Samsung’s new OLED TV could make annoying glare a thing of the past

Samsung’s third-generation QD-OLED TV, the new S95D, comes with a unique trick compared to its predecessors: it’s got a glare-free display that the company claims all but eliminates any noticeable reflections. This should prevent annoying distractions when you’re watching the TV on a sun-drenched day and trying to enjoy your content.

Anti-reflective coatings are nothing new on high-end TVs — Samsung, LG, and Sony are all pretty good at them as it stands — but Samsung seems to have gone a step beyond that with the special panel treatment being used here, and it insists there are no negative impacts on viewing angle or color distortion as a result.

“The OLED-optimized, low-reflection technology uses a new, specialized hard-coating layer and surface coating pattern to deliver the beautiful detail of OLED without the glare,” Samsung said in its CES press release. The company claims this is “the brightest OLED screen from Samsung yet,” and like last year, the S95D is available in sizes up to 77 inches. It supports refresh rates up to 144Hz and has “AI-enhanced color accuracy” that’s been validated by Pantone.

A “conventional” OLED at left compared with Samsung’s anti-glare OLED treatment on the right.

At Samsung’s First Look event at CES 2024, I got a preview of the glare-free OLED screen. The company set up a torture test of sorts, with a bright “window” directly next to the TV. And in the below shot of the rabbit, you can barely even tell the TV was surrounded by a ton of other bright screens on the demo floor.

Aside from the new glare-free display, you’re getting the same quantum dot OLED benefits that we’ve seen from these Samsung sets over the last couple of years: they can produce richer, more vivid colors at higher brightness levels compared to traditional WOLED panels (like those used by LG), and they’re quite a bit brighter than the very best OLED TVs from just a few years ago. The S95C earned rave reviews, and there’s little reason to expect any different from this year’s model — especially now that it should be plenty visible in just about any kind of viewing environment you can throw at it.

At some angles you’ll still see reflections, but they’re not nearly as distracting.

The S95D is under 11 millimeters thin, and it comes with Samsung’s One Connect Box. You plug your streaming devices and gaming consoles into that, and it runs everything up to the TV with a clean single cable.

Like the rest of Samsung’s 2024 TVs, the S95D runs the latest version of the company’s Tizen software, which allows each person in a home to use their own Samsung ID for personalized content recommendations. Samsung is also continuing to strongly push its Samsung TV Plus FAST service, which combines hundreds of free-to-watch channels into a single interface.

Samsung is also announcing a step-down S90D OLED that lacks the glare-free finish and a few of the other design frills of the flagship model, but you can still count on top-notch QD-OLED picture quality. But as ever, these TVs continue to lack Dolby Vision, instead favoring HDR10 and HDR10 Plus.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge