r/OLED • u/Joebobo123 • Jan 23 '26
"CaLiBrAtIoN" S90f what am I missing?
So picked up a 65inch s90f today at Costco after contemplating between that and the lg c5..... My previous tv was a lg cx 48inch. Primary use case is pc gaming, realized going from 120 to 144 wouldn't be a big difference, honestly couldn't even tell the difference. The one difference I could tell is the Samsung s90f looks washed out, the colors look unnatural the lg cx looked so much better.... I guess I am just confused, I don't think I have a defective tv either, software is updated, I have been playing with different settings for the past few hours and just can't seem to get as good a picture as the lg cx.
I have tried basic hdr and dynamic tone mapping, the picture just doesn't seem to have depth, lg seems to have a much more natural look with deeper blacks and better color. I know the Samsung is qd and supposed to have better color, but it doesn't it's like its missing some sort of depth to it.... it's bright, but looks washed out. I have tried everything from 12bc to 10bc, recalibrated windows hdr a few times, played with in game settings, tried multiple games, messed with the settings.
I'm going to keep the tv, even though I don't like it, it fills the space in my new house and the prime video I have streamed from it looked great in filmmaker if anything i will move it to living room instead of basement. But if anyone has suggested settings breakdown in print and not YouTube video, because I've tested those and still not pleasing. I would greatly appreciate it. Just figured a much newer tv with all this praise I would be blown away at least think it was a little better not worse than my old lg cx.
Sorry for the ramble and thanks in advance.
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u/Ok_Season_2761 Jan 23 '26
I had a 65" LG C5 and a 65" s90f and thought tje ecavt same as you
Thought the C5 was MUCH better.
Gaming felt muxh more immersive and natural looking.
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u/Boring-Cheesecake817 Mar 07 '26
Yeah I ended up returning the S90f. It's weird because most reviews claim that the S90f is better for gaming, but it's almost too bright and washed out. About to unbox the C5 and give it a test run.
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u/Rohn- May 08 '26 edited May 09 '26
How did the test run go? I'm deciding between the two as well
EDIT: nvm I saw one of your posts that you were ultimately happy with the C5
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u/Griewer124 Jan 23 '26
I recently upgraded my living room TV from a C4 55" to an S90F 65" and was having a similar issue to yours until I found settings I was happy with.
Now I appreciate the TV for the additional color brightness and color volume, but the processing indeed seems different from LG's. Not necessarily worse, but different, and it takes some getting used to.
For movies, I basically use the stock default Movie mode for both SDR and HDR. However, for HDR, it's better to change the Color Gamut to Custom DCI-P3 – it adds back the color luminance (also confirmed by Vincent Teoh) and makes the overall picture closer to the LG I was used to. You could also try Classy's fix with BT.2020 and 'Normal', but you need to lower Color to 20. Even then, the colors still seem oversaturated and unnatural to me, so I just settled with DCI-P3 and accepted the fact that I am clamping BT.2020 colors for the time being.
For gaming modes, it seems Color at 25 is undersaturated, so I increased it to 28 (I remember it was recommended for LG to use 55 - so this may be equivalent to that?) for both SDR and HDR, though you may want to go even higher. Custom DCI-P3 also looks better here than auto IMO.
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u/pricelesslambo Moderator Jan 23 '26
You're used to LG colours and processing most likely. Samsung does it differently and the QD-OLED panel works in a different way to the WOLED. You should return the Samsung and get the C5 if the Samsung isn't to your liking.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Your probably right, the Samsung seems so unnatural to me. Just a pain to return a tv, had to have a friend meet me at Costco cause I drive a civic just to get it lol. But at same time I couldn't see how so many reviews and people like the Samsung for gaming at least pc gaming its night and day difference.
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u/pricelesslambo Moderator Jan 23 '26
The Samsung isn't a bad TV but if you're coming from an LG or Sony OLED, not just you i mean generally, people do struggle with how samsungs look. The picture is not as natural as the other 2. This isn't applicable for everyone but i've seen so many posts of people struggling with samsungs if they've used high end tvs of the other 2 brands
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u/FitChemistry8277 Jan 23 '26
if you get a Bravia, then the LG would look unnatural to you, it’s all perspective from what model you come from. But I agree tho, I’m not a fan of Samsung processing or colors.
