 Samsung is no stranger to cheating at benchmarks. They've been doing it for years and they're not the only ones. The question I have this time is why? Their new flagship S95B TV checks just about every flippin' box. 4K, 120 Hertz, variable refresh rate, over a thousand nits peak brightness and it's got the best color performance of any display I've ever seen ever. And then Samsung had to go and put this brown stain on their glorious victory by getting caught juicing. It's a ridiculous cell phone, almost as ridiculous as this segue to our sponsor. Any cubic. The Photon M3 Air Pure and Water-Roshable Resin is an affordable, fantastic entry level combo to explore resin 3D printing. You can print detailed miniatures right out of the box. Learn more at the link below. My first hands on with Samsung's QD OLED or Quantum Dot OLED display technology was with Alienware's AW3423DW and I said, and what are the TVs with this coming? And here it is in all its glory. But while I'd like to start by saying it combines the amazing peak brightness of Quantum Dot with the perfect blacks of OLED with no apparent burn in downside, instead I have to address the scandal first. Vincent from HDTV test, great channel by the way, discovered that while the S95B seems color accurate when reviewing it in a standard sized test pattern window, if you adjust it to something non-standard, the TV outputs a brighter image than expected. Or I don't know, maybe it's just his unit. No. No, it's not. Ours came off the shelf from the local Best Buy. It was not provided by Samsung. And when we compared our 2% window tests to our previous ones at 10%, you can see right here, the EOTF curve isn't followed nearly as closely and we get major luminance errors when testing in HDR. This isn't what the content creator intended and it shouldn't be happening. But it also doesn't mean that the image looks like garbage. The color accuracy enthusiasts in our office who wandered by during testing noted that it does look a little too vibrant when watching HDR content, but still walked away saying it looked amazing, even if they felt like something was ever so slightly off. As for SDR, it's quite accurate in the standard 10% window, netting us a Delta E average of 2.7 in filmmaker mode. But it gets even better. Samsung has a little trick up their sleeve if you have an iPhone or a newer Samsung phone. There's a DIY calibration option hidden away in the menus. So we paired a Galaxy S21 using the app and followed the instructions, netting us an average Delta E of just 1.7 in standard dynamic range with our reds and purples standing out as our problem colors. And as for HDR, we went from 10.3 with luminance errors down to 7.7. We have no idea how it's getting an accurate enough reading to then calibrate the display using it, but it works at least in standard tests. Let's go take a look at how pretty it is, shall we? Before I can do that, I've been tasked with the apparent challenge of getting it out of game mode. It enters this mode automatically, and then if you're gonna create an error message that says, hey, here's what you need to do to do this thing you're trying to do right now, why not just have a button that says, do that? Oh, oh, there's a game sound mode. Why do I have to go to the quick setting? Isn't this the quick settings? Why is there a game mode submen, no, no, no. Holding right on the D-pad brings it up. Why would that, oh my God. So it tells me to go to the settings menu that I'm already in to change the thing I'm trying to change. I'm gonna throw this thing through the screen. Oh my God. It previews with audio? Yeah. It previews with fricking audio though. Well, you got plenty of time to see it because it's gonna play forever. Netflix does that too. A lot of things preview with audio now. Yeah, but this is the freaking home menu of my TV. I know. Maybe you wanna hear it a little bit. No, I don't. You don't wanna hear it a little bit? No, I want to use the menu of my TV. The speakers are good though. I guess we can talk about I.O. It's got four HDMI 2.1 ports. That's really nice to see. One has eARC, it's got an optical port, two USB media ports, Wi-Fi 5. It has ethernet, but this guy didn't bother to test how fast it goes. The internet didn't work in the bedroom set. You complain the remote sucks, but honestly it's not really any worse than like the shield remote. It's just- Well, yeah, but I don't think the shield remote's any good either. It's solar charging. USB-C too on the back. Yeah, it seems fine. I mean, it's the interface that sucks. Why is it that I keep being dropped back into Shadow of the Tomb Raider here? I'm trying to use the menu. So my main problem is that there's no input source button. Oh, that's so cute. So try to change source manually. Look for it, try to find it. You already missed it. Oh, did I now? All settings? If you look close, it's connected devices. Shut up. This took me way too long to find. And I don't understand why it's here instead of just like on the side when you bring up the menu. Like why isn't there just like input one and input two and input three or whatever? That is so stupid. Yeah. And it keeps blanking. I know, it does that too. Now that there's like a PC that's got a game running, I think it's because there's something active on the signal. It's trying to pull you back into that active channel. But I'm doing things right now. I know, I know. I think once we play contact on the shield, it'll be like, okay, we're good. I can see why they didn't send us a review sample. We go to the shield, connected devices. Oh my God. Where is it? How is it not in the... Why is Mark strong in like everything