Complicated Situation with Expensive TV

Zombiesfeelpain

So this issue has some technical nuance, but I'll do my best to simplify it.

I got an expensive Samsung S95B back in June 2022, all was well with the purchase until Samsung released an update to the TV's firmware back at the end of October 2022. It lowered the brightness by a noticeable margin in Game Mode in HDR, now I primarily use this TV to play games the vast majority of the time, users online with expensive TV calibration equipment confirmed the S95B TV was undertaking luminance in Game Mode HDR, making everything duller than it otherwise should be or was before, about the middle of November is called Currys, the retailer I got the TV from and explained the situation and gave them a heads-up on what might happen if Samsung could not fix the issue.

Samsung has basically told me they wouldn't know if or when the issue would be fixed so I'm now looking at returning the TV to Currys, the complication being a repair would be futile due to the nature of it being a firmware issue vs hardware, I have been told by a few people my issue would still be with the retailer Currys regardless of it being a firmware issue, I also have a monthly subscription to a Currys Care & Repair plan for the TV.

I do feel that aspects of the "SAD FART" point do apply, as I did various amounts of research before selecting this TV as the one I'd buy vs other expensive TV's on the market.

Any help or direction would be very much appreciated.

Aylesbury_Duck

First bit of advice would be to ditch the Currys plan.  It's unnecessary and expensive.  You have sufficient protection with consumer rights and manufacturer warranty to render their care plan redundant in the early years of ownership.  It's not helping you with this matter, for a start.

On to the problem at hand, it is a tricky one.  You're outside the six months so Currys can ask you to prove that a fault exists.  The question is: Does it?  Is brightness a subjective thing?  If you had made minimum brightness a requirement of the product when you purchased it, and Currys sold you that model on that basis, I think you'd be on stronger ground.  As it is, it's a subjective matter and arguably not a fault. Even then, the firmware update was presumably optional, so Currys might argue that you elected to update the firmware which has caused the problem.  Their position will be that they sold you a perfectly working TV and it's "your" upgrade that has caused the problem.

Is updating the firmware a condition of the manufacturer warranty, similar to the requirement to keep a car serviced to preserve a warranty?  If it is, you might have a better route with Samsung as a warranty claim, but you'd need to read the terms of the warranty to see if this is covered.

MattMattMattUK

I am guessing that the firmware change was designed to make high refresh rates (120) work better, the lower brightness reduces the transition time. I am not sure what level of granular control you have on that TV but can you create a custom mode, or adjust the settings on Game Mode. EG it will have all motion processing off and will be setting the HDR calibration, can you expand the HDR range manually back to full range, or turn off motion processing and enable VRR in a custom mode?

HillStreetBlues

Aylesbury_Duck said:

As it is, it's a subjective matter and arguably not a fault. Even then, the firmware update was presumably optional, so Currys might argue that you elected to update the firmware which has caused the problem.  Their position will be that they sold you a perfectly working TV and it's "your" upgrade that has caused the problem.

With any firmware updates, it would be down to reasonable care, just like physical item.
So if a manufacturer released an update, then it's reasonable to use the update, so would be covered.
But if the update came from a random on-line source, then it wouldn't be covered.


On the issue brightness issue, I personally think it should be covered as the intended use of the screen is playing games.

The fault did happen in the first 6 months as reported it to Currys in Nov 22 (bought June 22)

So OP should go back to Currys and give them the chance to repair/ replace TV under CRA2015  failing that a full refund.



 

DullGreyGuy

HillStreetBlues said:
On the issue brightness issue, I personally think it should be covered as the intended use of the screen is playing games.

The fault did happen in the first 6 months as reported it to Currys in Nov 22 (bought June 22)

So OP should go back to Currys and give them the chance to repair/ replace TV under CRA2015  failing that a full refund.

Its going to be a debate on if the TV is "faulty" or not... the manufacturer is saying its operating as they intend.

If you look at the likes of https://www.avsforum.com/threads/2022-samsung-s95b-dedicated-gaming-thread-consoles-and-pc.3243215/page-45 and the post by L337Fool they say the off the shelf gaming mode isnt as good as it was previously but recommends alternative settings that results in a picture better than the original gaming mode. NB not recommending their suggestion of overclocking the TV. 

