Samsung UN55B8500

LED is the latest buzz word in the high definition television world and the Samsung UN55B8500 is no exception as this too is a LED television, but what does this really mean and is it worth the hike in prices that has come with them? This is a 55 inch television so is one of the bigger screens and designed to help you recreate that cinematic experience in your own front room; however, we did have to sit down and recover for a bit when we saw the price. The RRP from Samsung is nearly $5000 which really is a lot of money to spend on a television set, so is this huge price tag really justified or should you spend less money on a different model? You know how it works by now – we review, you decide.

Design

Samsung are well known for their lovely designs and the Samsung UN55B8500 is another stunning looking unit, being part of the 8500 range. You will be forgiven for thinking you have seen it before as it looks just like its little brother the 46 inch model. It is framed in gray tinged black, which is their new Touch of Color™ styling, and gives a softer effect from the glossy black. This has been built to the same spec as the 46-inch, just bigger screened, so again this is a 1.6-inch deep set, which in terms of LCD screens is ultra thin and light enough to be wall mounted, which is an additional cost as you will need to buy the wall mounting brackets, which increases the expense of an already pricey piece of kit. That said we do like their foot stand, which features a moveable support that stands on a lovely clear supporting leg which is excellent, and would be inclined to use if we had the space.

Actual user review:
“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 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. 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. 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.” – L.Kuester (USA)

 

Key Features

Like its little brother this is a massive 7,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which is very impressive, and is a 1080p 240Hz display so this is definitely top end stuff, but still we swallow hard when we think about the price. Samsung are very proud of this range and reckon that they have every technology packed into this screen and naturally believe that it is bang on the money.

We knew the picture was going to be good and we weren’t disappointed but then we had the little brother in first, so we had a fair idea of what to expect here. It is an excellent picture, really top quality, but then that’s kind of the point really when there is this much supporting technology, and the unit is LED lit rather than florescent lit as this also eliminates the black depth issues that were the bane of the HDTV manufacturers life, and did give us review geeks something to moan about, so we are very glad they have solved that one. However, as we have to note in the 8500 series we are disappointed at the glare level when we put the house lights on, which means that the long winter evenings could start to annoy you as there are just light reflection issues every where which do spoil the images on the screen, and the viewing angle isn’t as wide as some we have seen, which again can create problems as you don’t really want your lounge to need rows of seats so that everyone can see – but perfect if you are creating a home cinema in the shed at the end of the garden!

This television can also be connected to the Internet through the LAN Ethernet port, which is a good thing and means you can access sites that provide the content in the right format, such as Yahoo and Flickr for a start. Add to this the connectivity with the laptop and the 4 HDMI ports and this really is a cracking piece of kit, but still this is available from others for less.

Conclusion

If we were going to pay just shy of five grand for a television we really would want it all, and that means that when we reviewed it there wouldn’t be any negatives. However, for the Samsung UN55B8500 there just are, and we are disappointed. Yes, this is a top quality screen, and yes, it is top of the range and packed full of the latest must have technologies, but we really think Samsung have got the price wrong, and whilst they may convince people to spend this much money, in the long run it could lose them a loyal customer once they get the set home and read reviews that show they could have got much the same elsewhere and paid an awful lot less.

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