Samsung S90H (WOLED) vs LG OLED C6 (WOLED)

The Samsung S90H in the WOLED variant is still an exceptionally bright TV for its price class, although it is slightly dimmer compared to the QD-OLED version. The difference is not as pronounced as in last year’s F series, where gaps could reach as much as 500 nits. Here the specs of both panels are very close, and differences in peak brightness are only about 100–150 nits. In small-area measurements, the S90H on the WOLED panel easily reaches levels close to 1500 nits. That headroom lets it portray HDR dynamics phenomenally—specular highlights, reflections or explosions have the right punch, just as the creators intended in the post-production studio. As with most OLED displays, when a very bright scene fills the entire screen, the protection systems that safeguard the panel kick in and brightness naturally falls to around 700 nits. It’s worth stressing that this is still an excellent result on the market, often noticeably better than many Mini LED screens in the same segment.

Color gamut coverage

The biggest difference between the two S90H variants lies in color reproduction and saturation. This stems directly from the different construction of the WOLED panel, which uses an additional white subpixel. As a result, colors at very high brightness don’t achieve quite the same intensity, and the volume of the wide color gamut is somewhat more limited than with QD-OLED. That said, in everyday use these differences will be hard for most viewers to notice. Our measured DCI-P3 coverage on the WOLED panel reaches nearly 99%, which means that in the vast majority of real film scenes both variants will deliver almost identical images. The true gap only appears in rarer, particularly demanding productions that use the ultra-wide BT.2020 gamut. Due to the WOLED panel’s design, coverage of that standard is about 15% lower compared to the S90HAT with a QD-OLED panel, so the brightest, heavily illuminated HDR colors may appear a bit less vivid.

The HDR effect on the LG C6 is really very good. LG Display's new WOLED panel primarily brought a significant increase in brightness. In our unit we measured around 1,500 nits and, importantly, the TV can show similar values in many normal movie scenes. That gives HDR the proper impact. Bright highlights, lamps, or sunlight can be really strong, and most HDR movies simply look very impressive. Of course it's still an OLED, so brightness drops in scenes with a lot of white. The fifth scene of The Meg illustrates this well, where the C6 reached about 600-700 nits. That's still a very good result, but it also shows the new panel hasn't removed all the limitations typical of OLEDs.

Colors

When it comes to color, 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 colors are very saturated and, importantly, stable regardless of the scene. That's worth emphasizing, because not every TV behaves the same in this respect. In some RGB Mini LED models color saturation can depend more strongly on image brightness. Today a wider color gamut is mainly offered 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 generate appropriately saturated colors in most movie scenes.

In Filmmaker mode, which we strongly recommend enabling right out of the box, the S90H offers very good factory color tuning. Colors are natural and faithful to the filmmakers' intent, without the intrusive oversaturation found in more aggressive profiles. However, as is usually the case without full calibration, there can be unit-to-unit variation. In our test the white balance lacked a bit of the blue component, causing the image to lean slightly toward warmer, yellowish tones. This was most noticeable in bright scenes, such as the snowy sequences from Star Wars. Additionally, the gamma curve ran slightly low, around 2.2, which resulted in a slight boost to shadow detail. In HDR mode the tuning was a bit better, showing only a slight undersaturation in the red region.

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.

After full calibration it can safely be said that the S90H in the WOLED version looks almost perfect. In SDR mode color reproduction errors drop to ultra-low levels, and Delta E values very rarely exceed 2. That's a phenomenal result, so if you care about perfectly faithful color reproduction it's definitely worth considering calibration. The calibrated HDR mode also performs very well, in which the white balance was stabilized and earlier deviations eliminated. After professional tuning it's really hard to find anything to criticize, because the TV delivers an image with almost exemplary naturalness and dimensionality. The slightly lower rating in this category compared with the QD-OLED variant is solely due to the previously described saturation limitation in extremely bright scenes; the tuning options and color fidelity themselves are 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 color errors dropped to values below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate color reproduction in both SDR and HDR. An interesting detail appeared only with the HDR brightness characteristic. On a classic EOTF chart everything looks nearly ideal, and at first glance it would be hard to find fault. Only when we measured the TV’s behavior using filters based on actual movie scenes did it become clear that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It’s not a huge difference and many people may even see it as a positive, because HDR looks a bit more impressive this way. From the standpoint of fidelity to the source material this isn’t ideal — some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is somewhat unusual for LG. In previous generations, the brand’s TVs typically stuck very closely to the reference tone curve after calibration. With the C6 we’re still very close to the standard, but that subtle boost in brightness is indeed noticeable in films and series.