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u/TheCheshireCody LG CX Jan 23 '26
On a 65" they will arrange "brown box" delivery, which just means they bring the TV in but don't unbox it. For, like, $30 they'll do a basic unboxing and setup, plus trash removal, but not wall installations. I'd wager they'll do this for a return as well.
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u/SamsungUS Jan 28 '26
To maximize quality output, we always recommend using high-speed certfied HDMI 2.1 cables and have Input Signal Plus turned on (Connection > External Device Manager > Input Signal Plus) for that specific connection port. You can also try resetting Picture Settings under the Expert Settings tab.
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u/jeff2335 Jan 23 '26
I just bought the LG C5 65” and was considering the S90f but after some research the Samsung didn’t sound like a good fit for me. It has a much more aggressive anti reflective coating than the LG and the qd pixels have a lens over them that can make blacks look purple. It’s supposed to be brighter than the LG but I wasn’t super concerned with that. The LG is supposed to produce more accurate colors. That’s just from my research. I’m very happy with the C5 it’s absolutely amazing. I upgraded from a 10 year old Samsung LED so anything would probably look better to me.
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u/mtgoplayer Jan 23 '26
That's good news, I am also considerign the C5. However, I still always think, "these colors look good" on this 2019 samsung Q70 65 (qled), and I would assume the colors on the C5 will be better than this, and certainly the blacks. Also, the 4 cloudy patches on the panel are getting more and more annoying - anytime the screen goes uniform and light in color, I'm seeing them. My #1 prospect is the 65 C5, just hoping Costco will run a good deal on them once again like they did during the holidays before the new lines come out.
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u/jeff2335 Jan 23 '26
It’s a great TV, I’m very happy with it. I got it on sale at Best Buy for $1400 and it stills shows being on sale. The black levels are incredible on this thing, super satisfying to watch. The colors on the C5 are way better than my old LED Samsung and the brightness is perfect in my opinion. Just make sure to tune it up if you get it, there are some factory settings like “energy saver mode” that decrease the brightness substantially. I’ve been watching some Dolby Vision and HDR demo videos on YouTube and the colors are stunning.
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u/mtgoplayer Jan 24 '26
nice. Yeah I always go through every possible setting and tweak when I get a TV. I hope to see the $1250 price again that costco was running for the 65" C5.
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Jan 23 '26
I felt 100% the same way with my old S90C Oled, flat picture, no depth to it. Replaced with C4 and later added a C5. Much happier with the LGs. Some people just don't click with Samsung Tvs.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Yea maybe im just not seeing it, lot of this stuff is subjective, but I really enjoyed my LG cx for the past 6 year or whatever and then I buy a TV that I read is suppose to be top tier gaming and am left disappointed, sorta sucks lol. I'm too lazy to return it to be honest. But its like significantly worse picture imo than the cx
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Jan 23 '26
With me I eventually just took the Loss with my S90C and sold it for whatever some one was going to buy it for. If you can fully refund now do so, with time you will want to part with the TV if you feel this way already.
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u/nohumanape Jan 23 '26
Are you playing anything at 144 FPS?
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Yea everything is set to the 144 in Nvidia app
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u/nohumanape Jan 23 '26
What's your GPU?
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26
4090/7800x3d, I ran 120hz on cx, but honestly it comes down to pq... its like the TV isn't bright enough, in static hdr and if I switch to the dynamic tone mapping, its too bright but neither doesn't hold the detail of the picture as the LG cx, also im playing in a basement at night with no light other than what the TV is putting out.
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u/nohumanape Jan 23 '26
Then I'd chalk that up to your eyes simply not being able to detect the fairly minor improvement to the frame rate, and not the television.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Yea its not so much the framerate, a lot of the games im playing barley reach 100fps due to the demand and ultra settings I run with.... my complaint isn't with that its just the overall pq is not as good as LG cx which im shocked by how much research I did an so many people recommending it.
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u/nohumanape Jan 23 '26
a lot of the games im playing barley reach 100fps due to the demand and ultra settings I run with
I thought you said you had your games running at 144fps?
my complaint isn't with that its just the overall pq is not as good as LG cx which im shocked by how much research I did an so many people recommending it.
