The Samsung OLED S95F delivers some pretty darned fine pictures – which it absolutely should for its asking price. Here’s my quick observations on Samsung’s premium OLED range.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Excellent colour representation | It costs a lot. At the “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” level, really. |
| Glare reduction is surprisingly good | Remote control feels kind of cheap for a TV this expensive |
| Range of available OLED sizes is nice | Audio could be better – but then who’s buying this without a soundbar or surround sound setup anyway? |
Ethical disclaimer: This review was conducted in a hotel room in Sydney that Samsung made available to me for the purposes of hands-on evaluation of the Samsung OLED S95F.
That was primarily a matter of access; while it goes somewhat into the process of a lot of TV reviews, this is a common play where a room will be rented in a hotel then made available to journalists on a shift basis over a matter of a few days.
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In my case I had access to the TV effectively overnight, but also had to sleep, so my testing time was quite limited, and obviously I couldn’t entirely compare like-for-like in a non-standard setting.
However, equally, I wouldn’t really have any way to fit an 83-inch, $11,499 TV into my own home, so this worked well enough, and like any other review here at ART, this essentially just got Samsung an evaluation; it has no input into the editorial conclusions I draw at all.
As it was such a short review period, and I couldn’t do real comparative testing, I have not scored the Samsung OLED S95F. Now, on with the hands-on review…
Samsung for the longest time held out that OLED wasn’t the technology of choice for TVs, but these days it has an each-way bet with both its own QLED panels as well as an expanding range of OLED screens. The primary model that I was in the hotel room to test out was the premium 83 inch Samsung OLED S95F.
83 inches is… a lot of TV. Here’s me by way of comparison.
When I say premium, I mean it; this is a TV with a list price of… wait for it… $11,499, though they did also give me hands-on time with the slightly smaller (and as a result slightly cheaper) 77 in S95F model as well.
You’ll still have to save your pennies for that one, however, as it’ll run you $9,281 at regular retail prices. There’s no doubting that the TV market is one with a lot of competition in it, so I’d expect to see some retailers offering discounts on those prices, but we’re still in high price territory here without a shadow of a doubt.
Samsung OLED S95F: The upsides
- Excellent picture representation: OLED’s big strength forever has been the extreme levels of contrast available relative to any other picture technology, and that’s absolutely true for the Samsung OLED S95F. Testing with an oldie-but-a-goodie, the narrow hallway scene at the end of episode 2 of season 1 of the formely-Netflix-now-Disney-Plus Daredevil allowed the Samsung OLED S95F to show this off well; on a poor display you lose a lot of detail in the murk, but the Samsung OLED S95F managed this rather nicely indeed. Every single year TV makers will hype up their latest integrated processors; for the Samsung OLED S95F it’s the Samsung NQ4 AI Gen3 Processor, with the idea that it’ll use AI to optimise images whether they’re TV programs, movies or sport. Samsung’s contention is that the Samsung OLED S95F is 30% brighter than last year’s similar model, and that helps too, though I didn’t have that model to hand to see exactly by how much.
- One Connect Box makes connections easy: When I did my hands-on review of the Samsung QN90D, I was disappointed to find that it omitted one of Samsung’s best and most consumer-friendly design features, namely the One Connect box that hooks a single cable up to a multi-port box that houses HDMI and network connections.The beauty of this approach is that the TV itself can be wall mounted or stand mounted with the One Connect box in a more accessible space, so you don’t have to reach around the side or back of a TV to access those ports when plugging in new devices. Thankfully the S95F is a One Connect capable device, so adding in additional HDMI-connected devices should be quite easy. The hotel setup hid the One Connect box behind the TV, which is neat and tidy, though not the way I’d optimally set this unit up myself.
