Samsung UN55B8000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV

Review by Mike for Samsung UN55B8000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV
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Had my Samsung UN55B8000 TV a couple of weeks now. It has more than lived up to the hype. Hooked it up and put on a blu-ray disk. Even the delivery guy’s jaw dropped, and he’s delivered/set up hundreds of TVs.

TV is only inch and half thick and only weighs 60 pounds or so.

In fact, it is sometimes almost too good. When viewing people on HD you can see every little mole, scar, wrinkle, stray hair, makeup, five o’clock shadow, makeup line, etc. I’m sitting here watching the news and I can clearly see tiny pieces of lint on the guy’s black suit. I’m guessing the talking heads of tomorrow are all going to have to have much better complexions.

If you like to tweak your TV this one provides a lot of different controls. There are already some websites that will give you what they consider good tweaks to maximize the pic. You can also look for the B7000 tweaks. Looks pretty darn fantastic right out of the box so if you aren’t a techie, don’t worry about it.

Sounds..not particularly good or bad, but I don’t want TV speakers taking up space anyway. If you are going to spend this kind of money for a TV you should be using your stereo system.

Some reviewers were complaining about the number of inputs. Again, how many is enough. I run my PS3, XBOX360, IPOD, and the Dish box through my Denon and so I only use one HDMI.

You can plug it into the internet. No set-up, just plug it in. First thing it did was download 12 updates to itself. Have no idea what they did but …didn’t cause any problems. It automatically loads up some of Yahoo’s widgets. Fun to try but…not something I have really gone back and used much. Also has some built in content…recipes, artwork, etc. that I haven’t bothered to look at.

You can plug in USB drives and view content directly off the drive.

I long ago got rid of my roof antenna. I bought a little Turk indoor antenna and plugged that in so I can pop over into over-the-air signals and watch TV. It will automatically search and find the on-air channels. It even downloads some kind of TV guide from the internet for the channels it finds.

I also wanted to see if there was any signal degradation from Dish. I haven’t noticed the HD degradation with Dish that I had with Comcast. The way Comcast packed the HD signals you could see a real difference between OTA and the packed pics.

Samsung also provides software which allows you to use your PC as a server. Then you can display your pics, music, etc on the TV. Took a little playing around but was easy compared to some of the others I’ve tried to use.

I’ve played games with both my PS3 and the XBOX360. No problems. No pixelating. Did not bother to change TV over to game mode. I haven’t fooled around with the 240Hz function. I just leave it on standard.

I’m sure there are other features I haven’t tried. With the ability to update itself over the internet I have no doubt they will teach it even more amazing tricks.

I’ve set up my Harmony 880 Pro to control all my devices including the IPOD. IPOD menu/info will display (through my Denon) on the TV.

All of the above features are great but the main thing is… the picture is just absolutely mind-blowing wonderful.

So, fantastic TV. I am VERY happy with it. Obviously I highly recommend it.

((Now I’m watching Wall-E in HD and it is pretty amazing.))

Review by Kalibr for Samsung UN55B8000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV
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I have owned Sony televisions exclusively for the past 30 years. I was in the market for a new TV to replace my older Sony 50″ Grand WEGA LCD projection set. I always keep up with new technologies in consumer electronics and knew that LED backlighting was the way to go. One day, I visited Best Buy to see the new Sony models. I was particularly interested in the Sony Bravia XBR8 LED TV. It has an awesome display, but I couldn’t bring myself to part with $5K for a TV. The high price was a big disappointment. I knew Samsung made LED models so I decided to check them out too. I was immediately floored. They looked far better than Sony’s more expensive LED model and for $2K less. But, was I really willing to purchase something other than a Sony TV? I would have to be convinced. I did a lot of research on these Samsung sets. I demoed them in several stores and read as many reviews as possible. IMO, the Samsung LED TVs are by far the best technology currently available. Their display must be seen to be believed. Most impressive of all, is the fact that Samsung accomplished this in a set that is only 1.2″ thick.