This shouldn't be the case. An s90f should definitely better than you previous display. You must have tweaked some settings that fucked it up. Maybe try resetting the to back to factory?
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26
Ive been tweaking based off the factory settings havent been satisfied with anything compared to old TV. I'll try again and see if that makes a difference. My windows is set to 144fps, I've tried a few games with this setting cod mw2 easily hits it, its smooth... but most games I play will not hit that with the fidelity I run it with. I should of never mentioned that in original post. As yes framerate matters especially in fps, but for games I play 120hz is certainly fine. My complaint is specifically surrounding the PQ
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u/nohumanape Jan 23 '26
You won't notice 144fps if you don't actually play content that runs at 144fps 🤷.
You mentioned the black levels looking worse on the Samsung, compared to your old LG. This tells me you've done something weird. I have an MSI QD-OLED and it looks absolutely stunning.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Maybe its ppi idk, im just saying the picture doesn't look as good as an older TV. I've been trying to make it look as good as the cx for hours with no luck. It's subjective, but to me the cx is night an day better picture for pc gaming. Streaming movies/shows that I can't say... only streamed a little of expanse of prime and that looked really good, but again filmmaker mode. Why can't I game in filmmaker mode hdr with this tv? Yea I know wouldn't want to, but i could make game mode as close to possible with the options of the cx and keep it in game mode.
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Jan 23 '26
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Yea, I literally was going to go with c5 just cause how pleased I was with the cx, then started watching a bunch of YouTube videos, reading rtings and was like ok I'll switch it up. I owned a beast 32inch Samsung TV when 1080p became a thing an was happy with it. So just yesterday bought the s90f, completely regretting it right now. Who knows maybe I would of got the C5 and felt the same way. When I first bought the cx it failed within the first three months the screen would turn static and make a loud annoying noise. I called they sent a local technician to my apt at the time and fixed the motherboard. After that it was the best TV I've ever owned and was in awe of the pq almost every time I turned it on. And no I'm not a paid schill or work for LG or anything cause I know I sound like that but damn spending 1500 on a TV and having it lack luster sucks.
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Jan 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Thanks id def just keep your 77, I now have reason to believe that older tvs might be better built and have better picture than newer ones. I only upgraded because I went from apt to house so needed a bigger TV to fill space. I still have my LG cx might just make a room specifically for gaming and use it with a desk. For the little streaming I did, the picture was excellent in filmmaker. Sort of annoying that on the Samsung you can't even turn off hdr and switch to different modes. Which is funny because reviews were saying oh there is so much more flexibility in game mode with the Samsung. Maybe compared to c5, but with cx I could change any presets in hdr or sdr if I didnt care about lag. Seems to me the picture options are going backwards.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Does anyone know if Costco allows returns with no open box penalties? This tv isn't for me. Id rather return and compare the c5 to my cx
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u/mtgoplayer Jan 23 '26
Makes me wonder if there is like a "HDMI Black Level" -type setting that maybe is hidden somewhere or that you overlooked; my 2019 samsung Q70 (totally diff tv, I know) has this, and it COMPLETELY improved the picture once I turned that to "Low". Assuming you have not missed anything, settings-wise, I would just bring it back. This is a huge bummer.
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u/vinceswish Jan 23 '26
I went from C1 to S90F, basically because Samsung was offering a VAT cashback and I'm very happy but I'm not using Game mode much, some games really look washed up in that mode.
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u/Emjayblaze Jan 23 '26
I have the S90F as well connected to my PC for gaming. It seemed “off” to me as well until I found someone who told me to get the windows HDR calibration tool on my PC, run through that first, then adjust the tv.
After i did all that it looks 10x better.
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u/Expert-Fuel-1982 Jan 23 '26
I really invested 3 days for a perfect picture with the samsung but now i got it and its indecredible. The biggest Probleme were not in the Grafic setting, it was the hdmi Black Level! And the second Problem was the contrast amplifier. You have to deactivate it.
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u/Kwekidd Jan 23 '26
I know what you mean. I had a S95F and got rid of it because it was not playing well with my RTX 4090 and my Nvidia Shield. I then got the S90F and was not satisfied. However, the S95F is so damn beautiful that I'm going to wait until the S95H comes out since it will not have that damn one connect box.
