Samsung UN65HU8550F 65-Inch 4K TV Review

Our Verdict

Samsung'south trim, 65-inch 4K TV delivers great prototype quality and smart Boob tube features in an attractive parcel and at an approachable toll.

For

Solid, refined 4K motion-picture show with splendid colour
Lots of smart-TV features
Gesture-based remote
Plenty of entertainment apps
Svelte design.

Against

Overzealous video processing can create occasional glitches when upconverting from HD sources.

Tom'due south Guide Verdict

Samsung'south trim, 65-inch 4K Boob tube delivers great image quality and smart TV features in an attractive packet and at an approachable price.

Pros

+
Solid, refined 4K film with excellent color
+
Lots of smart-TV features
+
Gesture-based remote
+
Enough of amusement apps
+
Svelte pattern.

Cons

-
Overzealous video processing tin can create occasional glitches when upconverting from Hard disk sources.

Who it'due south for: TV lovers who are ready to leap into 4K.

There's no question that TV manufacturers are committed to Ultra Hard disk, also known as 4K, sets. And then for shoppers, it'southward no longer a question of if; it'south at present a question of when — and what — to buy. Samsung's 65-inch UN65HU8550F started at $6,000 when information technology was get-go introduced less than a year ago. Now it'south available for less than half that price ($two,800), making this an attractive choice for those looking to upgrade their smart TVs.

This LCD set offers a 4K movie with splendid colour and image item, as well as a wide array of smart Telly apps and features. When displaying 4K programming, the UN65HU8550F is impressive. It may not display some of the deep blacks of OLED models, only it delivers superior epitome item compared to conventional Hard disk drive content.

Design: Traditional, not flashy

The UN65HU8550F doesn't have many risks. Though it's an Ultra Hd TV with a iii,840 x 2,160 resolution, it uses a conventional, border-lit LED pattern. It's a fairly slim Television receiver, but information technology lacks the visual punch of more than expensive upstart OLED sets.

If you have it perched on a tabletop or hung on a wall, in that location's no way to downplay a 65-inch set or make information technology adjust to a room'south feng shui. Information technology'due south there to be noticed. Just Samsung does an able job making the UN65HU8550F await graceful. The Telly's blackness bezel is merely 0.3 inches broad around the screen, and the T-shaped, silvery color stand up is subtle withal stable. During our tests, the UN65HU8550F endured a fair amount of shoving, simply never teetered threateningly or gave the states reason to worry.

More than: Best TVs in All Sizes

Samsung outfits the fix with a dorsum panel that can accommodate well-nigh equipment. At that place are 4 HDMI inputs, 3 USB ports (to add a photographic camera or storage device, for example), component and analog video inputs, also equally Ethernet and a digital audio output. (802.11a/b/chiliad /n Wi-Fi is also on board.) Together, these connections should suffice for most dwelling house theater setups.

Interface: Too smart?

Samsung has been steadily expanding its list of smart features, and has perhaps gone too far. Samsung'southward Smart Hub is essentially a drove of five main screens that you rotate through; the screens cover live Idiot box options, apps, multimedia (such as photos from connected devices), casual games and a multitasking screen. The last feature allows you lot run multiple entertainment sources simultaneously, such as watching Idiot box in picture-in-motion picture mode while surfing the Spider web in a browser window. Think of it as a second screen that doesn't require juggling a laptop, smartphone or tablet with your remote control.

For the nearly part, switching between screens and items is relatively quick. Samsung says a quad-cadre processor helps speed up the smart-TV software. The visitor also offers more than support for streaming apps than whatever other TV manufacturer. From Pandora to Netflix, y'all're non likely to find anything missing, and you're more likely to find it all a piddling overwhelming.

Remote: Two flavors

Samsung ships the UN65HU8550F with two remote controls. The beginning is an unimaginative wand remote with all the standard buttons and controls. Its principal advantage is that it volition be familiar to many users, although like most cluttered, multi-button remotes, it's less than ideal.

Recognizing that fact, Samsung likewise includes a Smart Remote, which is smaller. Users tin operate an on-screen cursor simply past waving the remote in the air. I found information technology relatively easy to apply, with a short learning curve similar I've experienced with LG's like smart remotes.

