Samsung S95D OLED TV Review | The Most Versatile OLED TV?
Thanks to Reolink for sponsoring a portion of this video I have never in all my years as a tech reviewer seen such intense feelings emoted over a TV that being the case this might be the most controversial TV review I've ever done I guess that's just how it's going to be are you ready am I ready only one way to find out welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and this is my review of the Samsung S95D QD OLED TV Samsung's flagship OLED TV for 2024 and the subject of some controversy albeit mostly among TV enthusiasts now if you're in the market for a premium TV and you've just come here hoping to get my take on how well this TV performs worry not I've got you covered however there's just no reviewing this TV without talking about why it has created something of an uproar in the comments sections across reviews I mean if you read the comments you'll see what I mean now through an effort to try to compartmentalize the discussion around this TV's one controversial feature in its own video I learned well a lot of things chief among them though is that I can't do this TV review without addressing that one feature again from just about every angle in this review for for those of you not already aware that uproarious feature to which I'm referring is the S95D's anti-glare/anti-reflective technology which some like to describe as a matte coating or matte finish it is not I repeat not a matte finish in the sense that the panel appears to have texture to it like Samsung's the frame TV does a trick that helps that TV's image really look like art on canvas no this anti-glare and anti-reflective technology doesn't go that far it does however keep the TV screen surface from looking like a dark mirror now I think it makes sense that Samsung would want to offer an OLED TV that could look great in conditions under which OLED TVs typically suffer namely rooms with a lot of light in them be they natural light sources like windows with sunlight spilling in or manufactured light sources like bright floor lamps table lamps overhead lights Etc. part of the solution to that challenge was was to make a bright OLED TV which Samsung has done here and the other part of that solution was to dissipate ambient light rather than have it direct reflected by ditching the mirrorlike effect coming on OLED TVs the result is the following whether the light source is direct and concentrated like a bright light bulb or sun flooded window sitting right behind you or more generalized room filling light the S95D spreads that light light out over a large amount of screen surface area the result of that effort is that instead of getting a reflection in one part of the screen thereby harshing a specific section of the picture that you're trying to see it disperses that light over a wide area thus having a more gentle less invasive effect but it occurs over most of the screen my guess is that most folks will prefer a more diffused light over a more intense focused reflection but from the comments I've been reading about this TV many enthusiasts would prefer the opposite to have just one part of the screen impacted leaving the rest of the screen looking better on balance now as many of you correctly pointed out in that anti-glare video I didn't talk about how the TV looked in those dim light controlled conditions and perhaps that was a mistake so please forgive me I wanted to talk about the S95D's merits as a bright-room TV on its own figure and I would and I will I'm about to get to the dim or dark room performance in this very review video and I hope you're going to get what you need out of this review video Lord knows I'm going to do my best because I have indeed lost sleep putting this review together so you can bet I'm doing everything I can to get it right so with my personal opinion that the S95D is going to be a great bright room OLED TV choice for many people let's talk more generally about its performance and about how it is looked to me over the last few weeks because due to all kinds of circumstances This TV has ended up as my daily driver so to speak for a few weeks now before I get into picture quality let's cover some Basics the S95D is a QD OLED TV which means it can fundamentally produce higher color Purity and a slightly wider color gamut with better saturation in very bright colors than a WRGB OLED TV does that enhanced performance is not something so easily seen in a vacuum but if you put this TV next to say an LG G4 as I will in our next video you can see the difference in some cases especially in the way it handles Reds whether you like that is going to be up to personal preference but from a measurements perspective this TV tech does have the ability to produce stunning and accurate color the S95D comes with Samsung's one connect box which longed the bane of many custom installation professionals does allow a single cable connection to the TV which can be advantageous so long as you can hide the one connect box and I will freely admit that I've been a fan of the one connect box for some time and I will now also freely admit that it isn't always a big help to everyone but that's how this TV comes so there it is a quick word about the TV's audio system the speakers are rear firing you got panels of speakers lining the edges here and you have eight of these base transducers I think this kind of speaker system design is going to work best if this TV is wall mounted I have heard it that way and it is impressive but it can also work well if the TV is stand mounted too it just helps if the TV is placed in close proximity to the wall behind it because it relies a great deal on reflection of the Audio Waves to sound its best unfortunately for me I have sound absorbing slat wall material in the studio here so I did not get the best sound out of this TV fortunately for me though I still have Samsung's flagship Dolby Atmos Soundbar which remains one of the best Soundbar systems you can buy and it along with Samsung's Q Symphony sound utilizing the TV speakers as enhancement provides one hell of an Atmos cinematic experience I mean really it's