Samsung UN55B8000 Reviews
LED Samsung is AMAZING!
I was a little concerned when I was reading reviews about the light rays coming in on the corners of this TV, but I ordered it anyway. I definitely was NOT disappointed! The color, and picture quality are absolutely amazing! I thought the image on my LCD was nice, but somehow this was even better! The black was way blacker than the LCD that it replaced and the 240Hz refresh rate makes the picture as smooth as life! Now, I will admit, on a dark picture in a dark room, you can see some light patches illuminating from a couple of the corners, but honestly, for me, it’s an acceptable flaw. Your normal user will never notice it, but if you’re a picky, perfect picture nut, you may want to wait until Samsung fixes this issue. However, if you want an amazing picture now, and are willing to accept a little light in the corner of a dark image, then you definitely want this TV!!
led samsung
So far so good. We are satisfied with this one and an old Sony Bravia 60 HZ. We bought Sony Bravia 46 inch 120 HZ but had to return to Costco due to inferior picture quality. We also returned 1080P 120 HZ Magnavox to Sam’s club for similar reason. I think buyer has to be aware of details of model # as Bravia is sold s, k, w or x series model with varying picture quality. Our old Sony Bravia Is 60 HZ Kdl series. New Samsung seems better with games but on paper has far better specs
Wow!!!
So I did a lot of research on LED tv’s. Samsung by far is the best LED tv out there right now. Don’t be fooled and get another brand as Toshiba, LG, Sony, none of them can match the quality of the Samsung UN55B8000 model. Once you tune the tv, all I could say was wow! Watching HD channels and blu ray is unbelievable. The thickness and weight is something you have to see to believe. 1.2″ and 51lbs for a 55″ screen?? Unreal!
The only thing that you have to be wary of is that you do need to get used to the colors and motion. Basically everything that is HD looks like it is 3D. The characters pop almost like you are watching 3D. There are instances where everything is so crisp and clear that it looks to be in slow motion. This can be adjusted with the right setting. Funny though that if you look carefully, because the picture is so clear and crisp, you can actually tell everything is fake, as if you were on the set of the movie you are watching and you can tell all the plastic fake props on set!
Picture Quality is fantastic
I bought the 55″ 8000 series samsung for a new familyroom / den I built in the basement. I generally agonize over electronic purchases, doing hours of research. This one was no exception. After reading hundreds of reviews, consumer publications and store visits, i narrowed the search as follows:
LCD v. Plasma:
I chose LCD technology due to the eye-poping picture, reduced energy consumption, and no picture burn-in. Early LCDs had jitter problems, but those days are gone. Please note that this TV *is* an LCD TV! They call it “LED” because most LCD TVs are back-lit using floresencent bulbs around the edges, but this one is back-lit using a grid of little LED lights across the back. This grid allows the backligting to be turned off in areas of the screen where a black picture is shown. This supposedly makes the black darker than florescent lit LCDs, but i only noticed it when viewing from an angle.
Brand:
I narrowed the brand selection to Sony or Samsung. based upon reviews, including consumer mags, and store visits. I must say the Sony offering has fastastic picture crispness, color, etc, too. On the final purchase day, i took my wife with me ($3K is a joint decision). We compared a Sony BR9 52″ with the Samsung 8000 55“. after more than an hour of back and forth viewing we went with the Samsung. The decision was based on a slightly brigher picture (probably due to the LED vs Floresent back lighting), the extreme thinness (This TV is built to wall-mount, the Sony with a standard mount will protrude 5″ into the room, this one with the ‘picture hanger’ mount from Samsung will protrude 2″), and the extra 3″ of screen size.
Outcome:
I am so impressed with the Samsung after 2 weeks of use. Even standard non-HD cable looks good. It looks better in my house than the store feed. The embeded content (scenery, art, games, recipies, relaxing image&sounds) is cool for a demo, but not expected to be used too much. I haven’t hooked it to the internet yet as i need either a 50′ lan cable or the $79 wireless adapter. I will order the cable today. No bluray yet, but i watched HD-on-demand last night and it was sooo impresive. No buyer remorse here. Go get yours.
