Samsung The Terrace TV Review

The Samsung Terrace is from Samsung's Lifestyle TV lineup, which includes Samsung The Frame 2020, Samsung The Sero, and Samsung The Serif. It's the first TV designed for outdoor use that we've reviewed so far, and as such, we don't have any direct comparisons from other manufacturers at this time. Performance-wise, it's comparable to the Samsung Q90T QLED and the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2020.

The Samsung Terrace has an outstanding design that looks very similar to the Samsung The Frame 2020, but it's thicker and more robust. This TV is meant to be wall-mounted and doesn't come with a stand. The feet in the picture above were purchased separately from a third party.

Unfortunately, the Samsung Terrace doesn't come with a stand, and Samsung doesn't sell one either. The third-party stand in our pictures was purchased separately.

The back of the TV is all metal, except for the plastic panel covering the inputs. There are small cable routes at the bottom of the panel to allow the cables to pass through for cable management. The panel is held by screws to protect the inputs from any potential water damage.

The Samsung The Terrace's borders are a little thicker than those on the Samsung The Frame 2020 but aren't too distracting.

The Samsung Terrace is a thick TV and will stick out a bit when wall-mounted.

Exceptional build quality. It's almost entirely made out of metal, and it feels incredibly well-built. There's no flex or noticeable gaps. It's advertised to have IP55 water resistance; however, it isn't something that we test.

The Samsung Terrace has an outstanding contrast ratio, further improved by a full-array local dimming feature. This results in blacks that look deep and inky.

Note that the contrast ratio varies between units.

The Samsung Terrace has a decent full-array local dimming feature. It handles blooming well by averaging the surrounding brightness, but some blooming is still visible due to the TV's sheer brightness. Subtitles aren't as bright or distracting, similar to how the Samsung Q90T QLED handles them. Depending on the scene, some small bright objects in dark scenes are crushed, such as the stars in the opening sequence of Star Wars. It's slow at transitioning between zones, as it usually trails behind the test pattern for about one second.

Exceptional SDR peak brightness. It's more than enough to overcome glare even in direct sunlight. The brightness varies a little bit depending on the scene, but it shouldn't be noticeable in regular content.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Movie' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max, Local Dimming set to 'High', and Color Temperature set to 'Warm 2'.

If you don't mind losing image accuracy, you can achieve a higher peak brightness using the 'Dynamic' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming and Contrast Enhancer both set to 'High'. With these settings, we achieved a peak of 2,034 cd/m².

The Samsung Terrace has an exceptional HDR peak brightness. It's enough to make highlights stand out, even when watching in a well-lit environment. However, there's a bit more brightness variability than is SDR, notably in the 2% window.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration, using the 'HDR Movie' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming set to 'High', Brightness and Contrast at max, and all other image processing disabled.

If you want an even brighter image, set the Picture Mode to 'Dynamic', with Local Dimming and Contrast Enhancer set to 'High'. We achieved a peak of 5859 cd/m² in the 10% window with these settings.

Gray uniformity on our unit of the Samsung Terrace is okay. The corners and edges are visibly darker, and there's some dirty screen effect in the center, which can be distracting when watching sports. However, uniformity is significantly better in near-dark scenes.

Note that gray uniformity varies between units.

The Samsung Terrace has sub-par viewing angles, which is expected of most VA panels. This results in images looking washed out from the side, which isn't ideal for wide seating areas.

Black uniformity on our unit is superb. There's only some minor clouding, which shouldn't be visible in regular content. There's a bit of blooming when local dimming is enabled, but it isn't distracting.

Note that black uniformity varies between units.

The Samsung Terrace has outstanding reflection handling, and combined with its high peak brightness, you shouldn't have any issues with visibility outdoors.

Before calibration, the Samsung Terrace has decent color accuracy. There are minor inaccuracies with most colors, and white balance is off as well. Gamma doesn't follow the target, resulting in most scenes appearing darker than they should. The color temperature is on the warm side, giving the image a slight reddish tint.

Note that color accuracy may vary between units.

Update 09/30/2020: We've changed the status of the Auto-Calibration function from 'Untested' to 'Undetermined'. The Terrace isn't yet listed as being compatible with CalMAN.