I've looked at lately? I don't know. We came back after the weekend and found out Samsung pushed a firmware update on Monday that fixes the window size issue. As you can see, it's still not quite perfect, but it's significantly better than what we saw before. They don't get any kudos for this though, because this happened only after they got caught, and it never should have been sent to stores like this in the first place. So if you have an S95B and you wanna get the latest updates, make sure you download the firmware from their site and install it using a USB flash drive. Auto update was no help for us and kept telling us that 1204 was the latest and greatest update available. Thanks, Samsung. And also thanks, Samsung. This is like a really good fire scene. Yeah, yeah, around here is fine. That's one of the things that QD OLED really excels at is extremely vibrant yellows. Yellow and red. A big part of the reason for it is that unlike traditional OLEDs, it doesn't have a white sub pixel. So it doesn't need that to boost to max brightness. It can actually achieve its maximum brightness with individual colors. Wow, that fire looks fiery. Yeah, this is the big one shot. You can really feel the cold. There's a lot of white on screen and it's not dimming or anything. No, not even a little. The grass is super green still. And you've still got these bright explosion flashes and it looks like you can see every grain of dust and stuff in each of the clouds too. And of course you get the absolutely perfect blacks in the bar so you don't have any kind of distracting glow or anything. That was one of the things James really brought up when he went down to see the panel tech early was that metal looks richer and more metal. Yeah, like look at the shine on that button on the left of his coat. Yeah. Like you see the reflection on all of the surfaces. I mean, even in his eyes too. Yeah. Okay, check out Encanto, check out Encanto. They've got one scene with some fireworks. It's nuts. Wow, this looks good. The colors, hey? Wow. Like the bright highlights are just incredible. Wow. That's pretty much it. I just want to see the fireworks. It's not just bright. I know it's the contrast. It's the richness. Yeah, you don't think it's brown until you see this and then the old yellows. It looks like it's shining instead of looking like it's yellow. Wow, like that firework goes off and you're like, whoa. Oh. Yeah, okay. It doesn't have Dolby vision, but check out the Dolby vision demo. It doesn't have Dolby vision? No, it's the one. It's got HDR 10+. What? It's got HDR 10+. Samsung, what are you doing? Basically. Perfect. Perfect. If you can see the TV, you are getting the full experience. Now you don't mind sitting on the side of the room. Well, I'm still going to be centered. Well, sure. But you don't feel bad for me, yes. But I don't feel as bad, yeah. Crank up the noise. The speakers are actually really good on this TV. Man, that looks good. I know. The fire. Even the sound. It's not bad. For TV speakers with no sound bar. And it's still going to work with a sound bar if you get it with all the other speakers in the TV, as long as it's Q-Symphonic compatible. Right. And that's something that Sony's also been pushing with their center channel TVs. It actually works really well. Like juicing up your center like that is really important to enjoying anything with dialogue, which is like everything. The major complaint that people have been complaining about in TV and movies for the last like 15 years. I can't hear what they're saying in the quiet scenes. I have to, and I have to turn it down when there's something big happening. Did I catch myself falling for Best Buy Vivid Effect during those fireworks? I think you kind of did. I think I did. Because like, even though we tested it in a 10% window and it looked great, like really accurate, when we did it again in a 2% window, it's obviously pretty wrong. Like you see it clearly. And this is not a 10% window or a 2% window. It's a full screen. So I don't know. Is it okay to just enjoy those boosted highlights when everything else looks so good? I don't mind personally. I think it looks really good. When you put it up next to a direct, like actual mastering monitor, you can see the difference. And it's kind of like, okay, sure. I'd probably pick that one. But if I walked into a store and I saw this playing content, you'd be like, wow! I'd be like, wow, that's amazing. So is what Samsung's doing shady? Absolutely. But it still looks amazing. Just like our new screwdriver t-shirt. Get yours today while you wait for the real screwdriver to come out. Soon, I promise. For real this time. Now let's pivot to gaming. I mean, who needs movies when you've got unskippable cut scenes, right? The panel does up to 4K 120 Hertz with support for variable refresh rate and auto low latency mode. And the results are, well, we're waiting for the lab to figure out a better way to run pursuit tests on OLEDs. But let me say this, subjectively the UFO looks shockingly crisp. And when it comes to click to photon latency, we were getting about 18 milliseconds, which is darn good. We've even seen reports of the panel being able to be overclocked to 144 Hertz. It was Vincent, right? Did it? Yeah, HTTV test, yeah. Damn. I feel that saturation though. I know, I know. Oh, so that's one problem is in game mode, we're stuck between two different picture options. It's like content and entertainment or something like that. They call it two different things. So we can't get a calibrated filmmaker mode or even the custom like calibrated movie mode that we get using the phone app. This is the kind of upgrade that you make where it makes all your old content new again. Yeah. You can go back and play your old favorites again cause you've never seen them like this. You know what I mean? I had just let myself accept that red light meant just- Brown. A red cast on everything around me. This looks lit in red. Wow. Keep going, it gets better. But the shooting feels good, right? Like everything's responsive. Cause it's 120 Hertz. 