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Product Description Picture performance, advanced connectivity, and an eco-friendly and stunning design come together with the Samsung UN55B8500 55-inch LED HDTV to achieve a high level of picture quality as well as provide a unique and immersive entertainment experience. 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. And the 8500 Series also includes innovative LED Local Dimming technology, which selectively turns blocks of LEDs off to render perfectly true blacks while others are left on to produce more light in order to express pure whites. With Samsung's innovative use of white LEDs as a backlight source, the 8500 Series is capable of a stunning 7,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio for extreme detail and image depth and an an ultra-quick 2ms panel response time for fast-paced content. Its Wide Color Enhancer Pro ensures that colors are consistently vibrant, while Samsung's Ultra Clear Panel works to improve image clarity and brightness regardless of a room's ambient lighting. To battle motion blur and image judder that can plague LCD displays when displaying fast movement onscreen, this 8500 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 8500 Series features Samsung's new InternetatTV online content service. Developed with Yahoo!, InternetatTV 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. Customer Reviews By P. Colin McGraw "AV, Computer & EnviroTech Nut" (Castle Rock, CO) CNET called the UN55B8500 the TV with the second best picture quality of any TV they tested behind the discontinued Pioneer Kuro plasma. However, since the Samsung UN558500 is much more energy efficient, thinner, lighter, is 240 HZ, and includes two remotes, I'd say the Samsung UN55B8500 is probably a contender for the best TV ever made. The black levels are amazing! It's actually hard to tell where the black bars of a widescreen movie end and run into the bezel since the Samsung is so close to absolute black. On the other hand, I found that the speakers on the TV were pretty mediocre. This TV's picture quality is superb, but not the sound. You'll want to buy extra speakers of some sort. The 4 HDMI ports are nice to have, but there's only one component/RCA input (which will be taken by your Wii if you own one). The TWO included remotes are great; One is small and simple, the other is an RF remote featuring a spinwheel among other controls. The other strong surprise is just how well the TV works with Amazon! Once you register your TV with Amazon (a slick 5 minute process online), then any movie you rent via the Amazon website will be available to watch on the TV set, and I discovered that sometimes when purchasing Blu Ray movies from Amazon, you can watch a free digital version of it on your TV while you wait for the mail to come! It works super well, you just browse Amazon as you normally would, and your purchased/rented movies automatically show up as available movies on your TV! Granted the Yahoo! widgets (including the one for Amazon VOD) are pretty slow, but it's tolerable . Otherwise the TV is just great! Note that you'll want to upgrade your firmware when you first get the TV to avoid the "crop circle" problem, but once you do, your movies and TV shows are going to be even more fun because of the outstanding punch of the picture. I love mine so far! |