Samsung UE55F9000 55 Inch 4K Ultra HD LED LCD TV Review

Tech News

Joined
Sep 15, 2004
Messages
29,589
Reaction score
470
Points
29,702
Location
Cyberspace
Reviewed by Stephen Withers, 27th August 2013. Overall the Samsung UE55F9000 delivers a superb all-round performance, utilising its higher resolution screen to good effect with standard and high definition content and providing a genuine degree of future-proofing. The premium you'll pay for a 4K panel is falling all the time and if you're in the market for a new TV then the UE55F9000 looks like a very tempting proposition. All the features of a flagship TV and the inclusion of a 4K panel, all for a very reasonable price... welcome to the revolution.
Read the full review...
 
Not the TV for those of us who wanted to take advantage of the 4K support of Xbox One/PS4 due to the slow response times. :hiya:
 
Not the TV for those of us who wanted to take advantage of the 4K support of Xbox One/PS4 due to the slow response times. :hiya:

I wouldn't hold your breath, when have games consoles ever been used to their full potential? I'll be surprised if there are any 4K games and besides, if there are the input lag should be lower because the TV won't be processing the native feed.
 
Sony ps4 doesnt support 4k gaming by the way, only 4k movies and images.

Ps how does this compare with the classleading Panasonic zt series, in terms of picture quality on 1080p sources.
 
Thanks a lot Steve. I have been waiting for this review with anticipation. I have seen both the 55 and 65 and I was very impress with the quality of the pictures. I could see some crosstalk on the 3D that I saw but to be fair it was in the shop and there were more lights than in a Christmas tree. However I had no flicker at all. I was told by the Samsung rep that the glasses that come with the TV were rechargeable.

A problem that I saw with 3D was that it did not work very well from the USB port but via HDMI it was fantastic. Did you try 3D from a USB device? The box gets hot and the TV itself. The edges were very hot in the shop, the rep said that it was because they had to beef them up for the 4K. I love the one box solution it seems that it is the best way to go, specially when there is no standard defined yet.

I am glad to hear that screen uniformity is good. That would be the main Achilles' heel of these TVs. I hope that if I go for the Sammy I get a good panel.

How does it compare with the Sony X9? Ignoring audio since the X9 has no competition there.

Cheers and thanks again for a great review. :smashin::smashin:
 
I just purchased one of these for delivery on Friday and I did not know about the external connections box!

My room is hooked up with HDMI cables in the wall. I don't fancy chasing the wall out of a newly decorated room.

How deep is the box? I guess I will have to stick it to the back of the tv and use approximate spacers when wall mounting it!!
 
I just purchased one of these for delivery on Friday and I did not know about the external connections box!

My room is hooked up with HDMI cables in the wall. I don't fancy chasing the wall out of a newly decorated room.

How deep is the box? I guess I will have to stick it to the back of the tv and use approximate spacers when wall mounting it!!

The box is quite small, between 1/2 -1 inch deep. However the one cable is very thin and probably no very dificult to get through you cable management solution.
 
They are encased in the wall, no way I can feed another (I have three in there just in case one ever breaks).

Guess I will be one inch out on the wall and some trusty Velcro on the back!

I take it that the box pulls power from the tv.
 
They are encased in the wall, no way I can feed another (I have three in there just in case one ever breaks).

Guess I will be one inch out on the wall and some trusty Velcro on the back!

I take it that the box pulls power from the tv.
Yes the power cord goes to the TV and it is a standard cable that if too short it is easy to buy a longer one. The one box is only connected via the one cable. The velcro solution will do just fine. The box is small and light it can hide quite easily behind the TV.
 
I was told by the Samsung rep that the glasses that come with the TV were rechargeable.

Did you try 3D from a USB device?

The edges were very hot in the shop, the rep said that it was because they had to beef them up for the 4K.

I am glad to hear that screen uniformity is good. That would be the main Achilles' heel of these TVs. I hope that if I go for the Sammy I get a good panel.

How does it compare with the Sony X9? Ignoring audio since the X9 has no competition there.

The glasses that came with my sample were definitely not rechargeable but it might be retailer dependent.

No I didn't try 3D over USB.

