Gadgetory

hey everybody i'm david katz meijer from cnet and this is the samsung UN es 8000 series this is a 55 inch version this review will also apply to the 46 the 60 and the 65 inch version of this series this is Samsung's highest end TV for 2012 this TV has all the bells and whistles it's also Samsung sleekest design yet we'll start with the design because it really is the high point of this TV around the edge you can see it's got this silver strip it's got a really thin strip of black right next to the screen and the whole thing measures about a half an inch from the screen to the very edge and that's among the thinnest bezels we've seen of course is the result this TV is pretty much all picture above and below that picture you'll actually see two little bulges one has the samsung logo the one on the top is the most interesting though it actually contains a little camera and a little microphone so the idea is you can wave at the TV to turn it on and to do a couple of the rudimentary features using the camera and you can also speak to it using the microphone so you can do basic commands again like turn off volume up even change the channel things like that now this TV function is called smart interaction when I gave it a test drive it wasn't really as good as using the remote control actually tended to misinterpret a lot of things that I said the control is very limited as i said but again this is a very unique feature on a high-end TV so you know can't really get it on any other television we expect it to be a little bit refined through firmware updates but all told I prefer to stick to a standard remote control speaking remotes this TV actually includes two different models as a standard infrared multi button model and this touchpad version here that uses a thumb pad just like a standard laptop it's really great for browsing the internet although it wasn't quite as responsive as I expected on a set like this one bonus for this touchpad remote is the fact that it doesn't require line-of-sight he uses bluetooth to communicate with the TV there's only a couple buttons on here so actually doing anything beyond again volume and channel up-down is a little bit taxing because you got to go into a menu to do that samsung also throws in another accessory this little bluetooth ir dongle that allows that bluetooth remote to control other infrared devices in your system including a cable box and a blu-ray player again it doesn't work quite as well as a universal remote but it's neat to be able to use the included remote to do all that kind of stuff as a high on TV of course the set includes Smart TV samsung as the most content of any Smart TV provider out there except for Google TV you can go out and find a bunch of different apps there's also the standard suite of audio video Samsung does have HBO GO its unique this year although it's not quite yet included on this 2012 model we expect that to happen soon there is also no Amazon Instant on this set unlike a lot of the other TVs out there all told however it's smart TV suite is superb we actually expect it to include a cloud gaming service again later this year speeding up the response time of that smart TV is Samsung's dual-core processor new to this set you can actually upgrade that processor at some point later samsung says as early as 2013 you can swap out the processor and the memory for a better version so that's called smart evolution and again a unique feature round back stamps includes three HDMI that's one fewer than a lot of the other high-end TVs out there there's also three USB ports a component video input but there's no vga style input for analog computers since the air around the bezel so thin samsung also allows control of the TV via this little knob instead so you can see it calls up an on-screen menu that is actually pretty slick with all the features and slick design and high price of this TV I did expect the picture quality be a little bit better than we found this TVs weakness is it's relatively light black levels it doesn't reach that nice deep black that can infuse the picture with better color and of course a better picture with the lights off and when viewing dark material on the flip side the Samsung does a very good job with color and video processing the screen is glossy so it will reflect more ambient light than matte screens out there but on the flip side it does help preserve black levels a little bit better in high overhead lighting unlike last year the uniformity is a little bit better so there aren't as many bright spots on the screen although again that's a little bit of a problem compared to some of the other LED TVs out there 3d performance is a high point the set has less crosstalk than most of the other active TVs I've seen out there but all told us to do performance a little bit disappointing for such a high-end model that's a quick look at samsung's un es 8000 series on david katz buyer