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.

Finally an LCD competes with the best Plasmas
The UN55b8500 is Samsung's current flagship model and is the successor to the LN55A950.

Picture Quality
A full LED backlit LCD offering a stunning 7 million:1 contrast seperates the B8500 from other LCDs by reaching deep into pitch black, formely only possible with plasmas. Some LCDs turn off pixels to achieve inky blacks - ok for still pictures, but too slow to work with most video - basically a gimmick to inflate contrast numbers. The B8500 however, masters the darkest blacks and brightest whites to produce a bold three dimensional effect or "pop." In a dark room, the b8500 outperforms every LCD on the market, shy of the coveted pioneer plasmas. In a moderate to bright environment however, the B8500 absolutely dominates.

The highly reflective screen can be annoying for those with unfortunately placed light sources or windows without blinds. A matte screen, as on the LG 55LH90, might be a better fit for some, but a matte screen diffuses the light causing the entire screen to lose those desirable inky blacks. I can't say one is better than the other, but for a TV that can produce such dark blacks, I think the glossy screen makes more sense.

Motion handling is the best of any LCD I've seen thanks to seperate blur and judder adjustments and very few motion artifacts. Blu ray discs will exhibit perfect cinema-like panning or, if you want, a more smooth and clear pan similar to a home video. My verizon fios hd occasionally shows judder when there should a smooth flow of movement. The b8500 can help minimalize this, but it is not powerful enough to eliminate it and if set poorly, it can be made worse.

After some quick, basic calibration colors are vivid and mostly accurate. Noise and artifacts are very minimal on 720p and nonexistant on 1080p. Haloing (i.e. white text on black background cause background to lighten near text) is only visible rarely unless viewing from greater than 30° off center and increases in severity as viewing angle increases. Viewing from greater than 30° off center vertically or horizontally also causes a slight loss, contrast and color depth. Viewing from greater than 50° off causes a significant loss in contrast and color, creating a flat image and showing major haloing effects. The ideal viewing range is within 15° of center, though if centered vertically, image is barely degraded at all up to 30° off center. Ideal viewing distance is roughly 8 to 14 feet for 720p and 5 to 10 feet for 1080p, though don't take those numbers too seriously, you can obviously enjoy this tv from just about any distance. At 4 feet or less though, the 46" model is a better choice.

Ease of Use
The preset picture modes are all quite good for those who aren't picky and just want to watch their tv and the b8500 does a decent job of assigning settings automatically based on the input. Of course, high-end buyers are more likely to calibrate sources to their liking or hire a pro. The tv will remember settings for dynamic, natural, standard and movie profiles for each source. That gives you a lot more flexibility than only having one or two, but it is complicated by a confusing lockout of various settings depending on how the source is identified. You can change the name of a source and find more or less settings available for adjustment, but how this works should be clearly documented. Also, there is a little lag when navigating menus, making constant adjustments of the many, many, many settings somewhat slow and annoying. The layout of the menus themselves and the amount of adjustments available is wonderful. The remote control works using RF so you don't have to point the remote at the tv. The remote is a little bulky, but offers all the buttons you'd want for operating the television easily. The scroll wheel is inaccurate for navigating menus and only really works as a directional pad.

Design
While, I prefer the touch of grey on some other samsungs, the small blue light on the bottom of the b8500 is stylish, attractive and best of all, can be turned off. The bezel is attractive, thin, and highly glossy, but can be distracting when it picks up too many reflections. The 1.6" thick screen is amazing, but how often do you look at the side of your tv? The 61 lb. weight without stand is quite light for a 55" tv, but again how often will you move it? It does seem to use fairly little power and creates much less heat than a plasma tv. The swivel stand works well, also quite attractive with a brushed gunmetal finish.

Sound
I did not play around much with the sound as I use a 5.1 setup. I assume most people purchasing this tv will use external speakers, but the internal ones sounded just fine for what they are.

