 Shockingly Good, but the 8000 will be the Kuro replacement |
| Review Date: April 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: David A. Leon, Los Angeles California |
I was a committed DLP fan before undergoing a conversion experience on Friday April 17th. I had planned to replace my Samsung DLP with a Mitbushi DLP or LaserVue. In the final hours, I just couldn't go through with it.
A major Los Angeles vendor set up a display with the UN55B7000 sandwiched between a LaserVue and a Kuro 151. The results were pretty plain to my eyes. The Luxia pretty well crushed both of them. The cult of Kuro will denounce me for heresy and blaspheme, but this is what I saw. About 1 hour of fiddling with the settings on LaserVue did not change the situation much. The Kuro was locked in at calibrated settings which the employees would not allow me to change. Evidently, it was fully tuned up. Once again, this left me with the impression that a fully calibrated Kuro is an over-rated beast indeed. No wonder Pioneer quit the market.
The bottom line: I bought this unit the next day. It took about 2 hours to tune up after I took it out of the box. [Use the natural color setting. Customize motion smoothing to 7 for jitter control and 7 for blur control, or shut it off entirely] Since then it has been pretty astounding. Unbelievable color. Unbelievable reds. Unbelievable contrast ratios. Unbelievable black levels. Very bright. Generates no perceivable heat. Does not get hot. The detail and sharpness and depth of image is truly astounding. I have never seen anything that can compare, and I have been shopping for several months now.
Cons
I am still questioning the merit of the 120Hz motion smoothing technology. It does weird things to slow motion instant replays. It does stranger things to 24fps movies. Seems to work best with live actions sports and HDTV programs shot on digital. You can always turn it off. Blu-rays seem more natural with the technology switched off. Ultimately, Blu-Ray looks magnificent either way.
Advice
A word of advice for the first reviewer and everybody else. You should never, never, never use the speakers on your HDTV. All HDTVs are equipped with pathetic 10 watt reference speakers that stink. All HDTV owners should invest in some sort of home theater surround sound system. It doesn't have to be that expensive. Even a $300 Home Theater in a Box will make a world of difference. |
Amazing TV - will not disappoint!! UPDATED 9/23
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| Review Date: September 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Lewin, Phoenix, AZ |
UPDATED BELOW 9/23/09...
I have had this TV for about 2 weeks now and could not be more pleased! My A/V setup was in place when it arrived and all I had to do was connect the HDMI to start watching television. I am running HD cable (HDMI), Wii (Component), Blu Ray (HDMI), and a camera (HDMI) all through the Denon AVR-1910. Only the HDMI out from the Denon to the TV is needed as it switches and upconverts all video.
So after I plugged it in, cable channels started appearing...except for 2 HD channels - just got a black screen. I spent 45 minutes adjusting resolution ins/outs on the cable box, receiver, and TV to no avail. Finally, I rebooted the cable box, and there they were. Yes, I should have tried that first. Anyway, everything has been running without issue.
I must say, this picture is flat out gorgeous. I spent a lot of time researching TV's and checking them out in the stores; LG, Sony, Sharp, Toshiba, LCD, LED, etc... but I always came back to this Samsung LED line of sets. I had read reviews talking about "searchlights" in the corners, and conversely, dark spots in the corners. The former issue I never really saw firsthand. The dark spots though, I did notice in the stores. It seemed more prevalent on the 8000 series, and in some cases I didn't see them at all. When it came down to it though, I found the overall picture so stunning that the dark areas didn't affect me (it was REALLY subtle). I was also suspicious that the sets in the stores that are constantly turned on may have something to do with it. I am pleased to say that I don't see any artifacts on my new set. The picture brightness is very uniform throughout. Couldn't be happier! If you've seen these TV's firsthand you know the thinness of the set is beyond compare. Mine is on a stand, but on the wall it would look amazing (too bad speakers aren't this thin).
