Samsung 83

Feb 10, 2024

OLED TVs are much more expensive than LED TVs, but their slim panels and incredible pictures often justify the premium price. Samsung’s flagship S95C OLED ($3,299.99 for the 65-inch model) earned our Editors’ Choice award earlier this year for its top-notch performance. The company’s step-down model, the S90C, is almost as impressive and much less expensive at $2,599.99 for 65 inches. It isn’t quite as bright as the S95C, but that just means it’s the second-brightest OLED TV we’ve ever seen; its color range and accuracy are every bit as incredible. It is also the fastest TV we’ve measured in terms of input lag, making it a potential top choice for gamers. As such, the Samsung S90C earns our Editors’ Choice award for OLED TVs.

Editors' Note: This review is based on testing performed on the 65-inch model of the S90C series. Apart from the screen-size difference, the $5,399.99 83-inch S90C is identical in features, and we expect similar performance.

From the front, the S90C looks like any other mid-to-high-end modern TV. A thin band runs along the top edge and sides while a slightly thicker metallic strip crosses the bottom edge. A small rectangular bump with a tiny Samsung logo sits on the lower right edge of the screen. It’s an elegant look that keeps your focus locked onto the screen rather than showy design flourishes. The stand is similarly simple and stylish; a gray metal square holds the screen up via two metal legs.

Look at the TV from the side, and you’ll see why you’re paying so much more for this than a typical LED TV. The panel itself is a fraction of an inch thick, with a dark brushed aluminum back for structure. Since OLED panels put out their own light, they don’t need LED backlight systems like LED TVs do and can thus be thinner.

The electronics that drive the screen are contained in a large plastic section that protrudes from the bottom half of the TV. You'll also find the ports for wired connections and screw holes for the VESA wall mount here. This design means the S90C isn’t quite as thin as the effectively panel-only arrangement of the S95C, which features a separate OneConnect box with the electronics and ports with a single wire that runs between, but it's still slim and striking. The power cable plugs into the left side of the enclosure, with all the other ports found on the right. Two HDMI ports (one eARC) and two USB ports face right, while two more HDMI ports, an optical audio output, an Ethernet port, a 3.5mm EX-LINK port, and an antenna/cable connector all face down.

Like the S95C, the S90C uses Samsung’s Eco Remote. It’s a slim rectangular wand made of black plastic with a circular navigation pad near the top. Power, microphone, settings buttons, and a pinhole microphone all fit between the nav pad and the top edge. Home, back, and play/pause buttons sit below the pad, with volume and channel rockers further down and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, and Samsung TV Plus on the bottom.

Flip the Eco Remote over to reveal the solar panel that charges the built-in battery. If you keep the remote face-down under bright light occasionally, you won’t have to worry about it running out of power. If you need to recharge the remote after the sun goes down, a USB-C port on the bottom edge makes it easy to top up.

Samsung’s Tizen Smart TV platform remains an ongoing frustration. It’s a feature-filled system that covers most major streaming services including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, and Netflix. Further, it supports Apple AirPlay 2 for streaming directly from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. The S90C also has far-field microphones so you can use Amazon Alexa hands-free. It can serve as a smart home hub for devices compatible with Samsung SmartThings, and it even has a web browser. Essentially, it's loaded with functionality, especially if you’re already deep in Samsung’s ecosystem.

However, the user interface is overbearing and frustrating. Many settings are available within a quick menu that you can customize, but they’re limited to toggles that let you flip between presets rather than reveal the full list of options. To get into any of the comprehensive settings, you need to dive two or three layers deeper than you would with most other TVs. On competing models from other manufacturers, the Settings menu is often available directly from the home screen with no intermediary steps to keep you from making adjustments.

Moving between inputs is also irritating. The remote doesn’t have an input button as most other TV remotes do, so you need to go to the home screen and pick out the source you want from the crowded field of apps and content. The home screen does have a sidebar with quick-access icons, and while it lets you switch between media, app, game, and content search views, it doesn’t have a simple input tab.

By default, Tizen Smart TV attempts to automatically identify any device you plug into an HDMI port. This sounds convenient, but it can take a minute to work, and then it often marks that input with an icon which can be confusing. For example, when I plugged in an Xbox One X to test the TV with some Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, it identified the input with a big Xbox icon. Unfortunately, Tizen then decided I might want to access the Xbox app on the TV itself, so it put a nearly identical icon right next to it. I’m embarrassed to say it took me a while to realize the controller wasn’t working because I was looking at the Xbox app, not the Xbox source.

Once you get used to Tizen Smart TV, there are plenty of features to enjoy. It just demands more getting used to than any other smart TV platform we’ve tested.