After calibration, the color accuracy is superb. The remaining inaccuracies shouldn't be visible to the naked eye. White balance is near perfect, and the color temperature is right on target. Gamma is also near perfect, except for very dark or very bright scenes.

You can see our recommended settings here.

480p content, such as from DVDs, is upscaled well without any obvious artifacts.

There are no issues with the upscaling of 720p content from cable boxes.

1080p content, such as from Blu-rays, is upscaled well.

4k content is displayed perfectly.

The Samsung Terrace can't display an 8k signal.

The Samsung Terrace uses a BGR sub-pixel layout, which can affect text clarity when using the TV as a PC monitor. You can read more about it here.

The Samsung Terrace has an impressive HDR color gamut. It has outstanding coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3 color space and decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020. The EOTF doesn't follow the PQ curve well, resulting in most scenes appearing too bright. The 'Game' mode EOTF is better, but some scenes are still over-brightened. If you find HDR content too dim, set Contrast Enhancer to 'High', ST.2084 and Shadow Details to max. These settings provide a much brighter image, as you can see in this EOTF.

Note: To measure the color gamut, we had to change the color space setting to BT.2020 manually, because the 'Auto' setting doesn't display a wide color gamut.

Good color volume. It displays dark colors well due to its high contrast ratio, but like most LCDs, it has trouble displaying bright blues.

Note: To measure the color volume, we had to change the color space setting to BT.2020 manually, because the 'Auto' setting doesn't display a wide color gamut.

Good gradient handling. There's only a little bit of banding in the grays, greens, and reds. Setting Noise Reduction to 'Auto' removes most of it, but may cause the loss of fine details in some scenes.

Note: We had to change the camera settings to take the gradient picture due to the TV's high brightness.

The Samsung Terrace doesn't exhibit any signs of temporary image retention.

Note that temporary image retention can vary between units.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

The Samsung Terrace has a great response time, resulting in only a short blur trail behind fast-moving objects. However, there's a significant amount of overshoot in the 0-20% transition, causing motion artifacts in dark scenes.

Our response time measurements are taken with local dimming disabled. This is due to the local dimming ramping up the brightness, making it difficult to determine when the transition ends.

This TV uses PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation) to dim its backlight. In the 'Movie' Picture Mode or 'Game' mode, the flickering is so high that it shouldn't be noticeable for most people. However, the flickering drops to 120Hz when using the 'Natural', 'Dynamic', or 'Filmmaker' Picture Mode. It also flickers at 120Hz when gaming with Game Motion Plus enabled.

There's an optional Black Frame Insertion (BFI) feature to improve motion clarity. Enabling it lowers the backlight's flickering frequency to 120Hz in all picture modes, leading to image duplication in 60fps content. However, you can get the flickering frequency to 60Hz for 60fps content by enabling 'Game' mode.

The BFI feature is called LED Clear Motion, but unlike other Samsung TVs, this setting isn't located in the Picture Clarity Settings menu; it's in the Game Motion Plus Settings menu.

The Samsung Terrace can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120fps to make motion look more fluid. Unfortunately, there are a lot of artifacts present in fast-moving scenes, and it never stops interpolating even when the scene gets too challenging, causing more artifacts.

To enable motion interpolation, set Picture Clarity to 'Custom', adjust the Judder Reduction slider to interpolate 30fps content, or the Blur Reduction slider for 60fps content.

Although the Samsung Terrace has a fast response time, it doesn't stutter much in 60fps content. However, it stutters more in 24p content. If it bothers you, enabling motion interpolation can help.

This TV can remove judder from all sources, and no change in settings is required.

This TV doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology.

The Samsung Terrace has exceptionally low input lag, which is great for gaming or using the TV as a PC monitor. It's possible to use motion interpolation when gaming; however, it adds a bit of input lag.

To get the lowest latency, you have to be in 'Game' mode. To use motion interpolation when gaming, enable Game Motion Plus and adjust the Judder Reduction slider for games that normally run at 30fps, or the Blur Reduction slider for games that run at 60fps. To get the lowest latency when using the TV as a PC monitor, make sure that the input in use is labeled 'PC' or enable 'Game' mode.

There's an 'Auto Low Latency Mode' that automatically enables 'Game' mode when a game is launched from a compatible device. To use it, set Game Mode to 'Auto'.