I still have some complaints, starting with the TV’s relentless pursuit of Samsung’s ad-based TV service, Samsung TV Plus. The service launches by default during startup, forcing me to sweep through the Advanced Settings and turn it off under Startup Options. Even then, it kept turning on The Fairly Odd Parents on startup, eventually seeming to stop on its own.
Tizen also apparently auto-scans for OTA antenna channels, leaving me confused about how to rescan, while the S90F’s lack of ATSC 3.0 support means you won’t get Nextgen channels with features like HDR. One final oddity is that the TV’s HDMI CEC Anynet system, designed to interface with connected devices, has a mind of its own, sometimes firing up my Panasonic DP-UB9000 Blu-ray player or PS5 unprompted, while other times ignoring them.
Samsung’s Game Hub remains a favorite, offering loads of cloud gaming services, alongside an accessible game bar for on-the-fly adjustments. I really enjoyed gaming on this set, from the windswept islands of Ghosts of Tsushima to Astrobot’s hyper-vibrant multi-level madness.
While the Settings tabs are still oddly split apart, Samsung makes picture setup a breeze. Those looking for the most accurate picture have two choices: Movie or Filmmaker mode, with the latter offering settings so accurate I barely made any changes for SDR or HDR (High Dynamic Range) video. As always, Samsung omits support for Dolby Vision HDR, focusing on the HDR10 standard and the Dolby alternative, HDR10+.
The Little Things That Kill
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
I set up the S90F halfway through paternity leave, allowing for a lot of quality TV time. As I alluded to above, the TV didn’t immediately knock my socks off in the same way as the top-tier LG G5, Panasonic Z95B, or Sony Bravia 8 II I tested, or the Samsung S95F that wowed my editor. The first thing that really got my attention was Disney’s Skeleton Crew, which provided the kind of glittering stars and gleaming planets in the depths of space that make OLED TVs shine, but got put on hold because it inexplicably woke up our sleeping baby every time we hit play.
