The Best OLED TV - Reviews By Wirecutter - The New York Times

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Why you should trust me

Who this is for

How we picked and tested

Top pick: LG C5 Series

Upgrade pick: Sony Bravia 8 II Series

Best OLED TV for bright rooms and gaming: Samsung S95F Series

Other OLED TVs worth considering

The competition

FYI

We’ve added the Panasonic Z95B to Other OLED TVs worth considering.

October 2025

OLED TVs are the best-looking TVs you can buy, capable of delivering extremely high image contrast, rich colors, smooth motion, and much better viewing angles than LCD TVs offer. They carry a higher price, but they’re a worthwhile upgrade for anyone who is truly passionate about picture quality.

For most people, we recommend the LG C5 Series because it provides a great-looking picture for a more reasonable price than the competition. But we also have pricier recommendations for hardcore videophiles and gamers willing to pay a premium for the absolute best.

Everything we recommend

Top pick

The best OLED TV for the money

LG C5 Series

This OLED TV pairs top-notch picture quality with ample features, and it’s available in a wide range of screen sizes. But its color reproduction isn’t as vivid as that of our pricier picks.

$1,397 from Amazon(65-inch)$1,397 from Walmart(65-inch)$1,400 from Best Buy(65-inch)

Upgrade pick

The best OLED TV for videophiles

Sony Bravia 8 II Series

This OLED TV is the master of movie night, combining Sony’s deep cinematic experience with a top-tier QD-OLED screen. But it falters in brighter rooms.

$2800 $2300 from Amazon

(65-inch)

$2,298 from Walmart

Best for...

Best OLED TV for bright rooms and hardcore gaming

Samsung S95F Series

This OLED TV is blazingly bright, and its matte screen is great for sunny rooms and flashy video games. But it’s less accurate than our other picks.

$2,298 from Amazon(65-inch)$2,600 from Best Buy(65-inch)What you need to know

• Who this is for

  Buy an OLED TV if you’re willing to spend more to ensure that movies, sports, TV shows, and video games look their absolute best.

• How we picked

  You’ll find fewer OLED TVs for sale than LCD TVs. We looked for the best combination of performance, features, and value.

• Objective testing

  We use measurement equipment and Portrait Displays’s Calman software to evaluate crucial TV metrics such as contrast and color accuracy.

• When LCD is better

  Today’s OLED TVs are almost as bright as LCD TVs, but bright LCD TVs are still more affordable.

Top pick

The best OLED TV for the money

LG C5 Series

This OLED TV pairs top-notch picture quality with ample features, and it’s available in a wide range of screen sizes. But its color reproduction isn’t as vivid as that of our pricier picks.

$1,397 from Amazon(65-inch)$1,397 from Walmart(65-inch)$1,400 from Best Buy(65-inch)

The LG C5 Series delivers terrific picture quality and tons of useful features in a wider range of screen sizes (42 to 83 inches) than most OLED TV lines, with roughly identical picture quality across all sizes (though the two smallest sizes aren’t quite as bright as the others). The C5 is compatible with most high dynamic range (HDR) formats — including Dolby Vision — and comes equipped with four HDMI 2.1 inputs, so it’s a great choice for both cinephiles and modern gamers. Additionally, the C5 is quite a bit brighter than last year’s C4 in displaying standard dynamic range (SDR) video, which makes it a better choice for brighter rooms.

However, the C5 is not as bright as the best OLED and LCD TVs, and its glossy screen is fairly reflective, so you have to be careful about room placement and lighting. It also lacks the quantum-dot-equipped QD-OLED panel you’ll find in our other picks, so its colors are not quite as rich and vivid. And LG’s webOS smart platform isn’t our favorite in organization and layout, but at least it’s snappy and responsive on the C5.

Upgrade pick

The best OLED TV for videophiles

Sony Bravia 8 II Series

This OLED TV is the master of movie night, combining Sony’s deep cinematic experience with a top-tier QD-OLED screen. But it falters in brighter rooms.

$2800 $2300 from Amazon

(65-inch)

$2,298 from Walmart

If viewing movies and TV shows just as the director intended is your priority, the Sony Bravia 8 II Series is the OLED TV to buy, as the picture quality is exceptional. But this TV is a lot less flexible than our top pick: It’s much more expensive, it’s available only in a 55- or 65-inch screen size, and it’s tuned for accuracy rather than brightness and color intensity, so it’s best enjoyed in a light-controlled environment. (Check our TV buying guide to see what we mean by “accuracy.”)