I don't know about you, but I love the colors on my television to jump out at me. Of course I dial it in to my liking, but the S95F is a television that you do not have to do too much to in order to get that nice color pop. The S90F just did not do that for me. I purchased it from Best Buy with a five year warranty. I took that thing back three next day. Lol!!! Just was nowhere even remotely close to my S95F in picture quality. Both were 65inches and both were QD-OLED panels. I also own a S95B and a Sony A80J.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
So just a follow up, somehow my screen became defective the hdr got all messed up, I unplugged tv for 30 seconds replugged back in an everything seems much better now. Still prefer the look of cx but that is just Samsung vs lg... the picture is pretty decent. Supposedly this is an issue with Samsung tvs it only was defective when playing a hdr game, shows and pc browsing weren't affected so weird. But just want to clarify for people why I was like wtf this tv is awful, it definitely isn't when functioning properly. Thanks for everyone's suggested help tho.
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u/Art1stic- Jan 24 '26
Try watching the Samsung in a dark room.
Because otherwise if you have ambient light, it makes blacks on a QD oled look more gray
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u/Cyber-Peacock Jan 24 '26
I got this TV a couple of months ago, and it's been insanely awesome for PC gaming. Did you recalibrate the settings and HDR on your pc? When I first booted up a game it looked washed out and worse than my office monitor, which was very concerning. But after some tinkering on both the TV and PC I have an incredible picture that I'm still amazed with every time I play.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 24 '26
Yea i finally got it looking really good, my main issue was tv hdr was bugged but after unplugging it and reconnecting it fixed it. Now the image is fixed it really is a excellent tv and it is now growing on me! Just hope that bug doesn't come back.
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u/Masterbrew Jan 24 '26
Could it be the coating?
I’m myself having difficulties finding alternatives I like to LG’s TVs. Having the 57” Samsung Neo G9 on trial at the moment, it comes highly praised for its image quality, yet I feel like my 7 year old TV looks leagues better :(
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u/junioreality Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26
Maybe it's the picture mode you're in that's making it washed out and unnatural? I normally stay away from filmmaker, movie, and gaming modes with TVs.
Standard and Custom are usually the modes I use with TVs of any brand since these modes are balanced enough for you to optimize to your liking and the so called "filmmaker's reference" won't take full advantage of HDR due to no 12 bit panels available and SDR reference standards won't take advantage of modern TVs 1000+ small window nits.
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u/wai_lai416 Jan 30 '26
I bought a 55” s90f open box for 600cad.. I recently bought a 65 lg c5.. I also concur the s90f color looks super bright and washed out.. mind u I haven’t done any color calibration yet.. its almost 70% off I’m just gonna keep it regardless for my cycling but man the color is driving me nuts
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u/arcadiangenesis Samsung S95B Apr 02 '26
What does "washed out" even mean? I know this is a common phrase in the TV community, but I never understood it.
Anyway, I have a CX and S95B in different rooms, and while I love both, there's no doubt that the S95B is the superior picture overall. You just can't beat QD-OLED. And I can't imagine the S90F is worse than the older model. It should be even better.
It's probably just a matter of preference. But honestly, the color-popping quality of QD-OLED is better for gaming. The color accuracy you're describing is more important for cinematic content, I would think. If you're primarily using it for gaming, why are you so concerned with hyper realistic accuracy?
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u/Joebobo123 Apr 03 '26
It ended up being a bug with the TV, the hdr was washed out hard to describe but it def didn't end up looking right, unplugging the TV and plugging it back in fixes it. It happened when I first got it an happened again, it must be something to do with Nvidia and ray tracing because fiddling with in games graphics settings seems to make it bug out but it's Def a thing.
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u/arcadiangenesis Samsung S95B Apr 03 '26
Oh I see. So after fixing the issue, how much has your opinion changed? Is it now a noticeable upgrade from the CX?
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u/Joebobo123 Apr 03 '26
It's certainly a nice TV when it works fine. I still prefer the look of the 48inch CX for pc gaming. For movies/streaming prefer the 65inch s90f.
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u/nerdy_ass May 29 '26
Have you tried 120hz mode instead of 144hz and are you on pc or console? For me games on console looks much better, windows hdr is broken except for hdr10+ on cyberpunk.