As far as the picture goes, if you are pushing an HD signal to it...WOW! The picture is so vivid, bright, and detailed some scenes truly start to look 3-dimensional. Not sure what effect I'm really seeing but that's what it looks like. We had friends over and the kids were watching Kung Fu Panda in HD. All the guys were standing there behind the kids mumbling about the amazing picture. Standard def pictures look fine as well, certainly better than my old DLP. But make no mistake, the payoff is in the HD content.
So I find myself tweaking the picture each day....2 notches lower on the color, 1 higher on the gamma, 1 more for backlight, etc... it's pretty much at the point where all channels look fabulous and I don't need to adjust anything else. I'd say, expect to do that on any TV you get. I tried a cnet configuration that they recommend for dark room viewing and I hated it! Immediately switched back to my personal settings. The great thing is that the accurate colors and different configurable settings on this TV provide the flexibility that makes it nearly impossible NOT to get a perfect picture! BUT everyone's TV room, own eyes, and preferences are a little different. Because there are so many setting combinations, finding the perfect configuration for you will just take a little time - don't expect to have it straight out of the box. As far as contrast goes, awesome! In a scene of Iron Man (Blu Ray), when Tony Stark crashed his own companies party, Jeff Bridges is wearing a tux with a white scarf. I could see the ever-so-slightest off-color herringbone pattern in the scarf next to the black jacket - and it wasn't a close up. (Not kidding, it was kind of neat!)....so just based on that scene, I'd say the contrast and sharpness are top notch.
The 120hz motion effect is great as well. If you haven't yet, go see a demonstration in the store - you really need to see it to understand the hype. It is definitely pretty cool, but I have added some blur and judder back into my settings because it kind of freaked my wife out a little bit. Incredibly smooth, but definitely not how you'd see a movie in the theater. Many scenes end up looking fake, or like you're standing there watching a play on stage. Just know that it's completely adjustable or can be shut off entirely. Again, your personal preference will dictate the settings.
I'm also happy to say that the Denon upconverts the Wii video nicely and it pops out on the Samsung in full-screen looking great. I imagine PS3 or XBOX games with HD output look as good as Blu Ray. I also got the wireless adapter and hooked up to my Windows Media Center to browse pics and movies. Works great - no issues there.
The only oddity that I have seen is the fluctuating back light during dark scenes. Other reviews point this out as well. If a scene goes really dark, like rolling the first credits after the movie, yes, the entire screen will dim. Switch back to a bright scene and the brightness pops back on. When it happens it's noticeable, but it doesn't happen often. I only see it in an extreme contrast change as described above. In my opinion this is a small price to pay when 99.9% of the experience is breathtaking.
Overall, this set delivers an incredible picture that is hard to beat. I read a lot of professional reviews and they always find a few negative things to focus on, like "the moiré on the fence in the 16th fight scene when the guy drops his gun was noticeable." Huh? They also say 240hz is better than 120hz. Yes, if your name is UNIVAC and you are analyzing a test pattern. Real people can't even sense some of these things! I stopped paying too much attention to these after a while. Stand in front of these sets, adjust the pictures, and you will figure out what looks good! For me, this was it - I absolutely recommend this television!
UPDATE: 9/23/09 - Fluctuating Backlight Fixed! Just want to say that this TV still impresses me every time I watch it. As to the fluctuating backlight issue... I found a post that explained how to go into the service menu and turn this off. It's called CE Dimming and can be set to on or off in both Standard and Movie modes. I turned it off in the Standard mode and it worked without issue. You do need to go in and readjust your picture settings since it resets them, so write them down beforehand. Otherwise, it worked fine and now I have to say the picture is 100% solid. Here are the instructions: With the TV off, push Mute, 1, 8, 2, Power. Scroll to "Advanced", press 0000 - don't hit enter. Scroll (down arrow) to CE Dimming and hit Enter. Select Movie or Standard, and hit the left or right arrow to switch it off. Done, hit power. Turn on the TV like you normally would and Auto-dimming is now off! |
Samsung LED 7100
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| Review Date: April 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Pickelw, Florida |
Wow! Do you want the best picture available today. Look at the Samsung 7000 series LED TV.
