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10 of 11 persons found the following review helpful.
Best 3D on the market right now., Remote sucks.
By Corey Fisher
I thought last years C8000 were amazing… until I saw these ones that is. The D8000′s are almost night and day 10 times better then the C8000, the black get totally black where if you watch the TV for the duration of night, you may only see the constituents that are lit. The color is unbelievably bright and natural… the 3D is by far a great deal of of the bets Ive seen… clean, no crosstalk, very smooth, not similar to the c8000′s. The only exception here might be D8000 plasma’s, which are likewise remarkable, but I like these ones due to the lack of a bezel, very stylish and awesome. My only quirk is the remote control, it took me 7 days to figure out how to get it to pair… not cool. These thing’s ought to come paired out of the box and be much simpler. The TV gets a 5, the Remote gets a 2/5. Its small, cannot see the buttons your pressing (stupid, for a $3000 TV) and doesn’t work without feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized to get started with. Not a good thing Samsung, got to get this corrected.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Not rather ready for prime time, in a heap of respects
By P. Kalina
I wanted to give this TV a glowing review; after all, it has a heap of of the latest LED technology, and the style is trend setting. After a week with this TV, I am less than satisfied with the ‘Samsung Experience’. Let me get this off my chest first. Did you ever go to an event, like a region fair, early, when not all the rides and attractions were open? You’re excessively affected emotionally because it looks like it may be a lot of fun, but it’s just a bit too early for the full experience. Well, that’s the way I feel with regards to this TV. First of all, the 3d glasses that are supposed to ship with this TV were not in the box. Instead, there is a voucher you may mail in, or go online to order (which I did). After a week and no response, I called to find out why the delay. I was told to read the voucher’s fine print, which said there was a 10-12 week wait for the glasses. Not good. Secondly, I found an issue with the remote control unit, which is not a fun thing to have in your hand. It is sort of short and stubby, with two sides. One side has a QWERTY keyboard for text entry, and a touch-sensitive pointer. I find that the up, down, right, left controls do not work in the right way with my unit, and called aid to report this. They seemed very fascinated in the matter and told me they would call back in 45 minutes (after they set up a testing unit) for further info. There was no call back. Another reviewer brought up the difficultness in pairing the remote with the TV, by way of Bluetooth. I likewise found this to be a problem and not systematically easy to do.
Samsung has integrated a feature called Smart Hub into their ‘Smart TV’. This is a portal that has Netflix, Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, Pandora, a web browser, and assorted games and apps that are either free or paid for. The feature is nice and I look forward to seeing it develop. You need to register your TV and invent an account, similar to an Apple ID, before you may buy any of the apps. You would think you could do this from the TV, but you can’t; you need to go online to do this. Not a big deal, but it was confusing. The Samsung web site is not ready for prime time either. The discussion board is not yet running. One nice thing is the Live Help, which works VERY well. However, I was not capable to get the level of help I needed.
Okay, sufficient with the gripes. This is one fine TV. It is very light, has a narrow profile and includes a nice, chrome-plated stand that lets you to rotate the TV regarding 30 degrees in either direction. A huge element for me was the thin bezel, which permitted me to fit a 46″ set into my 43″ wide cabinet. The TV has a great deal of inputs, including numerous strange connectors that let you to connect element and composite video. I do have a non-HDMI DVD that uses the factor connectors, and it worked well. The setup of the TV is not difficult if you have a great deal of experience with hookups, and I was competent to get all the parts and my receiver working in short order. As I noted above, I am not a big fan of the shape of the remote, and I am attempting to duplicate most of the functionality in my Harmony universal remote.
One thing I did was hook up my TV to my iMac to show photos to my photo club. I was not expecting the quality to be better than my 27″ iMac, but it was FAR better. The color was most natural in Movie mode, Warm 1 setting. The sharpness was uncanny. I saw no obtrusive artifacts on the screen and was pleased as punch at the jaw-dropping quality of my photo images (and so were the club members). The TV is connected to our UVERSE system, and the HD quality is very good. I have no measurement or calibration tools, but I have a fine eye for photography. The color balance, contrast, and sharpness are excellent. The only thing I need to get a handle on is the ‘Film mode’, which may turn watching Modern Family into a strange experience; it almost makes some programs look like they were videotaped like a soap opera. I leave this feature ‘off’ for the time being. Tonite we watched the 10 Commandments (1956), and the quality was incredible! I have yet to see any Blue Ray DVDs, as I haven’t purchased a player yet. And, of course, I don’t have the glasses for 3D. I do plan to update my review as these things change.
