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Tom's Guide
14 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Does your OLED TV look funny? Here are 5 common issues and how to diagnose them
OLED TVs aren't perfect. Despite their reputation of being some of the best TVs money can buy, OLED displays are susceptible to some odd visual quirks that range from minor blemishes like color banding to major issues like image retention. Having been in the TV-testing business for over a decade, I've seen everything from the earliest OLED models all the way up to the latest and best OLEDs on the market today and have needed to troubleshoot a fair number of them over the years. Here's a list of the strange oddities you might encounter with an OLED TV and whether or not they're worth worrying about. Though not a prevalent issue in recent years, some OLED TVs — particularly WOLED TVs used by LG and Sony — demonstrate minor color tinting when viewed a few feet away from a head-on position. Typically, the effect is most pronounced when the screen displays white a or near-white picture, like during the broadcast of a hockey game. The white portions of the picture will subtly shift into a pale pink or green, shifting as the viewer moves. As mentioned, it's been a few years since I've seen this issue, but folks with OLED TVs from around 2021 to 2023 might notice it from time to time. The cause of the tinting isn't one for concern. Fortunately, the cause of the tinting isn't one for concern, most likely having to do with variance in manufacturing. Based on reports across the web, the severity of the issue appears to be random, and I can personally attest that I've never witnessed a case so severe as to compromise the picture entirely. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. While the above photo has been edited to illustrate the issue, it's plain to see that the OLED depicted is struggling to display a dark gray screen without saddling the left and right sides of the picture with a bold, pink column. Unfortunately, in my experience, this visual artifact tends to be more noticeable than the off-axis tint detailed above. This is because it tends to rear its head during any dark scene with low color saturation. In other words, a background wall doesn't need to be gray for the discoloration to appear. Black-and-white content will bring it out almost immediately. Much like the off-axis color tinting, this problem affects OLED TVs seemingly at random. However, not once have I seen the issue manifest on quantum dot-enhanced OLEDs like Samsung's excellent flagship, the S95D OLED TV. This leads me to believe that QD-OLEDs aren't as susceptible to the root cause. In my experience, QD-OLED TVs like the Samsung S95D tend to exhibit fewer visual quirks than TVs with WOLED panels. The S95D (one of our favorite OLEDs of its year) delivers an incredible picture and a sensational suite of features for gaming, streaming and beyond. To check your OLED TV for this issue, switch off your lights and, on your OLED, pull up this Dirty Screen Effect YouTube video uploaded by Sunil Raman. This short clip will start with a 100% black screen and gradually move up the grayscale until it displays 100% white. The dark gray-colored slides at 5% to 20% are particularly useful at coaxing out the pink tint. As far as I know, if you do discover pink-colored blotches, it can't be addressed outside of replacing the TV. Above is a close-up of a QD-OLED TV panel displaying a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. If you look along the edges of the black squares, you'll notice green- and magenta-colored rows of pixels. This is a result of QD-OLED's triangular subpixel structure, which places the green subpixel above red and blue. Fortunately, this minor, near-imperceptible color fringing is not a substantial mark against QD-OLED TVs. In general, you're most likely to notice this fringing when light-colored title cards or subtitles are on screen. Unless you intend on using a QD-OLED display as a monitor (or if you plan on regularly sitting very close to a QD-OLED TV), it's not a cause for concern. On rare occasions, I've seen OLED TVs arrive out of the box with vertical or horizontal banding across most or all of the screen. They usually manifest as straight lines of varying widths. Like the localized pink tint, this banding is most noticeable when large portions of the picture are white or gray. In my experience, OLED banding tends to work itself out after about five to ten hours of use. While it's frustrating to see these imperfections shortly after setting up a brand-new TV, I've got some good news: In my experience, OLED banding tends to work itself out after about five to ten hours of use. In the past, when I've reached out to LG about one of its TVs exhibiting this banding, a representative has recommended that I run the display's pixel refresher. Known as Pixel Cleaning on LG OLEDs (or Pixel Refresh on Samsung OLEDS), this process automatically adjusts the luminance of pixels depending on whether or not an unevenness is detected. Be warned, however: I would not manually run these pixel-cleaning features with any regularity. They can be aggressive over time — akin to scouring your display — and there's a good chance your OLED TV is already running a lighter, preventative version of the feature automatically when it's off. If none of these measures eliminates the TV's banding issue, I would brush up on the warranty and reach out to customer service. Burn-in is the only one of these issues that happens as a direct result of how an OLED TV is used. It describes the ghostly image of previously viewed content, now embedded within the display after many hours of use. Due to the organic nature of OLED displays, they're particularly susceptible to burn-in — or at least they were. Burn-in was something of an OLED boogeyman in the early days of the technology, but brands have built up plenty of defense against the issue in the years since. For instance, all major OLED-makers offer a pixel-shifting feature that occasionally (and subtly) moves the picture to ensure that each pixel is switching things up from time to time. The aforementioned pixel refreshing cycle remains an option, too, if you're noticing some image retention taking place. In general, the OLED TVs of today are far better equipped to prevent burn-in than earlier models. In general, the OLED TVs of today are far better equipped to prevent burn-in than earlier models. However, it still wouldn't hurt to give your TV a rest every now and then, particularly if you play games with static HUDs, or watch content with chyrons and/or tickers. If your OLED TV is exhibiting burn-in, it might be covered by the brand's standard warranty. LG, for instance, offers a one-year warranty on most of its OLED TVs which ought to cover burn-in, but the likelihood that you'll be dealing with OLED burn-in that soon is very, very low. Personally, I wouldn't let the prospect of burn-in stop me from shopping for an OLED TV. Nor would I let any of these issues dissuade me. The truth is, no TV is perfect — regardless of display technology. Due to the nature of their hardware, OLED TVs certainly need to be coddled a bit more relative to their LCD/LED counterparts, but those TVs come with their own potential quirks, too.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Yahoo
