CES 2023 has come to an end, but not before dazzling us with some of the best new TVs we’ve seen in a long time. Here we run down our favorites from the show.
The last couple of years of CES have been odd, to say the leas. First there was a weird digital-only year, and then last year’s kind of cautious toe-dip, neither of which delivered the marquee splendor that we all look to CES for: eye-popping, big, beautiful TVs!
Good news: CES 2023 showed us that the massive technology conference is back in full force, more than making up for it with some stunning new TVs from all the major players and then some. There were some surprises on the show floor, and a lot to talk about, which we will keep doing well into review season, but for now, here’s our recap of the best TVs of CES 2023.
Samsung always brings it at CES, and this year, to say that the company was on point is a total understatement. The company us not one, but two amazing panels in the Samsung S95C OLED and the S90C OLED. Samsung didn’t just give us the 77-inch TVs we were asking for — it came up with a new model series as well.
Based on Samsung’s QD-OLED technology — the QD stands for “quantum dot” — the S95C combines the deep, inky blacks of OLED with the superior brightness of QLED, making it the top dog QD-OLED TV from Samsung — we liked it so much we added it our Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards list. It’s available in the big 77-inch model, yes, and also in more manageable 55- and 65-inch sizes, too. It has Samsung’s new QD-OLED panel (more on that below) that is, according to Samsung, 30% brighter than its S90C sibling, and pumps out up to 2,000 nits of brightness. It’s also beefed up the refresh rate from last year’s S95B, going from 120Hz to 144Hz.
The biggest difference between the S95C and S90C is the former’s external One Connect box that this year is stylishly built into the stand mount at the back of the TV. The features don’t stop there, though, with the S95C also getting an improved audio system with a Dolby Atmos-capable, top-mounted 4.2.2 channel setup and 70 watts of power, plus AMD FreeSync Premium Pro certification and an updated Gaming Hub.
Then there’s the S90C, which has the new QD-OLED panel, comes in the same 55-, 65-, and 77-inch variations, and otherwise looks a lot like the S95C. While it’s not quite as bright as the S95C and doesn’t have the One Connect box or the same sound system (there’s a 60-watt 2.2.2, Dolby Atmos system instead), the TVs are the same. It looks very similar to the 2022 model, which isn’t a bad thing.
Either way, the new, even brighter QD-OLED panel could make a game-changing TV even more awesome. If the color brightness and overall luminance end up being as bright as they can be, then we could be looking at another year where Samsung has a dominant top-tier TV.
It’s impossible not to think of the LG G3 OLED evo as LG’s answer to Samsung’s QD-OLED. But the fact is that LG Display (the sister company behind LG’s TVs that also supplies OLED panels to other manufacturers) has been working on developing brighter OLED panels for quite some time. Here, we get OLED EX with deuterium and heat sinks. And then LG Display developed OLED META — that’s META all caps, not the Facebook parent company — which uses a micro-lens-array to reclaim light that is usually lost in the panel, and put it out toward the viewer.
