Review: Samsung S90D QD-OLED TV

There are precious few things Samsung’s S90D TV doesn’t do well. As one of the brightest and most advanced OLEDs, its picture quality is nearly unbeatable for the money, marked by perfect black levels, fantastic viewing angles, and endlessly engaging colors. It's fully loaded for both console and cloud gaming, and its design is simple yet elegant, with a pedestal-style stand anchoring an impossibly thin panel.

The decked-out display’s most notable drawbacks are those inherent to all Samsung TVs, including a sometimes-annoying Tizen smart interface and a stubborn lack of support for common tech like Dolby Vision HDR, the more prevalent of the two most advanced HDR formats.

Those are certainly points to consider, but they wouldn’t hold me back from grabbing an S90D. From its impressively well-rounded performance to its solid features and premium looks, Samsung’s second-tier OLED is one of the Best TVs you can buy.

Simple Stunner

It may seem counterintuitive, but the fanciest TVs are sometimes the hardest to set up. Not so with the S90D; its screwless feet snap into place in seconds, while a faux-metal cover plate creates a pedestal-style center stand. It’s a bit wobblier than the hefty metal stand from the step-up S95D (8/10, WIRED recommends), but it’s sturdy enough and provides a subtle aesthetic upgrade over the dual-pronged stand from last year’s S90C. Like most center stands, it may get in the way of larger soundbars, in which case mounting may be necessary.

The hardest part of the hardware setup may be moving the S90D’s ultraslim panel, but lifting with care (and from the center back) ensures success. The 65-inch model’s relatively light weight of just under 50 pounds makes it easy for two to set it in place. Once done, you may want to take a beat to admire the style; the TV’s microthin panel is matched by a similarly slim bezel for a clean look on or off. Only a few TVs, like the exorbitantly pricey QN900C (8/10, WIRED Recommends) and its “floating screen” design, offer a noticeable upgrade there.

Next, you’ll be relying on Samsung’s sometimes clunky Tizen smart interface to get things up and running. A piece of advice: Don’t get duped into using the smartphone setup option. In the past four or five Samsung TVs I’ve set up, this has not worked for me once, due to an error partway through. Luckily, the onscreen option is quick, including near-instant scanning for broadcast channels and relatively speedy setup for apps, connected devices, and even room-based sound optimization for surprisingly solid performance.

I’ve had my issues with Tizen, but it has made subtle improvements over the years. The Settings layout is still too cluttered and you’ll want to disable the unhelpful Intelligent Mode and Eco settings, but it is speedy, and offers your choice of Amazon Alexa or Bixby smart assistants. My primary complaint remains the difficulty in adding new apps. App search is harder than it should be, and there’s no good reason to add an app and not add it to the home screen, which Samsung makes you do manually. Other than that—and some odd freezing of the Paramount+ app while rewatching Top Gun: Maverick—Tizen worked fine over several days.

Gaming Guru

Tizen’s best feature is its dedicated Gaming Hub, providing an attractive layout and console-free cloud gaming from services like Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now, Luna, and others. Four HDMI 2.1 inputs provide topline gaming features like ALLM (auto low latency mode) and VRR (variable refresh rate) for tearfree gaming at up to 144 Hz with select PCs, or 120 Hz with PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.

Games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla feel buttery smooth and look fantastic, especially after a few tweaks like adjusting the color temperature to a warmer setting than the Gaming Mode’s default. A dedicated game bar, available by tapping the remote’s play/pause key, provides easy access to make adjustments on the fly.

Samsung has mastered the modern remote with its stubby little solar wand. You’ll virtually never have to charge it (though you can, via USB-C, if necessary), and its intuitive layout makes it easy to use day or night. The S90D offers plenty of other features, including stalwarts like a default optical sensor to adjust the brightness to your environment (which is now easier to turn off in the settings than before), voice search, and Apple AirPlay support.

There are some conspicuous omissions, like a lack of Dolby Vision HDR, the most popular “dynamic” HDR format. Instead, the S90D supports the less common HDR10+ (which Samsung co-created) alongside standard HDR10 and HLG (hybrid log gamma). You’ll mainly find HDR10+ on 4K Blu-ray discs and Amazon Prime. Like Dolby Vision, it can adjust screen contrast and brightness on a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame basis with supported content. The less dynamic HDR10 subs in for any Dolby Vision content, but it’s a bummer Samsung won’t cave on including both. LG’s rival C4 OLED (9/10, WIRED Recommends) supports Dolby Vision, but not HDR10+.

