Samsung's next-gen OLED TV is cheaper than expected and will be available very soon.

The Samsung S95B is the company's first TV to use QD-OLED technology. It will be available in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes beginning in April, which is fantastic news as we had feared it would be delayed until the second half of the year.

The price is even better: $2,199 for the 55-inch version and $2,999 for the 65-inch version, according to the official Samsung US website (UK and Australian prices have yet to appear, but based on how Samsung's other TVs are priced, we'd guess that UK prices will be around £2,500 for the 55-inch and £3,300-£3,500 for the 65-inch).

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Obviously, that's not cheap, but it's a lot less than we expected, and it's going to shake up the best OLED TVs if the QD-OLED screen tech is as good as early impressions suggest.

In comparison, we expect the 55-inch LG G2 OLED TV to cost around the same amount, but the Samsung S95B will almost certainly outperform it in terms of colour reproduction, sound quality, and possibly even brightness.

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And, while it's only a few hundred dollars more than the LG C2, its main competitor in the OLED space, we'd expect an even more noticeable improvement in image quality from the Samsung S95B over the C2 there (again, based on first views of the QD-OLED technology). The price increase is likely to be more than worth it for AV enthusiasts – we expect this to be one of the Best TVs of the year.

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There are a lot of new details about the S95B that we didn't know before, such as the fact that it will use a new 'LaserSlim' design similar to other OLED TVs. It will also have four HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming and Samsung Object Tracking Sound technology for spatial positioning of sounds from its built-in speakers.

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(Image credit: Samsung)

WHAT IS QD-OLED?

QD-OLED is a new method of producing OLED TVs that is intended to address some of the shortcomings of other OLED technologies. Traditional OLED TVs create their colours using sets of red, green, blue, and white pixels, with the white pixels adding brightness for HDR pop – but also slightly reducing the pop of their colours compared to what they could achieve.

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QD-OLED TVs have an all-blue pixel panel with a colour filter of Quantum Dots (as used in QLED TVs, including the best Samsung TVs) in front that converts the light into green and red to create a rainbow of colours. Quantum Dots are extremely efficient at colour filtering, allowing for more brightness from the pixels directly, as well as the potential for a wider and bolder range of colours.

And QD-OLED will still provide the per-pixel lighting control and perfect black tones that OLED is known for – it should simply provide more dazzle at the brighter end of the spectrum. We covered some of the specifics on how QD-OLED screens outperformed regular OLED screens when Samsung Display first announced them in January.

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You may have noticed that Samsung's official S95B page simply refers to it as an OLED TV, which is confusing – if I were Samsung, I'd want to make it clear that I'm using advanced new technology to justify a higher price than many other OLED TVs. The Samsung page confirms that it uses Quantum Dot technology further down, but it's an oddly subdued way to announce that you might be witnessing a TV revolution...

In any case, we can't wait to put this to the test – we'll let you know what we think as soon as we get our hands on one. Best TV 2022