Televisions

Rival OLED manufacturers are really getting started with new types of high-brightness panel designs, but Panasonic has been at it for years – with consistently great results. A catch has been that the brand's hardware-enhanced OLED TVs have tended to pile on the (Great British) pounds.

Samsung isn't the only brand to combine OLED's self-emissive contrast talents and the brightness/colour benefits of Quantum Dots in a TV this year. Sony is also in on the QD OLED act with its A95K series, in 55in (tested here) and 65in versions that command a premium over Samsung's already discounted S95B model. Is the extra cost justified?

The QE65S95B is a Samsung OLED TV. This is something that bears repeating, because after spending almost a decade telling you not to buy an OLED because they're not bright enough and can fall prey to screen burn, Samsung has changed its mind. Before anyone starts mumbling anything about hypocrisy or petards, however, Samsung's new OLED TV is not the same as the models we're used to.

Great as the excitement is this year surrounding Samsung's debut QD OLED TVs – the first 'self-emissive' displays from the Korean company in close to a decade – it still determinedly sees Mini LED as its top-flight TV technology. And on the evidence of the flagship 75in QE75QN900B, it has a point. This TV is good enough to have you wondering if your budget will stretch to its premium price tag.

While OLED had new brighter panels to shout about in 2021, the story of the year for rival LCD technology was definitely the arrival of mini LED backlighting. Samsung, in particular, showed how moving to much smaller LEDs, coupled with an increase in a TV's number of local dimming zones, could rewrite the LCD picture quality rule book in terms of contrast precision. Now it returns with a second-gen model to hopefully wow us again.

Philips is aiming for the front of the grid with the 65OLED+936. An evolution of the brand's OLED+935 model, this update couples a racy fifth-generation P5 image engine with an all-new OLED panel and HDMI 2.1 high frame rate support. The screen has clearly got Panasonic's JZ2000 home cinema hero in its sights, so what can it tempt us with? Quite a lot, as it happens...