Samsung PN60F8500 60-Inch 1080p 600Hz 3D Smart Plasma HDTV

Beautiful PQ, March 28, 2013

By 

J. Young “Hello” (Pittsburgh) –

  

Update 04-24-2013: I was finally brave enough to use my Xbox and PS3. Out of the 2, I think the PS3 looked better, but that is subjective. Both looked good and I did not notice any lag. I did COD BO2 on the Xbox and Oblivion on the PS3. I play my Xbox exclusively on a 24 monitor, so of course it should look better on the F8500. The potential for burn-in though still has me concerned. I most likely will never game much or at all on it.

So to all of the crusaders out there, this is a great TV. Is it the best? I cannot answer that since I only own this one. At a minimum, it is definitely pretty good.

Update 04-15-2013: I would really like to know how they reduce reflection on the screen like they do. I was sitting in the LR with the TV off. If was in the middle of the day and I had the bay window curtains and blinds wide open. I could see reflections in the TV, but they looked really soft. Blurry like. The images further away were even less visible. I mention this because I did watch a full BR with the same lighting conditions. While I did, I barely saw any reflections in the glass and for what I could see, I really had to stare at it to see.

With many hours now, the light pops still happen at cell brightness 16 and 17. I was obviously hoping that would go away. I have settled using a cell brightness of 14 for now, so not a huge deal. I like a cell brightness of 20, but during night viewing, that almost blinds me. No firmware updates available since the one I did when I received the 8500.

Watching the Masters this weekend was a delight. The 8500 handled it well and everything looks beautiful. Hopefully that means football will look good on it when the season comes. Next weekend, I am going to get more brave and try a hour or two of Black Ops 2 via the XBox.

Update 04-01-2013: Well, it is still beautiful. If you got the money and you want to try Plasma, this one is definitely on the short list. I have watched various content in every possible lighting scenario so far and everything is clear and as bright as I would hope it to be. Even content most would consider poor or from a poor source still looks better than on any other TV I have ever owned.

I am not fond of needing to worry about IR and burn-in, but for the beautiful PQ, I will learn to live with needing to do that. The smart apps do give issues now and then. I still think it is an update needed. In the long run, I doubt I use the smart apps since just about everything else I own has the same apps already.

We watched a few movies now in 3D. I am not a huge fan of 3D, but I can say that the movies i did watch on this TV were really good. I mean really good. Avatar was gorgeous.

The price to pay for really good PQ as this TV provides is that it changes what you see. Many times for the better, but sometimes not such as some movies you can so easily now see what is fake and what is real.

The only strange thing the TV is doing to me is every time I turn it on and select the source, in a couple of minutes, the screen goes completely black and then comes back. Sometimes it will display the info screen as if I just changed the input, which I did not. Hopefully just a firmware issue. It only does it once after turning it on and never again until the next time.

Original:
My first plasma. In the past, every time I would see a plasma TV in the store, I was never impressed. Hard to see in most cases and almost always more money.

As I was looking for a new TV this year, I saw that the new plasma TVs were just getting released. I admit that the marketing made me look twice, especially when it mentioned much better brightness. While waiting for any to come into stock, I started reading about as much as I could on plasma TVs in general and for this exact model. I liked it enough to give it a try. At least Amazon has a decent return policy in case this was a horrible decision.

The TV itself looks very nice. I rent, so I cannot mount on the wall. The stand is nice and different then others. I do not really care though. As long as it makes the TV stable.

The picture is beautiful via DirecTV hookups. Most channels and even older content look pretty good. Viewing a BRD is even better. The black levels are out of this world. Hardly any, if any, artifacts or distortions of any kind in the picture. The TV does get rather bright and you can see the picture just fine in daylight. I have it in a room with a bay window and so far, I can see okay.

There is a slight buzz that you can hear when you get close or with some content when further away. I have to mute the sound though to hear it. From what I read, this is common with plasma TVs with some much louder than others. With nothing that I can compare with, this noise has not been noticed by me until I purposefully listened for it…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (49)

I can’t wipe the smile off of my face, July 27, 2013

I did lots and lots of research before I settled on this TV. I am not the type of person who buy a TV only to find issues with it then do the old swapperoo with another one only to find another thing I dislike about it. I bought this only after very extensive research and due diligence.

