Verdict

The Samsung S90C OLED is a little underwhelming in terms of picture and sound. Though it can deliver high levels of brightness with HDR content, rivals produce a more natural and nuanced performance than Samsung’s entry-level OLED can.

Introduction

After giving OLED TVs the short shrift for almost a decade, Samsung is putting its weight behind them – though as S95C and S90C show, it’s doing it on their own terms.

The S95C is the premium OLED screen, while the S90C is the more affordable effort, featuring a different design, less advanced features, and lower peak brightness for HDR content.

It has me wondering whether the S90C is simply a rebadged S95B, a TV I liked but has a few imperfections. With strong competition in the LG C3 OLED, Sony’s A95K, and Panasonic MZ1500 all as close price rivals, the Samsung S90C has to prove its mettle in a tough market.

Design

• Laser Slim design
• Central feet instead of pedestal
• Blacks can look grey in bright rooms

The S90C looks very similar to the S95B and were it not for the difference in the stand design, I’d say it’s exactly the same.

The switch to central feet is beneficial as they’re easier to attach – simply slot them in and click into place. The simplicity is much appreciated.

The screen itself is thin from edge to edge aside from the bulge towards the bottom of the rear panel. For those who prefer to wall-mount, the S90C won’t sit flush against a wall.

Colours retain their brightness and intensity at wider angles without losing saturation, and brightness does feel higher than the current WRGB OLED panels from LG Display whether from a head-on position or at a wider angle.

The S90C is one of a few OLED TVs worth considering for use in a bright room because of its inherent brightness, but this does come with a caveat. Though the panel has an Anti-Reflection filter, it lacks the polarizer of other OLED displays, so black levels look grey in brighter rooms. Turn the lights off and it’s not an issue but it can distract.

Tizen Interface

• Faster than before
• Settings still hidden away
• Wide array of entertainment apps

The user experience across Samsung’s 2022 screens was sluggish, with features and settings hidden from view. The 2023 version is an improvement on the first point, but less so on the latter.

It is faster to navigate in terms of speed, as flicking through the hubs is swift enough. The interface is divided into hubs for Search, Ambient, Game and Media, as well as rows for Connected Devices and Settings. The latter two feel disconnected from the rest though, hidden away in a shelf towards the bottom of the screen. You wouldn’t notice them unless you knew of their existence.

Users are well served by Tizen’s entertainment options. Despite the lack of Freeview Play all the main UK catch-up and on-demand apps are provided. The main video and music streaming apps are covered from Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ to Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music and more. Apple TV+ supports HDR10+ compatibility to further optimise the S90C’s HDR performance.

The paid apps are complemented by Samsung TV Plus, a free-to-access streaming service with hundreds (if not thousands) of movies and TV programmes. There are more free-to-access goodies from the likes of Plex too.

There’s a choice of two remotes – a smart, minimalist one with few buttons that can charge itself through ambient light (or via a USB-C port), or the standard, more functional remote with more buttons.

Neither is a chore to use though most may prefer the smart remote for its simplicity, although both offer quick access to popular streaming apps.

Features

• Excellent gaming performance
• Four HDMI 2.1 inputs
• Cloud gaming built-in to Game Hub

The Gaming Hub features cloud gaming apps with the likes of Xbox Game Pass, Amazon Luna, Utomik, and GeForce Now onboard.

PC gamers get AMD FreeSync Premium VRR, and while the S90C can handle Nvidia G-Sync, it’s not certified for it. Super Ultra Wide Game View supports screen ratios of 21:9 and 32:9, while HDR10+ Gaming is supported with compatible displays/GPUs.

Auto low latency mode reduces lag, and in game mode I measured latency at a class-leading 9.2ms. With HDMI VRR that can be further reduced with PC games that feature refresh rates up to 144Hz (which the S90C supports).

The S90C doesn’t get the One Connect box, but there are still four HDMI inputs all rated to the HDMI 2.1 standard – though HDMI 1 and 4 are specified as the ‘game’ inputs. Two USB ports, Ethernet, digital optical out, CI Slot, and antennae for terrestrial and satellite providers cover physical ports. Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 are the wireless options.

Two features I don’t recall on Samsung’s 2022 OLEDs are the EyeComfort mode and the Pantone validation. EyeComfort reduces the amount of blue light emitted from the screen to reduce irritation. Pantone support claims to produce accurate, true-to-life colours, particularly the reproduction of skin tones.

