by Samsung has seemingly revealed a key detail about its soon-to-be-released 77-inch OLED TV, revealing it could beat LG in a key area – but not in a good way.
In the US, the largest variant of the Samsung S95C OLED TV – one of the many Samsung TVs unveiled at CES 2023 – is reportedly priced at $4,499.99. For comparison, LG’s most expensive 77-inch OLED TV – the LG G2 OLED, launched last year – cost $4,199 / £4,499 (about AU$6,100).
That Samsung price is the equivalent of around £3,630 / AU$6,335, which would make the TV slightly more expensive than LG in Australia but considerably cheaper in the UK; However, these are unlikely to be the official prices for those regions. Based on Samsung’s previous pricing strategies in the UK, we expect the TV to have a similar, if not higher, numerical value to its US price – i.e. the $4,500 TV would cost around £4,500 or more, despite the exchange rate huh means it ‘should’ cost £900. fewer. As for Australia, we wouldn’t be shocked if the final price was closer to AU$7,000, but we’ll have to wait and see what Samsung decides.
This pricing information is based on a store page discovered and shared by FlatPanelsHD (opens in new tab); However, it seems that the page is now unavailable. That price certainly fits what we’d expect from Samsung’s new batch of OLED TVs, although as with all leaks, until the company makes an official announcement, we should take this with a pinch of salt.
There’s no word yet on how much the smaller models will cost, but based on last year’s Samsung S95B OLED TV, we’d be surprised if Samsung’s 55-inch TV costs less than $1,799 / £1,999 / around AU$2,700 would cost, or if it were 65-inch TVs cost less than $2,799 / £2,999 / around AU$4,200.
If you decide to buy one of these Samsung TVs, it looks like the money is well spent. For gamers, the S95C offers a 0.1ms response time and a best-in-class 144Hz refresh rate (better than the S95B’s mere 120Hz) as well as VRR/ALLM support. You can also access a range of 4K cloud gaming apps such as Nvidia GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna and Utomik.
The audio setup also gets a boost. Samsung’s new TV uses a 4.2.2 channel speaker system – an improvement over both the 2.2.2 system featured in the S95B and the 3.1.2 system the LG C3 OLED relies on.
And let’s not forget the screen itself.
Is this the best QD OLED screen of 2023?
While Samsung calls its S95C lineup OLED TVs, it undersells its screens a bit as these displays use QD-OLED panels – a mix of typical OLED and QLED panels.
OLED panels are self-emissive – read they don’t have a backlight – so it’s possible to turn off individual pixels entirely. This allows OLED TVs to display well-defined dark scenes – they can produce deep blacks and display an “infinite” contrast ratio between light and dark areas of the screen.
QLED panels, on the other hand, excel when it comes to bright and colorful images. While its dark contrast isn’t quite as impressive, its Quantum Dot filters help its colors almost never look washed out.
QD-OLED attempts to combine the strengths of both panel types into one, with Samsung saying its latest S95C range takes it up a notch with “unmatched brightness, vivid color reproduction and intelligent 4K upscaling with AI detail restoration.” To that end, the latest Samsung OLED offers 30% higher brightness than the 2022 Samsung S95B; Thanks to its new Quantum HDR OLED Plus algorithm, the S95C can apparently achieve a peak brightness of a whopping 2,000 nits.
It’s not all good news, however; Unlike some rivals, this TV doesn’t offer DTS:X support and the lineup continues to lack Dolby Vision HDR.
We’ll have to test the latest Samsung TV to know if it’s worth its seemingly steep asking price, but considering the Samsung S95B was one of the best TVs of 2022, we expect the S95C to be another standout device will be .
If you can’t wait for the Samsung S95C to launch and need a new display today, check out our picks of the best 4K TVs you can buy right now.
