Samsung's R95H reviewed: How good is Micro RGB really
9/9/2026
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Luca Fontana
Samsung is challenging OLED with its new Micro-RGB technology. The R95H's measured values are spectacular. But in a direct image comparison, it turns out that technical superiority does not necessarily mean the best picture.
Full Disclosure: The television, the 65-inch version of the Micro RGB R95H, was provided to me by Samsung for testing purposes. However, Samsung has no influence on the test result, my review, or the testing procedure.
It didn't take long.
No sooner had Sony shown what True RGB can do with the Bravia 9 Mark II than Samsung appeared on the scene. With the same basic idea – and a different name. With the R95H, too, it is no longer just blue LEDs shining behind the LCD panel, whose light has to be laboriously broken down into colors. Instead, tiny red, green, and blue LEDs generate colors directly in the backlight. This saves detours and thus light, making the colors purer and more vibrant.
Samsung calls this Micro RGB. Not because the principle is fundamentally different from Sony's True RGB, but because Samsung claims its red, green, and blue LEDs are particularly small: just 100 micrometers. Theoretically, this could mean more dimming zones and better contrast. At IFA 2025, Samsung's message was correspondingly unsubtle: Our LEDs are smaller. Therefore, they are better.
Why the effort? Because LCDs have been struggling with the same dilemma for years. They can get incredibly bright, but they require a backlight that cannot be controlled with pixel-perfect precision. OLEDs, on the other hand, control their light with pixel-perfect precision and therefore deliver perfect black and fabulous contrast values. However, for large, bright image areas, they have to hit the brakes much earlier to keep power consumption, heat, and panel aging in check.
Sony's True RGB and Samsung's Micro RGB are intended to at least partially break up this old division of roles. The separate red, green, and blue LEDs promise not only enormous brightness but also purer colors and a larger color gamut. Sony has already impressively demonstrated with the Bravia 9 Mark II that this works.
Samsung now apparently wants to know how far this principle can be pushed. Let's find out together.
Design: Where is the box?
In terms of design, Samsung remains true to its line. Thin black frame, uncluttered back, central stand – done. Especially from the front, the R95H looks pleasantly unobtrusive. The wide metal stand is also rock-solid and takes up less space than two feet placed far apart.
There is a small disappointment, however: The One Connect Box is missing. For me, it was almost part of the inventory for Samsung's flagships. Instead of connecting all devices directly to the TV, HDMI, USB, and antenna cables disappear into a separate box. Only a single cable for power and signals then leads to the panel. Practical, elegant, and especially ingenious for wall mounting.
With the R95H, it is only available as an optional purchase (and not exactly cheap). I will survive it, of course. I still find it a pity: Especially with a flagship in this price range, the One Connect Box was a small Samsung unique selling point that I would have liked to see included in the scope of delivery.
As for the specs. Samsung's R95H offers the following:
- 4x HDMI 2.1 ports, one of them with eARC
- 2x USB-A port
- 1x output for Toslink
- 1x LAN port
- 1x CI+ slot
- Antenna connections (DVB-T2, DVB-C, DVB-S2)
- Bluetooth 5.3
- WLAN (Wi-Fi 6E)
- Google Cast
- Apple AirPlay
All four HDMI inputs support 4K at up to 165 Hertz, plus VRR and ALLM for gaming. For HDR, Samsung continues to support HLG, HDR10, and HDR10+. Dolby Vision is still missing. Dolby Atmos, on the other hand, is on board and can also be passed on to an external sound system via eARC.
Measurements: brute performance
What follows goes deep into the subject matter. I measure with professional tools from Portrait Display to objectively classify the image quality. If you are not interested in details and diagrams, you can scroll to the chapter «The image: less dominant than the measured values».
As for the measurements. I measured all picture modes of the TV without performing a calibration – just as the device comes out of the box. I only deactivated the energy-saving functions in the settings, such as the automatic adjustment of brightness to ambient light. Otherwise, the following applies: out of the box.
The best measured values are delivered by the Filmmaker Mode. And by a clear margin. This does not surprise me: Even with Samsung's previous top models, it was my first choice because it reproduces colors, brightness, and image processing closest to the reference values. When gaming, however, you should continue to use the Game Mode due to the input lag.
And with that, to the numbers.