The upside to Sony’s restrained approach to picture quality is that almost everything you watch on this TV — especially modern 4K Blu-ray discs or streamed Dolby Vision content, but also older DVDs or lower-resolution content on YouTube — looks as good as it possibly can on a 4K TV. The Bravia 8 II’s QD-OLED panel, which employs quantum dots, gives it the color power to display the entire range of HDR colors, and its video processing and upscaling ensure that content looks almost exactly as it did when it was mastered in the studio. As for the interface, this model uses Google TV, which is our favorite platform, as it’s much more practical and functional than the platforms on our other picks.

The Bravia 8 II technically replaces our previous upgrade pick, the A95L, but Sony will continue to sell the A95L in the 77-inch screen size (and we still recommend it if that’s the screen size you want). The new model has some of the same small flaws as the A95L: It has higher input lag than our other picks and only two HDMI 2.1 inputs, so it isn’t as good for gaming. It’s also dimmer than our other picks, which makes it best suited for a light-controlled room.

Best for...

Best OLED TV for bright rooms and hardcore gaming

Samsung S95F Series

This OLED TV is blazingly bright, and its matte screen is great for sunny rooms and flashy video games. But it’s less accurate than our other picks.

$2,298 from Amazon(65-inch)$2,600 from Best Buy(65-inch)

The Samsung S95F Series uses the same QD-OLED panel as the Sony Bravia 8 II, but it ditches Sony’s accuracy-focused subtlety for maximum brightness and Pop Art color presentation. The S95F also wields a matte screen — much like that of the Samsung Frame TV — that skillfully scatters ambient light, making it easier for you to watch video in brightly lit rooms or near windows.

The S95F is especially well-tuned for video games, thanks to its very low input lag, four HDMI 2.1 inputs, and native 165 Hz refresh rate. It’s available in four screen sizes (55 to 83 inches), but the largest size does not use a QD-OLED panel.

The S95F has some flaws, too. It doesn’t reproduce older or lower-resolution content as well as our other picks do, and it occasionally struggles to render filmic (24p) content smoothly. On top of that, it cannot play content in Dolby Vision, the highest-quality HDR format.

Why you should trust me

I’m a writer at Wirecutter covering TVs and other AV equipment. I have reviewed TVs since 2012, and I have ISF Level III training and calibration certification. There are more TV stands in my house than there are people.

• For the latest version of this guide, I tested four new OLED TV lines from LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony, and I researched many others using sources I trust, such as CNET, Rtings.com, and Tom’s Guide.
• I consulted hardware engineers, scientists, and the Universal Display Corporation regarding subjects such as panel life, power efficiency, and the future potential of Organic Vapor Jet Printing.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

Who this is for

If you’re particular or passionate about picture quality — if you find yourself wishing that shadows or letterbox bars were truly black rather than charcoal gray when you’re watching movies or playing games in the dark, or if you’re frustrated by your TV’s lack of vivid yet realistic colors — you might consider paying more to build your living room or home theater around an OLED TV.

The major drawback of OLED TVs is that they don’t come cheap: Even the smallest, most humbly appointed models still run you at least $1,000 at this writing. Typically, you pay around 10% to 20% more than you would for an LCD TV with otherwise similar specifications. At screen sizes bigger than 65 inches, the price disparity is even larger.

Learn more about OLED

• 

  Buying a New TV This Year? Here’s What You Need to Know About OLED.

  OLED TVs have long been considered the highest-quality displays by hardcore videophiles. New developments may make one a good choice for your home.

How we picked and tested

You have fewer OLED TVs to choose from in comparison with LCD/LED TVs. The main manufacturers are LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. In deciding on which TVs to test, we looked for the series from each manufacturer that seemed likely to offer the best combination of performance, features, and value. We gave preference to TV series that came in more screen sizes to suit a variety of uses and viewing environments.

To evaluate OLED TVs, we used a combination of objective measurements, subjective viewing, and side-by-side comparisons. Our measurement equipment consisted of Portrait Displays’s Calman Ultimate software, a C6 HDR5000 colorimeter, and a VideoForge Pro signal generator. For subjective testing, we used source material from streaming apps, Blu-ray discs, contemporary gaming consoles, and HDR benchmark discs. Read more about Wirecutter’s TV testing methodology for details.

