It's the Samsung LED C8000. With its explosive 3D capabilities and immersive HyperReal engine, it delivers the world as you've never seen it before. Its LED screen amplifies images to such an extent that it's hard to believe they're coming out of an ultra-slim TV. Richer colors, smoother motion and mega contrast levels combine to make an unparalleled viewing experience. So whether you're watching your favorite television programs, web content or a video you shot yourself, it was designed to blow your mind.
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| New Samsung UE55C8000 TV |
First of all, the look is very stylish. The brushed titanium effect is simply brilliant. Even though the screen is whopping 55", it doesn't look unfittingly huge. The ultra-slim design is really stunning.
All the connecting ports are conveniently located. Some accessories are supplied to tidy up the cables, but that seems quite difficult if you have too many cables. Very easy to fit the stand. The stand is quite stable and sturdy, and stylish too.
Overall the TV enhances the aesthetic of the living room significantly.
The remote control is a cool one. There is a button to turn on the back-light so you can see the keys when it is dark.
The package does include a free pair of 3D glasses, although Samsung website might have said otherwise.
Installation is extremely easy. I use Sky+HD, but it can receive FreeView HD through freeview antenna. It also has built-in Freesat receiver. It is supposed to tune Freesat channels without the need of a set-top box if you connect satellite dish cable to the TV through that adaptor. But I was not able to test it because the adaptor was not included in the package.
Watched the Monster vs Alien 3D using Samsung BD C6900 3D Blueray player and the experience was simply breathtaking. Overall picture quality in 3D and 2D HD mode is superb.
Recently I've also watched a few football matches on Sky 3D channel on this TV. Experience was not as exciting as Monster vs Alien 3D blue ray, but still amazing. I felt like touching the players when they were taking corner kicks.
Contrary to many comments about poor sound quality experienced in ultra-thin TVs, I found the sound quality in this TV to be excellent. Sound was clear and crisp and you have option to change the sound mode quickly (using the Tools button on the remote) between voice, music or movie. Even at 25% of the max volume level, the sound strength was very good.
There is an option to watch the 2D video in 3D mode. The TV converts the images but the effect is not very pleasing - there is not much depth and the image gets a lot darker if you do so. Also it works reasonably well if the original material is in HD.
Normal definition 2D picture quality is not that great either. Well. it could be because I'm watching the big-screen TV from only a distance of 11 feet. But the quality is still better than most other big-screen TVs I've seen so far. I tried to adjust several picture parameters to get a sharper and clearer normal definition pictures but nothing helped. I got the best result by turning off MPEG noise filter. I hardly see any impact of motionplus feature on quality of picture while watching football match on HD. Perhaps I need to adjust the settings a little more. Unfortunately there is no way to save your parameters in a customised profile which you can switch to. The existing settings e.g. Movie, Standard, Dynamic, Natural etc cab adjusted but should be saved on the same name. You can reset to factory settings though. But it would have been better to have a few customized settings options.
I've seen a few high-resolution photos through USB stick - simply stunning!
I haven't tried the networking option as it needs a USB dongle. Since my Blueray DVD player has in-built wireless adaptor, this feature is redundant to me. I browse the Internet using the DVD player.
There are adequate number of ports for different input sources. However, there is no option to choose your own names for the input sources. You have to select the names of sources from a pre-defined list of names. For example if you connect PlayStation in one and Wii in other, and you name them both as Games, then user will get confused. This simple feature of editing the input source name should have been there.
In many TVs, if you connect the headphone into headphone socket, the main speaker is still active. But in this TV, the main speaker goes mute. You must remove headphone jack to listen through main speaker. However, there is an additional audio out port that fits 3.5mm stereo jack. If use a wireless headphone connected to the TV always, without muting the main speaker, this additional port is extremely useful.
If the broadcast channels are HD channels, then the TV automatically shows the picture in 4:3 format if the original is in 4:3. But for non-HD channels, the 4:3 format pictures are stretched wide to fill the screen. You need to change the picture format manually every time you switch from a 16:9 channel to a 4:3 one and vice versa. Simple feature of automatic format switching is not possible, which is a pity for a high-end TV like this.
Be careful when you are buying the TV from non-UK retailer. You may not get an option to choose "UK" as your country while installing and you may run into problem during Freeview tuning. I called the Samsung customer service, and they said each TV is meant for a set of certain countries.
Overall the TV is brilliant for its HD and 3D picture quality and sound quality, but it has some room to improvement in user friendliness.
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