- Anti Glare works very well (but it’s not totally infallible): One of the big issues with really big panel TVs is that you’re presenting a huge glass surface to the world.Huge glass surfaces love reflections and that can be a huge problem if you’ve got an open window or an awkwardly placed ceiling light shining directly towards your TV. To its credit, Samsung set up the Samsung OLED S95F in a hotel room that had both, at least when I first got there before the sun went down.Samsung calls it “Glare Free”, and that’s perhaps slightly overselling it; with direct light on it you’ll still get some levels of reflectivity, but its ability to diffuse light shining into it is undeniably impressive.
- Good for high-end gaming: My gaming options were limited – while Samsung does have integrated apps for services such as Xbox Gamepass, that’s not really the best way to get the most out of a screen of this quality.Samsung also supplied an Xbox Series X with a selection of games to show off the Samsung OLED S95F’s gaming prowess a little more emphatically. This worked well, though to make the most out of the Samsung OLED S95F’s 165Hz refresh capability you’d really need to hook it up to a decent gaming PC at this point.Also I suck at Assassin’s Creed Shadows, though that’s not the fault of the Samsung OLED S95F.
- Easy AI image optimisation: For a lot of people, the prospect of calibrating their TV remains a mystical art, or something they just plain don’t want to deal with.You can get into the nitty-gritty of setting individual levels for the Samsung OLED S95F if that’s your thing – and I’d argue that this is still the best way to manage screen output if you have particular tastes – but for those looking for a simpler life, Samsung’s AI-led image optimisation, which more simply challenges you to pick the settings for brightness, contrast and colour based on a set of four images should lead to better images to your own style.
Samsung OLED S95F: The downsides
- Remote feels kind of cheap: Samsung’s got a definite style for its remote controls, but it’s not one that entirely feels at home with a TV that costs as much as the Samsung OLED S95F does. It’s entirely functional, and I do like the fact that it’s powered by a solar panel on the back that picks up power from ceiling lights or ambient illumination so you’re never left wondering who stole the TV remote control batteries – but it’s also small and very plasticky, like it was coming with a TV that costs $200 – not $11,499.
- Speakers are fine, but not great: The setup for the TVs I had to test included a soundbar and surrounds for the primary 83 inch model of the Samsung OLED S95F which gave great impressions of soundscapes for films such as Godzilla Minus One (yes, I’m very predictable).However the 77 inch model in the other room relied only on its included speakers, and the difference really was palpable. It does feel a little unlikely that anyone dropping nine grand and more on a TV isn’t also going to invest in a soundbar or surround system to go with it, however.
- Lower quality video upscaling isn’t as sharp — or as quick: While I had access to 4K content through the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, I didn’t have access to an antenna to test out how well the Samsung OLED S95F might handle Australian free-to-air broadcasting which… well, let’s just say that 4K isn’t really a feature of Australian FTA right now.However, I could somewhat simulate it, watching the ABC’s YouTube stream of its 24 hour News channel at lower quality. The Samsung OLED S95F’s AI signal processing at first struggled a little with lower-end quality content in terms of how it showed it up; outside of anything YouTube was doing in terms of broadband quality I could see image shifts as I watched for about the first 15 seconds or so, before it settled down. That’s a classic garbage in, garbage out equation of course.The same was true for when I replicated a test I used with the Samsung Q90D by plugging in a SNES Mini for a little old-school 16-bit retro gaming action. Again, I’m nothing if not predictable, but this did show off the Samsung OLED S95F’s AI trying to work out the best scaling options for that kind of input, which did take it a few seconds of blur before it properly sharpened up the image.
- It’s expensive: There’s really no getting around this. The 83 inch Samsung OLED S95F is an impressive TV, no doubt, but then it absolutely has to be with a retail price this high.Yes, that will drop over time, maybe quickly given the competition in the retail TV space, but it is worth weighing up both your budget and your viewing environment before deciding if this level of TV is right for you. For what it’s worth, the 77 inch model of the same TV will run you $9,281, the 65-inch model costs $5,800 and the smallest 55 inch variant costs $4,640.
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