The Samsung QN95C QLED is a high-end 4k TV released in 2023. Offering nearly double the number of dimming zones than the step-down Samsung QN90C/QN90CD QLED, it's Samsung's flagship 4k TV in 2023, replacing the Samsung QN95B QLED. There are a few key differences between this TV and its predecessor, the most notable of which is the absence of Samsung's external Slim One Connect box. It's powered by Samsung's Neural Quantum Processor 4k, which was first introduced in 2022 and is advertised by Samsung to deliver better upscaling. Like all Samsung TVs, it runs Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS interface, which offers a large selection of apps and games. It's compatible with the Bixby and Alexa voice assistants, and it supports the new Matter smart home standard, so you can control all of your Matter-compatible smart devices from your TV.
Our Verdict
The Samsung QN95C is an impressive TV for any usage or viewing conditions. It's great for watching during the day in a bright room, as it gets incredibly bright to overcome glare, and it has fantastic reflection handling. It's also an impressive TV for watching movies in a dark room thanks to its high contrast ratio and Mini LED local dimming feature. HDR looks amazing thanks to its wide color gamut, and bright highlights stand out well, even in bright scenes. Finally, it's an excellent TV for gaming thanks to its low input lag, great response time, and many gaming features, including a max 144Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
- Image remains consistent when viewed at moderate angles.
- Incredibly high peak brightness so glare isn't an issue.
- Easy-to-use smart interface with a great selection of apps.
- Some noticeable stutter in slow-panning shots.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QLED is a great TV for watching shows during the day. It gets incredibly bright, so combined with its fantastic reflection handling, glare isn't an issue even in the brightest rooms. It also has a decent viewing angle, so you can walk around the room with the TV on and still enjoy a consistent image from the sides. The built-in smart interface has a massive selection of streaming apps, and with built-in hands-free voice control, you can quickly start watching your favorite shows even if you can't find the remote.
- Image remains consistent when viewed at moderate angles.
- Incredibly high peak brightness so glare isn't an issue.
- Good low-resolution sharpness processing.
- Easy-to-use smart interface with a great selection of apps.
- Mediocre low-quality content smoothing.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QN95C is a great TV for watching sports. It has a quick response time in bright scenes, so fast-moving action is crisp and clear. It also gets incredibly bright, so glare isn't an issue in a bright room. With its wide viewing angle, you can comfortably enjoy the big game with a large group of friends without fighting over the best seat in the room. Unfortunately, there are a few uniformity issues, though, which are distracting when watching sports, and the speakers aren't very good, so an external soundbar or home theater speakers are recommended if you're throwing a party.
- Image remains consistent when viewed at moderate angles.
- Incredibly high peak brightness so glare isn't an issue.
- Good low-resolution sharpness processing.
- Easy-to-use smart interface with a great selection of apps.
- Great response time for clear motion.
- Mediocre low-quality content smoothing.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QN95C is an excellent TV for gaming. It has incredibly low input lag, ensuring a smooth, responsive gaming experience. Motion is mostly crisp and fluid thanks to its quick response time, but shadow details aren't as sharp. It offers a great selection of gaming features, including 4k @ 144Hz support for the latest PC GPUs, VRR support to reduce tearing, and full compatibility with the latest-gen gaming consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It's great for both bright and dark rooms, so if you're gaming during the day glare isn't an issue even in a bright room. At night, dark scenes look amazing, with little blooming around bright highlights.
- Incredibly low input lag.
- Great selection of gaming features including VRR and a 144Hz refresh rate.
- Great response time for clear motion.
- Slightly more blooming in 'Game' mode.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QN95C delivers an impressive movie-watching experience, especially if you're in a completely dark room. It has an incredibly high contrast ratio and fantastic black uniformity, so dark scenes look great, and bright highlights stand out. Speaking of brightness, HDR content looks amazing thanks to its high peak brightness, and Mini LED local dimming feature, so bright highlights stand out the way they should, even in bright scenes. It also has a wide color gamut, so HDR content is vivid and lifelike. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR, as Samsung focuses on their own HDR10+ format, which is technically similar, but not as widely supported as Dolby Vision.
- Bright highlights in bright scenes stand out well.
- Completely judder-free from all sources.
- Easy-to-use smart interface with a great selection of apps.
- Tracks the content creator's intent well.
- Doesn't support Dolby Vision.
- Doesn't support DTS audio formats.
- Some noticeable stutter in slow-panning shots.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QN95C delivers an excellent gaming experience in HDR. It's already excellent for gaming thanks to its low input lag, quick response time, and a plethora of gaming features, but HDR-supported games look fantastic. It gets incredibly bright, so bright highlights in games stand out well, and thanks to its wide color gamut, colors are bright and vibrant. It also has fantastic contrast and incredible dark scene performance, making it a great choice for late-night gaming. The local dimming feature isn't quite as good in the 'Game' Picture Mode, though, and there's slightly more blooming, but it still looks good.
