Digital Online Reviews: Samsung UN55B8500 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Samsung UN55B8500 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV

Samsung UN55B8500 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV

Samsung UN55B8500 : Customer Reviews

Best LCD tv available today! To clarify I own this tv and am not just basing this review on time spent in a store browsing. This tv has been hard to come by and the only place I could find that had it in stock was my local Best Buy with a Magnolia section. Design: Samsung is noted for their sleek design and this tv is no exception. Samsung says it has a charcoal touch of color but I really didn't notice any color in the bezel. It is black and goes to clear at the outer edge. It sits on a metal stand with a clear neck holding the tv. At the bottom middle of the tv below where it says Samsung is a blue light which can be turned off. I noticed the light flickers ever so slightly when a command is sent from the remote you are using. The tv is VERY slim. Only 1.6" at it's fattest point. This is amazing considering this tv is a fully backlit LED unit with local dimming. Truly amazing and a design that will have your friends jealous. Picture Quality: This is the best looking LCD tv made today. I have viewed many other LCD tv's including the Sony XBR8 and the Samsung A950 from last year and this one is the best looking I have seen. From a picture quality perspective the XBR8 is closest but not quite up to par with the 8500. Realistically if you had either of these sets in your house they would look spectacular. The blacks on the 8500 are so dark it approaches the level of blacks in the best Plasma tv's. In a dark room I could not tell where the tv screen ended and the bezel began because the screen was so dark. The colors are superb and can be tweaked any number of ways to your liking. I prefer the "Natural" mode for everyday use and the "Movie" mode for watching blu-ray movies. The 240hz refresh is nice but the best thing is that you can independantly control Blue and Judder settings. Cranking up the 240hz tends to produce what some call the "soap opera" effect but this can easily be eliminated by tweaking. There is also a Game mode which I use when gaming on my PS3. One interesting thing I found out was that the Movie mode using the Warm 2 setting is pretty much spot on from a calibration perspective right out of the box. I say that because I have a Spears & Munsil calibration blu-ray disc and when I ran the tv through the calibration process using Movie mode on Warm 2 I literally only had to tweak one setting by one or two points. I could see many people just flipping back and forth between Natural and Movie modes, depending on what they are watching, and not bothering to calibrate the tv as it looks great pretty much out of the box. I also wanted to mention that standard def looks good on this tv. It doesn't look nearly as good as HD but it is totally acceptable in my opinion. Sound: Having such a think profile I expected the sound to be horrible. Surprisingly it was quite acceptable. While I would recommend a surround sound system I never felt like the tv speakers were all that bad. My wife has never mentioned anything and I have never been watching a tv show and thought, "oh the sound stinks". I would say it's about average which is ok to me considering the tiny amount of space Samsung had to work with. While audio-philes may not like the tv speakers/sound I think a lot of people would be totally fine with it. Viewing Angle: I sit about 9' to 10' away from the screen and have not noticed any real issues with the viewing angle. Of course no LED LCD will have a viewing angle as good as a plasma but unless you are sitting at an extreme angle you probably won't have to worry too much about this. I think this is more of a personal preference...sure the best picture is right in the center of the screen but I don't think sitting to the right or left a few feet makes the picture dramatically different. Maybe a video-phile would notice but my wife doesn't notice and has never said a thing. Reflection: Be aware that this is NOT a matte screen, it is a reflective screen. If you have windows directly facing the tv then make sure you have curtains or blinds that can block out the light enough not to bother you. I don't think it's anymore reflective than other Samsung tv's but coming from a matte screen prior to this it was a big change for me. Widgets: The tv comes with internet connectivity for Yahoo Widgets, You Tube, Twitter, USA Today Sports and several others. You can either buy a Samsung USB wireless stick to connect the tv wirelessly to your network or you can plug an ethernet cable directly into the back of your tv. I have an ethernet cable plugged directly into the back of it. First things first, the widgets do not load fast. I'm not sure why but even using a direct internet cable into the tv they still do not load fast. No idea why but they are slooow. Slow enough for me to be annoyed and not use them much. It's odd because when I went to the You Tube widget and looked up a video it played quickly and was smooth. Hopefully Samsung will have a software update to allow the widgets to load faster. Right now I would say they are just a novelty. If they can decrease the load times and add more apps such as Facebook, then I think this has potential. But people are not buying this tv because of the widgets, they are buying it for the picture. Overall I think this is an excellent tv. Is it expensive, yes. Does it have the best picture of any LCD available, yes. If you have the money this is a great tv. I use a Harmony One remote and it works flawlessly with this tv. PS3 games and blu-ray movies look incredible. The only quibble I have with the tv is the screen reflectivity and that is more a result of my room setup than the tv itself. Whether I'm watching HD football, playing a PS3 game, watching a blu-ray movie or watching The Office I have been blown away by the picture this tv can deliver.