I tried Alexa+ and was more than happy with how it worked, allowing me to adjust the volume and search for obscure 90s psychological comedies. You can enable Alexa’s voice notification and skip the microphone button on the remote, but that didn’t work as reliably as I’d like. A few times, saying “Alexa” didn’t start the TV.
It is set to Parameters
The parameters don’t lie, or at least that’s the theory. We all see colors differently, and we respond to contrast and brightness based on our visual perception. While R95H met all BT.2020 color specifications, the result of Spears & Munsil criteria it clearly showed that the performance of the R95H is not as good as that of the competitor LG Micro RGB Evo. I could tell that the skin differences on the Samsung weren’t really obvious: two people who don’t look the same, color wise, looked the same on the screen.
The picture quality settings didn’t help much. Dynamic mode (which some TV manufacturers call Vivid) caused colors to bloom and bleed, and Filmmaker Mode made skin scenes too dark. The AI picture settings worked better, especially for soccer, but many adjustments related to contrast and brightness didn’t help as much as they did on the LG.
Likewise, demo reel testing wasn’t as impressive as I would have expected with the new display technology. The green grass behind the wooden fence was not lit as well as I would have liked a high definition TV. The white mist on the snowy mountain was clearly visible but slightly washed away. Picture modes and adjustments to white balance, brightness, and color temperature didn’t help much, either.
The real LCD screen and anti-glare technology that Samsung uses on the R95H made this TV less susceptible to picture quality adjustments than the LG or Hisense RGB models I tested. On the LG Micro RGB Evo in particular, simple adjustments to color temperature and white balance had a more noticeable effect on image quality, as did most image types. For example, using the Vivid picture mode improved benchmark tests, while Dynamic Mode on the R95H didn’t move the needle. The buffalo roaming the field looked a little smoother thanks to the anti-glare technology. The dark trees in the mountain scenery did not contrast well enough with the dark background. The yellow flower looked oversaturated using Dynamic Mode but very flat and dull using Movie Maker mode.
Experimenting with Lighter Colors
Photo: John Brandon
In testing the R95H, I learned that color processing is very important on small RGB televisions as opposed to OLED televisions, because colors have to be reproduced more frequently.
