At the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas Samsung boldly
claimed that the future of TV is curved, and now it's putting its money
where its mouth is by building its flagship TV series for 2014, the 4K-resolution HU8500 range, around a curved screen
On
the 65-inch HU8500 model we find on our test benches the curve is very
much in evidence. The screen clearly bends away from you, creating a
distinctive and attractive profile that's sure to have plenty of shelf
appeal in this year's TV style wars.
The curved screen and Ultra HD
resolution are far from the set's only attractions, though. Also
important is the compatibility of the UE65HU8500's new external
connections box with the UHD-friendly HDMI 2.0 standard, the H.265
compression standard being used by Netflix for its upcoming 4K streams,
and the new HDCP copyright protection system.
Plus
there's a helpfully tweaked version of Samsung's renowned smart TV
platform, a new QuadCore Plus processing system and a new remote which
introduces 'point and click' functionality to Samsung TVs for the first
time.
The UE65HU8500 arrives a few weeks ahead of
upcoming new UHD/4K rivals from the likes of Sony and Panasonic, so we
can't yet draw any comparisons with those models. But we'll certainly be
looking for improvements over both Samsung's own F9000 UHD models from last year, as well as other stand-out UHD TVs like the Sony 65X9005A, LG 65LA970W, Toshiba 65L9363, and Panasonic L65WT600.
The curve brings more positives than negatives, which is a pleasant surprise
Design
While
there are some controversial aspects to introducing curved screens to
the 'flat' TV market, nobody can deny that the way the 65HU8500 curves
gently backwards makes for a very attractive and distinctive design.
The
frame around the curved screen is fairly, if not spectacularly, slim
and quite nicely finished in gloss black. Build quality is a little more
plasticky when viewed up close than you'd expected from a £4k Samsung
TV, but the main thing is that its slimness leaves you feeling like the
picture is the main attraction, rather than the screen that's producing
it.
One point worth raising here is that, while many
people may feel instantly attracted by the curved design, it's not
conducive to wall hanging. The way the edges of the screen obviously
curve away from the wall looks slightly awkward.
You're not going to get the UE65HU8500 flat against the wall
Features
There
are three main strands to the 65HU8500's feature assault. First,
there's the curved design we've just discussed. Second, it's got a
native UHD resolution. And third, it sports Samsung's latest Smart TV
system.
The first two of these are more or less
self-explanatory, though we'll quickly remind you that UHD resolution is
3840x2160 pixels, leading to four times as many pixels as you get in a
full HD 1920x1080 TV.
There's plenty to talk about
regarding Samsung's new Smart TV platform though, even if it doesn't
look all that new when you first open it up.
The opening
TV hub screen is more or less identical to the one Samsung used last
year, and again you can scroll across to four other hubs. But look
closer and there are some substantial changes to be found.
Catch up on the latest films and TV shows in Samsung's stylish on demand menu
Smart features
The
most obvious one is the ditching of last year's seldom-used 'social'
hub screen in favour of a Game hub, carrying links to the games
available via Samsung's online portal. The social stuff (YouTube
channels, Twitter etc) has been moved to the hub menu devoted to you own
content (such as multimedia stored on USB sticks or networked
computers).
As with last year's Samsung smart TV system,
the first TV hub can be used to show recommendations culled from the TV
listings, based on an analysis of your previous viewing habits.
Another
hub page is built around on-demand content from a wide range of
providers – including Netflix and Lovefilm/Amazon Prime. The fifth hub
is essentially a Samsung's App 'store' showing you what apps you already
have installed. It also provides access to many, many more you can
download from Samsung's servers to the TV's built-in memory if they
pique your interest.
The 65HU8500 introduces a handy and
cool-looking new multi-window tool that can divide the screen into four
square segments, each containing a different source. We've seen picture
in picture before of course, but the possibilities opened up by having
four windows rather than two are startling. Especially as you could run
the internet in one while watching different sources in the others.
The extra processing power makes all the difference
Football crazy
Also
new for 2014 – with the World Cup in Brazil looming large – is a
Football mode. This adjusts the picture settings to optimise the way the
beautiful game looks onscreen. It also implements a nifty system
whereby the TV can analyse crowd noise to spot game highlights that it
can then automatically record to USB drive!
Elsewhere
there have been some significant changes to the ways you can navigate
Samsung's latest smart TV system. This includes being able to use your
finger (rather than your whole hand as was the case last year) for
navigating the onscreen menus.