The maximum brightness
With small image sections, Samsung's R95H and LG's OLED G5 from last year give each other surprisingly little. Sometimes one is ahead, sometimes the other. That alone is remarkable: That an OLED can keep up with such a potent LCD with small HDR highlights (2300 vs. 2043 nits!) would have been hardly imaginable a few years ago.
It gets exciting as soon as larger parts of the image become bright. Then the OLED has to hit the brakes increasingly, while the two RGB LCDs maintain their brightness significantly better. With an image section that corresponds to 10 percent of the total image area, the R95H even reaches a brute 2490 nits and falls off less sharply afterwards than Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II. Only from a 50 percent image section does Sony pull ahead.
What does this mean when watching TV? A single spotlight, an explosion, or the sun on the horizon can look just as spectacular on the G5. With a huge snowy landscape, a bright sky, or a football match in the afternoon, however, Samsung's R95H plays out its advantage: It can not only be very bright. It can be very bright in a lot of the image at the same time.
White balance, colors, and gray tones
With so much brightness, the next question arises: Do the colors remain clean? Let's start with the white balance.
White is created on a screen when red, green, and blue shine simultaneously and in the exactly correct ratio. If this ratio is not correct, a color cast creeps in – the white becomes too cold, too warm, or too greenish. With the R95H, the RGB balance remains pleasantly stable over long stretches. Only in very bright image areas does red get slightly out of sync. With a deviation of just over 1.5 percent, however, that is complaining at a very high level.
Next, the color gamut coverage. There I measure:
- Rec. 709: 100 % (good = 100 %) – the standard color gamut for SDR content such as live TV, DVDs, and Blu-rays.
- DCI-P3: 99.98 % (good = >90 %) – the standard color gamut for HDR content, for example in HDR10 or Dolby Vision.
- BT.2020: 92.9 % (good = >90 %) – the color gamut of the future. Current content hardly ever uses it.
Exactly here, Micro RGB shows why all the effort with red, green, and blue LEDs in the backlight is made at all. 92.9 percent BT.2020 is enormous. Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II reached 88.61 percent. Samsung thus achieves a color gamut that goes far beyond what today's films even push to the limit.
What remains is color fidelity, i.e., the question of how accurately the TV hits individual colors. Here it gets a bit less spectacular: In Filmmaker Mode, I measure an average DeltaE value of 3.05. That is good and for most people hardly recognizable as a deviation – but just not reference-worthy like the 1.9 of the Bravia 9 Mark II or the 2.29 of the LG G5.
For classification: A DeltaE of less than 3 is only visible to experts and is therefore already considered excellent. Through calibration, one tries to push the value even below 2.
Reflections
With the R95H, too, Samsung relies on its matte anti-reflection layer – and I am happy about that every time anew. Incident light is not reflected like on a glossy surface, but scattered widely over the image area. Windows, lamps, and other light sources do not disappear as a result, but they disturb much less. Especially during the day, this is worth its weight in gold.
Other televisions do this differently, for example. Their glossy surfaces deliver a wonderfully crisp image in a controlled environment, but quickly turn into a rather expensive mirror in unfavorable light. The R95H, on the other hand, remains surprisingly easy to read even in dark scenes.
Of course, Samsung's solution also has its price: In very bright rooms, black can appear somewhat duller. But I am still happy to make this trade. What use is the deepest black in the world to me if I see mainly myself in it?
The image: less dominant than the measured values
The measurements are impressive. But what is the use of 2500 nits peak brightness and a gigantic color gamut if the image in the living room is not convincing? Time for the practical test.
For this, the R95H competes against three deliberately chosen competitors. Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II is its direct rival: also an RGB mini-LED TV, only that Sony calls its technology True RGB instead of Micro RGB. LG's G5, in turn, was my favorite TV from last year and shows what classic OLED can now achieve. And with the S95F, I also pit Samsung's own competing technology against the R95H: QD-OLED.
If you would like to read the detailed individual tests of the other models, you can find them here:
Color reproduction
How does Samsung's Micro RGB fare in terms of color reproduction? I put the R95H to the test with scenes from «Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2», «Avatar: The Way of Water», and «James Bond: Skyfall» – all visual heavyweights with vibrant colors, fine lighting moods, and demanding skin tones.
