Samsung Micro RGB R95H - Perfect Picture Just a Few Clicks Away

How confused are you about the different kinds of TVs there are out there these days?

I review these things and I certainly can't figure it out. Remember when it was just plasma vs LCD?

Now we're expected to choose between LED, QLED, OLED, Mini-LED, QNED, MicroLED, Mini-RGB, QD-OLED, Neo-QLED, Micro-RGB... And that's not even all of them.

Even more confusingly, I'm pretty sure some of the ones I've just listed might actually be the same thing.

Ask an expert, ask A.I., ask Reddit... Everyone will tell you something different.

A TV that looks great in bright sunshine, might make black scenes look grey or brown at night.

Is a display with a high refresh rate good for watching sport as well as gaming on? 

Do any TV's have decent built-in speakers these days? Or is it just assumed you'll need a soundbar - if not a whole external speaker system? And if you do, which speakers will work best with your telly?

Assuming you finally manage to choose one.

Well, good news; Today I can help with all that confusion, thanks to a new TV from Samsung.

Let me start by saying, more often than not, Samsung has managed to wow me with whatever its flagship TV is on any given year. So my expectations were pretty high when the 65-inch R95H landed on my doorstep.

I'm not going to get too bogged down in the technicals of Samsung's new Micro RGB panels, other than to say the main thing you need to know is they're made up of several different layers, all starting with microscopic clusters of three teeny-tiny LED chips, one red, one green and one blue. Because these lights are so small, you can fit many thousands of them in a 65, 75 or 85-inch display (the sizes the R95H comes in).

Instead of passing a bright blue or white light through a coloured filter, here the source Micro RGB LEDs are already coloured to begin with, so the result is much more accurate. Or that's the theory, anyway.

There's one other important geeky detail to remember about this Micro RGB breakthrough Samsung is using here; again, because the RGB chips are so small, the light is emitted in a much tighter beam, travelling straight forward, with very little spilling to the sides. We'll come back to that in a minute.

First, I had to get this thing out of the box and onto my cabinet - which actually turned out to be a complete doddle. Firstly, the new panel weighs significantly less than the older - but same size - QLED TV I usually watch. Secondly, Samsung has really refined the design of the stand, the components now just clipping into place - no screws required. Once assembled, the stand's front-facing surface has a mirror-like surface which creates the effect that the TV is almost hovering above the cabinet of its own accord.

The R95H is extremely slim, despite the fact unlike previous flagship Samsung TVs, it doesn't utilise a separate "One Connect" box for connecting HDMI, power, ethernet and USB cables. Instead, Samsung has gone back to a row of built-in ports recessed into the right-hand side of the back panel, with all four HDMI slots supporting 4K at 165Hz. That doesn't mean One Connect is dead though, as the R95H is "Wireless One Connect Ready" - meaning you can now buy a separate One Connect box that beams all your sound and vision back and forth without any cables at all, providing even more versatility when it comes to positioning your TV.

Setting up a Samsung telly has become more and more streamlined in recent years, especially if you're upgrading from a previous Samsung model. By signing into the Samsung SmartThings app, not only can you initialise the bulk of your settings, preferences and logins using your phone, you can also restore these if you'd set them up on your previous TV.

Samsung's proprietary Tizen operating system isn't the worst; it's easy to navigate and you can order your favourite apps on the home screen to suit your preference. Unfortunately, like many smart TV UIs, Tizen blasts a row of recommended viewing options above everything else - pushing content you may not be subscribed to or from the large selection of free-to-view Samsung TV Plus channels that come pre-installed. I wish there was a way to turn these suggestions off as I find them intrusive and rarely helpful.

On the other hand, Samsung has done great work when it comes to accessing and viewing settings menus. It's ironic that as modern televisions have become smarter and smarter, they've also become more and more complicated when it comes to customising picture and sound settings. Even as someone who sets up multiple TVs every year, it's often almost impossible to adjust the latest and greatest examples of display technology to, you know, look any good.