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  No matter what type of TV you’re looking for, you can trust that we’ve done our homework to help lead you to the right choice.

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  For those who have no idea where to start in the TV buying process, we explain the tech terms and answer the big questions.

Top pick: LG C5 Series

Top pick

The best OLED TV for the money

LG C5 Series

This OLED TV pairs top-notch picture quality with ample features, and it’s available in a wide range of screen sizes. But its color reproduction isn’t as vivid as that of our pricier picks.

$1,397 from Amazon(65-inch)$1,397 from Walmart(65-inch)$1,400 from Best Buy(65-inch)

Key specs

Screen sizes	42-inch (OLED42C5PUA), 48-inch (OLED48C5PUA), 55-inch (OLED55C5PUA), 65-inch (OLED65C5PUA), 77-inch (OLED77C5PUA), 83-inch (OLED83C5PUA)
Backlight type	no backlight (OLED panel)
Refresh rate	144 Hz
Color tech	standard OLED panel (WOLED)
HDR formats	HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision
HDMI specs	four HDMI 2.1 (one eARC)
Smart-TV platform	webOS 25
TV tuner	ATSC 1.0

OLED TVs look amazing thanks to their perfect black levels, rich color presentation, rapid response times, and massive viewing angles — and the LG C5 Series is a star in all those respects. It’s neither the brightest nor the most colorful nor the most accurate nor the most affordable, but it performs well in all of those areas, which makes it the best choice for the lion’s share of buyers.

LG has been gradually improving this TV line for years. As the staple of LG’s lineup, the C Series tends not to change much year over year. But one of the complaints about last year’s C4 Series, our previous top pick, was that it wasn’t quite bright enough while playing standard dynamic range (SDR) video. That might sound minor, but SDR is what most viewers still watch the vast majority of the time. Whereas the C4 hovered around 400 nits of brightness with SDR, the C5 hits around 600 nits. Although that increase may not sound staggering, it’s enough that you can casually turn on the C5 and enjoy it without needing to immediately turn off the lights or close the drapes.

By design, OLED TVs have excellent screen contrast because they have true black levels: Their pixels shut off when showing black. So even a 200-nit increase makes for exponential gains in screen contrast. I actually noticed this change the most while just messing around and checking out different aspects of LG’s webOS smart platform on the C5 — even with my shades open, allowing the midmorning sunlight in, I could see everything on the screen. That hasn’t always been the case with the C Series.

The C5 is still great for HDR, though not much better than the C4. In my tests, the C5’s peak brightness for HDR hovered between 1,100 and 1,300 nits. That’s not bad, but considering that premium LCD TVs can hit 3,000 nits of peak brightness, it’s not jaw-dropping. It’s about the same result I measured last year on the C4.

Of course, the C5’s inherently massive contrast ratio does most of the work toward making HDR video — and especially Dolby Vision content — look really good. While watching the nature series Our Planet on Netflix (in Dolby Vision), I was particularly impressed by the C5’s sustained brightness, especially when only smaller sections of the screen were very bright. Like most OLED TVs, the C5 dims as more of the screen adds brightness, but the HDR performance here is satisfactory unless you’re watching a lot of especially bright scenes in a brightly lit room.

This is a reliable TV for all kinds of gamers. The C5 boasts a 144 Hz native refresh rate and LG’s Game Optimizer features, as well as four HDMI 2.1–capable inputs, so it’s geared for smooth, responsive gaming. Using our Leo Bodnar input lag tester, I measured a low input lag of around 10 milliseconds with a 4K 60 Hz signal, and you get even better results at 120 frames per second or higher. Check out our article “How to Find the Best Gaming TV” for more explanation of gaming-related features.

I played Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition on an Xbox Series X, which supports 120 Hz playback in Dolby Vision, and found it to run smoothly and render well in terms of brightness and color balance. The C5 does reduce brightness quite a bit while the Game Optimizer function is active; I still found the game to be very playable, though I had to shut the curtains. If you want to game comfortably in a well-lit space, you may want to consider the Samsung S95F instead.

Connecting a gaming console automatically triggers the Game Optimizer overlay, which shows your current refresh rate, HDR status, and frames per second and allows you to turn on OLED Motion Pro, a feature that helps reduce motion trailing during 60 Hz video games by inserting black frames in between video frames. If you’re a PC gamer, you also have access to a few other features, including an option to render games in ultrawide formats (such as 21:9, instead of the normal 16:9 aspect ratio).

