After years of decrying OLED as technology that was inferior to its QLED TVs, Samsung jumped onboard the OLED train and in the last few years has done a lot to advance the technology.
It’s challenged LG’s OLEDs to go even brighter. It’s introduced a glare-free screen that reduces reflections very well (but also impacts picture quality slightly). Samsung Electronics and Display arms have helped up the performance of premium OLED TVs since the introduction of QD-OLED.
From what I’ve seen the S95H looks to the best that Samsung has delivered so far, at least on the picture quality front. But there is one that continues to bug me about the TV.
Improvements where it counts
First things first, let me start with the good parts.
The S95H is perceptively much brighter than the five-star S95F. Specular highlights have improved, which gives those tiny bits of brightness even more glow. The picture looks even more natural than before, with colour reproduction improved (white tones really hit the mark). Banding and noise reduction have been improved thanks to the S95H’s AI processor, helping give lower quality content a bigger boost on a 4K screen.
I’ve still not heard how the S95H sounds, and I suspect that will still be a weak area compared to the picture performance but that’s not the issue I have with the S95H.
It’s that odd frame design around the TV. TVs aren’t the most beautiful products to look out, but the frame makes the S95H look ungainly.
The S95H looks… peculiar
The popularity of Samsung’s lifestyle TVs has probably led to this decision. The Frame TVs have created a part of the market that no other brand saw coming and most of them are trying to captilise on this new market with copycats. Hisense has its Canvas TV, TCL its NXTPAPER, LG is introducing its Gallery+ in 2026. Where Samsung leads, others have tended to follow suit.
This is a design, though, where I’m not sure anyone will be jumping to copy.
There’s a crossover between the S95H and the Frame in terms of its appeak at the lifestyle market, and I imagine someone at Samsung approved this look because they’re hoping to catch some of that lifestyle market for the S95H, which has in the past been positioned as a TV for the home cinema enthusiast.
But the awkwardness and bulky aspect of the frame, which is attached to the TV and can’t be removed, doesn’t improve the aesthetic appeal. The TV would look good with a piece of art displayed on it, but less so when I’m watching Fallout S2 on it. I find it looks distracting rather than seamless and it looks even stranger if you see when the feet are attached.
There is another…
But there is some hope. While the S95H is the successor to the S95F, there has been mentions of a S99H, which apparently is the S95H but without the gargantuan frame attached to the back.
If it does exists, that shows that perhaps Samsung wasn’t fully invested in the new design being the look going forward for its flagship OLED, and for home cinema fans there is a less ostentatious version in the works. I failed to as whether this design translates to all sizes or whether it was just the big screen, but there was a S95 model (no indication on whether it was ‘F’ or the new ‘H’ model) that didn’t have the frame around it.
I’m all for innovation, especially when it comes to design as TVs with black frames are very much dull. But maybe more TV brands should take a page out of Sky’s book with its Glass models and just provide TVs in different colours. It’s simple and doesn’t strange.
