Samsung Series 8 UE46B8000 - 46in LCD TV Review

Hi John, i'm sure you are a very busy man. I would greatly appreciate if you could post a comprehensive listings of the calibrated settings you used during your review for the ue46b8000. That would be fantastic. Many thanks

I am very thankful to the site for this review. I do have a question though, as I live in netherlands and I do not currently own a mansion, ue46b8000 is a bit too big for my livng room. Should I expect too much difference when buying the ue40b8000? I would hope that only difference will be the panel size and not the performance and image quality. I would like for some thoughtful insight from more experienced users/consumers. Thanks.

My parents have had the Pioneer Kuro 5080 (I think it’s that model, it was the top of the range one - not the 508 which was a lot cheaper - sorry off hand I’m not 100% which was the top model) for about 2-3 years, before that a Toshiba 55” rear projection, I still have my Sony 41” rear projection which was one of the first large screen rear projection tv’s and was tv of the year and scooped many awards a long time ago.

I advised my parents to purchase the Kuro 5080 after carefully checking out reviews etc at the time, it was classed as the best plasma tv made at the time, I was a little disappointed with the quality of non HD sources compared to the Toshiba 55” rear projection - to be honest I preferred the Toshiba, HD sources were of course brought the Kuro into it’s own, I did find large areas of the sets plasma screen shifting/moving sideways which happened now and again - not sure if this is normal for a plasma tv?

Anyway I’ve always kept an eye the new tv technology over the years and could not be tempted or saw the point of HD 720p tv’s - basically obsolete before HD has even been readily available.

A few months ago I saw Samsungs LED tv’s on demo in the shops and in my personal opinion and experience - I have not seen a tv like it! The quality of the picture is in a league of it’s own - a much higher level than any other tv format ever, I’ve been a professional photographer since the mid-nineties and only compare other tv’s similar to film (there was some exceptional sharp film made) but nothing compared to the clarity and vibrance of transparency film which is what the Samsung LED tv’s look like.

One shop demos still images on two Samsung LED’s in their window and it is like looking at high quality prints, not like any tv image I’ve ever seen before.

It’s taken a long time for myself to be tempted by a tv other than my beloved Sony 41” but the Samsung UE46B8000 is the tv to do it.

All tv’s need tweaking once set up at home to your own personal requirements, factory presets mean nothing to me, digital cameras have presets and are nothing until you tweak them yourself, I think buyers look too much into what the full spec of how much a product offers, yes there’s a key list we need to check but let’s face it, most features are never used a lot of the time.

Phantoma - I’ve been admiring Yamaha’s soundbars / built in surround sound from one trendy looking box - these look a fantastic and I bet sound it too, I have the old analogue yamaha surround amp 7 speaker set up in my room and just could not fit those speakers in my new living room, so these new Yamaha’s would definitely do the job!