The webOS 25 streaming platform is stuffed full of AI features now, but it still gets the job done. The C5 comes equipped with LG’s webOS smart TV platform, and while webOS has never been our favorite way to navigate apps and smart-TV functions, I can’t knock it for its recent huge shift toward AI features, as almost every TV is doing that this year.

The addition of AI to webOS — namely, AI picture modes, AI sound modes, an AI concierge to recommend content, and even an AI chatbot that can help you change certain menu settings — is the biggest shift in comparison with last year’s webOS 24, but LG has also done a light redesign of the menu layout.

The simpler, less tile-oriented design seems to complement the new Magic Remote, which is called, you guessed it, the LG AI Magic Remote. The new remote is a stylistic improvement on the older model, and it seems designed as much for using your thumb to navigate menus as it is for using LG’s on-screen cursor. That said, the cursor is still present — and in my tests, it still popped up all the time even when I wasn’t trying to use it.

However, webOS itself — half due to the C5’s improved processing over last year’s model, and half due to the platform’s stylistic redesign — feels less bloated, and my experience navigating apps and various tiles was a lot snappier than in webOS 24.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The C5 is brighter, but it still can’t hang tough in especially bright rooms. As I mentioned, the C5 is better than its predecessors in this regard, but its reference luminance in SDR of around 600 nits is still not quite bright enough for sunny or lamp-heavy spaces.

This TV’s colors aren’t best-in-class. Unlike our other picks — which use QD-OLED panels, meaning they’re equipped with quantum dots — the C5 has a standard WOLED panel. To achieve higher brightness, this kind of panel uses a white subpixel to drive luminance, and that approach can eat away at perceptible color saturation with high-brightness colors.

You won’t be able to natively stream 4K broadcast content. Continuing the trend from previous years, LG isn’t supporting ATSC 3.0 tuners in its TVs, limiting them to the older ATSC 1.0 standard instead. ATSC 3.0 (or NextGenTV) tuners are required to decode over-the-air 4K broadcasts, so the omission here limits the C5’s future-proofing to a small degree.

For basic day-to-day use, the C5’s smart platform does everything you need it to, but it’s far from perfect. Initial bootup can be slow, and changing inputs takes longer than I would like. On top of that, the remote has no dedicated input button, which is annoying.

Recommended settings

If you want the C5 to look as accurate and cinematic as possible, use Filmmaker Mode, preferably in a dimmer or darkened room. If you’re watching in a brighter room, we recommend the ISF Expert Bright picture mode, which maintains a lot of Filmmaker Mode’s accuracy while adding more brightness.

Like all smart TVs, the LG C5 will spy on your viewing habits if you let it. You can opt out of that process during initial setup, but if you didn’t, it’s easy enough to do after the fact. First, find System > Additional Settings and turn off Live Plus. Then go to the Advertisement submenu and turn on Limit Ad Tracking.

Upgrade pick: Sony Bravia 8 II Series

Upgrade pick

The best OLED TV for videophiles

Sony Bravia 8 II Series

This OLED TV is the master of movie night, combining Sony’s deep cinematic experience with a top-tier QD-OLED screen. But it falters in brighter rooms.

$2800 $2300 from Amazon

(65-inch)

$2,298 from Walmart

Key specs

Screen sizes	55-inch (K55XR80M2), 65-inch (K65XR80M2)
Backlight type	no backlight (OLED panel)
Refresh rate	120 Hz
Color tech	quantum dots
HDR formats	HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG
HDMI specs	two HDMI 2.1, two HDMI 2.0
Smart-TV platform	Google TV
TV tuner	ATSC 3.0

The Sony Bravia 8 II Series is Sony’s first new QD-OLED TV since 2023. Although the Bravia 8 II is available only in 55- and 65-inch sizes and doesn’t come cheap, it smoothly combines one of Samsung’s high-end QD-OLED panels with Sony’s attention to accurate cinematic reproduction and excellent video processing. The end result is an OLED TV that videophiles will be excited about.

This TV was designed for a dedicated home theater room. Whereas the industry is trending toward brighter TVs, the Bravia 8 II is designed with more restraint. Although this TV uses the same QD-OLED panel as the Samsung S95F, our recommendation for bright rooms, the S95F’s peak brightness with HDR video is over 2,000 nits, while the Bravia 8 II caps things at around 1,600 nits.

