Samsung Electronics has officially announced its first QD-OLED TV, the Samsung S95B OLED TV that it promises will go “well beyond” what previous OLED TVs have been capable of so far.
The new Samsung S95B OLED TV will be available in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes, and will use the brand new Neural Quantum Processor 4K chip that was present in its flagship Neo QLED TVs last year, such as the Samsung QN95A and QN90A.
Samsung’s press release notes that the S95B offers features such as an “OLED brightness booster”and “perceptional colour mapping” that aim to deliver brighter and more accurate highlights, as well as lifelike colours.
As with all of its TVs, the Samsung S95B OLED TV runs the Tizen smart TV operating system, which itself has been updated this year, and it contains the company’s key audio technologies like Object Tracking Sound and Q-Symphony. It also supports Dolby Atmos.
QD-OLED is a new kind of display technology that marries the best bits of traditional OLED with the Quantum Dot colour filters seen on Samsung’s best QLED TVs and promises to deliver more realistic colours and higher brightness.
While LG Display’s White OLED displays use blue and yellow OLEDs to generate white light pixels that are passed through color filters to produce red, green, and blue sub-pixels, QD-OLED emits blue light through quantum dots to convert some of that colour into red and green without any need for the filter.
Samsung Display has claimed this approach creates more light energy efficiency; since you’re not losing any light to the color filters, QD-OLED TVs should offer brightness gains compared to existing OLED displays.
The debut of the Samsung S95B comes almost 10 years after Samsung last announced an OLED TV. For years, it has championed its alternative QLED technology and taken a dismissive approach to OLED, often criticising LG Display’s panels for their risk of burn-in, for example. Now though, Samsung has done an about turn and its insistence that QD-OLED delivers improved colour, brightness and viewing angles apparently outweighs whatever doubts it may have had about OLED before.
Perhaps the best news is that Samsung’s S95B won’t be as expensive as expected. The company is taking pre-orders for the TV now, and its official U.S. website lists the 65-inch version for $3,499, while the 55-inch model will cost just $2,399. That’s a lot cheaper than the $4,000 and $3,000 that Sony is rumored to asking for its A95K QD-OLED TV for (though this hasn’t been confirmed). Meanwhile, an Amazon listing suggests an even lower price of just $2,198 for the smaller model.
Samsung has yet to announce U.K. pricing but a 1:1 conversion suggest we’re looking at prices of around £2,660 for the 65-inch model and £1,825 for the 55-inch version. Samsung has yet to announce an official release date so we’ll have to wait and see how QD-OLED stands up to this year’s best traditional OLED TVs.