Take the much vaunted "Cinema" setting for example. This is a picture mode you'll find on most TVs these days and often it'll kick in automatically, unless you can find the correct menu to deactivate it. Supposedly, Cinema Mode reproduces a picture as close to the way it was originally filmed as possible - in effect, like watching it at the movies.

In reality, I've always found all Cinema Mode does is reduce brightness and contrast and makes the colours look washed out and lifeless.

Yet, so many of these flash TVs push their AI control to the fore, forcing Cinema Mode - or other modes - into action, whether you really wanted it or not. The R95H does that too - but here's the good bit; you can change it in seconds. A push of the settings button on the slim, solar-powered remote brings up a mini-settings menu at the bottom left of the screen. From here there are shortcuts to all the most important features; picture mode, sound mode. sound output device, etc.

What really elevates this mini-menu above any other I've used, is how easy it is to tweak the AI-customised modes. Instead of opening sub-menu after sub-menu, completely obscuring what you're watching, to end up with a list of brightness, contrast and colour sliders that may or may not adjust what you think they do, the R95H keeps it all down in the corner, showing you a grid of four sample pictures for each setting. Just choose which example you like best to lock it in - kind of like an eye test.

It's so quick. It's so simple. And you can do it with each mode to make every kind of content look its best. Including sport. And here's where those straight-shooting RGB chips really make all the difference. The lack of spill onto neighbouring areas on the screen means this is quite simply the best TV for watching sport I have ever seen. No matter how frantic the action, how fast the ball moves, how contrasting the uniforms, banners and crowd members are - every detail pops in crystal clarity, with no hint of shadow or halo or tearing effect whatsoever. If you love watching sport, this is the telly for you.

And as easy as it is to hone the picture settings to your liking, I've never found it so simple to access sound features too. To start with, the built-in speakers are actually not terrible. 70W of total output is decent for a TV and the 4.2.2 system doesn't come up short in terms of sheer volume. As usual, without a dedicated subwoofer, the bottom end is somewhat lacking, but the Dolby Atmos effects are surprisingly convincing and Samsung continues to refine its Object Tracking which proves useful on larger panels 65-inches and above.

Where things got really interesting was when I plugged in the Music Studio 7 speaker Samsung sent me to try out in tandem with the R95H.

Just as a speaker, I can't praise it highly enough. The sheer power and sense of 3D space it creates from such a compact form-factor is hard to believe. No matter how loud you wind it up - and believe me, it can go pretty loud - there's no hint of vibration or distortion.

Interestingly, at NZ$698.00, it can also work quite effectively as a standalone soundbar. Great value.

Obviously, it's not the ideal shape to stand in front of the middle of your TV, so I placed mine on the floor below it and was sonically blown away. If the surround and height effects were convincing from the R95H's built-in speakers, the Music Studio 7 places you right in the middle of the action. The bass response is so good, it all but nullifies the need for a dedicated woofer.

Thanks to Samsung's Q-Symphony feature, you can combine the TV's own speakers with the Music Studio 7's 3.1.1 array to create an even fuller soundscape. Does it compete with my much older Samsung surround system, consisting of a Q70R soundbar paired with dedicated subwoofer and a couple of rear speakers? It comes pretty close.

If I was building a surround sound system from scratch, I think I could do a lot worse than buying two Music Studio 7s for front left and right, with a couple of smaller Music Studio 5s at the back. I doubt I'd miss the the subbie at all at that point. The Samsung Sound app let's you add individual speakers in just that way, placing them where you want and tuning the whole system accordingly.

As I said earlier, it seems like more years than not, Samsung finds a way to produce the best home viewing experience I've encountered to date. They've blimmin' well done it again with the Micro RGB R95H. Not only is it easy to set up, even easier to fine-tune and easier still to pair with Samsung's other superb audio options, it just looks so good.

It has fantastic refresh rates for gaming, startlingly good brightness for daytime viewing - not to mention the most effective glare-free technology to keep all reflections at bay. And when it comes to watching sport, I've literally never seen anything quite like it.

At last, one manufacturer has taken some of the most advanced AV technology in the world and made it easy to use. Hats off.

Click here for more information on the Samsung Micro RGB R95H.

Click here for more information and pricing on the Samsung Music Studio 7.