On one hand, the Bravia 8 II achieves more brightness than Sony’s previous Bravia 8 and A95L OLED TVs, and it’s also a little brighter with HDR video than our top pick. Because it has perfect black levels, the screen contrast is awesome regardless of whether you’re watching SDR or HDR content.

On the other hand, this TV averages only around 300 nits in its SDR picture modes, while the Samsung S95F is closer to 600 nits in such modes. So rather than maxing out its potential brightness, the Bravia 8 II is set up to preserve cinematic details and to ensure that viewers can appreciate its inky black levels and subtler shadow gradations.

That tuning makes the Bravia 8 II great for movies, cinematic TV shows, and other high-quality content, but the picture can be hard to see when you turn it on during the day and just want to catch the weather forecast or the local news.

All of Sony’s SDR picture modes are limited to around 300 nits except for Vivid, which maxes out brightness at the expense of some accuracy, so that’s the mode to use if you’re struggling to see SDR content during the day. If you want more brightness for HDR viewing, you can go into the Picture settings to “HDR tone mapping” and change it from Gradation Preferred to Brightness Preferred. Doing so ups the general luminance considerably but makes the TV worse for dark-room viewing (it still looks great, just not quite as great).

Everything you watch will look like it’s supposed to. The Bravia 8 II is likely the best 2025 OLED TV for anyone who owns a deep DVD library or wants classic movies to look like they did upon release. For example, because the earliest seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are limited to 4:3 aspect ratio and 480p resolution, they need to be upconverted to eight times their original resolution when playing on a 4K screen. On most 4K TVs — even some other premium 4K OLED TVs — the results look awful. Although the show doesn’t look perfect on the Bravia 8 II, it looks a lot better on this model than it does on the majority of 2025 TVs I’ve tested: The picture is sharper, the film grain has less noise, and the colors match their original appearance.

On the other hand, with its 1,600 nits of HDR brightness and its QD-OLED panel (which, in my tests, was able to reproduce 100% of the DCI-P3 color space currently used for HDR video), the Bravia 8 II is also excellent at preserving the integrity of modern 4K HDR content without limiting its impact. And because this TV is compatible with both the HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats, it generally gives you the best version of HDR available, whether the content is on disc or from a streaming platform.

All of that is aided by the fact that (again, unlike a lot of modern TVs), the Bravia 8 II is calibrated for accuracy out of the box. Check our TV buying guide to see what we mean by “accurate.”

Google TV is our favorite smart-TV platform, and we appreciated how fast and responsive it was on the Bravia 8 II. Lee Neikirk/NYT WirecutterThe included remote is satisfyingly heavy and cool to the touch, and it features prominent buttons for jumping right into specific apps. Lee Neikirk/NYT Wirecutter

It isn’t a bad choice for gamers, but our other picks are better in that regard. In true Sony fashion, the Bravia 8 II is designed first and foremost for cinematic viewing. It isn’t a bad gaming TV: It has a 120 Hz refresh rate, and in our tests we measured 16.5 ms of input lag, which is higher than that of our other picks but still well within acceptable ranges.

But the Bravia 8 II reins in its brightness even more in Game Mode, and it has half the HDMI 2.1 inputs that our other picks have, with one of them dedicated to eARC. As a result, if you want to hook up an eARC-compatible soundbar, you’re left with a single HDMI 2.1 input for whichever gaming system you want to use.

I played games such as Final Fantasy XVI and Death Stranding on the PlayStation 5, and both games played smoothly and looked awesome on the Bravia 8 II. But I’m not sure I’d want to invest in this TV if competitive multiplayer gaming were my main interest, due to its higher input lag and lower native refresh rate in comparison with our other picks.

We prefer Google TV over LG and Samsung’s proprietary smart-TV platforms. Compared with the direct competition among the TVs in this guide — LG’s webOS, Samsung’s Tizen OS, and Panasonic’s Fire TV OS — the Bravia 8 II’s Google TV platform is far and away the best fit for most people.

Especially when you’re spending OLED-level money, you want a user interface that is as polished as the rest of the TV, and Google TV is that interface: Its cross-app searching is usually faster and more functional, it boots quickly and changes inputs almost immediately, and it has fewer random ads and banners intruding on your viewing experience.

