We put Samsung's S95F TV to the test. Its anti-glare screen and wide viewing angles make it perfect for the Super Bowl.

The Samsung S95F is the brand's flagship OLED TV from 2025, and it remains a stunner. Its image performance is nearly unrivaled, and its glare-free matte screen does an excellent job of fighting pesky reflections. This makes it a particularly great TV for watching sports in a bright room, and it's one of my top Super Bowl TV recommendations.

However, the S95F's matte coating does hurt the TV's black levels. And though Samsung touts several Vision AI features, none of these functions are as revelatory as the company's marketing materials would have you believe.

But while there are some drawbacks here and there, the S95F's many strengths outweigh its flaws. A new 2026 edition of this set, called the S95H, will launch later this year, but it's expected to cost a lot more, and it's not yet clear how big an upgrade it will offer. As long as you're a fan of its matte screen, the S95F remains one of the best TVs for picture quality, and recent discounts have made it a great value for those who seek premium performance.

A thin profile and convenient connection box elevate the TV's design

The Samsung S95F is available in 55-, 65-, 77-, and 83-inch screen sizes. With the exception of the 83-inch model, all sizes use a QD-OLED panel. The "QD" stands for quantum dots, a color technology that enables a wider, brighter color range than a traditional OLED screen.

The 83-inch model does not use quantum dots and instead relies on other panel enhancements to deliver brightness performance comparable to quantum-dot models. Samsung hasn't confirmed which panel the 83-inch model uses, but it's likely a four-stack OLED like the one in LG's high-end G5.

At less than half an inch thick, the S95F's profile is notably thinner than most competing QLED displays, which require thicker panels to accommodate their backlighting systems. All sizes also feature the brand's "One Connect Box." This separate component houses the TV's inputs rather than having them built into the panel. This approach gives users more flexibility with cable management, as you can either mount the box on the back of the TV or hide it in a media console.

The S95F's bright, high-contrast picture is nearly flawless

I evaluated the S95F during a daylong testing session at Samsung's New Jersey facility. To review picture performance, I ran the TV through my typical testing process. This involves measuring brightness with a colorimeter and sampling various scenes I've curated from movies and TV shows that highlight different image quality attributes. For most of my testing, I used the TV's "Filmmaker Mode," since it offers the most accurate out-of-the-box picture, but I also sampled other modes to get a sense of how they look.

Initially, something seemed off about the S95F's picture. The colors were oddly dull in certain sequences, and the display's contrast looked flatter than expected. Another reviewer who attended the same session noticed similar issues. Samsung gave the TV a factory reset, and voila, those problems disappeared, and the S95F looked appropriately stunning. I'm not sure what the issue was, but the TV I tested was technically a pre-production unit, so it's not unusual for there to be some lingering software kinks.

The important thing is that the S95F ultimately blew me away with its image quality. This is one of the brightest OLED TVs I've tested, and it's second only to the LG G5, which gets a bit brighter. On a 10% test pattern (a white box that takes up 10% of the screen), the TV put out an impressive 2,170 nits, which is nearly 500 nits more than I measured on the previous S95D. The S95F also maintained that brightness for a longer period.

Since the brightest elements of most movies and TV shows are small highlights, a 10% test pattern is most important for evaluating a display's high-dynamic-range (HDR) performance. A lot of HDR content is mastered for 1,000 nits, but titles produced for 2,000 and 4,000 nits are becoming more common. An OLED that can hit over 2,000 nits is a major accomplishment, as it can offer a more accurate representation of how HDR movies and TV shows are supposed to look.

Scenes from "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Aquaman" on 4K Blu-ray were perfect showcases of the S95F's capabilities. Both are mastered for high brightness beyond 1,000 nits, and the S95F was able to produce specular highlights, like lightning blasts, fiery explosions, and shimmering armor, with greater intensity than previous-generation OLEDs. And the TV's colors were also vibrant, bringing the vivid underwater world of Atlantis to life with rich saturation.

Since this is an OLED, the S95F's contrast performance is as good as it gets. The OLED panel's pixel-level dimming delivers an infinite contrast ratio, with deep black levels that completely disappear in a dark room. Scenes from "The Matrix" and "1917" were perfect examples of this: shadows appeared inky while bright elements of the image, like a flashlight or exploding flare, popped against black backgrounds without any troublesome blooming.

Even top QLED TVs with high-end Mini LED panels are prone to some backlight fluctuations and halos during tricky sequences, like the burning church scene in "1917," but the S95F handled this type of content without any issues. You can learn more about the pros and cons of OLED tech in our QLED vs. OLED comparison.

Beyond high-quality 4K content, I also sampled lower-resolution HD sources from YouTube and Samsung TV Plus (the brand's free ad-supported streaming app). Though Sony often gets heralded for its industry-leading upscaling and picture processing, Samsung and LG have made big strides in this regard, and the S95F is further proof of that. Sure, lower-quality material still looks noticeably softer and compressed than native 4K content, but the S95F's processing is a clear step above that of TVs from cheaper brands like TCL, Hisense, and Roku.

Like all OLED TVs, the S95F also has exceptional viewing angles. Though contrast and color tend to distort when you sit off-center from a QLED TV, that's not the case here. This helps make the S95F a great choice for watch parties since all your guests get a great view.

The S95F's gaming capabilities are on par with what shoppers should expect from a flagship set in this class. You get variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM) support to enable smooth gameplay and low input lag. But the S95F offers an even higher refresh rate than the older S95D, jumping from 144Hz to 165Hz. This feature is only a benefit for PC gamers with a high-end graphics card, but it's still an impressive feat.