The Samsung S90C is a 4K OLED TV with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) in HDR10, HDR10+, and hybrid log gamma (HLG), but as is standard for Samsung TVs, it does not support Dolby Vision. This continues to be an odd omission, but the HDR10 and HDR10+, along with the TV's strong color processing and tone mapping, ensure that virtually all HDR content can be viewed on the S90C. It has an ATSC 3.0 tuner for HD and 4K TV broadcasts.

We test TVs with a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software. While the S90C doesn’t get quite as bright as the S95C, it still puts out an incredible amount of light for an OLED TV. With an HDR signal in Movie mode, the TV shows a peak brightness of 213 nits with a full-screen white field and 726 nits with an 18% white field. We use 18% white fields for consistency when comparing TVs, but we also test brightness with smaller 10% white fields on OLED TVs, and with that field, the S90C shows 1,025 nits. That’s quite bright even for an LED TV, though it falls slightly short of its more expensive sibling (889 nits with an 18% white field, 1,352 nits with a 10% white field). Like all OLED TVs, the S90C shows perfect black levels with no light bloom, which means it has an effectively infinite contrast ratio.

An SDR picture will naturally be dimmer with default settings, and the S90C shows a peak brightness of 157 nits with a full-screen white field and 251 nits with an 18% white field with an SDR signal. This is fairly normal for OLED TVs.

The above charts show the S90C’s color levels in Movie mode, with an SDR signal compared with Rec.709 broadcast standards, and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. In both cases, the TV shows nearly perfect colors out of the box, fully covering the DCI-P3 color space with no significant skewing or oversaturation. Whites run slightly cool, but that’s the only complaint we have about the panel.

BBC’s Dynasties looks excellent on the S90C. The black feathers of penguins in the “Emperor” episode look dark while retaining all detail and contrast strongly with the birds’ white bellies and the properly cool snow. In the “Lion” episode, the tawny fur of the big cats is detailed and balanced both in bright sunlight and in shade, and the dark hides of cows and horses, and the silhouettes of animals against a sunset, all look deep and crisp. It’s a lifelike picture.

Deadpool looks similarly fantastic on the S90C. The red of Deadpool’s costume in the overcast opening scenes appears well-saturated and balanced, and not faded or tinted purple. Later, in the burning lab fight, the oranges and yellows of the flames are bright and varied, looking natural. Shadows in the same frame are dark while retaining plenty of detail, showing off the strengths of OLED panel technology.

Space battles in Star Wars: The Last Jedi also show off the panel’s excellent contrast. The blacks of space are indeed black, with the pinpricks of stars coming through cleanly. The whites and grays of ships look bright, as do the colorful greens and reds of blaster shots. The skin tones of pilots and officers also appear properly saturated and balanced.

Gamers will be thoroughly pleased by the S90C’s performance. It has a 120Hz native refresh rate and can be boosted to a 144Hz variable refresh rate (VRR) when connected to a PC, and features AMD FreeSync Premium (but not Nvidia G-Sync). The TV’s Game mode features Samsung’s Game Bar quick menu, which shows the screen's real-time refresh rate, whether VRR is engaged, and what motion modes are enabled. It can also put a crosshair pointer in the middle of the screen for improving your aim while playing first-person shooters.

Most impressively, the S90C shows the lowest input lag we’ve ever seen. We use an HDFury Diva 4K HDMI matrix to measure input lag, and it can’t measure latency lower than a millisecond. When testing the TV in Game mode, we recorded an error from the device indicating the input lag was below a millisecond. We’ve seen that error before, usually from a problem with the sensor connector or placement. However, with Samsung’s Game Motion Plus feature turned on, it registered an input lag of 4.9ms, and in Movie mode with the game features disabled, it recorded a lag of 61.6ms. Based on these results, we can reasonably say that in Game mode without motion processing enabled, the Samsung S90C has an input lag of less than a millisecond, beating the S95C’s 1.8ms lag and easily qualifying as one of the best TVs for gaming.

We already know Samsung can make incredible OLED TVs. The S90C doesn't quite match the S95C in brightness, but it’s still exceptionally bright for an OLED, is even more responsive, produces accurate color, and is seven hundred dollars cheaper. And with nearly no input lag to speak of, the S90C should appeal to gamers seeking a leg up on the competition. For these reasons, the Samsung S90C easily earns our Editors’ Choice award for OLED TVs, presenting a stronger value than its more expensive sibling. The LG C3 is the closest competitor to the S90C; we haven't tested it yet, but we plan to have a full review in the near future.