Samsung 8500 series 55" Review

[eddiscus]

Samsung 8500 series

Special Thanks: I would just like to personally thank Robert at Value electronics.com for putting together (in short notice) another mini shootout. I know of no other place where you can review the latest displays in the company of good friends, fine food (steak dinners and sushi) and drink.

Now down to business.

Aesthetics:
Nothing special here. Typical Samsung, high gloss border with a glossy screen with some level of antiglare capability. The blue light at bottom center can be turned of via the user options. This is a thin display for its size. No ports protrude straight out the back, all connections are either facing left or down as viewed from the front of the display. From the side this display looks like an oversized credit card.

Sound:
Typical bottom mounted speaker. Did not have a chance to listen to material through the built in speakers.

Display: Now for what we have been waiting for. From a calibration standpoint this display is unique. It does not calibrate as accurate as a Kuro or the LCD LG sets. The numbers are not horrible but I would expect better from Samsung.
They have done a good job with the LED back lighting. There is a hint of ghost glow in high contrast black and white credits. But not as bad oas other displays. You could also probably notice it in real life material if looking for it.

Grey scale gives you several options depending on your balance of back light to contrast settings. One way you get a blue bump in the RGB balance. The other way the bump is reduced but your low end grey scale does not measure correctly but optically looks ok. Black level when properly calibrated was on par with an 8G Pioneer. Could not get it to go below that point with out sacrificing shadow detail.


Color accuracy is good as well. The color space choices on the panel we reviewed were as follows.

Auto: Primary color points with a test pattern were very close to rec709 with magenta and cyan being off slightly.

Native: Gives color points outside the rec709 standard.

Custom: Allows you to bring the color points onto rec709. Except for red in my case which showed up slightly under saturated.

On the display in Roberts store I used Cal Night mode which is enabled in the service menu. It does not seem to offer any enhancements over using movie mode as a calibration starting point. The one glitch that I experienced was after calibrating I went back in to the service mode to lock the Cal day and Night modes. The Cal modes then reverted back to the native color space. In order for the custom color space to stick I needed to leave the Cal Day/Night modes unlocked.

Summary:

A Kuro killer it is not.
It is an improvement in the LCD- Led back light displays technology. It still suffers from LCD’s off axis viewing problems (color saturation washes out ) not as bad as others. LG sets seem to hold their color saturation better off axis but their hue changes off axis. With the Samsung this off axis change seems to happen +/- 10 degrees at a 10 foot viewing distance. If the set is left un calibrated this off axis color shift is reduced but then your colors levels are not accurate.
Compared side by side to a Pioneer KRP-500M the display did not look all that bad. But the deeper blacks of the KRP-500M added a visible punch to the picture that was missing from the LCD displays.

For LCD/ LED back light technology I give good+ rating. I would like to see it calibrate better on the grey scale and have no off axis issues.

Pre Cal Grey Scale



Pre Cal Color



Calibrated Grey scale



Calibrated Color

[davidjschenk]

Great review, Ed. Thanks much for doing it.

Yours,

David

[fvbounty]

Thanks ED.....

[CC]

Great review! Thank you!

[ImRizzo]

Ed, thanks for your time and input and the supplied graphs, nicely done.

[BFJ96]

Ed it was great meeting you last Saturday. Thanks for the write-up & I look forward to seeing you work your magic once Robert get's the LG LHX in his store

[bravestime]

Thanks for the thorough review, Ed.

[BUYLONGTERM]

Great review! Thank you so much!!

[Chip]

Thank you for the review.

[ImRizzo]

All we need now is the VIDEO ....?

[davidjschenk]

Tell me about it.... I've been waiting on that footage since the night of the shootout...

Yours,

David

[ImRizzo]

Tell me about it.... I've been waiting on that footage since the night of the shootout...

Yours,

David

I guess there's no video to be had, huh? It has been a month?

[ImRizzo]

I guess the VIDEO of the Shootout is now a dead issue... That's really disappointing. Oh well!

[ImRizzo]

Hmmm, what Video was that anyway ??

[davidjschenk]

Hmmm, what Video was that anyway ??

I'll try harassing people one more time. Cross your fingers, but don't get your hopes too high.

Yours,

David

[ImRizzo]

WOW ! it's like the missing 15 minutes on the Nixon tapes ??

[davidjschenk]

WOW ! it's like the missing 15 minutes on the Nixon tapes ??

Almost.

[ImRizzo]

Hey, I just saw the footage of that great B8500 shoot out, nice!

[davidjschenk]

Hey, I just saw the footage of that great B8500 shoot out, nice!

Holy Crap!! You found it??? Where?? Wherewherewhere??? If you can direct me to it, I should be able to download it, convert it, and post it on our video page in either .mpg, .mov, or .avi format, as needed.

Thanks, Rizzo.

Yours,

David

[ImRizzo]

Holy Crap!! You found it??? Where?? Wherewherewhere??? If you can direct me to it, I should be able to download it, convert it, and post it on our video page in either .mpg, .mov, or .avi format, as needed.

Thanks, Rizzo.

Yours,

David

I bought a bootleg disc copy from a guy with a turban in Times square selling them out of a white van w/gray market Plasmas

[davidjschenk]

I bought a bootleg disc copy from a guy with a turban in Times square selling them out of a white van w/gray market Plasmas

Ah.

Well, I can give it one more try when Robert gets back from CES. Odds are low, but I'll try anyway.

Yours,

David

[ImRizzo]

Ah.

Well, I can give it one more try when Robert gets back from CES. Odds are low, but I'll try anyway.

Yours,

David

Personally, I really don't think Robert is interested......

[BUYLONGTERM]

Personally, I really don't think Robert is interested......

He might not be but there as hundreds of us that are!