One month after announcing the TV at CES 2023, Samsung has announced the price and release date of its upcoming Samsung S95C OLED TV.
According to the electronics maker, we’ll get the new 77-inch QD-OLED screen later this month for $4,449.99. That’s a fair chunk of change, but those who pre-order before February 20 via Samsung’s website or one of its retail partners will receive a free in-home professional installation.
Having seen the TV at a Samsung event at CES, we can attest to how good the new 77-inch model looks. Not only does it offer a higher 144Hz refresh rate that’s great for gamers with a living room PC, but it will also see an uptick in brightness compared to last year’s Samsung S95B OLED TV.
That said, its steep sticker price is hard to ignore — especially considering how cheap LG is selling its OLED models for. Last year’s LG C2 OLED, one of the best TVs of 2022, has a 77-inch version that’s only $2,499 right now.
Yes, the Samsung S95C is using QD-OLED instead of LG’s wOLED panels — the difference there being the layer of quantum dots in the Samsung OLED models — but $2,000 is no small amount of money these days and it might be worth using a slightly older display technology to save some money.
Samsung S95C OLED: a cutting-edge QD-OLED TV
As of right now, we only know the price and release date of the largest version of the Samsung S95C OLED — hopefully, the smaller 55-inch and 65-inch models will be more in our price range. As to when we’ll see those, it’s likely that we’ll see them in the next month or two, though we’ll certainly update you when they’re officially announced.
One new aspect Samsung is touting in today’s news is a feature called HDR OLED+ that dynamically tone maps every scene. We’ve seen a different form of this technology called HDR+ in Samsung TVs for years, so it’s interesting to see that Samsung is bringing an upgraded version of it to the 2023 OLED.
The upscaling and tone mapping will all be handled by the new Samsung Quantum Neural Processor that also powers Samsung’s Tizen OS. We weren’t exactly enamored with last year’s version of Samsung’s smart TV platform, unfortunately, but hopefully a few changes to the layout will help make navigating around the UI a bit easier.
We’ll be calling this QD-OLED in for review as soon as possible, but if you’re looking for a cheaper option in the meantime, check out last year’s Samsung S95B OLED or the Sony A95K OLED, the most recent member of our exclusive five-star review club.
