Samsung UN558000 LED HDTV

Samsung UN558000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV Picture performance, advanced connectivity, and an eco-friendly and stunning design come together to form Samsung LED TV 8000 (UN55B8000, UN558000). For the image connoisseur, our highest 240Hz motion blur reduction technology, a 5,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio that displays incredibly deep blacks and pristine whites, and enriched color processing deliver outstanding video. Samsung LED TVs use 40% less power than conventional LCD TVs and are manufactured with the environment in mind. Internet@TV has web TV widgets from Yahoo, Flicker, Ebay and others to entertain, inform and connect you to specially designed web content right on your LED TV. This Ultra Slim 1.2” depth set is the ideal complement for your room and your life.

Buy Cheap Samsung UN55B8000 55-Inch 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV

Redefining the standards for viewing quality, energy-efficiency and home entertainment decor, the Samsung 8000 Series LED HDTVs (Samsung UN558000,UN55B8000) deliver unparalleled picture quality and enhanced connectivity while also helping you reduce your carbon footprint with the reduced power consumption of the LED screen. Using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as its primary light source–rather than traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL)–this cutting edge HDTV also offers the benefits of an ultra-high contrast ratio and a slim depth that allows for a more artful design.

To battle motion blur and image judder that can plague LCD displays when displaying fast movement onscreen, this 8000 Series LED HDTV utilizes Samsung’s Auto Motion Plus frame interpolation technology with an ulatra-fast 240Hz refresh rate–four times that of other TVs. It also boasts high dynamic contrast ratios, complements of the ground breaking LED light source.

The 8000 Series features Samsung’s new Internet@TV online content service. Developed with Yahoo!, Internet@TV uses either a wired or wireless Ethernet connection to access content onscreen from Yahoo!, Flickr, YouTube and more with the push of a button. The widget-based interface and scrollbar run along the bottom of the screen for easy browsing of the latest programs and content. And this HDTV is accented by Samsung’s TOC (Touch of Color), which offers a hint of a translucent color around the edges of the unit for a uniquely fashionable look.

Samsung 8000 LED LCD TV Amazing This TV is replacing a Sony 50″ rear screen projection LCD HDTV that still has a great picture. However, the Sony uses a $200 projector bulb to display the tiny LCD enlarged through lenses up to the 50″ screen, and that generates a LOT of heat (and only lasts a couple of years). Additionally, the Sony TV only displays up to a 720p image, which is fine, but pales in comparison to this new Samsung model. The LED-side backlit LCD Samsung TV remains cool indefinitely as it’s viewed, which is a major issue if you don’t use your TV to heat your living room.

The first time I saw this new Samsung in a local Best Buy showroom I was immediately transfixed. The image was stunning, razor sharp, bright, and when I touched the top rear of the case, absolutely room temperature. Because the screen case is only about 1 1/4″ thick the unit seems flimsy sitting vertically on its crystal plastic cylinder atop a base, but that’s a minor issue to me. Many people will remove the base and hang it on the wall. I have a TV nook, so this unit sits on its base out of the way of anyone possibly bumping into it.

This TV has the best image of any TV I’ve EVER viewed. I’m not a TV snob, just a daily viewer, but I’ve owned a lot of high quality TVs over the years, and this one stands out. Once I plugged my Dish PVR and Sony PS3 Slim in and looked at the picture in my living room environment, I was convinced I’d made a good decision (and I moved the Sony to another room).

It’s only been a couple of months since my spouse began pushing me to upgrade to 1080, but I thought my DVDs looked great on the Sony TV and didn’t feel the urgency. Now, viewing those same DVDs on my PS3 Slim/Samsung 8000, they look grainy, and definitely remind me of my transitions from Beta to LD to DVD way back when. When I popped in a new Blu-ray movie I was convinced. I’m not sure I’ll ever enjoy my old DVDs the same way again.