an awesome pairing guys lest you think I'm just going to Fanboy all over this TV I am not I'm not the biggest fan of Tizen Samsung Smart TV operating system now to be fair some of the the reason I don't care for it is because it takes too many clicks to get to picture settings and such which is a problem suffered more by reviewers than by the average user also to be fair Tizen is pretty freaking Snappy I mean the TV boots up really quickly when you turn it on and the smart TV interface is immediately usable which is more than I can say for the experience you get from the LG G4 running web OS But ultimately I'm going to and I did put an Apple TV box on this thing even if the TV does not support Dolby Vision I just prefer the experience on the Apple TV over what's built into Samsung's TVs which sorry Samsung that's just how it is for me Samsung solar rechargeable remote is kind of small but never having to worry about batteries not taking up a huge amount of space anywhere that's pretty great but also a little easier to misplace and not back lit though they're really aren't that many buttons to try to keep track of anyway oh one more thing I don't enjoy assembling the stand that comes with this TV but there's no denying that once you've jumped through those hurdles it is extremely solid and supports the TV really well oddly enough though it does have just the slightest little lean back at least this test unit does introducing the Reolink Argus 4 Pro built as the world's first 4K all day color vision battery powered home security camera with blind spot free 180° view a lot of the innovation in this security camera l in the Dual 4mm lenses which seamlessly stitched together give you that 180° blind spot free view but also the lens's large f1.0 aperture combined with an oversized sensor allow The Argus 4 Pro to deliver all day color fidelity and super crisp night vision without any need for infrared lights which dramatically improves battery life a battery which by the way can be charged from 0 to 100% capacity in as little as 10 minutes it's got Wi-Fi six on board flexible and easy installation and setup Reolinks great smart detection with accurate alerts diverse local video storage and anywhere access as well you would typically pay just 220 bucks for The Argus 4 Pro and a solar panel that charges it but Digital Trends viewers can save 10% by using this code if you order between June 10 and June 16th plus Reolink has its 15th anniversary sale running June 177 through June 23 so you can save on all of real link great gear don't miss out on the Argus 4 Pro thanks again to Reolink for sponsoring this portion of our video now I've got some surprises for you in a segment I call Numbers for Nit Nerds the S95D measured really well I did need to change the color temp setting in filmmaker mode to warm two to get the best white balance so I suggest you do the same if you want the most accurate picture but in SDR filmmaker mode I got about 200 nits and of course you can seriously brighten that up up if you want right around 200 should be pretty accurate for SDR content white balance is acceptable a little heavy on the blue so a bit cool but no outrageous errors as you can see in this chart color accuracy was excellent too and grayscale on the whole was quite good in HDR again dark room for measuring I got about 1,450 nits from a 10% and 5% white window that's a little lower than some of the of the measurements I've seen from other Publications but more on that in a moment EOTF tracking was solid top to bottom under normal testing conditions HDR color accuracy was great and the gray scale was very good if not the best we've seen from an OLED TV color gamut in HDR was outstanding 100% of DCI P3 and about 90% of bt2020 and the color volume was super impressive even the brightest colors remain really saturated that's the QD OLED Tech at work filmmaker mode in both SDR and HDR put up great results can be refined even more with a professional calibration if you want as well another thing I noticed is that when testing this TV's Peak brightness yeah the TV maxes out its capabilities when it sees a test pattern window but when the whole screen is lit up doing its thing I don't think you're going to be getting 1,400 nit Peak highlights that's actually pretty typical also the TV does throttle the brightness after about 20 seconds with an excruciating test pattern like this you can see it dimming aggressively if you push it too hard and you can see that it does get hot when pushed hard I measured a temperature increase of about 50° fah before the TV started to force a dimming down and this intense test window also caused a bit of image retention though it goes away pretty quickly and again real content is is not likely to cause this this is a torture test but if you watch say hockey with the TV set to be the brightest it can be so the APL is super high and you pause it or the image lingers a bit you might catch a little auto brightness limiter coming in briefly until the picture starts moving again for the more Discerning viewers among you there are a couple of things to consider when the lights are up really up you may notice that black areas aren't as Inky as old TVs made with WRGB type OLED panels frankly it's never bothered me once the screen is lit up with content the contrast is still so good that I can look past large sads of dark areas not being as Inky the advantage of pixel level dimming is still quite evident making it a more contrasty picture on the whole than most LCD based TVs with backlights now for my take on this TV's picture quality let me start with a little summary that I think is going to help a lot of you most of you out every single person I have brought into this room to see This TV has been nothing short of Gob smacked just smacked all up in their Gob at how gorgeous the picture quality is I brought in friends family neighbors and professional videographers and Imaging Professionals and they all every single one of them were like damn that TV looks amazing with the lights on in total darkness everyone saids says this TV is just straight fire I think that fairly represents what