Samsung’s latest OLED finally solves my HDMI frustrations

CES 2026 brought a flood of new TV announcements, with major brands like Samsung, LG, Amazon, Hisense, and TCL all unveiling brand-new models set to launch later this year. A few clear themes emerged from the show, including the continued rise of art TVs — thanks to new offerings from Amazon and LG — alongside Micro-RGB TVs and, of course, OLED models.

On the OLED front, LG introduced its new C6 and higher-end G6 models, while Samsung revealed the S90H, S95H, and S99H series, the successors to arguably some of last year’s best OLED TVs. Of the bunch, the S95H is the one that really caught my attention.

There are quite a few changes the S95H has this year, with two of the biggest being its brightness and its new frame. Samsung says the S95H is up to 30 percent brighter than last year’s S95F, and it also gets a new metal frame that works with the company’s Zero Gap Wall Mount, letting you mount the TV flush against your wall, similar to Samsung’s The Frame TVs.

But the third change, and the one that really caught my eye, is that the S95H is ditching the One Connect box that came with the S95F. That slim box housed the TV’s HDMI ports, but with the S95H, Samsung is going back to a more traditional setup, placing the ports directly on the back of the TV again. Out of the box, the S95H comes equipped with four HDMI 2.1 ports.

That said, Samsung isn’t completely abandoning the idea of keeping HDMI ports away from the TV. The company has confirmed that the S95H will support its new Wireless Connect Box, which adds four additional HDMI 2.1 ports that connect to the TV wirelessly, bringing the total HDMI port count to eight. The Wireless Connect Box will be sold separately, so it won’t add to the TV’s base price, and it’s being positioned as an optional accessory for those who need it.

It’s not a perfect solution, but it works

Wireless HDMI ports have increased latency

One of my biggest struggles with TVs has always been never having enough HDMI ports, so the fact that the S95H supports up to eight HDMI 2.1 ports is a game-changer — and it’s an optional feature I wish more TVs offered. Eight HDMI ports might seem overkill, but with multiple gaming consoles, streaming devices, and sound equipment hooked up, it’s easy to fill them all.

But there is a trade-off: the four extra HDMI 2.1 ports provided by the Wireless Connect Box for the S95H do come with a catch: they’re wireless after all, which means they have higher latency than the four ports built directly into the TV.

For some people, that might not matter. But for gamers — especially in multiplayer scenarios — those extra milliseconds could be extremely noticeable. If I were using an S95H, I’d keep all my consoles, like my Switch 2 and PS5, and my gaming PC plugged into the TV’s built-in ports. Streaming devices, like a Fire TV Stick or Roku, could connect to the Wireless Connect Box, where that small latency wouldn’t be an issue.

As for pricing, Samsung hasn’t announced how much the optional Wireless Connect Box for the S95H will cost — or the S95H series itself, for that matter. The company usually launches its new OLED TVs in the spring, so we’ll have to wait until then for concrete details.

We do know the sizes the S95H will come in, with 48, 55, 65, 77, and 83-inch sizes confirmed to be coming. The 55, 65, and 77-inch models will feature QD-OLED panels, while the 83-inch model will use a WOLED panel. It’s unclear currently whether the 48-inch S95H will have a WOLED or QD-OLED panel.

Overall, for anyone like me who’s constantly swapping devices in and out of their TV’s HDMI ports, the S95H’s support for up to eight HDMI 2.1 ports, thanks to the Wireless Connect Box, is a huge advantage. I hope more TV brands start offering wireless HDMI solutions like this in the future — while still keeping plenty of built-in ports on the TV itself.