100%. Variable refresh rate. 100%. Super like automatic low latency mode. Whoa. Are you seeing this, Brandon? Of course you are. Cause of the viewing angles. And why wouldn't we just use a TV like this for like editing? Maybe this becomes our new mainstay living room TV. I feel like for LG, it's the equivalent of overclocking your last gen processor to try and compete with your competitors new gen one though. Sony's actually not just staying 100% siloed these days. They're actually using the like image and sound expertise they have across their company to make like their products better. Screen ratio, 60 by nine. It doesn't look like it right now. I don't know what's going on right now. Game settings. And then you see how it pulls up this mode even though we're already in the game settings mode. No. I know. So this is why I don't like auto. Can we solve the more pressing issue, which is that our- Yeah, I don't know why it did that. I think it's a thing in here. It was a Tomb Raider thing, not the TV. Oh, Nelly, that- It's doing it. That is smooth. That is responsive. And look at those mouse cursors. Each one is a discrete, distinct. It looks like a CR freaking T. That's my testing every time when I get any monitor is I look at the cursors when you do a circle. There's no trail. Yeah. But even here, look at like the bright flashlight against like the dark rocks or whatever. Blinding. Yeah. I wanna turn it off. Yeah. Look how bright that light is though. I know. And look at how big- Ow. And that's like a huge portion of the screen. Yeah, you're right. And it doesn't dim, right? Like it's insane. That is mind blowing. No pure OLED is gonna do that. Well, that was a useful demo anyway, just to see that flashlight sear my eyes. Did you notice any weird dimming? Like where it'll just periodically dim or brighten like the LG OLEDs do? No, but I've got that turned off. You can turn it off on this. And I haven't seen it happen since then. Cause that's a thing. I can't deal with that. I hate watching your monitor during script review because it just dims constantly. I don't like this. It can apparently be fixed with like a hidden menu, but LG has it hidden away because of the risk of burn-in. But if it's not a risk, because as the OLED pixels fade, they should fade fairly evenly since the color is handled by the quantum dot layer, then Samsung doesn't have to do that. It's very impressive. And I cannot wait to see this same panel with a processor from Sony in the new Bravia XR-A95K. I think that's the one that's gonna end up in my family room at my new house. Get subscribed by the way, so you don't miss it. I'm not taking any sponsorships for that spot because that's a really important TV watching spot for me. So it's gonna come down to the 65 inch heavyweight champion. And there's more than just two contenders. LG has been hard at work improving their gen two OLED panels. We've got a G2 on the way as well. Of course, we haven't really talked about price yet. While last gen OLED is becoming more affordable, all of the TVs that I just mentioned are not. And the cheapest option currently is actually the one we're looking at today, the S95B at 3000 US dollars. That's a lot in a world where you can go to the local Best Buy and pick up a 65 inch TV for like 500 bucks. But it's a value compared to the A95K and still a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the G2. Another major hurdle to overcome with this latest generation is the lack of size options. While LG's OLEDs are coming out in both larger and smaller models, Sony and Samsung are both stuck with just 55 inch and 65 inch for the time being. As they perfect the QD OLED manufacturing process, it's a Samsung, not Sony in this case, we're sure to see more size options. But for now, you might end up having no choice but to stick with LG since size does matter. Oh, there's more good news though, everyone. Last year's OLEDs, they're still top notch and the prices are finally coming down so you can save a buck now. And if you can wait a little longer for this to be last gen, wow, are you ever in for something special at hopefully a more affordable price. You know what else is affordable? Waiting to hear about our sponsor, Ting Mobile. Tired of paying for some Ting and getting no Ting in return? Ha ha. Ting Mobile is a low cost carrier with the perfect plan for whatever your needs might be. They offer nationwide LTE and 5G coverage in the US as well as award winning support. And all of their plans offer unlimited talk and text with five gigs of data for $25 a month or 12 gigs of data for a measly 10 extra bucks at $35 a month. If you're still hungry for more, 45 a month gets you unlimited data, which is a lot of bits and bytes. And if you're not a big data user, then worry not, their flex plans start at $10 a month with just $5 extra per gigabyte used. There's a reason that Consumer Reports named Ting Mobile their number one carrier in the US. So check them out at linus.ting.com and get a $25 credit. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to check out the QD OLED Alienware monitor video. At the time of filming, it is still arguably the best gaming monitor on the market and they are selling out as fast as Dell can make them.