This TV merits at least a 4-star rating. I may add another depending on how things develop.
Update 6/8/2011
Finally received my 3d glasses from the ‘Samsung Fulfillment Center’. They are active-shutter type glasses and come with general USB cords to charge them. You may plug the cords into the back of the set and the glasses will recharge when the set is ON. We watched our introductory 3D movie together last night. The 3d effect was magnificent and I could see no artifacts. The glasses fit over my lenses and were comfortable. They turn on mechanically when they sense a 3d broadcast, which is nice.
The chunky remote normally just sits waiting to be used, as I have programmed a Harmony Universal remote to grant me to use SmartHub and control most of the functions. SmartHub is still evolving and there are a great deal of update messages that indicate it is perpetually upgraded. I do take pleasure in the Vimeo and Vudu sites, as well as Netflix. The gamed, browser and other ‘apps’ are not likeable to me yet.
I carry on to laud the picture quality on this set. I can’t say it is better than a Sony or Panasonic or other brand, but I have no reason to look further. I may only describe the HD quality as ‘rich’ and brimming with tonality. The shadow detail amazes me, and the blacks are veritably black. I never find the the picture to be overly contrasty or saturated. I also find no reason to fiddle with the controls, once they are set. After over a month of viewing, I still find myself saying ‘that’s remarkable’ when I watch high quality broadcasts. Again, I use ATT Uverse as my cable provider, and our signal quality is very good. I don’t suppose to buy another TV of this caliber for a good long time, and feel convinced that this Samsung will grow with us for years to come.
3 of 3 humans found the following review helpful.
Fantastic Television with Few Caveats
By Steven L. Hirsch
The picture quality, colors, contrast and clarity of this television is not one thing short of jaw dropping; just awful really, exceptionally since we upgraded from a 15 year old CRT-TV. It took us a while to get the thing set up, entering account selective information and registering for the respective services but connecting to my wireless network was comparatively simple and the TV downloaded an essential update right after basi connection was made. Pairing the remote required that I hold the remote pretty close to the hot spot on the lower right corner of the TV but once paired, it worked flawlessly. My Time Warner cable remote however, still is not the right way synched and connected to my new Samsung constituents so I may need to call Time Warner on this; the synch codes I used and the automati synch routine did not entirely work.
Netflix is not what it used to be; the service seems to have only older movies and not the ‘just released’ films. This, along with closely intolerable rebuffering pauses and an annoying black flash blip which happens each 3 mins or so makes me wonder if Netflix is actually worth the subscription fee anymore. I ordered a new Apple Airport Extreme to upgrade to the new dual band engineering so I am hoping that this fixes this rebuffering and drop out difficulties other than as supposed or expected it is not likely that I will go past the free trial of Netflix. Blu-rays and DVDs look fantastic on this TV played on my new Samsung BD-D5500. The TV mechanically connects to the Blu-Ray and switches ports when you turn it on. Cool.
You need to play with the settings on the TV before you recognise what you like in terms of picture and sound. I was very impressed with the built-in sound of this TV, without doubt or question upgraded over former models, but I picked up an audio Y-cable and connected the TV directly to my stereo receiver’s tape deck ‘in’ port and now when I activate the receiver’s ‘Tape’ button, I get crystal clear stereo sound to go with my awful picture. Even though this scheme supports surround sound 5.1 I am not missing it. The 3D features of this TV are mind-blowing but it does give you a headache after a while; you may sense the flicker of the battery powered glasses. Not all 3D discs are equal, a great deal of are a let-down and in spite of the hype, you likely won’t end up looking at 3D programming very often. The 3D starter kit comes with 2 pair of glasses and there’s a coupon to get two more pair for free by mail so at least it’s not too highpriced for everyone to get the taste of 3D when they want it. The 2D picture altho is beyond incredible. The bezel is unbelievably thin and the TV itself is very very thin and comparatively lightweight. Stand is heavy and stable; ports are distinctly marked but there is very little room to plug in the HDMI cables at back, in particular since the pro cable I got for the Blu-Ray has a magnetic shield barrel on the cable and this presses versus the back of the TV and seems to more or less bend the port so it is better to use HDMI cables that lay flat.
The Samsung apps work pretty well but they are without doubt or question still young and need development. I expended almost two years researching TVs and am very happy I got this Smart-TV model. Dynamic LED backlighting was a key feature for me, there is perfectly no flashlighting or ghosting, blacks are deep and solid. This is surely one of the best TVs out there right now and I would whole-heartedly commend it.
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