HillStreetBlues

DullGreyGuy said:

Its going to be a debate on if the TV is "faulty" or not... the manufacturer is saying its operating as they intend.

The manufacturer will be bias thou, as admitting it's a fault isn't in their interest.

Zombiesfeelpain

Aylesbury_Duck said:

First bit of advice would be to ditch the Currys plan.  It's unnecessary and expensive.  You have sufficient protection with consumer rights and manufacturer warranty to render their care plan redundant in the early years of ownership.  It's not helping you with this matter, for a start.

On to the problem at hand, it is a tricky one.  You're outside the six months so Currys can ask you to prove that a fault exists.  The question is: Does it?  Is brightness a subjective thing?  If you had made minimum brightness a requirement of the product when you purchased it, and Currys sold you that model on that basis, I think you'd be on stronger ground.  As it is, it's a subjective matter and arguably not a fault. Even then, the firmware update was presumably optional, so Currys might argue that you elected to update the firmware which has caused the problem.  Their position will be that they sold you a perfectly working TV and it's "your" upgrade that has caused the problem.

Is updating the firmware a condition of the manufacturer warranty, similar to the requirement to keep a car serviced to preserve a warranty?  If it is, you might have a better route with Samsung as a warranty claim, but you'd need to read the terms of the warranty to see if this is covered.

Thanks for the advice on the Currys plan, I did notify them before the 6 months was up on the issue and was told it had been added to my care plan notes, I did purchase the S95B vs competing OLED TV's due to it using a QD OLED panel which can sustain greater peak and sustained brightness and colour volume vs a traditional WRGB OLED panel from LG.

The firmware updates have no longer been optional for some time on Samsung TV's even the option to disable auto updates disables updates when a TV is powered off, not when on, users used to be able to disable OTA updates via the internet by going into the service menu, the last 2-3 of Samsung TV generations, Samsung have greyed out the option, so basically, the only two ways are keeping the TV offline, which I'd argue defeats a lot of the purpose of buying a new smart TV or blocking it at the ISP level which is a very complicated process. 

In terms of the firmware update being a condition of the MF warranty, I'd have to check.

Zombiesfeelpain

MattMattMattUK said:

I am guessing that the firmware change was designed to make high refresh rates (120) work better, the lower brightness reduces the transition time. I am not sure what level of granular control you have on that TV but can you create a custom mode, or adjust the settings on Game Mode. EG it will have all motion processing off and will be setting the HDR calibration, can you expand the HDR range manually back to full range, or turn off motion processing and enable VRR in a custom mode?

The lowering of brightness is due to a bug in how the TV tracking luminance, I wish I could post a link to calibration software showing this but my account is still too new to do this.

The settings I've got currently are designed to be reasonably accurate, enabling an option like contrast enhancer does increase brightness but lifts the entire image up, including inky blacks OLED's are known for and turning them grey, so I've had it disabled.

The undertracking for some reason only affects GAME MODE HDR, all other modes like filmmaker accurately tracks the luminance curve.

Zombiesfeelpain

DullGreyGuy said:

HillStreetBlues said:
On the issue brightness issue, I personally think it should be covered as the intended use of the screen is playing games.

The fault did happen in the first 6 months as reported it to Currys in Nov 22 (bought June 22)

So OP should go back to Currys and give them the chance to repair/ replace TV under CRA2015  failing that a full refund.

Its going to be a debate on if the TV is "faulty" or not... the manufacturer is saying its operating as they intend.

If you look at the likes of avsforum.com/threads/2022-samsung-s95b-dedicated-gaming-thread-consoles-and-pc.3243215/page-45 and the post by L337Fool they say the off the shelf gaming mode isnt as good as it was previously but recommends alternative settings that results in a picture better than the original gaming mode. NB not recommending their suggestion of overclocking the TV. 

Fool is actually mentioning the brightness nerf going from 1211 to 1304, something I was fine with because only affected 1-3% highlights, going from 1500 nits to 1000 nits 1304 tracked reasonably accurately for luminance, Samsung put out the 1403 update which introduced luminance under tracking bug on GAME HDR mode only, so the image undertracks by about 200 nits in the 70-80% area which is noticeable.