Because the Bravia 8 II is such a high-end TV, it’s equipped with excellent Wi-Fi and internal processing, making the whole Google TV experience responsive and smooth.

This is the OLED TV to buy if you want to stream 4K broadcasts. This model has an ATSC 3.0 (NextGenTV) tuner built in, a feature that our other picks don’t offer. This functionality is limited in the US right now, so we don’t think it’s a selling point, but it is a nice bonus.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Black levels rise in the presence of ambient light. The QD-OLED layer is slightly but objectively reflective and reacts even to small amounts of ambient light in the room, causing black levels to rise above true black. If you’re watching dark, filmic content in a room with some light shining on the screen, you may notice that dark scenes are not as dark as they could be.

You have to buy Sony’s older model if you want a bigger screen size. The Bravia 8 II is available in only two screen sizes: 55 and 65 inches. Sony has claimed that it will continue to sell the 77-inch version of our previous upgrade pick, the A95L, which is still an incredibly good TV. The A95L is actually a bit brighter with SDR video, but it’s not as bright with HDR video. Its video processing is also less sophisticated, as the Bravia 8 II uses AI-based content detection.

The remote isn’t backlit. For a TV designed for dark-room viewing that costs as much as this one … c’mon, Sony.

Recommended settings

Almost all of the Bravia 8 II’s picture modes are accurate and well-calibrated out of the box. We found that the Professional picture mode is best for both SDR and HDR video in a dim or dark room, while the Cinema mode delivers a lot of accuracy for a brighter room.

When watching HDR video, go to Picture > HDR tone mapping to select Gradation Preferred in a darker room or Brightness Preferred in a brighter room.

Like all smart TVs, the Bravia 8 II spies on what you watch by default. To turn this off, go to the Initial Setup menu and turn off Samba Interactive TV.

Best OLED TV for bright rooms and gaming: Samsung S95F Series

Best for...

Best OLED TV for bright rooms and hardcore gaming

Samsung S95F Series

This OLED TV is blazingly bright, and its matte screen is great for sunny rooms and flashy video games. But it’s less accurate than our other picks.

$2,298 from Amazon(65-inch)$2,600 from Best Buy(65-inch)

Key specs

Screen sizes	55-inch (QN55S95F), 65-inch (QN65S95F), 77-inch (QN77S95F), 83-inch (QN83S95F)
Backlight type	no backlight (OLED panel)
Refresh rate	165 Hz
Color tech	quantum dots (in the 55-, 65-, and 77-inch models only)
HDR formats	HDR10, HLG, HDR10+
HDMI specs	four HDMI 2.1 (one eARC)
Smart-TV platform	Tizen OS
TV tuner	ATSC 1.0

While we’ve seen LCD TVs try their best to perform like OLED TVs for years now, the Samsung S95F Series might be the first OLED TV trying to perform like an LCD TV, at least in a couple of key performance areas. This TV is especially bright, with vivid colors and a matte screen that help it look just as good in a bright room as it does in a dark one.

This is the most room-flexible TV I’ve ever tested. Back in the day, I used to recommend that folks buy a TV for daytime viewing and a projector for nighttime viewing. Now, it’s usually a mini-LED-equipped LCD TV for day and an OLED TV for night. But the Samsung S95F throws that advice out the window.

Like all OLED TVs, the S95F is well suited for use in a dark room. Its black levels are truly black, and its self-emissive panel allows it to completely avoid issues that usually stand out on a LCD TV in a dark room, such as backlight bloom (when backlight elements are visible around bright objects against a dark background) and flashlighting (when LEDs are visible at the screen’s edges).

On the other side of that coin, the S95F can hit 2,000 nits of peak brightness (sometimes more) with HDR video, almost twice what our top pick can deliver and several hundred nits higher than what our upgrade pick offers. And thanks to the S95F’s QD-OLED panel, it has the color intensity to match that brightness, achieving 100% of the HDR color space (DCI-P3) and almost 90% of the future Rec.2020 color space.

The S95F seals the deal, however, by coming equipped with the same kind of matte screen you’ll find on Samsung’s The Frame TV. This screen finish does an impressive job of diffusing ambient light, and — combined with the TV’s high brightness — it means you can easily watch the S95F in rooms brightly lit with lamps or open windows.

This TV’s high brightness makes it great for HDR. By default, the S95F is pretty bright in all of its picture modes: It averages around 600 nits even in its accuracy-focused Filmmaker Mode with SDR video. It also tends to oversaturate color in most modes unless you go in and change the color-space selection in the Picture menu.