Source: UHD Blu-ray, «Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2» – Disney+, «Avatar: The Way of Water» – Apple TV+, «James Bond: Skyfall»
Compared to Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II, it is initially noticeable how similar the two RGB LCDs are. Samsung tunes its image a bit warmer and softer, Sony cooler and with more contrast. Drax's skin, the Na'vi faces, or Bond's face look natural on both. So you shouldn't expect a brightly colored explosion of color from the massive 92.9 percent BT.2020 that I measured on the R95H. The large color gamut simply means that Samsung can display these colors if the source material demands them.
The difference to the OLEDs becomes more noticeable. LG's G5 and especially Samsung's own S95F separate colors more strongly from each other and thus give them more punch. The green of Pandora looks richer, warm orange and red tones glow more intensely, skin gets more plasticity. The R95H remains more restrained. Interesting, isn't it? The TV with the largest measured color gamut does not automatically deliver the most colorful image.
Summa summarum: Objectively, Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II continues to set the bar for me. It is natural, precise, and balanced. Subjectively, I still like the two OLEDs better. Their more powerful colors simply make the image more vivid – even if they might not always be quite as accurate.
Black level and brightness gradation
How do the four TVs fare in particularly dark or extremely bright film scenes? I tested them with «Blade Runner 2049» and «Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom» – both films that push shadows, highlights, and contrast gradients to their limits.
Source: UHD Blu-Ray, «Blade Runner 2049» / «Jurassic World»
In dark scenes, the R95H surprises me the most. In Sapper Morton's kitchen from «Blade Runner 2049», it works out a surprisingly large number of details from the dark without simply making black appear gray. Kitchen unit, stove, and floor remain clearly recognizable, even in the deepest shadows. Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II does this similarly well. LG's G5, on the other hand, plays out its OLED strength: The black appears even richer and with more contrast, without noticeably losing much detail. That the R95H comes so close to the OLED with its backlight is a huge compliment.
Only Samsung's S95F falls off surprisingly. It lets large parts of the kitchen sink into black. This provides powerful contrast, but visibly swallows details. The R95H takes the opposite path: It displays dark and medium image areas somewhat brighter and thus gets more detail out of the shadows. In practice, however, it does this so skillfully that black still remains rich and high-contrast for me.
In bright scenes, a small surprise is revealed. In «Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom», the setting sun on the R95H by no means outshines everything. G5, S95F, and Bravia 9 Mark II set such small highlights just as impressively. This also coincides with my measurements: With very small bright areas, the R95H is even behind the G5 with around 2300 nits at around 2050 nits. The RGB LEDs only flex their muscles when larger parts of the image become bright. Then the Samsung can maintain its enormous brightness significantly longer than the OLEDs.
Local Dimming and Blooming
For years, I have made it anything but easy for TVs in my local dimming test. The comparison this time ranges from LG's 8K TV from 2020 to the R95H – and tells the story of a technology that has made enormous progress in six years.
Source: UHD Blu-Ray, «Westworld», Season 2, Episode 2. Timestamp: 00:11:50.]
With the LG, blooming – i.e., those typical light halos that arise when bright objects shine on a dark background – was almost unbearable. Samsung's QN95D reduced blooming visibly, the QN900D even eliminated it almost completely. The R95H, despite a practically identical number of dimming zones, adds even more: Black remains darker, bright objects radiate less into their surroundings. The number of dimming zones alone therefore says by no means everything.
The R95H still doesn't quite reach Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II. Its approximately 1530 dimming zones make bright objects shine almost like on an OLED from the deepest black – I see practically nothing of blooming anymore. Sony, however, dims dark areas more aggressively, while Samsung retains a bit more detail. The R95H therefore loses the direct comparison narrowly, but shows impressively how far LCD has come in the meantime.
The processor: flawless. Almost.
The processor is the brain of the TV. Its main task is to receive, process, and display image signals. In doing so, it recognizes poor image quality and upgrades it by removing noise, enhancing colors, smoothing edges, making movements more fluid, and adding missing pixel information.
Motion Processing and Judder
For the judder test, «1917» by Sam Mendes is used again. With its long, steady camera movements, the perfect stress test for any processor. Watch the vertical wooden beams in the barn: Do they run cleanly through the image – or does it stutter?
Source: UHD Blu-Ray, «1917». Timestamp: 00:42:25.]