Samsung 8000 LED LCD TV Amazing…
This TV is replacing a Sony 50″ rear screen projection LCD HDTV that still has a great picture. However, the Sony uses a $200 projector bulb to display the tiny LCD enlarged through lenses up to the 50″ screen, and that generates a LOT of heat (and only lasts a couple of years). Additionally, the Sony TV only displays up to a 720p image, which is fine, but pales in comparison to this new Samsung model. The LED-side backlit LCD Samsung TV remains cool indefinitely as it’s viewed, which is a major issue if you don’t use your TV to heat your living room.
The first time I saw this new Samsung in a local Best Buy showroom I was immediately transfixed. The image was stunning, razor sharp, bright, and when I touched the top rear of the case, absolutely room temperature. Because the screen case is only about 1 1/4″ thick the unit seems flimsy sitting vertically on its crystal plastic cylinder atop a base, but that’s a minor issue to me. Many people will remove the base and hang it on the wall. I have a TV nook, so this unit sits on its base out of the way of anyone possibly bumping into it.
This TV has the best image of any TV I’ve EVER viewed. I’m not a TV snob, just a daily viewer, but I’ve owned a lot of high quality TVs over the years, and this one stands out. Once I plugged my Dish PVR and Sony PS3 Slim in and looked at the picture in my living room environment, I was convinced I’d made a good decision (and I moved the Sony to another room).
It’s only been a couple of months since my spouse began pushing me to upgrade to 1080, but I thought my DVDs looked great on the Sony TV and didn’t feel the urgency. Now, viewing those same DVDs on my PS3 Slim/Samsung 8000, they look grainy, and definitely remind me of my transitions from Beta to LD to DVD way back when. When I popped in a new Blu-ray movie I was convinced. I’m not sure I’ll ever enjoy my old DVDs the same way again.
The TV worked perfectly out of the box. I plugged it into a gigabit switch to my broadband connection and upgraded its firmware in a few minutes. A couple of days later my Blu-ray Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark disk arrived and I was hard pressed to change ANY settings. In fact, most of the test screens were puzzling to me, since they looked fine. The Spears & Munsil disk shows you a sample of a good image and a bad image for each test screen, and almost all of the test screens on the Samsung looked exactly like the benchmark images. There was one test image that appeared off (screen was so bright the test boxes were nearly invisible), but even with the brightness turned completely down the image didn’t change, so I left it at the setup default. Bottom line, the TV was calibrated nearly perfectly already out of the box. The over saturated, super bright settings you view in the showroom are what Samsung calls Dynamic. I selected a different setting for my Dish satellite and Blu-ray viewing modes that’s fine for home viewing. Of course, Samsung allows you to customize to your heart’s content if the simple options don’t work for you. This unit also boasts a 240Hz fast image smoothing functionality, which basically takes your standard 60Hz (or 24Hz for DVDs) signal and interpolates (creates) additional images to display something on your screen more frequently so you don’t notice the jumps as fast images move across the screen. I can’t say that I’ve noticed this in daily use. But perhaps sports fans will appreciate it, or it’ll become more obvious in action movies.
You can have a separate setup for each input, so I configured my Dish satellite images to bright natural tones, and my Blu-ray settings to a movie configuration (where many images are darker than commercial television). I bypass the TV for audio, using the TV as a monitor only, which is just as well. While there are four HDMI inputs, the optical out ONLY PASSES THROUGH A STEREO SIGNAL to your AV receiver/amplifier. That means NO DTS/5.1/7.1 audio if you pass all your components through your TV. So, I plug my satellite and Blu-ray video inputs directly into my TV’s HDMI ports, and their optical audio connections directly into my AV receiver driving my 5.1 system. I configure my Harmony remote to turn on my TV, set the video port, and set my AV receiver to my satellite audio in when watching Dish, and my Sony PS3 Slim when I’m watching a movie.
