Samsung PS51F5500 review

For this review we tested the 51in model in the F5500 range, but it’s also available in a 60in (PS60F5500) screen size. All models have identical specifications except for their dimensions and power usage. We’re confident that image quality will be practically identical across the range.

When we saw Samsung’s top of the range plasma TV, the Samsung F8500, back in July, we called it Samsung’s best plasma TV to date. The only problem was that it cost £2,700. The PS51F5500 is the next model down from the F8500, but when we saw this plasma TV costs a whopping £2,000 less, we were eager to see how it compared.

At 51in, it’s certainly quite imposing, and its large frame is much thicker than your typical LCD panel. It also has a large black bezel that measures 29mm across the top and sides and 44mm along the bottom, but its glossy finish makes it look much smarter than other plastic-based TVs in this price range. You won’t be able to fit a sound bar underneath it, though, as its four-legged stand extends out toward the front of the TV.

SMART TV

Once you’ve connected the F5500 to your home network via its integrated Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet port, you can access Samsung’s Smart Hub via the remote. This contains all the F5500’s smart TV content and it continues to impress, even though the F5500 is one of Samsung’s lower range TVs. There are four different home screens to choose from and each one fills the screen with its large icon-based layout. Social shows you what’s popular on YouTube and keeps a log of your Skype calls while Films and TV Shows is Samsung’s answer to Netflix. There’s also a home screen for your photos, videos and music files, but it’s the Apps page you’ll probably use most often.

It’s far more extensive than any other manufacturer we’ve seen this year and it includes all the major catch-up TV channels such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5 on top of on-demand film services from Netflix, LoveFilm, BlinkBox and KnowHow Movies. Samsung’s online store lets you add more apps as well. At the time of writing, all of them were free and included a huge range of popular apps such as Spotify and DailyMotion.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype and a web browser come pre-installed, but you’ll want to connect a keyboard to one of the USB ports if you plan on using these as neither of its remotes are suitable for typing. You can connect a mouse as well if you don’t get on with the second remote’s touchpad, but we found it was perfectly responsive enough to browse the web and flick through the various app menus without too much hassle.

PORTS AND CONNECTIONS

The only slight downside is that the F5500 doesn’t come with an Evolution Kit on the back panel to let you upgrade to next year’s Smart TV system like the F8500. This is a shame, but it seems churlish to complain when the F5500 has such a fantastic range of smart TV content already for less than £700.

If you’d rather play your own media files you can stream from a media server or connect a USB storage device. The TV’s format support is excellent. We were able to play all of our test video clips , including DivX HD, MKV, H.264, MP4, WMV HD, XVIX HD and MOV files, and all of our audio files worked as well, including MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, M4A and WAV files. It didn’t recognise our TIFF of GIF image files, but we were able to view our JPG, PNG and BMP files without any problem.
As well as two USB ports, the F5500 has a good range of inputs round the back. There are three HDMI inputs (one supports ARC, so you can send audio back to an amp), SCART, component and composite inputs, a Common Interface slot, digital optical audio, an Ethernet port and an aerial tuner.

IMAGE QUALITY

So far the F5500 has all the makings of a great TV, but it revealed its more budget leanings when we started adjusting the picture. There are just three picture modes available (standard, dynamic and cinema) and its contrast and black levels left quite a lot to be desired when we watched our Blu-Ray test footage with the lights were on. Blacks were positively yellow and we could barely see anything at all during our reference night scene unless we switched the lights off. Even setting its black optimiser setting to bright room and black tone to darkest failed to make any significant changes to deepen the black levels.

As a result, we’d definitely recommend watching films in the dark, as colours appeared much richer here and the contrast and black levels reaped the benefits from the lack of ambient light. There are lots of options for tweaking the picture as well. In addition to the regular brightness, contrast, sharpness, colour and tint settings, there’s dynamic contrast, black tone, flesh tone, colour space, white balance, gamma and colour tone features.

One feature that was sorely missing, though, was any kind of frame interpolation. This was particularly disappointing, as this meant fast-paced action sequences often stuttered quite badly as the camera panned across the screen. Even slow pans were quite jerky at times, which puts the F5500 at a significant disadvantage compared to other £700 TVs that do have this feature.

Luckily, this wasn’t an issue with standard definition content. Colours looked good and upscaled well to 1,080p well, but there was still a noticeable amount of noise and artefacts present, particularly in lower quality Freeview HD channels like BBC News. We set both the MPEG Noise Filter and Digital Clean View options to High to help reduce noise and flickering, but they made very little difference to the overall picture. This was a shame, as other TVs in this price range have much stronger noise reduction settings, but other channels were still perfectly watchable as long as you don’t mind a fuzzy lack of detail.

3D QUALITY

The F5500 also plays 3D content. It uses active shutter technology and comes with two pairs of glasses. We had to turn the lights off to achieve the best picture quality. We didn’t feel the lack of frame interpolation so keenly here, but there was still a noticeable amount of dithering when scenes were motion. The glasses also dimmed the screen quite heavily, but adjusting the cell brightness helped. The depth of field was also a little shallow at first, but the 3D menu options let you change the 3D perspective so images can sink further back into the screen.

The integrated speakers were good, with a good level of bass and plenty of volume, but you’ll probably want to connect a sound bar or surround sound system to get the best out of your films.

CONCLUSION

The Samsung PS51F5500 would have been an award winner had we been able to replicate the same image quality regardless of whether the lights were on, but as it’s really only suitable for dark room viewing, the F5500 falls short. Its lack of frame interpolation is also quite disappointing, but this could have been forgiven if it produced a consistent picture. Unless you’re set on having the very best smart TV content, the LG 42LA690V is a better buy at this price and if you can stretch your budget a bit further, you can buy the 47in version, the 47LA690V instead.