As a result, the picture kind of looks like HDR all the time, and it really does look awesome while playing true HDR10 content. Even movies with a colder, more subtle palette, such as The Dark Knight, are treated to an improved breadth of color tones. Animated movies like Moana 2, which feature lots of bright colors, are a visual treat.

The only drawback to the S95F’s baseline HDR performance is that it isn’t calibrated as accurately as the Sony Bravia 8 II, so in our tests some details, such as subtle gradations between the shadows and dark grays in Batman’s cape, weren’t as cleanly preserved. And no Samsung TV supports the Dolby Vision HDR format.

Gaming may just be the S95F’s strongest suit. Equipped with a native 165 Hz refresh rate and four HDMI 2.1 inputs, the S95F may be the best gaming TV of 2025. I measured an extremely low input lag of 9.6 ms with a 4K 60 Hz signal using our Leo Bodnar input lag tester, and you get even better results at 120 Hz refresh rates or higher.

The S95F is also equipped with Samsung’s Game Bar, which functions similarly to the Game Optimizer mode on the LG C5. The Game Bar shows useful specs at a glance (frames per second, HDR status, VRR status) and can even automatically zoom on a game’s mini-map. PC gamers also have access to ultrawide gaming options.

I played several games on this TV, including Night in the Woods, Spectra, and Death Stranding, and they all looked gorgeous and ran impressively well. It was astounding to see older games that I hadn’t played for over a decade pop with so much color.

The TV’s smart features work well but require some practice. Samsung’s proprietary Tizen OS smart-TV platform features dedicated hubs for streaming content, gaming content (including cloud gaming), and the TV’s “ambient” mode, which allows it to display low-light screensavers when not in use.

Doing things such as adding apps and organizing them in a row takes longer with Tizen OS in comparison with Google TV, and the automatic labeling of HDMI source devices isn’t always accurate. But at least the platform was quick and responsive on the S95F in my tests. If there’s one consistent (and justified) complaint, it’s that changing inputs smoothly requires a bit of a learning curve: The remote has no input button, and HDMI sources are automatically shuffled into one of the platform’s dedicated hubs, so your Blu-ray player, for example, ends up in the streaming hub, and your PlayStation 5 ends up in the gaming hub.

One of the biggest changes to Tizen OS in 2025 is that the TV now has a version of Samsung’s Daily Board screen. On the company’s tablets, this is a screen that turns on automatically while the device is charging. The version on the S95F turns on when the TV senses you’re nearby, showing the time and current weather at a glance. You can also use it to make notes or control smart devices through SmartThings.

It can be disconcerting to have the TV constantly turn on, even when you’re just walking through the room for a moment. But for a TV that is likely to be prominently displayed in a high-traffic, well-lit room, it’s a sensible addition. You can easily turn the function off if you don’t like it.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

This TV doesn’t support Dolby Vision. Based on feedback we’ve received, we can say that the omission of Dolby Vision, the highest-fidelity HDR format, is a dealbreaker for a lot of videophiles. This TV does support the similar HDR10+ format, but HDR10+ isn’t as widely adopted as Dolby Vision.

Black levels rise in the presence of ambient light. Just as with the Sony Bravia 8 II, the S95F’s QD-OLED layer is reflective, so a sufficient amount of ambient light can cause the black levels to rise enough that they’re brighter than the blackness directly around and behind the TV.

Older and lower-resolution content could look better. Compared with our upgrade pick, and even with our more affordable top pick, the S95F is not well equipped for upscaling sub-1080p content, and it does a fairly poor job with older, lower-bit-rate content. Edges look softer, and the TV’s naturally wide color gamut sometimes oversaturates the hues in older content, making it look unrealistic.

The matte screen can make dim, text-heavy content hard to look at. The matte finish tends to scatter light, which can obscure fine details and make text look blurry.

You can’t get native 4K broadcasts. Like our top pick, the Samsung S95F is equipped only with an ATSC 1.0 tuner, rather than the newer ATSC 3.0 (NextGenTV) tuner for decoding incoming 4K over-the-air broadcasts.

The largest size doesn’t have a QD-OLED panel. If you want an 83-inch TV, be aware that the 83-inch S95F uses a traditional WOLED panel, so the color performance is not as good.