I have had this for a week now and am very, very pleased with the set. I have the 7100 series from Best Buy. This is a special model only sold through Best Buy. It is the same as the 7000 except for some cute little add ons. One being the ability to scroll through a series of museum paintings. This allows you to use the set as a picture viewer/screen saver and when used with your audio system makes a nice back drop for a party or something of that sort. You can not add pictures. It also allows you to go to the internet and use Yahoo widgets and about five other widgets. There are also a couple of games built in. Will most people use these features? Probably not!
The other feature is the Touch Of Color which I really do not care for anyway. The 7000 is generally $300 cheaper than the 7100 so you chose.
The 7100 series is on sale the week of Apr 28, 2009 for $3,100. This is a $600 price drop. This is the same thing that happened to the Sony 240 hz set. In January 2009 it was $3,900 and is down to $2,800. If you want to wait, it will drop more but that is technology.
My wife usually does not say anything about the TVs we have except if she can not get the remote to turn everything on. She and my son were watching James Bond - Quantum of Solace on bluray. She told me that it was like sitting in the director's chair on the set. The quality of the bluray screen is so clear that it takes on a 3D appearance. The colors are true, the whites are white and the blacks are black. There is no bleeding or blurring of motion. The dark scenes are just as life like as the light scenes.
If I spend this much on a TV, then I will also have a good sound system so the built-in speakers are not a problem. The TV remotes are not that useful. The small round remote is useless. Again, I have the set connected to an amp, a cable box, a bluray player and an old VHS player. I use a programable remote so I do not use the Samsung remote.
The thinness of the set makes the set shrink from the viewer. I mean my old 56' cabinet was two feet deep. This set is 1 and 1/4 inches deep. It hugs the wall so well that it does not dominate the room even though it is 55". The most important part is that there is little to no heat generated by this set. It uses 40% less power than an LCD of the same size. This should help the set last longer and save power on AC and set top use as well.
When using this set to compare pictures make sure that you look at about a dozen different high definition stations. The high definition stations are not all the same! HDNet1, HDNet2, The Science Channel, and ABC in my area are tremendous with the quality in the order shown above. The worst are CBS, PBS, and TBS. There is a big difference in video and audio quality of these stations. Again, look at several stations your area may be totally different.
I had planned to purchase the Sony 240hz TV. I am so glad that I did not. The matte finish on the Sony does little to cut down glare but really, really mutes the picture. The colors and picture on the Sony are also muted by the matte finish.
The picture on the Samsung LED is like looking through a really, really clean window. In other words - awesome!
Pro: Picture quality.
Con: Price. |
OMG!
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| Review Date: November 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R Kierski, Farmington, MN USA |
First, let me say, this is not my first big screen HDTV. In fact, this is replacing a 62 inch DLP. So I wasn't expecting to be WOW'd by this TV... but I was. I don't have a way to compare the DLP and LCD side by side -- the DLP is dead. But I don't recall the DLP's image being as clear and vivid as this image. The DLP was able to display 1080i/720p which is about as good as you're going to get from digital broadcasts. But even on DVD's with lower resolution, the image appears more life-like.
There were a number of other expectations I had. Some of them were met, some where not, some were exceeded. I will go into details of each.
1) Setup: I was expecting to have to assemble something. But the unit was shipped in a fairly large box fully assembled. I suppose if you intended to mount yours on the wall, you'd have to disassemble the stand. As for me, I intended to have it sitting on it's stand.
2) Swivel base: I didn't expect the base would allow it to swivel side to side. Because the TV is so thin and I've put it in a place that used to be occupied by a 17 inch thick DLP, there is plenty of room for the TV to swivel so you can sit on one side of the room or the other and still be in the sweet-spot. That's probably not a big deal for those who are buying the TV for it's 1.6inch depth.
3) Connections: I was disappointed in several ways. The information on Amazon indicated this TV has 2 RF inputs. It has only 1. My DLP had 2 RF inputs so I could connect my cable to one, and antenna to the other. In my area, with a moderate size antenna, I can pick up about 50 HD channels Out-of-the-Air. My cable company rebroadcasts only about 15 of those digital signals, and periodically changes what channel they're on.