When it comes to reducing posterization, Samsung has kept the same solutions as last year’s models. The dedicated gradient-smoothing function works quite well and can effectively mask unwanted tonal transitions, which can be useful on a WOLED panel that is somewhat prone to banding. However, keep in mind it acts aggressively. This mechanism, aside from removing artifacts, can clean up fine film grain and slightly soften detail. Ultimately it’s a matter of compromise, but if you care about an absolutely faithful reproduction, it’s safer to leave this option off.

There’s also no breakthrough in scaling. The S90H uses the same NQ4 Gen3 processor as its predecessor, so the quality of upscaling was almost identical. The chip sharpens lower-resolution material very well, extracting a satisfying level of detail. Samsung still hasn’t dealt with the old overscan issue. With some older recordings or archival material the image edges can be slightly cropped. It’s a minor flaw, but it’s a shame the manufacturer still hasn’t eliminated it.

The LG C6 has taken a really big step forward here. 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 big plus, because in this area LG’s processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" feature works especially well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly tonal transitions and artifacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It’s best to leave it set to "Low." Then the improvement is clear, and the TV doesn’t yet start blurring fine details. Higher levels smooth the image more, but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on the screen. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is sharpened properly, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively rebuilds fine details. In this regard the C6 is already very close to LG’s best TVs, and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

In terms of motion handling, the S90H is simply excellent. This year's panel offers a refresh rate boosted to 165 Hz, though in practice the benefit will be realized mainly by gamers connecting a powerful PC. For movies, TV series, or sports broadcasts, such a high refresh rate makes no difference and the picture looks exactly the same as at the standard 120 Hz. Regardless of the source, the OLED panel's lightning-fast response time does its job, so motion is clean and the ghosting or smearing seen on LCD screens simply doesn't occur here.

The LG C6 features a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, which is great news especially for gamers using a powerful PC. For movies, sports, or consoles we'll of course use up to 120 Hz, but even then it's hard to fault the motion clarity. As you'd expect from an OLED, the panel's response time is almost instantaneous. Moving objects therefore don't leave the characteristic smears you still see on LCD TVs. This is particularly noticeable in sports and fast-paced games, where the picture remains very clean even during dynamic motion.

For movies and TV, LG also provides the TruMotion motion-smoothing system. In the user settings you'll find two separate sliders. De-Judder is mainly for low-frame-rate content, that is primarily 24 fps films and series. It can slightly reduce the characteristic judder, or be set higher if you want a much smoother image. De-Blur is useful for higher-frame-rate material, mainly sports broadcasts and 50/60 fps television.

Players should feel at home with the S90H, because in that respect Samsung left few reasons to complain. The TV has four HDMI 2.1 ports, each of which supports VRR, ALLM, and high refresh rates. There's also the Game Bar, a handy menu that lets you quickly check key parameters and change settings without leaving the game. Importantly, Samsung has also improved HGiG. In last year's models it could cause issues when used with a console, but in the S90H it now works as it should. What sets it apart from the competition is primarily Game Motion Plus. It's a special motion-smoothing mode designed for games, which works best with titles running at 30 or 60 frames per second. Motion becomes noticeably smoother, while latency remains at a reasonable level. In our measurements it was under 50 ms, so you can still play comfortably. That's important, because on many TVs turning on a similar smoothing mode causes such a large increase in input lag that controls start to feel noticeably sluggish. Samsung has managed to find a good compromise here. There's still no Dolby Vision Gaming, but in practice Game Motion Plus may prove to be a far more useful feature.

LG has focused heavily on gamers for years, 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 up to 165 Hz. It also offers VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM, and properly working HGiG. A big plus is Dolby Vision support for games, so the Xbox Series X can use that format without sacrificing game mode. The package is rounded out by a Game Bar that lets you quickly check key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. In terms of features, the C6 is one of those TVs that’s really hard to find fault with. Whether you play on PlayStation, Xbox, or PC, practically everything you could expect from a modern gaming TV is available here.