The primary Samsung TV of 2026 has lastly totally emerged from the depths of the model’s R&D division — and I’m right here to let you know that from what I’ve seen to date of the epic S99H (or S95H because it’s identified within the US), this TV has the potential to be severely particular.
Whereas the S99H isn’t in shops but so that you can take a look at for yourselves and hasn’t but run the gauntlet of the total TechRadar testing group, I’ve been fortunate sufficient to spend just a few days with the 77-inch mannequin already (it additionally is available in 55-inch, 65-inch and 83-inch sizes).
Throughout that point, it’s change into clear that it delivers a considerable step up over its already-talented Samsung S95F predecessor — and TechRadar rated that set because the TV of the 12 months in 2025.
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The large modifications begin with the S99H’s design. Samsung sometimes prides itself on extremely slim, minimalistic flagship TV designs, so it’s fairly a shock to search out the 77-inch S99H’s already massive display screen framed by an attention-grabbing outer body that extends nicely over an inch round all 4 of the display screen’s edges.
Given how a lot greater it makes an already large display screen, the S99H’s so-called FloatLayer design is prone to be controversial. The truth that the metallic outer body is about again from the protruding display screen, although, creates an uncommon ‘three-dimensional’ viewing expertise that I personally discovered extra immersive and cinematic than something I’ve had with typical flat, ‘single-layer’ TV.
The black bit’s the OLED display screen, the silver bit’s the body design (Picture credit score: John Archer)
The intelligent design extends to a nifty reflective neck for the offered desktop stand that makes the display screen appear to be it’s floating in mid air, and there’s some nicely outlined cable channeling across the again panel.
One other large new characteristic for the S99H, although, signifies that you don’t really want to attach any of your sources on to the TV if you happen to don’t need to.
It’s attainable to purchase an elective further Wi-fi One Join field for the S99H that not solely provides an additional 4 HDMI 2.1 ports to the 4 already discovered on the TV itself, providing you with a complete of eight, but in addition means you’ll be able to watch the images and sound from as much as 4 sources with out having any cable apart from the ability wire operating into the TV.
This wi-fi field provides slightly below 30ms to the time the TV takes to render photographs, that means avid gamers ought to in all probability stick to connecting their consoles and PCs on to the primary TV, however in any other case this elective wi-fi connection field takes the S99H’s connectivity into unprecedented territory for sheet variety of ports.
The S99H’s image options and high quality seem to have undergone a powerful transformation, too. The QD-OLED expertise at their coronary heart has been pushing brightness ahead at an outstanding fee with every new era, and the 77-inch S99H continues this pattern by managing to hit virtually 4,500 nits on tiny HDR home windows (up greater than 12% on final 12 months’s S95F), and hits practically 2,800 nits even on a ten% check window.
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Actually, in a serious assault on mini-LED TV territory, the S99H even manages to take care of brightness above 500 nits on a fullscreen 100% white HDR check window. T
his all feeds into an HDR efficiency of staggering dynamism and punch but in addition spectacular consistency within the S99H’s Customary preset, backed up by these pure colors which can be QD-OLED’s trademark, and the pixel-level mild management and superbly deep, constant black colors that dwelling cinema followers now anticipate from any OLED display screen.
The display screen is super-rich, and actually breaks via in vivid rooms due to Samsung’s Glare Free layer (Picture credit score: John Archer)
The S99H’s Customary preset doesn’t simply look to date to be much more spectacular than that of its predecessor, although; it additionally appears to be like higher, providing extra refinement and tighter management on the picture’s extremes to minimise any glitches that may distract you from what you’re watching.
Earlier than anybody worries, although, that the S99H cares solely about displaying off the extremes of what its panel can do, its Filmmaker Mode additionally appears to be like to date be a triumph, a minimum of from a ‘hitting the numbers’ perspective.
In my early checks (made with out tinkering with the preset’s settings in any respect) it delivered probably the most correct outcomes I’ve ever seen throughout all of my Calman Final software program’s greyscale and color checks.
Samsung’s newest anti-reflection display screen filter appears from early viewing to have been improved once more too, nonetheless eradicating just about all reflections from the display screen however now retaining barely deeper black ranges when the filter is having to work actually laborious in a really vivid atmosphere.
Upgrades from inside out
Whereas a few of this apparently improved precision from the S99H might be right down to enhancements to its QD-OLED show, Samsung’s newest NQ4 AI Gen 3 processor with its 128 neural networks is unquestionably enjoying an element, too.
That is now highly effective sufficient to apparently routinely tune the brightness of every pixel in actual time, to optimise the influence of its display screen with any incoming video. Plus, this 12 months, the S99H goes to be getting help for the brand new ‘HDR10+ Superior’ format.
The following-gen type of HDR10+ provides six new enhancements to the earlier premium HDR system in a bid to make HDR look brighter, extra dynamic (whereas nonetheless monitoring inventive intent) smoother (however solely to a level set by content material creators), and extra precisely colored, whereas additionally with the ability to adapt its workings higher to totally different genres of content material and cloud gaming.
The brand new AI processor additionally offers superior recognition of the kind of sport you’re watching via such parts because the distribution of grass, the presence of scoreboards, pitch markings, baseball bats, tennis rackets and the like, in order that it will possibly focus its ball-tracking movement processing parts extra precisely. So that you shouldn’t find yourself seeing artefacting within the image if you happen to choose to use movement processing to a sport supply.
The newest AI system introduces an audio enchancment, too, that permits you to divide any soundtrack up into separate voice, music and impact parts in an effort to then manually alter the steadiness of every component to fit your listening to, fight ambient noise, or simply make a selected component clearer with particular TV present or film mixes.
I’ve already talked about AI fairly a bit via this take a look at the S99H, however this being a Samsung TV we’re not finished with AI fairly but. For starters the newest Samsung good distant management introduces a devoted AI button that takes you on to a brand new onscreen menu devoted purely to the TV’s intensive AI good options.
These now embrace not one however two third-party AI techniques, Co-Pilot and Perplexity. Why two? As a result of, says Samsung, each gives totally different areas of particular experience. You’ll be able to manually select which AI assistant you need to use, or else the TV will attempt to decide one of the best one for you, relying on what you’ve requested the TV to do.
One final welcome usability change I’ve observed on the S99H in my time with it to date is that Samsung has moved the set of icons you utilize to maneuver between totally different submenus from the primary Tizen dwelling hub to the highest of the display screen, slightly than ranging them down the left. This makes the house display screen look a lot cleaner and fewer intimidating.
Evidently the TechRadar group is raring to deliver you a full evaluation of Samsung’s S99H/S95H vary as shortly as we will, with out dashing something. From what I’ve seen to date, although, issues are trying very promising certainly.
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