Samsung S95C TV review: One of the two best TVs around

The Samsung S95C is one of the best-looking TVs out there — and ultimately, if you’re willing to spend, it’s worth considering.

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Pros

Incredible image
Excellent software experience
Better-than-average speakers
Stunning design
Good feature-set

Buy From
List Price
Sale Price

$3297.99
$2,574
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TV technology is increasing at an incredibly fast rate. Gone are the days when simply having an OLED panel automatically made a TV a high-end model. These days, the best TVs combine OLED tech with quantum dots — a technology that should make OLED TVs brighter and more vibrant.

It makes sense, as such, that the Samsung S95C sits atop Samsung’s lineup. The TV boasts all the latest and greatest tech, packed into a well-designed box. But because it’s so high-tech, the Samsung S95C is far from cheap. Does it justify its price tag? I’ve been using the flagship Samsung S95C to find out.

Samsung S95C design

The premium experience of the Samsung S95C starts with the design. It looks stunning. The TV continues Samsung’s approach of using the One Connect box, which means that all the ports and processing are located separately from the display itself. The result of that is that you can mount just the screen on the wall, with one cable connecting it to the rest of the system.

For reviewing this TV, I didn’t mount it to the wall — but I could still appreciate the thinness and high-end design. When you use the included base, the connection box simply attaches the back of the base — which still looks very nice.

The TV is built from high-end materials, and the result is that it’s quite heavy. You’ll need another person to help put the TV together, lest you risk damaging it in the process.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The One Connect box offers a nice selection of ports. You’ll get an impressive four HDMI 2.1 ports, with two USB 2.0 ports, an optical audio output, and an Ethernet port. It’s pretty much everything you’ll need in 2023 — and I like that all four ports are HDMI 2.1.

The design of the remote is pretty nice, too. It’s very minimalistic and is really just built to control the software, but it’s easy to navigate, and the buttons offer a nice click. Also, it’s rechargeable through USB-C and has a solar panel on the back, which is super nice.

Samsung S95C software and features

As a modern Samsung TV, the S95C comes with all the technological bells and whistles you would expect in 2023. For starters, it boasts Samsung’s Tizen operating system, and it works well. I quite like the approach to software that Samsung takes on its TVs, though, to be fair, competition like Google TV is just as easy to use.

You’ll find all the major streaming apps downloadable on the TV, and it can act like a SmartThings hub for the Samsung smart home users out there, which is a nice touch. The TV also supports HomeKit, and you can install either Bixby or Alexa on it at setup.

Samsung S95C performance

Of course, the real advantage of this TV over other Samsung options is its image quality. Indeed, the Samsung S95C is one of the best-looking TVs in the business — though you’ll have to pay to get it.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The big deal for this TV is that on top of offering an OLED panel, it makes use of quantum dot technology in an attempt to make OLED technology brighter. However, recent OLED panels have generally gotten brighter — and the LG G3 is still able to go toe-to-toe with the S95C in that area. In fact, ultimately, the G3 is still a tiny step brighter than the S95C.

The S95 offers image upscaling from Samsung’s Neural Quantum Processor 4K, and it works very well, as you would expect. 1080p content looked 4K, and while you could tell the difference between 4K and 720p or lower images, in general, the upscaling on offer here makes even low-res content bearable.

The refresh rate here is a super-fast 144Hz, and with the fact that the TV supports HDMI 2.1, that means that you’ll get the smoothest gaming experience you can from modern consoles. Indeed, gaming on the TV was an excellent experience.

There is one feature missing here — support for Dolby Vision. This is to be expected — Samsung doesn’t license Dolby Vision. And HDR content still looks great. But Samsung is the only major manufacturer to not support Dolby Vision, and I wish it did here.

Samsung S95C audio

If you’re getting a TV that looks this great, you should upgrade the sound system — the speakers here don’t match the image. But, in a pinch, you’ll be impressed with their quality — they’re better than the majority of built-in speakers out there.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

I was particularly impressed by the bass here, which is usually something that eludes high-end TVs. The bass certainly won’t match a subwoofer, like the Sonos Sub Mini that I used with the TV for the majority of my testing. But it was deeper than I expected. The same goes for high-end detail — it’s pretty good.

Again, however, buy external soundbars. Even a midrange soundbar, like the Sonos Beam, will sound better than the speakers built into the TV.

Conclusions

The Samsung S95C is a triumph. It’s an incredible-looking TV, with among the best image quality out there. It also happens to offer an awesome design, a great software experience, and more. If you want something that is among the best TV experiences you can get right now, the Samsung S95C is worth considering.

The competition

The biggest competition here comes from the LG G3, which makes use of the new micro lens array tech to increase the brightness on offer. It’s one of the brightest OLED TVs out there right now. It also offers a stunning design, a great software experience, and more.

Ultimately, these two TVs are incredibly evenly matched — so it’s perhaps worth buying based on lesser-important things, like the software experience you prefer.