Samsung NU8000 (UN55NU8000, UE55NU8000) review
Samsung attacks the mid-variety with a decently colorful televisionPosted by Haroon Malook Television
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if you don’t thoughts tweaking some settings, Samsung’s NU8000 collection gives critically brilliant, colorful screens. They appearance beautiful with a near non-existent bezel; the ‘T’-shaped stand facilitates preserve cables tidy; Samsung’s Tizen OS with Smart Things is supremely reachable and is derived nicely stocked; and sound nice - whilst a bit rough on the low give up - does an awesome process keeping talk clear above the history noise. All that said, at the same time as the set encroaches on must-purchase territory, the brink-lit LED panel and motion issues preserve it from breaking into this yr’s excellent TVs.
FOR
bright, stunning hues
body-much less trim
HDR+ Mode
towards
aspect-lit LED
movement problems
Bixby hurts more than enables
everyone loves a excessive-give up TV. LG’s latest OLED, Samsung’s spectacularly brilliant QLED and Sony’s extraordinary LED-LCDs are applauded yr spherical for his or her great performance, image technologies and technical prowess.
Too terrible those aren’t the TVs the majority buy.
in step with the income facts, simplest 10% of new television shoppers spend greater than $1,000 on their new television. maximum spend much less than 1/2 of that amount and that makes the center-floor, the vicinity in which Samsung’s NU8000 sits, the actual TV conflict zone.
To make its screen as aggressive as feasible, the Samsung NU8000 series is vibrant, colorful and springs stocked with the latest version of Samsung’s TV OS. It’s super for gaming thank you its splendidly low input lag, and is capable of breathtaking HDR photographs.
however there’s a problem. two, in fact. the first is that the Samsung NU8000 is an edge-lit LED-LCD panel. It’s no longer full array, and that means its manage over where mild is going isn’t flawless. the second is that its movement settings can be intricate to configure. At full impact, you might be issue to the cleaning soap opera effect however, turn them off, and you would possibly get movement artifact. there may be a satisfied medium in the superior settings, but in the end those problems are what stops this display from prevailing the midsize battle.
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we've some qualms about the NU8000 collection, however none of them situation the layout itself: Out of the field, this is an extremely visually attractive television.
The shining design characteristic at the NU8000 - and the attribute that sets it other than other TVs in its elegance - is its loss of a plastic body across the top and facets of the screen. with out the frame, the TV is extremely-minimalist, surely taking a web page from Samsung’s mobile department.
To save you any damage to the display even as boxing it, Samsung provides cardboard guards that keep on with the edges and guard the display screen - showing that the designers have concept thru the setup technique from begin to complete.
To further maximize this minimalist aesthetic is Samsung’s T-fashioned stand with removable returned cowl that hides wires. It takes seconds to clip the back covering, weave cables thru the stand itself, and pop out with a easy install every and each time.
across the again of the television you’ll locate a pleasant brushed aluminum finish, plus 4 HDMI ports, USB ports, an either net port and an RF cable tuner jack - which is ideal if you use an indoor antenna and plan on the usage of Samsung’s neat TV Plus channel directory.
If there’s any nitpick to be made approximately the television’s design, it’s that the screen makes use of a VA panel with side-lit LED lighting fixtures. despite its great efforts, neighborhood display screen dimming isn’t awesome and nowhere near as true as OLED panels in a similar price variety - but greater on that inside the overall performance sections down beneath.
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The NU8000 is a significantly excellent TV. the shortage of a frame across the top and facet, plus the elegant T-shape stand, all assist to make the layout aesthetic fit the photo overall performance.
clever television (Tizen with Samsung Smart Things)
one among Samsung’s big speaking points for its 2018 TVs is how smooth they are to setup. down load the Samsung Smart Things app, they are saying, and also you’ll be up and strolling in no time.
whilst this usually holds actual, it does imply creating a login for Samsung’s Smart Things or remembering a password that you made a while in the past. If it saves you time ultimately will in the long run depend how quick you can sign up for the carrier or don't forget stated password - any delay, and it might just be that Samsung’s new-and-progressed setup takes longer than it did final 12 months.
That said, what you are dealt with to once you get beyond the login display screen is a phenomenally strong, blazing rapid interface. Navigating the nooks and crannies of Tizen looks like an interesting treasure hunt as you by no means quite understand what good you’re going to find subsequent.
you might attempt your hand at using Samsung’s television Plus mode that piles in loose streaming channels on pinnacle of your present line-up from your cable provider or OTA antenna. you might wander into the app shop, shop across the general manual or setup a brand new smart home device with Samsung Smart Things. There’s a gallery mode and a sluggish-however-tolerable net browser.
average, there’s enough on provide right here with out feeling hopelessly overwhelming, all while offering the important thing critical streaming offerings like Netflix and Amazon high Video in 4K extremely HD.
where the operating machine falters is thru its dependence on Samsung’s smart assistant, Bixby. while it’s imbued with the energy to song down suggests, manage the clever home and answer queries it not often does any of the above phenomenally nicely. look for “Thor”, as an example, and Bixby will insist it heard “four” - irrespective of how emphatically you are saying the call of the god of thunder.
Barring a few troubles with Bixby as a way to absolutely be constant inside the months to come, standard Tizen with Samsung Smart Things is a supremely smart, complete running machine - and one which we are able to revel in using throughout 2018.
clever television TL;DR: Tizen is perfectly packed with content material - there’s now not an excessive amount of or too little. Now if handiest Samsung could’ve used Google Assistant rather than Bixby...
