‘A really close fight’: I tested the LG C6 and Samsung S90H OLED TVs side-by-side and it’s really close call, but I know which I’d pick
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The LG C6 is easily one of the best TVs I’ve tested this year, showing a significant upgrade over its predecessor, the LG C5. The new model has faster performance, a real step-up in brightness (nearly 300 nits peak HDR and 50 fullscreen HDR) and a more accurate picture, especially with its color temperature, mitigating some of the green tint I saw in the LG C5 when I compared the C6 and C5 side-by-side.
While the LG C6 does currently sit at the top of the TV food chain for me, in terms of performance vs price, there are some rivals I’ve been intrigued to test alongside it. One of those has just landed in our testing lab: the Samsung S90H, Samsung’s own mid-range OLED and direct rival to the C6.
I decided to compare the two side-by-side using reference 4K Blu-ray scenes I use to test TVs. Can the S90H cement itself as one of the best OLED TVs and de-throne the LG C6?
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Brightness and bright room viewing
In terms of brightness measurements, the C6 registered 1,427 nits peak HDR brightness in Filmmaker Mode, which is a nice result for a mid-range OLED. Surprisingly, the S90H measured 1,689 nits peak HDR brightness in its own Filmmaker Mode, which is 18% higher than the C6. Samsung’s OLED TVs are brighter than LG’s, with the Samsung S95H/S99H flagship OLED registering 10% higher brightness than the LG G6 in HDR Filmmaker Mode (2,739 nits for the S95H/S99H vs 2,475 nits for the G6).
The S90H’s fullscreen HDR brightness was also higher, measuring 310 nits to the C6’s 247 nits, both of which were measured in Filmmaker Mode. So, with measurements, the S90H is brighter. But, did this translate across to real-world viewing?
Firing up Lawrence of Arabia, focusing on a bright, daytime desert scene early in the movie, the C6 actually showed higher luminance. The white sands appeared punchier and brighter on the C6 compared to the S90H. This was the case with both TVs in Filmmaker Mode and even in the brighter Movie mode (called Cinema Home on the C6). In fact, the perceived brightness gap was even wider when set to their movie modes, with the C6 rendering the white sands and blue skies even brighter.
This could be a result of the C6’s new Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 processor, the same used in the flagship G6, which does feature an impressive brightness booster and 13-bit color processing (12-bit with 1 bit of added brightness), as well as the C6’s glossy screen vs the S90H’s matte screen. It wasn’t all cut-and-dry, as in some scenes, particularly colorful ones, the S90H looked punchier at times (I’ll get onto that in the below Color section).
One thing is for sure though: for bright room viewing, the S90H is the clear victor. The C6’s reflective screen was one of its negatives in my C6 review, often showing mirror-like reflections during darker scenes. The S90H features Samsung’s OLED Glare Free screen and as expected, it’s super effective at eliminating these reflections. I used dark scenes from movies like The Batman and Project Hail Mary to really test it out, and I was surprised by how well the S90H displayed these scenes in our bright testing lab. If you have a bright room, the S90H is the better choice.
Colors
(Image credit: Nintendo / Universal Pictures / Future)
Color is probably the toughest battle fought between these two TVs. Watching The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, both TVs did a great job faithfully recreating the movie’s bright and vivid colors. In a scene where the Lumas gather for story time at the start of the movie, their multi-colored bodies looked richer and deeper on the C6, but appeared more natural on the S90H. The same is true with the red and green of Mario and Luigi’s overalls respectively, and I found myself leaning towards the C6’s more saturated color profile.
Switching to Speed Racer however, the S90H delivers more vibrant colors. The decor of the Racer family kitchen, which features pink walls and green and orange details, seemed to pop more on the S90H. While they were still very rich on the C6, they didn’t quite have the same eye-catching hues to them as on the S90H. Throughout the movie, the S90H did a better job rendering the cartoon style colors of the movie, with pleasing richness, depth and vibrancy.
Finally, I loaded up La La Land. In the Spring pool party scene, both TVs did a great job reproducing the colorful outfits of the partygoers, as well as keeping things natural with the surrounding skies and green bushes. However, the C6 had the punchier colors again here. Mia’s yellow dress seemed to have more pop on the C6 compared to the S90H, again regardless of picture mode. Both TVs did a very good job showing balanced color profiles, with nothing looking too oversaturated (the green bushes have sometimes looked too neon on some TVs I’ve tested it on), but again, the C6 had the more engaging colors.
With HDR color gamut measurements, there was nothing to call between them. The C6 measured 99.7% of the UHDA-P3 color space and 75.9% of the BT.2020 color space, with the S90H registering 99.3% and 76.5% of the same respective color spaces. This did inform me that the 55-inch S90H I was testing was a W-OLED panel and not a QD-OLED, as a QD-OLED would have registered higher on the BT.2020 color space.
One final observation I had was that watching the subway fight scene from The Batman, the S90H showed some green tint in comparison to the C6, something I’d noticed on previous OLEDs like the C5. The C6 didn’t show any sign of this, and it was one of main plus points of the C6 during its testing.
Contrast and dark scenes
(Image credit: Warner Bros / Future)
The Batman has proven to be a challenge for some TVs in the past and it proved to be a bit of a test for one TV in particular here: the S90H. Watching any of the movie’s opening scenes, where there are plenty of dark areas on screen, the S90H very clearly crushed blacks, which resulted in loss of shadow detail. As Batman stands in a subway post fight, the texture of the rear wall and in Batman’s armour was much harder to see on the S90H, while being legible on the C6.
In fact, most scenes from The Batman looked better on the C6, with both TVs set to Filmmaker Mode. I found during viewing that the S90H’s default Filmmaker Mode was very dim, even in darker, ambient conditions.
Bumping up the Shadow Detail setting from 0 to 5 did help bring back some detail, but blacks were still crushed. Setting its Tone Mapping from Static to Active (which isn’t in the spirit of Filmmaker Mode but helped here) did alleviate some of these issues, but again, the C6’s picture, in its out-of-the-box Filmmaker Mode settings, was more faithful to the movie.
Aside from these crushed black tones, both TVs did demonstrate strong contrast. As Bruce works at a desk in the Batcave, the bright tones from the monitors and desk lamp were well balanced with the dark tones surrounding them, and while they looked more natural on the C6, they were impressive on the S90H.
Switching to Project Hail Mary, the S90H’s blacks were inkier and deeper, and actually suited the scenes in space well. However, it was still prone to crushing blacks in some scenes, resulting in detail loss. Watching this movie revealed that the C6 could sometimes overexert its brightness and black tones actually looked lifted compared to the S90H in some shots.
Despite this, both TVs did a very good job rendering Project Hail Mary, and it still showcased how effective OLED was with these high contrast scenes.
A battle for the ages
Putting the C6 and S90H side-by-side proved that both of them were overall excellent mid-range OLEDs, and despite their own picture oddities from time to time, deliver superb picture quality. Both could be counted among the best gaming TVs thanks to their extensive features and both are available in size 42-83 inches.
For price, the 55-inch C6 costs $999 / £1,199 / AU$2,995, while the 55-inch S90H costs $1,299 / £1,199 / AU$2,995. While the S90H’s price is higher in the US right now, I don’t expect that to last, so really these two TVs are priced the same as well.
It comes down to your circumstances. If you have a bright room, the S90H is a no-brainer and if you’re in more ambient conditions, the C6 is the better pick. If I had to pick one right now, it would be the C6 as I found the C6’s picture to be more consistent on the scenes I tested, but this was a really close fight and if you can get the S90H for cheaper than the C6, then you won’t be disappointed with it.