The Samsung Smart Remote also has a built-in microphone for barking commands at the Tv, Gary Busey way. You can tell it to "Notice activeness movies!" or ask it, "What's the weather condition forecast?" and get appropriate responses.

Depending on your level of patience with occasionally waiting for the TV to respond, this is either a convenient, futuristic feature or a useless gimmick. (For those concerned virtually possible eavesdropping issues raised in the news, the same issue applies to any deject-based vocalisation recognition, such as that used in Apple's Siri.)

More than: Samsung TVs May Eavesdrop on You - So What?

You can control the ready using your smartphone and a costless Samsung iOS or Android app. It works fine, but no app that I've tested, this one included, responds as quickly as a dedicated remote control.

Paradigm Quality: Solid 4K

Some shoppers have been misled most 4K/UHD sets. These sets have four times the number of pixels as standard HD sets, and some reports accept stated that this translates into four times the flick particular. But the number of lines in a picture is a better measure of detail, and 4K/UHD has twice as many lines every bit 1080p Hd.

Regardless, 4K/UHD does offer more than particular within the picture show; for example, users tin can come across the features of someone's face fifty-fifty when that private is continuing in the background of the picture. You'll run into more tiles on roofs and more strands of pilus floating in the breeze. And the Samsung HU8550F Ultra Hd gear up delivers all of this very well.

But to enjoy such details, yous need to view 4K content, and in that location are only a few sources for it, including on-demand movies and TV shows from Sony, Samsung, Amazon and Netflix — for case, House of Cards. We downloaded 4K programs to Sony's $700 4K Ultra Hard disk drive Media Actor and as well sampled some 4K streaming content from Netflix. (Downloads provide more reliable test results, since the quality doesn't fluctuate, every bit it can with streaming.)

MORE: What Is 4K Telly?

Movies in 4K offered some impressive detail. Even American Hustle, which was intentionally shot with a depression-fi 1970s patina, delivered a cinemalike feel. Color reproduction was especially impressive, accurately rendering powder blue, double-knit polyester leisure suits and golden and orange ties as if we were back in 1975.

Color was spot on for an LCD ready; in Movie manner, we recorded its color temperature, a measure of overall hue, at 6,596 Kelvin. That's just a smidgen bluish vs. the 6,500-Kelvin measurement that TVs aim to hitting. Dame Judi Dench looked flush but not as well pinkish in the Blu-ray of Skyfall, and the overall picture was slightly warmer than what a Sony set is ordinarily tuned to. Sony tends to set up the benchmark for subdued, only counterbalanced colour tuning that some consumers adopt. (See our colour gamut and accuracy tests below, and click the paradigm for a larger version.)

The one shortcoming: An unusually long picture lag due to the Telly'south video processing tin can slightly filibuster the display of an prototype. And this affects video-game play. That may be a outcome of the extra processing needed to scale upwards an HD game for 4K. (No game consoles support resolution higher up Hard disk drive, and only a few PC titles, on actually powerful PCs, can do higher resolution.) With the TV set to Game mode, we recorded the lag as a noticeable 188 milliseconds. The HDTVs nosotros've tested have a negligible lag of 40-seventy ms. I didn't notice the effects that the test numbers advise in some coincidental gaming, but serious competitive gamers may detect the departure in fast-paced, multiplayer shooters.

Upconverting Challenges

Near of what people tin watch today comes from regular HD sources, such equally broadcast TV, Blu-ray discs and streaming sites, not to mention standard-def DVDs. Given that fact, an important feature of whatever 4K set is how well information technology upconverts conventional video sources to ultra HD.

Starting with our almost challenging source, a DVD of Skyfall, we learned quickly that if you invest in this Samsung, y'all'll also want to too invest in Blu-rays (which fared better). There was plenty of noticeable pixelation, blurry edges and done-out areas as the set up tried to fill up in pixels not in the source material. Amidst the various preset modes, Natural style presented more distractions. (Movie mode was best.) In fact, playing the same DVD on a standard Hard disk drive gear up, the budget TCL 55FS4610RRoku TV (see review), elicited fewer artifacts.

