Samsung F8000 Smart LED TV review

SAMSUNG F8000 PICTURE QUALITY (2D)

Once we’d finished playing with the F8000’s gadgets, we turned our attention to picture quality. The 55in model we were sent for review has pretty much every image-enhancing feature you’ll find from a Samsung TV in 2013, but you may not need to make any adjustments as the F8000 produced fantastic looking images from the start.

Standard definition television never looks good stretched across such a big screen, but the F8000 does a great job at scaling and deinterlacing to make the best of a bad situation. Freeview HD fared far better, with sharp images that looked clean and crisp, without any serious block noise.

Despite stretching across a 55in panel, the backlight was superbly uniform with no obvious signs of light bleed at the edges. Samsung’s new Cinema Black mode even disables the upper and lower backlight segments when watching 2.35:1 Blu-rays, completely eliminating any light from the black bars that appear above and below the video. It’s not automatic, so you’ll have to disable it when returning to full-screen sources, but it does a fantastic job when watching dark Blu-ray movies. Shadow detail, contrast and black levels were excellent when we used the Movie preset.

Samsung’s picture options are spread across three main menu screens – here’s where you’ll find the Motion Plus controls

For an LCD TV, the F8000 coped impeccably with motion, even before we’d enabled Samsung’s Motion Plus frame creation system. The only exception was 24p Blu-ray content, which experienced some slight judder, but turning Motion Plus to its lowest setting eliminated it without introducing unrealistic image smoothing or motion artefacts.

There was still room for a little improvement, so we used the Picture menu to make some fine adjustments to the (admittedly very accurate) Movie preset. As well as brightness, colour, contrast, sharpness, backlight and tint control, the Advanced menu contains gamma and 2-point or 10-point white balance controls. It also has colour space options, inside which is hidden a full colour management system (CMS) with control over hue, luminance and saturation of RGB and CMY. Once we’d made some changes using the 2-point white balance controls and CMS, we came away very impressed with the set’s reference-grade picture.

SAMSUNG F8000 3D QUALITY

The F8000 continued to impress us with its 3D performance. Samsung has been working hard to eliminate crosstalk and has, for the most part, succeeded. We could still spot the effect every now and then when watching side-by-side broadcast content, but struggled to see it at all when watching 3D blu-ray discs. There’s a real sense of depth to 3D films, aided by the TV’s ultra-slim bezel, with bright colours and no visible judder or light flicker. There does appear to be some slight frame interpolation happening in the background, but it’s slight and didn’t affect our watching.

Samsung’s 3D glasses are incredibly light and comfortable to wear

Two pairs of 3D glasses are included with the set, which have received a slight redesign from last year. They’re among the lightest and most comfortable pairs of active glasses we’ve used, with only a light tint that largely avoids having a detrimental effect on colour accuracy. They use replaceable batteries and can be bought separately if more than two people want to watch 3D video at once (SSG-4100GB/XC, £18 from www.amazon.co.uk).

SAMSUNG F8000 SOUND QUALITY

Picture quality might be improving year on year, but as TVs get thinner sound quality inevitably suffers. Samsung has made an effort to negate this change with the F8000, by extending the bottom rear of the TV slightly to make room for larger speakers than on last year’s model. Instead of two 10w speakers, the F8000 now has four, comprised of two main drivers and two subwoofers. They help create a wider sense of stereo separation, particularly in the 55in model we reviewed, and do a reasonable job at producing clear dialogue, a low distortion high end and some semblance of bass, although true home cinema fans will still benefit from a good set of speakers.

SAMSUNG F8000 VERDICT

There’s little doubt that Samsung has thrown everything except the kitchen sink at the Samsung F8000 Smart LED TV. It is state of the art in terms of features and it looks cutting-edge too. Picture quality is outstanding for an LCD TV, with accurate colours, sharp images and deep blacks that are verging on those we expect from plasma panels. At £2,500, it’s certainly expensive, and as it’s the first 2013 model we’ve received we have no idea what to expect in terms of quality from other manufacturers, but if you want the best TV, there’s currently little doubt that the Samsung F8000 is it.

For a more in-depth look at Samsung’s 2013 TV user interface and menu system, be sure to click through to our comprehensive image gallery