Comparisons
Competing models include the LG 55LH90/55LHZ, Toshiba 670u, Pioneer 500m/600m, Samsung 52B750/55B650/58B860, Sony xbr8 and Panasonic V10. My personal experience with display models showed the plasma screens to perform poorly in bright environments. Given the open layout and 20' ceilings of my living room, plus my wife's preference for at least dim lighting, this ruled out plasmas. The 58B860 in paricular lacked the light output to produce bright enough whites in all but a pitch black environment. The 55LH90 seemed to be the closest competitor and much cheaper, with the xbr8 and 52B750 being close behind. The LH90 however, seemed to produce too many motion artifacts, couldn't deliver quite as much "pop," along with a slew of more minor negatives.

Misc.
Upgrading from a Syntax Olevia 37 hvs (matte screen LCD), this tv has truly blown me away. While the perfect (OLED?) TV is still out of reach, the b8500 leaves little room for improvement. Input lag, a major concern for video gamers, runs under a tolerable 40ms according to my Rock Band 2 manual calibration with game mode turned on. With game mode off, the input lag increases to 140ms, which is easily noticeable. If running through a receiver, try component -> component instead of component -> hdmi for least lag. Game mode disables some processing but not the LED backlighting. The picture with game mode on even using a component connection (1080p) is incredible, though in need of some anti-aliasing on occasion. Turning off extra processing not disabled by game mode seems to have little effect on further decreasing lag, but I tend to turn them off. Auto motion is disabled in game mode, so expect some minor blur/ghosting.

The B8500 also has a ethernet port for connecting to the internet and your home network (including DLNA or Anynet). A cd included with the tv helps you play media from your PC. Widgets will automatically update to display weather, sports, news, etc., but are a little slow and less convenient than popping open a laptop. Still, it's a good idea to plug in the tv to your router at least occasionally for firmware updates.

Conclusion
For those in the market for a 55" HDTV, the b8500 is the most versatile and polished product out there. While a couple extremely high end plasmas beat out the b8500 in a dark room, no other LCD performs as well and the plasmas quickly lose out as you increase ambient light. The attractive and practical design and feature rich menus complete this incredible package. While the 55LH90 is easy to recommend to those focused on price vs. performance or in love with matte screens, the UN55B8500 is clearly a step up and would make a remarkable addition to any loving home. Prices should come down as we head into the holiday season and onto the super bowl, however these seem to be selling as fast as they arrive for now.


UPDATE: After upgrading to firmware 1008, I experienced a sort of "crop circles" phenomenon caused by a malfunction in the smart LED backlighting. If you search online, you'll find several reports as it is a very widespread problem. I have posted a picture exhibiting the problem above. It can be fixed easily by turning your tv off and on again, but may reappear occasionally. I'm guessing it will be fixed by firmware update eventually, but no word from Samsung. Regardless, I'm still very pleased with my purchase. If the crop circles weren't so easy to fix, I'd probably be fairly upset with the problem. However, it was subtle enough only to notice against a still, uniform and light background.

2nd Update: Crop circles have not returned yet. I expect them to from time to time, but it seems more of a random thing than a problem that takes time to set in. Forum posters seem to have received word from Samsung that this issue is resolved and they are starting to roll out firmware updates (for now just as usb sticks to those reporting the problem)

As for calibration, I used Spears & Munsil High-Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Disc Edition [Blu-ray] to get my brightness, contrast and sharpness set properly. I came up with very similar numbers to what I've seen others post. Contrast 87, Brightness 47, Sharpness 30 (though i couldn't tell much difference fro 0 to 30). Setting the color space requires pro equipment, so I looked online for some numbers and they seemed to work better than default. Of course, it's a great idea to get your set calibrated by a pro because optimal color settings are not going to be the same between most b8500's. I use dynamic profile for daytime, standard for game mode, natural for sports (and some other tv shows), and movie for everything else.

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.