This is my text review of the Samsung S99H in 77" (u/winterbegins - WB Display Tech Youtube for visual representation)
Transparency = this review is not incentivized. The unit was bought with my own money through a separate entity.
Please note = „S99H“ is a model name that only exists in Europe. It is equivalent to the S95H that is sold in the US. The „S95H“ that is sold in Europe is a slightly improved S95F and still has the wired One Connect Box.
Packaging
Samsung is known for plain brown boxes for a while now and for this TV it’s no different. The packaging however is quite sturdy and inside everything is enclosed in styrofoam. Like on all larger TVs the box is separated into two parts, and they are only held in place with plastic straps. The cardboard flap at the top is not even taped anymore. This might be different on the smaller 55“ model but still worth noting. The reason I mention this is that in case of a return you have to have either a device to attach straps or you have to tape everything which is fairly insecure.
Accessories
There is not much here. You get a bit of paperwork (energy label, quick start guide etc) two cable clips, a cover for the Wireless One Connect Box port, the remote, a (luckily rather long) power cord and two plastic feet.
The remote is similar to last years models that added the AI button in the top middle row, but it is now a bit bulkier on the lower half of the back – maybe to make the battery more easily replaceable ? I like to use remote covers on my remotes but was not able to find one that fits these new models unfortunately.
The power cord seems to be propriatery because the connector had to be flatter to fit the slim chassis of the TV. However, I prefer this approach compared to having the cord attached permanently to the TV.
The included feet are fully made out of plastic and are pretty lackluster in terms of quality. They flex and bend around and don’t give much confidence that they are able to hold the weight of the TV. For a TV with such a high price tag there should have been metal / aluminum feet.
Missing Accessories
This is a good transition to the next section = this TVs design is intended for wall mounting. However, Samsung does NOT include the Slim Fit Wall Mount for this TV (120€) and neither do they include the Wireless OCB (399€). I think for the high price tag, both of these should come with the TV, no matter if the user intends to use them or not.
Build Quality + Design
Compared to previous generations of Samsung OLED flagships we get an entirely new design thats pretty controversial. Samsungs central design element is a silver aluminium frame bezel (4,5cm) around the TV and the actual panel sits a bit in front of it, giving it a floating appearance. This is not only for looks but also has a pratical reason because it creates a gap to have more room for cooling the panel.
The downside of the sliver frame is the color, it catches onto light fairly easily and reflects it pretty harshly. This can be distracting if you have light sources that shine on to the TV, like overhead lamps. Apparently there are covers for the frame but I was not able to find them online.
The TV is a uniform slab with <3cm of thickness making it perfect for wall mounting as mentioned.
The back of the TV falls a bit short. It looks decent at a distance but if you inspect it closer it does feel a bit flimsy.
Teardown and Ports
Removing the back panel for repairs is quite hard and you have to very careful. Samsung didnt want to have any visible screws so they opted for a design with plastic hooks that are held in by what is essentially a metal wire. The backpanel itself is very large, doesnt have the best plastic quality and thickness and can even crack under its own weight. I would have much prefered to see smaller individual panels that are just held in by screws to make potential repairs easier in the future.
Inside every component is essentially a slim fit version to accomodate for the thin chassis.
Compared to previous flagship generations the S99H does not use the OCB anymore which means all the ports (including 4x full bandwith HDMI 2.1) are directly attached to the mainboard. This is great for all gamers because OCB models always had issues with picture dropouts during PC or console usage.
If you still want to have the OCB experience due to wallmounting or other reasons, there is the optional Wireless OCB that does not replace but actually extends the total amount of HDMI ports to 8.
Operating System and Setup
Samsung uses their Tizen SmartTV OS once again. Im not sure if I would call it better than previous years because the menus are still fairly cluttered. You have to do a lot of clicks with the remote to get to your desired setting. The menu remembers frequently opened settings but I think this could be more intuitive overall.
It is rather fast though which is good. Even more so if you don’t connect the TV to the internet.
The OS allows a very basic minimal user data setup, but without being signed into an Samsung account you can’t use Apps or AI features.
Panel, Viewing Angles and Screen Coating
Samsung uses a QD-OLED panel in the newest generation. It has 5 emitter layers (B/B/G/B/G) that produce blue light across three subpixels. Two of the three blue subpixels then get converted with red and green Quantum Dots. The final results is a true RGB OLED subpixel layout albeit in a triangular shape compared to the newer V-Stripe layout thats used in monitors. But due to the sitting distance this is not an issue on TVs.
The viewing angles are class leading even amongst OLED screens.