What I look for in a good TV: great picture quality, great side viewing quality, accurate colors, bright and punchy whites, high contrast, black blacks, great SmartTV features, Netflix, media streaming, good enough input lag to play games, and as future proof as possible.

It looks like I’m asking a lot right? There couldn’t possibly be a TV that fit all these criteria could there? Fortunately for me, there is!

When it comes to great picture quality and side viewing, LCD/LED TV’s are quickly eliminated. Winner Plasma. That was quick! I absolutely hated the faded contrast from side viewing, uneven brightness, and graish blacks on the LCD/LED TVs. The problem with most Plasmas are that they look faded during the day. Some of the top modern plasmas have done fairly well in that area.

I narrowed my TV’s down to the Samsung F8500 and the VT60/ZT60. I did comparisons of the TV’s at a brick and mortar store and found that I’m drawn more toward the F8500 with each comparison. Every single reviewer out there claims “black blacks” as if that is the epitome of great picture quality. Do I buy a TV to stare at a black screen? I tried as hard as I could, but I just could not see the differences between the blacks of the ZT60 and the F8500 in a normal lit area. I’m sure in absolute darkness, I can probably see a difference. However, this TV will be my main TV in my living room with windows all around and 4 recess lights above it. I do not have a “man cave” like some lucky few out there.

Next comes the comparison of the whites and color production. In a normal viewing environment, there’s no contest in my eyes. The almost LED-like brightness of the F8500 trumps the VT60/ZT60. The contrast, the pop, and the blinding whites (for a plasma) makes the picture jump out. The problem with most plasma is that the picture is usually washed out during the day. The F8500 seems to have solved this problem. The goal of many plasma makers were always to go as black as possible, but no one ever thought about going the other way–make whites as white as possible. Why is darkness more important than brightness? Why is a .002% difference in black level make one TV superior to the other when the other TV has 30% better whites and deeper contrasts? Am I going crazy here? I don’t understand why the “experts” think that makes one TV “better” than the other as if black blacks is the single defining criteria for picture quality.

The SmartTV features of the F8500 seems to be better than the Panasonic as well. The F8500 has a built-in camera which allows for the use of Skype and gesture (something I don’t use and think it’s a gimmick). However, being able to video call on your TV is a pretty cool added feature. The camera on the Panasonic is an extra added cost. The F8500 offers HVEC (.265) which future proof it. This may not be important now as .265 is not wide spread, but once it’s adopted, better quality streaming will be available through Netflix, Youtube, and home streaming. It’s good to know that this future technology is available right now on the TV you purchase. The TV may produce great picture quality, but if you have a low quality stream, then the picture quality will be bad. Garbage in, garbage out.

The one thing that this has going against it is the input lag. This is the pitfall of the excellent Samsung video processing algorithm. I believe the VT and ZT has a slightly better input lag of 47ms. On PC mode, the F8500 averages around 53ms. This is not great, but it’s absolutely playable and I don’t notice much of a difference when I game. Another thing to consider is that when playing over the network, the 60ms lag for the screen is far faster than the 120-400ms ping lag for your packets going over the network. How often have you played a game and you swear up and down you shot the guy but missed and ended up dead? That’s network lag spike. The biggest killer of your K/D ratio (besides your skill of course) is the spike in the network and not your TV. I think input lag is overblown unless you’re playing over a LAN. In that case, a nice 24″ LED monitor would be your best bet, not this beast of a plasma that you use for movies and sports.

CONS
– I don’t like the remote and the sensitively of the touch pad. Often times I scroll down, and the thing goes left. What-The-F. I’m purchasing the keyboard for this TV to eliminate messing with the remote more than I have to.
– Speakers. Not a con for me as I don’t use it. If I can afford to pay for this TV, I can afford an AVR with nice speakers or at least a decent soundbar.
– The finicky ARC port. I think this is…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (2)