The Samsung HU8550F did a much ameliorate chore upconverting HD-resolution Blu-ray discs, with much less pixelation and but the occasional jagged line or edge. Colors, again, looked fantabulous. Nonetheless, sometimes the video processing created more problems than it solved, as with the Gravity Blu-ray disc. As George Clooney floated across a star-filled sky, those stars suddenly looked like comets with streaking tails rather than precise points of light. The distortion but occurred in specific scenes. I tried changing numerous advanced settings, including a smoothing setting, LED Articulate Motility and judder reduction, all without success.

Persisting, I finally constitute that turning off the Digital Clean View setting nether the Picture Options menu all but eliminated the problem. According to a Samsung spokesperson, the Digital Clean View is a noise-reduction algorithm, which could misinterpret some objects as noise and thus might have created the problem in those scenes.

What Almost OLEDs?

The above ascertainment came as a result of comparing the same scene from Gravity on an Hard disk OLED set, the $3,500 LG 55EC9300. Whereas the OLED model maintained stars as precise dots, there was some ghosting on the Samsung set even after I eliminated the streaking distortion. Indeed, with extremely bright objects, such as the border of the satellite against a night sky, the Ultra HD Samsung gear up created a halo upshot that was not apparent on the OLED brandish.

This happened in spite of the fact that the 65-inch Samsung 4K TV yielded a very respectable 504:one contrast ratio in our tests. The issue is probable that edge-lit LED sets, like the Samsung HU8550F, have physical limitations in terms of decision-making how the backlight behaves in sections of the screen. In theory, a full-array backlight that projects the light directly behind the screen, or an OLED display that lights up individual pixels, should exist meliorate at reducing halo and blooming effects. For a fairer comparison, see the chart beneath showing how the HU8550F compares to Hd LCD TVs nosotros've reviewed.

So which is meliorate: OLED in HD or LCD in Ultra HD?

In side-by-side tests, at that place were clear tradeoffs. LG's OLED (which we're currently reviewing) has dropped essentially in price, making it a consideration if you lot are prepared for a big Television receiver investment. Fifty-fifty though the 55EC9300 has simply Hd resolution, it offered cleaner lines, sharper edges and less blurring between objects. On the other hand, and equally one might expect, there was more than visual detail in the Samsung'south Ultra Hard disk drive picture. For example, I could clearly read a sign in the Istanbul chase scene in Skyfall and see the expression on Rory Kinnear's face in the groundwork.

MORE: Are OLED TVs Doomed?

Conversely, there'due south much higher contrast bachelor in the OLED display. Black borders and backgrounds are truly black; the same areas on the LCD 4K set up look gray by comparison. The tradeoff: Samsung's HU8550F has weaker blacks than the LG 55EC9300 tin attain, for example, in Gravity'due south void of space, only the HU8550F displays better dim details, such every bit more stars and afar galaxies.

Audio Quality: Adequate

The HU8550F supports Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Premium Audio, but it has only 10 watts of power per internal speaker (ii midrange drivers and two woofers). That's most par for a set's built-in audio capabilities, and certainly plenty to generate high volume levels in all but the grandest living rooms. Nonetheless, those looking for a theaterlike experience will find the HU8550F'southward sound underwhelming.

The audio quality is precise, within the limits of what the HU8550F can deliver. For example, bongos and violins were rendered concisely on soundtracks, just both sounded a little flat. Even with the DTS compatibility and various sound settings, in that location'due south no sense of openness to create that "yous are there" sensation. Equally with most TVs, even models in this price range, we recommend adding a sound bar or surround sound arrangement to complete the entertainment experience.

Bottom Line

Soon, the typical brandish that most shoppers face in stores volition be an Ultra HD/4K set up. With the contempo — and no doubt continuing — price drops, the fourth dimension to upgrade is coming for those who desire top-notch performance. Samsung'due south UN65HU8550F Boob tube offers a quality 4K picture that's superior in detail, color and contrast to bargain 4K TVs currently on the market place, making it worth the money.

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John R. Quain has been reviewing and testing video and sound equipment for more than than twenty years. For Tom's Guide, he has reviewed televisions, HDTV antennas, electrical bikes, electric cars, as well as other outdoor equipment. He is currently a contributor to The New York Times and the CBS News television program.