Best 2009 LED LCD HDTV
Samsung UN55B8500
When the Samsung UN55B8000 was released in May, 2009, it was a huge step forward in the quality of LED LCD HDTVs. But Samsung is apparently not willing to rest on their laurels. As of mid-September 2009, they’ve released a new incremental improvement to their B8000 line of televisions: the B8500. This includes the 55 inch UN55B8500 (and its smaller brother in UN46B8500). Unless television manufacturers pull a surprise release during the last month or so of 2009, the Samsung UN55B8500 is very likely to be the top-notch LED TV of the year.
The Samsung 8500 Series includes innovative LED Local Dimming technology, which selectively turns blocks of LEDs off to render perfectly true blacks while others are left on to produce more light in order to express pure whites.
Picture performance, advanced connectivity, and an eco-friendly and stunning design come together with the Samsung UN55B8500 55-inch LED HDTV to achieve a high level of picture quality as well as provide a unique and immersive entertainment experience. Using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as its primary light source–rather than traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL)–this cutting edge HDTV also offers the benefits of an ultra-high contrast ratio and a slim depth that allows for a more artful design.
Samsung UN55B8500 Product Description
With Samsung’s innovative use of white LEDs as a backlight source, the UN55B8500 is capable of a stunning 7,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio for extreme detail and image depth and an an ultra-quick 2ms panel response time for fast-paced content. Its Wide Color Enhancer Pro ensures that colors are consistently vibrant, while Samsung’s Ultra Clear Panel works to improve image clarity and brightness regardless of a room’s ambient lighting.
To battle motion blur and image judder that can plague LCD displays when displaying fast movement onscreen, this Samsung UN55B8500 LED HDTV utilizes Samsung’s Auto Motion Plus frame interpolation technology with an ulatra-fast 240Hz refresh rate–four times that of other TVs. It also boasts high dynamic contrast ratios, complements of the ground breaking LED light source.
The Samsung UN55B8500 features new Internet@TV online content service. Developed with Yahoo!, Internet@TV uses either a wired or wireless Ethernet connection to access content onscreen from Yahoo!, Flickr, YouTube and more with the push of a button. The widget-based interface and scrollbar run along the bottom of the screen for easy browsing of the latest programs and content.
Samsung UN55B8500 Review
The one I’ve been waiting for
I have to echo Bearcat’s rating as he is very thorough and accurate, but I want to throw my 2 cents in. When coupled with Samsung’s own super-slim wall mount, which is just a glorified cable hanging on two sturdy disks, the TV sits amazingly close to the wall. Another neat feature that I found hard to believe–When watching movies from an external hard drive, the TV can read a large variety of video CODECs. It can read MP4, AVI, WMV, and MPG files. I’m not sure about the Audio support, but I haven’t had any luck finding a movie file that I have that won’t play right off an external USB hard drive. The TV also has about 1GB of internal storage to keep files on.
All the Widgits are slow, but they are sill usable with the exception of the Video-based widgets, which I find way too slow to load to be of any use. I’d rather power up my computer if I’m going to be doing any internet-based activities.
Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention how amazed I am with the picture quality. I’m upgrading from a 55″ CRT-based TV, and watching this TV, for me, is like watching TV for the first time. The major selling point on this TV over Samsung’s similar 55″ offerings is the local-dimming feature. Many HDTV’s I’ve seen over the years simply adjust the entire backlight to achieve deeper blacks and brighter whites, but they simply can’t do both at the same time. It is very distracting for me to watch the backlight on those TV’s ratchet up and down while watching a scene with a varying brightness. This is where the local dimming feature comes in. This TV can do both brights and darks, at the same time!
I have waited for many years to find an TV that isn’t distracting to watch. My wait was over with the release of the Sony XBR8, but it wasn’t as affordable as I’d like. Once I saw the crisp visual quality of the Samsung 8000 series, and read of the local dimming feature of the 8500, I was sold on this TV and I ordered it without even sampling the picture. I could not be happier.
Samsung UN55B8500 Features