I tried Samsung’s new small OLED TV, and it’s a winner despite the lack of Dolby Vision HDR
In 2024, Samsung will introduce its first OLED TVs smaller than 55 inches, as part of the Samsung S90D model series. These 42-inch (US only) and 48-inch (US and UK) TVs won’t use the bright QD-OLED panel type that earned the Samsung S90C our TV of the Year Award for 2023, but will instead use the same type OLED panel found in LG OLEDs. And as with all Samsung TVs, these models will lack Dolby Vision HDR, which is a real concern for us because the biggest advantage of Dolby Vision is that HDR looks great on lower bright screens.
After spending some time with the 48-inch Samsung S90D, I had no worries. Not only do the images feel clear and rich, the screen also seems to handle challenging HDR scenes well and even offers impressive sound. Considering the other impressive specs on offer, it looks like it could be an extremely strong challenger for the best 48-inch TVs.
I was able to test the 48-inch S90D armed with my own choice of films, plus the Spears & Munsill test disc that we can’t live without when testing TVs. Pass AlienI immediately saw that TV has a lot of talent with nuance in dark scenes. As Kane descends into the looming bowels of the alien spaceship, the parts that should really be inky black hit that mark (as you’d expect from an OLED), but you can see a subtle, very dark texture in the areas near the bright spots .
And speaking of bright spots, the 48-inch S90D certainly felt bright enough to deliver high-quality HDR. Typically, 42- and 48-inch OLEDs are always less bright than 55-inch and larger OLEDs, due to the tight fit of the pixels – but we’ve already heard that the smaller models in this year’s LG C4 OLED TV will be brighter than previous years, and since the Samsung uses the same screen, I suspect this is equally bright.
It’s rich in color with big, bold hues, but the colors also feel controlled and realistic. Vibrant and spicy, yet comfortable to suit natural skin tones Oppenheimer looked lifelike and the level of detail did justice to that original 70mm film.
No Dolby Vision, no problem?
I was really concerned about the lack of Dolby Vision on these TVs, but I threw some particularly challenging HDR videos at it to try to show off its shortcomings, and I was borderline ridiculed for it.
First, some background on why Dolby Vision is important, and what I was concerned about in the first place. When films are mastered for release, the appearance is perfected for a certain clarity. This can be as high as 10,000 nits, although 1,000 nits is most common for home video releases. What this means is that if you have a video mastered for 1,000 nits that plays on a screen with 1,000 nits brightness, you will see the HDR of the video as intended.
So what happens when you play a video mastered for 1,000 nits on TV with a maximum brightness of around 700 nits (which is probably about what we mean for this Samsung)? The entire HDR range must be compressed into a smaller HDR range and this process is called ‘tone mapping’.
Tone mapping can be done smartly or stupidly. The dumb version would be to just take everything above a certain HDR level and reduce everything to the maximum of what the TV can handle. This results in a lot of lost nuance in highlights – so what should be a fluffy, layered cloud, for example, becomes just a big blob of uniform white.
The smart approach is to adjust the brightness of tones across the range, but it’s easy to do this wrong and end up losing detail in darker tones, or still losing convincing highlights. The most advanced processing in the best TVs can adjust the tone mapping on different parts of the screen at the same time to avoid these problems.
A big advantage of Dolby Vision, HDR10+ (which the Samsung S90D supports, but is less commonly used) and HDR formats is that they contain tone mapping data, to ensure results are closer to the original intent. That’s why we’ve always felt it’s so important to have Dolby Vision on the best OLED TVs – because most models still struggle to hit 1,000 nits of brightness, so they’ll have to do tone mapping with more HDR content.
That’s a stretch for me to say: from my experience so far, the tone mapping on the S90D seems so good that Dolby Vision isn’t necessary. I tested it while displaying the same video in 10,000-nit HDR10 (which requires aggressive tone mapping), 1000-nit HDR10 (which requires softer tone mapping) and 10,000-nit HDR10+ (where the tone mapping is handled by the HDR format for best results).
The difference between all three was minimal. Not quite zero – the 10,000-nit HDR10 video has slightly more washed out whites in difficult conditions (like the cloud example above or snowy scenes) – but close enough to allay my concerns about this aspect of the TVs.
Obviously we’ll reserve our final judgment until we can bring this model in for an in-depth review, and ideally we’ll compare it directly against the Dolby Vision-supporting LG C4 of the same size, as they use the same underlying screen. technology. But for me, the lack of Dolby Vision doesn’t seem to be a problem at all.
It all sounds good
I was also impressed with the sound of the TV. It doesn’t have a fancy array of speakers around the edge, like the larger S90D models, or the Samsung S95D and Samsung QN90D, do – but I found it capable of an impressive height, a solid chest width, and a surprisingly dynamic range with the ‘Amplify’ mode enabled, while still feeling quite natural. It didn’t have much width, but that’s forgivable. From my first listen, it certainly felt like you could get away without a soundbar.
Other useful information about the Samsung S90D includes that it has a 144Hz display, with support for 4K 120Hz or 144Hz gaming on all four HDMI ports, as well as a variable refresh rate and a low-latency auto mode. It has Samsung’s Game Bar menu so you can adjust settings easily – it’ll likely be a strong contender for our list of the best gaming TVs.
Samsung’s new processor is included and supports wireless connection with select Samsung Dolby Atmos soundbars, and includes Samsung Q-Symphony support to combine the speakers with those of the soundbar, if you choose to add one.
We don’t have prices yet – it looks like this size will launch a little after the larger models in the range. But I’m looking forward to spending more time on it.