Samsung S95C Review: Two Years Later – Brilliant, Flawed, and Everything In-Between After living with the Samsung S95C for two full years, I can confidently say it’s one of the most impressive TVs I’ve owned – but also one of the most contradictory. It delivers moments of absolute visual brilliance, yet stumbles in areas you wouldn’t expect from a flagship set. Picture Quality: Stunning in 4K, Surprisingly Ordinary Below It Let’s start with what the S95C does best: 4K content. When fed high-quality material, this TV is breathtaking. HDR films, premium streaming titles, and next-gen console games all look spectacular, with rich colours and the punch you’d expect from Samsung’s QD-OLED technology. But the shine comes off when you drop below 4K. Upscaling is where the S95C reveals its weak spot. YouTube videos that aren’t in 4K often look noticeably soft, and low-quality sources simply don’t get the refinement or clarity you might hope for in a premium TV. It’s here that I occasionally wish I’d gone with Sony, whose upscaling pedigree remains class-leading – though of course, those sets come with their own compromises. For reviewers to gloss over this is a shame, because most people don’t live on a diet of constant Ultra HD content. When the S95C isn’t working with pristine material, you can tell. Gaming: The S95C at Its Absolute Best If there’s one category where Samsung has absolutely nailed it, it’s gaming. The S95C has the most advanced and comprehensive gaming feature set I’ve seen on a TV. Input lag is fantastically low, image quality in games is often jaw-dropping, and Samsung’s excellent Game Bar puts loads of useful tools right at your fingertips. A particularly transformative feature is Samsung’s motion interpolation for 30fps games. Yes, it can introduce some subtle motion trails, but the improvement in smoothness feels enormous, and personally I’ll take that trade-off over a juddery 30fps experience any day. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re open to it, it’s brilliant. Software & UI: Samsung Still Has Work to Do Now for one of my biggest frustrations: the software experience. Coming from the rock-solid LG C7, the S95C feels far less reliable. Apps occasionally refuse to launch. YouTube has, on more than one occasion, decided to display videos in a tiny box on the screen for no clear reason. And unlike LG’s webOS, Samsung’s Tizen platform doesn’t make these problems easy to resolve. Even the connection to my Samsung soundbar occasionally fails – something that just shouldn’t happen with products from the same ecosystem. The hardware is premium. The software experience simply isn’t. The Remote: Clever, Compact, and Annoyingly Sensitive Samsung gives you two remotes: a slim solar-powered USB-C one, and a more traditional handset. The small remote is clever in theory – lightweight and minimalist – but in practice, it’s too easy to press the wrong button by mistake, and after only two years the icons for “back” and “home” have already faded significantly. A very odd oversight on a flagship product. Design: Gorgeous and Practical A clear win for Samsung. The S95C is incredibly thin and sits beautifully flush on the wall. The One Connect box is a brilliant idea, letting me hide all the cables in my TV stand for a clean, premium setup. It’s one of those conveniences you quickly grow to appreciate every single day. Black Levels and Colour Despite the lack of a polariser – something early reviewers mentioned – I’ve never found it a huge issue. In a direct comparison, my old LG C7 probably had a slightly deeper sense of black in certain conditions, but it’s marginal. Where the S95C absolutely dominates is colour. The QD-OLED panel produces far richer, more vibrant colours than the C7 ever could. In this respect, the upgrade is enormous and immediately noticeable. Final Verdict: A Brilliant TV With Noticeable Caveats The Samsung S95C is a TV capable of jaw-dropping brilliance, especially with 4K content and gaming, where it stands toe-to-toe with the best in the business. Its design is stunning, its colours are phenomenal, and its gaming feature set is unmatched. But the flaws are real. Upscaling is average for a flagship. The software can be buggy. And the remote, while innovative, has some baffling design quirks. If you mainly watch high-quality content or you’re a gamer, the S95C will delight you. If you watch a lot of mixed-quality content or you value a rock-solid smart TV platform, you’ll notice its shortcomings. A brilliant TV – just not a flawless one.

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