There is a much more
effective smart phone/tablet control app and a new remote control that
offers point and click functionality, as well as the track pad system
Samsung has supported with previous remote designs.
The
UE65HU8500 has a hugely extensive suite of picture set up tools,
including full colour and gamma management. It also supports local
dimming from its edge LED lighting system, part of which includes
Samsung's Cinema Black feature.
This controls and
individually handles the lights that correspond with the black bars
above and below 2.35:1-ratio films, to stop them becoming distractingly
'infected' with light bleeding from the main part of the picture.
Big brain
Samsung
claims that the UE65HU8500's Quad Core Plus processing brain can work
twice as fast with Smart TV functions or picture processing systems as
the most powerful engine from its 2013 TV range.
This
has potentially huge implications for a UHD set, given that currently
such TVs have to spend the vast majority of their time using processing
to upscale HD and standard definition content to the screen's UHD panel.
The extra processing power could also have profound
implications on the effectiveness of other key processing elements like
the local dimming system, the dynamic contrast system and the set's
motion processing engine. The intriguing new processing system Samsung
has developed to make sources a better fit for the screen curve will
also benefit from the extra power.
You can't turn this
part of the processing off, which may alarm purists, but hopefully it
won't throw up any significant problems.
3D present and correct
Although
it's not the core feature it once was, the UE65HU8500 still carries 3D
playback, with two pairs of active shutter 3D glasses provided free with
the TV.
Since this is an active 3D system, its 3D
pictures will be scaled to UHD, rather than the essentially full HD
resolution delivered by UHD 3D TVs that use the passive 3D system.
As
with last year's Samsung UHD TVs, the UE65HU8500 ships with an external
connections box. This box also contains the TV's processing brains,
making it possible to upgrade to a new one in the future, allowing your
TV to keep up with the latest connection and processing power
developments.
In fact, people who bought one of last
year's UHD TVs from Samsung will be able to replace their connections
box with one of the new ones created for the HU8500 series. This gives
them immediate access to things like the HDMI 2.0 ports, the H.265
compatibility and Samsung's latest Smart features.
This sort of future proofing feels more invaluable than ever before, given how fast the TV world is changing.
One
last point to cover before getting stuck into the UE65HU8500's picture
performance is its audio. Traditionally a weak point of Samsung's TVs,
the brand has tried to improve things by equipping the set with a duct
system that runs along the TV's rear and gives the speaker 'air' more
room to breathe.
Picture Quality
Not surprisingly, we want to kick this section off by
looking at the impact of the UE65HU8500's curved screen. Specifically,
is it really 'made for one' rather than a family-friendly technology?
It's
all about viewing angles. A long-held fear is that using a curved
screen will make the picture uncomfortable to watch for anyone not sat
in the perfect place - directly in front of, and at exactly the right
distance from, the TV.
But
due in part to the fact that the curve isn't actually very severe, the
viewing 'sweet spot' issue isn't nearly as limiting as you may have
feared. In fact, in some ways the UE65HU8500 actually supports off-axis
viewing better than Samsung's flat TVs.
The thing is that
the new panel Samsung has created for its curved LED debut loses no
colour saturation or contrast, even when viewed from as much as 35
degrees either side of directly opposite.
That means that
anyone who's watching the TV from within a 70-degree arc will get
perfect colour and contrast. Whereas moving even slightly off axis with
Samsung's flat TVs in the past has tended to cause at least parts of the
screen to lose colour saturation and contrast.
Geometry
The
35-degree either side situation also applies to the UE65HU8500's
picture geometry. Stay within the 70-degree safe arc and you don't feel
like the curve is messing up the image's geometry.
It's
true that the benefits of the curve diminish the further off axis your
viewing angle gets, but crucially the curve doesn't actually start to
cause distracting geometry problems until you get past 35 degrees either
way. This means the UE65HU8500 supports a much wider acceptable seating
area than you'd expected, especially if your room is quite large and
you're not sat too close to the screen.
It's worth
saying that the effective viewing area would be reduced with a smaller
curved screen, so the advantages of curving a screen will likely
diminish as the screen sizes get smaller. But nonetheless, the fear that
curved TVs might only support one or two viewing positions is largely
unfounded.
The curve isn't evil
If you're paying
attention you'll have noticed that the word 'benefits' was used a moment
ago when discussing the curve. The use of a curved screen can actually
enhance the viewing experience, creating a feeling of being more
immersed in the pictures you're watching.