I’ve been researching new HDTVs for a couple of months now, and this unit is currently the most popular (including the less expensive 7000 and 6000 series units, and the just released 8500 rear-LED backlight unit) and best rated. A couple of comments I’ve heard and read about with this TV concerned its side-LED backlight scheme, and how that prevents the TV from darkening just a portion of the screen (vice LEDs all across the back of the screen, individually controlled). I can attest that this unit has phenomenal blacks (not dark grays, as my Sony TV has). I’m sure the 8500′s rear-LED scheme will provide more discriminating dark areas on the screen, but for the moment that’s not worth the extra thousand dollars to me. The blacks and dark areas on the 8000 look great. I did notice that the corners of the screen appear slightly darker where the backlights can’t run into the corner, but only on the showroom models that were on all day long. I haven’t yet observed dark corners on a white screen on my home unit. I’ve also heard that some people have experienced hardware failures after a week of home viewing, typically where the screen goes all white, which requires a repair. Best Buy told me if that happens and they can’t repair it in two weeks, they’ll replace the unit (they also offer a 4-year warranty for another $400). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t get a defective unit, but so far so good. The TV looks so great, I was willing to take the chance. Anyway, if it works for a month, it’ll probably work forever, such is the history of electronics. Just a heads up, Samsung Customer Service is getting a LOT of complaints on the Internet for unresponsiveness to repairs. But again, the TV is so good, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. As an aside, Samsung extended their warranty to 15 months parts/labor when I registered it online, so perhaps they have noticed the hardware issues/complaints.
While this TV is listed currently at $3,899 retail, its everyday price almost anywhere is ~$3,009. Sales and promotions can save you more. When Fry’s Electronics offered it at $2,699 last week, we immediately went to our local Best Buy (which price matches and offers free delivery, trash take-away, and old TV take-away, if you want) and purchased it, with a table and a PS3 Slim.
So far, I’m completely satisfied. This is a great HDTV and I look forward to watching it each evening. Oh, and I’m definitely going to start buying more Blu-ray DVDs.
Very happy with TV and delivery
Have never ordered something this expensive before from Amazon, but the $500 discount, free delivery, and no sales tax pushed me over the edge to buy.
Placed the order on Monday Oct 12, and it was delivered today Oct 15. Absolutely no problems with CEVA Whiteglove service.
Have owned Samsung LCD TVs before and were happy with them. This TV will replace a 52″ A650 (which will be moved to the bedroom, to replace a 46″ 720P). Funny thing is that our first Samsung 46″ LCD TV cost $1K more than what I just paid for this one.
So far, am pretty happy with the picture. I keep looking for the uneven “flashlights” in the corner but haven’t seen them yet. A better test tonight when we roll the credits from a DVD. TV came with 9/5/09 v1012 firmware which we plan to update to 9/25/09 v1013 tonight.
Update 10/18/09: updated the firmware with no problem. Hubby and I could not see the “flashlights” from the corners even while credits were rolling on a black screen. Just bought a Blu-Ray player, and now the picture is even more fantastic. I am one happy camper.
Mindblowing
I almost can’t believe the picture on this set. Yes, it’s true, especially on letterbox you can see funky lighting in “black” area, but, sooooooo what? Who cares, the picture is absoluteluy MIND BLOWING! I was watching Narnia with the kiddos, and the actors seem to be in my living room. It’s kind of weird, almost toooo real. Dave Matthews and Tim the freak Reynolds live at Radio City Music hall was as equally impressive. I have a full blown homne theater with all the gizmos in another area of my house, and always thought that was the best set-up. I bought this set to replace a 7 year old plasma, which I was hesitant to replace as it has never given me any trouble. Boy, was this an upgrade, I find myself re-watching movies on the Samsung just to get the experience of feeling like you are in the movie. I can’t even begin to imagine what they will come out with next. Completely awesome set, no negatives yet. WOWWWWWWWW
Best LED/LCD to date
I have had this unit hooked up for one week and it is perfect out of the box with no adjustments of any kind. I wish it had a SVideo for my receiver menu but the RCA jack works fine. It seems you can steam video from your computer over the LAN to this unit but I have not tried that feature to date. Mine was made in June 2009. As the price is droping on these a little each week you could possibly pick one up in the mid 2500s over the internet. Since I was burned the last time I orderd a large TV online I just went to Sears and they gave me 15% off $2999=$2550.
Outstanding Picture Quality
Had this set for a couple of weeks now. It offers outstanding picture quality and unlike other sets of this size it does not weigh a ton. The weight is listed as 82 pounds. That is the shipping weight. After lifting the set I am thinking it could not weigh more than 65 pounds. One big bonus is that LED sets use far less power than other flat panels so this doens’t jack your power bill up.
Samsung UN55B8000 Intro