The TV worked perfectly out of the box. I plugged it into a gigabit switch to my broadband connection and upgraded its firmware in a few minutes. A couple of days later my Blu-ray Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark disk arrived and I was hard pressed to change ANY settings. In fact, most of the test screens were puzzling to me, since they looked fine. The Spears & Munsil disk shows you a sample of a good image and a bad image for each test screen, and almost all of the test screens on the Samsung looked exactly like the benchmark images. There was one test image that appeared off (screen was so bright the test boxes were nearly invisible), but even with the brightness turned completely down the image didn’t change, so I left it at the setup default. Bottom line, the TV was calibrated nearly perfectly already out of the box. The over saturated, super bright settings you view in the showroom are what Samsung calls Dynamic. I selected a different setting for my Dish satellite and Blu-ray viewing modes that’s fine for home viewing. Of course, Samsung allows you to customize to your heart’s content if the simple options don’t work for you. This unit also boasts a 240Hz fast image smoothing functionality, which basically takes your standard 60Hz (or 24Hz for DVDs) signal and interpolates (creates) additional images to display something on your screen more frequently so you don’t notice the jumps as fast images move across the screen. I can’t say that I’ve noticed this in daily use. But perhaps sports fans will appreciate it, or it’ll become more obvious in action movies.

You can have a separate setup for each input, so I configured my Dish satellite images to bright natural tones, and my Blu-ray settings to a movie configuration (where many images are darker than commercial television). I bypass the TV for audio, using the TV as a monitor only, which is just as well. While there are four HDMI inputs, the optical out ONLY PASSES THROUGH A STEREO SIGNAL to your AV receiver/amplifier. That means NO DTS/5.1/7.1 audio if you pass all your components through your TV. So, I plug my satellite and Blu-ray video inputs directly into my TV’s HDMI ports, and their optical audio connections directly into my AV receiver driving my 5.1 system. I configure my Harmony remote to turn on my TV, set the video port, and set my AV receiver to my satellite audio in when watching Dish, and my Sony PS3 Slim when I’m watching a movie.

I’ve been researching new HDTVs for a couple of months now, and this unit is currently the most popular (including the less expensive 7000 and 6000 series units, and the just released 8500 rear-LED backlight unit) and best rated. A couple of comments I’ve heard and read about with this TV concerned its side-LED backlight scheme, and how that prevents the TV from darkening just a portion of the screen (vice LEDs all across the back of the screen, individually controlled). I can attest that this unit has phenomenal blacks (not dark grays, as my Sony TV has). I’m sure the 8500′s rear-LED scheme will provide more discriminating dark areas on the screen, but for the moment that’s not worth the extra thousand dollars to me. The blacks and dark areas on the 8000 look great. I did notice that the corners of the screen appear slightly darker where the backlights can’t run into the corner, but only on the showroom models that were on all day long. I haven’t yet observed dark corners on a white screen on my home unit. I’ve also heard that some people have experienced hardware failures after a week of home viewing, typically where the screen goes all white, which requires a repair. Best Buy told me if that happens and they can’t repair it in two weeks, they’ll replace the unit (they also offer a 4-year warranty for another $400). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t get a defective unit, but so far so good. The TV looks so great, I was willing to take the chance. Anyway, if it works for a month, it’ll probably work forever, such is the history of electronics. Just a heads up, Samsung Customer Service is getting a LOT of complaints on the Internet for unresponsiveness to repairs. But again, the TV is so good, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. As an aside, Samsung extended their warranty to 15 months parts/labor when I registered it online, so perhaps they have noticed the hardware issues/complaints.

While this TV is listed currently at $3,899 retail, its everyday price almost anywhere is ~$3,009. Sales and promotions can save you more. When Fry’s Electronics offered it at $2,699 last week, we immediately went to our local Best Buy (which price matches and offers free delivery, trash take-away, and old TV take-away, if you want) and purchased it, with a table and a PS3 Slim.

So far, I’m completely satisfied. This is a great HDTV and I look forward to watching it each evening. Oh, and I’m definitely going to start buying more Blu-ray DVDs.

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