This is chiefly
thanks to the way it creates a greater sense of depth, and gives you
the impression that some of the picture information is wrapping around
into your peripheral vision, just like the real world does.
This
extra sense of immersion from the curve is a subtle effect for sure,
but it is definitely there. We suspect it's being increased by the work
of Samsung's depth enhancement processing. The depth boosting aspect of
the curve is, as you might expect, particularly obvious and handy when
you're watching 3D sources.
Curve issues
While
it's fair to say the UE65HU8500's curve has left a much better taste in
my mouth than expected, it's not without its issues. Get outside the
70-degree viewing arc discussed previously and the image does start to
become tiring to watch, as your brain tries to compensate for the way
the image distorts at this angle.
Get far enough down the
TV's side and you even start to see the frame of the TV curling across
in front of some of the picture, which clearly isn't a great thing...
However,
the bigger problem is the effect the curve has on reflections. If you
happen to have a bright light source opposite the screen the curve can
cause the reflection of this light to stretch across further than would
be the case with a flat image. Occasionally the curve can even cause a
double reflection.
To be fair, the UE65HU8500's screen
structure does a much better job of 'soaking up' light reflections than
previous curved demo units. And the reflection problem doesn't tend to
be an issue with general sunlight and downlighting; it just happens when
a light source is directly across from the screen. If your living room
set up is likely to give you such a potential reflection, then you may
need to stick with a flat TV or do something to adjust your room layout.
The TV menu looks great, but that light reflection does not
Native UHD playback
Moving
on from the pros and cons of the curve, next under the microscope is
the UE65HU8500's UHD resolution. It is a joy to behold.
Native
UHD content looks mesmerising. The quadruple resolution is beautifully
expressed, creating images of stunning density, gorgeous detail,
spectacular realism, immaculate colour blending and enhanced depth. The
extra detail allows objects to be resolved further into the distance
than normal HD screens can manage.
The 65-inch screen is
easily big enough to make the UHD advantage over HD blatantly obvious.
Though the UHD advantage is obvious on pretty much any size of screen.
The
UE65HU8500's native UHD pictures actually look even crisper and cleaner
than those of its 2013 UHD sets, thanks to a number of key improvements
to the general image quality.
The most immediately
obvious step forward comes with colour, as Samsung's new panel and
'PurColor' colour processing engine combine to produce a much more
dynamic and subtly distinguished colour range. Having so much more
colour range to work with does wonders in making the extra detail in the
image look even more precise.
Contrast
Also
boosting UHD picture quality is the TV's outstanding contrast
performance. Samsung has long had a knack for getting deeper black
levels out of LED LCD TVs than most rivals. It's taken this prowess
further than ever before with the UE65HU8500.
Provided
you reduce the set's backlight setting to around eight or nine (unless
you're viewing in a very bright room), dark scenes benefit from black
colours that really do look black. More importantly where the screen's
UHD technology is concerned, the UE65HU8500's black level response is so
effortlessly achieved that even the darkest corners of an image contain
impressive amounts of subtle greyscale/shadow detail information,
enhancing the image's UHD appearance.
There's
UHD-enhancing improvement, too, from the UE65HU8500's motion processing.
The extra processing power within the UE65HU8500 means you can now use
the motion processing system to take away LCD's usual motion blur,
without pictures exhibiting the usual nasty unwanted processing side
effects.
4K sources ahoy?
At this point it needs
to be stressed that our tests of the set's native UHD abilities had to
be made using the same compilation of demo content we used last year.
There's still no readily available native UHD content out there that
normal consumers can get their hands on.
This situation
is soon going to change (a bit), thanks to Netflix launching its 4K
streaming services (to anyone with a 15Mbps broadband connection).
Samsung are also launching a 4K server for use with its TVs, containing
five pre-loaded movies and allowing download of up to 50 more over the
year ahead.
Nonetheless, it remains the case that for
some time to come the UE65HU8500 will be spending the majority of its
time upscaling HD rather than playing native UHD. So it's great to
discover that the UE65HU8500's upscaling is nothing short of
outstanding.
4K upscaling
Samsung's UHD upscaling
was impressive enough last year but, presumably as a result of the
extra processing power now available, the UE65HU8500 takes things to a
whole new level. Its genius lies in the way it manages to add huge
amounts of detail and clarity to HD images without exaggerating source
noise or making the image look too gritty.
There is still
clearly see a quality difference between upscaled HD and native UHD
content. But the gap is smaller than it has been before, making the
UE65HU8500 a new upscaling benchmark.