most folks are going to think of this TV the S95D tends to be a bit brighter than what's considered accurate in SDR even in its filmmaker mode picture preset and then of course you can really juice up the brightness by picking a brighter picture mode or just turning up the OLED light level Samsung has also introduced a new color booster setting which again strays from accuracy by juicing up color saturation but that's a look that a lot of folks like so it's nice to have the option available and as a bonus it doesn't just completely toss accuracy to the wind it's just a little extra oomph that is likely to Delight a lot of viewers in really bright rooms the anti-glare treatment makes the image more watchable than with glossy screens I think but there's no denying that the TV will lose some of its contrast as the light is scattered across the screen but I maintain that in harsh lighting conditions this is still the most watchable OLED TV on the market in dim rooms with I'd say about 70 to 75% of the lighting scenarios that I tried that's moving light sources around to various places in the room and varying the intensity by three different levels I found the s905d looked great we'll investigate how it looks compared to an OLED TV like the LG G4 In the comparison video which I'm doing next but blacks looked Inky contrast was outstanding and guys I'm telling you that image has luster is that luster slightly marginally less than competing glossy OLED TVs yes it is observable in a comparison but in isolation guys I think the S95D looks excellent on the whole in most scenarios it may not be the brightest OLED TV on average I think that award will have to go to the lg4 but it is more than sufficiently bright for dim room applications HDR highlights have pop colors are bright and well saturated more to the point most of the time I watched this TV I did not see an obvious hazy smearing effect even though the measurements show objectively that it is happening you know what else I'm going to keep watching and testing but the motion resolution on this TV hasn't bothered me yet I mean I'm about 3 weeks into watching this TV and I've just enjoyed it a bunch I do think it may be doing a weird frame skipping thing because there have been a couple of times I noticed a weird it's almost like a skip in the video content but that hasn't happened off enough for me to say guys we have a problem and honestly it could be streaming content that's doing it the game mode on this TV the picture may be a little over brightened but again it's super enjoyable on balance y'all know I'm not a big gamer and I'm not going to pretend to be qualified to say that it is an excellent gaming TV but I'll say I'll be surprised if more gaming Savvy reviewers end up marking it down for something I think the game mode and game Dash dashboard is pretty freaking great so is the S95D the reference grade OLED TV of 2024 no is this TV going to summarily win shootout matches with other OLED TVs under the most Ardent of expert scrutiny probably not but is it an excellent TV that is likely to land in more homes than other similarly priced OLED TVs yeah I think it will look guys we're talking about Samsung's flagship QD OLED TV here it starts at a baseline of awesome after that the scrutiny has to go deep to find its flaws and I'll do my best to show you those when I put this TV against the G4 and perhaps some other OLED TVs on the whole though it is beautiful I I think it's yummy I think a lot of you really want me to admit that I was wrong about this TV because I said I was willing to be proved wrong so how about I meet you halfway I was wrong if I ever said that the anti-glare screen on this TV was going to be virtually indistinguishable from a glossy OLED TV in most conditions in a totally dark room I think most people would have a hard time identifying it but when light is involved in the room you can see a difference if you have a Keen Eye which several of you awesome nit nerds out there do have so I admit it the anti-glare screen does visibly alter the image in many different viewing scenarios with that said I stand by my take that the anti-glare is is a net positive for most situations and it's going to be a benefit to the most amount of customers still I hear you guys out there who want an S95D without this particular anti-glare treatment and I agree with you on this point I have a certain level of influence in this market and not only do I have all of you to thank for that but I agree with you that the influence comes with a certain level of responsibility so I want you and I especially want the decision makers at Samsung to hear me loud and clear on this Samsung great job making an OLED TV that will serve an audience that hasn't been served before keep making a TV like this however there is a voracious knit nerd fan base out there that for their enthusiastic engagement in forums and comment sections and through their purchasing power deserves credit for helping to propel your brand and has influence on the sales of your products those folks want to Flagship QD OLED TV from Samsung with the one connect box and all the other cool stuff with a more traditional screen I think you should give it to them I know you probably can't just wave a magic wand and whip up a new production line or convert an existing one I realize that the ROI on such a move is probably not going to pay immediate financial dividends and I realize that we may not see such fan service from you until the 2025 product year but look the fans want it so to whatever degree I can lend weight to that ask I'm doing it here and I'll be doing it face to face the next time we meet that's my review I hope you got what you needed out of it I hope you know I put more heart and soul into this review than I have any other in a long time I did it for you and I appreciate you thanks so much for watching everyone let me know what you think down in the comments I know you will be nice if you can but be authentic above all else I hope to see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like for those of you not aware that uuus feature uuus notorious
2024-06-22 20:49