Also frustrating: Newer Samsung TVs don’t support DTS audio passthrough or Google Chromecast streaming. The latter is particularly odd given that Samsung makes Google Android phones.

Quantum Mania

The S90D mostly makes up for those shortcomings with stunning picture quality in nearly any setting. As one of the brightest OLED TVs I’ve tested, it draws up flashy spectacle matched by the perfect black levels of OLED’s “emissive” panel tech to illuminate even challenging scenes in a well-lit room. It’s not as bright as flagship OLEDs like Samsung’s S95D or LG’s G4—let alone ultrabright LED displays like the U8N (8/10, WIRED Recommends)—but I had no issues sticking with the dimmer but refined Filmmaker Mode over weeks of testing. If you want some extra eye tingle without going garish, you can swap to the brighter Movie Mode (or turn on Active Tone Mapping for HDR content).

I was especially impressed with the S90D’s antireflective screen. While it doesn’t fully stomp out direct lighting like the S95D, it virtually eliminates indirect reflections, without the perceived loss of depth and contrast that the S95D’s matte-like screen can create. For me, it’s the perfect compromise, providing rich and striking shadow detail for even the dimmest and most challenging scenes, day or night.

Where the TV really struts its stuff is with its brilliantly vibrant colors, thanks in part to its QD-OLED panel, which uses quantum dots to expand and enrich color reproduction. (Note: Unlike the 65-inch model I reviewed, the 42-, 48-, and 83-inch models use a more traditional WOLED panel rather than QD-OLED.) The color depth and volume feel at once fabulously oversaturated and utterly realistic, especially in HDR, virtually transporting you to each scene.

The enameled abalone polish of Moana’s silly shell hat in the film’s psychedelic “shiny” crab scene seemed to shimmer right off my coffee table. The sun-dance spectacle of tropical coral reefs in Netflix’s Our Planet pulled me underwater, recalling real-life snorkeling adventures. Even SDR (standard dynamic range) fare like a 1080p Blu-ray of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows seems to gleam in new ways, adding pop to everything from Harry’s blue denim shirt to the red alarm light in Gringotts’ vault as the crew are dropped to their near death.

The picture is all the more impressive with well-mastered 4K HDR Blu-rays. Using the latest professional Spears & Munsil test disc via Panasonic’s DP-UB9000 player, the S90D stepped up to provide more impactful color and contrast, proving it’s poised to grow as video mastering advances. As an OLED panel, the picture is nearly perfect at any angle, so unlike most quantum-dot-equipped LED (aka QLED) TVs, the colors sparkle and shine from anywhere in the room.

Speaking of sparkling, the S90D’s picture processing provides exceptional clarity and detail for even challenging patterns like a helicopter shot of thousands of birds, with almost none of the shimmering “moiré effect” common in even the most lauded midlevel TVs from brands like TCL and Hisense. The TV rose admirably to the challenge of Moana’s Te Fiti scene, pinpointing the hundreds of green tendrils on her hand and revealing a flutter in one of the tiny leaves I’d missed in previous viewings.

I watched dozens of hours of the Olympics, both via NBC’s 1080i broadcast and Peacock in 1080p with HDR, and while I much preferred the latter, both options looked quite good. The TV does a fine job upscaling most content, with only older SD programming showing any offending fuzz.

The only noteworthy performance issues over several days were minor motion struggles with stuttering and blur in challenging shots and hard pans. Adjusting the Blur and Judder Reduction settings under Picture Clarity by a few points can help, though I found the Judder setting too off-putting for film content.

Those are picky complaints, especially for a TV priced well below most flagship models. That’s why the S90D is one of my favorite TVs of the year. It’s not perfect, and its lack of options like Dolby Vision and Chromecast are annoying, making LG’s similarly priced C4 a better alternative for some. If you want something brighter and don’t care about off-axis performance, Sony’s Bravia 7 mini LED TV (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a wild card option, sometimes offered for less. As usual, going with last year’s S90C is the most obvious value play if you can find it cheaper, but the S90D is a step up, and damned if its punchy picture didn’t win my heart and hold on over multiple days.

Dollar for dollar, you’ll have a hard time beating the S90D with anything else, making it a great buy now and a sound investment for years to come.