3D
Donning a
pair of the 3D glasses provided with the TV and powering through
Gravity and The Hobbit on 3D Blu-ray continues – mostly - the picture
quality love-in. The extra detail of the upscaled UHD 3D images is
palpable compared with passive 3D images, and this extra resolution
makes the 3D world feel more realistic and immersive.
The
screen's superb contrast helps enhance the depth of the 3D picture too,
and the enhanced motion processing really comes into its own with 3D.
This allows you to use the motion system on a high enough setting to
greatly reduce the screen's native 3D judder without the image falling
prey to many distracting artefacts.
The UE65HU8500's 3D
efforts aren't flawless, however. For starters the 3D picture preset
pushes the backlight too hard, leading to signs of backlight clouding in
dark areas. I'd recommend reducing the backlight level until such
clouding disappears.
The presets also set the sharpness
level of 3D pictures too high, resulting in some over-stressed details
and edges. So again, nudge down the sharpness until this flaw becomes
less aggressive.
The final, less easy to defeat, problem
with 3D images is some slight interference from crosstalk ghosting. But
this is seldom aggressive enough to be truly distracting, and resolution
fans will likely consider it a tolerable price to pay for the extra
resolution delivered by the active 3D upscaling.
Input lag
There's
one more general picture quality concern that needs to be reported:
slightly high input lag. Even using its Game preset mode it takes the
UE65HU8500 around 62ms to reproduce pictures after receiving picture
data at its inputs. This is around double what I'd like to see (and
double what you'd usually see from Samsung TVs), and as such has the
potential to marginally damage your performance with reaction based
video games.
Usability
Samsung has made some quite major improvements to the control options of its new generation of TVs.
The
most significant is the new remote control, which introduces a welcome
'point and click' option to proceedings that was missing from previous
Samsung remote generations. This point and click feature isn't quite as
intuitive or accurate as the one provided by LG's Magic Remotes, but
it's certainly a welcome addition to the user system 'pot'.
The
new remote also features a very sensitive touch pad designed to allow
accurate movement of the onscreen cursor just by moving your thumb
gently over it. While the buttons around the edges of the touch pad
permit more conventional button-press cursor movements.
Providing
so many functions on the new remote can lead to a bit of confusion
initially, as an awful lot of functionality is compressed into a very
small physical area. Overall, though, the new smart remote is a definite
improvement over the previous one.
The small remote looks great, but will lost in the sofa cushion
Gesture control
Also
improved is the gesture control system. Previously made hard to use by
the simple fatigue induced by having to wave your hands around, this
time the system is sensitive enough to respond to just finger movements.
It's still not a system I personally found myself using often, but it's
good to know it's there for those occasions where the remotes have
disappeared down the sofa.
As a final interface option there's
voice control. The main positive of this function is perhaps the way it
allows you to input text into search fields, rather than its use as a
means of menu navigation. But if you take the time to go through the
tutorial and experiment a bit, the voice control system can provide you
with a few useful content-finding shortcuts.
When
add the high presentation values of the onscreen menus to the
proceedings it's clear that Samsung has again pushed the boat out in
trying to develop a truly next-generation, smart-friendly operating
system.
Ironically the sheer weight of options available can
initially feel rather overwhelming and frustrating. But stick at it and
you'll soon find what controls work best for accessing different
features.
Sound
While there's a decent chance a TV as
high-end as the UE65HU8500 will be partnered with an external sound
system, it's still nice to find that the built-in speakers are capable
of producing a really excellent audio performance by TV standards.
The
set can hit high volume levels without the cabinet rattling or
phutting, and it's also got a much more expansive dynamic range than we
usually hear from integrated TV audio systems. This extends to some
credible bass at one end of the audio spectrum to bright, natural
trebles at the other. The mid-range between is wide and open enough to
keep voices convincing and provide plenty of the sort of subtle effects
and details that bring good soundtracks alive.
That Samsung has managed to achieve this from a down- rather than front-firing speaker system makes is seriously impressive.
Value
Obviously
the UE65HU8500's £4,000 asking price means it's hardly a mainstream
proposition. However, it's a whole £1,000 cheaper than the equivalent
model from last year's UHD range, despite all the improvements and
additions it carries. And it seems to me that a 20% price reduction for a
new technology in the space of a few months is a pretty fair rate of
price erosion.
It will certainly be interesting to see if
Samsung's UHD rivals are able to be so aggressive with the prices of
their UHD TVs in the coming weeks and months.
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