Samsung 65-Inch S95F OLED TV
PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing. OLED TVs keep getting brighter, and Samsung's S95F continues the trend. I tested a preproduction model of the company's flagship OLED at its QA lab, and it puts out much more light than its predecessor, the S95D, making an already excellent picture look even better. Based on what I saw, the Samsung S95F ($3,199.99 for 65 inches) is a stunner that I look forward to putting through more testing when I get a production-ready model into PC Labs. For now, the ($3,399.99 for 65 inches) is even brighter, adds Dolby Vision support, and has a more intuitive user interface, making it our Editors' Choice winner for premium OLED TVs. The S95F's panel is almost completely bezel-less, framed by the edge of a metal band along the sides and top and only a narrow brushed metal strip along the bottom edge. Most of the TV's ports and electronics are located in a separate One Connect Box, making for a very thin panel. It's not quite paper-thin, however, as the TV itself houses a 70W, 4.2.2-channel sound system. That's more advanced than the stereo sound most TVs offer and even bests the LG Evo G5's 4.2-channel system, which lacks height channels. The One Connect Box drives the S95F by sending all of its power and signal information through a single five-foot cable (if you need a longer reach, Samsung offers 16- and 48-foot cables for $220 and $300, respectively). This lets you place the box some distance from the screen and connect all your devices to it, leaving the screen itself almost completely free of wires. The box can also be mounted behind the TV on the included metal table stand if you prefer. The plain black plastic slab measures 13 by 14.2 by 1.3 inches (HWD), and has four HDMI ports (one eARC), three USB-A ports, a 3.5mm RS-232C port, an optical audio output, an Ethernet port, and an antenna/cable connector. Samsung includes the same SolarCell Remote that comes with its other flagship TVs. It's a slim, rectangular, matte black wand with a large circular navigation pad near the top, a pinhole microphone, volume and channel rockers, and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, and YouTube. Frustratingly, there are no input buttons for quickly switching sources. It has a solar cell on the back and a USB-C port on the bottom for charging its built-in rechargeable battery, so you don't have to deal with AAs. As always, Samsung's Tizen OS smart TV platform is loaded with features but slightly frustrating due to its overbearing tendency to over-automate certain tasks and bury menus a layer or two deeper than most other interfaces. It's inching forward a little, though, and now lets you easily access settings by just pressing the gear button on the remote instead of having to press the gear button and then manually navigate through a long list to get to that menu. All major streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Twitch, and YouTube, are available on Tizen OS. Apple AirPlay and Miracast/WiDi are also supported, so you can stream directly from your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC. Amazon's Alexa voice assistant is also built into the TV, and you can access it hands-free via the S95F's far-field microphone. The S95F is a 4K OLED TV with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, and hybrid log gamma (HLG), but Samsung continues to leave Dolby Vision out of its TVs. It has an ATSC 1.0 tuner for over-the-air broadcasts, but not ATSC 3.0. I test TVs with a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays' Calman software, and I was impressed by the S95F's performance. The biggest weakness of OLED TVs (besides the high price) is brightness, and they are almost universally less bright than high-end LED TVs, with some models looking outright dim. In HDR Movie mode, the S95F shows a modest peak brightness of 336 nits with a full-screen white field but an impressive 1,364 nits with an 18% white field. Moving to a 10% field, that number increases to a blazing 2,007 nits. I compare 18% white field measurements between TVs to be consistent across different types, but that 10% field brightness is excellent, especially with perfect black levels and no light bloom whatsoever thanks to the pixel-level dimming OLED technology enables. It's far brighter than the S95D (1,060 nits 18%, 1,613 nits 10%), though not quite the brightest OLED I've tested. That designation belongs to the LG Evo G5, which is downright stunning at 1,608 nits with an 18% white field and 2,386 nits with a 10% white field. Mini-LED TVs are still far brighter than OLEDs, and the Samsung QN90F has a peak brightness of 2,259 nits with an 18% field and technically perfect black levels, but light bloom is a factor. Color is almost always a strong suit of OLEDs, and the S95F is definitely proof of that. The above charts show the TV's color levels in Movie mode with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standards and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3 digital cinema standards, and in both cases, colors are largely accurate and free of any tinting. Whites lean just a little bit toward magenta but are still fairly close, and with an HDR signal, colors actually manage to exceed the DCI-P3 color space. The performance is very similar to the LG Evo G5, though the G5's whites are much more accurate and its magentas are a bit warm. The Great Gatsby demonstrates the strong contrast the S95F is capable of. Black suits in the party scenes show plenty of detail, like cuts, contours, and textures, while staying very dark. The whites of shirts and balloons look bright, while skin tones appear natural. Demonstration footage on the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD benchmark disc really lets the S95F show off its excellent picture quality. A timelapse scene of a landscape from before dawn to midday transitions smoothly, starting very dark and brightening considerably. Snowy shots retain lots of highlight details, making wisps of clouds and falling snowflakes visible against white skies and snow-covered ground. Colorful objects against completely black backgrounds are bright and vivid. The backgrounds remain perfectly black without any light bloom. Gamers will be pleased by the S95F, which has a 120Hz panel that supports up to 165Hz variable refresh rate (VRR) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. It's very responsive, too. Using a Leo Bodnar 4K Video Signal Tester, I measured an input lag of 9.6 milliseconds with a 4K60 signal and 4.8ms with a 1080p120 signal on the S95F. That's below the one-frame threshold (16.6ms for 60Hz, 8.3ms for 120Hz) we consider best for gaming.
