all depends on which effect you prefer.

Another major advantage of OLED panels is excellent motion reproduction. Thanks to the pixels' near instant response time, the Samsung S99H practically produces no smearing. Fast-moving objects don't show noticeable halos or trailing artifacts, so the TV performs very well for both watching sports and gaming. One quirk of OLED screens compared with LCDs is how they render low frame rate material. With very slow camera movement the image can appear noticeably more stuttery. This can be quite effectively mitigated using a frame interpolation system. Samsung lets you adjust judder reduction and blur reduction separately, making it easy to find a compromise between smoother motion and preserving the cinematic character of the content.

From the start the Samsung S90H feels like a TV designed with gamers in mind, and honestly... it's hard to blame them. The manufacturer equipped it with everything you’d expect from a gaming TV. You get four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, support for ALLM and VRR, and very high refresh rates. There’s also a clear Game Bar that lets you quickly check key picture parameters or change settings without leaving the game. Another very welcome improvement is that HGiG now works properly. Last year it could cause a lot of issues, but on the S90H it behaves exactly as it should.

Samsung’s real ace, however, is its proprietary Game Motion Plus mode. The feature works similarly to the motion smoothing known from movies, improving animation smoothness in games while keeping input lag at a very reasonable level. For titles running at 30/60 fps, with the right settings, input lag did not exceed 40 ms in our tests. That’s a very good result, especially since enabling similar features from many manufacturers can end up increasing lag three to four times. It’s a feature that partly makes up for the lack of Dolby Vision Gaming. A smoother image often provides more noticeable benefits than the HDR format itself, so for many gamers this will be a far more valuable addition.

Samsung S99H is also an excellent TV for gamers. It offers almost every useful feature... well, maybe except the obvious lack of Dolby Vision for Xbox consoles. It's equipped with four fully functional HDMI 2.1 ports with the full 48 Gbps bandwidth. Thanks to that we can easily use frame-rate synchronization VRR and automatic low-latency mode (ALLM). This year Samsung also has no issues with proper HGiG support, so HDR setup on a console is quick and without unnecessary complications. Samsung is also known for interesting extras in its TVs. In the Game Bar menu you'll find options to add an on-screen crosshair, enlarge the mini-map, or change the aspect ratio of the displayed image (PC).

Particularly noteworthy is Samsung's feature: Game Motion Plus. 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 to the competition. The system makes gameplay noticeably smoother. So if someone has their eye on a demanding game (e.g., GTA 6 😉) that runs at only 30 frames per second on console, the S99H can display it much more smoothly than competing models.