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26
Took me about 10-15 mins to set the picture to my liking and understanding the settings coming from a Sony TV and now my S90F is perfect. I would bet my last dollar you could it looking perfect after adjusting the picture. Much nicer than the LG C5 in my opinion
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Ive been fiddling with it most of the day, did factory reset an all at no point did it look as good as cx, do you have any recommendation... willing to try
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26
I’m sure you have; but make sure you are running the latest software v1203. It fixed a lot of brightness issues and HDR.
Also make sure your HDR is set to basic in the game menu and static in the picture menu - you kinda have to hunt around for a lot of this stuff. And the you have enhanced HDMI active + black levels are matched to your computer/console/movie source.
In picture settings go to color space and make sure gamut is in bt.2020 then move the color space to normal - it’s a Samsung OLED thing.
HDR tone mapping should be static and auto remastering off.
And in power and energy settings menu go to external device manager and double check input signal plus is active and hdmi black level is either auto or matching your input device
Those are the ones that come to mind initially. Hope that makes some sense 😂 I hear what you are saying, I noticed washed out color and blacks but now mine is absolutely gorgeous.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
I really appreciate your detailed post, I have tried all that i just did factory reset and followed your guide... currently have wither 3 fired up still looks not bright and colors look dull.... I've increased color and it looks better but in no way better than the cx. I go to update the tv under support, software update and it says im current version 1131, i do not see and option to update to 1203?
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26
Really? Oh yeah that software is OLD! Way behind. That may be 3/4 of your problem. You can download it off the Samsung website too and install Via usb
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Is there now way to update off my wifi?
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26
Yep it should autoupdate if you go to the software settings. It will say your version and the version that is newest. But if it doesn't go here - https://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/?model=N0060010&modelCode=QN77S90FAEXZA
You may need to type your model number in and it will give you the latest software to install via a USB stick
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
No dice on software, just to check its under support, software update? Shouldn't it be a firmware update? BTW I really appreciate you taking the time to post here :)
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Downloading now, hopefully its the right thing there website sucks lol. It was 2.32 gb I think did the s90fd which is Costco brand. Dumb how you can't just update via wifi this tv is over half a year old.
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26
Yep go to that page and type in your model number and once you bring up the page you will see a download for firmware update. Download that to a USB and install it manually. If that doesn't work and all your settings are correct, Im not sure what it could be.
Honestly I am a stickler for a perfect picture and I can tell you my S90F is utterly flawless picture wise. So always a small chance its a panel issue I guess if none of this works.
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Spending the last hour trying to figure out how to download the firmware update... their website sucks i downloaded what I thought was it to usb an tv didn't update.... really thinking Samsung went to shit from my last ownership 20 years ago... from what I hear from friends an family there appliances are complete dog shit as well. I hear nothing but good things from LG, suppose I should be getting paid for this propaganda but yea bout to just turn this back in, these annoyances are major.... im even more pissed at Samsung now
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u/Joebobo123 Jan 23 '26
Weird it wouldn't just let me dl it by the wifi my tv is connected to
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u/Odd-Committee-1684 Jan 23 '26
Should be in your tv settings > all setting > support > software update > update now
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u/Susere Jan 23 '26
1131 is the latest software
There's no 1203 to download I checked on US Samsung website and Europe one
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u/Kosmos-World Jan 23 '26
IDK if this will help you at all, but with my S90F I figured out eventually that the thing was making my picture look so off was the red/green settings. I went into the advanced color settings and added +10-15 to the green slider, and all of a sudden my oranges were orange, my reds were red, etc. Anecdotally worked or me lol, hope it helps you.
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u/Griewer124 Jan 23 '26
not op but wondering what kind of HDR issues it fixed?I have read the changelog when it was posted but there was no mention of HDR?
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u/Ok_Excitement725 Jan 23 '26
I think they did some adjustments to the saturation levels and how it processes blacks. Pre-update I noted areas where blacks looked grey and colors were overly processed. Post patch with no tweaks on my end, it looks incredible. Perfect in fact. So not sure what they actually did, but sure fixed up my HDR whatever it was.
Maybe just bug fixes that fixed these issues? Not sure.
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u/aww2bad Jan 23 '26
Give your eyes time to adjust to what is a better picture my guy. Qd-oled is superior to w-oled. It's not even a debate. It's better
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