In an attempt to make the TV very thin, it appears they've given very little room for high quality connectors. I had to remove the boot from my CAT6 (network) cable. I had to shave one side of the boot of my RG6 (RF) cable. Without these modifications, I couldn't use those cables.
In an era of HighSpeed internet, I would have expected the network connection to be a GigE, but it appears to only be 100BT. While 100BT is theoretically enough to stream even the highest resolution media to the TV, my media servers, media receivers, and PC all have GigE. When I switched to a GigE switch, I noticed considerable difference in viewing experience. A GigE chipset would have probably added only about $30 to the price of the TV -- not a big deal.
I was however very impressed with this TV's ability to be a monitor my my laptop. I plugged it into the VGA connection and was surprised to get full 1920x1080 resolution.
4) Yahoo Widgets: It's certainly a neat idea to be able to see certain information on the screen, but the widgets that are available are unimpressive. You can get most of that information on your Cell phone, without interfering with your TV watching experience.
For about 3 years, I've looked for a way to watch YouTube videos on my HDTV. The YouTube widget leaves a lot to be desired. As far as I can tell.... there is no way to associate the widget with your YouTube account so you can't subscribe to channels, mark favorites, set up play lists, or view your history. The image quality seems to be better than I expected and it appears that it selects the HQ feed when available. Even attempting to search is rather difficult because the on screen keyboard is the worst I've ever used. The keyboard doesn't wrap side-to-side or top-to-bottom. If you're on the key in the top right, and the next key is in the bottom left, you have to move across a million keys to get to the one you need. In it's current state, the YouTube widget is worthless.
5) DLNA: Very disappointing. I have 3 media servers that have different implementations of the DLNA (non)standard. The media receives I've used that interact with the DLNA servers have a variety of flaws, but this TV is probably the worst of them. It's slow bringing up the lists of available content, and tends to refuse to play simple content, or doesn't play them correctly. I was hoping to replace the media receiver attached to my DLP, but I'm not able to because it has faster, better support for the DLNA server, as well as supporting SMB. If the TV can't do DLNA well, maybe Samsung should think about supporting SMB instead (this TV doesn't).
6) AnyNet+: This works a lot better than I expected. I bought a Samsung BD player with this TV. There are a couple of things I can't do with the BD player except with it's remote, but for the most part, it's a seamless experience. It would be nice to have a BD button on the remote -- there's a TV button.
7) Image: Based on reviews I'd read elsewhere and here, I was expecting to have issues with various aspects of the picture. I haven't had any of the "spot light" or "dark corner" problems that people have reported. This TV has incredible darks, brights, and colors. If you get a chance to watch Survivor on this TV.... Do it! Some of the scenes are breathtaking.
I have noticed however, that the picture looks "too good." The high contrast, clear detail, and motion smoothing tend to make the picture too good. It's a little disturbing. I've had to adjust some of the picture settings to add a little imperfection.
8) Glare: I was expecting to see considerable reflection on the high gloss screen. With the DLP, during dark scenes, I could see my reflection staring back at me. With this screen, I don't see that reflection. In fact, I don't see any reflection. I haven't figured out why that would be -- it's a high gloss screen.
9) USB media player: I'm impressed that this TV is able to play so many formats. I have media in some odd formats that I've had difficulty playing -- even in Windows Media Player. This TV is able to play them. I'm dissapointed though that it's not able to play VOB files from the USB. It will play them with the DLNA player, so I would think it should pay them from a USB stick. But it doesn't.
I compared this TV with the 8000, and 8500 in the same size. When the TV's are sitting side-by-side, you're 5 feet away, and looking for specific differences, you can see those differences clear as day. When you look at each TV by them self, or if you're actually watching a move or show, it's hard to pick up those flaws/differences. Even watching the same feed with them side-by-side, I couldn't justify spending the hunderds of $$ more for the minor improvements of the 8000 or 8500.
Reading back, my review sounds very negative. But I'm very happy with this TV. It's much better than the DLP it's replacing both in picture quality and features.
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