Well, I was finally convinced and decided to purchase the Samsung UN55B8000. I have owned it for almost a month now and I am in awe every time I watch it. This set is beautiful even when it’s turned off. But, you won’t want to turn it off because the clarity, detail, brightness, contrast and color are absolutely exceptional. For the first time I have owned a TV, I did not have to make any adjustments to the factory settings – it looked perfect right out of the box. In fact, I had purchased a calibration DVD and was surprised to find that I didn’t have to make any adjustment to any controls.

Of course, the most amazing thing about this set and what intially lured me to it is its picture quality. It’s difficult to explain the level of detail it produces. I have HD cable programming (1080i), which looks fantastic. Games on the Xbox 360 pops out at you. But the images produced from a Blu-ray source is absolutely breath-taking. I was also pleasantly surprised at how bright the display looks in my sunlit family room. I thought I would have to adjust the brightness to view the set in daylight and again when watching at night as I did with our old Sony TV. Although the screen on the UN55B8000 has a gloss finish, it does a great job of reducing glare and reflections.

I do want to respond to the negative comments that others have posted here regarding uneven backlighting or vignetting effect caused by the edge-lit LEDs when the TV displays dark images. The only time I notice this was when the set displays a totally black background such as in movie credits. At best, it appears as a very faint illumination from the corner. But even then, I really had to look for it. I don’t think this is an issue at all; at least not one that should deter anyone from purchasing this incredible TV. I have to assume that those that have experienced this anomaly are probably looking at an uncalibrated set that has its brightness level turned way too high.

I took advantage of the slim design of this set and purchased the ultra slim wall mount. The TV hangs like a picture frame and looks like a masterpiece, which it is. The slim case houses adequate speakers, producing fairly good sound quality for normal TV viewing. Of course, you would want to watch movies through a surround sound system.

As for the other features of this set; the internet widgets are pretty cool, but slow. I especially like the YouTube widget. The DLNA network feature is also a nice addition, but the interface is also slow and not very intuitive. I’m hoping that a future firmware upgrade would improve the functionality. The content library feature is my favorite. It allows you to display a slideshow of artwork or other pics with soft background music – great for parties. You can download additional content for free from Samsung.

I am extremely pleased with this television and would recommend it to anyone.

Review by A. Bailey for Samsung UN55B8000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV
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Clarity and colors are stunning. It literally makes everything you watch look like it was filmed with a consumer grade camcorder rather than pro grade cameras. This TV makes things look like they are happening in front of you in your very own room. You see every strand of hair, every wrinkle, every mole and blemish on faces. You have to see it to believe it. One way to describe it is that everything looks “different” than what you may have been accustomed to seeing. I recommend that you see this TV in a brick-n-mortar store to see what I mean.

The number of adjustments menus is also above and beyond what any one of us not in the business of making these TVs is ever going to need. For folks that want to tweak, here is your opportunity.

However, this TV is not perfect.

1. Corners show reverse vignetting where on very dark scenes you can see the corner illumination projecting significantly into the screen. It looks like a flash light is projecting from the corner. The corner itself is very dark but a very faint light spreads in a fan pattern from each corner towards the center of the screen. This is only visible in very dark scenes where the primary display color is black. You can not see this normally.

2. The stand does not feel sturdy. If you push on the very top of the bezel, the screen will rock back and forth… I freaked out the first time I did that when I bumped the screen during placement of the TV on my entertainment stand. Looking at the attachment point, Samsung went super cheap; the current attachment technique does not belong on a TV in this price range. You are provided with (literally) a shoe-lace attached to a triangular piece of plastic that attaches to the TV. The other end is supposed to be attached either to the wall or your stand. This is really out of place for a TV of this caliber and I think is my biggest disappointment with this TV.

As the LED display technology advances, I’m sure this TV will be surpassed in performance by future models from Samsung or competing brands. However, for the time being, this is a very good HD display with some imperfections.

I’m pleased with the purchase and look forward to many years of service.

Regards,