Recommended settings

I recommend using Filmmaker Mode for both SDR and HDR video. With SDR, you may still have to lower the backlight considerably if you’re watching in a dim or dark room. If you find that you can’t change the picture mode, or the TV keeps automatically brightening, turn off AI Optimization.

Like all smart TVs, the Samsung S95F spies on what you watch. If you turned this function on during setup and want to disable it after the fact, go to Settings > Privacy Choices and turn off Viewing Information Services.

Other OLED TVs worth considering

If you want a brighter alternative to our upgrade pick: Panasonic is in a dubious position in the US TV market, with rumors swirling that the company hopes to sell its TV business. For that reason, we’re hesitant to make the Panasonic Z95B, the company’s flagship OLED TV for 2025, a pick in this guide. But if that weren’t the case, the Z95B might have been our upgrade pick. This excellent TV is available in 55-, 65-, and 77-inch screen sizes and is just as well-calibrated out of the box as the Sony Bravia 8 II. It offers similar, videophile-level picture quality and video processing, and it is brighter than the Sony for both SDR and HDR video. However, we don’t like the Fire TV smart platform as much as the streaming platforms built into our other picks, and the lack of quantum dot technology was occasionally apparent when I compared the Z95B’s color performance to that of our QD-OLED-equipped picks. But if you want the room flexibility of the Samsung S95F and the accuracy of the Sony Bravia 8 II in a single TV, the Panasonic Z95B is a great choice.

If you want a bigger version of our Sony upgrade pick: As stated above, Sony is continuing to sell the 77-inch version of our previous top pick, the Sony A95L. This is still an impressive TV, and it’s the one to buy if you want the most cinematic experience from a TV larger than 65 inches.

If you’re willing to buy last year’s TV to save money: You can still find our previous top pick, the LG C4, available through a lot of retailers. If I were looking to save money, I would go with the older C4 over the newer LG B5, as the former is brighter and has roughly the same processing as the C5. Likewise, you can still find the Samsung S95D at a discount compared with the S95F. The S95D has a lot of the same features, including a matte screen, but it’s not quite as bright as Samsung’s newer model.

The competition

We dismissed the 2025 Samsung S90F from consideration because of Samsung’s decision to manufacture the series with a mix of QD-OLED and WOLED panels, effectively making it a toss-up as to which technology you get upon purchase. With no way to predict which kind of panel buyers would receive upon purchasing these TVs, we do not feel comfortable recommending them.

I declined to test the 2025 Samsung S85F because reviews I trust cite it as a worse performer than our top pick, despite its costing as much or more depending on the screen size.

I don’t intend to test the 2025 LG G5 due to the specifics of its panel technology and performance metrics gleaned from reviews I trust. The Samsung S95F is a better bright-room choice because of its matte screen finish, and it’s better for gaming thanks to its QD-OLED panel. The Sony Bravia 8 II is a better pick for movies because its out-of-the-box calibration is better, and its QD-OLED panel promises improved color volume. I also think that LG’s decision not to include a tabletop stand with such an expensive TV is a bad move.

We dismissed the LG B5 from consideration because it is not meaningfully cheaper than LG’s C5, despite featuring worse processing, a lower native refresh rate, and lower overall luminance. Buyers looking to save money should buy last year’s LG C4 instead.

Sansui’s 55-inch S55VOUG looked attractive to us as a possible budget pick. However, while the S55VOUG proved to be a solid entry-level OLED TV, it was too dim to offer much flexibility outside of a dedicated viewing environment, and its processing was frustratingly sluggish at times.

This article was edited by Adrienne Maxwell and Grant Clauser.

Meet your guide

Lee Neikirk

What I Cover

I write about TVs, media streaming devices, TV wall mounts, Blu-ray players, and other AV equipment. Because I’m a musician, I occasionally help test things such as USB audio interfaces.

Further reading

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  All the TVs Wirecutter Recommends in 2025

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  Gear to Get Better Sound From Your TV

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  TVs are made for great pictures, so we recommend the best ways to get great sound too.
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  The Best Indoor HDTV Antenna

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  The Channel Master FLATenna is the best indoor TV antenna because it performed the best in our tests, it’s easy to install, and it’s affordable.

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  How to Find the Best Gaming TV (and When to Get a Monitor Instead)

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  If you’re looking to buy a TV specifically for gaming, we explain the most important features, as well as when to buy a gaming monitor instead.

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