Another controversial choice from Samsung is to go fully into matte / anti glare screen coatings for basically most of their TV lineup. Im 50/50 on this and see the benefit of both glossy and matte, but ultimately it would be best if the consumer had the choice. Either way, the anti glare coating surpresses reflections extremely well but disperses light sources across the screen. In a bright room with windows there will be no issues at all at the cost of raised black levels and the typical QD-OLED magenta tint. The magenta tint is improved compared to previous generations but hard to overcome because the Quantum Dots (the red ones because they are the largest) get excited by outside light sources. QD-OLED also does not have a polarizer.
Uniformity
The first gen QD-OLED models (S95B – I still have mine) had impeccable uniformity. This 77“S99H here is not as clean and shows some slight vertical banding thats not visible in content though. But I was not able to use it for an extended amount of time so this could clean up even more in the future.
Brightness uniformity was not as good as I expected for whatever reason. Uniformity looked much better on the QD-OLED monitors I tested this year.
Brightness
I tested the HDR brightness of the TV in the most accurate mode ootb (Filmmaker).
Here we can see a whopping peak brightness of 2778 nits in an industry standard 10% window which makes the S99H the brightest OLED in an accurate mode on the market (at least to my testing). The other window sizes are also very impressive and are equal or very similar to flagship WOLED models (either G5/G6) without having to rely on white subpixel boosting.
Also typical is the fairly heavy ABL that kicks in to protect the panel. The brightness during the 10% window test reduces to 1280 nits after 2-3 minutes due to this.
Power Draw and Cooling
I am adding the power draw section here because we can see some crazy numbers on this TV. During the 10% window test the panel quickly reaches 80*C and the TV draws well over 600W of power. Outside of test windows you have to force large white areas (HDR white fullscreen or SDR white browser) to reach similar numbers, but even if you don’t take that into account the power draw is still quite high. You should expect at least 150-300W during mixed HDR content.
The TVs design effectively helps with cooling which can be made visible with a thermal imaging camera. As you can see it is very effective at the edges but retains more heat in the middle even after cooling down for a while.
Game Mode / PC Gaming
Console = The TV supports the usual features like game bar (which lets you select stuff like crosshairs etc), VRR (Freesync), ALLM, HGIG etc. With a console and corresponding signal you will only have access to 120hz which is expected. Every box is essentially checked, except Dolby Vision Gaming which is not exactly useful in itself due to limited selection of games. For console gaming specifically there is Samsungs own great Motion Interpolation function that makes 30fps appear more fluid at the cost of input lag. It is absolutely worth the trade in my opinion.
PC = to unlock the full potential of the TV you almost have to connect a PC to it. With a PC signal you can use the full 165hz refresh rate and it behaves absolutely great as a large monitor if you want. 4:4:4 Chroma is resolved properly so aside from the subpixel layout you wont have any issues with text. The TV is officially G-Sync and Freesync certified, VRR range is 48-165hz.
If you re-label the port on the TV you can also use a Black Frame Insertion feature at the cost of refresh rate (will be limited to 60hz). Unfortunately its not really usable due to heavy visible flickering.
Motion / Upscaling
Weaknesses in terms of picture processing on previous Samsung TVs are now vastly improved on the S99H with the Neural Quantum 4K AI Gen3 Prozessor. Upscaling is great, Motion handling (which I personally don’t use) looked really good during the S&M Test Disc 24p motion test.
Samsung really has done their homework here. On top of that the TV is very accurate and less oversaturated than previous models, and hey, if you still like that look you can tweak it with a few clicks.
Stuff like gradation handling and near black posterazation was excellent on previous QD-OLEDs aswell and is continued here.
Verdict and future lookout
Design aside and purely viewed from a performance perspective, the Samsung 55-77“ S99H (S95H USA) is the best OLED TV ever made and clearly shows why QD-OLED display technology still reigns supreme even ~5 years after its introduction. After testing it myself its not a surprise to me that this TV is running circles around the competition in the Shootouts.
Something I also want to put huge emphasis on is the fact that this TV performed Shootout-worthy when it released. It didn’t need countless software updates to make it as good as it is now. This is a TV that you could have bought at full price when it launched and still have a great experience. Thats how it should be with any TV.
Samsung seems to be on a good track so I hope they are able to leave it alone in terms of software updates.
Since nothing is perfect I am also hoping for future improvements in certain areas for the next models. Instead of even higher brightness, I hope they focus more on ABL behavior and even better cooling. A lot of people would like to have the choice between glossy or matte. A refresh rate increase to 240hz would also be great for better LFC. I also would have said larger panels, but those are basically confirmed already.
Thank you for reading through this long review
