Gadgetory

I'm David Katz minor with cnet and sitting next to me is Samsung's best TV ever this is the pmf 8500 series at Samsung's top-of-the-line plasma for 2013 superb picture quality on this TV as well as noodles of features but the thing about is first and foremost is the unique stand along the bottom here you can see it's got a curved design also extends the entire width the television so we actually had to bring in a wider table for it for this video all told most people are probably going to take off the stand who can afford this television and hang it on the wall but if you decide to keep it it's one of the cooler looking stands we've ever seen of course there's no swivel on the design like this but that's the price for high style in addition to stand I also appreciate the TV's very narrow bezel it's got a nice metallic grayish finish here looked at from the side it appears a little bit like an LED TV not a plasma all told one of the nicer looking plasma TVs we've ever seen I mentioned features at the top one of the other external things you'll notice here is it's got a little pop-up camera can press this camera it will just pop right off the top of the screen of course that'll allow you to use Skype which is built into this television as well as Samsung's gesture control features I didn't test it on this TV yet but last year the gesture control wasn't all that useful unless you really lost the remote and we're kind of an abide speaking of remote control that's another extra feature on this TV it's a touchpad remote that's got very few buttons but I really liked how it felt very quick responsiveness and the touchpad of course was great for navigating the browser built into this television the downside of course is that you don't get that many buttons you have to actually go into a separate menu to select channels directly as well as access additional features that are usually dedicated to buttons on standard remotes of course this set also comes with the latest software that's Samsung's recommendation engine and a new on TV suite that allows it to control your cable locks as well as suggest different TV shows so it kind of aims to replace your cable boxes interface you can press the Menu key and it takes you right to suggestions for upcoming TV shows and things that thinks you might like on the downside it really doesn't integrate your DVR very well so if you're the kind of person that watches a lot of stuff from your DVR the system won't be all that useful of course Samsung packs and plenty of apps this is the only brand that includes HBO GO as well as pretty much every other streaming video service known to man there's also a bunch of games a bunch of audio services including Spotify so all told the app selection here is second to none actually did like the design of the smart TV interface as well it's a little bit like a smartphone you can flip from page to page here and access different things like those apps the on TV section including a cross-platform browse for streaming services there's also of course access to the cloud and local media so again one of the more comprehensive Smart TV features out there on the back panel there's plenty to be found for HDMI three USB as well as a single analog and put the doubles for composite and component video you'll also notice a big AB for samsung's evolution kit this TV can be upgraded basically replacing the entire brains of the television with a forthcoming kit that should be available at the beginning of next year that will allow this TV to get any of those new features of Samsung decides to build in samsung rounds out the feature package with four pairs of active 3d glasses in the box I'm not a big fan of the glasses they didn't fit all that well and they feel a little flimsy but since this is a universal active 3d TV you can buy third-party glasses if you want in addition to gesture control you also get voice control on the set you press a little button on the remote control and talk to it to perform keyword searches for TV shows and movies but more than its cutting-edge features and design the thing that impressed me most about this high-end TV was its picture quality as I mentioned this is the best picture that I've ever seen from Samsung and it's right up there with the very best Panasonic and local dimming LED TVs out there the f 8500 exhibits extremely deep black levels in very accurate color but the thing that sets it apart from those other plasma TVs is its light output this thing can get extremely bright almost as bright as some LED TVs and of course that really helps picture quality in rooms where you can't control ambient lighting of course is where our money the most plasma TVs are plenty bright for most rooms but do you have one of those extremely bright rooms you were avoiding plasmas for that reason you might want to look into the set of course that brings up one final down side this flagship TV is extremely expensive but again you really get plenty of picture quality features and design for the price that's a quick tour of Samsung's pmf 8500 plasma TV I'm David passed by precita