Samsung won’t be announcing any seismic shifts to the TV industry at CES this year. There’s nothing like RGB OLED, for instance. Apart from the interesting and unique Music Frame (see our coverage at the preceding link), this year’s news is all about honing the excellent tech already on offer.
New 8K UHD TVs
Samsung’s 2024 8K TVs include the QN800D series (in sizes from 65 to 85 inches) and the QN900D (same sizes). New features for the QN900D series include 8K AI Upscaling Pro and AI Motion Enhancer Pro. The former promises an even better viewing experience with lower-resolution material than you’ll get on 4K UHD TVs. I can attest from my own testing that 4K material looks better on 8K TVs.
AI Motion Enhancer Pro is said to make it easier to follow the ball in sports. Samsung said nothing about hockey pucks–the most notoriously difficult sports object for viewers to track. Here’s hoping! The QN900D series also allows a variable refresh rate of up to 240Hz with 4K material, a feature aimed at gamers.
The One Connect box for the 900D has also been redesigned, but Samsung failed to provide an image so “U-shaped” and “less obvious” will have to suffice as a description.
A new mirror-finished stand makes the TV “appear to be floating in air” if you opt to set it on something as opposed to wall-mounting it. Samsung says its goal is to limit distractions. My advice? If you’re distracted by wires, watch more compelling content.
New 4K UHD LCD TVs
Drop a zero from the model series number and you have Samsung’s 2024 LED-backlit 4K UHD LCD, quantum dot TVs, such as the new top-of-the-line QN90D (available in sizes from 43- to 98 inches) and the QN85D series (in 55- to 85-inches). These sport an updated Neural Quantum Processor that upscales lower-resolution material. Here again, in my experience, smart upscaling will make 1080p content look better on a 4K UHD TV than it does on a 1080p set.
Samsung also touts its Real Depth Enhancer Pro tech, which focuses on foreground images. It’s similar to the portrait mode on your phone, but not as obvious.
Active Voice Amplifier Pro is available on all non-entry level Samsung TVs to boost the clarity of dialogue and/or sound effects.
AI Customization Mode is a handy new feature for the tweaking crowd. It will optimize the picture according to the current scene you’re watching. Save this setting, and the TV will automatically adjust material based on your selections. If you’re not lazy like me and don’t use one mode for everything, this will likely tickle your fancy. Truthfully, I might even make use of a feature like this–as long as it doesn’t require continual maintenance.
Note that the described processing features will grace all Samsung’s top-tier TV offerings to one degree or another. Said degree will be linked directly to the price of the TV.
RGB OLED TVs
You didn’t think Samsung would ignore its increasingly popular, uber lush RGB OLED S95 series did you? Note that RGB means that every pixel consists of three sub-pixels: read, green, and blue. LG’s OLEDs are WRGB; i.e., they use a white sub-pixel to augment the brightness of the RGB sub-pixels.
The S95 series revs from C to D, and while Samsung didn’t list any outstanding tech upgrades, it receives all the new firmware features described above. It was already a game-changer in the TV market. We’d love to see an 8K UHD version though.
Author: Jon L. Jacobi, Freelance contributor
Jon Jacobi is a musician, former x86/6800 programmer, and long-time computer enthusiast. He writes reviews on TVs, SSDs, dash cams, remote access software, Bluetooth speakers, and sundry other consumer-tech hardware and software.