Picture Quality

• Capable of bright, colourful HDR performance
• Looks rather dull and flat in dark HDR scenes
• Not the most nuanced or subtle picture

One of the main criticisms I had about the S95B was a colour performance that needed more finessing across its picture modes. A lot of tweaking was required, but allied with its high brightness HDR, Samsung’s first OLED presented a solid foundation.

The S90C appears to be the same screen as the S95B though brightness in various modes has been adjusted. In Standard mode, the S90C hits 1038 nits on a 5% window (1033 nits on the S95B) but Filmmaker drops from 1017 to 720 nits, and Movie mode is up from 500 to 886 nits.

The S90C packs a punch with its bright, colourful, images, but it’s not quite job done. There are still several niggles about the S90C’s picture.

One is that out-of-the-box brightness is surprisingly dark with HDR content. Watching Jordan Peele’s Nope I found it harder to see detail in the night scenes.

Playing with the Contrast Enhancer setting boosts brightness to expected levels, but it’s not the solution for every film. With Interstellar (4K Blu-ray, HDR10) leaving Contrast Enhancer to High resulted in overly bright whites, meaning more tweaks were necessary.

There’s also Active and Standard HDR settings in picture modes other than Filmmaker (where this setting is locked). Watching Marvel’s Secret Invasion on the S90C and Sony A80L and though the S90C is the brighter of the two, the A80L picks out more detail in the brighter parts of daytime-set scenes.

Switching from Standard to Active (or fiddling with the Contrast Enhancer) and the Samsung suffers from clipping (loss of detail) in the brightest areas.

But it is with dark HDR scenes that the S90C struggles to articulate. Colours appear colder and a little duller, and black levels lack depth in both The English (iPlayer, HLG) and Secret Invasion (Disney+, HDR10). There’s a lack of punch to colours and a coldness to complexions in dark HDR scenes.

Pitted against either the Sony A95K or A80L the QD-OLED’s red push is more noticeable on the S90C than the A95K. Both Sony TVs portray more natural colours and complexions, with the S90C not as subtle in its shading of characters’ faces, especially in those darker HDR scenes, which come across as a tad heavy.

Motion processing is another area for improvement. There’s judder with hands and feet in World War I drama 1917, with distracting noise around the bodies of characters and the equipment they carry. With the slow camera pans the S90C performs fine, but with faster movement there’s stutter and noise in both Custom and Auto modes.

In The English there’s a scene where a group of horses gallop across the screen, and there’s a distracting amount noise and pixelation around the horses’ legs. File under ‘ok’ but it ought to be better for a TV of this standing.

With Samsung’s Neural Quantum Processor handling upscaling duties, a Blu-ray of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade looks filmic, nicely sharp, and clear. Fine detail is excellent, the S95C brings out the textures of the film’s costuming, and film grain is treated organically and not confused as noise.

Colours are wide-ranging, blacks have depth, and detail in the faces of actors is very good. If I have a quibble, it’s the complexion of characters errs towards red.

A DVD of Apollo 13 looks better than expected on a 65-inch TV. The picture can be noisy but not overly so, with soft edges that lack the clarity and detail of HD resolution. Colours look natural aside from the red push to complexions. While I wouldn’t really want to watch much 480p content on this TV, it’s far from unwatchable.

Sound Quality

• Lacks impact
• OTS tracking system is barely noticeable

The S90C’s built-in audio system is less powerful than the S95B’s 60W 2.2.2 channel system with its 40W powered 2.1 system, and the drop in performance shows.

It’s also downgraded from the S95B’s OTS (Object Tracking Sound) system that featured an array of speakers around the screen, to OTS Lite which uses a combination of physical and virtual speakers.

It’s a performance that’s less impactful than I found the S95B to be. Despite its Dolby Atmos support, Top Gun: Maverick sounds tame and uneventful, with not much dynamism evident in test sequence that begins the film. Though Maverick is described in spacious terms, it’s not exciting.

Bass is ok but lacks that oomph and punch as the jets whizz across the sky. Disappointingly, there’s buzzing with low frequencies (at volume 50) that’s even audible going in and out of settings’ menus, and surprisingly with the Netflix and Apple TV+ logos.

There’s a choice of two audio modes: Standard and Amplify, and the latter grants more energy, intensity, and boosts dialogue, which is positioned well on screen, delivered clearly and crisply. Of the two, Amplify is the mode that gets the most out of the TV’s sound system.

The sense of the speakers tracking sounds from one corner to another mostly escapes me. With a film such as Tenet, the action scenes sound too safe. Add a soundbar and the excitement, weight, and intensity of the action sequences come flooding through, and that’s what I’d recommend you should factor into your budget if you’re buying this TV.

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