HD/SDR performance
on the subject of taking antique HD and SD content and remodeling it into incredible-searching 4K, you want a terrific up scaling engine. luckily, Samsung is no slouch in that arena. To that give up, Samsung’s NU8000 does especially well with 1080p - even if it’s a tinge darker and a chunk less special than similar content material performed in 4K/HDR.
for instance, we played the original Iron man through FXNow and Chrome cast, and it looked fairly top for a film that got here out 10-plus years in the past. even though dark scenes lacked a piece of detail they weren’t very grainy - which speaks volumes approximately the TV’s ability to easy up antique content material.
any other scene, though, proves there’s still a few room to enhance: In Iron man 2, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark interrogates Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash and the color gradation is super obvious - a trouble that might be worse if you’re watching it thru Apple TV because the NU8000 mechanically changes it to game Mode.
matters are better while there's much less movement and plenty more color at the display screen, but recognize that there might be moments in which you’ll wonder where the entirety went incorrect.
Editor's observe: in case you're prone to seeing the soap opera effect and want to show it off, cross into Settings->picture->superior Settings->car motion Plus after which turn Blur discount up to ten, whilst cranking the Judder down to 0.
fortunately, the NU8000 does a astounding process in terms of shade and assessment. the important thing weapon inside the NU8000’s arsenal is Samsung’s HDR+ up conversion algorithm that takes SDR content and expands its coloration and opens up the evaluation of the display screen. With it, HD/SDR content material won’t look half its age and also you’ll get more of a dramatic comparison while watching older films that weren’t shot in HDR.
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a variety of what changed into stated above within the HD/SDR phase applies right here inside the 4K/HDR phase: maximum times, pix look wonderful with some minor exceptions.
one of the test pieces of content we used changed into Planet Earth II on Netflix. In beautiful 4K with HDR+ mode became on, Planet Earth II seemed certainly astounding. the colors of the rain forest and the stark contrast-rich regions of the mountains will brighten any AV fanatic’s day.
Of direction, Planet Earth II performs to the television’s strengths. There’s more shade in rain forests and oceans than your common soccer stadium, and rapid movement is exceptionally rare within the highest mountains within the global. even when there is movement, it’s normally captured in large pictures with sluggish pans - rarely is it carried out by means of flipping to and fro among cameras.
Take some thing that the Samsung NU8000 won't be built for - shaky cam photos shot while the cameraman is taking walks - and also you’ll start to see the display screen’s real problems with motion.
The nice example of this can be observed watching quickest vehicle on Netflix. a few of the scenes shot at the racetrack near the end of every episode are all filmed without tripods creating a small trouble for the NU8000 wherein it builds greater frames making the camera shake even harder. you may turn off movement when this happens, however ought to you turn over to sports activities you’ll see foremost artifact. sometimes it looks like you can’t win.
well, except you’re gambling video games on it. then you definately very much can win.
one of the new functions for 2018 is car sport Mode and game motion Plus - two technology that help consoles appearance and play even better. What occurs right here is that the NU8000 acknowledges that a recreation console has been plugged in and will purposefully reduce enter lag - i.e. the bane of game enthusiasts everywhere.
recreation Mode, in and of itself would make this television a gamer’s best buddy. however, tack at the brightness, color duplicate - and relatively low charge - we mentioned in advance, and also you truly have one of the first-class gaming TVs in 2018.
4K HDR overall performance TL;DR: whilst weird motion dealing with hurts the overall photo first-rate, 4K HDR pics are shiny and beautiful, with suitable color duplicate.
Sound
One may think that, with forty-watt speakers, the NU8000 would have some of the first-class sound on a flat panel TV. sadly, that isn’t the case.
Bass rattles the display screen, excessive quantity sound crackles and pops, and mediums and highs sound constrained. And that’s just some of the troubles here.
involved that we had been listening to something that didn’t exist, we invited buddies to strive the television for themselves. every time, around 50% volume they said they might pay attention audible crackling and damn bass - issues that just couldn’t be ignored.
If there’s a brilliant spot right here its that Samsung is making an attempt to dovetail the incredible work that its sound labs are doing in California with its television manufacturing enterprise in Korea. The result are modes like Sound Optimization that analyzes the type of audio content material gambling on display and EQs it for you. TV indicates could have their speak-central mediums stronger while explosion-weighted down films will have their bass emphasized. This software on my own doesn’t help the television overcome its troubles with audio but it’s without a doubt a step in the proper path toward an answer.
different panels to ponder
five years in the past, the mid-variety wasn’t a bad location to be. with the aid of the easy distinctive feature of pumping out more TVs than all of us else, Sony, Samsung and LG owned the mid- to high-end TV space. but nowadays they aren’t so lucky.
within the US, the largest challenger to the mid-variety throne is TCL, a business enterprise that had an remarkable displaying in 2017 with its TCL 55P607, a fifty five-inch television that value just $649 and supported Dolby vision. This yr, TCL has its new 6-series TVs - the 55R617 and 65R617 - available for $699 and $999, respectively. at the same time as the ones TVs won't have the identical recreation Mode chops Samsung has, their comparable photo performance and half-charge price may cause them to a higher alternative universal.
in case you’re outdoor the USA, take a look at out the LG SK8000 incredible UHD TV. It packs in LG’s proprietary Nano cellular technology (a variant of quantum dot) for across the identical rate as Samsung’s NU8000. It’s to be had in fifty five-inches for simply $899/£699.
Verdict
What’s precise right here is that Samsung has made a colorful, able mid-variety set - it does first rate up scaling with some assist from HDR+ Mode, Tizen with Bixby is one of the great operating systems available on the market and game Mode is really useful for that target audience. but lamentably, all that being said, its many downsides maintain the NU8000 from becoming a certainly stand-out tv in an more and more crowded phase.
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