- Bright highlights in bright scenes stand out well.
- Incredibly low input lag.
- Great selection of gaming features including VRR and a 144Hz refresh rate.
- Great response time for clear motion.
- Tracks the content creator's intent well.
- Slightly more blooming in 'Game' mode.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
The Samsung QN95C is a fantastic TV for use as a PC. It displays chroma 4:4:4 and RGB signals properly, which is essential for clear text from a PC. It also has low input lag and a quick response time, so desktop use feels responsive overall and looks great. It has a decent viewing angle, so the sides of the screen remain uniform even if you're sitting close to the screen. Finally, it gets incredibly bright, and combined with its fantastic reflection handling, glare isn't an issue, even if you're using this in a bright room. It's only available in larger sizes, though, so it's not a good choice for smaller desks.
- Image remains consistent when viewed at moderate angles.
- Incredibly low input lag.
- Great selection of gaming features including VRR and a 144Hz refresh rate.
- Great response time for clear motion.
- Noticeable uniformity issues.
Changelog
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Updated Dec 13, 2024:
We mentioned the newly reviewed Samsung QN95D in the Response Time section of this review.
- Updated Jan 22, 2024: Tested Xbox Series LPCM audio passthrough on Xbox firmware 10.0.25398.2923 and Samsung firmware 1310. The Xbox consoles report that the TV doesn't passthrough LPCM 5.1/7.1 even though it does. Updated the Xbox Series X|S Compatibility text box with the results.
- Updated Dec 20, 2023: Mentioned the newly reviewed Samsung QN900C 8k QLED in the Supported Resolutions section of this review.
- Updated Nov 02, 2023: Review published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Samsung QN95C, and these results are also valid for the 55-inch, 75-inch, and 85-inch models. The 55-inch model isn't currently available in the U.S. but is widely available in other regions, and we expect it to perform about the same. At the time of writing, there are no other variants of this TV available. Note that the last five letters in the model number (AFXZA in this case) vary between retailers and individual regions, but there's no difference in performance.
The only significant difference between each size is the number of dimming zones. Despite the significantly higher zone count on larger sizes, this won't make much of a difference in real usage, as Samsung TVs tend to average the backlight out across more zones than needed anyway, so the amount of blooming should be roughly the same.
| Size | US Model | Short Model Code | Dimming Zones |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55" | - | QN55QN95C | ~850 |
| 65" | QN65QN95CAFXZA | QN65QN95C | 1344 |
| 75" | QN75QN95CAFXZA | QN75QN95C | 1920 |
| 85" | QN85QN95CAFXZA | QN85QN95C | 2340 |
Our unit was manufactured in May 2023; you can see the label here.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Samsung QN95C QLED is an excellent TV that delivers fantastic picture quality and has an impressive selection of additional features. It's a fantastic choice if you're looking to upgrade your home theater or living room setup, but it's pricey, so it's only recommended if you need the absolute best of the best.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best TVs, the best QLED TVs, and the best 4k gaming TVs.
The Samsung QN95C is slightly better than the Samsung QN90C. The QN95C has a more advanced local dimming feature, with significantly more dimming zones, resulting in slightly less blooming around bright highlights in dark scenes and less noticeable zone transitions. The QN95C also gets a bit brighter with real content. Finally, for PC gamers, the QN95C supports a 144Hz refresh rate at 1080p and 4k, resulting in smoother motion handling.
The Samsung QN95C is better than the Samsung QN95B in some ways, but these improvements come with a few sacrifices. The QN95C has a better local dimming feature, with slightly less blooming and less noticeable zone transitions, thanks to the increased zone count. The QN95C is also more accurate, especially at displaying the content creator's intent in HDR, as it has better tone mapping and tracks the PQ EOTF better. On the other hand, these improvements come at the expense of brightness, as the QN95C isn't quite as bright as the QN95B.
The Samsung S90C OLED is better than the Samsung QN95C. The QN95C is the brighter TV of the two, especially in SDR, so it's preferable for bright room scenarios. Still, the S90C is also quite bright in HDR and has better contrast, so it looks better in dark rooms and almost as good in brighter rooms when watching HDR content. Otherwise, the S90C has typical OLED advantages: a much wider viewing angle, a near-instantaneous response time for gamers, and superior screen uniformity.
The Samsung S95C OLED is better than the Samsung QN95C in most ways. The S95C has better contrast, so blacks are deeper without any blooming or haloing. The S95C also has a wider color gamut and better color volume, so colors are brighter and more vibrant. The S95C has a much wider viewing angle, so it’s the better option for watching TV as a group. However, the QN95C gets a lot brighter in SDR and can overcome more glare, so if you regularly watch TV in a bright room, it’s the better option.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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