Here the R95H cuts a good figure. The wooden beams glide visibly more smoothly through the image than with the Bravia 9 Mark II, whose Professional mode deliberately smoothes movements cautiously. But Samsung doesn't quite reach LG's G5. That remains my favorite in this discipline: butter-smooth, without immediately causing the dreaded soap effect.
The R95H thus lands pretty much in between. I still perceive a bit more judder than with the G5, but it never becomes annoying for me. And honestly, I like Samsung's approach better than Sony's purist restraint. Film is allowed to look like film – but it doesn't have to stutter like a flipbook because of that.
Upscaling
Now to one of the most demanding tests: How well can the processor improve inferior sources – such as older Blu-rays, live TV, or series like «The Walking Dead»? This was deliberately shot on 16mm film to create a damaged, post-apocalyptic atmosphere with film grain and image noise.
Source: Netflix, «The Walking Dead», Season 7, Episode 1. Timestamp: 00:02:30.]
The R95H turns this into a surprisingly clean image. Negan's beard, skin pores, and fine wrinkles remain clearly recognizable without Samsung simply ironing the film grain smooth. Compared to the S95F, the result even appears somewhat calmer and more natural. The OLED works out individual contours more aggressively, while the R95H draws fine structures somewhat softer.
Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II and LG's G5 do it even better. Especially Sony gets the last bit of texture out of Negan's face without artificially sharpening it. The G5 is similarly close. The differences? Tiny. If visible at all, then without a direct comparison.
Bottom line: The R95H belongs to the absolute top group in upscaling, but does not set a new benchmark. That remains with Sony and LG for me.
Gaming: Input Lag and Game Mode
On the subject of input lag, i.e., the delay between controller input and reaction on the screen: With the measuring device from Leo Bodnar, I get 19.8 milliseconds with the R95H – measured at UHD resolution, 60 frames per second, and activated HDR. That is a good value, but significantly above that of LG's G5 (9.7 milliseconds). At least the often-cited 20-millisecond limit, above which you really feel delays, is not exceeded.
- 4x HDMI ports (4K up to 165 Hz)
- Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)
- Variable refresh rates (HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro)
In addition, Samsung, like Sony, LG, Philips, TCL, and Panasonic, has entered into a partnership with major game studios. The result is the HGiG – the HDR Gaming Interest Group. According to the manufacturer, this is intended to ensure that HDR is displayed as the game developers intended, for example when playing «Spider-Man 2» on my PlayStation 5 Pro.
Source: PS5 Pro, «Spider-Man 2», 120Hz mode, HDR, VRR, and Ray Tracing activated.]
Spider-Man swings through New York at 120 frames per second, and the R95H turns it into a small firework. The blue sky pops, red warning beams shine almost out of the screen, and even with rapid swinging maneuvers, the image remains clean and responsive. Especially here, Micro RGB fully plays out its enormous brightness and color power. The input lag? I simply don't notice it. Anyone who plays competitively and fights for every millisecond will find faster TVs. For everyone else, the R95H is a damn strong gaming machine.
In a nutshell
Measurement monster without a crown
With the R95H, Samsung impressively demonstrates what Micro RGB is capable of. Nearly 2500 nits of peak brightness, 92.9 percent BT.2020, and a level of brightness that OLEDs can only dream of for large screen areas: on the trade show floor, this TV is a monster. In practice, however, it surprisingly rarely delivers the best picture. Sony's Bravia 9 Mark II works more precisely and dims even better, and I prefer LG's G5 for colors and motion. Even in upscaling, Samsung does not set a new benchmark. However, the R95H comes astonishingly close to OLEDs in terms of black levels and is in a league of its own when it comes to large-area brightness. That is exactly what makes it exciting: Micro RGB is not an OLED killer. But it eliminates a surprising number of old LCD weaknesses. The R95H may not be the best TV I have tested, but it is one of the most technically fascinating.
Pro
- Enormous brightness, especially over a large area
- Huge color gamut
- Excellent local dimming with hardly any blooming
- Very powerful gaming package with 4K/165 Hz
Contra
- Image quality, despite dream values, is not in the absolute top reference class
- Dolby Vision and One Connect Box are missing
Header image: Luca Fontana
Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
These articles might also interest you
Show all
These articles might also interest you
21 comments
later