I mention in the review that the box gets hot and apparently that's because it contains a chipset which manages bi-directional communication between the One Connection box and the main chipset on the main board on the TV. The chipset in the One Connection box has its own heat sink and all protocol communication (Video/Audio) and source selection signals come from this chipset.

Yes backlight uniformity is something of a lottery unfortunately.

Both the X9 and the F9000 are excellent but I think the Sony just sneaks it in terms of overall picture quality. Having said that I haven't seen the 55" version of the X9.
 
The ZT is superior but then any plasma will be superior to an LCD in my book.

are we likely to see 4k plasma and any idea how soon?

probably a crystal ball moment...
 
the plasma flicker is still a killer blow for me even after umpteenth generations; I wont ever be persuaded to go back unless it is completely eliminated
 
are we likely to see 4k plasma and any idea how soon?

probably a crystal ball moment...

At least 500kW consumption for a 65incher? Would you buy it?:)
 
are we likely to see 4k plasma and any idea how soon? probably a crystal ball moment...

Well Panasonic Professional already make a 152" 4K plasma, yours for a cheeky $500,000 sir. Due to the nature of plasma technology it would be hard to make a 4K plasma at anything approaching a sensible screen size... or price.
 
At least 500kW consumption for a 65incher? Would you buy it?:)

:laugh:

Well Panasonic Professional already make a 152" 4K plasma, yours for a cheeky $500,000 sir. Due to the nature of plasma technology it would be hard to make a 4K plasma at anything approaching a sensible screen size... or price.

i'll take 2 :laugh:


wonder if its worth going for a 65VT65 now ...there is probably going to be a flurry of 4K TV's by the end of the year.

Then again an equivalent reference level set will be probably be twice as much £ as the current 65VT65...
 
There will be more 4K TVs coming and prices will drop considerably but given the lack of 4K content, you might be better off just buying a VT65.
 
Hi Steve

How long is the cable to the input box exactly please?

Thanks

P.s great review as always :thumbsup:
 
Very interesting read, thank you Steve!

I guess there's no way of knowing whether this Sammy can ever produce the wider UHD colour gamut they might agree upon?
 
Well I measured the Native colour space and that wasn't much wider than Rec.709, so I don't think it could hit DCI.
 
Thank you for another excellent review, Steve!
Would you chance your arm with a guess as to how long it'll be before 4K standards are agreed? In terms of Years or Months?
Having just gone for a UE55F8000, I'm so pleased to read that 55" is possibly the smallest size which could benefit from 4K resolutions. As it could also mean there won't be a huge difference either!! Work that defeatist but defensive attitude out!! :facepalm:

More seriously, I've experienced improved resolution and larger screen sizes absolutely exposing the inadequacies of both equipment and source material ruthlessly.
When I made a big jump in Hi Fi kit I found I had to dump a whole lot of home-burnt CDs as they just sounded awful.
Similarly when I went from 40" to 55", I found my existing DVD players produced terrible SD images. When I tested out my DVDs on newer BluRay players, the SD images were improved to be reasonably acceptable.

Have you found that this 4K screen also exposing any weaknesses in the equipment as well as the source material, be they 4K, BluRay or SD DVDs?
 
Would you chance your arm with a guess as to how long it'll be before 4K standards are agreed? In terms of Years or Months?

Have you found that this 4K screen also exposing any weaknesses in the equipment as well as the source material, be they 4K, BluRay or SD DVDs?

Well I'm expecting the standards to be agreed early next year, although that's just my guess, but even then I don't expect there to be much in the way of actual content before the end of next year and possibly not until 2015.

A larger screen size can be quite ruthless in exposing weaknesses in source material, especially internet content or heavily compressed digital channels. So it's a credit to the video processing on the UE55F9000 that standard def TV and DVDs looked very good, whilst Blu-rays looked superb.
 
Doubt I could afford it - BUT why don't you include (sorry but I can see it) the physical size of the TV.

With these newer very narrow framed 55in TV's I can just about fit one in my 'space' of 128 cm wide and 80 cm high.

But not sure with this model.

OK if I had the money I'd search for this info - but why is in not considered an important Specification for the Specifications section?

As pointed out in the video this TV has a rather thicker border than Samsungs other recent TVs

Cheers, cooperda (daveac)
 
Last edited:

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom