Samsung’s S99H OLED just became the world’s first TV to win all the most prestigious awards at this event

Many people place a high value on awards because they often demonstrate quality. The latest sci-fi film to win the Academy Award for Best Actor must be worth watching. Therefore, by the same logic, a TV that has won an award is worth owning. But what about television that won awards from a panel of independent judges? It might be even more worth owning.

Last week, Samsung announced that its S99H OLED was the first TV in history to win all three awards in the HDTVTest 2026 TV Shootout. It wasn’t the first HD or OLED TV to win the awards; it was the first television period. In what the company calls a historic first, the S99H OLED won Best Home Theater TV, Best Living Room TV, and the coveted Best TV of 2026. In 2025, we knew Samsung’s S99H OLED would be one of the most exciting TVs to come out in 2026, but we didn’t know it would be this big.

Each TV in the Shootout was evaluated using a variety of performance metrics. These included the ability to display high-fidelity movies in a dark room and stream shows with questionable signals in bright rooms. The S99H OLED competed against flagship models including the LG G6 OLED and Sony Bravia 8 II QD-OLED, but Samsung’s OLED TV ultimately won.

Not all rewards are equal. Sure, the word “award” sounds impressive, but the Golden Raspberries were invented to immortalize the worst of the worst in cinema. The point is, even if you’ve never heard of the HDTVTest Shootout, you shouldn’t overlook the award-winning TVs.

The HDTVTest Shootout, run in association with Crampton & Moore, an independent UK television and appliance retail chain, is a series of blind tests that pit different TVs against each other. Eight industry professionals and critics, including HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh, rated the TVs on how they handled specially selected movie scenes. These tests measured metrics like HDR performance, color accuracy, and video processing. However, instead of judging the TVs against each other, the panel pitted them against the Sony BVM-HX3110. Why was it chosen as a control? Because, according to HDTVTest, this is an “industry standard” monitor that Hollywood colorists use for their work.

While the Samsung S99H OLED’s victory is remarkable in itself, it’s also impressive for another reason: the TV almost didn’t win. For the first time, this year’s HDTVTest Shootout held a semi-final where an LED TV had the opportunity to compete against OLEDs. The winner of this round was the Sony Bravia 9 II True RGB LED TV. And despite being an LED monitor, the Sony Bravia 9 II gave Samsung’s S99H OLED the toughest competition of the year, surpassing other TVs to become this year’s second-favorite display. No favorites here.