The TV's glare-free tech is great for reducing reflections, but it gives dark scenes a faded look

Like the previous-generation S95D, the S95F uses Samsung's glare-free technology, which relies on a matte screen rather than a glossy one. Glossy screens are used on most competing TVs, like LG's G5, and though they're great for preserving high contrast, they can lead to mirror-like reflections when watching TV in a bright room.

The S95F's matte screen can scatter and diffuse glare, nearly eliminating direct reflections. Samsung says this second-generation glare-free screen offers even better performance than the first-gen version. I couldn't compare the S95D and S95F side by side, but the S95F certainly does an incredible job of reducing glare. With the lights on, I didn't notice any bothersome reflections on the screen. Sure, if you shine light directly on the panel, you will see some hazy glare, but this effect is nothing like the mirror quality of a glossy-style OLED. This is a game changer for people who like to watch TV during the day, and it helps cement the S95F as a top TV for sports.

Unfortunately, the S95F's matte screen is still prone to the same key drawback I encountered with the S95D: it elevates black levels in a bright room. The way the anti-glare filter scatters light causes black levels to lose their inkiness, appearing slightly faded. This is most evident when watching content with many dim scenes. So, while not a big factor when watching bright sports, if you stream a movie with many shadowy sequences, the hazy black levels could be distracting. In a dark room, however, the S95F's black levels are as deep as on competing OLED TVs with glossy screens.

I'm not sure if the new screen handles contrast a bit better or if I've just become more accustomed to the look of matte panels, but I appreciated the overall benefits of the S95F's glare-free tech more than I did on the S95D. Ultimately, I still prefer the deeper black levels you get with a glossy panel, but if your room is plagued by reflections that you can't (or don't want to) fix with curtains, the S95F is a great solution.

Samsung's smart TV system is solid, but the AI features are underwhelming

The S95F uses the latest version of Samsung's Tizen smart TV operating system. This platform is decent overall, with solid navigation and all the major functions you could need. In general design and usability, I put it on par with LG's similar webOS system and a step above Amazon's Fire TV OS, which I find too cluttered and filled with sponsored content. However, I still prefer the Google TV and Roku OS systems thanks to their more streamlined interfaces.

The S95F's sidebar panel offers access to dedicated pages for search, ambient mode, Samsung Daily+ (health, work, and smart device control apps), and a gaming hub. The gaming hub is where you'll find cloud services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Amazon Luna, and Xbox Game Pass. Cloud gaming performance heavily depends on your internet connection, but it's a cool feature.

For voice control, you can choose between Samsung's Bixby virtual assistant or Amazon's Alexa. Spoken commands can be given hands-free with a wake word or by pressing a button on the included SolarCell remote. The remote is similar to past models, with a compact design and the ability to charge via sunlight or indoor lights, so you never need to replace batteries (it can also be recharged much more quickly via USB-C). However, it's disappointing that it isn't backlit, a common feature on remotes from brands like Hisense and TCL.

In its marketing materials, Samsung emphasizes its Vision AI suite of smart features across its latest TVs. However, most of these AI-powered functions are just upgraded versions of features that the company's older TV models already supported. Various AI upscaling and image/audio enhancement modes have been improved, but are nothing new. These features can be useful for users unhappy with the TV's image or audio quality, but they often introduce unnecessary adjustments. Generally, I recommend avoiding these settings and using Filmmaker or Standard mode instead. Meanwhile, the few genuinely new AI features are underwhelming.

First, there's a Live Translate function that uses AI to offer real-time subtitles in one of seven languages. That sounds cool, but this feature only works with live broadcasts from an over-the-air (OTA) antenna. Many people watch TV via cable or streaming, so that's a notable limitation.

Samsung also touts a Click to Search feature that lets you click a button on the remote to pull up info about the content you're watching, including details about the cast on-screen. This sounds similar to the X-Ray feature that Amazon supports on Prime Video, but it only works with live OTA broadcasts, cable TV, and Samsung TV Plus. So, it won't work when streaming popular apps like Netflix or Disney Plus.

Even with compatible sources, Click to Search is kind of lame. I tested this function while channel-surfing on Samsung TV Plus and pulled it up while "La La Land" was playing. A side panel displayed the name of the movie, its IMDB score, and a list of other titles coming up on the same channel. Another tab listed the film's main actors and showed other movies they're in. That's all fine, but pretty limited compared to what Prime Video's X-Ray can do. X-Ray will pull up all of the actors in the specific scene you're watching, not just the top-billed people in the movie as a whole. With its limited compatibility and info, I can't see many people using this function too often.

Based on my time with these features, I don't see a major evolution in the brand's smart TV capabilities compared to previous-gen models. But honestly, that's OK. Samsung's smart TVs have already been plenty smart, so the S95F's advancements are fine. But the idea that Samsung's latest models are ushering in a new phase of "AI TVs" is overblown.

Should you buy the Samsung S95F?

The Samsung S95F is the most impressive consumer TV the brand has ever made. It offers a solid bump in brightness over the already stellar S95D, some refinements to its glare-free screen, and a couple of new AI-powered features.

However, those AI functions aren't as innovative or useful as the brand's marketing materials make them sound. And the TV's matte panel remains a divisive feature that most people will love or hate. With that in mind, I recommend the LG G5 as a great top-of-the-line OLED alternative for buyers who prefer a glossy panel.

But if reflections are a headache in your room, the S95F is the ultimate solution with high-end picture quality, wide viewing angles, and great gaming features. A new model, called the S95H, is coming later this year, but given the expected cost difference, I anticipate the S95F to be the better value for much of 2026.

For more recommendations, check out our guides to all the best TVs, best Samsung TVs, and best OLED TVs.

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