Samsung S90D QN77S90DAFXZA 76.8" 2024 Review

The Samsung S90D is the smartest OLED TV you can buy, but its picture quality is just okay. Get it for the ecosystem, not for reference-grade visuals.

The Samsung S90D is a fantastic smart TV that's held back by one weird thing: its picture quality scores are surprisingly average for an OLED. We know, it sounds crazy. This 77-inch screen is gorgeous, the Tizen smart platform is slick, and it's a powerhouse for streaming and smart home stuff. But when we crunched the numbers, its core picture performance landed in the 43rd percentile. For a premium OLED, that's a head-scratcher. Everything else about this TV is top-tier, but that one detail makes you wonder what's going on under the hood.

The performance story is a tale of two TVs. On one hand, its smart features are elite, scoring in the 98th percentile. It's lightning-fast for apps, voice control works great, and it integrates seamlessly into a smart home. The audio is also shockingly good for a slim TV, hitting the 93rd percentile. But the real surprise, and not in a good way, is that HDR and picture quality metrics (57th and 43rd percentiles) are just okay. For an OLED at this price, we expected it to blow the doors off the competition visually, but it's more of a solid player than a chart-topper.

With prices swinging from $1300 to nearly $2500 depending on the vendor, the value proposition is all over the map. At the low end, around $1300, it's a compelling buy for the smart features and OLED screen alone. At $2500, you're paying a premium for the Samsung name and smart ecosystem, not necessarily for best-in-class picture quality. Shop around. Hard.

This gets interesting. The most direct competitor is the LG OLED evo AI G5. It typically trades blows on picture, but LG's webOS isn't as polished for smart home control as Samsung's Tizen. If raw picture quality is your absolute priority, the Sony BRAVIA 5 Mini-LED might be a better fit, though you lose the perfect blacks of OLED. And if you're on a budget but want great smart features, the Roku Pro Series offers a surprisingly good experience for less cash. The S90D sits in a weird spot: it's the smart home enthusiast's OLED, not the videophile's first choice.

If you're a home theater purist chasing the absolute best picture quality for movies, this isn't it. Its middling picture scores are a red flag. Go get an LG G-series OLED or a Sony BRAVIA instead. You'll get better visuals for your money.

We recommend the Samsung S90D, but with a big caveat. If you live in the Samsung ecosystem, love voice control, and want a beautiful 77-inch OLED that's brilliant at being a smart hub, this is your TV. Just don't expect it to have the absolute best picture on the market. For everyone else, especially movie buffs who prioritize picture quality above all, you should seriously cross-shop the LG and Sony models first. This is a great TV that's weirdly not great at the one thing you'd think it would excel at.